The CopyKat - taking stock of a 'brief week'

A Sky News live feed of the debate between the US Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, and Rand Paul on its YouTube channel focussed on the U.K. was shut down part way through, possibly after the intervention of U.S. sister channel Fox Networks. Both broadcasters are owned by News Corp. The YouTube feed was replaced by an error message: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Fox News Networks, LLC." although some commentators point to the fact that YouTube's own automatic copyright infringement identifying software might have instigated the take down. Sky's old YouTube channel remains blocked - Sky News has since switched over to a new YouTube URL. In the U.S.,  the Republican debate, which was hosted by Fox News in partnership with Facebook, was meant to only be available to those with a cable TV subscription.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Yahoo! are amongst the signatories to a new amicus brief submitted to the New York court that is considering legal action filed by the Motion Picture Association Of America seeking an injunction forcing third parties to block, remove links and stop providing any services to the copyright infringing MovieTube website(s).  They say that the injunction the MPAA requests is too wide-ranging, hinders the sometimes controversial safe harbours provided to tech companies in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and is basically "SOPA by the back door" (SOPa was the much maligned Stop Online Piracy Act, ultimately put on the back burner by the legislature. The brief says: "Plaintiffs now appear to be repackaging the excesses of SOPA into the All Writs Act. Indeed, the injunction proposed here would require the same online intermediaries targeted by SOPA to engage in the same kind of content and domain blocking that would have been required under SOPA had it been enacted".

Police in the UK have hailed an operation to halt advertising on piracy sites as a “major success”. The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) claims that since it launched Operation Creative and the Infringing Website List (IWL) in summer 2013, there has been a 73% decrease in advertising from the UK’s ‘top ad spending companies’ on copyright infringing websites, with PIPCU heralding the success of its 'follow the money' approach. More on MBW here.

Back to SiriusXM and those pre-1972 sound recordings in the USA: As readers may remember, Sirius appealed both the decisions it has so far lost (New York and California) which held that state law DID protect pre-1972 sound recordings and Sirius couldn't therefor use them royalty free , and a similar case against Pandora is also on appeal in California. Last week, EFF, who argue that this effectively creating new public performance rights that might apply to all pre-1972 recordings and all types of broadcasters, filed a brief with the Second Circuit  Court of Appeals in New York, urging that court to reverse the decision. The National Association of Broadcasters, the New York Broadcasters Association, Public Knowledge, Pandora, and a group of law professors also filed briefs (it seems to be 'brief week') opposing the new right, with the EFF explaining to the court some of the many problems this ruling could cause if it’s not reversed. EFF argued that the courts should leave decisions about expanding copyright law to Congress and also saying that whilst public performance rights in sound recordings are common outside the US, and they exist for digital radio services in the U.S. - they come with important safeguards: explicit limitations like fair use, and statutory licenses that avoid the massive transaction costs that would come with having to negotiate with each rights holder individually. 

A report crunching more than six years of copyright lawsuits filed in the U.S. has revealed that Malibu Media is the country's most litigious plaintiff. The company, which TorrentFreak says demands thousands of dollars from individual file-sharers, has filed 4,332 lawsuits since January 2009, fifteen times more than its nearest rival. Overall, it's estimated that 90% of file-sharing cases are settled out of court. However 66 cases reached court with total resulting damages estimated at $3.05 million. The company set up to pursue illegal downloaders of the movie Dallas Buyers Club sits in second place, with a relatively measly 274 cases, fifteen times fewer in volume than Malibu.

ZDNet reports that the Australian Attorney-General has commissioned a cost-benefit analysis of proposed digital copyright reform, which will encompass an economic analysis into the Australian Law Reform Commissions's (ALRC) recommendation to adopt a flexible fair use provision in regards to digital copyright in Australian law, seemingly as the the AG is concerned about the costs to both rights holders and rights users. A new Australian fair use provision would mean the fair use of a copyright material would not constitute infringement, based on a series of as yet incomplete fairness factors -- including the purpose of the use, nature of the material, amount of the material used, and the use's effect on the material's value: in addition research for the purposes of study and education as well as news reporting, review, criticism, satire, parody, quotation, non-commercial private use, professional advice, incidental or technical use, library or archive, and access for people with a disability would be exempted from copyright infringement provisions. The ALRC have said that the reforms are needed to promote the digital economy in Australia, although AG Brandis is seen as a friend to the content industries and unconvinced that despite changing technology, major law reforms are necessary, saying in late 2013 "I want to reaffirm the government's commitment to the content industries. It is the government's strong view that the fundamental principles of intellectual property law, which protect the rights of content creators, have not changed merely because of the emergence of new media and new platforms."

