Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi kids,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: Oh better far to live and die under the brave
Speaker 1: black flag. I fly then play a sanctimonious part with
Speaker 1: a pirate head and a pirate heart. Nicely done, Thank you.
Speaker 1: So today we are going to talk about something that
Speaker 1: has made the news recently as of the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast. Of course, we don't know exactly what it's
Speaker 1: going to publish, so it might be old news by then.
Speaker 1: But the uh, the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOAPA. Yes,
Speaker 1: we had a few, quite a few people asking us
Speaker 1: if we were going to talk about that, and as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, initially we were thinking that maybe not, because, um,
Speaker 1: sometimes when Jonathan talks about these topics, he gets a
Speaker 1: little in my head that threatens to explode every time
Speaker 1: I talk about this type of stuff. And and much
Speaker 1: as much as I like pushing him, to the limit.
Speaker 1: In that regard, I don't want to see what happens
Speaker 1: if it actually finally does. Yeah. And I've also given
Speaker 1: up caffeine the week that we're recording this podcast, So
Speaker 1: that's a I'm already I'm predisposed to being cranky. But
Speaker 1: soapa Stop Online Piracy Act. It's made a lot of
Speaker 1: news because, um, well because there are some potential consequences
Speaker 1: that that may not be intended consequences, but people are
Speaker 1: worried this act may go a long way to breaking
Speaker 1: the Internet. That's kind of like the extreme view, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about what this act is,
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to target and uh, and reasons why
Speaker 1: some people are worried that it may be really bad
Speaker 1: news for even for people who have no intention to
Speaker 1: pirate content or to distribute pirated content. Uh and uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's that's its purpose essentially is to cut
Speaker 1: down on acts of intellectual property piracy over the Internet,
Speaker 1: and it's specifically targeting piracy that's generated from from entities
Speaker 1: outside the jurisdiction of the United States. That's the main
Speaker 1: that's the main goal of this legislation. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: don't read the Act, you might not realize exactly how
Speaker 1: it's targeting this. Uh, let me read the purpose of
Speaker 1: this act. This is actually the purpose. And it was
Speaker 1: introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, who is
Speaker 1: a Texas Republican. Yeah, Republican from Texas. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: he's from Texas. Of course he's Republican. Uh. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a joke. That's a joke. Uh. Texas is, however,
Speaker 1: thought of often as a conservative state. And he introduces
Speaker 1: and I should have had this has bipartisan support. Yes,
Speaker 1: So even though I say Republican and I made some
Speaker 1: jokes there, there are people on both sides of the
Speaker 1: aisle supporting this legislation. So I don't mean to say
Speaker 1: that this is a Republican cause versus a Democrat cause.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are several people who are on the
Speaker 1: very conservative side of the aisle who are very much
Speaker 1: opposed to this legislation. So I want to make that clear.
Speaker 1: This is not I was. I was making a joke.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take sides here. Yeah. That That's
Speaker 1: one of the funny things about this particular um proposed
Speaker 1: legislation is that it has bipartisan support, and bipartisan opposition.
Speaker 1: So the purpose of it is to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: and innovation by combating the theft of US property and
Speaker 1: for other purpose. Uh So here's the stick. The sticking
Speaker 1: point here is that the the legislation is at least
Speaker 1: supposed to promote prosperity, but the people who oppose it
Speaker 1: say that it does exactly the opposite, that it's going
Speaker 1: to stifle innovation and it's going to stifle entrepreneurship. And
Speaker 1: it's really just a a love letter served up to
Speaker 1: copyright holders and intellectual property owners. So organizations like the
Speaker 1: the Motion Picture Association of America um SO, that would
Speaker 1: be a big one, or the Recording Industry Association of
Speaker 1: America that's another big one. So you've got these these
Speaker 1: big organizations that have a very strong vested interest in
Speaker 1: um in maintaining copyright and pursuing actions against copyright infringement
Speaker 1: and there, and there's a limited amount that you can
Speaker 1: do if the the person or entity that is violating
Speaker 1: your copyright is not within the jurisdiction of the United States.
