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Law Professors On SOPA and PIPA: Don't Break the Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Law professors Mark Lemley, David S. Levine, and David G. Post have just published a piece on the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. In Don't Break the Internet, they argue that the two bills — intended to counter online copyright and trademark infringement — 'share an underlying approach and an enforcement philosophy that pose grave constitutional problems and that could have potentially disastrous consequences for the stability and security of the Internet's addressing system, for the principle of interconnectivity that has helped drive the Internet's extraordinary growth, and for free expression.' They write, 'These bills, and the enforcement philosophy that underlies them, represent a dramatic retreat from this country's tradition of leadership in supporting the free exchange of information and ideas on the Internet. At a time when many foreign governments have dramatically stepped up their efforts to censor Internet communications, these bills would incorporate into U.S. law a principle more closely associated with those repressive regimes: a right to insist on the removal of content from the global Internet, regardless of where it may have originated or be located, in service of the exigencies of domestic law.'"
When is the public going to actually get the opinion from a Network expert and not people that deal with law?
Even if they were passed. Honestly, I feel that internet providers, will not obey these laws even if they were passed. Because if they did, These ISPS ( I suppose tier 3 and 2 mainly) will be signing their own death warrants. And for once their own self interest is in agreement with what reason and logic dictates - My honest opinion.
US Congress proposes bill that violates Constitution. News at 11.
Libertarians (and truly conservative conservatives, not just the "gays are bad, m'kay" kind) have been warning this was the inevitable end of the gradual expansion of US government that has been happening over the last 60-odd years. And look! It's happening. Already happened actually (in the form of the TSA). Of course, both parties are on the gravy train now. Except Ron Paul and Ron Wyden and a handful of others. And I doubt they can stop it.
The end of any government that continually expands in power (and money) and never grows smaller is tyranny and repression, and it always has been. Thousands of years of history back this up. Only way to stop it in the US is cut it's funding and authority. And I mean cut: as in, halve it over 5 years. More would be ideal. And of course restore the state rights back to the states. Never happen of course. If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go think about where I want to live instead in 5-10 years.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
As we all should be living to 150+ years soon(tm) I think they should just raise the copyright length in America from 120 years to a completely reasonable 500 years.
There's a rival proposal in the House called the Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act, or OPEN, which claims to be better than SOPA/PIPA but does similar things in a different way. I suspect it's better to do nothing at all than approve any of these bills, even OPEN, but it's hard to say because OPEN doesn't get as much coverage. It would be nice if OPEN were included in the discussion in the future.
I am heartened by the overwhelming list of experts and public figures who have come out against these bills. However I can't help but feel that the Senators and Representatives who are debating it will never know. Slashdot's catalog of evidence against SOPA and PROTECTIP may as well be invisible to them. These people are trying to regulate something like the Internet but could never be found in a place where real experts have these discussions. How frustrating.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Do you honestly believe that the bills having that effect is accidental?
- Haw, what are you doing, SOPA? What are you doing, you fat piece of legislation? Where's it going? What's that fat piece of legislation doing now? Oh sh*t! Aaah! Ooow! Aaah! It's hitting the Internet! It's hittin ma Internet! Don't break my Internet! Don't break my Internet! It's breakin ma Internet!
From the viewpoint of the people proposing and supporting the law, if it breaks the Internet, too bad.
In their view, nothing is more important than the principle of them controlling their copyrights. If it takes the destruction of the Internet, so be it.
I imagine if buggy whip manufacturers would have had a better lobby 100+ years ago, they would have lobbied for laws that would have forced motorists to always keep a buggy whip in their car.
Well ladies and gentlemen, record, film, game, and software companies do have better lobbyist. And they're not afraid to use them.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The proponents of these bills consider the breaking of the 'Net a feature, not a bug. They won't be happy until it's been reduce to nothing more than pay-per-view TV v2.0.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
The incumbent politicians do not want extraordinary growth and free expression. If your argument starts with that position, you have already lost them.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Or does it really seem like our country is going straight down the toilet at an accelerating rate? I mean I know I've only been alive for so long and I've only been paying attention to this stuff for a shorter period of time, but the events that occurred over the course of the last decade (and especially the last few years) combined with the policies that have been set up over the last 30 years or so is really starting to make me think we're in serious trouble. I mean real. serious. trouble.
Am I way off? Has our country been in a situation like this before where all the powers-that-be seem to be working together for their benefit, at the expense of everyone else's freedoms, liberties, and way of life?
Please tell me I'm wrong...
giggity
Politicians only care about who is contributing to their campaigns. They don't give hoot about whether is right, or wrong, or smart, or stupid.
You really don't need to know much about the details of TCP/IP, or DNS, to understand these proposed laws.
The idea of these laws is to circumvent the standard law enforcement process.