My Rights v Your Rights: the cyber wars escalate

A proposal from the government of Taiwan to amend the Copyright  Act that would require local Internet Service Providers to block illegal content on foreign Web sites yesterday has come under fire from  venture capitalists and Web users alike, primarily for violating freedom of speech and people's rights. The blocks would be placed on  DNS or IP addresses, and would have to be carried out by Taiwanese ISPs on instructions from the government.

The Taipei Times has reported that one venture capitalist, Jamie Lin, from the firm appWorks Ventures, told Taipei Times the proposal goes against the values of freedom and democracy, which locals hold in high regard saying  "It doesn't make any sense," Lin said. "The move seems like building a firewall to prevent local Internet users from seeing illegally uploaded content, but the content would still exist in servers overseas and can be viewed by foreign Internet users." And Ching Chiao, vice president for community relations at DotAsia, a top-level domain registry operator, wrote in a Facebook post that the proposal is a "setback for democracy and a stupid policy that wastes people's money" adding  "Countries which have implemented ISP-level blocking are turning the Internet into intranet, the first step for turning a modern country into a self-enclosed country." Another blogger, Tsai I-Chen, said in a blog post that the amendment violated citizens' rights saying "Can you accept the blocking of Facebook because there are too many infringed movies or the blocking of Dropbox because it is frequently used for the transmission of illegal software? This is not a copyright infringement issue, [but] it is an issue on the violation of people's rights."

Taiwan’s web users were quick to set up an online protest campaign that has already racked up more than 15,000 participants on Facebook - who are attending an online ‘event’ in protest:  another 90,000 have been invited. Called  “#freeandopen!, the event has been snowballing, doubling its number of supporters in the last five days, and the page invites users to contact Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office (TIPO)  representatives and let them know that many people strongly oppose the plan. It lists names, contact phone numbers, and email addresses for several TIPO representatives, as well as a generic contact email and number.

The proposed changes have been compared to other legislation like the US’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which caused massive online protests in 2012 and was widely considered a step towards censoring the internet. The bill was ultimately dropped. Techasia adds “Taiwanese net users are hoping that their protests may lead to a similar outcome”.

In the USA, a new 84 page report from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property proposes a number of ways piracy can be combated, one of which involves “infecting alleged violators’ computers with malware that can wreak havoc, including and up to destroying the user’s computer”. the Commission argue that they need to fight fire with fire and that software can be pre-installed on computers for the purpose of monitoring and identifying copyright-violating activity. If the software detects copyright-violating activities of any of those sorts, it would cause the computer or its files to being locked. Once the files and/or computer was locked, a password would be needed  to unlock the system, and the computer would tell the c user to contact a law enforcement agency, which will have the password necessary to unlock the computer. The plan is to “stabilize” an infringement situation and get the police involved. A second proposal is for the computer to snap a picture of the computer users with the computers built in webcam if they are involved in alleged infringing activity. 

Slashgear reports that the the malware “would allow companies to gather data from a computer, change data located on the network, and destroy it if it feels such an action is necessary – all without permission, obviously. There’s also suggestions that it could be used to do other things as well, including up to destroying the user’s computer and/or network” and the Report itself says 

“While not currently permitted under U.S. law, there are increasing calls for creating a more permissive environment for active network defense that allows companies not only to stabilize a situation but to take further steps, including actively retrieving stolen information, altering it within the intruder’s networks, or even destroying the information within an unauthorized network. Additional measures go further, including photographing the hacker using his own system’s camera, implanting malware in the hacker’s network, or even physically disabling or destroying the hacker’s own computer or network.”

http://www.techinasia.com/taiwan-protests-copyright-blacklist-facebook-rally/  

http://www.decryptedtech.com/news/the-copyright-lobby-wants-more-power-to-punish-pirates-without-the-need-to-file-lawsuits

The Cat Signal: it's launch day!