Speaker 1: So if there's someone in China who has has a
Speaker 1: server arm that is just holding copies of various movies
Speaker 1: on it for people to download, either for free or
Speaker 1: for a very low fee. Uh, there's not a whole
Speaker 1: lot you can do as the copyright holder to stop
Speaker 1: that because it's over in China. What are you gonna
Speaker 1: I mean, you can bring it up and try and
Speaker 1: put some pressure on on the the whole situation, but
Speaker 1: you don't have a whole you don't have a stick
Speaker 1: to hold right, you don't have any threat. So this
Speaker 1: is meant to be an act that gives copyright holders
Speaker 1: a little bit of recourse when this sort of stuff
Speaker 1: happens um and that it's similar to This is a
Speaker 1: House bill, but it's similar to one that was introduced
Speaker 1: in the Senate UH earlier this year called the Protect
Speaker 1: I P Bill, which was actually put on hold for
Speaker 1: a while by Senator Ron Wyden who was concerned that
Speaker 1: the bill in the Senate would intentionally muzzle people and
Speaker 1: that it would it would hamper free speech, and that
Speaker 1: he felt that it was ultimately unconstitutional, and so he's
Speaker 1: been he's been holding back on it so that it
Speaker 1: hasn't it passed out of the committee, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: been voted on by the Senate itself. At least as
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast. And just in case you're thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: protect I P, that's simple. No. Protect IP is also
Speaker 1: an acronym. It's stands for preventing real online threats to
Speaker 1: economic creativity and theft of intellectual property protect ip uh.
Speaker 1: And it's essentially a rewrite of an earlier piece of
Speaker 1: legislation called Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act or QUIKA,
Speaker 1: which failed to pass. Why is that because it didn't
Speaker 1: have a snazzy acronym that you can pronounce. All right,
Speaker 1: quakes just doesn't doesn't help. This was actually said. Here's
Speaker 1: what Widen had to say on about protect IP said.
Speaker 1: I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation
Speaker 1: to protect intellectual property and combat commerce and counterfeit goods.
Speaker 1: But I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle
Speaker 1: innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective at the
Speaker 1: expense of legitimate commerce. PIPE as prescription, takes an overreaching
Speaker 1: approach to policing the Internet when a more balanced and
Speaker 1: targeted approach would be more effective. The collateral damage of
Speaker 1: this approach is speech, innovation, and the very integrity of
Speaker 1: the Internet. So that's pretty interesting to hear. Uh A
Speaker 1: politicians say that. We hear that from people who are
Speaker 1: big players in technology. We hear that from people like
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt from Google has said similar things to this
Speaker 1: sort of legislation. And a lot of these companies have
Speaker 1: also been involved in the forming of this legislation in
Speaker 1: a in an attempt to head off any potential problems
Speaker 1: because a lot of these companies they recognize the problems
Speaker 1: that copyright holders face, and we should make that clear
Speaker 1: to the complaint that the copyright holders have that their
Speaker 1: work is being stolen and distributed freely with no way
Speaker 1: for them to to make money from their the sale
Speaker 1: of their property or distribution of their property. That is
Speaker 1: a legitimate problem. Yes, piracy is a problem. How big
Speaker 1: a problem it is that is up for debate now.
Speaker 1: The justification that various politicians and organizations have used to
Speaker 1: formulate this legislation states that, uh, there's an estimate here
Speaker 1: of how much money was lost per year due to
Speaker 1: intellectual property theft and counterfeiting, which is one and thirty
Speaker 1: five billion dollars in revenue. I don't know how they
Speaker 1: came up with that number, because the government accounting office
Speaker 1: just earlier this year released a report that said it's
Speaker 1: essentially impossible to put a figure on the loss from
Speaker 1: piracy because there's just not you don't have all the
Speaker 1: facts straight. Well, Jonathan and I, I've had this discussion before, UM,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the oldest I would say
Speaker 1: it's one of the oldest arguments in the software industry
Speaker 1: because people talk about UM. The old standby in this
Speaker 1: conversation is, uh, well, it's Adobe Photoshop. That's an expensive
Speaker 1: piece of software, and it's gotten more expensive over time
Speaker 1: and people are known. And then there are many pieces
Speaker 1: of software like this UM, you know, where it is
Speaker 1: an extremely useful tool, but the average person doesn't want
Speaker 1: to go and spend you know, six hundred, eight hundred thousand,
Speaker 1: twelve hundred dollars for a piece of creativity software. They
Speaker 1: don't have that in their budget. It's expensive. In some
Speaker 1: cases it's it's as expensive as a computer itself or
Speaker 1: more expensive computer, depending on the machine you're using UM.
Speaker 1: And the thing is they say, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: if it had been priced within my price range, I
Speaker 1: would have bought it, but instead they jacked up the
Speaker 1: cost of the software so much that it was out
Speaker 1: of my price range. I couldn't afford it, So it
Speaker 1: serves them right that I downloaded in an illegal copy
Speaker 1: of it and I'm and I'm using it. UM. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, the company that produces this software, UM
Speaker 1: will say, well, you know what, we wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: jack up the price of the software so much if
Speaker 1: people wouldn't stop stealing it. We're trying to make our revenue.
Speaker 1: We're trying to provide value for our shareholders, and we
Speaker 1: can't do that if we're not selling copies of our software.
