Last Wednesday marked one of the largest mass-protests of an act of Congress since... um... the last one. I'm talking about the "debate" (if you can call it that) over HR 3261, also known as Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its sister bill in the Senate, S 968, also known as Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) which would allow the Justice Department to shut down websites that are specifically dedicated to piracy, that have limited use outside of that (i.e. not a social networking site), or advertise themselves as dedicated to such infringement (e.g. Torrentz, Pirate Bay); and which would criminalize streaming of copyrighted content within a period of 180 days where the total retail value is over $1,000 (I don't see anything in the Senate version that does that). Do I support this bill? Well, I hope Obama vetos it, so I guess that means I "oppose" it. And yet, I can't get behind the "movement" against it either.
The reason I oppose SOPA is the same reason I cringe at other peoples' protests. The law is too vague and expansive, but regardless, people are far too naïve when it comes to this issue. The real issue was the sheer hypocrisy involved. Wikipedia wants to impress upon people that it's too important to be taken off the net, so it blocked itself. Not only did it only serve to inconvenience the people who "need" it so badly, but it violated its own neutrality content. And no, its excuse that it could be neutral toward things that threaten its existence doesn't hold water because THESE BILLS NEVER THREATENED ITS EXISTANCE!!! It's a non-profit educational tool, and it doesn't encourage piracy nor does it advertise itself as doing so.
Also hypocritical was that a lot of people who probably never spent two minutes thinking about Copyright laws in their lives suddenly not only gave a $#¡% but started in with the standard, "oh, the corporations are taking away our right to do this, that and the other thing." Not only are they pissed off because--if the horror stories WERE accurate--they wouldn't be able to use something provided by corporations in the first place; but they have this knowledge from a truly shameful piece of corporate propaganda.
As a result, I've done a lot of research about IP laws. You might have noticed some of my old blogs disappeared? Yeah, well, I'm not answering any questions about that. Anyway, what I've learned, but I fear others haven't, is that...
1) Copyright laws still exist on the internet even if SOPA doesn't pass.When you take into consideration all of the propaganda, logical fallacies, publicity stunts, buzzwords, bandwagons, falsehoods and sheer idiocy, one thing becomes clear: some people honestly seem to think that the internet is a virtual world without copyright laws.
In a de facto sense, this sometimes seems all-too-real. Copyright holders looking the other way on use of properties, amateur critics walking outside the realm of "fair use" in their reviews/satires, bootleg CDs, DVDs & tapes being sold freely on eBay, and everything else we've become so accustomed to.
Unfortunately for them, copyright law does apply. The moment commercial use of the 'net was allowed, existing laws were examined to see if they could apply, and new laws--even if it just meant adding, "or a computer program," to an existing statute--were enacted.
Here's the tragic thing: the bill will most likely either be defeated in congress or vetoed by the President. After that, people will rejoice and... continue breaking the law? After-all, streaming an episode of
Seinfeld may not be a criminal offense if the bills are passed, but it's still a civil offense and it can still be prosecuted.
2) Some People don't know much about those laws.Articles debunking copyright myths can be found
here,
here,
here and
here. And if that doesn't prove anything, start a conversation with people you know. People confuse Copyright with Trademark a lot, people think Copyright is something that happens when you register with the Copyright office (half-truth, you still have copyright without it, but it gives you certain privileges) and then there's the myth that mailing something to yourself proves that you wrote it or--perhaps in some peoples' minds--gives you the same privileges.
That's just a small handful of things, but let's talk about specific things that are more germane to the internet and this topic.
Often, people seem to think attributing the copyright holder means it's not copyright infringement. It's not. It just means it's not plagiarism. Copyright doesn't work that way.
As I've said, there are a lot of copyright violations on YouTube and other sites. Again, they are copyright violations now, whether or not congress passes these controversial new laws. The problem is that some people are so naïve that they don't know that whatever disclaimer they uses, it remains copyright infringement.
While I was doing research, I saw someone posted a video and his/her/their disclaimer read that no copyright violation was intended and that it was "for entertainment purposes only." Uhh... okay, Fair Use is broad and ambiguous, but nowhere does it say that it's cool to copy something "for entertainment purposes." In fact, the point of recording a song and putting it out on CD is usually to make money for entertaining people.
