Revolving Door: Main Architect Of PIPA (Senate Version Of SOPA) Now... Lobbying For The MPAA

from the just-swings-around-and-around-and-around dept

A couple of years ago, we wrote about an interview with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, in which he explained one of his most effective strategies in getting legislation in his favor. The key trick: find key staffers working for elected officials and tell them they had a job waiting for them whenever they wanted it. Here was the key bit:

And he would ask them: "When do you want to start?" If they said "two years," he knew that the guy was already working for him, but on the inside. As he says "I really hired him that day," even though he went on for two more years working as a chief-of-staff to someone in Congress.

Just yesterday, we wrote about Rep. Howard Berman -- famous for his support of ever expanding copyright law -- who has now been hired to lobby for the MPAA. Berman, the former Congressman, is obviously the headline piece. But, along with that news came some further news that didn't get as much attention -- which is that in hiring the firm that Berman works for, Covington & Burling, the MPAA didn't just hire Berman, but also Aaron Cooper, who was Senator Patrick Leahy's chief intellectual property staffer, and the main guy behind the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the Senate's version of SOPA.

The MPAA, of course, was the main driving lobbying force (along with the US Chamber of Commerce) to get SOPA/PIPA approved. And here we are, just a couple of years later, and the Congressional staffer who was the main internal architect of that bill is... now officially paid by the MPAA. The old "revolving door" continues to swing round and round. Jack Abramoff would be proud.

Filed Under: aaron cooper, howard berman, lobbying, pipa, protect ip, revolving door, senate judiciary committee, sopa
Companies: covington & burling, mpaa

Who's Still Backing SOPA/PIPA... And Why?

from the not-dead-yet... dept

With all the talk about SOPA/PIPA it's worth noting that neither bill is really dead yet, and either one could come back at any time -- though you'd hope that Senator Leahy and Rep. Smith realize that they'd be crazy to just bring the bills back without being more open about the process. In the meantime, though, there's been lots of talk about all of the elected officials who dropped off as sponsors -- and they should be rightly commended. But what about the rest? Who is still sponsoring these bills, even though they're widely recognized as being toxic... and what are they thinking? Here's the list of the remaining SOPA sponsors, according to Govtrack:

• Rep. Lamar Smith
• Mark Amodei
• Joe Baca
• John Barrow
• Karen Bass
• Howard Berman
• Marsha Blackburn
• Mary Bono Mack
• Steven Chabot
• Judy Chu
• John Conyers
• Jim Cooper
• Ted Deutch
• Elton Gallegly
• Robert Goodlatte
• Peter King
• John Larson
• Thomas Marino
• Alan Nunnelee
• William Owens
• Adam Schiff
• Brad Sherman
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz
• Melvin Watt

The seven who withdrew were Tim Griffin, Dennis Ross, Lee Terry, John Carter, Steve Scalise, Ben Ray Lujan, Tim Holden and Ben Quayle. Marsha Blackburn seemed to indicate she was dropping the bill, but is still officially listed. It could be a time thing, but it's been a while since she made her comments.

Over on the PIPA side, the remaining co-sponsors are

• Pat Leahy
• Lamar Alexander
• Jeff Bingaman
• Richard Blumenthal
• Barbara Boxer
• Sherrod Brown
• Benjamin Cardin
• Robert Casey
• Thad Cochran
• Chris Coons
• Bob Corker
• Richard Durbin
• Michael Enzi
• Dianne Feinstein
• Al Franken
• Kirsten Gillibrand
• Lindsey Graham
• Charles Grassley
• Kay Hagan
• John Isakson
• Tim Johnson
• Amy Klobuchar
• Herbert Kohl
• Mary Landrieu
• Joseph Lieberman
• John McCain
• Robert Menendez
• Bill Nelson
• Charles Schumer
• Jeanne Shaheen
• Tom Udall
• Sheldon Whitehouse

Those who saw the light and removed themselves were Jerry Moran (who dropped the bill way back in June of last year, realizing early on what a bad bill it was), Orrin Hatch, Roy Blunt, Marco Rubio, John Boozman, Kelly Ayotte, Michael Bennett, Saxby Chambliss, David Vitter and James Risch.