Speaker 1: And if we can't sell as many copies of our
Speaker 1: software at that price, we're gonna have to raise the
Speaker 1: price a hundred dollars. And and the thing is, Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I think, uh, you know, if we've talked about
Speaker 1: it several times, but I think both of us sort
Speaker 1: of see, Um, this is a situation that you can't
Speaker 1: really tell. I mean, the thing is, would the people
Speaker 1: who are downloading illegal copies of the software really pay
Speaker 1: for it if it were seventy five dollars or where
Speaker 1: they go? You know what, I really don't want to
Speaker 1: pay the seventy five dollars either. Yeah. The way so
Speaker 1: bad to finds the value of something is they say,
Speaker 1: the total retail value may be shown by evidence of
Speaker 1: the total retail price that persons receiving the reproductions, distributions,
Speaker 1: or public performances constitutent constituting, sorry, the offense would have
Speaker 1: paid to receive such reproductions, distributions, or public performances lawfully.
Speaker 1: So in other words, this this applies to all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff, not just software. So let's say that you
Speaker 1: go to a site that has um lots of movies
Speaker 1: on it, like movies that are available for you to
Speaker 1: watch via streaming, and it's an illegal movie site and
Speaker 1: you watch it. Essentially, they would say that the total
Speaker 1: retail value for that experience would be the cost of
Speaker 1: a movie ticket multiplied by however many people streamed that film.
Speaker 1: So the the argument is that the the copyright holder
Speaker 1: is is robbed of that much money. Now that's where
Speaker 1: the problem comes in because there's a counter art that
Speaker 1: states some of these people would never have paid to
Speaker 1: see the movie period, They never would have bothered to
Speaker 1: buy the tickets. So, in other words, the the copyright
Speaker 1: holder would not have received that money, whether the people
Speaker 1: pirted it or not, right, because that's that's not a
Speaker 1: ticket sale so that was an argument that came up
Speaker 1: a lot when m x Men's X Men Origins Wolverine
Speaker 1: came out. I don't know if everyone on listening knows this,
Speaker 1: but there was a big deal when X Men Origins
Speaker 1: Wolverine was getting closer and closer to distribution, that is,
Speaker 1: it was going to be in theaters. Before he got
Speaker 1: to theaters, there was an elaked release of the film
Speaker 1: that hit the Internet, and there were various pirate sites
Speaker 1: that hosted the file so that people could access it
Speaker 1: and watch the movie, and a lot of people did
Speaker 1: a lot of people did that, and there were not
Speaker 1: very many many ticket sales for the film, like the
Speaker 1: essentially Wolverine bombed. Bombed might be a harsh term, but
Speaker 1: did not perform as well as as the the company
Speaker 1: had expected. And so there's a question and is the
Speaker 1: is the pirated version to blame for the lack of
Speaker 1: ticket sales or would the people who pirated that version,
Speaker 1: would they have not bothered to go see the movie
Speaker 1: in the first place, which means that the movie would
Speaker 1: have bombed anyway. And you can't answer that question. And
Speaker 1: that was the Government Accounting Offices point. When they release
Speaker 1: the report, they said, there's no way to answer this question.
Speaker 1: So there is no way to give an actual monetary
Speaker 1: value to the losses that a group or an industry
Speaker 1: might encounter as a result of piracy. And if there's
Speaker 1: no way that you can put a figure to that,
Speaker 1: then you can't justify. Uh. So you can't justify some
Speaker 1: of the punishments that are meeted out by the by
Speaker 1: by the government against people who violate the copyright laws. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can't justify that the the intensity of those punishments
Speaker 1: based on these figures because the figures are based on nothing.
Speaker 1: There's not there's no basis for it. So you end
Speaker 1: up having people punished with ridiculous fines or potentially years
Speaker 1: in jail for things that the whole justification for the
Speaker 1: punishment is based on on voodoo numbers like these numbers
Speaker 1: that don't really mean anything. Yeah, the truth is probably
Speaker 1: somewhere in between all of these things. Like if the
Speaker 1: if the company reduces the price of its product, you know,
Speaker 1: by X number of dollars, and um, the the person
Speaker 1: who uh is actually you know, going to purchase the product,
Speaker 1: you know they do actually have the money to do that,
Speaker 1: then I think some of them will pony up the
Speaker 1: money for or the software or the c D or
Speaker 1: the movie ticket. But and I think it's somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: Some of the people are still going to pirate and
Speaker 1: some of the company's profits are still not going to
Speaker 1: be realized. So some it would affect some, but it's
Speaker 1: no there's really, as Jonathan said, no way to tell
Speaker 1: exactly how many. It's not going to be. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: an issue of greed here that is affecting every player
Speaker 1: in this in this scenario, right, So there's there's the
Speaker 1: greed on the part of the consumer who feels that
Speaker 1: he or she has the right to access some content what,
Speaker 1: no matter what its price point or it's or its
Speaker 1: availability in that person's market. So you've got a sense
Speaker 1: of entitlement on the on the part of the consumer,
Speaker 1: which is bad. You know, there's there's nothing that entitles
Speaker 1: a consumer to someone else's intellectual property. I mean that
Speaker 1: you aren't entitled to that, but there's this perception of
Speaker 1: entitlement that if it's out there, I should have access
Speaker 1: to it, and if h if the thing that's blocking
Speaker 1: my access is that it's too expensive, then I should
Speaker 1: just be able to take it. Uh, there's a weird
Speaker 1: kind of justification that goes on in a person's mind.
