Senator Ron Wyden To The Internet: Thank You For Speaking Up... But We're Not Done Yet

from the thank-you-internets dept

You may have heard that today's been quite a day online and in Congress, concerning SOPA and PIPA. Senator Ron Wyden -- the first politician in Congress to take a direct stand against these bills at the very beginning, and who was brushed off by the opposition -- has now offered up what can be reasonably described as a thank you letter to the internet for speaking out on this important issue, and making it clear to many in Congress that this is not an issue that everyone takes lightly.

Unfortunately, not everyone in Congress has heard you yet (though, the phones are ringing quite loudly). As Wyden notes, Senator Reid still wants to move forward with the cloture vote next week, and these bills absolutely could continue to progress.

January 18, 2012

Innovators, Speakers, Thinkers, and Agents for Change
The World Wide Web

Dear Friends:

Today thousands of websites have chosen to voluntarily go offline or modify their home pages with public service information. Some have called this a stunt. I say it’s a brave and poignant reminder that we can’t take the Internet for granted.

The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life precisely because it has been an open-to-all land of opportunity where entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators are free to try, fail and then try again. The Internet has changed the way we communicate with each other, the way we learn about the world and the way we conduct business. It has done this by eliminating the tollgates, middle men, and other barriers to entry that have so often predetermined winners and losers in the marketplace. It has created a world where ideas, products and creative expression have an opportunity regardless of who offers them or where they originate.

Protect IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are a step towards a different kind of Internet. They are a step towards an Internet in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don’t. They are a step towards an Internet in which online innovators need lawyers as much or more than they need good ideas. And they are a step towards a world in which Americans have less of a voice to argue for a free and open Internet around the world.

Proponents of these bills say these arguments are overblown, but I say any step towards an Internet in which one person’s voice counts more than another is a step in the wrong direction. These are bills that should give us pause. These are bills that should be studied and debated. Congress should consult experts and consider alternatives and make 100% sure that any step it takes to police the Internet doesn't change the Internet as we know it. This is why I put a hold on the Protect IP Act and its predecessor over a year ago and introduced a bipartisan alternative last month.

The Senate, however, has scheduled a vote for Tuesday, January 24 at 2:15 PM to override my hold and move the Protect IP Act towards passage. This will be the deciding vote that determines whether PIPA and SOPA move through the Congress or are turned back for more sober discussion.

We are up against a group of the biggest, most powerful, well-funded and well-organized interest groups in Washington. No one thought millions of Internet users would speak up or that those voices could overcome the power of these interests. Today you showed that the Internet is not just a platform for ideas, commerce, and expression, but also for political action that will defend those principles. Your voices must continue to be heard.

Thank you for standing up for what’s important, for continuing to speak out and for demonstrating that we should always stand up for what we think is right regardless of the odds. This is an opportunity to reshape the way Washington operates, not just responding to narrow interests but hearing the voices of millions of Americans whose rights and livilihoods are affected by our actions.

Sincerely,

Ron Wyden
United States Senator

Filed Under: blackouts, pipa, protect ip, protests, ron wyden, sopa

Don't Think The 'Costs' To US Businesses From Bogus Claims Is Real? Read This

from the and-this-is-under-the-dmca dept

We've discussed at length how SOPA and PIPA put additional compliance costs and liability on US companies -- something supporters of the bills still insist is untrue. However, MetaFilter founder, Matt Haughey, has explained his reasons for supporting the boycott/blackout by telling a specific story of some of the mess he needed to go through to deal with a totally bogus DMCA claim. In my recent debate with Steve Tepp from the US Chamber of Commerce over this issue, Tepp insisted that because there are no monetary damages possible for intermediaries, there is no real "liability" for those companies. Tell that to Haughey, who relates his experience:

I've never written about my problems behind the scenes with the DMCA, a similar piece of law written to stamp out piracy but in the decade since it passed has morphed into a blunt instrument to silence websites for a variety of reasons. I was stuck in a Brazil/Catch-22 situation a little over a year ago due to a five year old song in MetaFilter Music that shared a filename with a leaked (November 2010) unreleased Michael Jackson song. Sony music group employed a dumb simple bot called "Web Sheriff" that crawled the web looking for filename matches and when found, alerted IP range owners of infringing works being offered by their customers. I got slapped with a 30 day ultimatum to immediately take down the uploaded song on MeFi Music or find my hosting account closed and banned, and all of MetaFilter erased in the process. The claims were ludicrous and I informed my host of the impossible nature of the claim but was told per DMCA guidelines I had to either file a counterclaim notice with Sony/Web Sheriff or ask them to issue a formal retraction.