A new lobby group, the Internet Defense League, is launching today to fight so-called copyright crackdown legislation. Members include Mozilla, WordPress and Reddit, who join together in "Protecting Free Internet Since 2012".

The group "takes the tactic that killed SOPA & PIPA and turns it into a permanent force for defending the internet, and making it better. Think of it like the internet's Emergency Broadcast System, or its bat signal!"

How does it intend to do this? By offering a code that can be embedded in members' websites. The League says that "When the internet's in danger and we need millions of people to act, the League will ask its members to broadcast an action. (Say, a prominent message asking everyone to call their elected leaders.) With the combined reach of our websites and social networks, we can be massively more effective than any one organization"

Look out today for the group's "cat signal" which is being blasted all over the internet, and tonight for the image being projected into the sky, Batman-style (on the opening night of The Dark Knight),  in London, San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Ulaanbaatar.

Copyright is high on the political agenda in North America and in Europe, so this is undoubtedly the right time to lobby. The law is evolving in an attempt to catch up with technology and both rightsholders and users need to take action to ensure that the changes decided on are not to their detriment.

The Internet Defence League's coordinated approach is helpful: a united voice will hold much more sway than each company could on its own. However members of the group do choose on a case-by-case basis whether to participate in alerts, and the views in alerts are not always endorsed by all members. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in practice.

The League says: "We are very happy to be sharing a launch date with Batman. Everyone who took part in defeating SOPA, PIPA and ACTA this year are legitimate real-life superheroes. Sure, the film's parent company probably has bats$%&# crazy plans for our internet (and yes, they gave a role in the movie to a pro-PIPA Senator). But Batman? He's awesome."

ACTA, SOPA and PIPA back in the news

Last week the European Parliament's influential International Trade Committee recommended that members of the Parliament vote against adopting the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) but the recommendation has prompted an angry backlash from trade groups representing the content industries including the record labels international body the IFPI who said in statement "The recommendation by the European Parliament's International Trade Committee that the Parliament should reject ACTA is a disappointment to Europe's creative, innovative and manufacturing sectors, which employ over 120 million people across Europe and depend on intellectual property to support and grow their businesses" and added "More than 130 organisations representing the breadth of European industry have urged the European Parliament to wait for the opinion of the Court Of Justice of the European Union before taking a final decision on the treaty. A vote to follow the INTA recommendation and to reject ACTA now would be to ignore the voices of industry, unions, employees, the Commission, the Council and Member States. ACTA should be given careful and responsible consideration before a decision that will have significant effects on the EU's trade relationships and economy". Nineteen MEPs on the Trade Committee voted against adopting ACTA, with twelve in favour. 


Elsewhere, Wikipedia founder James (Jimmy) Wales has come out in support of Richard O'Dwer, the 24 year old multimedia student at Sheffield Hallam University who set up TVshack.net, making some £140,000 in the process, and who is now facing extradition from the UK to the USA on copyright infringement charges. Wales has said O'Dwyer is the "human face" of the global battle over the interests of the film, TV and movie industries and the wider public, which led to the public outcry over the proposed PIPA and SOPA (the USA's Protect Intellectual Property and the Stop Online Piracy Acts). The Guardian has a front page story and has dedicated two pages to O'Dwyer's battle in today's newspaper which can be found here (Knock on the door that could lead to 10 years in US jail for film fan). 

Dear Hollywood: An Open Letter to the Hardworking Men and Women in the Entertainment Industries

I reproduce this pity letter from the EFF (Electronic Frontiers Foundation) in full, making no apology or comment. Others may care to ......

Dear Hollywood,

You don’t need us to tell you that your position on anti-"piracy" laws has been unpopular recently. Last month’s historic protests, with millions of Americans registering their opposition, have made that point pretty clear. Instead, we’re writing today to tell you that the Internet can be great for creators and their community, but your own leadership refuses to recognize and take advantage of its promise. It seems they’d rather spend your membership dues on lawyers, lobbyists and astroturf than innovation. We suspect many of you are realizing this, especially when you see how successful new business models can be.