Speaker 1: But then you also have the the greed on the
Speaker 1: part of the copyright owners where they want to see
Speaker 1: every single penny come in from every instance that their
Speaker 1: product is viewed or consumed or whatever. Uh, even if
Speaker 1: there's no evidence to suggest that those that that, even
Speaker 1: if there was no piracy, that that money would be
Speaker 1: pouring in. So they want dollars that just don't exist. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a complicated issue. Now let's talk
Speaker 1: about what SOPA actually does. Yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: because SOPA is not necessarily an act that is going
Speaker 1: to uh impose punitive monetary damages. These uh, the actions
Speaker 1: that are taken will actually be quite different for the
Speaker 1: most part the most there there are some some things
Speaker 1: further in the act about streaming video or streaming streaming content,
Speaker 1: are allowing content to be accessible that you know, you
Speaker 1: don't own the copyright to. There are some elements that
Speaker 1: are added into the language towards the end of the
Speaker 1: act and most of it has to do with things
Speaker 1: like housing motion pictures on a on a site, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But again, it's it's taking aim at
Speaker 1: foreign sites, because of course, if it's a company that's overseas,
Speaker 1: uh is outside of the jurisdiction of the United States government.
Speaker 1: So how do you target these sites. Well, you do
Speaker 1: it by cutting off access and cutting off financial support.
Speaker 1: That's what this this act really does. And it gives
Speaker 1: a lot of power and I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: power to the copyright holders, which is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why people are up in arms about this. So
Speaker 1: in general, what happens is, let's say that you are
Speaker 1: the head of a corporation, a vast corporation, has lots
Speaker 1: and lots of intellectual property, and you discover that there
Speaker 1: is some site hosted in China, let's say that is
Speaker 1: uh AS that's got either duplicates of your product or
Speaker 1: is uh pirated copies of your product out and available
Speaker 1: for people to download for a small fee. So they're
Speaker 1: undercutting you illegally, and they're selling your content for less
Speaker 1: than what you sell it for and yours, and you
Speaker 1: feel your sales are suffering as a result. What you
Speaker 1: could do is you could target I s p S
Speaker 1: Internet service providers in the United States and tell them, hey,
Speaker 1: the site over there is they're they're violating my my
Speaker 1: intellectual property rights, and I need you to remove this
Speaker 1: site from your donate domain name service so that no
Speaker 1: one can access it from the United States. And it's
Speaker 1: very specific, it's for US directed sites, So in other words,
Speaker 1: you're cutting off the path way to get to that website.
Speaker 1: It will you know, you if you were to type
Speaker 1: in the address in your browser, it wouldn't recognize it
Speaker 1: as a valid address because of being removed from the
Speaker 1: donain domain name service in the US, which some people
Speaker 1: argue breaks the Internet because it means that the the
Speaker 1: servers are not going to be identical across the globe.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have servers in some places that will have
Speaker 1: uh those those domain names in them and will have
Speaker 1: the map to the proper ip address, but in the
Speaker 1: United States they won't. Because some copyright holder has come
Speaker 1: to the I s p s and said, we need
Speaker 1: you to take this down. Under SOPA, the I s
Speaker 1: P has five days to respond to that to that
Speaker 1: request before the copyright owner can then pursue legal action
Speaker 1: I actually get the courts involved. So in other words,
Speaker 1: the copyright holder can threaten in a way threaten the
Speaker 1: I s p S with legal action if they don't
Speaker 1: remove access to that domain name. UM. And furthermore, the
Speaker 1: I s p s if they if they comply with
Speaker 1: the copyright holders actions or request or demand really uh,
Speaker 1: they are immune from uh legal recourse. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you as a user, if you rely on going to
Speaker 1: a certain site and that site is removed, like there's
Speaker 1: no way for you to access it from the United
Speaker 1: States without doing a song and dance routine. Um, there's
Speaker 1: no easy way to access that. You have no legal recourse.
