Thoughts on SOPA
I don’t usually comment on general news items on this blog, but the Stop Online Piracy Act is relevant to anyone who creates or owns patents or copyrighted data, which includes anyone who uses CAD software. Just as a warning, this post is a bit of a political rant, where my profession intersects politics, which is rare enough.
I have to admit, I don’t know all the details of the law, but it seems straight forward to me – the government is just saying they will uphold the law. There are laws against taking stuff that doesn’t belong to you, and having a society that accepts and follows laws is one of the cornerstones of civilization in general, and democracy in particular. The difference between law-abiding countries and lawless countries is obvious, and immense. You can’t even compare Western Europe or the US to places like Somalia or Yemen. One of the differences is the rule of law.
So, I don’t understand what makes theft ok as long as it is on the internet, or in digital or non-tangible form. Even back in the 1970s, re-recording tapes or records was commonly accepted – something you could do in front of your family and talk about in church. But it was still illegal. Today the same sort of theft is still rampant, if anything, even more widespread. Books, software, music are commonly stolen by the general digital population, but stuff like designs, and manufacturing data are also stolen by companies in China with absolutely no regard for patents or copyrights. Its as if people think they are entitled to it simply because it exists. It’s shocking to me that in China, the feelings of entitlement extend to corporations.
Generally, when you (or I anyway) think of fighting theft, you think of big corporations as being the ones behind legislation like SOPA. And its true. Big entertainment and software producers don’t like to have their stuff stolen. Nor do I, a small time book writer. Nor do you, if your company is being ripped off by China.
But in this case, it’s not a case of some huge, evil corporate giant against all the little people. In this case, it’s corporate giants fighting theft against corporate giants promoting theft. Google is one of the main opponents of SOPA. Google says that shutting down piracy would change the internet. Google says eliminating thievery would make the US as oppressive as places like China. Google thinks China is a good example to cite as what the US might become if we disallow digital thievery? Are you serious?!? I think Google looks at China as a competitor in the digital thievery market. Face it. If something is on the internet, it belongs to Google. Their bots crawl this site, and archive it. Regardless of copyright, regardless of permission, they have automated their thievery, and we all just roll over and accept it.
Google is acting all offended because Rupert Murdoch, a publisher, is tired of having Google steal literally every word he publishes. Murdoch correctly commented that Google either steals content and puts advertising around it or just displays other people’s stolen content, and puts advertising around it. Google, even without stealing anything themselves is still the biggest beneficiary from the theft of digital goods on earth.
I’m generally a fan of most Google stuff. Free stuff is cool, and most Google stuff is free, paid for by advertising. I’ve got a Google phone. I use Google Chrome browser, and on and on. But like any company that gets too big, it’s easy to go from cool to tyrant. It’s ironic, but while writing this, I just got an automated telephone call asking me to update my Google 411 information. So they own my personal data too. If you don’t give it to them, they just take it from where ever they can get it. If that isn’t organized theft, I’m not sure what is.
Some people believe that putting stuff on the internet is the same as giving it away. That’s only because by putting it on the internet, your stuff is sure to be stolen. In fact, the only way to make any money on the internet is through advertising, exactly because selling real content is hard to do when it is so commonly stolen.
I don’t know the details of the law, but it sounds like the government can just close down sites that are involved in theft. Just like the police put you in handcuffs if you bust a window and take a boom box, there is no discussion, they just do it. Is it “due process”? What “due process” do the victims of theft get? I think if you steal stuff, you should get what’s coming to you sooner rather than later. Is it going to solve the problem? Do handcuffs prevent thieves from stealing? No, of course not. It is however, a deterrent to some, and gives the victims some sense of justice.
I understand society isn’t perfect. I’m not interested in a white-washed pollyanna society. I am interested, however, in holding to account people and corporations who think they are above the law. The rule of law is a big part of what separates us from Somalia, and ignoring the rule of law is another step on a slippery slope back to that kind of un-civilization. I don’t know if I support the SOPA law as written, but I definitely support enforcing copyright and patent laws, and I definitely see corporations like Google and countries like China as perpetuating theft.
@matt
Matt, you mention the article I linked says that regular criminals get their stuff back. That’s not at all what it said. See the quote below.
“Even if the criminal company analogy is accurate, the honest customers of a storage company would normally get their property back. They wouldn’t say ’60 percent of the customers are crooks, Mrs. Jones, so we threw away your priceless family heirlooms, too.'”
This is talking about the people who didn’t do anything wrong regarding the megaupload thing (storage customers), who lost their stuff. They may or may not get their stuff back. Regardless, they have legitimate claims of damage by brash fed overreach. (If my files were taken/killed/suspended for an indefinite time, I guarantee that would be a costly problem for me—whether it’s wise to host the only copy of your files in the cloud is another debate.)
Thanks for posting the due-process link. I’d not seen that previously, and it’s good to know that there was some regular judicial process behind the Megaupload squashing. The article included this: “The estimated harm caused by the conspiracy’s criminal conduct to copyright holders is well in excess of $500 million.” I wonder how they calculate that? Are they equating views/downloads with sales? Will they ever go after the folks who originally stole and uploaded the content, or merely after the hosts of that content?
The FBI seems to take IP theft very seriously for some people (such as those of the MPAA and RIAA). Geez, they even went after Megaupload’s graphic designer! But I’ve never had them take any interest in the blatant knock-offs of my patented designs. I wonder why? (Patents are quite expensive—especially for merely filing my words and drawings in an archive for a few years—much more expensive than going rates for cloud storage, but again, that’s another debate.) Maybe justice isn’t blind so much as near-sighted? Maybe I need some better lobbyists?