I didn't want to waste money on lawyer time by filing a counterclaim and prolonging the fight so instead I had to contact Web Sheriff directly to request a retraction. This took many back-and-forth emails, and thanks to Web Sheriff being in London, added days to the process of exchanging emails. Eventually I got a human at the company to look at the dates on my files and agree it was not a Michael Jackson song. The formal retraction took nearly two weeks to secure and convince lawyers for my host that it was adequate for removing the DMCA claim. That's two weeks into a 30 day window before I lost my rack of servers and hosting account completely. I'll never forget last year when I went through this because it was two of the stupidest weeks of my life, all because of some problematic laws granted new powers to copyright holders and I had to engage in a prolonged legal fight thanks to a mistake made by a bot.

Don't think that kind of thing takes money, time and connections to handle reasonably well? The compliance costs are very, very real -- and that's just a single bogus DMCA notice. Imagine what happens when there are many -- and companies are dragged into various court battles. To say there's no compliance cost or liability under these bills is pure folly.

Filed Under: blackouts, costs, dmca, matt haughey, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: metafilter

US Chamber Of Commerce Appears To Argue That SOPA & PIPA Apply To NO Websites At All

from the figure-that-one-out dept

Yesterday, I was on a "panel" discussion at the Congressional Internet Caucus's "State of the Net" event. At some point, I believe we'll have some video of that, which we can post. However, at one point, moderator Tim Lordan asked panelist Steve Tepp, from the US Chamber of Commerce, about the claims that SOPA/PIPA only impact "foreign" sites, and argued that under the definitions in the bill sites like Google.ca or Amazon.co.uk would be subject to the bills, and thus they would effect the American companies who run them. Tepp insisted this wasn't true, because the bill only applies to "US-directed sites" and a site that is a .ca or .co.uk wouldn't be considered US-directed. However, First Amendment lawyer Marvin Ammori sensed a pretty obvious problem with that. If what Tepp argues is true, he's basically saying that SOPA and PIPA apply to no websites at all. Remember, supporters of the bills insist that they don't apply to .coms or .orgs or any other site using a TLD controlled by a US register. So that wipes out that batch of domains. But, here, Tepp now seems to be claiming that it also doesn't apply to any site with a country specific TLD... because those aren't US-directed. So... um... what's left?

First, the bills define US-directed site to mean almost any site that you can access in the US. PIPA does not have a definitive test, but it lets courts determine which sites are directed to the US based on several indicia, including whether the “Internet site has reasonable measures in place to prevent such goods and services from being accessed from or delivered to the United States.” (PIPA, page 48.) Meaning, if the site hasn’t blocked American users from accessing the site, then it’s US-directed. The whole point of the Internet, though, is that sites are globally available, and not blocked for particular countries. SOPA, on the House side, merely requires “minimum contacts” sufficient for personal jurisdiction, which is a very low standard that would touch most sites–as any law student would learn after reading the International Shoe case in the second week of Civil Procedure. (See SOPA, page 9).

Second, this argument is unconvincing because it suggests that the bills would cover zero sites in the whole world. If Amazon.co.uk and Google.ca are exempt from the bill, then so are ThePirateBay.co.uk or ThePirateBay.ca. The point of SOPA and PIPA, in theory, is to target foreign sites, who are defined based on having foreign domain names. So, the Chamber is saying, “Don’t worry Google.com won’t be subject to the bills because that’s not a foreign site.” Now it says, “Don’t worry, Google.ca won’t be subject to the bills because it’s not a US-directed site.” Does that mean neither MegaUpload.com or MegaUpload.ca is subject to the bill? By my count then, the bills don’t apply to any sites that have a domestic domain name nor do they apply to any sites that have a foreign domain name.

