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General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: talia374 on April 07, 2012, 09:09:09 PM
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MPAA boss: 'SOPA isn’t dead yet'
House debates CISPA – SOPA on steroids
By Iain Thomson in San Francisco
Posted in Law, 6th April 2012 19:53 GMT
Former senator and current head of the Motion Picture Ass. of America Chris Dodd hopes to resurrect the reviled SOPA anti-piracy legislation in another form, but it appears the US House of Representatives is beating him to it a new bill that makes SOPA look sensible.
Dodd, speaking in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, said that he hopes to get a new version of the SOPA legislation ready for debate shortly, and that the MPAA was marshaling its forces for another attack on piracy. Dodd said he was confident that the new legislation would go through, and said there are those in the technology industry who support such laws.
"I regret that Steve Jobs isn't around today. At least he understood the connection between content and technology," Dodd said. "The fellow who started eBay, Jeff Skoll, gets it. There are not a huge number of people who understand that content and technology absolutely need each other, so I'm counting on the fact that there are people like Jeff and others who are smart and highly respected in both communities. Between now and sometime next year [after the presidential election], the two industries need to come to an understanding."
Dodd also let slip some interesting snippets on the arrest of Kim Dotcom, who is currently awaiting extradition over charges related to the Megaupload file-sharing site. The MPAA chieftain quoted a discussion with an unnamed Justice Department official whom he met at his daughter's school, who said that the DoJ had been waiting for Dotcom's birthday party before striking, so that the team behind Megaupload would all be present.
Dodd refused to criticize President Obama for his expressions of concern over the SOPA legislation, saying he was confident the president would address the needs of both Hollywood and those concerned with internet privacy. However, a bill currently being considered by the US House of Representatives could make the SOPA legislation look positively idyllic.
The bill, HR 3523, dubbed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), was introduced by representatives Mike Rogers (R-MI) and "Dutch" Ruppersberger (D-MD) in November, and is currently attracting serious political support. CISPA would allow any federal agency to request internet and communications logs of individuals from their service provider, and guarantees immunity from prosecution for companies that cooperate with the government.
"Under the bill," wrote Greg Nojeim, senior counsel to the Center for Democracy and Technology in a blog post, "when communications data is shared with the government, it could be used to prosecute an individual for any crime, used to target him or her for intelligence surveillance, and shared among governmental agencies to the extent permitted by current law and used by those agencies for any lawful non-regulatory governmental purpose. The bill itself places no limits on secondary use or dissemination of unclassified cyber threat information. Under the bill, the data can even be used to target advertising."
The bill states that such information could only be requested for a "cyber security purpose," but leaves the definition of this concept unspecified, and adds that security need not be the only reason for data to be handed over. The data can be made anonymous, but that's only voluntary for those companies handing it over.
What with the forthcoming ACTA vote this summer in the European Parliament, and with SOPA back in the cards and CISPA now on the table, it looks to be a busy year for online-privacy activists.
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Well, we knew that would happen. Remember, the MPAA tried to wipe out the VCR several times. The content industry has been at it since the first radio station, and possibly (depending on how you interpret things) as far back as the player piano, which Sousa said would destroy music. The idea (which Chris Dodd openly stated a few weeks back) is that the content industry wants innovators to ask them for permission before inventing. I'm sure that'll be great for the economy...
The difference between the Congresses who allowed time-shifting and private tape-sharing and those seriously considering censorship is that too many of us, due to a lack of trust, are withdrawing from civic discussion, leaving only the big companies with a voice.
To fix it, start reaching out to your Congressman and Senators (or equivalent, if you're not in the United States--it's not like the rest of the world is doing so hot, here, either, with the EU even keeping their database copyright). Tell them what you believe. In my case, it's that copyright:
- Should be targeted exclusively at publishers, rather than individuals;
- Follow due process, rather than presuming guilt;
- Protect cases of Fair Use as a top priority;
- Encourage creators to publish, rather than guarantee income for a minority; and
- Should never involve any tools that an unethical government can use to censor expression in general or harm the economy by restricting innovation.