Justice for hire! That’s a thought. Maybe we can pass the hat and collect some dough for the family of Brian Terry? Or the farmers who had funds stolen at/by MF Global? You know, buy some justice? Our current attorney general seems a bit resistant to “free” justice, though I hear he’s paid quite well.
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/i-robot-2004-42-g1.jpg[/img]
A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step and is completed by keeping going even if you need to stop to rest for a while.
I caught a snippet on the internet of the recent CNN Republican debate where people from the audience called out the questioner on several occasions for not letting Ron Paul answer. This is the type of thing you should do.
Don’t be discouraged or intimidated. 😉
If we sat down with some workmates to play some poker and you saw I was cheating would you just sit there and take it? These people are taking more than $5 from you and you say well it is too much effort to fix…
Too big to fail and too big to fix….hmmmm….
So 5 average Americans are sitting there looking at each other and letting an audacious Kiwi empty your wallets. Thanks very much gentlemen. See you again next week. I’ll bring my brother along too. 😀
You have a couple of hundred years of good laws and regulations in place that are still fine and only some recent key bad ones to change first. Actually a great deal could change straight away simply by a) not putting up with it b) putting in people of good character. No one is coming to save you. This is something that requires you to go out of your way to fix.
The larger problem you have is reestablishing industry. This will take decades itself. It can be done at the same time laws are repealed, banks are reorganised and crooks prosecuted.
Say you were headed for an appointment and 3miles down the road you got a flat tire. Bugger! It was a disruption but your life didnt end. You didn’t dissolve in tears or keep driving on the rim. You changed the tire and made another appointment for a later time and got over it.
It may be out of your comfort zone to call out the corruption but when its over you will be glad you did. In speaking out you will find you are not alone. 🙂
Sorry for continuing OT posting Matt
@Neil
Neil, unfortunately decades of corruption would also take decades of “legal” means to reverse. The people in office are not anywhere close to representing the average American, but instead represent the top few percent, and thus have that segments best interests at heart. When I become a multi-millionaire, then the gov’t will represent me…
@Jeff Mowry
For whatever reason, I just can’t leave this one alone. This article is wrong on many points.
The Mega thing doesn’t show that another law is not necessary. The Feds were lucky enough that Mega had a branch or affiliate or something located in Ashburn, VA. This gave them enough jurisdiction. Other sites don’t have US locations, and may have governments that aren’t so cooperative.
The article claims the takedown didn’t go through the courts. It did go through the courts. You have to get a warrant to do what they did, and warrants come from judges. Plus, it even went through a grand jury: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/January/12-crm-074.html
The article says regular criminals get their stuff back. That’s not true either. If your stuff is evidence, you don’t get it back until after acquittal. Did Enron get their stuff back? On the other hand, Madoff’s victims got some of their stuff back, but it takes time.
Quoting from TorrentFreak doesn’t exactly strengthen your case. “Torrent” is synonymous with illegal download.
An interesting commentary on the whole SOPA thing regarding the recent fed hit on megaupload:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/01/the-real-meaning-of-the-take-down-of-megaupload.html
That’s what I would do too.
too bad. i had some usable (not pirated) stuff there that i didn’t download yet….
🙁
Did have a big-o-rant typed up, but figured that it was a bit too much to post…so I’m just wanting to add…..
People, THIS country ain’t easy, there is no one solution, and any ‘ism’ has it’s flaws and drawbacks. Part of the reason why things are the way they are is because those with power, means, and ways refuse to change any more than they have to. Take a look at the music industry. Sure people downloaded music for free and “they say” that it cut into their profits. Thing is it’s not like it was a great idea or business model to charge $13-$16 for a CD when only 3 or 4 songs were really good in some cases. Being able to just download one song for $.99 showed that this is a much more realistic approach. The music industry took forever to catch up and are still tired to have full control by making apple use the ACC only format because they were behind the curve of technology and just letting people use the MP3 format.
http://www.slashgear.com/slashgear-101-sopa-and-pipa-explained-in-plain-english-17209599
“These lawmakers are not protecting the interests of movie makers, they’re not helping out those who make music for a living. They’re attempting to control the free and open internet as it stands today so they can profit from a closed market. Plain and simple.”
Things aren’t going back to what they were 10-20-30 years ago. The sooner that’s accepted and not looked at in denial the sooner things can actually evolve and move forward.
May be you should sell your books on Apple iBooks2 for $14.99 rather than have PDF available.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/apple-announcement-ibooks-2-ibooks-author-for-digital-textbooks/
Don’t suppose that returns very much to the author but possibly it works out more overall with DRM?
I kind of agree with a previous poster that your publisher should stop making PDF of your books. That just makes them a give away. 🙁 btw I do buy all mine…
May be you should move entirely to digital post SW and sell from your own website.
Must be more margin in it than having a lot of middlemen involved 😉
…and cue the anarchists…
abcnews.go.com/Technology/justice-fbi-crack-megauploadcom-hackers-hit-feds-entertainment/story?id=15396526
When the cloud arrives I wonder if DS will also be seen as a huge offender, brazenly charging money for access to stolen data. Maybe too we arrest Bernard Cloud (formerly Bernard Charles) when he visits New Zealand 🙂
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-filesharing-site-shut-down-cited-with-piracy-violations-20120119,0,4422048.story
Megaupload was a huge offender, brazenly charging money for access to stolen data.