The question then, is why others still have their names listed on these bills? Do they have a reason for it? I know that few of them -- like Senator Franken -- still keep trying to defend the bills, despite the fact that the public has spoken loud and clear that they do not support these bills. But for the rest? Why remain a sponsor of such toxic concepts?

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa, sponsors

Young People Followed SOPA News More Than Election News

from the more-likely-to-impact-them dept

For people who still don't recognize that there's a generational shift going on when it comes to how people view attempts to regulate the internet, communications and copyright law, they might want to start paying attention. According to the folks over at the Pew Research Center, the story of SOPA was the most followed story for people under 30 -- even more than news about the Presidential election. That's probably because SOPA/PIPA had much more of a likelihood of impacting their daily lives. Either way, it's amazing to see politicians and SOPA/PIPA supporters still think that this was just a "vocal minority" complaining about the bill. Their ridiculously bad miscalculation in introducing ridiculously bad bills has now awakened a very large percentage of young people to these issues, in a way that won't just go away. Amazingly, it wasn't just people aged 20 to 30 who took an interest. The research showed that there was interest all the way down to the K-12 set as well.

Filed Under: issues, news, pipa, protect ip, sopa, youth

The SOPA/PIPA Protest Shows Why There Needs To Be Complete Transparency With TPP

from the keeping-stuff-secret-is-simply-not-an-option dept

Lawyer Jonathan Band has written up an execllent analysis for why what happened with SOPA/PIPA (pdf) demonstrates why the Obama administration and the USTR in particular must be significantly more transparent when it comes to TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. TPP, of course, is the evil stepchild of ACTA. Rather than learning that excessive secrecy in ACTA was the wrong approach, it appears that the USTR simply determined that since it got away with being so secret with ACTA, it might as well double down and be even more secret with TPP. Not only that, but early reports and leaks from the ultra-secret TPP negotiations suggest that the USTR -- once again acting as the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce's personal waterboys -- was trying to shove in every bad idea that it failed to get into ACTA.

However, as Band notes in his paper, the problems with excessive copyright legislation that impacts the internet is becoming a big issue with the public, and that shouldn't be taken lightly. Most of the paper goes through the specific problems of SOPA and PIPA, as well as the public's response to the attempts by the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce to push through such a ridiculously bad bill that would impact internet sites worldwide. It then uses that to explain why the USTR simply needs to be more transparent:

The transparency surrounding TPP must increase. If the public feels that the provisions included in TPP jeopardize the openness of the Internet, it will strongly oppose the adoption of TPP. To prevent this from happening, the negotiations concerning the IP chapter must become more transparent. Drafts must be made available online for public comment. The fact that in the past some trade negotiations have had little transparency is irrelevant. The SOPA experience demonstrates that a new era of public engagement in IP policy has begun

Furthermore, Band makes the point that the USTR (and any government, really) can no longer pretend that copyright laws are obscure laws that do not impact the public. The public has hopefully now clearly established itself as a very important -- if not the most important -- stakeholder in any debates around copyright issues going forward.

Internet users care deeply about its vitality. The overwhelming public opposition to SOPA and PIPA generated by just one day of online protests indicates that the members of the public will take strong and immediate political action to protect this medium which has become a central part of their lives at home, school, and work. IP, at least to the extent it intersects with the Internet, is no longer an issue of only narrow technical interest.

Finally, the paper makes it clear that, no matter how many times the lobbyists backing these bills and trade agreements like to pretend that they don't impact US sites, that's simply laughable, and the public knows it:

IP rules can have a significant impact on legitimate websites. The Internet democratizes commerce and communications. Platforms such as eBay or YouTube allow individuals and businesses of all sizes to reach large audiences and markets. But IP rules that place too heavy a legal burden on the platforms for user activities, as do SOPA and PIPA, will constrain the growth of this Twenty-First Century medium of trade and discourse.

IP rules can affect international trade. The Internet does not recognize national boundaries. IP rules in one country can affect the operation of websites in another country. SOPA and PIPA would not only impose liability in the United States on non-U.S. websites that may be legal in their host countries; they also would interfere with the operation of these websites in their host countries. Provisions like SOPA and PIPA would allow countries – and indeed, individual companies – to erect trade barriers without following multilaterally agreed procedures with notice and due process.

