PIPA & SOPA Must Die!

Absolutely (0.00 / 0)

We must stop these bills from becoming law. They are full of things that will have terrible unintended consequences. The Internet is only 6 percent of the economy but is more than 15 percent of the growth. Let's not mess it up, people!

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by: edfactor @ Mon Dec 26, 2011 at 23:20:19 PM UTC

Attention Must Be Paid (5.00 / 1)

This is typical of what goes on in government. Slip in a provision at the behest of special interests to benefit special interests at the expense of everyone else. Hence the need for "eternal vigilance" on our part.

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by: The Angelic One @ Tue Dec 27, 2011 at 15:30:05 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Terrible idea (0.00 / 0)

As the author cites, the goal is reasonable but the means to achieve the goal is horrible....like trying to stop burglars by removing the road in front of your house.  And then filing charges against the gas station who sold the would be thieves fuel.

This is nothing more than an admission that something bad is going on and holding others accountable because there is no reasonable means to catch the bad guy directly.

And as a sometimes tech guy...messing with DNS to address a problem that is not a naming resolution problem....REALLY REALLY BAD IDEA.  It's worse than any horrible solution I could dream up on my worst day.

Suffering Battered Voter Syndrome since 8/31/1981

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by: garyrlake @ Mon Dec 26, 2011 at 23:44:36 PM UTC

I'm Hip With That, Gary (0.00 / 0)

And the sad reality is that a LOT of REALLY horrible ideas become law due, in part, to the inattention (if not indifference) of a lot of our legislators.

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by: The Angelic One @ Tue Dec 27, 2011 at 15:35:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Politico picked this up (0.00 / 0)

Good job

Full Disclosure


http://www.redmassgroup.com/pr...

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by: Rob "EaBo Clipper" Eno @ Tue Dec 27, 2011 at 19:46:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks, Rob (0.00 / 0)

Maybe I should create my own blog & do this for a living.

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by: The Angelic One @ Tue Dec 27, 2011 at 21:45:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not Only Picked Up, But Quoted (0.00 / 0)

Here's the link to Politico

http://www.politico.com/news/s...

With the following as the second paragraph:

"If either the U.S. Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist," wrote a blogger at Red Mass Group.

Very well done!!

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by: ConsEph @ Tue Dec 27, 2011 at 22:34:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Lame. (0.00 / 0)

They didn't even name him.  But with PIPA they damn well would have!  Think about it.

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"That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said." - Metropolitan (1990)

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by: Patrick @ Wed Dec 28, 2011 at 03:02:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Just to provoke some discussion (4.00 / 1)

You're all climbing on board with a company that's proposed to violate the copyright of every American author by uploading their work without license or payment, and provides a search tool that gives anyone in the world look at the cars in your driveway?

"Effectively break the internet?"

That's horseshit.

Is it a good bill? I don't know - I haven't read it. But before you all go writing letters to your COngressman, don't take Google's word for it - read it yourself.

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by: smallfish @ Wed Dec 28, 2011 at 04:50:00 AM UTC

I Agree, Smallfish (0.00 / 0)

Google has had many a critical barb justifiably tossed its way. And its complaints about possible US censorship is ironic when one considers its current relationship with communist China. But even if the messenger may a jerk, it doesn't follow that the message itself should automatically be deemed suspect. The concerns raised by Google (& other entities) about the negative consequences that may unfold should PIPA & SOFA become law are in my mind legitimate. The proponents of both proposals should go back to the drawing board & devise legislation that (in effect) won't throw the baby out with the bath water.

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by: The Angelic One @ Wed Dec 28, 2011 at 22:10:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

As the owner of copyrighted material (0.00 / 0)

that is subject to piracy from hundreds of foreign sources (even countries party to international copyright treaties), I am not sympathetic to the claim of Google that it can't be held responsible for aiding and abetting illegal activity by giving access to its platform for those pirates to market my stolen material.

Which specific consequences do you feel are legitimate concerns?  

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by: smallfish @ Wed Dec 28, 2011 at 22:46:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Specific Consequences? You Want Specific Consequences? (0.00 / 0)

First as a fellow owner of copyrighted material (albeit in a different medium), I too share your concerns about said material being stolen & disseminated by a variety of thieves both domestic & foreign. The impetus behind PIPA & SOFA, as articulated by its advocates, is to deal directly with this problem. I too support sensible legislation that deals with copyright infringement & piracy.