Speaker 1: You can't sue the the I s P. You can't
Speaker 1: sue the copyright holder because uh, this act builds that
Speaker 1: protection in for those entities. So that is also something
Speaker 1: that people who oppose the Act are very much up
Speaker 1: in arms about. They say, well, if a copyright holder
Speaker 1: comes up to an I s P and makes this demand,
Speaker 1: and the demand doesn't have a whole lot of of
Speaker 1: real foundation in fact to it, but the I s
Speaker 1: P goes ahead and acts on it, there's no way
Speaker 1: to you know, easily reverse that. Yeah right now. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sites like I s p s have what they call
Speaker 1: safe harbor, which means that if you are using you know,
Speaker 1: really fast DSL dot net services to get to a
Speaker 1: site that has copyright infringement on it, or they're hosting
Speaker 1: the servers there. You know, it's not the I S
Speaker 1: p S fault. They're not required to police the content
Speaker 1: of the Internet. It's kind of like can't be. They
Speaker 1: can't be held responsible for what somebody else has on
Speaker 1: their servers. It's kind of like owning a building and
Speaker 1: someone in that building commits a crime. It's not the
Speaker 1: building owner's fault that the crime was committed in the building. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this changes that, well, sort of changes that, and
Speaker 1: that they they can come up to the building owner
Speaker 1: and say you have to evict the tenant. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: change all the locks, change lots and they can't come
Speaker 1: back in. And it doesn't matter if you like it
Speaker 1: or not. And if that say no. And if changing
Speaker 1: the lock means you change the lock on a hallway
Speaker 1: and anyone else who lives in that hallway also can't
Speaker 1: get to their homes, that's another problem. And that we're
Speaker 1: talking about removing an entire domain name. It may affect
Speaker 1: other sites that or other web pages that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with piracy, have nothing, no intellectual property as
Speaker 1: being violated, no counterfeitings going on, and those those pages
Speaker 1: will be affected too. So that's really that's another point
Speaker 1: that the people who oppose this act say, you know,
Speaker 1: if you do this, there are gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of there's gonna be a lot of friendly fire, a
Speaker 1: lot of casualties in the internet landscape, and it breaks.
Speaker 1: That's where the breaking the Internet thing comes in. Many
Speaker 1: of the companies that have spoken out, and there are
Speaker 1: quite a few of them who have expressed, um, more
Speaker 1: than a little discomfort with the idea of SOPA going through.
Speaker 1: Many of them have said, look, you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: gonna be uh affected by this in an extremely negative way.
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking we're talking about large companies like Google, Facebook, Um,
Speaker 1: you know all sorts of places. Well, you think about it.
Speaker 1: You have something like how how many people, uh we
Speaker 1: when we did the episode on YouTube? You said, how
Speaker 1: much video was uploaded every minute? Forty eight hours of
Speaker 1: video every minute. Can you imagine the number of people
Speaker 1: that would have to examine all that video to make
Speaker 1: sure it doesn't have any kind of copyright violation? Now now,
Speaker 1: YouTube is known for complying with copyright infringement requests from
Speaker 1: companies that own the property, and they'll say hey, you're
Speaker 1: using this this person posted a video with our music
Speaker 1: in it. Please remove the music and there and people
Speaker 1: will wonder why this video has no sound. It's because,
Speaker 1: as YouTube has gone in, strip the sound out and
Speaker 1: let the video up right and and under the d
Speaker 1: m c A. That's where YouTube has safe harbor. Just
Speaker 1: like you were saying before with the I s P s,
Speaker 1: YouTube also has safe harbor for user generated content. And
Speaker 1: I should add, uh, well, two things really. First of all,
Speaker 1: when a copyright holder issues such an order to an
Speaker 1: I s P or other entity, I'll talk about the
Speaker 1: other entities in a second, but when it does, it
Speaker 1: has to do so with proof. You can't just send
Speaker 1: a message to an I s P and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you gotta take down access to this site because it
Speaker 1: violates our intellectual property rights. Now you have to actually
Speaker 1: submit proof evidence of of the violation. And according to
Speaker 1: the Act and the and the language is a little vague,
Speaker 1: but according to the Act, it's supposed to target uh
Speaker 1: sites that are the main purpose of the site is
Speaker 1: to distribute piratic content or counterfeit goods. Uh. So it's
Speaker 1: so it's not supposed to target sites like YouTube or
Speaker 1: even a message board where the primary purpose of the
Speaker 1: site is for something else, but just so happens that
Speaker 1: some people use it to distribute it pirated content. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: this act does not target those sites. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: aim at sites like, uh, like the Pirate Bay. Let's
Speaker 1: say it would be a good example. And so you
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, aiming taking aim at sites that
Speaker 1: have by their very name come out and said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're about distributing content freely and uh despite any copyright
Speaker 1: UH concerns, So that that's also something to keep in mind. UM. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, I don't want I don't want to
Speaker 1: spread too much fear, uncertainty, and doubt the good old
Speaker 1: fud out there, because the Act does have language built
Speaker 1: into it so that it doesn't it's not blanketing the
Speaker 1: entire Internet landscape in the same it's it's trying at
Speaker 1: least to focus on sites that are known entities for violations.