We humbly suggest that you stand up and tell them to either embrace the age of the Internet or get out of the way so that new, forward-thinking industry leaders can take their place.

Hollywood’s leadership painted the push for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) as a defense of your jobs — a stance that was cynical at best, as they know the only jobs the bill would save were those of their lawyers. What is worse, by framing a stance against SOPA and PIPA as a betrayal of creators everywhere, they’ve poisoned the debate about the legislation and attempted to mislead you into fighting for bills that won’t put a dent in online infringement but will interfere with the development of ways for creators like you to profit from Internet technologies.

An honest discussion of proposed legislation needs to start with the questions: Is this law necessary? And is it the best solution to the problem? Americans stood up against SOPA and PIPA not because they are “corporate pawns,” as MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd says, but because the answer to both of these questions is a big no.

For one thing, although the studio heads and MPAA leadership claim this legislation is about your jobs, they’re curiously silent about the fact that entertainment spending and revenues are up across the board. In the words of one recent study, the sky isn’t falling — it’s rising. So if you’re concerned about your job, please realize the primary threat does not come from unauthorized downloading. The actor Wil Wheaton suggests that the problem might be closer to home:

I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy.

Moreover, as the publisher Tim O’Reilly has explained for a decade now, “obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” The Internet is the best tool for publicity and distribution the world has ever known – if you know how to use it.

And though the handful of executives at the top might not have realized that yet, individual creators among you have reached this conclusion and are already profiting from it. At last week’s Sundance festival, even as Dodd and others were lamenting the web’s impact on film, ten percent of the films were financed by pledges through the online fundraising platform Kickstarter. And after film, music projects are Kickstarter’s second largest funding recipients. The music publishing platform Bandcamp now regularly pays out a million dollars to artists each month through sales made on the site. Some of those sales are even made to people who were looking for free content, but were enticed by the friendly purchase process.

Even some label executives, like Craig Davis at EMI, have realized that unauthorized downloading is "a service issue." Or to put it simply, as the musician Jonathan Coulton has written: "Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan."

The tech community loves creativity, and it wants to support artists, but it’s got a real problem with the people who run Hollywood. As long as it’s worried about Hollywood leadership doing damage to civil liberties and online freedom, the kind of profitable partnerships we know are possible will be difficult to make.

We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. The right answer to the question that the Internet raised isn't to demonize the tech community and innovators. That strategy failed dramatically against earlier technologies like the VCR, which MPAA President Jack Valenti compared to "the Boston strangler" in a 1982 testimony to Congress. Of course, that innovation opened up the home video market, which is now the source of nearly half of all studio revenue.

SOPA and PIPA were a step in the wrong direction, but it’s not too late to turn this ship around. Please, tell your leaders to support innovation — or get new leaders.

Best of luck,
The Internet

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/dear-hollywood-open-letter-hardworking-men-and-women-entertainment-industries

Megaupload team arrested in New Zealand

Reuters report that Kim Dotcom (Kim Schmitz, a 37 year old German national), the Megaupload boss, has been arrested by police in New Zealand and that the US Government has shut down the content sharing website which recently featured on this Blog. It can hardly have escaped anyone’s notice that the actions come against the background of heated debate over the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislation in the USA but Reuters report that a US Justice Department official said the timing of the arrests was not related to the battle inside and outside Congress. Schmitz lives in new Zealand and it appears that some 70 police officers raided 10 properties and also arrested the website's chief marketing officer, Finn Batato, 38, chief technical officer and co-founder Mathias Ortmann, 40 (both German nationals) and Dutch national Bram van der Kolk, 29, who is also a New Zealand resident. Alongside these arrests, NZ police seized several million dollars worth of assets and NZ$10 million from financial institutions. The Organised & Financial Crime Agency New Zealand said they would work with US Authorities to enable extradition proceedings to proceed. Those arrested have been remanded in custody after a court hearing in Auckland.