I've been told that letters to policy-makers should come in four brief parts:
- Show respect, even if only for someone having to make hard decisions.
- Frame the problem as the politician being misled ("I'm not sure who had the idea of..."), with you offering help.
- Explain your position.
- Sign off, listing every organization your a part of, so that you're not some creepy guy living in his mother's basement.
And, of course, the more personal, the more likely you are to be heard. E-mail is better than a petition. A phone call is better than e-mail. A typed letter is better than a phone call. A handwritten letter is better than a typed letter. An in-person meeting at the home office (when Congress is not in session, obviously) with a few like-minded friends is better than a handwritten letter.
I haven't gotten involved to that extent, yet, but I've also been told that most offices will check their database of campaign donors in making the decision to pass your message along. So a few bucks in every campaign might maximize one's effect.
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I know this could be disastrous for sites like this and I admire your courage in putting your arguments to the authorities but, as you may be aware, here in the U.K., bastion of democracy and free speech, the government is attempting to put into law a bill which will enable them to intercept, view, listen to, record and keep, every email, post on social networking sites, phone call. The reason seems to be to stop potential terrorist activity before it becomes a disaster. All very laudable but it's really a major intrusion into peoples private lives. Although there is a huge swell of opposition to this bill, many feel that they should keep their heads down and not draw the attention of shady police and security organisations to themselves. You'd have to be a seriously stupid bad guy to figure out not to keep posting your plans on-line and not use some other method of communication. Or simply use a proxy or Tor. This will solve nothing and just move evil people elsewhere. It's lazy thinking by the government. So you might not get a lot of help with your problem from here if the bill goes through.
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That's a good point, and we have four "cybersecurity" bills in the pipe (from civil rights stalwarts like Joe Lieberman and John McCain) which are in a similar vein of "information sharing" with private companies that collect personal data and the usual "we can shut stuff down" and "whistleblowing is evil" material.
I thought that might be a bit too far off-topic, though, and it's a discussion that can spiral out of control quickly, since there are far worse bills and even laws elsewhere. But yes, while you're telling your lawmaker that expanding copyright law is harmful to the majority, you might mention that widespread surveillance, tracking, and censorship should probably be off the table, too.
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The problem here in the US is is that the MPAA/RIAA/etc. has all the money, and he who controls the money controls the politicians. The government is run by big business. It's very sad but it's the truth.
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"I thought that might be a bit too far off-topic, though," John C
You're correct. Came over all funny there for a moment. Let's all just enjoy the comics.
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Paw, you're actually right that "it's all politics," so it does bear mention. If we're suddenly all "subversives" for wanting to have a say in government, then the rest is worthless. I just don't want it to overwhelm the topic.
Watson, that's only part of the problem. The other part is that, while the big companies spend more to connect with lawmakers, the rest of us withdraw from the process.
Keep in mind that, historically, most of these laws only applied to large corporations (starting up a newspaper or book publisher ain't cheap), so only they were consulted when making the laws. That was balanced well enough, because a draconian measure meant that you had power over a competitor, but he had the same power over you, and the rest of us could live our lives in peace. (It's the same even with finance--even fifty years ago, who would have envisioned a world where the average person invests in the stock market and has a stake and/or the knowledge in how the banks are regulated; since the right answer is "nobody," the regulators are all bankers.)
But assuming the lawmakers are corrupt (even if it happens to be true) means it's not worth speaking up. And if we don't speak up, there's only one voice left in the discussion, and it's a voice saying that we make excellent raw materials to exploit.
Now, the MPAA might be able to spend money to bribe officials, but average people can bury Congressional offices in letters making it clear that we have an opinion and won't stand for any more of this elitist garbage.
(And note that I do think copyright is important and respect it. I think it has grown back out of control, almost to where the concept was in England before Queen Anne's Law, and I think it's been perverted to try to guarantee an income for an artistic class, rather than merely encouraging artists to share their gifts with the world. And when you try to legally enforce a business model, you damage the economy and provide tools to harm people.)
