Most bills in the U.S. Congress have a ‘companion’ bill setup between offerings in the House of Representatives with similar bills in the Senate. However, if SOPA was “just” a threat to our personal freedoms on the Internet, PIPA makes that threat seem somewhat small by comparison… this new threat would also have the potential to destroy online commerce and Internet governance as we know it.
I’m dead-set on the fact that we should all become more familiar with the bill number system, in order that we can better track them as informed citizens. So, S.968 – A bill whose ‘short title’ is described as the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011” or the “PROTECT IP Act of 2011” (PIPA), is indeed the companion bill to the H.R.3261 – “The Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), but it’s obvious that the members of the House had first choice when it came to bill names.
However, there’s more to the differences than just a name. PIPA would make the streaming of illegally obtained intellectual property a felony, subject to significant jail terms. It would also destroy the so-called ‘safe harbor’ provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which currently gives websites the opportunity to avoid legal action by taking down any offending intellectual property with proper notice.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has said that PIPA and SOPA would both do “lasting damage” to the Internet, and that “The at-all-cost approaches that these bills take to protecting intellectual property sacrifices cybersecurity while restricting free speech and innovation.” In fact, Senator Wyden has promised a filibuster of PIPA on the Senate Floor, and indeed was the Senator who blocked a quorum call on a movement for cloture back on 12/17/2011, thus further delaying a floor vote on the bill.
In contrast, Rhode Island’s own Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse not only sits on the Judiciary Committee that unanimously voted to recommend the bill to the full Senate for a floor vote, but is also a primary co-sponsor of the legislation as well. Now I’ve got to ask myself why a senator who prides himself on his progressive bonafides would support such a bill… and I think you should too.
Sen. Whitehouse has little to hide from us. After all, we do have opensecrets.org working in our favor. Unsurprisingly, the majority of lobbyists for both PIPA and SOPA are in the TV/Music/Movies industry – and just as unsurprisingly, they rank #4 collectively as an industry group on Mr. Whitehouse’s list of campaign and leadership PAC donors. Some of his top corporate donors include DISH Network (#4 overall), Sony Corp (#6), and Time Warner (Rounding out at #10).
Intellectual property theft is in fact a real problem for commerce and innovation in our country and in the world. Why make something new if you are afraid it will just be stolen without consequence? For every example of a large corporation buying up patents and ‘sitting on them’ to prevent competition in the market, there are a legion of examples of small artists, musicians, and filmmakers who actual rely on sales to keep a roof over their heads and food in their kids’ bellies. This is an important issue that must be addressed, but not through the draconian measures described above. This false black-and-white, all-or-nothing choice we’ve been provided with must be challenged, and some legislators are already ahead of the game in that regard.
There are already alternatives to bills like SOPA and PIPA. In fact, a bipartisan compromise bill has been offered by Senator Wyden and Republican Representative Darrell Issa, another vocal opponent of Internet censorship and continued Internet commerce. The Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act would empower the International Trade Commission (ITC) to issue ‘cease and desist’ orders to websites found to provide access to illegally obtained intellectual property. Websites and their owners would have the chance to take that information down within a reasonable period of time before more strict measures would be enforced. Fines would be assessed on non-compliant sites, and further lawsuits would be filed in international courts against offenders outside of the jurisdiction of the United States – all without requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to snoop on American citizens, and all with a significant system of checks-and-balances, requiring warrants as provided for within the U.S. Constitution.
Now if it isn’t all about money Mr. Whitehouse, why would you support a bill that strips away our personal freedoms, has the potential to destroy the innovative American spirit harnessed by the Internet, and otherwise does nothing good but help line the pockets of your corporate campaign contributors? Why not support a bill (like OPEN) that protects intellectual property without throwing innocent people in jail based upon ISP records? I don’t personally like the idea of yet another ‘progressive champion’ falling victim to corruption and the same old equation that Money = Power = Politics.
I’m glad we have Mr. Wyden, all the way out here in my current state of Oregon (although Rhody will always be my home), taking notice that this is NOT a bill progressives should support, let alone co-sponsor.