The indictment accuses seven individuals and two corporations – Hong Kong based Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited -- of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. Megaupload has boasted of having more than 150 million registered users and 50 million daily visitors, according to the indictment. At one point, it was estimated to be the 13th most frequently visited website on the Internet.

And critics of the quickly showed their opposition to the shutdown of Megaupload.com, with hackers attacking the public websites of the Justice Department, the world's largest music company Universal Music, and the two big trade groups that represent the music and film industries, the RIAA and the MPA.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/20/usa-crime-piracy-idUSL1E8CJC1Q20120120 and http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website/

SOPA: a reader asks for information

Heat ... and light

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the United States has generated a good deal of discussion -- but from the point of view of the dedicated copyright student the words expended on it might be said to have produced more heat than light.

A reader has written to ask me if I can recommend "any serious, legal and dispassionate reflexion about SOPA, whatever be the position of the author".

Offhand I couldn't think of much writing that complied with these criteria. Accordingly I invite readers of this blog to crowd-source a response to her request, preferably by posting recommended reading via the Comment link below. Many thanks in anticipation!

Murdoch v Obama, Google v Murdoch

Further updates on the ongoing debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), after the Obama administration responded on Saturday to the "VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information" petition and made it clear that, though online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, it will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet (full response was reported by this Blog here).

Right away, on Saturday night, Media mogul Rupert Murdoch embraced the arms of his Twitter account to blast President Obama for throwing "his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery." 

He also used a couple of tweets to attack Google: "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying." and added "Film making [is as] risky as hell. This has to lead to less, hurting writers, actors, all concerned."  

As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, considering Murdoch was airing his complaints on the Internet, he didn't exactly find a sympathetic audience.

Captain Hook reading latest SOPA updates 

In an e-mail sent to CNET on Sunday afternoon, Google responded to Murdoch's statements.

"This is just nonsense," wrote a Google spokeswoman. "Last year we took down 5 million infringing Web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads ... We fight pirates and counterfeiters every day."

Google said it thinks there are better methods to fighting piracy than those sought by copyright owners: "We believe, like many other tech companies, that the best way to stop [pirates] is through targeted legislation that would require ad networks and payment processors--like ours--to cut off sites dedicated to piracy or counterfeiting."

The USA's SOPA- hot off the press - can it be true?

If the examiner.com is to be believed, US Congressman Eric Cantor (Republican) has announced he will stop all action on SOPA. More news on Techdirt.

President Obama on debate over the SOPA

As readers of this blog will know, the debate over the Stop Piracy Online Act (SOPA) has been heating up. Now, the Obama administration has also had its say on this.

A message was posted yesterday on a White House blog by Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at the Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff, as regards two petitions about legislative approaches to combat online piracy.

Here's the official White House response to the "VETO the SOPA bill and any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information" petition (the bold text is in the White House post):

“… While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.

Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. Across the globe, the openness of the Internet is increasingly central to innovation in business, government, and society and it must be protected. To minimize this risk, new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing [this sounds fairly interesting ...]

We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk. 

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.  It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. That is why the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response.  We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values.

This is not just a matter for legislation. We expect and encourage all private parties, including both content creators and Internet platform providers working together, to adopt voluntary measures and best practices to reduce online piracy.

So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right. Already, many members of Congress are asking for public input around the issue. We are paying close attention to those opportunities, as well as to public input to the Administration …

Moving forward, we will continue to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting, while vigorously defending an open Internet based on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation …”

Does copyright works if 'the price is right' ?

A US study has found that people are happy to pay for online content, provided that it is offered at a fair price and the service is convenient, and in general terms would rather not infringe copyright law. The research, based on a study of 2,303 people by US think-tank American Assembly, shows that illegal file sharing among family and friends is relatively common – but that people would prefer to use a legal alternative if one was available at the right price and usage point.

The data suggests that streaming music services are getting this right, but users are still unwilling to accept the current range of video streaming offerings at the current price and convenience points. The survey found that 46% people surveyed had engaged in piracy, with this rising to above 70% for people aged 19 to 27. Over two thirds of those questioned would share music within family or friends, and over half would share video content in the same group. But when it comes to uploading material, support drops off radically with less than 4% saying they would illegally upload files with 0% of the over 65s saying they would or had.