Matt, the problem with both of these bills is that they will have little to no affect on actual piracy as they do not address the cause. They are similar to shutting down highways in order to stop people from transporting alcohol across state lines.
The main reason that people I know pirate music, movies and TV shows is the outdated and illogical system of rights management that the large media corporations have put in place. DVDs bought in the US can’t be played in other regions. TV shows that people would willingly pay to watch aren’t available in their country. iTunes has a much wider selection in the US than in other countries.
The bulk of the “average” pirating is simply that the media companies aren’t meeting their customers demands. Human nature being what it is, if they can’t get it one way, they’ll find another.
The insidious part of these bills to me is why does the US get to decide/establish laws for other countries?
Matt, your books are known to millions because of the internet.
Your books are of some interest to a few hundred thousand because they use SolidWorks and can read English (lucky you that’s your language).
A few thousands are willing to pay for a book on SolidWorks and they are.
The people downloading illegally your books would not buy them anyway (less than 1% by all estimation I’ve read).
The music industry is trying to convince us the illegal downloading is hurting their sales and they see these numbers as losses, while at the same time they make more sales and more profits than ever. We consume more media than ever before, it only comes from different channels.
Go back to sell only physical (paper) books if you don’t want your work floating everywhere on the internet. But you’ll regret the incredible power of free information. It served you well.
Jim, Well as I told you the government is you, the people, by and for the people.
Presently they are not governing for you, they belong to crooked banks and corporations and sick headed think tanks.
Until you get off your arses and reassert the principles your country was founded on you can expect to live in deprivation and be pissed on with cans of pepper spray.
If you love your country I suggest you get out and rally like people did for civil rights.
Lets see a million people in Washington retelling the way it is in the United States of America.
I love my country (USA) but do not trust my government.
Hey Matt-
Not sure if you saw this, but Google does suggest an alternative to SOPA and PIPA.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/dont-censor-web.html
I suppose I should make a useful contribution to the discussion…
The trouble with this is that although it might appear to have a noble purpose of countering piracy and such, it is actually all pervasive surveillance and censorship. On top of Americans having their emails, phone calls and pants scanned for dangerous content – never know who and where those terrorists are – this allows the blocking of anything deemed inappropriate by unseen persons. It is open to abuse.
For instance the thought police at SW observe Matts blog and decide they don’t like what is said here. As a follow up they complain about something convenient and the site is black listed. Same thing as not liking my humorous post re tsplines recently. Instant removal because it is unflattering. Think they wouldn’t do that? Absolutely they patrol their Wikipedia entry and customer forums to make sure its all very nice. Probably someone with company minder duties arranged a hack here last year when they anticipated the opinions/comments threatened the coming release’s sales prospects.
The other aspect of this is that it can be misused for political purposes.
I’m not a Ron Paul advocate but its fairly obvious to me here in NZ he is deliberately being omitted from US press coverage. I have even noticed that goes for BBC reporting as well. What does that say about the secretive control of information. Its here already…
Piracy and IP issues are not the same as spying and arbitrarily controlling access to information IMO. When everything you say and everywhere you go is monitored and has to be approved and you are expected to report on people to shadowy authorities who can indefinitely detain, democracy, rights and liberty are well gone.
@matt
OK, I think we’re getting somewhere now. You said:
I really cringe at the “you’ll never stop piracy” schtick. Of course you won’t. That shouldn’t stop “us” (civilization in general) from trying. You’ll never completely stop any kind of crime. So what. You will slow it down, and push it into a corner.
That’s true, but it’s not the only factor. Slow down crime—through law/government—at what cost? Like everything else in life, the question hinges on value. Are the efforts toward enforcement (in this case) worth the benefits? We can argue that they are or are not worth the benefits, of course. But it’s irresponsible (in my opinion) to say that “We’ve got to do something!” and then simply accept the first proposal that hits the table (like we did with the terribly misguided Patriot Act and hitherto unread health-care revamping). Some options are better than others. I argue that this SOPA bill is over the top and yet fails to obtain the goals it states (just like most dog-and-pony laws passed into being within the last ~10 years).
My proposed solution (above) was in response mostly toward pirated music. So I’ve not yet thought out a good solution for other forms of digitally-transmitted IP. But I’m sure a community of IP creators (like we have here) can do a better job than whoever the shadow-powers were that wrote the SOPA bill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvXo4sGB7zM
{Matt Lombard comment} – Just for the record, I think showing a pirated movie, and making Hitler out to be a hero for pirated data doesn’t help your case or show very good judgment. And putting the link to the pirated movie clip on my site is probably a stab at irony. More bad judgment.
‘Civilisation’ comes in a box with these markings…
just looking at the long page and thought it could benefit from some colour 🙂
[img]http://www.dezignstuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/21137128i_01.jpg[/img]
I just hate SAE papers because the nasty Adobe copy protection makes it hard to move it to read on my laptop. The research was paid by a government contract. Anything published as a standard should be freely distributed.
I have found that 100% of the Software copy protection on fully paid legitimate software has screwed me at some time or another. I practice street vocabulary on my VAR when it gets in the way.
I have low confidence that this proposed legislation will do good things.
