Vox Populi: SOPA and PIPA Put on the Shelf

[Article first published as Vox Populi Puts SOPA and PIPA on the Shelf on Blogcritics.]

Looks like it’s over.  Senate bill PIPA and its house companion bill SOPA have been shelved indefinitely by their sponsors.  On Friday, the announcements were made by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX).  And it wasn’t the pundits or political experts that made it happen.  It was the people of this country – our nation’s collective vox populi – that made it possible.

On Wednesday we looked at the Internet blackout – sites like Wikipedia, Reddit, Wordpress, Tumblr and more replaced their regular daily content with black screens, featuring information about PIPA and SOPA instead, citing reasons for its detriment to the internet age, and a number of resources for how to take action if the reader user chose to do so.  Even webcomic artists like XKCD’s Randall Munroe and Questionable Content’s Jeph Jacques joined in the blackout for solidarity, while Ars Technica hosted “SOPA Resistance Day.”

January 18^th marked the largest protest in the history of the internet.  By the numbers, there were 10 million petition signatures.  Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Demand Progress and Fight for the Future, over 3 million emails were sent to Senators and Representatives.  All for one singular purpose – convincing their politicians to drop support for these bills.  And damn did it ever work.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," Smith said. "It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products."  This statement came just hours after a tweet from Senator Reid stating “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote on the PROTECT IP Act #PIPA”

I remember watching the first SOPA markup session in the House Judiciary Committee on a live stream and seeing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) stand up to point out the flaws in the bill.  While it seemed like there wasn’t enough knowledge in the room, these two representatives called for a hearing with technical experts to discuss every provision, including those covering DNS blocking.  Back then SOPA and PIPA never made the news cycle, and everyone outside of my circles of nerds looked at me cross whenever I mentioned it (They thought I was talking about soap, soup, and now-global sweetheart Pippa Middleton).

So while the movement against SOPA had support, that support didn’t have numbers.  There simply wasn’t any awareness in mainstream media or an understanding in non-technical people as to what was being discussed in Congress.  That’s where the January 18th blackout protest came in.  In addition to the millions online, people physically took to the streets in protest and generated a grassroots protest the likes of which we have never seen before.

Any of you that have read my articles with any regularity know what my stance was on SOPA and PIPA.  Ever since I saw that SOPA live stream, the overturning of these bills became a big cause of mine.  The internet is the greatest innovation in the history of the world – it connects us all, allows us to share, and is integral to not only the innovation and economic health of this country, but the entire world.  I’d like to personally thank every person that took action on this issue over the past few months.  Whether you wrote your congressman, stood in protest, joined the blackout in solidarity, posted messages on social media, or even just spread the word and educated those around you, it was everyone’s action together that helped to keep our internet free.  And to members of Congress, I commend you for hearing the voice of your constituents. 

3-Part Harmony: Web Blackout slaps SOPA, MPAA Slaps the Web Blackout, Technical Fowl Slaps the MPAA

SOPA and PIPA lost 3 co-sponsors this afternoon, presumably in response to the blackout protests by many prominent internet sites such as Reddit and Wikipedia.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) withdrew his co-sponsorship of PIPA while Reps. Lee Terry (R-NE) and Ben Quayle (R-AZ) did the same for SOPA in the House.  To explain why he withdrew his support, Sen. Rubio states on his Facebook page that while he maintains a "strong interest in stopping online piracy that cost Florida jobs," that we "must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies."  His statement came in response to overwhelming feedback he received from his Floridian constituents, and further goes on to encourage his colleague Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to stop from rushing this bill to the Senate floor.

While not outright dropping support, other politicians like Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) also wrote on his Facebook page that Congress needs to slow down, citing that it's more important to do this right than to do this quickly.

The  MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) also had their say – they claim that the web blackout is nothing more than a political stunt by technology businesses.  Speaking from what I can only guess is a platform of an ego over-inflated with our money and ticket stubs, here’s what MPAA CEO Chris Dodd had to say to USA Today:

"Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem."  Further, "A so-called blackout is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently."

Well allow me to retort.

Here’s the thing, Mr. Dodd.  We support the blackout.  We know better, and we support decisions and provisions that protect the rights of our citizens.  My profession is Information Technology and as such I’m a heavy internet user, and I don’t feel punished by the blackouts in the least.  I admire what these sites have done.  And when you speak about an unwillingness to come to the table to discuss options, please don’t do it without mentioning that the MPAA had the luxury of being consulted before SOPA went to a markup session in House Judiciary Committee.  Curiously absent were technical experts from around the country.  Fathers of internet technology like Vint Cerf had to make their opinions known with help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an open letter on the web.  You see, unfortunately for them, and us, they don’t have a lobby powerful enough to warrant an invitation to the table as the MPAA had.

