Google and eBay Founders Attack Anti-Piracy Legislation

[engine]

Google and eBay Founders Attack Anti-Piracy Legislation [bloomberg.com]

The founders of Google Inc. (GOOG) and EBay Inc. (EBAY) attacked Hollywood-backed anti-piracy legislation in the U.S. House and Senate that they said would threaten the technology industry and lead to Web censorship.

The Internet executives said the bills would have a “chilling effect on innovation” and give the U.S. government the “power to censor the Web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran,” according to a letter sent to U.S. lawmakers and published today in newspapers including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

[cmendla]

My son heard that WIKI is threatening to shut down if this 'anti piracy' legislation goes through. Maybe that will put some pressure.

[J_RaD]

hollywood.... ugh.

shut down the internet, take everyones blurays from them, no more CD's or radio you might be able to copy. Keep buying our bad movies and bad music....at top dollar of course.

[4serendipity]

Some of our congressmen appear to want to imitate China.

[JAB Creations]

I stopped watching TV and buying DVDs years ago; there are tons of great alternatives if you want to "watch something". When I have my meals I watch Starcraft II replays, obviously not something everyone would be interested in but it's entertaining to me and it's my contribution to keeping my money out of the hands of the people in charge of anti-American propaganda you see in "American" media. Of course my ISP provides both cable and television services so I have to download the video as they intentionally disrupt my streams, not difficult to overcome.

I highly encourage others find content online that they think they would enjoy as it will keep their money in their pockets and out of the bank accounts of Hollywood. There's tons of legitimate content out there if you just take the time to look, you'll save money and keep from giving it to those...people, all simultaneously.

- John

[Andem]

It's pretty bad when Hollywood and the recording industry is able to even attempt to lobby their way to censoring the Internet. Agreed, intellectual property theft is something which is a big problem, but so is their greed.

IMHO, the industry has started to lose its grip on their control of information through their feature films, music and owned television and news networks. Since the Internet is still growing and people are increasingly able to find alternative reporting on hot topics, they are becoming even keener on getting legislation through (under whatever guise) to try and hamper that growth. All of the e-com execs certainly have a large interest in making sure they maintain control over their own realm (ie. the Internet).

I haven't heard of the Wikipedia thing, but I did find a news article: [techweekeurope.co.uk...]

OT: I actually wouldn't mind Wikipedia shutting down for a period.. the original sites containing the information they provide might actually get some traffic back *g*

[ember]

I remember when you had to buy a whole record album for one song you wanted and pay $15. I consider the Internet and the ability to download one song at a time, etc. payback. I am all for taking control away from Hollywood, the music moguls, etc.

[Andem]

Just to add:

SOPA is a piece of legislation designed to assist copyright holders in protecting their intellectual property. It would allow the US government to force anyone with a Domain Name System (DNS) to stop providing name services to alleged pirate sites, but they wouldn’t require any proof.

This seems like a very real and easy way to censor anything. The government would be the enforcer (hello, USSR? DDR? PRC?). This sounds almost like filing a DMCA, except it would be a SOPA. And the SOPA could be filed the same way a DMCA would be filed, IE. with a 'good faith belief that ...'. Have I got it wrong?

Well.. scenario: CNN publishes an article about something I don't agree with. I file a SOPA with the U.S. government and all of a sudden, cnn.com becomes inaccessible to almost everybody because DNS is exactly that, Domain Name System. Not page-wide, not a directory and not even necessarily a subdomain but every cnn.com record.

Another scenario, but more likely: Some RIAA employee searches Google for "Widget Torrent" and all of a sudden, they find a download to a full album of the latest and greatest band. Does this mean that this new legislation could effectively disable access to google.com?

[ken_b]

Everyone in the USA that is for or against this has sent a note to their Congressman and Senators, right?

Or is this just another bash congress "because we can" thread?

[CainIV]

"Not requiring proof" I don't like.

Holding pirate websites accountable - absolutely a fan of that. Even if the Gov does it.

Just because you had to pay $15 a CD doesn't mean the users have a right to essentially steal it.

The whole stance of musicians and indie artists getting "more exposure" because of illegally copied material is a bunch of hogwash. How many of us would unwillingly give products away for free?

[frontpage]

"The House Judiciary Chairman and the Stop Online Piracy Act’s (SOPA) sponsor Lamar Smith criticized companies that oppose the bill and said their opposition is due to “self-serving” reasons or a lack of understanding:"

“Companies like Google have made billions by working with and promoting foreign rogue websites so they have a vested interest in preventing Congress from stopping rogue websites. Lawful companies and websites like Google, Twitter, Yahoo and Facebook have nothing to worry about this bill.”

Ouch!

[seoskunk]

Surely its important to note that this actually won't work anyway. Piracy will continue through ip address's but there is grave danger to innovation and free speech

[J_RaD]

I remember when you had to buy a whole record album for one song you wanted and pay $15. I consider the Internet and the ability to download one song at a time, etc. payback. I am all for taking control away from Hollywood, the music moguls, etc.

exactly, do these jerk offs really KNOW why sales are down? do they look at the stats? I'd say no longer having to buy 5 crappy songs to get 3 songs you like would be enough right there. I don't buy a whole physical CD anymore unless I REALLY REALLY REALLY like the artist and want to 100% support them.

a la carte sales.... that is what is killing them, not piracy.

They try to make it seem like 1 out of 10 households pirates everything. Its all a witch hunt!

