Why SOPA/PIPA's Stated Goals Are BS
Hi, I'm Rilgon. You may remember me from such mediocre WoW blogs as Stabilized Effort Scope. What you may also know is that I've worked in a couple of large internet data centers in my career, and have been friends with Abuse Engineers from these data centers. Thus, I'm pretty familiar with piracy from the "take this infringing material down" angle. The media - including such formerly respectable organizations as NPR and such diarrhea as Fox News - are calling SOPA ("Stop Online Piracy Act") and PIPA ("Protect IP Act") "anti-piracy legislation".
As expected, this moniker is complete garbage. Why? Because we already have anti-piracy legislation on the books. It's called the DMCA ("Digital Millennium Copyright Act"). The DMCA already gives a content producer all the ammunition they need to take down their material that is on servers that they have not allowed it to be on without the draconian, freedom-killing provisions of SOPA/PIPA.
"But Rilgon," you ask, "how does DMCA do that?" It's easy. Copyright holders, under the DMCA, have the authority to file this thing called a DMCA Takedown Notice. This notice falls under a portion of the DMCA called the OCILLA ("Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act") that serves to protect Online Service Providers (OSPs) - companies like the ones I've worked for! - from direct culpability for someone hosting illicit materials on our network. The requirement is that we "not be immediately aware of" the infringing material, and there are two methods that we can be made aware. The primary one is a take-down notice from the copyright holder or their acting representative (i.e. lawyer).
Let's say that someone on my servers has a site called Bad McNasty Evil Pirates. They're scum of the information superhighway and have all sorts of pirated materials on their website! That's bad! One of these pirated things happens to be Minecraft. Our dear friend Notch (who doesn't love Notch?) finds out about Bad McNasty Evil Pirates and has Mojang's lawyer draft a DMCA Takedown to my company asking that it be taken down. The long and short of it basically says that the lawyer writing it is a legal representative of the copyright holder (Mojang and Notch) and is writing due to infringing material at <URL>. They then explain more about the material and the copyright over it, provide contact information for when the matter is resolved, and state that this is in good faith and without lie, omission of information, or malicious intent. That starts a 14-day clock.
When we get this Takedown notice, we turn around and serve it to our customer, Arrrgh McSalty. We give him a shorter window than we have (usually 7 days, so we have time to resolve it if he refuses to), and say "You have this infringing material on your servers at <URL> - you either need to take this down or serve a DMCA Counter-Notice." A Counter-Notice is the balance against the system - if Notch claims that "minecraft.rar" on my server is the full game but in reality it's just a really dumbly named collection of avatar skins, I can file my counter-notice that says that "no, you're wrong, this is not the infringing material you claim, here's why." If that happens, we pass the counter-notice along to the person that originally served the takedown, and wait. If they file a lawsuit within 10-14 days, then the issue goes to court. If they don't, then the person who filed the counter-notice is considered to have "won", and the stuff stays up!
In short, a DMCA Takedown results in one of the three following scenarios:
They take the infringing material down, probably because a customer of theirs had it up and they didn't know either. Pirated material on the internet goes down. Win!
They file a counter-notice. The material temporarily goes down (through network-level blocking) until the result of the counter-notice is resolved. Either it goes to a legal battle (Yuck, but at least the person served has a chance to fight!) or the takedown server abandons the issue, meaning it wasn't pirated at all. Win!
They do nothing. This is very rare - most people do respect copyright, believe it or not. If this happens, then it's on our heads as the OSP! Yikes! This means we'll probably block all access to this person's server aside from remote access (i.e. RDP or SSH) until they fix the issue through option 1 or option 2. If they still refuse, bye bye! You're gone, and your pirated material with you. Win!
"Well that's good enough," you say. "What does SOPA/PIPA change, then?" It not only circumvents the entire takedown process, but it also removes that protection that we as a OSP enjoy. Note the wording in the OCILLA - "must not have actual knowledge that it is hosting infringing material". If I don't know that Pirates_Of_The_Carribean_IV.avi is on our server, I can't be held responsible for it being on our server until the copyright owner or their representative tells me it is. With SOPA/PIPA passed, OSPs do not have that shield - if someone puts Jackass_the_Movie.mp4 on a server we control and we don't realize and immediately remove it preemptively, SOPA and PIPA means not just our customer can get slammed, but so can we. This would force us to literally scan every incoming file for every server we have for things that MIGHT be infringing. And even worse, it does NOT have to be the copyright holder or their representative that makes a claim under SOPA/PIPA to have our feet to the fire! I could lie and call myself "Notch" and say that there's this RAR on, say, the server of a blog I don't like and get that blog completely shut down! Even if it's fake, and even if I'm Notch! That's really scary! Everything would have to be screened and preened. Imagine Facebook where every status update or wall post you make goes into a screening hopper to ensure there's no picture of Mickey Mouse in it, or a Youtube link to a copyrighted song. Your wall post may not show up for hours, even if it had time-sensitive info in it! (Like "hey, guys, come meet me at this restaurant in an hour!")
"Well that sucks ass, Rilgon!" You're damn right it does. Now, do your part! SOPA and PIPA have gotta die. And you have to help.
IF YOU ARE IN THE US: Contact your Congresspeople and Representatives! This link (http://www.contactingthecongress.org) will help you find email addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers for the people that represent YOU. Find out their stance on SOPA and PIPA! If they're for it, explain why they're bad and that if they are not going to change course, you are voting for their competition next election. If they are AGAINST it, then give them their due props! The good guys need to know they're fighting the good fight.
IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE US: Contact your American friends and make them get off their lazy ass and fight! Google also suggests contacting the US State Department with your thoughts. Remember - SOPA and PIPA will have world-wide reach! You are NOT IMMUNE TO THIS if it passes!
SOPA and PIPA are not anti-piracy tools. The tools for anti-piracy are already there and ready to be used - and used they are! I've seen hundreds and hundreds of takedown notices from copyright holders, ranging from things like WoW gold selling websites to pirated copies of vBulletin to AVIs shared on torrent seedboxes. DMCA's provisions to take down infringing material work, despite any other problems with the act. SOPA and PIPA are the RIAA and MPAA trying to gain the sole dominion over what is and isn't allowed on the internet, and that's not cool! The internet is a thing for us all, and must remain free and open.
Now let's DPS this thing down like we've theorycrafted our whole lives for it.