That brings us to the amateur critics. Especially the professional amateur critics. A lot of these guys blur the line between doing actual reviews and little comedy sketches. Usually, fair use (USC Title 17, Sec 107) does cover parody--as a form of comment and that means that you have to actually be making a comment about the work. Satire, however, is used to distinguish parodies that do this from parodies that use a work to satirize something else. Those are not covered under fair use.
In the case of most of these guys, this means that their usages of songs and film clips to make factious little comments (that they think are funny) are not, usually, covered under parody.
It would be easier to defend
In Living Color's mean-spirited parodies of Michael Jackson songs, then Weird Al's good-natured ones, as ILC is commenting on the irony that a song about racial equality was written by someone who (they think) has disturbances in his ethnic identity. "Eat It" and "Fat," are not about the songs' subject matter or even Jackson's public persona, thus he had to get permission.
Finally, some might say, "yeah, but these would just be civil cases, but these bills would criminalize it." But they already might be in violations of those law if it's done for commercial advantage or financial gain (Title 17, Sec 506). All HR 3261 (Sec 201) does is amend that title to make internet streaming laws apply to an already redundant provision covering over ten bootlegged copies where the total retail value is over $1,000. The question is this: are they charging for ad space? Are they selling DVDs?
This is why I oppose the law. I support the copyright holders' right to remove such content from YouTube, etc., but I don't think these naïve people should do time for them. I doubt a judge would throw the book at them, of course, but it could be possible if it even seems like they could "sell" the videos for over $1,000.
Fair Use laws are, as they stand, too vague and these bills in congress don't change that one way or the other. In my DeviantArt journal, I've outlined why I think a single illustration of fan art is a fair use and I stand by it (I also think art depicting a given actor as, say, a superhero is fair use in that you're commenting on how he does/doesn't look the part), but I think the law needs to be more clear, especially if some companies are going to be protective and others aren't.
3) Some People mistake "freedom of speech" for "duty of others to provide a venue."Let's get one thing straight: you have every right, under the 1st amendment to write a novel, draw some comics, or record some songs. If you have the means of publishing them, you have every right to. If you want someone else to, however, then it's up to them because, well, they also have constitutional rights.
The same goes with performances. If you want a gig at the local bar, or you want to put on a one-man-show, you have the right to do so at home, but unless you own a public venue, you're at the mercy of those who might not want to book you because your demo sucks or your script is idiotic.
That's not called "censorship," or "discrimination," or any other ugly word; it's called "life."
This ignorance of the scope of the First Amendment is all-too-pervasive enough without the internet problem, but what happens when you have worldwide series of venues (YouTube, Blip, DeviantArt) where they can remove your work or ban you from the site if they so chose?
In one of the many polemics about why SOPA and PIPA are not only wrong, but will bring about the end of civilization as we know it, the narrator says we should be "scared" over the fact that Universal Music Group took down a video supporting MegaUpload (by a bunch of famous rappers and r&b artists who can, y'know, put it out on DVD if they want) under what he says is be a false claim of their copyright being violated (I believe they denied that they took it down for that reason). It does seem like a lot of times, things are taken down for violating the copyright specifically pertaining to THAT GROUP (the point where some music videos were muted but not taken down for violations of UMG) but also Lionsgate.
YouTube is a private company. They have competition (Blip, Daily Motion) and are not necessarily required to keep anything up unless their indicia says otherwise. Furthermore, they could go out of business at any moment, and while we can cry, "oh, if they can bail out the banks, why not this wonderful instrument of Free Speech," the fact is, Congress is under no obligation to save them if that happens.
Then, people will be forced to--egad--find another venue for making videos.
4) Some People love to play "freedom fighter" and pull stunts to "protest" their "oppression."I want to make something crystal clear.
SOPA IS NOT CENSORSHIP!!! The idea behind censorship is to prevent the substance of something from being publicized or spoken. And yet, so many people say it is. Why? Because at the end of the day, Joe Schmo can't upload his favorite Beatles song onto YouTube, ergo there's a form of expression we can't use.