The whole point is to break the Internet! The mainstream media hates the Internet, because people can be more than just passive consumers of entertainment and products. SOPA and PIPA are just one more step in a long chain of attacks on the philosophy that underlies the very architecture of the Internet.
For the past few years, the RIAA and MPAA have been working hard to undermine and destroy peer-to-peer networking on the Internet, because it does not fit into the distribution model they are comfortable with. In the view of the mainstream media, the corporations and the politicians that support them, people are supposed to pay for things, and they are not supposed to assist in the distribution chain unless they are being paid to do so. The idea that computing resources or communication resources can be shared is antithetical to the old media barons, because they want to be the center of the universal. To them, distribution costs are paid for by copyright holders, who recoup those costs by selling copies of entertainment in its various forms.
What they want, in other words, is the Cable TV system. They like the way that cable works -- a relatively small number of head ends that distribute the entertainment, which can easily be policed for violations. Set-top boxes are designed to prevent users from stepping outside the bounds of what the copyright holders demand. Restrictions on distribution can be negotiated with a small number of entities that control the entire network.
They want to break the Internet, so that they can rebuild it. They want a star architecture for the network. They want to routers that block access to "rogue websites." DRM was pioneered by Cable TV and its cousin, satellite (see: HBO). They want the same thing to happen on the Internet, which means they need to recreate the entire network to better suit that purpose.
Palm trees and 8
Strange, there seem to be a lot of laws passed that are unconstitutional ... why would this one be any different?
They want the same thing they already have with the cable TV system: a neat little topology where consumers are just endpoints that passively receive entertainment (for a fee), and the powerful network operators and media executives get to decide what people are allowed to see.
Palm trees and 8
Like other unconstitutional laws, if either of these pass they'll simply be challenged immediately in Federal courts.
If anyone like RIAA wants to be dicks about it, it'll go to the Supreme Court and be defeated there.
The political system is being closed. Read Naomi Wolfe, watch her on Youtube. Read Glen Greenwald at Salon.
The consequences of this law are fully intended by all parties.
There is no other important issue in the next election, as there will be no other meaningful elections if this process isn't stopped.
The only candidate who supports the Constitution and its guarantees of Civil Liberties is Ron Paul. If he isn't elected, there is a gulag in our futures.
Correct me if I'm wrong but IF it were possible to implement this safely, it'd probably require massive changes to all servers/clients on the 'new' internet.
Looking at how long it's taking to roll out IPV6, I'm guessing this won't happen in a hurry (especially considering the political[international] complications).
Alternatively they could just break the internet!
Wow, you're go-to example of government invasiveness is the TSA. Not warrentless wiretapping. Not powers of indefinite military detention. Not the criminal prosecution of journalists. Nope.
I'm always shocked when I meet a person who believes dangerous government authority is a low-paid government employee sneaking a peak at your caboose when you fly on a commercial airlines.
I have a solution - Pull the plug.
No websites, no email, no ISP, no domains, no hosting, no DSL, no telephone.
Right now I am slowly deleting all my gmail accounts, myspace, youtube, eBay, paypal.
You might not thing nothing of it, that's fine, but I actually HURT many bands by going away. I hurt many retailers by going away.
No more public access show. NOTHING. No, bands, links, videos, no ecommerce, everything is now deleted.
I also am no longer a target waiting for a fucked up law to ruin my life.
You want entertainment again?
Restore the US Constitution, till then Via Con Dios.
The one that allows the US military to indefinitely detain anyone, even American citizens arrested on American soil, until some nebulous 'end of conflict'. The one McCain sponsored.
Liberty.
As one of the people who don't live in the USA, who gets annoyed from time to time with the USA hegemony in technology, I'm quite pleased to see the US destroy its tech lead through _amazingly_ stupid law. Awesome! If the rest of us wanted to make the US a place that nobody can afford to start an internet-based business, this law would be pretty good way.
Keep up the good work guys.
May you live in interesting times.
Let me introduce you to the file: /etc/hosts
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Why hasn't an Occupy style movement been started over this? If it was coordinated better they could get their message out clearer with a lot of Media coverage.
How long until the rest of the world says FU USA and starts working on ways to remove their dependence on USA for the functioning of the internet?
Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
The real problem, as I see it, is the "accusation = guilt" and extra-judicial enforcement methods of these laws. It just floors me that our congressmen, sworn to uphold the constitution, thinks that laws where all you have to do is file some paperwork and "poof" the website gets blocked without having to present compelling-enough evidence to a judge under penalty of perjury (and with oppposing counsel's arguments) for him or her to issue an injunction to block the DNS entry. It shows they have absolutely no respect for the Constitution or even knows what "rule of law" means.