Speaker 1: Whether or not that's how it gets applied is a
Speaker 1: totally different matter. And of course, through the process of
Speaker 1: debating this legislation there may be more UM amendments added
Speaker 1: to it that change it dramatically. UH. Moving on though,
Speaker 1: besides I S P. S. The Act also gives copyright
Speaker 1: owners the the recourse to go after search engines and
Speaker 1: financial institutions and advertising agencies UH search engines. The deal
Speaker 1: is that if you're the copyright holder, you can contact
Speaker 1: Google and Bing and Yahoo and all these other search
Speaker 1: engines and say, I want you to take down links
Speaker 1: to this site because it violates my UM copyright, my copyrights,
Speaker 1: so I want you to go in and remove any
Speaker 1: links you have to this. Whenever anyone searching for whatever
Speaker 1: the topic might be, this site cannot appear in search engines. However,
Speaker 1: with the blacklist, from what I understand, there are ways
Speaker 1: around it. UM. Jonathan and I talked a long time
Speaker 1: ago about domain names and how they work and I
Speaker 1: P addresses. So the thing is you can UH, let's
Speaker 1: say YouTube dot com is blocked because of copyright violations,
Speaker 1: but if you know the IP address UM, the series
Speaker 1: of of numbers separated by dots that actually tell you
Speaker 1: where the site is, you should be able to type
Speaker 1: in that i P address and still get through, according
Speaker 1: to UH. To one source, I I checked partially because
Speaker 1: they were talking about another security measure that people have
Speaker 1: been working on called d n S sec UM, which
Speaker 1: is UH. The d n s are the domain name
Speaker 1: servers and UH these basically are the system of addressing
Speaker 1: UH sites that go on on the Internet, so that
Speaker 1: the the addresses have a general location you can find them.
Speaker 1: UM and UH the idea of being that there is
Speaker 1: as an authoritative UH security baked into the d n
Speaker 1: s with a public key. So if somebody tried and this, this, UH,
Speaker 1: from what I understand, would cut down on things like fishing,
Speaker 1: because you could UM use the secure site to know
Speaker 1: for in fact, you are at the site that you
Speaker 1: are trying to get to and not some ingeniously designed
Speaker 1: copy of that. And d N s SEC would be
Speaker 1: UH somewhat hamstrung by SOPA if it were to go
Speaker 1: through and UH and d N s SEX is actually
Speaker 1: something that people have been working on for quite some
Speaker 1: time and would be a more effective security solution. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, the people who have been working on
Speaker 1: SOPA are are trying to get this done more quickly,
Speaker 1: and I think that's probably part of the reason that,
Speaker 1: um there are so many holes in it. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: as for the financial institutions and advertising as you probably
Speaker 1: have guests based upon the I s p S and
Speaker 1: search engines same sort of thing. Copyright holder can go
Speaker 1: to a things organizations like PayPal or the credit card
Speaker 1: companies and say this site, this foreign sight is violating
Speaker 1: our intellectual property rights, so you need to cut off
Speaker 1: any payments from the United States to those sites. And
Speaker 1: again those organizations will have five days to respond before
Speaker 1: the courts get involved. UH. And same thing with the
Speaker 1: web advertising, where you'd say, you know you're you're serving
Speaker 1: up ads on this site, which is giving the site
Speaker 1: its owner income. Uh, cut it out and again five
Speaker 1: days to respond reasonably anyway and then um and then
Speaker 1: cut off again. So it's a very very short time
Speaker 1: to deal with from giving with getting the getting the information,
Speaker 1: getting the order, and then having to turn around and
Speaker 1: and figure out your response. I mean, especially if you
Speaker 1: want to truly have due diligence and make sure that
Speaker 1: the site that's being targeted does indeed UM violate intellectual
Speaker 1: property rights and that that is the intent of the site.
Speaker 1: Because one of the concerns that I've seen repeatedly around
Speaker 1: the Internet is that that I s p s might
Speaker 1: even take this as an opportunity to shut down sites
Speaker 1: that have competing UH content on them from because this
Speaker 1: is the complication we have where certain in an Internet
Speaker 1: service providers are also content providers. Now when you when
Speaker 1: you have both in one entity, there's a conflict of
Speaker 1: interest there, and I don't think you can get around that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're the person who owns all the pipes
Speaker 1: and you're the person who owns some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that goes in the pipes. That's complicated because it means
Speaker 1: your content is competing with other companies content. Some people
Speaker 1: are worried that I s p S might be able
Speaker 1: to use this to cut off access to competitor content
Speaker 1: so that they lock in users to one specific umbrella
Speaker 1: of content, and they do so with immunity because it's
Speaker 1: built into the act. As long as they can somehow
Speaker 1: show that this stems from an order they received from
Speaker 1: an intellectual property rights holder, they're they're in the clear.