These points seem obvious to many of us. The real question is whether or not the administration and the USTR recognize it yet. The fact that it's still been negotating the TPP agreement in secrecy suggests not. That it thinks it can get away with such blatant rent seeking for Hollywood interests, in the face of a public that is now paying attention to these issues shows an incredible disrespect for the public's best interests. It's a shameful statement on whose interests the USTR is really representing -- and the nature of crony capitalism in the US government these days.

Filed Under: acta, pipa, protect ip, sopa, tpp, transparency

CreativeAmerica Literally Resorts To Buying Signatures

from the grassroots! dept

Remember CreativeAmerica? This is the slickly produced operation that claims to be a "grassroots" organization in favor of SOPA and PIPA... but which is actually funded by the major studios, staffed by former MPAA employees, and has had all the major studios directly pushing employees and partners to sign up for the program -- even to the point of threatening to take away business if they don't sign.

This is also the group that was caught copying an anti-SOPA activism letter, and using the exact same words as if it was written by themselves (I guess they're fine with plagiarism). It's also been caught using funny math to pump up its tiny number of supporters.

In December, we joked that CreativeAmerica had resorted to buying support, after it released a big (and expensive) advertising campaign all over TV and on some big screens in Times Square. Not exactly a "grass roots" operation.

Either way, it appears the group has gone more direct now: to the point that it's literally paying people for signatures. I've received very credible evidence, that a consulting firm hired by CreativeAmerica is now offering to pay people to get signatures on CreativeAmerica's petition. The following email was forwarded to me, with some details redacted to protect privacy:

the organization I am doing work for is Creative America, which is a grassroots organization that is working to stop foreign rogue websites from illegally distributing American content such as books, music, films, etc.... These specific websites costs the U.S. and the 2.2 million middle class industry workers $5.5 billion in wages and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Your job would be just collecting signatures from whoever is interested in signing up for updates. A newsletter may come once a month and anyone can unsubscribe if they don’t want it. We don’t care if they do; all I care about is getting initial signups.

The hours are flexible and we will pay you $1/signature, so if you collect 100 signatures a week, we would pay you $100/week. We will also pay for you to go to local film festivals in the area (SXSW, Austin Film Festival, etc.). We are also taking as many people as possible, so if you have some friends who are interested in doing it we can take them as well. Let me know your thoughts....

This raises even more questions about the already anemic number of people supporting CreativeAmerica and its pro-SOPA, pro-PIPA, MPAA-driven agenda. As the email makes clear, they're willing to pay as many people as possible to get signatures to make the group look larger than it is. That's pretty crazy. I think we can be pretty sure that the millions of people who spoke out against SOPA/PIPA did so without someone paying them $1 per call or email.

Filed Under: astroturfing, buying support, copyright, grassroots, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: creativeamerica, mpaa

MPAA Exec Admits: 'We're Not Comfortable With The Internet'

from the and-it-shows dept

There have been a ton of post mortems about the whole SOPA/PIPA fight, with many trying to figure out where and how the MPAA "went wrong." After all, this is a group that is very used to getting its way inside DC. And it got slaughtered. We've already discussed our thoughts on why the MPAA failed, but what stuns me is how every time someone from the MPAA opens their mouth, they seem to make the situation worse by demonstrating just how tone deaf they are to the online community and what their concerns were. Whether it's just blaming Google or thinking that the solution is more backroom dealing, each response just sounds like a group of people who are playing a different game, and still don't realize the rules have changed.

The Hollywood Reporter's version of the postmortem is a good read, even though it covers much the same ground as many other such recaps. Still, it's worth reading to get a good feel for Hollywood's view of the world. But the really stunning part is the quote from Michael O'Leary, the MPAA's number two guy, who makes what may be the most tone-deaf statement we've seen to date in this fight:

The MPAA's O'Leary concedes that the industry was out-manned and outgunned in cyberspace. He says the MPAA "is [undergoing] a process of education, a process of getting a much, much greater presence in the online environment. This was a fight on a platform we're not at this point comfortable with, and we were going up against an opponent that controls that platform."

