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REDDIT, BOING BOING and a number of other high-profile websites have declared their planned participation in an ‘internet blackout’ this Wednesday to protest proposed US legislation which opponents say will cripple web freedom and impose internet censorship.
The legislation is known as SOPA – and here’s our guide to what it and the protests are all about.
What is SOPA?
SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is to be voted on by the United States House of Representatives later this month. Meanwhile, the US Senate is to vote on its corresponding legislation, the Protect IP Act (or PIPA).
In a nutshell, if enacted the bills would extend the powers of US law enforcement agencies and copyright holders over copyrighted material sold or distributed online.
Under the legislation, copyright holders would be able to launch legal action against websites which had facilitated the unauthorised distribution of their material. A court order could then freeze the website’s accounts, ban search engines from linking to it, and bar its advertisers from continuing to advertise on the site.
Unauthorised commercial streaming would also become a criminal offence.
Under SOPA, ISPs would also be expected to prevent US users accessing a “foreign infringing site”, although they will not have to redirect the user to another site.
Who objects to the legislation?
The Center for Democracy and Technology has compiled a list of websites and organisations which have expressed their concern over SOPA and PIPA, including Twitter, Facebook, Google, PayPal, Reddit, Scribd, Vimeo, Etsy and Wikipedia.
TechCrunch notes that GoDaddy pulled its support for the legislation after the company lost thousands of domains after it appeared on the US House judiciary committee’s official list of SOPA supporting companies.
That list (available here as a pdf) includes a number of media and publishing companies such as CBS, Directors Guild of America, EMI, ESPN and HarperCollins, as well as pharmaceutical firms and motor companies. The legislation’s supporters say that greater efforts need to be made against online piracy and copyright violation.
Why the objections?
Concerns have been raised that the legislation could have a serious impact on the freedom of expression enshrined in America’s First Amendment by allowing US authorities to shut down any website and its source of revenue. They also say it could negatively impact on whistleblowing and people trying to highlight human rights abuses.
The Center for Democracy and Technology’s David Sohn says that SOPA carries “dangerous consequences for innovation in online communications tools, for online free expression and for cybersecurity”.
The White House has said it believes there is a line in how unauthorised streaming or piracy should be tacked by legislation:
While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet.
Meanwhile, Boing Boing says the legislation would make linking to other sites a minefield:
[W]e could not ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we’d have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site.
Wikipedia said that despite it’s position against copyright infringement, it does not support SOPA’s approach because it “represents the flawed proposition that censorship is an acceptable tool to protect rights owners’ private interests in particular media. That is, SOPA would block entire foreign websites in the United States as a response to remove from sight select infringing material.”
The group Fight for the Future is calling for websites to participate in Wednesday’s protest against both bills by ‘going dark’ on the day and posting the image shown above on this piece on their websites. It says that it has been overwhelmed with the response to the strike call.
Over 1 million emails have been sent to members of Congress, while 6,00 sites have signed up to the anti-SOPA and PIPA campaign, according to AmericanCensorship.net.
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SOPA has been shelved! Awesome!
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2012_01/putting_sopa_on_a_shelf034765.php
Brilliant.
Nice!
Anonymous message to Sony regarding SOPA.
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/anonymous-targets-sony-over-sopa-nintendo-quietly-withdraws-support-20111230/
Let’s pretend to be honest here for a minute, Protecting Freedom of Speech is a red herring when it comes to getting Music and films for free off the internet.
We all do it, but lets not call it protecting free speech!
Let’s actually be honest here for a minute, Limiting freedom of speech by handing over control of the internet to the US government for the sake protecting a small minority record labels that feel they are more entitled than other industries is crap.
Not to mention the companies pushing for these privileges have also proven they will not hesitate to use the privileges they gain not just to prevent piracy but to silence potential competing distributors.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/umg-we-have-the-right-to-block-or-remove-youtube-videos.ars
Nobody is calling piracy free speech, we’re calling free speech free speech.
Personally, I have no problem with this as it stops piracy. In reality, the companies that are objecting to this are really looking at their bottom line and have no interest in freedom of speech (unless they can profit from it).
The reality is that on a nod and a wink and without any legislation in place, these companies were quite happy to close down Wikileaks by denying it access to payment platforms and hosting options. They are private companies and can do what they like when they like. The so called “freedom” that exists on the Internet is only as and when it suits them and so far it has.
Make sure you never sing Happy Birthday and upload it to YouTube then. You know that’s copyrighted too??
Absolute pure and utter ignorance to state “as it stops piracy” as even these people have stated that piracy can never be stopped unless you turn off the internet.
Simply put, have a way (e.g. Netflix atm) to stream these services at a reasonable price and much easier than downloading illegally. When you have a service for lets says e10-e15 a month for up to date tvshows and movies, people wouldn’t bother their arses going to these virus riddled warez sites. It’s about innovation not legislation.
But the likes of Rupert Murdoch absolutely detest the idea of freedom on the internet. They want control, they need it. Next thing they’ll be doing is going after people who go over to friends houses and watch a movie because they didn’t pay for it! :)
Unfortunately, the “it stops piracy” argument sounds great, but not only is it not true (as piracy truly cannot be stopped), it is not the only thing this bill does (though the drafters of the bill would like you to assume it is). Even still, people who believe this would have no true effect on the internet (the drafters and its supporters) do not truly understand the underlying infrastructure of the internet. And those who believe stopping piracy would actually do anything to revenues of companies that have their media pirated do not truly understand pirates.
Also, while I may agree that corporations are more out to watch their profit margins than they are to protect freedom of speech, since when did it become bad for a corporation to care if it loses money? Wouldn’t that be a normal thing for a corporation to fight back against? Regardless, corporations like Google and Amazon generally don’t make money from piracy, so them “fighting back against it” doesn’t really gain them anything monetarily, so I’m not sure you can make that argument against them anyway.
The Debate Community Political Buddies (http://www.politicalbuddies.com) is also participating in this blackout. Sites like ours, which foster free speech, and promote people expressing themselves and their political views online will never be able to survive under this bill. Under SOPA we will be on comparable internet censoring levels with such nations such as Venezuela, China, and Iran. This is unamerican and must be stopped!
Two frightening pieces of controversial legislation, SOPA and The NDAA only go to further stifle our Constitutional Rights without the approval of the Americans, just as the Patriot Act was adopted WITHOUT public approval or vote just weeks after the events of 9/11. A mere 3 criminal charges of terrorism a year are attributed to this act, which is mainly used for no-knock raids leading to drug-related arrests without proper cause for search and seizure. The laws are simply a means to spy on our own citizens and to detain and censor public opinion without trial or a right to council. You can read much more about living in this Orwellian society of fear and see my visual response to these measures on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/09/living-in-society-of-fear-ten-years.html
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