Huge Supporter Of Stronger Copyright Law, Grover Norquist, Backing Away From SOPA

from the support-keeps-dwindling dept

The supposed widespread support for SOPA keeps fading away, it seems. The latest supporter to jump ship is a big one on the political front. Grover Norquist, who runs Americans for Tax Reform, is a major force in US conservative/Republican politics -- and a massive supporter of stricter copyright laws. Where Norquist goes on certain issues, certain Republicans follow. In fact, Norquist and ATR even have their own "stronger copyright law" group called "The Property Rights Alliance." And, a few weeks ago, Norquist sent Lamar Smith a letter supporting SOPA entirely. But... now his group has changed its mind, and notes that they no longer "unequivocally support it," and are hoping that Smith "will allow the concerns many have with the remaining parts of the bill to be addressed." The group also acknowledges its concern about the need to protect "innovation and free speech online."

I'm curious to see how the pro-SOPA folks who declare that everyone who has raised these concerns is just a "piracy apologist" will respond to this one. Norquist/ATR are about as far from "piracy apologists" as you can get. It's safe to say that I think his positions on intellectual property are ridiculous in most cases. But, when even someone like that is recognizing how many problems there are with SOPA, it's time for SOPA supporters to admit that the concerns of the bill are very real. And those complaining about the bill aren't "piracy apologists," but people with legitimate concerns about innovation, security and free speech online.

As Declan McCullagh's article about this notes, it appears that many "pro-copyright" groups rushed to support these bills without bothering to understand what was really in them. Now that they're learning, they realize just how problematic they are...

Filed Under: grover norquist, pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: americans for tax reform, property rights alliance

No, Sony Electronics, Nintendo And EA Have NOT Publicly Changed Their Position On SOPA

from the come-on-people dept

It's amazing how a little bad reporting turns into a big story. Late last week, we saw a report on Business Insider, by Matt Lynley, claiming that Nintendo, EA and Sony Electronics had dropped support of SOPA. However, the reporting on this story is highly questionable. It was based on a report from November from Joystiq about how those three companies supported the bill. But, if you read the actual article on Joystiq, you'll see that it notes that these three companies had not specifically come out in favor of SOPA, but rather had signed onto a letter from the US Chamber of Commerce (or, rather, its front group, the Global IP Center) which was sent before SOPA was introduced. While it does urge Congress to support something like SOPA, it was not a direct endorsement of SOPA itself.

Now, jump forward to last week. A number of lists have been put out listing the companies who supposedly support SOPA -- but many of the lists were made up by combining two separate lists. One was the official list from the House Judiciary site, which does, in fact, list out companies who have explicitly said they support SOPA. The other... was that letter that the Global IP Center sent. So, here's the problem. It appears that Lynley just checked the list from the House Judiciary Committee... and saw that Sony Electronics, EA and Nintendo were not on that list... and decided they must have quietly removed themselves from the list.

Here's the problem: those three companies were apparently never on that list. They were on the other list.

You can see an older version of the House Judiciary Committee list of SOPA supporters here. Note that it has GoDaddy on it, as well as all those law firms who demanded removal from the list. This was the original list that the Judiciary Committee came out with. You know what you'll see? Absolutely no mention of EA, Sony Electronics or Nintendo.

And yet... a ton of news sites have picked up on the BI story and written their own versions, claiming that those three companies have quietly dropped their SOPA support: Yet, as far as I can tell, none of these three companies has made any statement suggesting they've changed their position at all. Perhaps they did change their position, but it's not because they're missing from the House Judiciary list... because they were never on that list as far as we can tell. It's kind of amazing to me that people kept demanding specific statements from GoDaddy to prove they'd really changed their position on SOPA but eagerly accept that these three companies have changed their position. It's really quite amazing to me that so many publications (many well respected) all seemed to key off this one, highly questionable, Business Insider report, which was based on someone who never checked the earlier list, and assumed that it must be accurate.

Filed Under: pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: ea, nintendo, sony electronics

GoDaddy Officially Has Name Removed From Judiciary's List Of SOPA Supporters

from the keep-editing dept

There was some concern that GoDaddy had only said they were pulling their support for SOPA, but hadn't actually done so. However, the company is now pointing out that it officially asked to be removed from the Judiciary Committee's list of SOPA supporters and that's now been done. I will note, however, that despite the claims that it is no longer supporting SOPA, the Graphic Artists Guild is still listed. Add to this the Judiciary Committee having to scrub the list of a bunch of law firms who never agreed to support the bill, as well as companies like Gibson Guitar, and it seems that the Judiciary Committee is going to be kept busy whittling down this list.