In thousands of years of civilization “the man” hasn’t figured out how to prevent rape or theft or extortion or murder or other stuff. That doesn’t mean we throw out laws against stuff like that or stop enforcing the laws. I’m from a part of the country well known for moonshine – illegal liquor. They’ve been making that for a couple hundred years, and the laws or enforcement haven’t stopped them. The illegal stuff has been contained, though. I really cringe at the “you’ll never stop piracy” schtick. Of course you won’t. That shouldn’t stop “us” (civilization in general) from trying. You’ll never completely stop any kind of crime. So what. You will slow it down, and push it into a corner. It will be less accessible, and won’t infect culture with a general disregard for law.
I wish the discussion here were a little less knee-jerk. A couple people are making suggestions, but there’s a lot of people simply denying. I’ll move on to the next topic.
If a big corporation or even a small company is corrupt I have control. I, and others, can choose not to do business with said corrupt company. With the government, my hands are tied. It is much harder for me to exert control over the government. An apt analogy is healthcare. If I hate my healthcare provider I can change. If the government provides health care for me I and don’t like it, then I’m screwed. Unless, I can go to another country. Which, is why many people come to the USA for health care.
It’s an ineffective tool Matt
Lets say that using SOPA the DNS for google is shut down
So what, go to http://74.125.224.72/
@matt
Matt, I replied to your question last night, but it seems to be lost in the cloud somewhere.
@Kevin Quigley
But like so many things that have come from governments everywhere in the last 10 years or so, things are rushed through without thought.
Kevin, not only that, but our wonderful congress regularly passes laws they don’t even read, though they’re well-paid to write the laws. Our health care overhaul debacle is a fine example, when Ms. Pelosi said, “We have to pass the law to find out what’s in it.” Yeah, because they didn’t write it. (Or read it.) My question with that bill—as well as with this SOPA bill—is, who wrote it? Cui bono? Follow who benefits from the law, and you’ll likely find the true authors.
Matt you have identified the exact issue I have with this USA law. It does not apply to USA based sites. So the USA can now directly tinker with DNS records and anything else they fancy. They can close down anything they deem to contradict their laws – so if I set up a site based here in the UK, and it has something that is deemed wrong they can close me down – where is MY recourse? As a US citizen you might have lots of laws to help you but what about me? I have to pursue things via my national law then apply to US courts. Like that is going to happen!
You know my stance on piracy – like most others here we are all law abiding citizens with a moral code. Maybe it is old fashioned but I don’t like to download stuff for free (unless it is free). But like so many things that have come from governments everywhere in the last 10 years or so, things are rushed through without thought.
The whole subject of DRM and copyright, patents etc is a total shambles. The only way to handle it is via a closed loop system like Apple do – controlling delivery, purchase, storage and the devices. Sure they cream off the top and tie in users but the owners of the IP do get paid.
Does the government really believe that they can stop online piracy? If so they are deluded. It will just go underground with direct peer to peer.
But at the core of this I have a genuine issue with everyday usage. If I buy your book or say, an ISO standard, and lend it to 50 people, you and they get paid once. If I buy a standard and put it in the company library where 200 people can access it they get paid once. Yet nobody will pursue me as a criminal. Yet if I buy a ISO standard as a PDF it is locked to a single machine. So I cannot now share it. The whole publishing industry accepts the concept of the lending library. This is what DRM needs and it is why most people I know download stuff.
Apple (sorry this is not a pro Apple advert) recently launched a system whereby if you have music in your iTunes library on your desktop/laptop it finds the same tune online from its online library and it synchs to all your devices (iPad, iPhone etc). This way, I buy once, and use multiple times. I can also lend my library out via Home Sharing. It is not perfect (in any way shape or form) but it does show that if you “think different” and do the right deals you can address many of the issues.
Is IP theft so important, and doing so much damage to society, that every site, everywhere, has to be overtly moderated for fear of suffering damage to its own business? Isn’t that co-opting some of the business time of every site operator to serve the special interests of IP holders, in the same way that commonwealths co-opt businesses to collect tax? And don’t some (Ron Paul, for one) contend that that action is government theft? And isn’t the lobbying for SOPA co-opting an even greater proportion of commonwealth legal money and infrastructure to serve their own special interests? If the IP holder lobbyists can demonstrate, at the end of, say, a five-year period, that the new, special, laws that they’ve pushed for have saved them a defined amount, and that it hasn’t been draining every taxpayers’ contributions for narrow corporate interest, it’d be a law worth having. Isn’t that a reasonable challenge? Because action taken under this law doesn’t produce a wide public good, so far as I can see. It’s purely a notional punitive perhaps-deterrent. An imposition on the public at large that doesn’t benefit the public at large. So, put the law in place, and test drive it for a period, drop it if it doesn’t serve society. It was good enough for the Patriot Act to have a sunset period and requiring re-enactment if legislators felt it wasn’t working, so why not this? Is the purpose of the legal system to reflect moral absolutism, or to serve the society it regulates?
I think people are inclined to think of the government as a separate entity but the government are only a number of your fellows occupying jobs of responsibility on your behalf. You are the government, each one of you and together. It amounts to a collective reasoning and understanding of principles and laws to be upheld.
I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of US history but I do know this was said…
‘…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.
If the people you elect don’t do their jobs then remove them from office by due process. If they are really bad go down and throw them out into the street and insist their replacements follow the rules.
If government has gone astray is it because the people have gone astray.
I am pretty sure a great many Americans could recite important speeches and documents as well as they can sing the National Anthem with their hand on heart. If these things actually mean something and are valid today you should insist they be followed and if necessary act to restore them.