Over half of the under-29s surveyed were happy to use legal music streaming services but barely a third felt the same for video streaming. Interestingly legal film streaming was welcomed by the older generation, who were historically accustomed to paying for movies and found the sum of $15.99 a good price for a film. With video gaming, rates of piracy were far lower than for other content areas, primarily the survey says because of the technical know-how needed to modify consoles to play pirated games and less than 3% of those surveyed said they could play pirated games.

When it came to the penalties for piracy, the American public is clearly out of step with US legislation, US politicians and the statutory penalties awarded by US courts (and juries!). Three quarters of those surveyed felt that fines of less than $100 per song illegally downloaded were acceptable and only 16% felt that cutting off internet access was justified to stop piracy. Only a quarter who approved of disconnection – so just 4% - felt that more than a one month ban was warranted which must be a blow to the supporters of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation currently being debated in the USA.

The research was sponsored by the American Assembly at Columbia University and supported by a research grant from Google and forms part of the Copy Culture in the US and Germany study. Further data is due shortly. More at http://piracy.ssrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/AA-Research-Note-Infringement-and-Enforcement-November-2011.pdf and http://americanassembly.org/

And for more on what the US public do and do not know about the US copyright system, have a look at "The Insanity of Copyright Law – even professionals have no idea they are breaking the law” on Techdirt - the comments make for an interesting read and give a surprisingly wide range of views: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111212/18333717059/insanity-copyright-law-when-even-professionals-have-no-idea-theyre-breaking-law.shtml

STOP starts war of words

New cross party US legislation, The STOP Online Piracy Act, has set off heated arguments both for and against the new proposals. The entertainment industry is broadly on one side, supporting the law’s provisions. Against are an array of groups including advocates on behalf of individual and civil liberties, the technology industry and other pressure groups. The Bill was introduced by House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). The draft legislation is set out as a bill "To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes."

SOPA (HR 3261) is an attempt to tackle websites and addresses that violate U.S. copyright laws but have no physical presence in the country. They key is to make offending sites invisible to US internet users - and to strangle their income. It requires Internet Service Providers block access to offending sites, and ensure search engines omit them from results. It will also require credit card and other financial services to block payments to them, and US firms from advertising with them. But opponents say that what SOPA doesn’t do is require is any kind of verification that the site is actually infringing and “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property”. Those against SOPA instead express concerns that the proposed law contains too many vague terms, it is technically unfeasible, and it presumes guilt. You can find the Bill here http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112%20HR%203261.pdf

John Conyers (D-Mich) and one of the Bill’s sponsors said “Today marks an important step in furthering Congress’ constitutional prerogative to protect the rights of artists and innovators” adding “I look forward to working with all of the entities in the online ecosystem to effectively choke off the funding for rogue websites and eliminate their safe-havens as the bill becomes law. Millions of American jobs hang in the balance, and our efforts to protect America’s intellectual property are critical to our economy’s long-term success.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation strongly disagrees. “Under this bill, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. Websites that simply don’t do enough to police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would qualify as ‘enough’) are now under threat, even though the DMCA expressly does not require affirmative policing” and many others do too.”

To explain the various positions I thought it easiest to use their words and so below I set out some (but nowhere near all) of the public facing responses. Those against the Bill include The Center for Democracy and Technology, Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Fight for the Future and Tech Freedom. Those for the Bill include The US Committee on the Judiciary, the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association. of America (MPA), the Copyright Alliance, the Independent Film & Television Alliance, National Music Publishers Association, the American Association of Independent Music and a joint statement from the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) amongst others.

FOR THOSE AGAINST

The EFF said this of SOPA under the headline Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back – And It’s Worse than Ever: “We've reported [here] often on efforts to ram through Congress legislation that would authorize massive interference with the Internet, all in the name of a fruitless quest to stamp out all infringement online. Today Representative Lamar Smith upped the ante, introducing legislation, called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or “SOPA” that would not only sabotage the domain name system but would also threaten to effectively eliminate the DMCA safe harbors that, while imperfect, have spurred much economic growth and online creativity.