The Chamber is trying to convince us that the bills apply to zero websites and companies? They wouldn’t apply to MegaUpload.com or MegaUpload.ca, Google.com or  Google.ca, ThePirateBay.org or ThePirateBay.fr?

This doesn’t strike me as highly convincing.Why would studios and labels spend millions trying to pass a bill that affects zero websites and companies?

Indeed. It's this kind of duplicity that has people so fed up with the lobbyist/politician lies being spread about this bill by supporters. The language was written purposely, so that they could insist it won't actually do any of the awful things the bill clearly allows... while knowing full well that's exactly how the bill will be used (regularly) after it passes.

Filed Under: blackouts, domestic sites, foreign sites, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa, steve tepp
Companies: us chamber of commerce

Denial: MPAA Pretends That No Big Sites Have Joined SOPA/PIPA Protests

from the living-in-denial dept

Living in what can only be described as pure denial, the MPAA announced today that the SOPA/PIPA protests "failed to enlist big sites." Honestly, there's really not much more to say about that. Google. Wikipedia. Facebook. Amazon. Craigslist. All participating. Let's just stare in wonder at the MPAA's hubris and ability to deny reality.

Filed Under: blackouts, denial, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: google, mpaa, wikipedia

More Senators Dropping Off As Co-Sponsors Of PIPA

from the welcome-to-the-club-of-internet-protectors dept

We've already noted that Senator Marco Rubio dropped his co-sponsorship of PIPA, and now John Boozman has done the same, as have Senators Orrin Hatch and Roy Blunt. On the House side, Rep. Ben Quayle has also dropped support. On top of that, plenty of non-sponsors in both the House and the Senate have spoken out today to say they don't support the bills either... Would list them all, but running between meetings in the Senate to see if we might be able to get a few more names on this list... more later.

UPDATE: Just learned that Pennsylvania Congressman Tim Holden is withdrawing his co-sponsorship of SOPA.

UPDATE: And now Senator James Inhofe (thanks johnjac).

Filed Under: ben quayle, blackouts, john boozman, lee terry, marco rubio, pipa, protect ip, protests, senate, sopa

Protest Via Plugin: Facebook Users Bring The Fight To Lamar Smith's Website

from the sometimes-you-'get'-social-media-and-sometimes-the-social-media-gets-you dept

As the front mouth of SOPA, Lamar Smith isn't taking any more chances with his website. After the whole "I swear this picture was already here when I got the site" debacle, Smith's new site isn't taking any chances. Why, you can't even send a disgruntled email to the man unless you have a zip code in his district. That would be fine if his legislation only affected the people in the 21st Congressional District of Texas, but not so fine if you're shepherding through a bill that affects not just the contiguous 48 states, but the entire world, if deployed as intended.

But, despite all this lockdown and proper image sourcing, Lamar forgot about the single thing he wants to regulate most: the internet. Like anyone wishing to appear "connected" (and that includes congressmen who don't want to hear from anyone but specific Texans), Smith has installed a Facebook plugin on his site, so that with a quick glance, incoming visitors can see just how well-"Liked" the congressman actually is.

And just like that, all his best laid plans start unraveling:



How's that social media thing working for you now, Congressman? Looks like this whole Facebook protest-by-proxy is just another "gimmick."

By the way, here's a quick link to the Senator's Facebook page as well as a few (hundred!) images that will make your stance on the issue crystal clear. You know what to do.

Filed Under: blackouts, lamar smith, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: facebook

Disney Refused Invitation From Senator Feinstein To Meet With Tech Companies Over PIPA/SOPA

from the all-stakeholders? dept

We've been pointing out for months that the entertainment industry -- who more or less wrote SOPA & PIPA -- has done everything it can to deny both the tech industry and consumers any seat at the table. Many of us have asked to take part, or suggested that the backers of SOPA & PIPA open up the process -- as Senator Wyden and Rep. Issa did with their OPEN Act -- allowing the public to comment on it, suggest specific changes, and actually have a real debate on the bill, rather than handling it all in the back room. Multiple times, MPAA boss Chris Dodd has suggested that Hollywood is more than happy to sit down with folks in Silicon Valley to talk over the issues related to the bill -- though, when a bunch of us offered to do just that, somehow Dodd wasn't so welcoming.