While you might think of escaping to somewhere else, or wistfully hark back to a previous golden era, it is today’s mission for you as an individual to put things right and it ought to be as important as feeding your family.
It is today’s mission because you don’t want to waste decades of tomorrows being on the receiving end of what happens while incompetance and corruption prevail.
There are a lot of good, intelligent and rational people in the US who need to get organised and assert which way is up as the first step in economic recovery. It begins with you doing your bit what ever that can be.
OK off the soap box 😉
Matt,
I am pretty sure that this legislation is driven by copyright holders in the musical recording business. Their rights extend an unbelievable time, 50 – 100 years after the creators death. Obviously the present value of intellictual content that can extend over 100 years has much greater value to the creator, especially when that time limit extends to his assigns.
The companies that have bought and paid for these rights have a lot at stake, and have a lot to spend to lobby the legislation. Certainly their political investment over the years has justified such a long expriation of the right as opposed to patent rights which expire in only 17 years.
While I sympathisize with you on protecting your copyright on your books, certainly you do not believe that someone will want to buy the SolidWorks 2011 Bible five years from now, let alone from 17 to 100 years from now. There will be an ample supply on eBay within 2-3 years after the SW edition has expried. For your purposes a 2 year copyright should be more than sufficient to protect your interests.
Perhaps you should consider your alliance with those that want to enforce 100 year+ copyright entitlements. Beatles songs will still sell for another 100 years at least. But SolidWorks may not even exist in another 5 years. And the demand for a SW 20xx Bible is going to be insignificant after SW200xx+2.
Perhaps the legislation would make more sense if the expiry date of copyrights were reduced to the same as patent rights……17 years.
@matt
Anyway, what would you do to stop the socially acceptable piracy of intellectual property? Abdicating enforcement because you found a flaw in the system is not an option.
Well, that’s definitely a fair question, isn’t it?
I think I’d treat it a bit like a traffic ticket. No need for huge ceremony or draconian threats of the type that make it worth letting the above-the-law class off the hook. So let’s assign a penalty that’s a low-number multiple of the fair market value of what was stolen (maybe start with 4x – 8x). But there’s also a sort of points system, similar to what you’ve got with a driving record. So it quickly ratchets up with repeat offenders, eventually landing people into criminal enforcement territory (meaning, jail time at stake). Start civil, move to criminal, enforce equally among everyone.
I came across this article. http://m.extremetech.com/extremetech/#!/entry/the-pirate-bay-is-immune-to-sopa,4f0eddb263d1ec63851b4bfc
Pirate Bay (who host more torrents than any one else) WOULD NOT BE affected by SOPA!
Matt – here’s what you can do to stop piracy of your books – demand that the publisher (Wiley?) stop making PDF’s avaiable for purchase. Your books are available on most torrent sites. Then if somebody wants too produce a pdf they have to scan the book and they look terrible so most people don’t like it.
@Lou Gallo
Lou, there was a link earlier showing that congress is removing the DNS stuff from the bill (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-usa-internet-piracy-idUSTRE80F1Q320120116). If that is gone, what objections do you have? How would you solve the problem?
@Jeff Mowry
I agree that the government is unquestionably corrupt. They are hungry for power and money. There’s no question about that in my mind. Given a choice between government and control of big corporations, I honestly don’t know which to choose. They are the same people, Corzine being a great example. He’s a crook, but so are a bunch of those holding elected office.
Anyway, what would you do to stop the socially acceptable piracy of intellectual property? Abdicating enforcement because you found a flaw in the system is not an option. I understand that you wouldn’t pass this particular law, that’s ok. We have to somehow work with our greedy and corrupt government to find a solution. You can’t just throw up your hands and walk away from it. The private sector cannot solve this problem.
Better laws are need to protect ip but breaking the Internet is not the way. The government should not be altering our DNS records to do it. Why? Because the real pirates will still steal and find ways around this. This is not a problem solvable by a technological angle.
And Google stealing…have Murdoch robot.txt his stuff if he doesn’t want people to find it. I also think laws written to protect physical ip need to be adjusted to fit digital ip. Nobody wants their stuff stolen and there needs to be ways to protect it without breaking the very ecosystem that allows mass discovery.
Here’s the SOPA text, from October of last year, for those interested in the language of the proposal:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-3261
Theft is an initiation of force against another—in other words, a violation of their liberty. As I see it, the singular purpose for government is to protect the liberties of the people. So people are free to practice their liberties so long as they don’t infringe upon the liberties of others (wherein the government would, ideally, step in and set things right).
So—let’s consider a little-known form of theft called inflation. (I bring this up because it’s government-sponsored theft, ironically.) Congress decided they didn’t want to manage the issuance of our currency (as the Constitution would have them do), so in 1913 they abrogated their responsibility and allowed the big bankers to create the privately-owned/operated Federal Reserve. Since that time, the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen ~96%. (That’s theft.) And though reporting of “official” inflation is somewhere near 3% (per year) right now, true inflation (see John Williams’ shadowstats.com) is much, much higher than this number. If you then look at the sorts of things making up the majority of the budget of poor people, you see higher weighting of their spending going toward food, energy (gasoline, electricity, whatever), and rent. Among this segment of the population, inflation may creep near 8% or 9% for the things they buy. Using the rule of 72, we see that any savings managed to be scraped together at this inflation rate would reduce purchasing power by 50% in a mere eight years! Eight years! Can you imagine being a Boomer, thinking you’ve saved enough to retire and then finding yourself broke within a decade?