This legislation breaches the Rune Law, or spirit law as some people call it. Top Tip!
The purpose of existence is to make money.
If Protect IP act applied to the Interstate instead of Internet you would be breaking the law if the driveway outside your house connected to roads that could lead to a criminal's house(everyone is guilty). Then it would be up to Hollywood to determine if your house gets demolished.
God spoke to me
Which is the goal of the corporate oligarchy that passes for government these days. Frankly, most of the world's corporation-governments would be happiest if the internet was a restricted, monitored, toll-road. Of course, the flaw in this plan is the million geek army. Telling millions of technically savvy engineers what to do with their toys is very unlikely to be successful in the long run. It just means that the open source pirate internets arrive faster.
Not that this matters to a congresscritter. They just take their fee for passing the stupid law and move on down the road to retirement and the little secret Swiss bank accounts set up for them by the RIAA and friends as a reward.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Evnetually the government or big business will push something like this through. They will seize control. So, what can be done? Is there an alternative, like a homebrew, grassroots equivalent?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
SOPA is about control. The web is the one area that the powers that be do not fully control, this legislation provides the mechanism to accomplish that, in much the same way that the true intention of the PATRIOT act was to strip away other rights in the name of security.
Wake up people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHiicN0Kg10
Isn't it time to change your countries motto from "Land of the Free" to "Land of the big corporations"?
Anarchists never rule
"Copyright and computers aren't compatible", I said. "the only way for them to co-exist is for them to break all the computers", I said.
"Pish-tosh," said the naysayers. "You just want free stuff."
"No, really," said I, "I can prove it with math."
"Poppycock." said the naysayers. "What about the needs of the artists? Don't they deserve to be paid for all their hard work?"
"If the artists want to ensure that they get paid for something that can exist on a computer, I helpfully suggest they get paid before doing the work. Y'know, like all really successful creators already do," I helpfully suggested, citing advance payments in the music, movie, and book publishing industries, every single dollar of which already, ultimately, comes from the consumers of said products.
"Otherwise, I suppose they can depend on donations borne of gratitude, which, if you think about it, is really just payment to produce the next work anyway. Either way, though, a copy of a file on a computer is effectively valueless, so selling copies of files on computers is a broken business model. Mark my words, if they try to make this broken business model work, it will have to be by outlawing functioning computers."
"Stuff and nonsense," opined the naysayers. "I shall heed no more of your scurrolous lies. Away with you!"
And so, here we are, about to join China and Iran in the glorious future of online freedom. Naysayers, kindly go fuck yourselves in the eye. I can provide an excellent array of online sources for Yoga instruction and melon-ballers if this proves too difficult for you.
They can pretty much do what they want as long as they renew it every year. (I'm sure that will get boring at some point)
Y'know terrorists everywhere.
So who was on Dancing with the Stars the other day?
Deleted
All they care about is their donated money and doing what their corporate masters tell them to do.
I have watched the hearings lately, and on both sides they make me utterly disgusted. The few that are speaking against it are being screamed down by the corrupt. They are trying like hell to do more damage to the united states than ANY terrorist organization has ever done.
Honestly, the whole lot of them needs to be tried as traitors and shot in a firing squad aired live on TV for their deeds.
My only hope is that the man in the white house has the balls to veto it, and I don't have much hope of him growing a spine this late in the game.
Law professors can say just about anything they want from their land of OZ. Recently one of them published a paper saying that veterans were sort of ok people. But, we should not be helping them since morally they killed someone in combat and therefore he didn't want the institution he worked for to be involved with charity for military veterans. Law professors see ethics as something you work with as you go. 'Make law via mood of the people.' If a law professor said we should paint the moon green to remind us to recycle our trash, certainly we should take that serious. Just the same, if a law professor said some words and terms must be banned from the public eye, then every institution should be able to, if they are a serious institution, regurgitate and behave just in the manner that law professor wants us to.
Eitherway, all points of connection between TCP/IP devices outside the US should be walled off through the DoD. All electronic international disputes handled through the US Office of the Secretary of State.
The purpose was to get private inventions to the world by documenting and even sharing them while remaining TEMPORARILY private. These "IP" laws were created as an incentive to develop open source works; the reward was temporary control over the implementations of the intangible "source" ideas. Obviously the system is not required as mankind progressed greatly before such incentive systems were created and today millions develop open source for little to no rewards and a few profit directly.
Current progress came from rapid population growth and massive widespread education; one can't credit the I.P. system for all this success. In some ways we'd have progressed slower and in other ways we'd have moved faster. For example, light bulb IP was used to force the industry into making bulbs that wear out on purpose and do not run the 100 years that they once did (about 100 years ago when such bulbs were being made; with much lower profit potential...)
Parallel: the "war" on drugs, this isn't likely to come out different.