What I don't support is the kind of legislation - embodied by PIPA & SOFA - that enacts government controls/regulations that essentially disfigures (if not destroys) the internet as we know it today. One alternative piece of legislation called the OPEN Act has been proposed to deal with rogue websites such as The Pirate Bay. The OPEN Act at this juncture isn't perfect & remains a legislative work-in-progress:

The OPEN Act would attempt to interrupt the flow of funds to offshore piratical Web sites by targeting only Internet ad networks and "financial transaction providers" such as credit card companies -- stopping short of SOPA's approach of allowing the Justice Department to seek a court order blocking Americans from accessing "rogue" Web sites.

While advocates for PIPA & SOFA argue that the OPEN Act doesn't go far enough (& to some extent I concede they're right), the solutions they propose go too far. Ed Lyon's comments (listed below) presents from a techie point of view examples on how the passage of PIPA or SOFA will have a direct impact on blogs such as Red Mass Group (RMB) as well as on the owners of said blogs.

An amendment to the existing SOFA legislation has been offered in light of the fury said legislation has engendered. Stewart Baker of The Volokh Conspiracy examined it & found no comfort in its changes:

It's hard to escape the conclusion that this provision is aimed squarely at the browser companies. Browsers implementing DNSSEC will have to circumvent and bypass criminal blocking, and in the process, they will also circumvent and bypass SOPA orders. The new bill allows the AG to sue the browsers if he decides he cares more about enforcing his blocking orders than about the security risks faced by Internet users. Indeed, the opaque language about "another in concert with such entity" makes perfect sense in the context of browser extensions.  It allows the AG to sue not just browsers but also add-ons with this feature.

OK, that's the law.  Now imagine you are Microsoft, or Google, or Apple, or Mozilla.  The DNSSEC guys come to you and ask you to implement DNSSEC.  It won't increase your revenue, they admit, but it will make the Internet much safer for your users.  You want to be a good internet citizen, so you think maybe you should devote some precious code-writing resources to the cause.  But first you ask your lawyers whether they foresee any problems.

"Well, yes," they'd have to say. "If you add code to the browser that implements DNSSEC, you'll have to add code that circumvents criminal hijackings of the DNS system.  And that code can be declared illegal by the Attorney General pretty much whenever he likes.  You can litigate about it, of course, but if you lose, the AG can shut down all shipments of your browser until it's been revised to the satisfaction of his staff and their advisers in Hollywood."

Faced with that advice, would you implement DNSSEC?

Neither would I.

And neither have a group of top internet engineers who denounced PIPA & SOFA as threats that "would pose major technological barriers for the Web and stifle new innovations."

I find it interesting that two strong supporters of SOFA is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) & the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The former is represented by former Congressman Chris Dodd who claims that America should act more like China in how it censors - oops, I mean regulates - the internet. And the legalistic hardline approach taken by the RIAA against file-sharing kids not too long ago only made the younger generation even more committed to the idea that music should be "free" - to the point where the music industry's old paradigm has practically imploded upon itself. The public is against what it views as the over-priced garbage pushed upon them by greedy executives in the movie & music industries. It has rebelled by embracing technologies that make it possible for them to obtain disposable "product" (not collectable "art") either for free or for a fraction of retail cost. The MPAA & the RIAA reacts NOT by listening & then acting upon what is being told to them by the marketplace (give us better movies & music at an acceptable point of purchase) but instead wants to use the ligature of government regulations to strangle the body politic until it ceases to breathe free anymore.

As a fellow Republican and a former legislator, I would think that you'd be concerned about increasing the regulatory power of our modern Leviathan government. You don't have to be the hapless fictional lead character in Terry Gillian's brilliant dystopian satire Brazil to experience first hand what happens when the bureaucracy runs amok. You can read about how it happens in real life. And it ain't pretty.

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by: The Angelic One @ Thu Dec 29, 2011 at 04:45:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

RMG itself might disappear; Rob could be arrested (0.00 / 0)

As someone who writes software for a living and knows in detail how the "plumbing" of the Internet works, I will try to explain the serious downsides instead of just linking to the many sites about this issue.

First, the burden of policing. So right now, someone could be posting either copyrighted material (text or images) on Red Mass Group. Of course, Rob has a policy against this, and would encourage people to remove that, though he often does not. The law currently says that as long as Rob didn't do it, didn't encourage it, and had a policy against it, that he won't be literally arrested. The person who posted that content might just get arrested, though. The law recognizes that it is the poster who has broken the law, and not Rob.