OK, I’d better get off my soap box before it’s revoked. Thanks, Matt, for the open conversation.
And whatever it’s worth, I wouldn’t trust Google with a ten foot pole. Lots of things they do can be classified as nefarious without them assigning the label “evil”. So expect more.
Matt, your faith in our most benevolent government doing the right thing simply baffles me. I truly mean no offense by this. But legislation in the past ~10 years has increasingly moved in the direction of “guilty-until-proven-innocent”. I’m afraid Charles is right about that with this SOPA issue, too. Mistakes happen, and a mistake in enforcement (or mere accusation/suspicion) will certainly happen with our non-competent federal government at the helm. Realize this will lead to the sorts of mistakes that literally bankrupt some small businesses and families. Are you OK with that?
Have you considered all the ways in which this proposed legislation can be abused? What if you’re a web competitor? You could have a lackey post something against the rules on the competition’s site, and they’re offline nearly instantly. Many months will go by before the site reappears on the web—probably plenty of time for a bankruptcy.
Sure, you can police content of your own site to some degree, but what about a site where users post content (stolen or otherwise)? It’s the site that takes the fall—as opposed to the content thief. How is that just? There’s simply no way to adequately police user-submitted content on a huge scale (think youtube) that won’t become an unjust burden. Is there?
You mentioned poor Murdoch and his stolen content. I seriously cannot believe that he (or any of his web guys and gals) wouldn’t know about the simple robots.txt file that can be placed on any site to control the robots. So—if I didn’t want the spiders/bots trolling my contact page for info, I’d simply create a file called “robots.txt” and keep it in my top-level directory. It’s contents would be as follows (which will vary, depending on file/directory structures, etc.):
User-agent: *
Disallow: /contact.html
Murdoch could do this with a site-wide bot ban (which is easier than what I posted above), or simply single-out disallowance for Google alone, but doesn’t. Why do you think that is?
Our most beloved president recently signed the NDAA into law after an overwhelming passage within both houses of congress. It flagrantly violates several amendments to the Constitution (excerpted below, probably not comprehensive):
Article I, Section 9:
2: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Fifth Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Sixth Amendment:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Enactment of the Patriot Act violates the fourth amendment (among other things).
MF Global collapsed and the apparent commingling of “house” funds with “client” funds left ~$1.2 billion missing. That was last Halloween. This caused all sorts of hell for all sorts of innocent people (such as those who simply had cash parked in an account with MF Global, supposedly facing no risk whatsoever in doing this). Jon Corzine, CEO at the time, testified to congress he had no knowledge of who or how this commingling of funds happened—despite the fact that the recently-passed Sarbanes-Oxley law requires such knowledge and accountability of the CEO. Mr. Corzine’s apparent offense here is a felony. He is apparently roaming free somewhere, not in a cell awaiting trial, and not having posted a very high bail for his freedom. He is apparently also above the clear law.
Laws in this era will be selectively enforced by those who have benefit of outcome (in either direction). That is, after all, the plain reading of every-day news on web-based news sources (though I’d doubt you’d see evidence of this broadcast by the likes of Murdoch’s mainstream outlets). This is why I’ve no reason to trust our most benevolent government to make the right decision in enforcement, when so much is tempting them to make the expedient decision. And keep in mind, this is coming from a real person who has had real IP stolen/violated in the form of patented designs I’ve created. I’d love a little justice. I just don’t see our current crop of cronies fit for the job (as you seem to see).
@matt
Contrary to what the media would have you believe 99.99% of private business, large and small, consist of hard working law abiding people.
As for Liberty I can start with just letting my 88y Mother get on an airplane without being treated like a criminal!
OT.
Dave, Americans need to sort their country out and soon 😉
Matt in NZ you would be charged with murder if you shot a burglar. The burglar is committing a crime but so are you with the way you handle the situation. All cases come before a judge with police prosecutor and a defence lawyer. No death penalty here. People have licensed rifles for recreational hunting but hand guns aren’t part of the culture.
@George Karcher
What’s the difference between big government and big corporations? It’s not clear to me that one is any better than the other. Corporations run the government. What’s good for big business is not necessarily good for individuals.
What liberty are you talking about? The liberty to steal software, books, movies and music?
It’s big Government that needs to be shut down. In the name of Safety we are losing our Liberty.
@Kevin Quigley
Kevin, I watch the links that go here. I don’t think this includes libellous statements, just piracy, and for the 3rd time, this doesn’t apply to sites within the US.
Why are you concerned with trivial stuff like the extreme limits of remote possibility? Do the gross and systematic theft concern you at all? It is possible for any law to be misinterpreted. I doubt very much that a judge is going to allow a minuscule site like mine to be taken down if someone finds a copyrighted image on the site. If I were giving away production data for Rubbermaid products, I would expect to be taken down.
Of course this is theoretical, since the bill applies to sites outside of US jurisdiction.
From what I understand about this Matt if you had a commenter leaving links to a pirate site, libellous statements or anything else your government or it’s agencies finds unacceptable your site could be taken down without warning and you could be held liable.
So what this means is that every blog every forum every way of interacting with a site has to be moderated in detail so any dodgy stuff is removed quickly. That, I think forces the little guys out of the picture.
@Charles
If someone breaks into your house, you shoot them, there is no trial. Smith&Wesson are the judge and jury.
