industryterm:online piracy act

The SOPA Protest

It’s rare when the entire Internet industry rises up with one voice. Perhaps that’s why the protest against the House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate counterpart, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), is getting so much attention. In policy circles, usually one segment of the online industry is jockeying for favorable position against another. Today, with Wikipedia dark, Google taped over, and a host of other sites large and small raising awareness through home page notices, New Media is drawing its line in the sand against the most astounding government overreach into Internet regulation to date.

The bills amount to good intentions gone awry. True, sites that sell brand-name counterfeits and offer illegal downloads are easy to find and no honest user advocates intellectual property theft. But SOPA and PIPA are extremely coercive and heavy-handed, and as both bills have percolated up through the legislative process, opposition has steadily mounted. There have even been outright turnarounds. The Business Software Alliance, a strong supporter of antipiracy measures and an initial backer of SOPA, reversed its position upon examining the bill.

SOPA and PIPA essentially place responsibility-and cost-of policing the Web for IP violations on the shoulders of Web site owners through an electronic version of prior restraint. The law would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to take steps to prevent their customers’ web browsers from connecting to alleged pirating site. Search engines like Google would have to scrub alleged pirating sites from their search results, or else disable links to them. Web advertising delivery systems would be required to block distribution of banners and links. Finally, sites which revolve around user-generated content, such as Facebook and Wikipedia, would be liable for any pirated content or link posted by any one of their millions of visitors.

►http://techliberation.com/2012/01/18/the-sopa-protest

The Pirate Bay is immune to SOPA | ExtremeTech

Over on Techdirt, Mike Masnick has pointed out the mother of all ironies: The Pirate Bay, one of the largest outlets of copyright infringement, would be immune to the takedown tendrils of the imminently incoming Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Apparently it all comes down to the fact that The Pirate Bay has a .org domain — and according to Masnick, the current version of the SOPA bill working its way through congress excludes American domestic domains from being the target of takedown notices from copyright holders. In this case, a “domestic domain” is any domain that comes from a TLD run by an American registry — and sure enough, .org’s registry is Public Interest Registry, a US non-profit based in Virginia. In other words, thepiratebay.org isn’t eligible for a SOPA-based takedown, even if its servers are based in Sweden or another country outside the US.

►http://www.extremetech.com/computing/113275-the-pirate-bay-is-immune-to-sopa

Battle for Internet Freedom Pits Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley - Business - GOOD
►http://www.good.is/post/battle-for-internet-freedom-pits-hollywood-vs-silicon-valley

Users logging into the popular micro-blogging platform Tumblr last Wednesday found every post in their feed had been “blacked out” in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act. Tumblr took the unusual step to inspire its vast user base to lobby against the pending legislation: American users were encouraged to read some anti-SOPA talking points and then be connected directly with their member of Congress. Tumblr says 87,834 of its users did so.

How the Internet Evolves to Overcome Censorship | Techland | TIME.com
►http://techland.time.com/2011/11/21/how-the-internet-evolves-to-overcome-censorship

Last week’s congressional hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, drew attention to the fact that Congress has it within its power to censor the Internet. Dozens of sites across the web blacked-out their logos in opposition to the bill. Social blogging service Tumblr took it farther, redacting all content on its users’ dashboards and asking them to phone their members of Congress, resulting in over 87,000 calls.

Stop the Stop Online Piracy Act !
►http://techliberation.com/2011/11/01/stop-the-stop-online-piracy-act

I have a long analysis and commentary on the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” introduced last week in the House. The bill is advertised as the House’s version of the Senate’s Protect-IP Act, which was voted out of Committee in May.

....

Two good things I found in the 79-page draft:

1. The failure of Protect-IP to define “nonauthoritative domain name server” has been addressed. That term is now defined, and the definition looks correct to me.

2. SOPA recognizes, at least, the better approach to solving the problem of foreign websites that blatantly violate copyright and trademark. Near the back, Section 205 calls on the State and Commerce Departments to make enforcement of existing international law and treaties regarding information products and services a priority. This includes the assignment of new attaches dedicated to information products.

Would that SOPA started and ended with this provision, there would be little basis to fault its drafters. If the problem SOPA is attempting to solve, after all, is the scourge or foreign websites that distribute movies, music, and counterfeit goods without a license (often pretending to be legitimate), then surely the solution is one of foreign and trade policy and not micromanaging Internet protocols.

Instead, we have a bill that treats all U.S. consumers as guilty until proven innocent, and hands Hollywood the keys to the inner workings of the Internet. Just what they’ve always wanted.