Call Congress Today And Let Them Know (Again) That You Are Against SOPA

from the they-don't-seem-to-be-getting-the-message dept

Rep. Lamar Smith is getting ready to cement his legacy as passing the first bill to create a permanent "black list" of censored websites in the US... and most of Congress still doesn't understand that the American public is vehemently coming out against this bill. It's very, very likely that Smith will get the Judiciary Committee to approve the bill tomorrow, at which point it could go to a full vote on the floor at any time. Yes, a bunch of the members of the Judiciary Committee plan to vote to censor the internet tomorrow, and they still don't believe the public cares about this. That's why plenty of people are calling in today to let them know that we don't appreciate the internet being censored: We're hearing reports that a ton of calls are being generated, and there are discussions all over Twitter and Facebook from people who normally don't pay attention to any of this -- all coming out against censoring the internet.

And, once again, the pro-SOPA forces seem to be coming up totally empty. That's because there is no public support for their position. A few weeks ago, the astroturfing group from Hollywood, CreativeAmerica, specifically put out a call for supporters of SOPA to reach out to Rep. Jared Polis, one of the growing number of Congressional Reps who have come out vehemently against SOPA. In an interview yesterday, Polis noted that he has not received a single call in favor of SOPA, but tons against it.

We've heard the same thing from many folks in Congress... and yet Lamar Smith and the supporters of this bill still are pushing it through and are still insisting that the public supports them. Today is the day to let them know they're wrong.

Filed Under: censorship, congress, copyright, free speech, lamar smith, pipa, protect ip, sopa

Chris Dodd Resorting To Outright Lying In A Desperate Attempt To Get SOPA Passed

from the regret-the-error? dept

MPAA boss Chris Dodd has apparently resorted to out and out lying as he makes a big push to get SOPA passed. On Tuesday he spoke at an event for the Center for American Progress, in which he pulled out his usual "woe is us" story about why Congress needs to pass SOPA/PIPA. However, Dodd, once again, appears to be factually challenged. For example, during questions, Dodd claimed:

“The entire film industry of Spain, Egypt and Sweden are gone.”

James Losey thought this was odd, given that he was familiar with some films coming out of Sweden:

Sweden actually produces a number of high quality films. Released in 2008, the vampire flim Let The Right One In received critical acclaim here in the U.S. Additionally, all three best-selling books of the Millennium Trilogy are Swedish films and 2009’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was quite successful. The film made a modest $10 million in the U.S. and a respectable $104 million worldwide.

Considering the budget for the U.S. remake of the film is $100 million - as much as the original film has earned to date - perhaps Dodd meant that the film does not count until Hollywood gets a chance to remake it. Ironically, the U.S. remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was shot in Sweden.

Chris Dodd was correct to say that film is an international industry, but he was wrong to say that the Swedish film industry has disappeared and misleading to imply that all Hollywood jobs are American jobs. At least for this Hollywood production, Sweden has a lot to gain.

Of course, there's also plenty of actual data on the film industries around the world, so I figured that perhaps I'd dig into the numbers a bit more than James' excellent debunking, just to see if there was any truth to Dodd's bizarre claims. Thankfully, the folks at the UN actually track this data. On top of that, the awesome chartsbin has laid out how many films every country produces in a neat interactive map:
via chartsbin.com Let's start with Sweden. I think the chart above is a bit out of date. Looking through the UN data, it shows that Sweden produced 41 feature films in 2009 -- actually a significant increase from 2007 and 2008. No sign that the industry is "gone" there. But perhaps it used to be much bigger? Back to the UN we go... to learn that in 1995, Sweden made 17 feature films. Gone? Sorry, the facts say Dodd is lying.

Okay. Let's look at Egypt. The latest UN data shows Egypt produced 46 films in 2009. Not bad. But perhaps it used to be much bigger? Oh, whoops. 1996 (the earliest data available) shows that Egypt produced 24 films that year. So it looks like the industry has about doubled. Gone? Oops. Dodd is lying.