[pageoneresults]

Someone pinged me today via DM on Twitter and asked me what my take on SOPA was. I told them I hadn't really had a chance to hunker down and read about it.

SOPA is a piece of legislation designed to assist copyright holders in protecting their intellectual property.

What's the problem with this bill again? Are you a copyright holder yourself? Does this not appeal to you?

It would allow the US government to force anyone with a Domain Name System (DNS) to stop providing name services to alleged pirate sites, but they wouldn’t require any proof.

"Alleged pirate sites." I would think the Government would have done some due diligence before shutting down a site without any proof. The phrase "Alleged pirate sites." gives me some indication that there has been some prior proof for the site to be classified as a pirate site.

I'm all for SOPA if it really does protect copyright holders.

I will now go into protective custody.

[CainIV]

I don't buy a whole physical CD anymore unless I REALLY REALLY REALLY like the artist and want to 100% support them.

Perhaps you are not indicative of what the masses are doing.

The masses download music. From illegal websites.

And when they like the artist, then download the entire album :)

[np2003]

I have a friend who works in construction. He is your typical computer user who has little knowledge about computing. In the past, he buys *all* his movies, tv shows on DVD and has HUNDREDS of them in his collection.

I went to his house recently and he now "downloads" DVDrips and no longer buys them. Now, I was really shocked because this is the *last guy* in the world who would download stuff. imo, it goes to show how big the copyright/piracy problem is.

File sites like Rapidshare, fileserve and hundreds of others are making it way way too easy to download any copyrighted content. The money makes it way to the file hosters and not the content producer.

Of course, sites like Google are naturally annoyed at this bill because they thrive on being able to serve what the user wants, and what the user wants is mostly illegal pirated content. Google just want clicks. Less clicks = less revenue.

[koan]

pageoneresults, I don't think people aren't that much against the idea of the bill (sure, let's protect copyright holders), it's just written in a way that can be easily abused, and one thing the government or big corporations are good at, is using overly powerful new laws against the spirit it was written for their own short sighted interests.

[tbear]

It's far easier to write a new bill, to castigate, than to figure a way to stop the problem happening in the first place.

[snickles121]

I think that search engines should be held accountable for the pirated content they hold in their search results since they hold cached pages. After all, websites holders are held accountable for the information held on their site.

Just another way to look at it...

[Old_Honky]

File Sharing is a more efficient way of distributing music than using itunes and its ilk. There is a simple way to monetise it so that the copyright holders and the greedy record companies don't loose out. Each country should set up a licensing system so that individuals wanting to download music must first purchase a licence. I would be happy to pay a fiver a month for something as good as the fantastic Audio Galaxy used to be.
The licence fees could be divided between copyright holders in proportion to the number of downloads (this could be estimated) and paid as a royalty.

Then those of us who enjoy searching out obscure pieces of music and jam sessions etc. and are not that worried about super high quality, could do it legally and the masses who are content to download what itunes offers in a fidelity so high that only dogs and cats can really appreciate it, can do so.

I heard a discussion about SOPA on the radio yesterday as I travelled, I am concerned that it is open to abuse and it is run by Americans who can almost at a whim (no legal investigation and no court order)close down a UK site without warning and then the site owner has to go to the USA to appeal the decision. That's bad enough, but imagine in a few years time when "scope creep" means that someone with a particular religious viewpoint or sexual repression could close down a site they consider immoral or offensive without understanding what it is about... I have a site called "Filthy Beast" It is a harmless little site about a band I was a member of in the 60s but when you investigate the stats you find that some of the visitors have been searching for something quite different. Mistakes are easy to make and a draconian response is not easy to unravel afterwards.

My vote is to keep the internet free and uncensored. If you don't like something just move on.

[graeme_p]

@Old_Honky, the devil is in the details. How do you divide up the money? Per download? Per track? How do you divide up money between a classical symphony (lots of performers) and a solo track. Do we run parallel schemes for films and books?

Of course SOPA and PIPA are terrible ideas. Copyright is not important enough to compromise freedom for. Hollywood can either die of find a new business model.

The best alternative is to reduce copyright enforcement to where is is easy: where it is being monetized or openly distributed. Current law already allows the take down of links, and where there is monetization, there is someone who can be traced and sued. There are a whole lot of other reforms needed (reasonable terms, for example), but that would be a start.

Scope creep frightens me too. What is other countries do the same? Will repressive governments me able to arrest anyone whose site they do not like who happens to be in transit in their airports?

[Old_Honky]

@Old_Honky, the devil is in the details. How do you divide up the money? Per download? Per track?

Per download - probably estimated.

How do you divide up money between a classical symphony (lots of performers) and a solo track.

Exactly the same way as they do now with CDs.

Do we run parallel schemes for films and books?

Yes each governing body in each country would be responsible for administrating their country's share of the worldwide revenue to the registered copyright holders.

It would be relatively simple to impose such a scheme when compared to the alternatives which involve using legal action to try to enforce unenforceable laws.

[graeme_p]

If you do it per download tracks downloaded by themselves count as more doanloads, so make more money?

They way they divide up money from CDs ultimately depends on negotiated contract terms between performers and publisher, not applicable in an imposed system. They also only need to divide up revenues from a particular work or person's work - not between different performer's works.

Also, you can be sure that any scheme imposed by governments will heavily favour exactly the same people who back SOPA and PIPA.

Yes, its relatively simple compared to the current disaster, but it still a long way from a satisfactory solution.