Yes, even when he tries to say that they're trying to learn about that confounded internet thingy, he sounds ridiculous and dismissive. But the real point is his inadvertent admission within that statement: the MPAA (and the rest of "old" Hollywood) simply "is not comfortable with" the internet. And that's really what SOPA and PIPA were about. Rather than trying to understand this new platform, and learn from the many entertainers who do get the internet, they did what the MPAA does and simply tried to regulate that which they don't understand and fear.

Furthermore, even more ridiculous is the end of that sentence: "an opponent that controls that platform." As the article makes clear, he means Google. Which shows that he still doesn't get it. First, Google didn't lead the protests. It came late to the game, after the grassroots had already taken off with this stuff and run with it. But, more to the point, contrary to what O'Leary and the MPAA seem to believe: Google does not control the internet. No one does.

This, of course, explains why the MPAA wants to "negotiate" with Google these days. But that's not going to work. The folks on the internet don't want a backroom deal, whether it's negotiated by Google or someone else. Either way, this suggests that the MPAA is desperately in need of new leadership. They need leaders who don't try to regulate that which they admit they don't understand. They need leaders who aren't so clueless as to think that Google controls the internet (or that Google is somehow "the enemy"). And, really, most important, they need leaders who recognize and understand that the internet is their future too -- and any leadership needs to not fear the internet, but understand it and learn to embrace it. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that the MPAA is going to find such leadership any time soon.

Filed Under: control, michael o'leary, pipa, protect ip, protectionism, sopa
Companies: mpaa

The Onion Explains SOPA And PIPA (As Only The Onion Can)

from the cutting-through-the-onion dept

Well, it took some time, but with so much disinformation that was spread online about SOPA and PIPA, we really needed someone to cut through the clutter... and who better than The Onion? They've finally done so with their simple SOPA/PIPA explainer that includes some of the finer points of the law that you may have missed if you hadn't read the bill carefully:

• Music review sites can only allude to a song's title and content in vague terms
• All pirated material available only at the Commerce Department's new site, Torrent.gov
• Government will actively encourage people to download only public-domain music, such as Pipey Lester's "That Cat's a-Mewing!" or Ukulele Ted's "Nickel For Your Hat"
• Denies future generations the ability to watch hilarious scene from Dirty Work where Chris Farley yells at the Asian hooker anytime, free of charge, which is a fundamental right of being an American
• Does absolutely nothing to get rid of goddamn Lolcats
• Makes the MPAA and RIAA feel better, which, if you have any shred of a soul, causes pure rage to swell through your very being
• Any person suspected of Photoshopping bill sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) in an unflattering manner shall be subject to a minimum sentence of two months in prison; sentence will be increased by an additional two months if MS Paint is used
• No longer legal to steal Ryan Gosling's credit card information

If only they'd shared this info sooner, so much misinformation would have been stopped...

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa, the onion

Discussing SOPA/PIPA Over At On The Media

from the have-fun-with-it dept

Been meaning to get to this for a few days now, but finally had the chance now. Last week the always excellent radio program On The Media from WNYC, I had a bit of a discussion on SOPA/PIPA (and the Megaupload shutdown). I was on the first segment discussing some of the problems with the bills. The actual interview happened Tuesday, before the big protest, before all the politicians dropped off, and before the Megaupload takedown occurred. Otherwise I might have had a few more comments about all of that. There's probably not too much surprising in what I have to say if you're a regular reader of my SOPA/PIPA coverage.

Right after me, however, they also talked to Steve Tepp from the US Chamber of Commerce. Tepp is the point person at the USCoC who has been more or less in charge of getting SOPA/PIPA passed. Amusingly, the segment that I recorded with OTM was recorded about half an hour after I got off stage at the Congressional Internet Caucus' State of the Net event, where I debated Tepp on some of these issues (video from that is apparently forthcoming). If I'd known they were going to have both of us on, perhaps we could have both gone into the same empty ballroom at the hotel to record the session together. Either way, Tepp, says a bunch of things that I believe are simply not true.