I’m not sure if anyone knows or cares, but in my youth I was a musician. I played drums for various punk rock bands, and even went on a U.S. tour back in 1994 and played in 27 (I think) states. Back then, piracy was not an issue, except for people making crappy dubbed copies with their tape recorders. When we played shows we sold records, and never even considered a world where everything could be digitized and transmitted electronically to the end user, so we never really thought about having our music ripped off. I know piracy is more than just movies and music, and includes software and technology that companies often spend millions of dollars to produce. But as a microcosm, I think the music industry has still yet to catch up to the technology that allows for instantaneous delivery of content.
To me, I actually like alternative models of delivery content being used by artists and small producers directly. For instance, Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief album was provided online with a “pay what you want” pricetag for those who wanted to download it.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2816893/Radiohead-challenges-labels-with-free-album.html
Fugazi is doing the same sort of thing with ALL of the videos of every show they have recorded.
www.dischord.com/label/fugazi-live-series
And even Louis CK has done this with his performance at Beacon Theater, offering it online for $5 (and it is funny, so you should buy it).
buy.louisck.net/news
In all these cases, people *could* actually steal the content. It’s not that difficult to figure out how to do it. But, quite frankly, if we want people to keep producing stuff (movies, music, books, art, software, games, etc.) they need to get paid for it. And that means people need to pay for it.
Even multi-million dollar software industries such as computer gaming are shifting to new distribution paradigms Brian. Think about games like World of Warcraft, where you can certainly steal the software, but never be able to play it without paying a monthly access fee to use their servers. Other games are free to play, but require you to buy special tokens or bonus points to play effectively with other players in the game — otherwise you aren’t competitive. Facebook and other social networking sites pioneered some of these games, but now they’ve branched out into an entire industry of their own.
Fact of the matter is, every single industry can respond to the new challenges represented by the Internet in terms of IP theft through continued innovation — not by imposing strict laws that violate our citizens’ civil liberties.
What happened when VHS recorders came out? Tapes? CD-ROMs? None of these innovations destroyed the entertainment industry, and I find it hard to believe that we need to defend that industry from the evils of the Internet.
I think we should all definitely support these new content distribution methods, and continue to support (yes, with our dollars) the artists and products we enjoy, rather than stealing them because it’s the easy or cool thing to do.
Here’s a fun tidbit of info: the SOPA bill’s author, Lamar Smith, was found in violation of SOPA, if it were actually law today.
www.ibtimes.com/articles/281037/20120112/lamar-smith-sopa-bill-author-infringing-copyright.htm
His own campaign website could be shut down and the photographer of the stock image used by Smith without attribution would be eligible to file suit. Oh the irony….
Another interesting wrinkle in the PIPA/SOPA debate popped up today in my random tech blog searches.
www.techdirt.com/articles/20120113/09184917400/us-to-extradite-uk-student-copyright-infringement-despite-site-being-legal-uk.shtml
You see, the U.S. is already spending significant resources trying to extradite a U.K. student over here for trial on charges of Internet piracy over a website that actually hosted no illegal content of its own.
He actually didn’t break any laws in the U.K. — and this is what we want our law enforcement agencies spending their time and our tax dollars on? I, for one, think not.
You’re right and I think it’s under-reported how many Republicans are on the better side of this censorship issue. Darrell Issa doesn’t usually stand for anything he doesn’t stand to benefit from financially. But kudos too him and viva bipartisanship.
Frankly, this issue is important enough to me for me to consider never voting for Sheldon Whitehouse again.
He comes down on the same side as I do often, but this would be strike 3.
Strike 1: Vote to continue Bush tax cuts
Strike 2: Voted to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act
Strike 3: Co-sponsored and will likely vote for PIPA
Another update, this time from a place you most likely visited (and saw) today. Did anyone notice Google’s new “Doodle”? It shows how Google might look (a blank screen), if PIPA and SOPA were passed.
www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
According to Google’s data, over 3 million Americans have already signed onto a petition asking Congress to ditch this anti-competitve, short-sighted, and potentially unsafe legislation. Nearly 900,000 have called Congress directly about the same issue, taking the same stance. Their message is clear — the voices of people who oppose this bill are multiplying as more information comes out about the controversial snooping and felony jail time provisions.
In other news, unlike certain members of Congress, President Obama has not turned a deaf ear to these legitimate criticisms.
mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=67BE98D70487C4FBCBF8FB178A6690C0.w5?a=893655&single=1&f=21
“The Obama administration said Saturday that it strongly opposed central elements of two Congressional efforts to enforce copyrights on the Internet, all but killing the current versions of legislation that has divided both political parties and pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley.
