Syrian Electronic Army 'Hack' Of The NYTimes Was The Exact Remedy MPAA Demanded With SOPA

from the and-it-was-a-joke dept

There were many, many concerns related to SOPA and PIPA when they were proposed, but the absolute biggest was the use of DNS blocking as a "remedy" against sites where it was alleged that infringement was a primary purpose. Of course, as tons of technology experts points out, any form of DNS filtering or redirecting would be a security nightmare and would do almost nothing to actually stop infringement.

As you may have heard, this week the Syrian Electronic Army was effectively able to "take down" nytimes.com by engaging in a bit of DNS hacking, which was really nothing more than a DNS redirect. As Rob Pegoraro points out, this is the same basic remedy that the MPAA wanted so badly with SOPA. In fact, during the negotiations over SOPA (after it became clear that its companion bill in the Senate, PIPA, was stalled over the DNS blocking issue), this was the issue the MPAA refused to budge over: DNS blocking/redirects needed to be in SOPA. As Pegoraro writes, if SOPA had become law, we likely would have seen the law abused to take down sites just as the Syrian Electronic Army took down nytimes.com:

2011's Stop Online Piracy Act would have let copyright holders require Internet providers to use DNS redirection to block access to allegedly infringing sites. That authority would inevitably have been abused in social-engineering exploits--and we'd likely see a lot more outages like the NYT's.

At the same time, Ali Sternburg, over at the Disruptive Competition Project points out that this also shows just how laughably ineffective DNS blocking/redirecting would have been in SOPA (despite the MPAA's insistence that it was necessary), because it's so easy to get around and many, many people did. It may have been an inconvenience, but it was hardly the game changer the MPAA predicted.

If this sounds familiar to you, perhaps it’s because Domain Name System (DNS) blocking was part of the original draft of SOPA.  DNS blocking was suggested as a remedy to take entire allegedly infringing foreign websites down, but yesterday demonstrated that people can still navigate to sites through their IP address, even when domain name servers are offline.  This is consistent with a major critique of the DNS blocking during the SOPA debate: that it wouldn’t even work.  Some SOPA supporters had argued in response that “it would be a mistake to assume, as some of these network engineers have, that the average Internet user has the above-average technical skills necessary to do this.”  But yet, people did yesterday.*  If people want to access a website, they can figure it out pretty fast, and without needing any significant technological skills.

So it's somewhat ineffective for blocking (though, very effective for drawing much more attention to what you want blocked). It was a dumb idea by the technologically illiterate folks at the MPAA to suggest a form of DNS hacking as any kind of remedy to copyright infringement, and the NY Times redirect hack just made that even clearer.

Filed Under: dns redirect, hacking, sopa, syrian electronic army
Companies: mpaa, ny times

As Russia Expands Its 'Think Of The Children' Laws To Copyright, Agency In Charge Investigated For Infringement

from the the-French-have-a-word-for-it dept

Last week we wrote about how the Russian equivalent of SOPA had been amended in order to ban swearing online. Although that was worth noting for its entertainment value, probably more important is the fact that the same law -- originally brought in to take down sites about drugs, suicide and child pornography -- has also been widened to include copyright infringement, as TechWeekEurope reports:

the law has been extended to include intellectual property, such as films or TV shows (but interestingly, not music). Under the new rules, copyright holders can contact the website and demand for illegal content to be removed, or request a court order and complain to Roskomnadzor. The website is then required to block the access to files within 3 days, and keep them inaccessible until the court decides on the case.

If the website owners refuse to comply with the order, Roskomnadzor will order ISPs to block the whole site.

This is a textbook example of how to bring in broad censorship in easy stages. First, pass new Web blocking laws "for the children", which no politician would dare object to; then, once the machinery for blocking certain sites is in place, simply broaden it to other, more contentious areas -- such as alleged copyright infringement. As the same story explains, over 1700 Russian Web sites went dark last week in protest at the new law, and 88,000 people signed a petition calling for the law to be repealed (original in Russian), just short of the 100,000 needed for the petition to be considered by the Russian parliament, so nothing much will happen on this front now.

Meanwhile, a film distribution company lost no time using the law to file against Vkontakte, Russia's equivalent of Facebook. Although the case was thrown out because it lacked certain corroborating documents, it seems likely that it will be submitted again. Others will doubtless follow suit. Amusingly, though, the body responsible for implementing Russia's extended SOPA law, Roscomnadzor, looks like it might have fallen foul of the new rules itself, as TorrentFreak explains:

The problems date back to July 9, 2013 when a technology audit at Roscomnadzor offices led officers from the Economic Crime unit and the Interior Ministry to seize five computers suspected of containing unlicensed software.