"The legislation is, in fact, very narrowly targeted. The bill requires - for example, the Senate bill, the Protect IP Act, that the website in question be dedicated to infringing activities, that its primary design and primary use is counterfeiting or piracy."

I know that SOPA/PIPA supporters love to say this, but they do so while ignoring what the specific definitions say. The problem is how broadly worded and open to interpretation the definitions actually are. While the most recent version of SOPA trimmed back some of the more ridiculous parts of the definition found in the original SOPA, I can't think of anyone who's looked at these laws objectively and seen them to be truly narrowly tailored. That may be the intention, but the language suggests otherwise.

Thankfully OTM host Bob Garfield calls Tepp out when Tepp tries to claim that all of the people protesting against the bill are doing so because of "misinformation online." Garfield notes that Google is against the bill, and it's not like it got its information via a Google search. Tepp's response is misleading:

Well, the one provision that got all these folks excited was the requirement that after the Attorney General brings a case and after a Federal court finds that a site is dedicated to this criminal activity, that the site not be reachable from the United States, that the Internet companies would block access to that site. And that's what a lot of folks said, oh, this is -- this is a problem for the Internet, it's gonna break the Internet.

Now, that seemed to me to be quite overblown but, in any event, in the spirit of compromise, sponsors of both the Senate bill and the House bill have said, we're gonna roll that back. And yet, folks are moving the goalpost and saying, nope, still not good enough. So I don't know what the concern is. To me if I get what I ask for, I stop complaining.

That was indeed one very big problem with the bill, but it was hardly the only problem. And Google and many others laid out a bunch of problems. The fact that DNS blocking was delayed (not removed, by the way) hardly fixed the problems. To pretend that that was all that Google wanted would be to ignore what Google has actually been saying. Either way, Tepp goes on to trot out the standard talking points:

But at the end of the day, we know that protecting American consumers and protecting American jobs from foreign criminals is in the best interest of this country. We know that members of Congress are gonna see that. And we are going to hold their feet to the fire and make sure that these criminals can't continue to get away scott free.

Except, of course, as was shown the very next day after the interview took place, existing laws already have the power for the US to take down foreign websites and arrest foreign website owners. That certainly seems to deflate much of the argument that Tepp has been making. Furthermore, it's worth noting that one of Tepp's favorite talking points -- about there being "53 billion visits" to these "foreign rogue websites," involves a study that concluded that Megaupload supplies a rather large percentage of those 53 billion visits. So, why, again, do we need this new bill?

If anything, the Megaupload takedowns are showing exactly the fears that many people worried about with SOPA. That is, even if Megaupload execs were skirting the law, the takedown has caused tons of legitimate users of Megaupload to lose out on their own content and storage, disrupted businesses, and caused many other cyberlockers to have to remove useful features, or block access to US users. These are exactly the kinds of collateral damage that people were worried about in protesting SOPA/PIPA -- and now they're realizing that the US government already has that power, and Tepp's insistence that there would be no real damage to anyone other than "foreign criminals" has been proven wrong.

Filed Under: on the media, pipa, protect ip, sopa, steven tepp
Companies: us chamber of commerce

State Of The Union Address Highlights The Dirty Trick Of Hiding More Draconian IP Rules In 'Trade Agreements'

from the keep-up dept

As we've been discussing, it's great that the anti-SOPA/PIPA protests have awakened many to the horrors of ACTA. It seems that this may also help people finally learn about the nefarious practice of industry trade groups and governments to sneak bad IP legislation through "international agreements." With President Obama mentioning the importance of trade agreements and dealing with infringement in his State of the Union address, many people were wondering if it was a signal about SOPA/PIPA.

However, as Harold Feld explains, it's much more likely he's talking about these new international agreements and treaties, like ACTA and (the even worse) TPP agreement that's currently being negotiated (in secrecy, of course). Feld also highlights how these things always "ratchet up." He points to the infamous US-Korea Free Trade Agreement ("KOROUS"). The agreement, which had a lot to do with protectionism for Hollywood, rather than actual free trade, was held up for years as the kind of "good" trade agreement that the US should be negotiating with others. In fact, when complaints about ACTA first came out, the USTR kept saying that ACTA was merely modeled on the "successful" KOROUS agreement. Of course, the impact of that agreement has been pretty bad in Korea -- leading to an extreme increase in secondary liability for internet service providers, making it tougher to do business and causing them to shut off useful features. And all of this despite the fact that the Korean entertainment industry was thriving by adapting to a changing market.