While the interests of the MPAA and similar organizations can be secured with money and a powerful lobby, the rest of us use the tools we have at our disposal:  knowledge and numbers.  And as for punishment of elected officials?  You’re absolutely right.  They work for us.  For democracy to work, or a democratic republic as it were, the onus is not only on the politicians, but on the people to make their voices heard, so that those who represent us can, in fact represent us.  This is the internet age Mr. Dodd, and the American nerd will be the single strongest force in determining this world’s digital and technological future.

You want to stop piracy?  Fine.  I’m not arguing with you.  But there’s other ways of doing it than firing a missile into a village just to get one man.  What’s required is a surgical strike.  But naturally you and your colleagues would want SOPA and PIPA to go through in their broadest forms.  You wouldn’t mind a void where a host of user generated content used to be, so the exclusive source of what you shamefully call entertainment is in your hands and your hands alone.  Who cares if it stunts American innovation and creativity?  Who cares if this will cause ripples throughout the entire world?  Who cares if entire domains are blacklisted for the crimes of a few?  You’d get yours, and that’s all you care about.

I absolutely cannot wait for the children of the Internet Age to run the show.

The Day the Web Went Dark

[Article first published as The Day the Web Went Dark on Blogcritics]

A lot of Internet users today are checking in with their daily websites to find that those websites aren't up and active.  They're instead finding that some of those sites have gone dark, putting a halt to their operations today to raise awareness on two bills currently in Congress: H.R. 3261 and S. 968, known as the "Stop Online Piracy Act" and "Protect IP."  For those of you that don't really follow news in the tech world, these are two bills whose aim to stop online piracy. OK. Fair enough. The problem arises when one actually sits down and reads the language of the bills - SOPA and PIPA are so overreaching and broad in scope that they threaten the web itself, inadvertently targeting websites that thrive on user-generated content. Sites participating in a full blackout are Wikipedia, Reddit,GamePolitics and others. Other sites like the EFF and Ars Technica have changed their sites to a dark blackout theme in solidarity.  While this argument has been going on for months, it's something that the mainstream media is just picking up now, so please don't think that this is some new thing that just started.  SOPA in particular has already gone through a round of markup hearings in the House Judiciary Committee (showing us the huge disparity between knowledge and power) late last year and PIPA has also been making the rounds, with a vote pending on January 24th.

For those of you that aren't familiar with what the overreaching methods I discussed are all about, let me give you a quick nutshell.  SOPA and PIPA more or less state that ISP's (Internet Service Providers) can be compelled by court order to block user access to websites that are accused of either infringing or supporting the infringement of copyrighted material.  "Accused of."  This hands copyright holders (i.e. MPAA, RIAA and other big media) a kill switch the internet.  Sure, it'll work, but at the cost of censorship, an active web blacklist, the 1st Amendment, and the very nature of the internet itself.  All it would take is a good faith belief that a site is infringing on copyrighted material and a court order can be obtained to not only take it offline but choke off payments to it via PaypPal and other payment methods.  Now while recent alterations soften the language a little bit, the spirit of the bills stay the same.

Some of you who may not follow technology news may not really think that this is such a huge thing, but it affects every internet user. How does a world governed by SOPA and PIPA affect you, the everyday internet user? Let's go back to the meat of the bill - if it's thought that any part of a website contains infringing material, the entire website can be blocked. Think about those cloud storage services you use to keep all of those photographs and videos you share with your friends and family. Think about Facebook. Reddit. Twitter. Tumblr. Think about everyone that blogs through blog services like Blogger and Wordpress. And I don't even want to think about a Google Images search gone awry. If this goes through, wave bye bye to your digital presence.

There are other reasons why these bills are pointless. The DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) which is already in place seems to be working. I'm sure many of you have gone to YouTube or other video sites only to see that a "video removed" message replaced the content. See how they did that? They removed the copyrighted content without blocking the user's access to the site, as SOPA/PIPA would do. Secondly, these bills were originally written to target foreign sites supporting piracy. Foreign sites. If that's the case then why are those made to pay the consequence American users? Do you think the Pirate Bay is scared? I guarantee you they're not, and still running their torrent service like they always have been. Plus, anyone with even a shred of internet knowledge can go around DNS and get where they want to go through an IP address (Internet Protocol in this case, not Intellectual Property).

So what can you the user do about it?  The most important thing that you can do is to be heard.Contact your local politician and tell them NO on SOPA and PIPA.  Don't know how to do that? Don't worry, you know I've got you covered. Google has also started a petition to stop SOPA and PIPA, and put it better than I ever could – End Piracy, not Liberty. Check the following links: 

Find your House Representative

Find your Senators

Google Petition

Here are some other resources so you can get more information on SOPA and PIPA:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Ars Technica’s SOPA Resistance Day

Technical Fowl’s coverage of the House Judiciary SOPA Hearing  

Also, here's a handy guide to where Representatives and Senators stand, complete with campaign contributions: http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/

Sometimes change has to start with We the People.