Alexis Ohanian and Dan Kaminsky will address Congress on Jan 18th
forbes.com
forbes.com
Pro side: "we're stopping evil foreign counterfeiters, we're helping save American jobs, we're looking out for your safety."
Con side: "complicated sounding tech mumbo jumbo, this will break the internet, and some references to Libya"
Which side would you support if you didn't know any better?
SOPA affects more than just the "nerds." How can the messaging be improved? How can it be made more compelling to resonate more with laypeople?
Why aren't the "influential" people focusing on the message?
Explain SOPA as (1) censorship and (2) a heavy burden on legitimate business. These are honest ways of describing it in everyday terms, and at least one of those points should resonate with almost any American, whatever their political identity.
Given the time to lay out a clearer case, explain that even if you agree with some of the intentions behind SOPA, it’s unlikely to be effective at stopping piracy. If passed, it would probably have to be at least partly rolled back.
And explain that the kind of highly creative, small-time artists whom people instinctively want to defend are, in general, hurt by draconian IP policy.
I think this is realistic and counteracts the impression that people who object to SOPA are all Professor Frink.
SOPA regulations will increase the size of our government, cost millions of jobs, and billions of dollars in market value, while destroying America's technological edge. The legislation hurts small businesses(how can they have blog comments without being sued under SOPA). Also, you need to find a way to call the bill a tax increase.
[1] Ok, I don't know how big the internet industry, but no-one else seems to know either, and worldwide it's probably in that ballpark - and most likely everyone will be affected.
The amount of disposable income in a country doesn't magically increase whenever some actors on the market want it to.
If you think its just the RIAA/MPAA pushing this agenda, look no further than the money flow and you see its the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that is the largest supporter. Downloading bittorrents is just the poster boy for this campaign.
https://www.stypi.com/niels/kn0thingComments
update after 30 minutes: 12 people have visited to stare and possibly replay my one abandoned attempt. No one has done anything. Anyone care to help?
I particularly think that for example tptacek or trotsky (the HN user, however she/he has himself called as in meatspace eludes me) would be interesting people, where I in your position, to discuss this with at least briefly. I myself have certain first hand experience with internet protocols, information security, and left leaning politics, and my arguments would look like crayon written babbling compared to what they may come up with in a discussion about SOPA.
A GDoc might not be the answer here (my mind is actually drawn to Google Wave for some reason---something with a short feedback loop), and there may be no technological answer(someone smart [who may even end up being me]: this is a pain point worth pursuing), but I do know that without a core basic skeleton and background info (if all you've got so far is a list of points you want to hit, that's the "source" of your address), there's nothing the community can do.
I'm not trying to be pushy, just realistic. Good luck!
* Ineffective
Australia had a bill like this (which is dead... for now), but also did some trials. Read the reports to see how big a failure that was (scroll down to "Live filtering trials"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...
Even if you have full control of a network, it's not so easy to keep pirates off of it. Why else would there be pirates on the RIAA's own network?
https://torrentfreak.com/riaa-someone-else-is-pirating-throu...
And there are already countermeasures, so the law has been rendered obsolete even before being passed:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/285170,firefox-add-on-circumve...
* Expensive
As you of all people know, these new requirements would be incredibly taxing for startups, preventing new jobs from being created. This would require every site to implement filters, slowing everything, raising costs and blocking innocent things by mistake. The CATO institute has shown, using the MPAA's own research, that it won't even save one job all told:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120104/04545217274/cato-i...
Their numbers are overblown:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100801/17431810439.shtml
http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/playing-numbers-why-sopa...
How much will this cost? I could make up a number. Indeed, a lot of numbers have been made up in support of SOPA already. We've already established that it will be ineffective, so the benefits are approximately zero, making it difficult to justify any cost. So rather than inventing numbers, I will point instead to what I do know, that these are the people who will be paying the price:
https://www.cdt.org/report/growing-chorus-opposition-stop-on...
* Dangerous
Whether they're trying to hijack DNS requests or web pages, censoring firewalls are bad for security, because if you control the device doing the hijacking, you can use it for whatever. Incidentally, existing products like SmartFilter already perform MITM attacks every time you try to visit an https page. In theory, the organization is supposed to add their key to everyone's computer and then they sign a bunch of fake sites with the firewall. When they don't bother doing that, you see it attempting to hack your connection all the time.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111214/18075617093/former...