Problem? The guy already "can't" do that, and SOPA just changes the way it's enforced. More importantly, however, any CD he would have access to is already on the public market. Therefore, the material therein isn't being censored.
But isn't his uploading it a comment that he likes it? Perhaps, but he can still just create a video saying he likes it. In fact, he can do a review of it and use PARTS of it or the whole album INTERCUT with his comments. That way, he still gets to say, "here, I like this," but it won't provide an alternative to downloading it.
I mean, this kinda goes back to my first point: people think the internet is/should be a land without copyright laws. Heck, there are probably people in the world who think that intellectual property is a false concept and that all Copyright, Trade Mark, Patent and Trade Secret laws should be struck down.
And you know what? That's fine. If you feel that way, just fucking say so; but don't act like this is some entirely new thing and that it's suddenly this ugly word. Do you respect IP laws or not? Just say so one way or the other.
5) Some people can't seem to remember a time before the internet and take tools like YouTube and Wikipedia not only for "granted" but as an indispensable birthright.My family first got the internet somewhere between April and June of 1997. Things changed and I was able to obtain a lot of information I hadn't been able to before, and "go out with" a girl in Michigan... buuut things also changed because of how old I was, what music I was listening to, and what brand of hair gel I was using.
The specifics changed due to the internet, but the general principles didn't. We had
Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia to research important stuff,
Wizard Magazine to tell us how bad upcoming superhero movies would be, and instead of Pam & Tommy's Honeymoon tape, there were John & Yoko on the cover of
Two Virgins.
And even after getting the internet, there was no Google, Facebook or Wikipedia, though there was Yahoo! AOL software, and probably some online encyclopedia. In other words, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
That's what people seem to forget: the internet may have been the shining achievement of the 20th Century and, so far, the blood that flows through the veins 21st; but while it's a great tool--in some ways, invaluable--for networking, research and socializing, people were capable of communicating with one-other before it existed.
My point isn't, "oh, let's stop using the internet." My point is that we aren't grateful for this wonderful tool. Instead, we're ever-more expectant. Heck, I probably throw more hissy-fits than anyone over loading time and such.
But regardless, instead of being grateful that the US pretty much just gave us the internet, in 1989; we expect more, yet, we don't even take the time to use it for what it's for: research.
6) People don't take advantage of the tools given to them (on or off the internet) in the name of a transparent government.Here's HR 3261 itself.Many of the horror stories about what SOPA will result in simply ignore key aspects of the bill. Advertising sites and payment sites have "no duty to monitor" (look up HR 3261 and search for that phrase, you'll see I'm right) and actions taken by the Attorney General simply broaden the scope so that law enforcement can do to foreign sites what they can already to do domestic sites.
Furthermore, they can't block payment to, say, eBay, but only to a particular seller on eBay (common knowledge: you don't pay eBay when you buy something, you pay the person who's selling it). In plain English, if someone's selling a bootleg tape of an Aerosmith concert, members of the band can prevent payment toward whoever's selling it. And if a band where one's an
American Idol judge and one's a Ron Paul supporter isn't sympathetic enough, then if I taped my friends' band (hi, Noel, Carlos & Kenn) while they were performing and sold it on eBay, they could prevent payment towards me.
Of course, now I'm giving people too much credit. If they read SOPA and it contradicted what they already thought, I doubt it would change their minds, because...
7) Propaganda leads the debate in this country, especially when it's offered as a grassroots protest.After all the publicity stunts from Wikipedia, Google and everyone else involved in these over-the-top arguments against HR 3261 and its sister in the Senate, we all know what happens next: they read the bill, apply what they read and their brain just kinda filters out "no duty to monitor" this and, "Rule of Construction" that. This happens all the time, there are no exceptions.
How many people have heard that SOPA "opens the door for other countries to censor us," argument? This slippery slope argument ignores the fact that they already can with or without SOPA. How many have heard the, "oh, you can't stop all pirating!" argument? You can't stop every instance of any crime, but that doesn't take away the state's right to peruse and punish it. How about, "piracy isn't theft because it just creates another copy?" This apples & oranges comparison assumes that piracy is an offense against the consumer, when it's an attack on the producer. Like the need to point to facts to back up your assertion, the need for logic has flown out the window.