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I email legislators/congressmen/etc. about stuff like this all the time, but I'm pretty sure it just falls on deaf ears. I always get some generic, half-assed response to the tune of "your opinion is valid and being taken into consideration" but it never sounds sincere.
Another CISPA article: https://torrentfreak.com/cispa-bill-lets-isps-spy-on-and-report-pirating-subscribers-120409/
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It'll happen, because it needs a reason to get through the different people who exist to filter out the bozos. That's why handwritten letters where you explain why you're interesting and in-person meetings are far better.
Figure that most of their e-mail is spam, too. When you get rid of the actual spam, you get activist spam, the form-mailings through websites like the NRA or MoveOn or whatever. So, you're buried in that pile, and probably faced with some intern who was asked to pass along the ten most important e-mails (in political weight more than topic, I'd bet) and auto-reply the rest. And ten might be a high estimate, keeping in mind that these people still seem to think their technological ineptitude is a badge of honor.
(Incidentally, Paw, I do want to emphasize that when I said "keep on topic," I meant me. Pull my string, and I'll babble about this stuff for hours, if nobody stops me. It's a community, though, so whatever you guys want to talk about is basically on-topic as long as nobody's going to feel uncomfortable contributing to the community.
(We've kicked around a space just for the activist-type discussion as it relates to what we do. If there's interest, we'll look into seeing if there's a way to have a board that people can "opt out" of seeing if it bores them.)
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This is a general discussion section guys so it's not hard for those only interested in comics to just ignore anything inside here.
As long as a topic doesn't turning into personal attacks I'm Ok with it. This is a topic very important to the site so I don't find it off topic at all.
-Yoc
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I guess this isn't very surprising considering Facebook cares very little for individuals' privacy, but apparently they have come out in support of CISPA. I got rid of my Facebook account a long time ago, but I encourage others to do the same in protest.
https://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/after-denouncing-sopa-and-pipa-how-can-facebook-support-cispa/11700
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I think the internet is just too attractive a target for those who are natural born censors or who would like to curtail anything they cannot control. The average American politician doesn't give a damn about protecting intellectual properies.
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As an update, CISPA no longer (necessarily) deals with Intellectual Property and piracy. Now, it's "only" about big companies monitoring our communications and turning the data and content over to government agencies and other companies to use as they wish (probably including prosecuting for piracy).
I do have to give them points for crafting a law that's so blatantly totalitarian and bringing it to the floor for vote. It says a lot about the disengagement that the sponsors haven't needed to deal with feathers, let alone tar, like ignoring the problem will make it go away.
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Sigh
Keep us in the loop John.
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And right on cue in my inbox, this is kind of neat.
http://sincerely.com/cause/cispa
Plug in your personal information and they'll (allegedly, I guess--it's not like I vetted their organization) mail off a postcard to your representatives. Non-US people might want to keep away, since that could plausibly hurt the case.
North of the Border (yes, the border), C-12 and C-30 sound nearly as annoying...and a bit suspicious. C-12 basically says that all that PIPEDA work was just silly and protecting privacy could be done best by getting rid of privacy protections. C-30 is basically a "Canadianized" CISPA: Less information can be legally gathered, but the immunity to abuse is broader.
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And right on cue in my inbox, this is kind of neat.
http://sincerely.com/cause/cispa
Plug in your personal information and they'll (allegedly, I guess--it's not like I vetted their organization) mail off a postcard to your representatives. Non-US people might want to keep away, since that could plausibly hurt the case.
North of the Border (yes, the border), C-12 and C-30 sound nearly as annoying...and a bit suspicious. C-12 basically says that all that PIPEDA work was just silly and protecting privacy could be done best by getting rid of privacy protections. C-30 is basically a "Canadianized" CISPA: Less information can be legally gathered, but the immunity to abuse is broader.