But that all changes with the proposed legislation. Now, Rob is directly responsible also. He must actively police and remove content or else it's his ass. He can be arrested now. Not only that, as soon as a piece of copyrighted content appears, or as soon as a link is seen, Red Mass Group itself can be blacklisted from the routing infrastructure of the Internet. I am not kidding. You get notified, there is no hearing, and you have five days to respond. Then, the Internet itself has www.redmassgroup.com removed from directory servers around the country and everyone gets a "site not found" error message.  Yes, the bill asks that just the offending page get blocked, but for many parts of the infrastructure, they can't block a page, most will have to block the entire site.

Many of the big websites we know today that have added tremendously to the economy would never exist today if they had to actively filter everything everyone posted. (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube). Yes, they do filter now, but even with today's technology, they will would have to do a lot of it manually. The worst part is that it is not just a matter of arresting the site owner, but that the infrastructure of the Internet itself must be altered to block the offending site from view.

It gets worse.

To make sure that blacklisting is durable, search engines cannot show that url or provide a way around the block. If you write software that gets around censorship in dictatorships, you have to modify it to honor content blacklisting - even if that is not what the tool is for. If you don't, you get arrested too if even one person uses your tool to get to a site blacklisted for a copyright modification.

Entire open source communities around the world that deal with infrastructure would have to comply with these blacklists or face serious consequences.

I don't want to get into a lot of technical detail, but believe me that you don't want to deal with the problem in this way. Here is an analogy that shows the madness:

- There is a child molester who is out on parole and the federal government wants to make sure he can't harm anyone. The solution is this: all taxi companies must have his name and picture so they don't take him to a school or playground. All street maps must be altered to show his location. All employers nationwide that have children on their premises must have his name and picture. All of his neighbors are required to report any strange things he does. All online services must know who he is and his IP address and prevent him from finding out about kids nearby. If any neighbor, cab driver, online service, or employer makes it possible, even by accident or without knowing anything about him, for him to get to a child - they will face arrest. Anyone who makes software that he could use to get information on kids - even if it was not designed to do that - will also be arrested.

So yes, we all want to protect kids - but would we really want to do something like that about the problem!?  No way.

Sorry to go on for so long, but I hope this helps you understand why every techie in the world is against this vast intrusion into the Internet and the Internet economy. A different approach must be taken to protect content owners' rights.

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by: edfactor @ Thu Dec 29, 2011 at 02:03:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

List of Supporters: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (0.00 / 0)

I found this list of SOPA supporters thanks to www.ComicBookResources.com.  They listed it because Marvel Comics is in support of SOPA.  It's not a surprise but Disney, via the their publishing arm as well as via ABC, Hyperion, and ESPN supports it as well.  Disney bought Marvel about 2 years ago now.  In the interest of full disclosure, I've collected well over 40,000 comics over the past 20 years, the vast majority being Marvel.  I also go on waaaaay too many Disney vacations. :)  

Seriously, There are plenty of other interesting organizations in support in the full list provided by the House Judiciary Committee.

Others include News Corp, CBS, NFL, MLB, Universal, Viacom, and a great many others.

List of Supporters: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act

http://judiciary.house.gov/iss...

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by: BNCordeiro @ Sat Dec 31, 2011 at 23:33:48 PM UTC

Many Of Marvels Fans Don't Support SOPA (0.00 / 0)

And some of them are shocked - shocked! - that the House of Ideas that Stan Lee helped to build has become an advocate for SOPA.

I'm not surprised a lot of media companies are blindly supporting SOPA. I've seen this movie before. It reminds me of the many health organizations that were equally blind in their support for Obamacare.

Here's a quick primer on the dangers of SOPA. As a liberty-loving conservative & frequent blogger on this site, you should instinctively oppose SOPA. 'Nuff said!

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by: The Angelic One @ Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 03:00:07 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hitler Reacts To SOPA (0.00 / 0)

Even the vain Fuehrer can't believe that there's something in the free world more evil than himself!

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by: The Angelic One @ Sun Jan 01, 2012 at 03:20:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree with the post! (0.00 / 0)

I agree SOPA and PIPA must die it is going to do little but stunt the creativity of the masses it only really advantages the big media companies who probably started as small time directors, song writers or programmers. These bills will destroy sites such as funny junk (a prominent source of my entertainment) just for using images that don't have direct authorization from the original creator
Where do you think most of the internet's meme's come from

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by: Rikosato @ Thu Mar 15, 2012 at 07:01:48 AM UTC