If someone breaks into a store and is caught stealing by the cops, they are cuffed and thrown in jail. No judge, just the cops and the cuffs. Innocent until proven guilty has limitations.
What I’ve read about SOPA is that it applies to websites on servers outside of the US. These are people that will never see an American courtroom, and an American lawyer sending them “cease and desist” letters won’t work. These are cases where the US doesn’t have jurisdiction over the site.
I’m kind of shocked that there is so much panic and so few facts out there about this law.
Edit:
Looks like it’s getting rewritten to remove the DNS stuff. Removing the money should take some of the incentive out of it. Read this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-usa-internet-piracy-idUSTRE80F1Q320120116
Neil,
A bit here here on SOPA but some backround that may help to put it in perspective using history I happen to know about. During the Kennedy administration there was a set of executive orders passed that have never been rescinded. These were created when there was a real fear we were going to have a nuclear war with Russia over the Cuban missle crisis in 1963 I believe. Among the regulations were things like prison camps, alternate currency, right to relocate forcibly anyone who had a skill they deemed needed somewhere else, all financial instruments could be seized etc. A guy I knew who was part of the dismantling of the US nuclear rockets in Turkey as part of the agreement that defused the missle crisis. He personally saw tha alternate currency that was printed and stored just in case. Being of a doubting nature when I first read this stuff I requested copies of the executive orders which in the early 80’s were no longer classified. I did not get them all but I did get enough of them to know that what I was told and had read about was real. People don’t realise what kind of trouble this radical muslim nut job in the White House could really do if he wanted to as the power of the executive order transcends anything legally for a period of six months which only then can be stopped by congress if they so choose.
Sadly SOPA however it starts out will end up like the racketeering laws did. Good intentions to only wipe out the gangsters, we promise. Now it is used in witch hunts for things like flat screen tv makers in conspiracy charges and is used in areas it was never supposed to be. Nothing this government passes stays benign and within it’s stated original purpose and scope. Kind of like asking Atilla the Hun to help out Planned Parenthood in neighboring contries. You will get population control but was it done the way it was supposed to be according to how the bill of goods was sold? I don’t think there is a good answer for this internet problem that would not create more problems in ways we don’t know.
@matt
I don’t think SOPA is going to provide you (the little guy) any more tools to control piracy than DCMA provides. You still need to file a complaint with the offender (just like DCMA). They still get to file a response. You still then have to file a counter-response and file a claim with the US Justice system. SOPA merely allows the Justice system the authority to deny the host a DNS server name, instead of just typical legal restrictions. It also severely restricts the ability of the accused to continue business while (the assumed) pending counter-suit occurs (assuming we are talking genuine US businesses and/or citizens filing claims against each other here). Which is my biggest gripe. The accuser gets to have your site DNS removed without any legal way for you to keep that from happening before you can have a hearing in court.
Also, the pirates’ rights are above those of the accuser, until proven guilty. That’s the way it has to be in an innocent-until-proven-guilty system. I’d prefer that over giving our government authority to block DNS entries (just think about that for a minute).
We don’t have to wait for the Supreme Court, the law becomes a law immediately after it passes congress, senate, and the white house. Will the supreme court hear this case? Do you realize how out of touch our current supreme court is with new technology? They have a serious lack of understanding of new technology, and the idea of them being the deciding factor on the minutiae difference between user submitted content on a website and hosted content is a bit precarious.
I think another big kicker here, is that anyone who runs a website that contains words written by another person could be wiped off the internet. Don’t like when someone criticizes you? Did they quote you directly (like good criticism should)? File a SOPA complaint. If up-held, you can have the entire website taken down. The problem isn’t that this isn’t the way the law is intended, but that SOPA is written so this could happen.
Matt I don’t think there is a problem for you to go to Russia or anywhere else on a rendition mission. The US govt does this all the time so the infrastructure is in place. Could be a whole new and lucrative branch of adventure tourism to get into.
Besides now you have laws that allow indefinite detention and the right to kill citizens without trial for the President surely there is no issue with frustrated authors dealing with small time pirates as they see fit. Just ride into town and gun em down like those old Hollywood westerns.
The big time pirates are a different issue…MFGlobal help themselves to $1b+ of their customers money to cover lost derivatives bets and it doesn’t attract anyone’s attention and rightly so. Banks and corporations are different….
You are right though the casual attitude about theft is a bit frightening. 😉
Matt, again, nobody’s against putting an end to piracy. And I don’t even thing it’s fine to use a “found” version of SolidWorks for home-hobby (for that I bought a licence of Rhino with my own money).
But SOPA is so badly thought out, it won’t help at all. It might even be worst as @Anon explained.
And if you let me use your example; doubling the number of prison won’t make a change on the number of murders. Diminishing poverty will.
I suggest you listen to a podcast like Tech News Today (http://twit.tv/tnt) where they discuss such issues daily. Great ideas and much more progressives.
not even familiarizing users to your program? i am not so casual about piracy.
Technically i don’t even need to pirate, since solidworks allows a home installation, if i remember correctly (actually i completely forgot about it, to be honest).
still, i’m not paying 5-8k for a program to use@home with an intention to be better with it at work. and if training is not an option (and even if it is, it’s good to refresh skills, that you don’t use every day).
