With increasing support from the biggest websites in the world (Facebook, Google & Wikipedia) and with the increasing tension leading to chances of an internet 'blackout' I think it is fairly important to enlighten ATRL on this issue. Besides the inevitable 'Blackout' on January 23rd, SOPA and PIPA both are problematic bills that will not achieve their goals of eliminating internet piracy as they so helm themselves to do but will instead allow the US government to block American access to websites on the internet. SOPA and PIPA both intend to use a DNS blocking method to prevent access to websites that are considered to have breached copyright infringement; the same method was used in December by Universal whom declared Megaupload a site that clearly defied copyright law and thus DNS blocking for Megaupload was activated for the USA. Similarly it is the same system used in China and South Korea to block internet access.
What are the larger implications of these bills then? They allow the US government to block American access to any website if the government feels that the website is infringing in copyright in any way, shape or form. For four or five years now, Youtube has blocked videos for copyright and for infringement, more then likely if this bill is passed Youtube access will indefinitely cease to exists for American consumers unless Youtube restricts its uploaders to that of the copyright holders and then it essentially will become a larger Vevo encompassing more then just music. In terms of Youtube, an interesting analogy to look at is if you get hit by a Volvo car and it is simply the driver's fault do you then sue Volvo for making the car? No, similarly on Youtube you don't sue Youtube for uploading infringing content, it is the uploader that is instead at blame (as is the driver in the analogy). SOPA and PIPA also will affect our social networks and online forums (most notably ATRL). Imagine how many times you have posted a copyrighted photo online on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr, then imagine if this bill passed, every single one of those sites would be blocked. ATRL also, with these laws in place, would almost indefinitely be blocked.
The main flaw of the entire bill is that is aimed against piracy, an issue that is brought up again and again and is classically tackled head-on. But piracy cannot be tackled by enforcement, it simply has never worked. It leads to further infringement if anything. This is because infringement is created because a consumer often feels devalued or under-served by the company. It is therefore a problem of the business model then anything. Gabe Newall, the man behind Valve, even said that piracy (one of the biggest problems in the gaming market) is a business model problem and the creation of Valve's Steam has significantly reduced game pirating. In recent years new developments such as Netflix, iTunes and Spotify have been very effective in updating ageing technology and increasing consumer satisfaction and thus reducing piracy. They are all far more effective then attempting to police infringement through an 'online police'. Moreover the DNS blocking would never work from a technical point of view, as pointed out by Google.
The broad and sweeping targeting of the bill not abhorrently apparent in it's statements is also a cause for concern. Much like the content-blocking DMCA (most commonly seen on Youtube) false claims will be made all the time. Unlike DMCA where only the content is blocked, under SOPA the whole website would be cut off and under PIPA the website owner could be taken to court. This means a stripping of any income for the website owner as advertisements will quickly draw up. This creates problems where there will be increasing reliance on IT teams who will consistently have to monitor their websites to ensure no infringement is ever apparent. As companies have already noted, new innovations in internet construction will be slowed as funding begins to decrease from bigger companies as there is more risk of collapse. This would reduce jobs and income in an area of the economy that is one of the fastest expanding. SOPA comments that a website is liable for blocking if it 'enables or facilitates' infringement. This statement effectively applies to every website out there. It even applies to Emails. There is some leniency claimed with the bill that if a website takes 'deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability' of infringement then it is clear of blocking. This is impossible on an user-generated website, ATRL included.
DNS blocking itself is another huge problem of the bill. This is why companies such as Wikipedia, Google and Facebook have spoken out even pre-PIPA. DNS blocking would set back years worth of security work on the internet, making everyone less safe online. It is apparent that these companies know what they are talking about. They are built on IT, they work with it daily but congress along with its 50/60 year olds who have never touched a computer in their life wish to discuss something best left to the experts.
There are also arguments that SOPA would stifle free speech and create a slippery slope situation where our rights to free speech will be taken away from us in turn for DNS blocking. This clearly defies the first amendment.
So what can you do? What we can do is we can help stop SOPA. If you are from the US then use this link here to get access to your local senator to help convince him that to pass this bill is a wrong move:
http://americancensorship.org/
If you are from any other country then sign online petitions, simply searching SOPA petitions will help you to find such forms.
ATRL on its own can help by contributing to the internet blackout on the 23rd January along with all other large websites. As a pretty large website with thousands of hits daily, I feel we could make a little (but substantial enough) impact. Sign below to support this move.
If ATRL got blocked, could I go outside the country and browse it, or would it be blocked/shut down from the whole world?