Finally, let's check out Spain. Spain has been a favorite target of both the MPAA and the RIAA lately. They like to claim that "lax" copyright laws there have decimated the entertainment industry in that country. Once again, the facts show a totally different story. If you look at the map above, you can see that Spain is actually a movie making powerhouse in Europe, and the data shows that it just keeps making more and more movies. In 2009 it produced 186 movies, and the trend has been directly up. In 2008 it was 173. Go back to 2005 and it was 142. Go back to 1999? 82 films. Back to '95? 59 films. Yeah, film production has more than tripled in the last fifteen years.

Sorry, but Chris Dodd is flat out lying.

Why do the public and politicians let him get away with blatant falsehoods as he seeks to push a law that will set up an American censorship system? The facts say that he's full of it... and yet we're supposed to trust him that this bill is needed?

Filed Under: chris dodd, egypt, movies, pipa, protect ip, sopa, spain, sweden
Companies: mpaa

Musicians' Manager Says SOPA & PIPA Are Not What Musicians Need

from the good-for-him dept

It's always nice to find musician managers who are willing to speak out when the record labels are pushing for bad laws. Ryan Chisholm, a manager at Bill Silva Entertainment, has penned a guest column for Billboard where he argues that SOPA and PIPA are not the way to help musicians:

The music industry already has a poor rapport with many consumers. SOPA/Protect IP only adds fuels the fire of those disgruntled (and web-savvy) listeners who are pissed off that we in the industry can't all get on the same page to agree on deal points to establish a consumer-friendly, legitimate marketplace that rewards creators, rightsholders and fans alike. Worse still, SOPA/Protect IP could make it harder for tomorrow's innovative services to be developed. Today, we are only beginning to realize the potential of sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud - along with numerous popular blogs and thousands of music sites - in driving discovery of and monetization around music. These platforms have become some of the greatest tools we in the business have ever had at our disposal. These sites provide fans the opportunity to participate more directly and meaningfully in the content provided by artists and rightwsholders. In their current form, SOPA/Protect IP give far too much leeway for legitimate expression to be silenced on the grounds of combating infringement. This affects far more than the entertainment industries.

Elsewhere he points out -- as we have -- that the best way to fight infringement is to offer better legitimate services, but SOPA and PIPA don't help in that endeavor at all. Those are definitely important points that many of us have been making for quite some time... but unfortunately, these points seem to be entirely excluded from the discussion over these bills.

Filed Under: manager, music, musicians, protect ip, ryan chisholm, sopa

Writers Guild Realizing That SOPA Goes Too Far; Union Support For Censoring The Internet Begins To Crack

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Supporters of SOPA have been trying really, really hard to pretend that this bill is a "jobs bill." They keep touting the "union support." They try to downplay that the bill is really designed mainly to protect the big Hollywood studios from having to innovate (while their execs take home record salaries and the industry itself brings in record box office revenues). But it appears that the unions -- even those representing content creators -- are realizing that supporting legislation that props up the giant gatekeepers isn't in their best interests either. The Writers Guild of America West recently made the rounds on Capitol Hill to talk about a number of issues. On the list? How SOPA will do more harm than good:

On the House side, Keyser and Barrios met with Reps. Henry Waxman, Howard Berman, and Janice Hahn. They thanked Waxman for his strong support of Guild issues and discussed concerns with the recently introduced Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Because Berman is a co-sponsor of SOPA, the pair discussed their concerns with the bill’s implications for competition and an open Internet. Although the WGAW strongly supports combating piracy, the competition, First Amendment, and due process concerns the bill creates must be addressed.

It seems that the folks who represent content creators are recognizing that SOPA goes against their own best interests as well. By setting up a system that props up the gatekeepers, rather than encouraging new tools and services that help content creators directly, laws like SOPA don't actually help the creative community at all. It's nice to see that WGAW recognizes this, and don't be surprised if other groups of content creators start realizing the same thing pretty quickly.