Of course, it's unclear why the Judiciary Committee only puts up a list of (rapidly shrinking) supporters. If it wanted to present the various opinions on the bill, shouldn't it actually show the large and growing list of SOPA opponents?

Filed Under: congress, house judiciary committee, pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: godaddy

SOPA Supporters Learning (Slowly) That Pissing Off Reddit Is A Bad Idea

from the don't-mess-with-reddit dept

There's been a lot of talk in the past few days about the companies supporting SOPA. As we've noted, it's pretty damn difficult to find too many individuals who like SOPA (or PROTECT IP), but there are a fair number of companies who might find it advantageous to be able to cause all sorts of problems for foreign competition. There are a few lists floating around of SOPA supporters, but Andrew Couts has put together a big list of 439 organizations culled both from the Judiciary Committee's website and the letter sent by the US Chamber of Commerce in support of the law.

We'd noted that there was some backlash towards companies supporting SOPA, but as more and more people recognize how bad these laws are, it's getting more attention. Add to that the awesome power of Reddit... and the whole thing has kicked into overdrive.

Enemy number one on the list appears to be GoDaddy, with Redditor's organizing a day (Dec. 29th) for GoDaddy customers to transfer their domains away from the registrar. We've discussed GoDaddy's bizarre support for the law in the past -- including the fact that, under the original definitions of SOPA, GoDaddy itself qualified as a "rogue site" since it recommended people buy domains violating the trademarks of lots of big companies. Of course, it's also notable that GoDaddy recently hired a top lawyer... whose previous job was in "IP enforcement" for the federal government.

GoDaddy doesn't quite seem to know how to deal with the rising backlash on Reddit, and has (somewhat bizarrely) reissued two previous statements about SOPA. The first was what it wrote when the bill first came out, and the second was its filing for the original (November 15th) Judiciary Committee hearings on SOPA. Neither of these statements address the concerns of the folks on Reddit and appear to be very much a "talk to the hand!" response to the Reddit community. I would suggest that this may not have been the keenest strategic move on the part of GoDaddy. And it's not just small domain holders. Ben Huh, CEO of the infamous (and awesome) Cheezburger network of sites is promising to move all 1,000+ of his domains off of GoDaddy unless it changes its position on SOPA.

Others on the list of supporters are starting to feel the wrath of Reddit for supporting SOPA as well. 3M, who has been a strong supporter is discovering that their customers are not pleased: Others are starting to feel similar pressure. It wouldn't surprise me to see some of the companies start backing down. In fact, we're already hearing that some of the companies on the list (especially the law firms) have no idea how they got on the list in the first place. Some of the law firms may have clients who support the law, but that's a big difference from actually supporting the law themselves.

On top of that, the backlash is coming out in other ways as well. Paul Graham, the founder/head of YCombinator (where Reddit was first incubated) has announced that he will bar employees from any of those companies from attending YCombinator's famed Demo Days. For those in the Silicon Valley/entrepreneurship/startup world, you know that YCombinator Demo Days are a big deal. It's where all sorts of amazing new stuff gets launched, and big deals are made. Barring SOPA supporters from that event can really hurt those companies. Graham made himself clear:

Several of those companies send people to Demo Day, and when I saw the list I thought: we should stop inviting them. So yes, we’ll remove anyone from those companies from the Demo Day invite list.

He's apparently told the people in charge of Demo Day invites not to allow anyone from those lists. "I don’t know exactly which companies had people on the list. But I know which will now: none of them." He furthermore told TechCrunch that he'll recommend YCombinator startups not take investment money from any of those companies too: "If these companies are so clueless about technology that they think SOPA is a good idea, how could they be good investors?"

Either way, what's becoming clear is that even if some companies support the law, it's not because it's good for their customers. It's precisely the opposite. It's because it'll be useful as a protectionist law to stomp out competition or to protect against having to adapt to innovation. In the past, consumers might not have paid attention, but thanks to efforts like what Reddit and others (Tumblr, Wikipedia, etc.) are doing, it seems like those consumers are starting to speak up and make themselves heard. And the end result is going to be bad for business for the companies supporting SOPA.

Filed Under: activism, boycotts, net roots, pipa, protect ip, sopa, supporters
Companies: 3m, godaddy, reddit, ycombinator