(that is moot point though with swx home install)
trial software is useless in this case, as you’d like to use it continually. a locked-down edition would be quite good for example
@asdf
A casual attitude about theft is to me a bit frightening. There are plenty of legal ways to get trial software. And you don’t have a right to it just because it exists. There’s nothing you can say that will justify using illegal software. Not even that the CAD companies are crooks.
if anyone (esp from solidworks) has anything against that kind of practice, please voice you opinion. but i sure as hell won’t be paying ____eur for a program for hobby use. and the low-cost stuff doesn’t help me really, since it’s useless and no one uses it on the job market (alibre, random open source cad…)
and piracy isn’t really as damaging to the economy as the BSA, DMCA… wants you to think. they have an economic interest, don’t forget.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/warner-admits-it-issues-takedowns-for-files-it-hasnt-looked-at.ars
here lies your real problem
and piracy is a nice way to get people accustomed to you software – cad system, for example.
i see no real moral issue of having a “home” version of solidworks, if i’m not doing anything profitable with it (that’s what job is for) and since the student version is for students only in my country.
i am merely learning new practices etc. since i don’t get any training@work.
(yes, we use swx. yes, we chose it, since some of us were already familiar with it from playing with it@home. otherwise we’d probably chose pro/e to be compatible with our clients, even if we don’t need to be)
@Marc Gibeault
The DMCA is obviously having little effect. Look around. Does the piracy thing seem to be under control? A small guy like me cannot defend myself against big time pirates. Plus, the DMCA is just a bunch of red tape that seems to put the pirates rights above the copyright owner’s rights.
Talking about taking down baby videos is just fear mongering. I’m surprised people fall for that stuff. Organized movements to steal information and give it away are the real enemy here.
Linking piracy to censorship is of course a brilliant move on the part of the opponents. To say you can’t uphold the law because something else might get taken down is a bit disingenuous, I think. A thief goes to jail, which suppresses his self-expression in yoga class. So be it. Saying it’s not going to stop piracy is also a bit dumb. Jail doesn’t stop murder. So should we close all the jails?
And the self-censorship, if you don’t infringe, you have nothing to worry about. If I want to beat someone senseless, but don’t do it, is that self-censorship or just respecting the law?
No one is really talking about details of the law. Everybody is just reacting to something that has not happened, and you can’t really tell until it hits the supreme court how it will be finally interpreted. I just think the people with the most to lose by stopping on-line theft are the ones making the most noise. I don’t hear Google or any opponent trying to suggest a better way of opposing organized on-line crime. Organized, systematic efforts to steal and disseminate stuff that doesn’t belong to you is against the law, and needs to be treated that way rather than condoned. I don’t see how that can be ignored.
I’m also uncomfortable with “guilty until proven innocent”, but if you are caught red handed with your hand in the cookie jar… you’re not innocent. And it sounds like these are people who will never stand trial in the US anyway – its aimed at foreign sites, not US sites. You can’t apply the DMCA against a Russian site full of PDFs of CAD books.
Google merely index your content. You as the webmaster have full control over access to your site. You surely know that ‘noindex’ will make a URL not show up on the SERP. You can also blacklist Google’s bots from even gaining access to the site. Then nobody would see your site in the SERP’s. As for Rupert Murdoch – he is embarrisingly ignorant about all forms of modern technology. He once (whilst staying in a hotel) couldn’t even figure how to turn down the volume of a very loud television, or turn it off, so what did he do? He wrapped the TV in blankets so he could get to sleep!
Now lets discuss piracy. SOPA will do very little to curb piracy. It will just take more work ‘to steal’ and will completely force it to take place in VPN (virtual private networks) which NOBODY can police or monitor. I believe that whilst ‘on the surface’ the legislation appears to combat piracy – there have been many well regarded internet experts that have branded the legislation as being too broad and poorly written.
As for the Chinese stealing designs – I have never heard of that, but I do conceed that they do pirate a lot of CAD/CAM software. And then use it for commercial purposes. Which I agree is wrong. If you go to use it to make money then yes you should pay for it. I have installed Siemens NX8 a month before it was released to the public. Someone close to the company passed it to the people who then ‘crack’ the license. I truly believe that it is both beneficial to the company that this is done as it increases the knowledge base by allowing draftsman and engineers with a bit of nouse to go and get the latest software, install it on their home computer in order to learn about what’s new. I use it for ‘non-commercial’ reasons. I read somewhere that even one of the industry bodies representing the software companies wasn’t too keen on SOPA.
It’s always interesting your blog – I don’t use SWX anymore but I still subscribe.
You can already sue someone for stealing your copyrighted material. This commonly happens without the courts when a lawyer issues what’s called “DCMA takedowns”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
SOPA would allow for owners of copyrighted material use the US Justice system to remove the DNS entry for any website that hosts, posts, or contains any copyrighted material. Thus the server name would “disappear” off the internet. The biggest issue with this (in my opinion), is that there is no legal recourse to keeps this from happening. Thus you are “guilty until proven innocent”. I’m not a fan of guilty until proven innocent.
The “just like China” thing is a quote from Senator Chris Dodd who is sponsoring this bill:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/12/chris-dodd-finds-silver-lining-chinese-net-censorship/46026/
His quote: “When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn’t do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites.”
Matt, everybody should be supporting better laws to protect IP. But SOPA is not that. Not at all. I’m not able to write adequately in English about such subjects but I’ve read some that do:
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/114005/how-does-sopa-threaten-stack-overflow?answertab=votes#tab-top (and look at the answer by Joel Spolsky)
And;
http://vimeo.com/31100268
http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html
-Marc