Speaker 1: So that's scary because it means that if you have
Speaker 1: I s P A and the content you really want
Speaker 1: to access was not made by I s P A,
Speaker 1: but was made by I s P B, you might
Speaker 1: not have access to that content because of this. This
Speaker 1: this legal safety net that the that SOPA provides. Now
Speaker 1: that's again not the purpose of the legislation, and it
Speaker 1: may come to pass. If this legislation and is actually
Speaker 1: approved and passes and turns into law, it may turn
Speaker 1: out that no one ever abuses in such a way,
Speaker 1: but there are people who are worried, very much worried
Speaker 1: about the potential for it to be abused like that. Now, this,
Speaker 1: this legislation was um announced on October I believe of
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, shortly before well three or four weeks
Speaker 1: before we recorded this. UM, and UH at first, people
Speaker 1: weren't really picking up on it, um until uh some
Speaker 1: outlets started uh publicizing drawing attention to this legislation. Now, um,
Speaker 1: just recently again right before we recorded this, Uh, many
Speaker 1: American sites had what they were calling American Censorship Day,
Speaker 1: So you would you would show up on the website
Speaker 1: and there would be a message about how the site
Speaker 1: was blocked, um and then essentially a dialogue on hey,
Speaker 1: this is what could happen if this, uh this goes through.
Speaker 1: And some companies had put a censored bar over their logo.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, UM, I was reading on on the next
Speaker 1: Web that, um, one of the sites affected by this
Speaker 1: was the blogging site Tumbler. Yes, that's actually a major
Speaker 1: site that is that people are very concerned would be
Speaker 1: affected by things like protect IP and SOPA. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: anything anything like UM, a blogging site, UH, photo sharing
Speaker 1: sites like like Flicker, UM, video sharing sites Vimeo or YouTube,
Speaker 1: or anything at the even which is a place where
Speaker 1: people make crafts, but a lot of times people will
Speaker 1: knit things or make things that include logos or designs
Speaker 1: and things like that. UM. Anything like this where there
Speaker 1: are thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people submitting
Speaker 1: content that could infringe a copyright is is you know
Speaker 1: a likely target? Facebook, any any kind of social sites. UM.
Speaker 1: So Tumbler was one of them, and they actually asked
Speaker 1: people who are visiting their site to call their United
Speaker 1: States representatives to let them know what they thought about SOPA.
Speaker 1: And according to the next Web, UM, seven thousand, eight
Speaker 1: thirty four calls were generated as the results of that effort.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. So that's a particularly large number of people
Speaker 1: that they were able to drive to the representatives. And
Speaker 1: I think UM generally, what I heard was that people
Speaker 1: were really concerned because SOPA seemed to have an overwhelming
Speaker 1: level of support UM in the House of Representatives. But
Speaker 1: at this point, I think they have gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of feedback and are starting to have second thoughts about it.
Speaker 1: So it seemed like a go at the very first
Speaker 1: when I first heard about it, and now it seems
Speaker 1: like the enthusiasm is maybe not uh, it's not over
Speaker 1: with completely, but it is it's flagging somewhat due to
Speaker 1: the response from uh, you know now that people are
Speaker 1: aware of it, um and calling their representatives to let
Speaker 1: them know. Sure. And and part of this was due
Speaker 1: to the fact that, I mean, you can't get around it,
Speaker 1: due to the fact you've got to follow the money, right.
Speaker 1: So it turns out that these organizations like the m
Speaker 1: p A and the r I double A and other
Speaker 1: similar organizations of the the pharmaceutical industries another one because they're
Speaker 1: very much concerned with counterfeit drugs, which you know, again
Speaker 1: legitimate concern, but they pour a lot of money into
Speaker 1: political campaigns um. And so there is also this perception
Speaker 1: of perhaps politicians are acting on behalf of the interests
Speaker 1: of these parties, partly because it gets so much campaign
Speaker 1: money from these sources. So you get you know, people
Speaker 1: some people just come out right out and say, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll accuse the government of cow towing to these these
Speaker 1: organizations because they're getting paid essentially that the politicians are
Speaker 1: for sale. Other people don't take quite such an extreme
Speaker 1: stand and say this is problematic. If you are getting
Speaker 1: massive campaign contributions from these sources and your legislation is
Speaker 1: acting on behalf of these sources. At the very least,
Speaker 1: there is the appearance that you are doing this in
Speaker 1: return for money, even if that's not what you are doing.
Speaker 1: You have to keep that in mind, that it looks
Speaker 1: like that, and you have to behave accordingly. And of
Speaker 1: course there are other people just say no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with it. Total separation. I think.