According to preliminary information from local law enforcement agencies, two of the seized computers contained unlicensed copies of Photoshop but apparently the problems don't stop there as unlicensed software from Microsoft, Corel and Autodesk was also found.

This is reminiscent of the French HADOPI body also being found to have infringed copyright multiple times. Both cases emphasize just how widespread such unauthorized use is around the world, and why harsh punishments like Web blocks are completely disproportionate when even copyright enforcement bodies find it hard to comply with the law.

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Filed Under: copyright, infringement, protect the children, russia, sopa

Administration Can't Let Go: Wants To Bring Back Felony Streaming Provisions Of SOPA

from the not-this-again dept

We've been working our way through a paper released last week by the Commerce Department, concerning copyright reform, and will have a much more detailed post about it soon (there's a lot in there), but over at the Washington Post, they're highlighting the silly recommendation to bring back the plan to make unauthorized streaming a felony. This was a part of SOPA and was widely discussed. It wasn't technically in PIPA, but there was something of a "companion" bill from Senator Amy Klobuchar that effectively had the same thing. This got a fair amount of attention when Justin Bieber was asked about the law, and said that Klobuchar should be locked up.

It's no surprise that this is coming back. It's one of the points that's been raised a few times since the death of SOPA. As we explained back during the original debate, there are different "rights" associated with copyright law, including distribution, reproduction, etc. For very good reasons, when the government put in sections on what could be considered criminal infringement, they left the "public performance" right off of the list of possible felonies. And that's because it's fairly absurd to consider a felonious public performance of a work. But, because of the rise of streaming sites, and the continued myopia of the entertainment industry, they're afraid that sites that embed works from elsewhere might not be seen as technically violating the distribution or reproduction rights (for good reason), and thus they want to elevate public performance as a felony to try to let the feds go after such sites.

This is misguided on a variety of levels. First of all, it's an attack on secondary liability. A site that is posting embeds of content hosted elsewhere shouldn't be held criminally liable for that content -- especially when that content may change over time and they have no direct control over it. If the original content is infringing, go after whoever uploaded/hosted the original content. Not the sites that merely have an embed. Furthermore, because the lines between reproducing, distributing and public performance can get blurry at times, it's very likely that any increased criminality for public performance will be stretched and abused to cover things that people think should be perfectly legal. As Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain explained in detail last year, the streaming provisions could clearly apply to something as simple as posting videos of yourself performing a cover of a popular song you don't have a license to.

Part of the issue is that current copyright law defines a public performance as follows (from 17 USC 101):

To perform or display a work "publicly" means (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or (2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.

Note just how broad that is. If you "transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work" for the purpose of having it performed or displayed at a place open to the public, you may be involved in a public performance. It's not hard to see how that might be used to include people posting videos on YouTube.

And, really, this whole idea is misguided. It comes from the entertainment industry's ridiculous belief that if they just keep playing Whac-a-mole with whomever they've decided is the "enemy" this week, it will eventually bring back old business models. Sites that embed streams from elsewhere aren't the enemy. Trying their operators into felons is fraught with all sorts of dangerous unintended consequences. You'd think that, given what happened with SOPA that administration officials would shy away from pushing more such backwards-focused plans... but they just can't resist.

Filed Under: copyright, felony, public performance, sopa, streaming

SOPA Should Have Ended Backroom Deals About Copyrights & Patents; So Why Is TPP Still Secret?

from the bring-it-in-the-open dept

There's a fantastic op ed in the NY Times, by Lori Wallach and Ben Beachy from Public Citizen, questioning why the TPP negotiating texts are still secret. As they note, this level of secrecy is unprecedented:

Even the George W. Bush administration, hardly a paragon of transparency, published online the draft text of the last similarly sweeping agreement, called the Free Trade Area of the Americas, in 2001.

But, of course, we all know the answer as to why. As they note, for all this secrecy, the administration has given tremendous access to "600 trade advisers" -- basically employees from big companies who get privileged access to the draft text and to negotiators that even Congress is denied. And it's pretty damn clear that the administration just doesn't want Congress to have much say in this, because Congress might actually do its job and represent the public's interest. In fact, the op-ed notes, former USTR Ron Kirk was pretty explicit about this:

So why keep it a secret? Because Mr. Obama wants the agreement to be given fast-track treatment on Capitol Hill. Under this extraordinary and rarely used procedure, he could sign the agreement before Congress voted on it. And Congress’s post-facto vote would be under rules limiting debate, banning all amendments and forcing a quick vote.