The comments by the administration’s chief technology officials, posted on a White House blog Saturday, came as growing opposition to the legislation had already led sponsors of the bills to reconsider a measure that would force Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that offer or link to copyrighted material.
“Let us be clear,” the White House statement said, “online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.” However, it added, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
Bully for the Obama Administration — showing a little guts on such issues as civil liberties, encouraging innovation, and protecting our cyber assets. Funny thing, the writers over in my old building at OMB focused on the most clear technical problems of the bills, and this didn’t come from the Whitehouse directly. So I see it as more of a shot over the bow, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that strategy. But I hope they are ready to threaten a veto if a compromise bill with these troublesome provisions does come together — that will be the real test.
The plot thickens.
Marco Rubio now withdrew his co-sponsorship of PIPA. Sen. Whitehouse; we’re waiting.
@Eazynow:
Funny thing, it’s not just Mr. Rubio who has withdrawn his support. Check out:
www.techdirt.com/articles/20120118/11581717456/more-senators-dropping-off-as-co-sponsors-pipa.shtml?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Names that have come off the co-sponsor list include:
Sen. John Boozman (R-AR)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
and the most surprising one, from a man who really hates the concept of science in general,
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)
So here’s a dilemma for you progressives: What state are we at in politics when Republicans can understand the general uproar and lack of popular support for two potentially poisonous pieces of legislation, but one of the otherwise most progressive senators in all of Congress hasn’t figured it out yet?
I can’t understand the thinking that must be going on right now over in Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s office… these are wildly unpopular bills that also provide no direct benefit to the people of America or Rhode Island, while potentially destroying commerce, civil liberties, AND cybersecurity — and he hasn’t taken his name off the bill before Jim Inhofe (a famous global climate change denier) did?
Wow. Either I’m really missing something, or Sen. Whitehouse is enjoying those corporate campaign contributions a bit too much. Maybe Google and Wikipedia should have donated more so we can get the legislative outcome we want?
I have a simple request: please stop using words like “theft” and “stolen” when discussing copyright infringement. I understand that it is being used as a metaphor, but it adds a whole moral dimension to the discussion that is really not warranted. It also invites people to make stupid analogies like shoplifting merchandise from stores. Intellectual property really is fundamentally different from physical property.
Let’s also not forget that Sheldon voted to give Barack Obama the power to detain any US Citizen for any reason wtihout any due process.
No true “progressive” would have voted for that, FISA, or SOPA.
@RTW: There’s a very important moral dimension to the act of taking something that someone created and is offering for a price in the market, and deciding that person doesn’t deserve your money, and giving them nothing for their work. Most people would equate that act to stealing or thievery. I would.
Now, it would be different if we were calling it a mugging, which has a violent connotation that online intellectual property “taking”, doesn’t.
People create intellectual property like movies, computer programs, music, and other both commercially and culturally important items every day. They aren’t physical, yet they *can* be stolen. People who make a living creating IP would probably have a very serious issue with someone who says that they aren’t allowed to call *some* of these acts “theft”.
I dispute that there’s any difference between the potential *value* of intellectual property and that of physical property.
@forsanri: Nice to see you back on the forums. And no, I didn’t know Sen. Whitehouse had also voted for the Defense Reauthorization Act. He seems to have drunk the cool-aid. Some of these so-called “compromises” are anything but, and are completely unacceptable to most Americans of conscience.
“Most people would equate that act to stealing or thievery.”
Most people are often wrong. Nothing has been stolen because nobody has been deprived of the subject at issue, or even use of the subject in issue. Copyright infringement is a civil licensing dispute over proper proceeds and should be discussed without these kinds of morally-charged and inaccurate legal analogies.
“They aren’t physical, yet they *can* be stolen.”
Legally and factually, they cannot be.
“I dispute that there’s any difference between the potential *value* of intellectual property and that of physical property.”
Physical property can exist without government. Intellectual property can only exist with government licensing and enforcement. What we’re really talking about is a shorthand for granting somebody a monopoly over usage of information. It’s fundamentally different.
Are you trying to have a moral, ethical, or strictly legal debate with me, RTW — I’m trying to figure it out.
You’ll win the legal debate, because I never went to law school. You keep on bringing up very legalistic language… but then you say “factually” that IP can not be stolen. Have you stepped back to think that perhaps we have a slightly different definition of the word “stolen”?