Drug laws have gone so far and we don't care because we are not "those people" just as a majority today probably is unaware of how much they violate these petty unimportant "I.P." laws or do they realize just how much enforcement can impact their lives negatively despite perhaps not being one of "those people." Drug laws are abused and built upon in other areas that mess with most people's lives. One example could be the ban on industrial hemp which makes stuff wear out faster and encourages the use of plastics (for strength) which are a big source of the microscopic plastic in our water, food, and yes, running around inside our bodies being "harmless" while we continue to wonder about modern health issues... BPA -its what is for dinner? FYI - its not just plastic bags in the ocean showing up in things.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
That's exactly what the United States looks like, when laws and politicians can be so blatantly, and obviously bought, yet they remain out of jail.
Disclaimer: this is not a troll post, just my honest opinion.
I do not see what the big problem is about SOPA/PIPA.
They say it will 'break the internet'. How? I've read the article, I've read the letter from the Internet Engineers, and I saw nothing in it that will 'break the internet'. Anyone that makes a site that does not infringe on copyright will continue to have their site available to everyone.
Creating alternative DNS mechanisms will not break the existing DNS in any way. If people want to use alternative methods of reaching sites, then so be it. It's their responsibility after all, it's their choice.
I also do not see a problem with free speech. It's not that the creator of a site that will be banned will be forever silenced from any medium possible.
I also do not see any relation of the bills to the free flow of information and knowledge. If you make a site, and it does not contain any copyrighted material, or links to copyrighted material, then you are clear. It's not like in China or Iran that whole websites are closed down because of the ideas they are spreading. Under these acts, for example, you would still be able to create a site that speaks highly critical of USA or NATO, or one that supports OWS, or one that supports the Tea Party.
Frankly, I think the reactions of most internet users are due to the fact that they will be forbidden to download their favorite movies, music and video illegally for free. I will suffer from this too, but we all have to be sincere and say that what we did in the past was illegal.
Someone in a post in this discussion said the following: "For the past few years, the RIAA and MPAA have been working hard to undermine and destroy peer-to-peer networking on the Internet, because it does not fit into the distribution model they are comfortable with." Excuse me, how can you dictate to a business what method of distribution they will follow? it's not your product that is being distributed, it's their product. They have the right to distribute their product as they see fit. You are not obliged, by any means, to consume their output. The only reason the above quote was said is because people want to not pay for the things they download.
Another poster, in another Slashdot thread, said "no more GeneralGrin's TNG recuts" (GeneralGrin is a youtube user that makes funny TNG recuts). So? since when recutting a major TV franchise was legal? I was entertained tremendously by GeneralGrin's videos, but he doesn't have a permit from Paramount, does he? and Paramount was not paid a single penny out of GeneralGrin's videos, which was a derivative work of Paramount, while Google was paid serious money (in the form of investments and from ads) from this effort.
I don't believe that that opinion about these laws are something about which good men can differ. If you are good, you despise SOPA/PIPA. If you have the soul of a fascist, these laws are something you just might like.
Copyright infringement is blatant and obvious, and yet extremely difficult to stop. What ideas have been posted to stop an offshore website from allowing people to upload pirated software, and allowing others to download for free. They make money on the ads. They have to know it is illegal, but do it anyway. Why can't these websites be shut down? I find most arguments to the contary like a kid selling crack on the corner wearing a STOP THE WAR t-shirt. People get upset when someone trys to stop the kid from selling crack, claiming that it hurts his free speech. Too many people involved in blatant copyright infringement claim free speech, and it should stop.
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/114005/how-does-sopa-threaten-stack-overflow/114007#114007
Is there any way or turning SOPA against them? Suppose it passes, is there any way to let those government officials literally SEE the ramifications of their actions?
The solution is simple, really: separate sites into content and presentation. Have the presentation site have a DNS entry, and the content site to not have a DNS entry. Problem solved.
Just wondering... Why is it when small businesses across America have problems with lost revenue due to some unfair reason, they must fend for themselves, yet when multi-billion dollar corporations have problems with lost revenue the government of the United States stands full force behind them to help? Where is the outrage from these elected people when small businesses in their district really need help?
The market place isn't perfect! Sure it sucks that some of the companies are losing out on extra profits, but that's life! They remind me of home insurance companies that complain about their loss after a big storm. This is your industry, you decided to get into it, you know the downsides and risks involved! That's risk vs. reward. Deal with it YOURSELF!
Learn and Embrace the technology - adapt and you will survive.
Unless congress wants to fight this hard for EVERYONE, they need to stay out of it!!!!!
Just saying...
SOPA = Stupid Old Politicians at it Again!
Thank you for this very interesting article. In order to help spreading the word, I did a french translation that can be found here