Filed Under: copyright, sopa, writers guild west

RIAA Boss Tries To Defend SOPA & PIPA To The NY Times

from the and-fails dept

With the NY Times coming out against SOPA & PIPA, the RIAA apparently felt it needed to open its mouth... and stick another foot in it. RIAA boss Cary Sherman sent a letter to the NY Times defending the bills with some claims that don't hold up to much scrutiny.

we don’t agree that the proposed bills in Congress could “stymie legitimate speech.” To the contrary, the bills are specifically designed to focus on the worst of the worst sites whose model is predicated on theft.

Tell that to Dajaz1, which was censored for over a year, blocking tons of legitimate speech under similar laws. The bills are not at all focused on just "the worst of the worst." If that were the case, then the RIAA would be happy with the alternative proposal from Wyden and Issa, which actually does try to limit it to the "worst of the worst."

Moreover, there is extensive due process afforded to accused sites under the bills. They require the attorney general to extensively document why a site meets the bills’ tight standards — pulled from existing law and Supreme Court cases — and a federal judge must approve any order.

The same "due process" that Dajaz1 got? In which the domain got seized with no notice, and there was no ability to get into court to have the site owner's side of the story for over a year before the government finally admitted it was mistaken (based, I might add, on questionable claims from the RIAA itself). After all, that involved a "federal judge" too, but no adversarial hearing. The fact that this would go on for over a year is a travesty. The RIAA should be apologizing, not pushing for even greater censorship powers.

Similarly, if companies serving pirate sites choose not to take action voluntarily, copyright owners must state their case and persuade a federal judge to issue a court order before payment processors or ad networks can be compelled to stop servicing the site.

Notice the big "if" that Sherman tries to brush pass quickly here. In Section 103 of SOPA, the law says that companies "shall" take action, meaning they don't really have the option of "not" taking action. In fact, under section 103, not taking action can be seen as evidence of being dedicated to theft of US property -- so it's pretty unlikely that the won't choose to take action. And that's a pretty big concern, because all of the incentives are for companies to pre-emptively take action to censor to avoid the risk of the RIAA dragging them to court. Gee, I wonder why Sherman rushed through that point by hiding it all behind a single "if."

There may be different ways to craft a sensible bill, and we’re all for finding the best way, but one thing is clear: the status quo isn’t working. These illicit sites are among the culprits behind the music industry’s more than 50 percent decline in revenues during the last decade, resulting in 15,000 layoffs and fewer resources to invest in new bands.

Sherman should know better than to make blatantly false statements in the pages of the NY Times. The record labels may have had a 50% decline in revenues, but the wider music industry remains up over that same period. The fact that the companies he represents have been unwilling to adapt while most of the rest of the market has is no reason to rush through bad laws. Instead, it seems like a pretty good reason to suggest that the RIAA and the various labels are in desperate need of more enlightened leadership.

Filed Under: cary sherman, pipa, sopa

SOPA In Infographic Format

from the for-the-visual-thinkers-among-you dept

The folks over at BusinessInsurance.org have put together a pretty decent infographic about SOPA (though they get confused and at one point name some Senators as "supporters," even though SOPA is in the House, not the Senate). Still, if you were looking for a decent visual representation of the whole thing, here you go:

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa

Apparently Congress Wants To Pretend No One Is Really That Concerned About SOPA

from the so-that's-how-they're-playing-it dept

Despite all of the significant concerns with SOPA, it appears that Rep. Lamar Smith won't let a little thing like the American public stop his plan to help out his friends in Hollywood. It's been confirmed (as has been rumored for weeks) that Smith is planning to hold the markup and followup Judiciary Committee vote over SOPA this Thursday. The manager's amendment doesn't really fix any but the most glaring of problems -- and basically just brings the bill more in line with the already problematic PROTECT IP bill. From what we've heard, Smith and other SOPA supporters still don't believe the American public really cares enough about this bill.

Plenty of folks are working to convince Smith and others that they're underestimating the public's opinion towards censoring the internet. EFF, Public Knowledge, American Censorship, Demand Progress, Engine Advocacy and others are all providing tools to let you speak up. If you think that Rep. Smith and others in Congress are mistaken about the public's feelings towards these bills, pick your favorite and speak up. There's also the amazing new site, I Work For The Internet, which is asking people to add simple photos of themselves in protest of SOPA.