Ron Kirk, until recently Mr. Obama’s top trade official, was remarkably candid about why he opposed making the text public: doing so, he suggested to Reuters, would raise such opposition that it could make the deal impossible to sign.

But, you would think that the administration had learned something from the SOPA fight (and the ACTA fight in Europe) -- and it's that the public is not a fan of deals regarding copyright and patents that are negotiated by big business representatives in back rooms. Administration officials who think that TPP is different than SOPA because it let a few tech companies into the back room may find themselves mistaken.

Remember the debate in January 2012 over the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have imposed harsh penalties for even the most minor and inadvertent infraction of a company’s copyright? The ensuing uproar derailed the proposal. But now, the very corporations behind SOPA are at it again, hoping to reincarnate its terms within the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s sweeping proposed copyright provisions.

From another leak, we know the pact would also take aim at policies to control the cost of medicine. Pharmaceutical companies, which are among those enjoying access to negotiators as “advisers,” have long lobbied against government efforts to keep the cost of medicines down. Under the agreement, these companies could challenge such measures by claiming that they undermined their new rights granted by the deal.

If the administration is betting that as long as they keep big business happy, that the public protests won't matter, they may be in for a surprise.

Filed Under: backrooms, negotiations, secrecy, sopa, tpp, transparency, ustr

SOPA Didn't Die, It Just Emigrated

from the to-russia,-with-love dept

It's hard to believe that the heady times that saw SOPA's rise and fall are only a year and a half ago. Of course, SOPA didn't die, but was merely "delayed". But if you've ever wondered what happened to it, wonder no more; it emigrated to Russia, as TorrentFreak reports:

Aggressive new anti-piracy legislation that allows for sites to be rapidly blocked by ISPs upon allegations of copyright infringement passed through its final two readings in Russia's State Duma today. Lawmakers fast-tracked the controversial legislation despite intense opposition from Google and Yandex, Russia' biggest search engine. Following upper house and presidential approval, the law is expected to come into effect on August 1.

Its measures are extreme:

The proposals would see copyright holders filing lawsuits against sites carrying infringing content. Site owners would then be required to remove unauthorized content or links to the same within 72 hours. Failure to do so would result in their entire site being blocked by Internet service providers pending the outcome of a court hearing.

Not surprisingly, Russia's biggest Internet company, Yandex, is deeply worried by what this might mean in practice;

"This approach is technically illiterate and endangers the very existence of search engines, and any other Internet resources. This version of the bill is directed against the logic of the functioning of the Internet and will hit everyone -- not just internet users and website owners, but also the rightsholders," a spokesman for Yandex said in a statement.

That's a good summary of the problem with this and similar SOPA-like laws. Those proposing them believe, incorrectly, that it is possible to stop people sharing files online if the measures are harsh enough. At the most, that will simply encourage people to swap files on new sites still under the radar, or to exchange them in person using portable hard drives or high-capacity USBs.

But the collateral damage is serious: entire sites can be shut down because of one or two infringements, causing large numbers of people to lose access to their personal files; at the same time, startups will struggle with the disproportionate burden of policing their users, and high-tech investments will fall, put off by the unfavorable market conditions. Bringing in these kind of laws certainly won't get rid of infringing content online, but is likely to impoverish the online landscape in Russia, which is bad for Internet users, bad for Internet companies -- and bad for the whole economy there.

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Filed Under: blocking, censorship, copyright, russia, sopa

Public Outcry In Taiwan Kills Their Version Of SOPA

from the like-that-wasn't-predictable dept

At the end of May, we wrote about the Taiwanese government's bizarre proposal to create a copyright bill that was like SOPA, but even worse. Apparently, the folks at the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (IPO) had slept through the whole SOPA thing. Thankfully, the Taiwanese quickly did their own version of the SOPA blackout, with Wikipedia Taiwan and Mozilla Taiwan set to participate. However, seeing the writing on the wall (and, perhaps, someone showed the IPO folks what happened in the US), and the proposal was abandoned before the protest was even needed.

Of course, it's not completely over:

In the face of these criticisms and the planned blackout, the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office abandoned this severe copyright law. In its announcement, the office stated that this plan would be “adjusted.” It’s clear that the government intends to introduce another copyright enforcement initiative in the future. Still, it’s enormously encouraging to see how users in Taiwan have organized to defend their rights and successfully stopped this draconian blacklist law.