As with its Senate-side evil sister, protect-ip, SOPA would require service providers to “disappear” certain websites, endangering Internet security and sending a troubling message to the world: it’s okay to interfere with the Internet, even effectively blacklisting entire domains, as long as you do it in the name of IP enforcement. Of course blacklisting entire domains can mean turning off thousands of underlying websites that may have done nothing wrong. And in what has to be an ironic touch, the very first clause of SOPA states that it shall not be “construed to impose a prior restraint on free speech.” As if that little recitation could prevent the obvious constitutional problem in what the statute actually does.

But it gets worse. Under this bill, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. Websites that simply don’t do enough to police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would qualify as “enough”) are now under threat, even though the DMCA expressly does not require affirmative policing. It creates new enforcement tools against folks who dare to help users access sites that may have been “blacklisted,” even without any kind of court hearing. The bill also requires that search engines, payment providers (such as credit card companies and PayPal), and advertising services join in the fun in shutting down entire websites. In fact, the bill seems mainly aimed at creating an end-run around the DMCA safe harbors. Instead of complying with the DMCA, a copyright owner may now be able to use these new provisions to effectively shut down a site by cutting off access to its domain name, its search engine hits, its ads, and its other financing even if the safe harbors would apply. And that’s only the beginning: we haven’t even started on the streaming provisions. We’ll have more details on the bill in the next several days but suffice it to say, this is the worst piece of IP legislation we’ve seen in the last decade — and that’s saying something. This would be a good time to contact your Congressional representative and tell them to oppose this bill!”

Also against, Tech Freedom said: “Last summer, House leaders assured Silicon Valley they would correct serious defects in the Senate’s Protect IP bill, defects that would have caused long-term unintended damage to innovation. SOPA does just the opposite. SOPA would give media companies unwarranted and unprecedented new powers to shape the structure and content of the Internet. It creates vague, sweeping standards for secondary liability, drafted to ensure maximum litigation. It treats all U.S. consumers as guilty until proven innocent. SOPA is an early Christmas present for Hollywood, and a jobs bill for trial lawyers.

SOPA, regrettably, represents a big step backward in Washington’s efforts to support the digital revolution, one of the only sectors of the economy that continues to grow. A bill that was supposed to target the "worst of the worst" foreign websites committing blatant and systemic copyright and trademark infringement has morphed inexplicably into an unrestricted hunting license for media companies to harass anyone—foreign or domestic--who questions their timetable for digital transformation.

Only by carefully crafting narrow remedies against truly rogue websites can Congress achieve copyright's goal of promoting creativity without undermining basic freedoms and distorting the healthy development of the Internet itself.”

AND FROM THOSE FOR

The US Chamber of Commerce said this: “A coalition of over 380 businesses, trade associations, and professional groups from nearly every sector of the economy in all 50 states support enhanced enforcement against rogue sites. Today, the U.S. House of Representative has responded to that call with the introduction of Stop Online Piracy Act. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce applauds the introduction of Stop Online Piracy Act that will disconnect websites dedicated to online piracy and counterfeiting from the U.S. marketplace. This legislation will provide U.S. law enforcement with refined legal tools to act against “rogue sites,” which steal American jobs, threaten consumer health and safety, and weaken the online commerce ecosystem.

“Websites that blatantly steal the creativity and innovation of American industries violate a fundamental right to property,” said Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber. “Operators of rogue sites threaten American jobs, endanger consumer safety, and undermine the vitality of the online marketplace. I commend Representatives Smith, Goodlatte, Conyers, and Watt for standing up to the mass theft of American intellectual property.” The bipartisan House proposal is also co-sponsored by Representatives Quayle and Berman.

The Stop Online Piracy Act will disconnect websites dedicated to online piracy and counterfeiting from the U.S. marketplace. This legislation will provide U.S. law enforcement with refined legal tools to act against “rogue sites,” which steal American jobs, threaten consumer health and safety, and weaken the online commerce ecosystem.