Related to this, the folks at Cato have also officially come out against SOPA and PIPA with the following video: Julian Sanchez, who appears in the video helped explain the privacy problems with the bill last week here on Techdirt. At this point, the only people we actually see supporting the bill are those in the industry itself. It appears that almost no one else is willing to speak up in support of the bill.

Filed Under: congress, lamar smith, pipa, protect ip, sopa

Wikipedia Considers Blackout To Protest SOPA

from the that-would-send-a-statement dept

As more and more internet operations recognize the horrors of SOPA, they're stepping up to do stuff about it. The latest is that Wikipedia is considering a blackout on the site in protest -- a move that might actually catch Congress' attention because people in Congress actually use Wikipedia all the time. There's a discussion on the site concerning whether or not Wikipedia should make this move, and it's not a bad time to add your thoughts to the discussion. Most of the discussion so far appears to be in favor, but more thoughts can only help. The idea is to model this on the rather powerful message that was sent back in October when Wikipedia blocked access to its Italian version in protest of a new wiretapping law.

Filed Under: blackout, censorship, copyright, jimmy wales, pipa, protect ip, sopa, wikpedia
Companies: wikia, wikipedia

The Very Real Risk Of Overly Broad Censorship Under SOPA

from the nice-explainer dept

The more people look at the details of SOPA, the worse it looks. Alexander Macgillivray, much more widely known as amac, is Twitter's General Counsel, and has taken to his personal blog to discuss one of the many troubling aspects of SOPA: the fact that if it's deemed a rogue site because "any portion thereof" of the site is infringing, it can completely block out tons of legitimate speech and content. He constructs the following scenario:

The harm that does to ordinary, non-infringing users is best described via a hypothetical user: Abe. Abe has never even so much as breathed on a company’s copyright but he does many of the things typical of Internet users today. He stores the photos of his children, now three and six years old, online at PickUpShelf* so that he doesn’t have to worry about maintaining backups. He is a teacher and keeps copies of his classes accessible for his students via another service called SunStream that makes streaming audio and video easy. He engages frequently in conversation in several online communities and has developed a hard-won reputation and following on a discussion host called SpeakFree. And, of course, he has a blog called “Abe’s Truths” that is hosted on a site called NewLeaflet. He has never infringed on any copyright and each of the entities charged with enforcing SOPA know that he hasn’t.

And yet, none of that matters. Under SOPA, every single one of the services that Abe uses can be obliterated from his view without him having any remedy. Abe may wake up one morning and not be able to access any of his photos of his children. Neither he, nor his students, would be able to access any of his lectures. His trove of smart online discussions would likewise evaporate and he wouldn’t even be able to complain about it on his blog. And, in every case, he has absolutely no power to try to regain access. That may sound far-fetched but under SOPA, all that needs to happen for this scenario to come true is for the Attorney General to decide that some part of PickUpShelf, SunStream, SpeakFree and NewLeaflet would be copyright infringement in the US. If a court agrees, and with no guarantee of an adversarial proceeding that seems very likely, the entire site is “disappeared” from the US internet. When that happens Abe has NO remedy. None. No way of getting the photos of his kids other than leaving the United States for a country that doesn’t have overly broad censorship laws.

This is just one of many significant concerns about the bill which have been raised. And yet Lamar Smith and the House Judiciary Committeee appear poised to make a push to move forward with SOPA this week (Thursday) anyway. Despite the widespread problems of the bills and complaints about nearly every aspect, Smith is expected to offer up only very modest changes, and then push to have the bill voted through. This is a travesty. Smith's legacy is going to go down as the elected official who led the charge to censor the internet.

Filed Under: alexander macgillivray, censorship, copyright, pipa, protect ip, sopa

Lamar Smith Proposes New Version Of SOPA, With Just A Few Changes

from the not-much-to-talk-about dept

In preparation for his attempt to rush SOPA through Congress, Rep. Lamar Smith has put forth an updated version of the bill (pdf link and embedded below) as a "manager's amendment," which will be used for the markup, to be held on Thursday. The markup process, in theory, allows for amendments and changes beyond what Smith brings here, but don't expect much. After the marketup, the bill gets voted on by the Judiciary Committee, and assuming it passes (likely) the bill can be voted on at any time on the House floor, once the Speaker decides to bring it to the floor.

