1 Don't Censor Me Bro!
2 ====================
3 :author: Aaron Ball
4 :email: nullspoon@iohq.net
5
6 Most of the people who spend any time on this site are likely techies
7 and already know that the road post-SOPA (and PIPA) is a long and dark
8 one. For those of you who may not know exactly what it's all about
9 though, here's a short summary from Wikipedia...
10
11 [quote, Wikipedia, 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act[Stop Online Piracy Act]']
12 ____
13 The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders
14 against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights,
15 or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. After delivering a court
16 order, the U.S. Attorney General could require US-directed Internet service
17 providers, ad networks, and
18 payment processors to suspend doing business with sites found to
19 infringe on federal criminal intellectual property laws. The Attorney
20 General could also bar search engines from displaying links to the
21 sites.
22 ____
23
24 That sounds pretty harmless, doesn't it?
25
26 While the bill seems to have good intentions (who likes a pirate, right?...),
27 the overall consequences of it are heavily dependent on how the bill defines of
28 "copyright infringement". The (very) unfortunate issue here is that the
29 definition of a person infringing a copyright is very broad and could cover a
30 very large portion of the internet. To quote
31 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261.IH:/[section 201],
32 subsection A of subsection A of the SOPA...
33
34 [quote]
35 ____
36 . IN GENERAL- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished
37 as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
38 .. for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
39 .. by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during
40 any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more
41 copyrighted works, or by the public performance by means of digital
42 transmission, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works,
43 when the total retail value of the copies or phonorecords, or of the public
44 performances, is more than $1,000; or
45 .. by the distribution or public performance of a work being prepared for
46 commercial dissemination, by making it available on a computer network
47 accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have
48 known that the work was intended for commercial dissemination.
49 ____
50
51 That's pretty broad. So far, that would most likely shut down Youtube, Facebook
52 (people link to Youtube videos, right?), possibly WIkipedia, and most if not
53 all of the video hosting sites out there (metacafe, vimeo, possibly netflix if
54 their licensing isn't right, etc). A big problem here is that there is that a
55 person uploads to Youtube, yet the website will be taken down for one person,
56 punishing the rest. But that's aside the point (or is it?). Back to the legal
57 talk. In section 201 of the SOPA legislation subsection C under subsection A
58 the bill describes examples of copyrighted material that can be infringed upon
59 (definition of "work being prepared for commercial dissemination") ...
60
61 [quote]
62 ____
63 . a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual
64 work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution or
65 public performance--
66 .. the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution;
67 and
68 .. the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially
69 distributed in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright
70 owner; or,
71 .. the copyright owner does not intend to offer copies of the work for
72 commercial distribution but has a reasonable expectation of other forms of
73 commercial dissemination of the work; and</li>
74 .. the work has not been commercially disseminated to the public in the United
75 States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner;
76 . a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution or public
77 performance, the motion picture--
78 .. has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility;
79 and
80 .. has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the
81 United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner in a format
82 intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility; or
83 .. had not been commercially disseminated to the public in the United States by
84 or with the authorization of the copyright owner more than 24 hours before the
85 unauthorized distribution or public performance.'.
86 ____
87
88 So what we have here is a very broad definition that covers every single
89 copyrighted work of music, software, and sound recording (you can copyright
90 those?) in the United States. That definitely would shut down every single
91 video hosting site and any other site that re-posted videos/recordings from
92 those sites. The consequences of this could be so far reaching.
93
94 This bill is a reaction that reminds me of
95 https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal[Stephanie Lenz vs UMPG], a mother
96 who lost the suit and was put in prison for posting a 29 second video of her
97 child dancing to a Prince song. This kind of response is juvenile at best. SOPA
98 is very similar. I mean, who would shut down an entire website just because
99 someone posted a short clip of your song on their website? This bill can only
100 end poorly. If all it takes to have your website taken down, removed from
101 search engines, and banks required to not do business with you is a single
102 short clip of a copyrighted song or movie, what kind of punishment will we have
103 in 10 years for doing 5 over on the interstate? Moreover, the issue just isn't
104 about an unjust punishment for something that can barely be construed as a
105 misdemeanor in almost every case, it's about censorship. How is it a good thing
106 that one government (let alone more than one) have the power to censor the
107 entire world? We've seen what this can do from China. Why is it that this is
108 even an issue when we've already seen what this does?
109
110 Please check out the
111 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more[Wikipedia
112 page] (the only page that is currently not blacked out), read up on the
113 subject, and contact your local government representative. Wikipedia will get
114 you contact information for who that is if you go to their homepage. Also, if
115 you would like to read the actual bill (as of October 26, 2011), please check
116 out the Library of Congress site
117 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261.IH:/[here].
118
119
120 Category:Politics
121 Category:EFF
122
123
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