Link to Google's Petition Page

Yesterday’s online petitions against the Senate Bill SOPA and the House’s pair-bill PIPA seem to be victorious. The Obama Administration made an official statement here about the renouncement of SOPA, as well as making a few other statements I think are of important note.

First, they clarify what kind of legislation they are looking to support in the fight against online piracy, and they ask for people to devote creative energies to finding private, commercial, and legislative solutions to the problem.

There are also articles and blogs all over the internet claiming that Obama will lose a good chunk of Hollywood funding for his presidential campaign due to this announcement, since Hollywood are some of the strongest backers of these bills.

It’s important to be truly informed. According to the twatter, one might gather that SOPA would enable the government to get right into your computer and look at all your files, scan your facebook messages, alter your blogs, and look into your chat cam.

In the spirit of “knowledge banishes fear,” let’s take a closer look:

What would SOPA/PIPA do?

Basically, the bill would enact law that would enable the country to regulate servers here on the US side in a similar way to China. The process itself would be expensive, and would burden the internet in a few ways;

• Service Providers would be bear the responsibility of blocking access to anything that could be deemed as infringing upon copyrights.
• Search Engines, Blog sites, and any site in general could be sued for failing to comply, should anything on or linked from their sites be deemed as infringement.
• Advertising services would be regulated.
• Companies may sue any independant site, including yours, should they believe you are guilty of infringement.
• Payments to any website can be cut off.
• Media companies are able to form a kind of “hit list” of sites they believe are infringing, and immediately cut off their payment processors, given a certain amount of time to dispute before the payments are cut off completely.

(Info paraphrased from 1stwebdesigner.com)

Gandalf the Uncensored.

Why would this be a problem?

First of all, this would be a problem because it wouldn’t change a thing in the fight against piracy. Many of these sites already operate on foreign servers, and those who don’t already can switch easily enough. On top of that, there is encryption, mirror servers, and many other simple and effective methods that would get around these barriers.

Second to being totally ineffective, these methods would be very expensive to implement. Not all web companies are Google, and don’t have a lot of money to throw around. Small, more independent servers would likely be forced out of business. Costs for hosting and server space will soar in order to pay for the expense of regulating the sites using their service.

Third, the bills are putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the innocent. Google is not the pirate, just a website indexing engine and a large web-based company. Talk about misdirected rage.

An Example

Website Template uploaded 1/18/11

Right now I pay for hosting through Bluehost.com. The pricing isn’t the cheapest, but the quality is there, and you get what you pay for. It’s nice, because I can link any number of domains to my hosting, and as a practicing Web Designer, I can begin typing up some code right now, and begin testing it immediately by uploading it through my FTP. Literally, in two minutes, I can have a new domain, and have a home page uploaded to that domain. Just to prove my point, click on the picture to the right for a page I put up this afternoon. It’s a template which I designed for my Web Design class.

So I can see this going a couple ways; either they regulate my code before it goes live, meaning someone at Bluehost.com will have to sift through all of my pages and code and post it after it checks out, or I can post something in two seconds that links to an illegal download site – and Bluehost can get sued for it.

That means Bluehost has to hire a bunch of people, and design a bunch of software, and change their whole server system. That means my price rockets, and my sites experience a significant delay before going up. Meanwhile, the actual pirates aren’t even phased.

That’s the problem with SOPA.

Analogy: It’s like taking legitimate merchant ships and bearing them down with surveillance equipment that takes up a lot of space, add a lot of weight, and requires an extensive team to maintenance and monitor it. Meanwhile, it may identify a pirate ship now and then, but the ship itself is gunned down before anyone can do anything about the pirates. Expeditions have now become that much more expensive, as larger ships are needed to house the appropriate crew and provisions… and if the ship ran across pirates without getting attacked, they are fined when the get back home.

Political Optimism

I’m taking a China class this year, at the same time as getting more involved in politics here at home. Let me tell you, there’s no better way to become grateful for our country and its government. Things aren’t bad here at all. We like our conspiracy theories and our dystopian novels, but we have it good. I really believe we have a good system, and that there are a lot of good people in representative chairs trying to do the best they know how.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the internet, they might not know very much.

So here’s my suggestions:

First – Buy Legit. The internet craze has really forced media companies (especially TV Networks and the Music Industry) to rethink their business model, but with Redbox, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Pandora, Itunes, and Netflicks all offering legitimate, affordable alternatives – there’s no longer a need for the Napster Craze. Stopping piracy is like drugs – it’s most effective if we just stop partaking.

Second – Study the bills, and contact your representatives. Spread the knowledge, encourage enlightenment, but a little optimism toward our government wouldn’t hurt anything. Yesterday, with the Wikipedia blackout and the Google petition, we were heard by our representatives, and they responded. They are now seeking more knowledge regarding the matter. That’s exactly what we want! Keep yourself informed on the legislation, and then keep them informed on what’s wrong with it.