By Brad Chacos on January 17, 2012 in
Stopping online piracy: who could be against that? It's like protesting kittens -- it just doesn't make sense. But a copyright protection bill working its way throughout the U.S. House of Representatives -- the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA -- has hordes of people up in arms, including the American Society of News Editors and major tech companies like Google, AOL, eBay, LinkedIn and PayPal. So what is SOPA? Why do some loathe it and others love it? Most importantly of all, what does it mean to you?
What is SOPA?
Basically, SOPA -- and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), SOPA's Senate sister --targets foreign websites that host or sell materials that infringe U.S. copyrights, and the bill hits them where it hurts: the wallet.
SOPA gives the Department of Justice and copyright holders the power to obtain a court injunction and force a foreign website's ad and payment processing partners (such as Google Adsense and Visa, respectively) to stop doing business with the site. A DOJ injunction would require search engines to scrub the infringing sites from their results as well. Effectively, it would be very difficult for the sites to make money, especially money from U.S.-based shoppers.
Why do copyright holders like SOPA?
Simply put: it could financially strangle a large segment of the black market.
Existing laws established by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act allow copyright holders to demand that websites take down infringing materials. Since overseas sites don't fall under U.S. jurisdiction, content creators have had a difficult time getting copyrighted materials removed from foreign sites. SOPA cuts off funding and advertising for infringing websites, which advocates say is a much more effective deterrent.
By effectively blacklisting foreign infringers, SOPA makes it more likely that consumers will turn to legal buying avenues, instead. Supporters say the increased income for copyright holders should lead to increased innovation and job opportunities domestically.
Why do techies (and others) hate SOPA?
SOPA critics agree that Internet piracy and copyright infringement is a major problem. They just say the way SOPA handles it is an even bigger problem.
Since the bill punishes anyone who links to infringing content, and not just the infringers themselves, some call SOPA over-reaching. "I understand the goal of what SOPA and PIPA are trying to do," Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told TheHill.com. "Their goal is reasonable, their mechanism is terrible. They should not criminalize the intermediaries. They should go after the people that are violating the law."
SOPA also makes it a crime for any website, including domestic websites, to provide tools or information that could be used to bypass the censorship provision -- included the aforementioned links to blacklisted websites. The Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that will cost website owners big, as they'll be forced to constantly police their sites for comments or other user-generated content that could make the site even potentially liable. The cost of maintaining a website could rise significantly.
Another provision allows service providers (like Comcast and MasterCard) to voluntarily block access to content without a court order as long as they have a "reasonable belief" that it hosts infringing material. Why would they do that? Because the penalties for violating SOPA hurt, and service providers that voluntarily remove content are awarded immunity from prosecution or liability -- even if the blocked content wasn't actually infringing any copyrights. "The standard for immunity is incredibly low and the potential for abuse is off the charts," the EFF says.
Those concerns lead to cries of censorship from critics. Vague wording in SOPA worries others. "Our members use the Internet in ways that could be construed to violate SOPA, and that's not acceptable," the American Society of News Editors wrote in a letter to Congress.
Opponents have scored one recent victory. As originally written, the bills included provisions that required DNS (Domain Name Service) filtering. That would make it impossible to get to an offending domain by typing its website address into a browser as such requests would automatically redirect to a different location. Critics complained loudly that this type of filtering could inflict excessive "collateral damage" to non-offending sites, would do little to stop piracy as you still could reach the site by using its actual IP address, and could potentially make the Internet less secure. Those provisions have now been stripped from the bill.
Websites to blackout in protest
Web surfers may run into repercussions even before the bills are voted on; tomorrow, January 18th, several websites -- including Wikipedia and the popular user-discussion forum Reddit.com -- will be blacked out to protest SOPA/PIPA. Rather than displaying their usual content, the websites will provide a synopsis of their opposition and urge readers to contact their Congressional representatives. Google will also be placing anti-SOPA links on its homepage.
What does it mean for you?
Here are a few things you may see if the bills pass:
- Job creation in industries that benefit from SOPA
- Reduced user interaction opportunities on websites
- Over-zealous removal of user-generated content (pictures, words, links, etc.) on websites
- Continued blackout-style protests from websites
- Increased innovation in industries that benefit from SOPA
- Fewer technological innovations due to reduced funding in Web ventures
- Possible Internet connectivity issues for both blacklisted and non-blacklisted websites if DNS provisions are reinstated
Recent developments
Over the weekend, California Rep. Darrel Issa postponed a SOPA hearing after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told him the bill will not be voted on unless a consensus is reached, which currently seems unlikely. Additionally, the Obama administration issued a statement that strongly suggests it will not sign off on SOPA/PIPA in their current forms, and, as noted above, the sponsors of both bills agreed to remove controversial "DNS blacklisting" provisions from the legislation.
Even though SOPA seems to be up in the air, PIPA is still slated for a Senate vote on January 24. If you feel strongly for or against either bill, be sure to contact your Congressional representatives soon.