The point is that a bunch of people have bought into propaganda, but because that propaganda is against a) the government, and b) corporations, they're standing up for the people. Nevermind that much of it came from a) people rooting for certain politicians and wanting the President to look like a hero for not signing it, and b) corporations such as Google and Forbes pimping "arguments" against it that don't hold water but they just framed it that certain way.
How can there even be a debate over a bill like SOPA in the industrialized world?
Let's say you still don't understand the difference between intellectual property protection and political censorship, and the internet's goal, which our founding fathers foresaw in their great vision, is to provide any form of communication regardless of the laws which are in place in the real world. Let's say that most of the horror stories about SOPA/PIPA are true and any business owner can shut down any website at will.
That would be bad.
But of course, that's not the case. And if you've made it this far, chances are that while we can agree to disagree on a few things, you can see what I'm saying. I hope.
But most people aren't going to read this blog and for every article I've read that deals with SOPA in an intelligent way, there's about six hundred that mislead, bludgeon and in every other imaginable way, force people to think, "if you support this bill, you are a traitor and you'll be putting innocent people in prison!"
It can't be done! Like, the nuances of the bill might as well not even exist and whoever drafted it might as well have said, "we want to kill each first-born son!"
Now, you might be thinking, "so what? Who cares what some punk on Facebook thinks, and of course overemotional fans of the Nostalgia Critic are going to go bonkers!" The problem is that even our members of Congress aren't immune to this type of thing. They are propagandists, they can be unreasonable, and while you can write to them, they're under no obligation to agree with you or even seriously consider what you wrote.
I don't write Pete Stark because I know who he is: a political extremist who simply cannot be reasoned with. I will occasionally write to Dianne Feinstein, whom I consider more reasonable (and powerful) but she represents the entire state whereas Stark only represents my immediate area (as is the case with House members) and therefore has to contend with an entire state.
Now, maybe I'm just unlucky enough to live in an area where we're represented by the one bad apple, but I don't think so. Not at all.
But back to the court of public opinion. It seems to be an issue of personality whether or not someone takes nuances of bills like HR 3261 into consideration or just goes, to paraphrase someone who commented on a message board, "SPEECH: GOOD!!! GOVERNMENT: BAD!!! HULK SMASH!!!" which is the mentality I'm seeing.
This is, by no means, the only issue within which I see this taking place. I won't go into some issues which are even more ideologically sensitive. I will say, however, that I don't see a light at the end of this tunnel. As long as people continue to be bought by propaganda and play into this drama queen ideation, Congress is going to take people less seriously and finding true solutions to problems will be harder and harder.
Edit: I also feel that I should comment on the closure of Megaupload. I'm not particularly familiar with the site and believe I can honestly say I've never used it to download anything, at-least as far as I can remember. In any case, it tells me three things that are important to this.
1) This is the kind of site the Feds are after. YouTube is distinct from MegaUpload in that you can't download its videos, and the intent of the site is for people to post videos of themselves. Not only that, but in the wake of acts of infringement, the music industry has used YouTube to create VEVO, which is where the official accounts of certain noted recording artists (or their labels on their behalf) can post official music videos in order to sell ad-space.
2) This was the result of a long investigation, a long cry from the baseless hypothesis of a copyright holder (or non-copyright holder in fabricating a copyright claim) reporting a minor violation and having the entire site like Facebook taken down as a site "dedicated to the theft of US property." Maybe the people behind Megaupload will be found guilty and maybe not. But this appears to be a legitimate bust of already-illegal activity.
3) Our government doesn't need SOPA or PIPA. These bills would be redundant and all they've served to do is create mistrust, misinformation, over-the-top rhetoric, shameful publicity stunts and a bandwagon that was jumped upon by people who have no dog in the fight other than watching free stuff on YouTube.
Now, I hate it when some wannabe screenwriter goes on imdb.com or something and talks about how DC's wrong about just about everything. They're not. They're really not. For all of the relaunch's flaws, they managed to put out some new comics, and boost sales by quite a bit. I'm not interested in whether or not they got enough new female readers, and I don't think the "not enough casuals" problem will be solved until they get comics back on the shelves of non-specialty stores and tell more self-contained stories.