Or you can refer to these:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120109/10413817347/co-cha...
http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/managers-amendment-sopa-...
Also, it undermines our own State Department's efforts to promote freedom & democracy abroad.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120105/13282317290/us-sta...
Anyhow, I hope this is enough. Please make any use of this you can. Good luck!
Ars & TorrentFreak probably have the most complete original coverage of this stuff if you're ever looking things up or want to find more meat to add to an argument.
Good luck!
The best serious scholarly legal works are by a guy named William Patry. His books _Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars_ and _How to Fix Copyright_ are the two most relevant here, though it's quite a long read given that you have like 3 days. You may or may not know that name, but he wrote a huge series on copyright law (_Patry on Copyright_) that lawyers use as a reference. He also worked for Google, though he's sick of hearing crap about that. He had exactly the same opinions about copyright law before & after being hired; namely, that they should promote progress. Congress, meanwhile, cares more about money issues, as always. Still, that's a point you probably do need to keep in mind when talking to them.
Hollywood is posting record profits, BTW. I think TF had an article about that a month or so back. Their numbers are all ass-pulls, not unlike their crazy accounting techniques. Might be worth hitting them on their lack of math, because they've screwed more than a few artists that way. Our problem isn't with the artists, it's with the industry.
Might also want to come up with some soundbites. Find some questions you're almost sure to be asked and have short, witty replies waiting for them. Bounce them off some friends/supports in private first to make sure they work, though. We'll be rooting for you.
* Phony copyright claim suppressing a news report (about this very issue): http://boingboing.net/2011/12/15/universal-music-uses-false-...
* A blog that got seized for a year (under the current DHS program) for putting up four clips that had been given to it _by the record company_ for promotional purposes: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57339569-281/dhs-abruptly-...
There's plenty more; EFF probably has a more complete list on file someplace...
He could. Alexis is one of the few people I've met and within minutes thought "oh, so this is what charisma looks like" (and as pg has observed, charisma is ultimately what gets people elected).
"We look at a problem like piracy and we don't see the need for more government, we see the opportunity for more business. In the 90s and early 2000s, the music industry was being hammered by things like Napster. Now, they're finally starting to get past piracy. But it wasn't Government that saved them, it was iTunes. It was Spotify and rdio and a bunch of smart entrepreneurs finding better ways to get content to consumers. iTunes didn't beat Napster and its successors because of the Government, and it certainly didn't beat them because it was cheaper. It beat them because it was better.
That's what we tech entrepreneurs strive to do: fix problems. Companies like Netflix are trying to solve movie piracy by getting consumers the content they want, how they want it. They're not there yet, but there's massive opportunity awaiting whoever finds the solution. SOPA won't get us closer to the solution; it will take us further away. It won't stop piracy, but it will stop innovation. It will bury entrepreneurs like myself under a cloud of uncertainty and legal costs.
Right now, sitting in a class at Stanford or MIT, there's a nerd who will figure out a way to solve piracy and get filthy rich and create thousands of jobs in the process. Don't stop him; get out of his way and let him do what government can't."
You don't look comfortable in your own clothes.
The major social networks could protest by temporarily disabling the profiles of politicians that support SOPA. Might be a good precursor to a larger voluntary blackout.
edit: hmm, downvotes. Would anyone care to elaborate on why such a protest would be a bad idea?
Now, the internet attacks you. You personally. It shuts down some "profile" thing your staffers set up.
How do you react?
*: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808044,00.h...
Part of the problem is that the RIAA and MPAA have active lobbying efforts. We don't need to frame it as "buying influence," just that if one set of people are the only ones around explaining a problem and its solutions, that's all they're going to know. The technology industry needs lobbyists heading off these sorts of issues by actively explaining to Congress people the implications of doing this sort of thing.
I imagine that something they will think is, "If what these people are saying is true, and the consequences are so dire, how is it possible that I didn't hear this before?" This explanation answers that question, and, I think, makes the technical explanations and their wider implications more believable.