But, as Feld points out, the efforts behind SOPA and PIPA show that the same entertainment industry who insisted that the trade agreement with Korea was so perfect, is now whining that the agreement is "too weak." And, apparently, that's why we need TPP. To make an already bad agreement much worse.

The good news here is that the public is becoming aware of this practice of hiding bad rules in trade agreements and then demanding we change our laws to "meet international obligations." President Obama's message may not have been directly about SOPA/PIPA, but it was an unfortunate signal about the continued use of questionable "trade agreements" to not just force the rest of the world into bad and damaging (for their own economies) IP rules, but to then turn around and use them to ratchet things up back here in the US as well.

One thing that anyone just becoming aware of these fights needs to know: the entertainment industry lobby is very, very good at what they do, and they never put all their eggs in one basket. While they love pushing for ever more draconian federal laws, they're always working multiple angles, including international trade agreements, laws in foreign countries and... state laws around the US, which they can then leverage to get other states to follow suit. If SOPA/PIPA really fails on the federal level, you'll see the same ideas pop up in all of those other places. In fact, we're already hearing stories of such plans in all three things, which we'll be covering in the days and weeks ahead.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, free trade agreements, korous, pipa, protect ip, sopa, tpp, trade agreements

The Tech Industry Has Already Given Hollywood The Answer To Piracy; If Only It Would Listen

from the stop-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot dept

While many in the press have really enjoyed claiming that the SOPA/PIPA fight has been about Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley, we've been pointing out for a while just how silly that is. Months ago, we pointed out that it's a strange "fight" when one side (Silicon Valley) appears to give the other side all the weapons it needs to succeed (only to watch Hollywood then aim those weapons at its own feet). It's been pointed out time and time again that Hollywood has a habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth... and accusing it of piracy, when it later turns out to be the answer to Hollywood's prayers.

When the White House came out against the general approach in SOPA and PIPA, it still said that a legislative response was necessary... and asked for the "best ideas" from the tech community and people online:

Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue websites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders. We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge.

But, here's the thing: as many of us have been saying for quite some time, the "best ideas" have nothing to do with legislation, because legislation is tackling the wrong problem. No amount of legislation or enforcement stops piracy. That's been shown over and over again. What does help deal with infringement is offering a better service that gives consumers more of what they want in a reasonable and convenient manner.

And thus, I can't recommend enough Nat Torkington's brilliant response to "the President's challenge" above by likening it to this old joke:

Heavy rains start and a neighbour pulls up in his truck. "Hey Bob, I'm leaving for high ground. Want a lift?" Bob says, "No, I'm putting my faith in God." Well, waters rise and pretty soon the bottom floor of his house is under water. Bob looks out the second story window as a boat comes by and offers him a lift. "No, I'm putting my faith in God." The rain intensifies and floodwaters rise and Bob's forced onto the roof. A helicopter comes, lowers a line, and Bob yells "No, I'm putting my faith in God."

Well, Bob drowns. He goes to Heaven and finally gets to meet God. "God, what was that about? I prayed and put my faith in you, and I drowned!"

God says, "I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter! What the hell more did you want from me?"

How does that apply to this situation? Same thing. The tech industry keeps sending Hollywood the tools it needs to save itself... and Hollywood keeps "waiting" for some miraculous savior, while missing all of the tools it's been offered to save itself:

All I can think is: we gave you the Internet. We gave you the Web. We gave you MP3 and MP4. We gave you e-commerce, micropayments, PayPal, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, the iPad, the iPhone, the laptop, 3G, wifi--hell, you can even get online while you're on an AIRPLANE. What the hell more do you want from us?

Take the truck, the boat, the helicopter, that we've sent you. Don't wait for the time machine, because we're never going to invent something that returns you to 1965 when copying was hard and you could treat the customer's convenience with contempt.

Filed Under: best ideas, business models, hollywood, innovation, pipa, protect ip, silicon valley, sopa, technology