Speaker 1: I think both extremes are kind of a little they
Speaker 1: have blinders on. But I think I do think that
Speaker 1: there's definitely a problematic issue here. And so you've got
Speaker 1: other companies like the like Google and Yahoo and Microsoft
Speaker 1: that also contribute money to campaign funds, but that money
Speaker 1: is a fraction of what the entertainment industry pours into
Speaker 1: campaign funds. So it may have been that the early
Speaker 1: days of SOPA, the movement on it was very rapid
Speaker 1: and very enthusiastic because it was in response to campaign
Speaker 1: contributors who have a lot of sway, and then other
Speaker 1: campaign contributors that have a good deal of sway but
Speaker 1: not as much, but also have a massive public following
Speaker 1: started to protest, and that is what has caused everyone
Speaker 1: to slow down and say, we do need to think
Speaker 1: about this a little more and make sure that if
Speaker 1: we pass this legislation it really does target what we
Speaker 1: want to target. And again, I mean, I'm known as
Speaker 1: the person who comes out and just starts screaming about
Speaker 1: free speech and I go bonkers, But I understand completely
Speaker 1: the intent of this legislation and I don't even disagree
Speaker 1: with it, because it does piracy is a problem. It
Speaker 1: needs to have some sort of solution. I just think
Speaker 1: this is the wrong way to do it. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: to clarify, you're not disagreeing that people's intellectual property needs
Speaker 1: some protection. It's that you're disagreeing with this particular legislation
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Yeah, I think I think the people who
Speaker 1: own an intellectual property have a reasonable right, uh to
Speaker 1: expect to be able to profit from that that they
Speaker 1: shouldn't feel like, oh well, you know, it's just the
Speaker 1: nature of intellectual property. People are gonna steal it. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not fair either, because if you take
Speaker 1: that perspective, then you suddenly remove a huge incentive to
Speaker 1: generate intellectual property. So so that can hurt innovation too.
Speaker 1: If if you tell someone who is an innovative person, hey,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, You're never gonna see a dime
Speaker 1: for it, because we're all gonna steal it, but thank
Speaker 1: you for thinking it up. That then people are gonna like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stop thinking and start watching reality television.
Speaker 1: But but if you know, at the same time, if
Speaker 1: you turn around and use the draconian measures to shut
Speaker 1: down pirates that end up affecting other people in unintended ways,
Speaker 1: you also shut down innovation because then everyone's scared to
Speaker 1: do anything. Yeah, that that is the The original intended
Speaker 1: purpose of copyright was to protect the creator for a
Speaker 1: certain period, so that twenty eight years originally less than that.
Speaker 1: Oh the first copyright, yes, I I always was it fourteen.
Speaker 1: I thought that when it could be and it could
Speaker 1: be extended once. Oh, that's right, that's right up to yes.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that the thing is it's intended
Speaker 1: to protect people at the beginning, and it expires on
Speaker 1: purpose so that it can be used to serve the
Speaker 1: greater good and you know, expanded on and and and
Speaker 1: embellished and enhanced later by other people. I think it's
Speaker 1: and I think it's otherwise it would be in perpetuity
Speaker 1: and we wouldn't even having this discussion. The question is
Speaker 1: how long is a fair period of time? That fair
Speaker 1: period of time has changed dramatically since it was introduced
Speaker 1: and emotionally in the twentieth century. Yes, because of of
Speaker 1: lobbying by intellectual property rights holders, you had had come
Speaker 1: panies that held the rights to certain intellectual properties saying
Speaker 1: this is not a fair length of time because it
Speaker 1: affects our corporation. Corporations are the same as people, uh
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the law. So therefore, by that estimation,
Speaker 1: we have to have greater terms for the copyright to
Speaker 1: stay valid. So now it's seventy five years from the
Speaker 1: creation of the work, and expect that to be pushed
Speaker 1: again before too long because a certain mouse is getting
Speaker 1: older every day. Yes, that's true. So um, well, it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see with time, as people feedback to
Speaker 1: their representatives whether they will go ahead with this legislation
Speaker 1: or if they have SOPA on the Ropes. Nice, thanks
Speaker 1: Sopa on the Ropes. Okay, so we're just gonna we're
Speaker 1: just gonna end it now the podcast, I mean, and uh,
Speaker 1: just to set me just this episode now, we'll see.
Speaker 1: We still have a couple more recordings we need to do,
Speaker 1: so I can't lose you just yet of a couple
Speaker 1: of day of episodes to redeem yourself. But you, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any requests for topics that you would
Speaker 1: like us to cover, or you have any questions about
Speaker 1: protect IP or sofa, let us know. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email that addresses tech stuff as how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com or let's know on Facebook or Twitter
Speaker 1: are handled there as text stuff hs W and Chris
Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again, assuming we're not
Speaker 1: censored really soon. Be sure to check out our new
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