Turns out he wasn't the only one. California Senator Dianne Feinstein -- despite coming a bit late to the game in recognizing the concerns of the tech industry -- has been trying to make up for lost time by trying to "broker a peace" between the North and the South. We'd been hearing some rumors that Feinstein had actually been trying to set up just such a meeting -- given her role covering both Silicon Valley and Hollywood -- but that Hollywood was blocking all attempts, and it appears that's now been confirmed by reporter Zach Carter:

After that story ran, Feinstein attempted to broker a compromise, calling both tech companies and film studios.

Walt Disney Co. President and CEO Bob Iger declined the invitation on behalf of content providers. "Hollywood did not feel that a meeting with Silicon Valley would be productive at this time," said a spokesperson. The meeting took place with only tech companies present. Feinstein, once a reliable vote for the existing version of Protect IP, is now working hard to amend the bill, according to Senate Democratic aides.

Basically, this claim of wanting a bill that works for everyone is all a facade that Hollywood puts up in order to pretend that it's open to input on these bills when it's clearly not. At all. Instead, as has been the case all along, the MPAA and the big Hollywood studios have arrogantly believed that they wrote the bill, they have the votes, so why should they waste time on petty little things like real discussions with real experts? When the actual opportunity -- at the behest of a US Senator no less -- to meet with the tech community came along, the Hollywood guys flat out ignored it and said they weren't interested. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how the industry views this bill, it's time to start paying closer attention.

Filed Under: blackouts, dianne feinstein, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: disney

Translating Chris Dodd's Sanctimonious Bluster On Internet Protests Into English

from the thank-us-later,-chris dept

Following the MPAA's "statement" concerning today's internet blackout, Kevin Marks offered up a useful translation for us to post.

WASHINGTON--The following is a statement by Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on the so-called “Blackout Day” protesting anti-piracy legislation:

Senator and CEO - let's lead with the revolving door promises to politicians

“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together,

Why are my former colleagues listening to their constituents about legislation? Don't they stay bought?

some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.

Maybe if we keep saying copyright infringement is a real problem without evidence, they'll believe it.

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services.

How dare they edit their sites unless we force them to under penalty of perjury and felony convictions?

It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.

Tomorrow was supposed to be different, that's why we bought this legislation.

It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

Being the gateways and skewing the facts is our job, dammit.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.

I am high as a kite

It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”

What have the Romans done for us? Apart from instantaneous global communications, digital audio and video editing, the DVD, Blu-ray, Digital projection, movie playback devices in everyone's pockets and handbags...

Filed Under: blackouts, chris dodd, condescension, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa, translation
Companies: mpaa

Senator Marco Rubio Dropping His Co-Sponsorship Of PIPA

from the another-down dept

It appears that the some in Congress are finally hearing you. Senator Marco Rubio, from Florida, has announced that he is removing his name as a co-sponsor of PIPA and is urging Senator Harry Reid not to go ahead with the plan to bring the bill to the floor.

Earlier this year, this bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and without controversy. Since then, we've heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences.

Therefore, I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.

Publicity stunt? Or democracy in action? I vote for the latter. It's good to see politicians actually listening to constituents rather than lobbyists sometimes...

Filed Under: backlash, blackouts, marco rubio, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa, sponsors

Anti-SOPA/PIPA Protest Songs

from the sing-it dept

Well, well. It looks like the ongoing protests are inspiring some extra creativity from some musicians. A bunch of people have been sending around The Day The LOLcats Died, an obviously play on a song you all know: If you're a bit more into hip hop than rock and roll, there's this song, by Okwerdz, called: The American Government wants to CENSOR the Internet: If there are any others, feel free to leave some comments...

Filed Under: blackout, pipa, protect ip, protests, songs, sopa