I gave them my info. It definitely can't HURT anything as far as I can tell. My email spam filter is pretty good too, so even if they sell it off i don't care. lol
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I was half-joking, just to be clear. It is vaguely possible that any organization is a fraud, but the EFF recommended them, and they're not exactly gullible.
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The problem here in the US is is that the MPAA/RIAA/etc. has all the money, and he who controls the money controls the politicians. The government is run by big business. It's very sad but it's the truth.
Then put the money against them. The response should be in the form of consummer activism. I used to be a frequent buyer of Warner products. Since recent actions by RIAA and etc. I have practically stopped buying, and i'm advising my friends to do the same.
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I'm not saying not to vote with your money (I try to, myself), but the problem is that lost sales magically translate to piracy in MPAA/RIAA land. It couldn't possibly be that you decided not to watch the Avengers (or whatever), so clearly, you must have downloaded it illegally, and that explains the dip in sales.
Remember, after all, that Hollywood loses a Hollywood and a half's worth of jobs every year. Right now, everybody in the LA metro area is (as far as I can tell from the numbers) unemployed two or three times over. That's the kind of logic we're fighting.
And their money comes from weird places. I know that, in software, every Android device puts something like ten bucks into Microsoft's bank account because of their patent bullying ("you may be violating one or more of our patents, though we won't tell you which ones unless you make us take you to court") and in at least some parts of the world, every time you buy blank media, you're charged a tax that goes to the RIAA because only pirates buy blank CDs, apparently. Likewise, merely having Internet access probably means paying a cable bill or equivalent, which puts is money going to the major media outlets.
Again, it's not to stop anybody from doing it, just to say that it's a very difficult plan and could just as easily end with the same draconian laws and/or bailout money, unfortunately.
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Canada has a 'tax' on all black media, hard drives, etc to Hollywood as well as another one for disposal at the end of the devices life.
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You might be interested in this:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/01/irish-sopa-legislation-passed?newsfeed%3Dtrue
The Republic has succumbed.
And what the Irish Times has to say about it:-
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0412/1224314639423.html
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I'm also surprised that ACTA didn't cause open revolt across Europe. Whereas most of these laws at least are public and have an open vote, ACTA was negotiated in secret and signed by parts of the governments that may not have the authority to do so. I remember, for example, the Obama administration has been trying to pass it off as an "agreement" (I think that's the term) rather than a "treaty," and somehow unrelated to trade, because either condition would require legislative involvement and void our signing.
Plus, of course, it stomps on a whole pile of laws in each of the signing countries. It's kind of shocking that there was outrage against the United States passing a stupid law, but somehow not for our inflicting the same basic law on the rest of the world.
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Regarding CISPA, it passed the House by something like a 2-1 margin. My understanding is that the opponents were all shouted down with the author repeating that the law is narrowly targetted, protects privacy, and will protect us from the big imaginary doomsday resulting from when some hacker crashes Facebook's servers because they couldn't be bothered to upgrade their software or something...
None of those are true, but apparently if you repeat them enough, Congressmen just agree.
Anyway, this now moves to the Senate. But, in the Senate, they have their own insane draconian bills to keep tabs on every Internet user. Err...I meant to say "protect us."
After that, the White House did issue a statement that it'd probably get vetoed, but it's the usual politics-speak of in its current form, the President's close advisors would most likely recommend that he veto the bill, not an actual statement of "this is stupid."
I like the concept, but the bill itself is crammed with misunderstandings about where risks come from, how they propagate, and who needs protection. It also seems to utterly misunderstand the Bill of Rights, since my count is that it allows for routine violations of at least three rights (against warrantless search and seizure, against self-incrimination, and for confronting accusers) by trying to deputize (all) companies without giving them the responsibilities that go with it.
The right way for government to get involved in "cybersecurity" (idiotic a word as that is) is to ban the trafficking (and use) of software exploits, allow people to sue for negligence if flaws aren't reported or fixed quickly, and keep public records of what software is up to date. Oh, and exempt security researchers from the DMCA provisions about bypassing DRM. Much easier.