Latest on twitter:

December 22 2011

on SOPA/Protect IP Act

Working in the digital world, it’s hard to miss seeing the SOPA drama. Tweets, blog posts, news articles, petitions… It’s everywhere. 

But I’m wondering if my friends who don’t work in the same industry have seen much about SOPA or how it could affect their lives. (Hi! Are you here friends?)

This is something I feel incredibly strongly about, so I wanted to take a second and give some context to my pals who haven’t heard of SOPA or for those of you who are just lazy and want someone to tell you, in plain English, why SOPA has been in the news lately ;)[And I’m hoping that, as a result of your understanding, you’ll sign this petition asking Obama to veto SOPA.]

First, what exactly is SOPA, you ask? IT’s the Stop Online Piracy Act. Essentially, the bill was created to protect American intellectual property. If you try to re-distribute intellectual property that isn’t yours in America, you’ll likely get in trouble. But what about those people who live in Russia? Or are using a computer an island outside of American jurisdiction? It doesn’t matter if we charge them in a US court because our laws don’t apply to them. 

While intentions were good, the vague language of SOPA will empower corporations to censor the internet. Which is not good. The bills passed would let the attorney general create a list of sites that were essentially blacklisted by search engines, service providers, payment providers, etc - WITHOUT a court hearing or trial. (Um hello, first amendment violation, anyone?!)

Here’s where it gets messy. Because the bill has been designed much like China’s system (though again, without the same intentions!), companies would be responsible for users’ actions. Well-put from an NY Times article, “The burden would be on the website operator to prove that the site was NOT being used for copyright infringement. The effect on user-generated sites like YouTube would be chilling.”

Currently, sites are protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which means that they are protected from prosecution as long as they take down the content that has infringed someone else’s copyright as soon as the find out. Ex: You upload a video to YouTube of a TV show you recorded. If the network that owns the show sees the video, they can request YouTube to take it down and as long as YouTube quickly complies, all is good.

But if SOPA comes into effect, the onus would be on YouTube to check EVERY single video - to vet each and every one - to make sure that there aren’t any copyrighted materials being shared. As of February this year, YouTube said 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute, resulting in nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day. Just think about how many people would be needed to monitor. The cost would likely be unbearable. Even Google would be liable for copyright infringement!

Pair that with the idea of free speech and you’re looking at even more trouble. Studies on global internet censorship show that when the liability/onus is on companies, the employees that are tasked with monitoring are found to play it safe. Meaning that they tend to over-censor. 

From CNET, “Some critics have charged that such language could blacklist the next YouTube, Wikipedia, or WikiLeaks. Especially in the case of WikiLeaks, which has posted internal documents not only from governments but also copyrighted documents from U.S. companies and has threatened to post more, it’s hard to see how it would not qualify for blacklisting.”

Finally, SOPA would create conflicts with DNS servers. If you don’t know what a DNS server is, watch the video above - It’s quick, pretty and painless (and tells you exactly what you need to know and no more.) These conflicts would make YOU more vulnerable to hackers, identity theft and cyber attacks. 

If you’re thinking “Wow, I had no clue SOPA was such a bad idea… I don’t want our interntet to be like China’s… I’m so thankful Rosie showed me the light,” you should sign this petition and consider calling your local representatives (I know it sounds daunting, but read Reddit’s “Idiot’s guide on how to contact your congress person or senator by phone” and it will give you the power!) Gizmodo even put together a list of all the companies supporting SOPA and how to contact them. 

If you want to read more on SOPA and the shit storm it could cause, here are the 5 best resources in my opinion:

BONUS LINK: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Check out Google, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Facebook, AOL and Zynga’s opposition to SOPA: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57325134-281/google-facebook-zynga-oppose-new-sopa-copyright-bill/?tag=mncol%3btxt (PDF of the letter they sent to congress here: http://politechbot.com/docs/sopa.google.facebook.twitter.letter.111511.pdf

  1. mollahasani reblogged this from rosiesiman
  2. scottwsparks reblogged this from rosiesiman and added:
    read this. Lucky...me (& you), Rosie dumbed everything
  3. mrgrafix reblogged this from rosiesiman
  4. laurakandrews reblogged this from rosiesiman
  5. bagendek reblogged this from rosiesiman
  6. jeremydwill reblogged this from rosiesiman
  7. blasko reblogged this from rosiesiman
  8. happierthanu reblogged this from rosiesiman
  9. shaydonarmstrong reblogged this from rosiesiman
  10. tigs reblogged this from rosiesiman
  11. megamindy reblogged this from rosiesiman
  12. nonplaudite reblogged this from rosiesiman
  13. rosiesiman posted this