First up among the "differences," is that this version of the bill changes the language around DNS blocking. But it appears to be more of a chance of style, rather than substance. The old part (in Section 102 (c)2(a)(i)) read:

A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.

That language has been marginally tempered such that it now reads:

A service provider shall take such measures as it determines to be the least burdensome, technically feasible, and reasonable means designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible.

Making it clear that service providers get to pick the "least burdensome" means is better than what was there before (and not giving a hard five day deadline) is at least a tiny step in the right direction, but still leaves us with the simple fact that this is a censorship bill. While it may not name DNS directly, that's the clear implication here. You have to figure out some way to block websites. The new version does also provide some "safe harbors," saying that if service providers determine what is the least burdensome, technically feasible means, and go with that, then that "shall fully satisfy such service provider's obligation." But... that seems to only apply if that means prevents domains from resolving. In other words, you can use any means you want... as long as you censor.

That doesn't actually fix the problems with censorship and DNS blocking. It just lets the Judiciary Committee try to wash its hands of the complaint and say: okay, service providers, you deal with it. That's not helpful.

Most of the rest of this section seems pretty much the same, though it removes the hard five day deadline, which MasterCard had complained about as being unfeasible. Now it's all about "expeditiously as possible." I guess a judge becomes the final arbiter on what expeditious means.

Also left totally in place: the anti-circumvention clauses that will outlaw all sorts of legal encryption and VPN tools.

Moving on to the really awful Section 103, which allows for the private right of action. Here again, the language has been toned down, but just around the edges. Thankfully, they took out the "enables" or "facilitates" part, which really opened up SOPA to massive abuse by private actors, but it's still a pretty broad definition. They've also, just slightly, modified the section concerning violations of section 501 of copyright law, so that the private right of action doesn't apply to all such cases, but just ones where the infringement is "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, and with respect to infringement of complete or substantially complete works." This seems like a hamfisted attempt to keep some fair use collateral damage from being caught up in SOPA's decapitation blades.

Next up, they've removed one of the most ridiculous sentences from the old bill's 103 a(1)B(ii)I, which had that lovely:

" is taking, or has taken, deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation"

Instead, it's been replaced with:

the operator of the site operates the site with the object of promoting, or has promoted, its use to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster such violation.

That seems marginally better -- but again, what is "other affirmative steps taken to foster such violation"? Would providing a forum? The ability to upload? The ability to rate? I could easily see this provision just as abused as the previous one.

And... here comes the big change: rather than having a notice and takedown provision first, the new section (similar to PROTECT IP) now lets copyright holders jump straight to court, filing either against the site itself or its owners (if they can be found). The relief there is limited to just an injunction, rather than money, but still... Basically, it looks like they more or less did away with the ability to just send a notice to advertisers/payment processors and at least require a modicum of judicial review before a site is cut off -- though, there's no guarantee that the judge gets to hear both sides, depending on the situation (especially likely for foreign sites).

Update: And here's another bigish change that I'd missed in the read through. While Section 103 still refers to "US-directed sites," the definition of "U.S.-directed sites" has now changed to only include foreign sites. Thus, Section 103 no longer refers to domestic sites, but only to foreign ones. Once again... this brings it more in line with PROTECT IP. But doesn't fix any of PROTECT IP's problems.

Other than that, it looks like there are also some changes to the felony streaming provisions, though I haven't had enough time to dig into them and see what they really mean. All in all, it's about what we expected. A few marginal changes of the worst of the worst of the original bill, but nothing that fixes its major structural problems. What you get is something a little closer to what PROTECT IP is in the Senate. However, it still is a bill that requires censorship of the American internet for the first time, and which still contains broad definitions that will be abused by rightsholders. This isn't a fix. This is getting rid of the parts that were put in to be sacrificed on purpose, and still having a really bad bill.

Filed Under: copyright, lamar smith, pipa, protect ip, sopa