The unfortunate reality is that many government authorities around the world still buy into the belief that the health of the Internet is acceptable collateral damage in this manufactured war on copyright infringement. Lawmakers need to understand that creativity and innovation can only thrive when our platforms remain open, where users are free to share and experiment with content. While it’s clear that the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office did not learn from the mistakes of SOPA and PIPA in the U.S., let’s hope others see the defeat of this latest copyright blacklist law and recognize that users will not put up with efforts to censor the Internet.

Still, it is good to see that whenever something SOPA-like pops up, the public quickly jumps up to protest it.

Filed Under: copyright, public interest, public outcry, sopa, taiwan

MPAA's Chris Dodd Will Be The Chair Of 'Free Speech Week'

from the stop-laughing dept

This seems a bit wacky. MPAA boss Chris Dodd has been named the chairperson of the "advisory council" for "free speech week" in 2013. Now, I'm assuming that most people have no clue what "Free Speech Week" is, but it's supposed to be a "celebration" promoting the First Amendment. That's why it strikes me as completely ridiculous that Dodd would be put in charge of it. While the MPAA was a major proponent of the First Amendment a few decades ago (back when there were efforts to try to censor movies -- which saw the MPAA stepping in to create a self-censorship regime known as the movie rating system), Chris Dodd's contribution to the MPAA has been to push SOPA, a bill whose main purpose was directly in contrast to the First Amendment and free speech by setting up a system for internet censorship. As Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe pointed out at the time:

The notice-and-termination procedure of Section 103(a) runs afoul of the “prior restraint” doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website, merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being “dedicated to theft of U.S. property” – even if no court has actually found any infringement. The immunity provisions in the bill create an overwhelming incentive for advertisers and payment processors to comply with such a request immediately upon receipt. The Supreme Court has made clear that “only a judicial determination in an adversary proceeding ensures the necessary sensitivity to freedom of expression [and] only a procedure requiring a judicial determination suffices to impose a valid final restraint.” Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 58 (1965). “[P]rior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights.” Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 559 (1976).

It seems rather ironic that someone who was the main person behind a bill designed to take away free speech rights would then be put in charge of "free speech week."

Filed Under: chris dodd, first amendment, free speech, free speech week, sopa
Companies: mpaa

Access Hollywood: Detailing A Hollywood Mogul's Connections To The White House

from the modern-politics dept

There's been plenty of talk about how the Democratic Party is strongly supported by Hollywood -- and MPAA boss Chris Dodd famously threatened politicians that Hollywood might not fund their campaigns if they didn't support SOPA. So it's quite interesting to see Mother Jones' detailed analysis of Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg's strong support of President Obama's last campaign. There's a lot of nuance in there, so this is not just a case of clear tit-for-tat political funding in exchange for political favors. The article states multiple times that Katzenberg doesn't really seem that focused on getting anything back for his efforts and money.

Katzenberg has said he wants nothing, personally or professionally, in exchange for his support of the president, and DreamWorks' DC agenda is hard to glean: The studio has no lobbyists and is not part of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Later in the article, it notes that Chris Dodd asked Katzenberg to speak to Obama to find out his stance on SOPA in January of 2012, which was "mortifying" for Dodd, since Dreamworks is not a member of the MPAA. Katzenberg, who did support SOPA, still refused Dodd's request, but then did help to "soothe the egos" of other studio heads after Obama came out against SOPA, to make sure they kept funding him. As the article notes: "In the end, Katzenberg chose to help Obama win over his industry rather than helping his industry win over Obama."

Elsewhere:

Obama officials say they respect Katzenberg not only for his fundraising, but also because he has no specific "ask"—no ambassadorship to Switzerland, no regulatory tweak, no nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.

While that's good, the article does make clear two things: (1) even if he's not asking for anything specifically, he does have incredible clout, (2) the administration seems to want to keep wider Hollywood happy anyway, knowing that it will keep Katzenberg happy. In other words, even if Katzenberg's own motives are entirely pure, the possibility of policy pandering to him and his friends is high.

Obama takes Katzenberg's calls, and he and his political adviser, Andy Spahn, visited the White House almost 50 times between them during Obama's first term. (Not all of Spahn's visits had to do with Katzenberg.) It has also left him well positioned to advocate for his industry's and his company's interests in China's booming film market.

And, of course, lots of Democratic politicians now want to curry favor with Katzenberg and his friends, whether or not he asks for it.

Adds Paul Begala: "Every Democrat who has presidential ambitions is now going to beat a path straight for Jeffrey's door. Or they're too dumb to be president."

The end result, of course, are favorable deals even if they don't ask directly.