I believe someone can “steal” my ideas if I write them down and they end up making money off of reading that paper without my permission. You don’t see it that way, I get it. But having a semantical argument about a basic definition isn’t going to progress this overall debate about how to address “the issue”, which yes, could be similarly characterized as copyright infringement.
Interestingly enough, by your comments, it would seem you don’t even like the idea of IP (copyrights) at all. But without computer programs, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all right now. What operating system are you running? It’s not open-source Linux, is it? If so, kudos to you. I use Windows. I paid for it happily because it works for what I need it to do.
People made those programs with the idea that they could make money doing it. If there’s a worry that someone will just steal everything they make and they won’t be able to feed themselves, they will probably find another line of work.
Originally, I wasn’t trying to have a debate at all, but the way I see it, intellectual property is a utilitarian creation of law based on economic grounds and should be treated as such. I just ask that people stay away from words like “theft” and “stealing” because it demonizes people based on an analogy with criminal, often violent behavior that really isn’t accurate.
“Interestingly enough, by your comments, it would seem you don’t even like the idea of IP (copyrights) at all.”
That’s true, I do not support intellectual property. Aside from the philosophical issues about what constitutes actual property and what rights we have to prohibit others from acting when they aren’t literally harming anyone, I think the economic justification for it is extremely weak and the U.S. patent and copyright system is a broken mess that hampers innovation at least as much as it spurs it and in reality benefits only the largest corporations against smaller competitors. At the very least, copyright terms should be drastically reduced in length (life of the author + 70 years is not even remotely in the spirit of “a limited time” in the Constitution), and patents should be available for varying terms based on R&D cost instead of the nonsensical one-size-fits-all 20 years patent given out like candy (redundant, already infringing patents are a huge problem). Business method and software patents have their own unique, well-publicized problems as well.
” But without computer programs, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all right now.”
I reject the premise that there would be no computer programs without intellectual property as a false dichotomy, and I can easily envision increased innovation without it. Would you be surprised to learn that there are software patents on things like clicking on links and scrolling? I’m sure you’ve heard of “patent trolls” that use such patents to sue anybody and everybody they can to get a quick 5-6 figure settlement.
“People made those programs with the idea that they could make money doing it. If there’s a worry that someone will just steal everything they make and they won’t be able to feed themselves, they will probably find another line of work.”
If you’re truly offering something valuable, then there are always ways to make money off of it without forcing people to pay you through government. If somebody can’t think of a way to do that, then they simply aren’t being innovative enough or their product isn’t really worth what they think it is. It is interesting to note that most musician revenue used to come from CD sales, but now it comes from performances. Video games are moving to online models that require constant connection and updates, or offering games free and making money off of personalized microtransactions and advertising. There are huge first-to-market advantages in most fields. Further interesting is the fact that there is no intellectual property in the fashion world, which is also regarded as highly innovative and profitable despite that fact.
As a purer thought experiment, I often ask proponents of intellectual property if they honestly think society would have been better off if fire, wood houses, and the wheel had been patented and restricted instead of allowing the rapid spread of those innovations throughout the world.
Again, I disagree completely that the word “stealing” or “theft” are directly aligned with the word “violent” — again, we have a word for that, and it’s called “mugging”.
You also didn’t tell me what software you were using right now: is it open-source, or was it developed by a private company?
You don’t need to tell me, but I bet if I did a poll of RIFuture, the vast majority would not be using open source. Why? Linux makes a great server… it makes a pretty crappy general-purpose ease-of-use box. So I refute your assertion that greater innovation would come from a complete lack of copyrighting and IP, since it’s quite obvious that people tend to prefer software that doesn’t come from the minds of people who just have a lot of free time on their hands.
Also, if you had read my earlier comments about online content distribution models, you would have seen that I referenced that already.
Yes, I’m well aware of the dangers of over-patenting, over-copyrighting, and companies whose sole business model is to buy up and sit on individual pieces of intellectual property to collect royalties or penalties. The U.S. system is indeed broken, and I don’t disagree with you at all about the fact that it needs a complete overhaul — the E.U. system has many advantages, not the least of which being the specific prevention of IP monopolies.
That said, this bill will only make the situation worse, and will continue to prove that the U.S. isn’t at all serious about providing an economic environment conducive to innovation.