Rogue sites attract 53 billion visits per year, jeopardizing the more than $7.7 trillion of U.S. GDP and 60% of exports that the industries they steal from produce for our economy. The sweeping alliance of business and labor leaders, which represent nearly every sector of the 19 million Americans employed in IP-dependent industries, have all called for enhanced enforcement against rogue sites.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to those who take advantage of U.S. innovators and chip away at the American workforce,” Donohue added. “While rogue sites pose a unique set of challenges, legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act introduced today offer clear, tailored enforcement tools to effectively root them out. The U.S. Chamber looks forward to working with the broad coalition of businesses of every size and shape, and organized labor to support Members of the House and Senate and ensure that rogue sites legislation is enacted this year.”

And the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) “announced its support of bi-partisan, comprehensive intellectual property enforcement legislation introduced today in the U.S. House of Representatives ..... the Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261), which considers the role of all players in the online ecosystem and aims to follow the money supporting online theft, could help stem the loss of thousands of jobs resulting from the illegal online distribution of content. Jean Prewitt, IFTA President & CEO, said, “Online theft in the U.S. and overseas threatens the independent film industry and must be stopped. For the Independents, who finance films by pre-selling the rights to distributors worldwide, the drastic damage caused by online theft is measured both in films that cannot be produced and in lost returns on investment in films that have been produced. Independents account for 70% of all U.S. film production, so every independent film that can’t be financed and produced has a dramatic impact on jobs and the economy. We appreciate the House Judiciary Committee’s serious bipartisan work in bringing this bill forward to address both rogue websites and felony streaming, and we look forward to working with them to ensure that strong measures are adopted.” IFTA is working alongside the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA), Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc. and a growing coalition of entertainment union workers and organizations, businesses and labor groups involved in the production, sale and distribution of creative content in support of the legislation.”


And finally a group comprising the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada (IATSE), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) today released the following statement:

“As the Guilds and Unions that represent more than 400,000 craftspeople, actors, technicians, directors, musicians, recording artists and others whose creativity is at the heart of the American entertainment industry, we applaud Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), and Congressmen Howard Berman (D-CA) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) along with several other Members of Congress, for introducing HR 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act today.

“This legislation, a companion bill to the PROTECT IP Act currently in the Senate, will provide U.S. law enforcement agencies with the tools to protect American intellectual property, including the films, television shows and sound recordings created by our members, from foreign rogue websites that knowingly and deliberately engage in the illegal distribution of our content for profit.

“Left unchecked, these rogue websites threaten the vitality of the online marketplace by stealing the work of American innovators and undermining legitimate business. They profit by offering access to content that they had no role at all in creating or financing, and they threaten real jobs, not only for our members but for those with whom they collaborate on set and hundreds of thousands of others whose livelihoods are dependent on the economic health of our business. Without proactive measures like the STOP Online Piracy Act, rogues sites will continue to siphon away wages and benefits from members of the creative community, greatly compromising our industry’s ability to foster creativity, provide opportunities, and ensure good jobs.

“We thank Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Conyers, and Congressmen Berman and Goodlatte as well as the bill’s other cosponsors for recognizing through their action today that the works created by our members - the result of talent, creativity, collaboration and years of hard work – are not only valuable contributions to our culture but are worthy of being protected from rogue sites and the profiteers who operate them. We look forward to working with Chairman Smith, the cosponsors of the bill, and the members of the House Judiciary Committee to ensure that this important legislation moves forward.”

http://techfreedom.org/blog/2011/10/28/larry-downes-statement-stop-online-piracy-act-sopa

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/disastrous-ip-legislation-back-%E2%80%93-and-it%E2%80%99s-worse-ever

http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/2011/october/us-chamber-praises-house-legislation-protect-jobs-and-sever-rogue-websit

http://www.ifta-online.org/ifta-new-house-intellectual-property


http://www.sag.org/joint-statement-sag-afm-aftra-dga-iatse-and-ibt-regarding-stop-online-piracy-act-hr-3261

Another stop sign image - this one from www.freefoto.com

Vladimir Kush "To The Safe Haven" here http://www.artbrokerage.co.uk/artist/Vladimir-Kush/To-the-Safe-Haven-41093