Yet it is hard to deny that he—along with Hollywood as a whole—has benefited from his connections. In the 2012 fiscal-cliff fight, for instance, the White House insisted Congress preserve a $430 million tax break for film studios that keep production jobs in the United States.

But, the much bigger deal, as the article explains, is how the administration, led by Joe Biden (of course), has helped clear the way for the Chinese market.

In July 2011, ahead of a trade visit to China, Vice President Joe Biden met with industry leaders who asked him to press their case. Biden, too, returned empty-handed. Seven months later, Xi Jinping, then China's leader-in-waiting, made his first official visit to America. On hand to greet him was Katzenberg, who scored a seat next to Xi at a State Department luncheon.

Later that week, Xi and Biden traveled to Los Angeles, and Katzenberg joined them for lunch with Gov. Brown. Biden spent the day pushing Xi on the film quota and profit sharing disputes. The White House wanted to bump the studios' portion from 13 percent to 27 percent, but as the negotiations intensified, Biden asked Katzenberg and Disney CEO Bob Iger what they could live with. Then Biden made Xi a new offer: 25 percent. Xi agreed, and he also said China would let in 14 more foreign-made 3-D and IMAX movies each year.

Katzenberg was simultaneously working on a $350 million deal to open Oriental DreamWorks, a new animation studio in Shanghai—and it couldn't happen without Xi's approval. That same day, at a US-China economic forum held at a downtown LA hotel, Katzenberg officially unveiled the project—and proudly announced that it now bore Xi's personal endorsement.

Having the VP of the US personally negotiate a huge deal like that for you is certainly a nice side benefit.

There's a lot more in the profile, which is really worth reading in full. It seems pretty clear that, unlike some who donate heavily, it really doesn't seem like Katzenberg is funding Obama because he wants something back directly, but rather because he believes in Obama himself. But what's most interesting to me is that, even if that's the case, the end results are almost still the same thing. Even without specific policy desires or asks, because of the money on the line, politicians (especially those vying for that money in the future) often feel they need to heed the general desires of the industry in order to keep that money flowing. That, alone, at least gives the appearance of corruption. Or, as Larry Lessig has called it repeatedly, "soft corruption." It's not the out and out bribery that many people think, but rather the overall set up that generally incentivizes behavior in the direction that favors the funders, even if it's at the expense of the public.

Of course, in the end what this comes down to, as always, is the issue of money and politics, and how it turns a democratic process into one in which those with more dollars have a lot more power and say. And that's still a big problem.

Filed Under: china, corruption, democrats, funding, hollywood, influence peddling, jeffrey katzenberg, lobbying, money in politics, politics, president obama, soft corruption, sopa
Companies: dreamworks, mpaa

Taiwan's Copyright Proposals Would Combine SOPA With A Dash Of The Great Firewall Of China

from the overkill-much? dept

You might have hoped that the extensive discussions that took place around SOPA a year or so ago would have warned off governments elsewhere from replicating some of the really bad ideas there, like DNS blocking, but it seems that Taiwan didn't get the message, as Global Voices reports:

The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has recently proposed to amend the Copyright Act and provide legal justification of IP and DNS blocking at the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) level through a black list system. The government claims that the amendment is to stop the illegal sharing of copyright movies and music.

Although IPO has stressed that the Internet service providers will only block overseas online platforms which are "specifically designed for copyright infringement activities" or websites which have "obviously violated copyrights", such as Megaupload, the authorities will target online platforms that enhance peer-to-peer transmission including Bit Torrent, Foxy, and FTP sharing.

Of course, as Techdirt readers know, there is no such thing as "obviously violated copyrights" -- that's what judges are for. The idea of of targeting technologies like BitTorrent and FTP is nothing less than an attack on aspects of the Internet itself. And as the article points out, the new powers are almost certain to be abused:

If the Taiwanese copyright amendment is implemented, the Island will have a mechanism that blocks and filters away "illegal websites" that host material that infringes copyright laws. This could be detrimental to sites like YouTube, where users regularly upload videos that may violate copyright laws. Although the company has a system for removing these videos, a law like this could lead to the site being blocked altogether.

The new measures will move Taiwan closer to China's Great Firewall in terms of censorship, and will therefore probably be well-received on the mainland as a result. But there are surely better ways of improving relations between the two countries than instituting these kind of measures that won't stop people sharing unauthorized copies online, but will damage the Internet, and not just in Taiwan.

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Filed Under: blocking, copyright, dns blocking, firewall, rogue sites, sopa, taiwan