SOPA has made it this far because our congress does not have a reliable technology lobby to educate our lawmakers. SOPA would have been killed already if this lobby existed in full strength; and this industry has the funds to have actually created this presence many years ago.
We should focus on stopping SOPA, of course, but after this episode, something needs to be put in place to prevent this from happening again.
I don't think we can fight fire with fire.
I do think that the widespread opposition to SOPA has united many. Organizations which represent our common interests and already have widespread support, need to be further supported, the EFF etc.
I would be skeptical of efforts from players to throw lots of money at a new organisation 'in Washington' in the hope that it does the work. Good and effective organizations already exist, they need your activism and they need your funding. :-)
This could be used against small business, but that's not really my point either. I guess my point is that if you won't "play the game," you'll always end up losing, and there's too many billions of dollars at stake to not play the game. Why should Google struggle for years in youtube-based court litigation when they could have stopped SOPA at inception?
Many industries (pharmaceuticals, energy, chemicals) understand this. They don't particularly like it, but they also understand that its in the best interest of their industry's long term growth. I think Internet powerhouses are beginning to realize this now too.
[0] http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/internet-titans-fight-sopa-...
EDIT- This is also just a thought: how many lunches, golf outings, and "beer summits" with Sen. Leahy and Rep. Lamar and their respective staff would that NY Times Ad have bought. I'm willing to wager that the RIAA and big content do.
Unfortunately, they don't care about the internet; the net is actually disruptive of their business model, for the most part. You can look at BSA's position to see what "big money" from the tech industry really wants. For them, Google, Facebook etc, are uppity competitors, and they'd love to see them cut to size by the government.
So it's rather the internet-based industry, rather than the generic "tech world", who should improve their lobbying. FB, Google and Twitter execs should start cashing in some of those umpteen photo-ops with Obama, threatening to sponsor and enable primary challengers for everyone who will vote for bad bills. Even better, threaten to silently downrank specific politicians on their sites: "we can do censorship too, let's see how you hurt when people can't find your donation page".
The technology industry as it is today exists almost exclusively because of the ubiquity of the internet. Companies whose products stand to suffer directly from SOPA are not the only tech companies that should be worried; any company whose profits are a result of the proliferation of the internet should be scared of SOPA. That's almost every single tech company out there.
Foreign websites? This, combined with the fact that they're referred to once as 'haters' and twice as 'nerds', makes me think that Forbes is worthless at writing about anything except how rich blue-chip CEOs are.
"Lamar’s amendments also clarify that sites ending in .com, .org and .net are not covered by the bill. Only foreign sites fall under SOPA’s wrath."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/sopa-watered-down-a...
Well in the US we have this thing called "constitutional rights" which say, among other things, that Congress shall make no law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".
Laws blocking results returned from a DNS server is just about the closest thing imaginable to "abridging a press" in the 21 century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_zone_file#Root_server_sup...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Corporation_for_Assig...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Assigned_Numbers_Auth...
I wish some of the "successful" individuals I know back home would learn a lesson or two from people like him...
(brace for the downvotes)
For example this is nice: http://rogerdudler.github.com/git-guide/ but what if the same effort could go into explaining SOPA to lay people (and politicians)?
The way I see it, the internet has always found a way to adapt in the past, and the greater the threat, the more ingenious the solution. Currently, bunch of people on Reddit are trying to build an (IMHO) hopeless mesh network, but the real need is not there yet. What happens if SOPA goes through and we can no longer use the internet as is and the need becomes urgent?
I'm going to close Facebook down by regularly posting links to copyrighted files and 'letting the authorities know'.
I cant wait.
edit: What a completely ridiculous situation this is
More than any inconvenience this provides for a company which operates on the web, this is censorship in its highest form.
I'm glad to see the knowledge-worker communities rallying around a topic peripheral to our basic freedoms, but I fear we've missed the boat on this one. Regrettably, pizza sauce in school lunches was not the only bit of smoke and mirrors foist upon us.
74.125.224.49
Then tell them that if THEY have seen IP addresses, then the pirates that are trading copyright material online certainly have, and that with just an IP address, SOPA can be circumvented.