Yes, SOPA Breaks The Internet: By Breaking The Belief In Trust And Sharing That Is The Internet
from the great-point dept
Venture capitalist Brad Burnham has a brilliant blog post that explains how SOPA really breaks the internet. It isn’t just the technical aspects of it. SOPA is an attack on the fundamental belief system that underlies the internet, and much of what makes it successful:
At a dinner earlier this week, Joi Ito, the head of the Media Lab at MIT described the Internet as a ?belief system? and I suddenly understood. The Internet is not just a series of pipes. It?s core architecture embeds an assumption about human nature. The Internet is designed to empower individuals not control them. It assumes that the if individuals are empowered, they will do the right thing the vast majority of the time. Services like eBay, Craigslist, Etsy and AirBnB are built on the assumption that most people are honest. Other services like Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, and Soundcloud assume people will be generous with their ideas, insights and creations. Wikipedia has proven that people will share their knowledge. Companies like Kickstarter show that people will even be generous with their money. This does not mean that there are not bad people out there. All of these companies spend a lot of time and money to battle spam and fraud. The companies are simply betting that there are many more good people than bad. The architecture of the Internet shares this assumption. It could have been designed to prevent bad behavior. Instead its design empowers good behavior.
The entertainment industry does not share this view of human nature.
That encapsulates the point wonderfully. And SOPA is really about suggesting that that “belief system” built on trust and sharing isn’t worth keeping around. I think this is a fundamental issue that people who understand the internet fully get: that it’s more than the “series of tubes” or the specific technology that holds it together. It’s built on a philosophy of openness and sharing. And that is a worldview that some businesses just don’t grasp.
Whether you agree with me that the vast majority of people are good or with my friend that given a chance many people will steal is not really important. What is important is that PIPA, and SOPA, the legislation the content industry is currently pushing through Congress, will not allow me to architect a service and build a relationship with consumers that reflects my core beliefs about human nature. If I am a search engine and I remove sites from my index, I am essentially lying to my users. If I am a social media site and I remove links my users have posted to sites that some authority has deemed illegal, I am breaking a promise.
I am sympathetic to the content industries struggles with piracy, but my belief system tells me the answer is to capitalize on the great strengths of the Internet to create a healthy and profitable relationship with their users not to sue them. No matter how strongly I believe that, however, I do not think I have the right to tell them how to run their business. Apparently, they do not feel the same way about our businesses. The current legislation in Congress does not just create an administrative burden, it requires service providers who have built wonderful businesses on a deep conviction about human nature to change their relationship with their users in a way that subverts their core values.
It really is this that’s the issue at hand. The “breaking” is of this recognition of the wonderful aspects built on the fact that people really are, for the most part, good. And when you treat them as being good — rather than treating them as criminals — you get rewarded for it. Are there some people who take advantage? Sure. But should we break the whole system just to stop those few people, when it will hinder all the wonderful things built on trust? That, unfortunately, appears to be the position the pro-SOPA folks are taking.
My only beef with Brad’s piece is that he claims “the content industry” doesn’t believe in the internet of trust and sharing. I disagree with that. I am a a part of the content industry. As is Brad. The new content industry absolutely gets it. It’s why it embraces these platforms, uses them to create, distribute, promote, connect and monetize. It’s the old gatekeepers who don’t believe in this view of the internet.
Filed Under: brad burnham, culture, internet, sharing, sopa, trust
Comments on “Yes, SOPA Breaks The Internet: By Breaking The Belief In Trust And Sharing That Is The Internet”
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
That’s the only lesson of history. It’s the definition of piracy.
Civilization is about making people — especially the inherited Rich — FOLLOW RULES.
Content Industry
I don’t think that’s what he meant by “Content Industry”. He didn’t mean the new content industry, like us (I have an album coming out on December 20, 2011). He meant the Hollywood Movie Studios, the Major Labels, the major Book Publishers (I obviously don’t mean the ones who have CC-licensed authors and I certainly don’t mean Project Gutenberg). When people say “Content Industry”, it’s safe to assume that “legacy gatekeepers” is implied.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
So then you would agree that our civilization has failed in its purpose and needs to be rebuilt? Because I don’t see the wealthy following any rules other than “there are no rules” or “show me the money.”
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
If the Catholic Church survived the invention of the printing press, the old gatekeepers can and will survive (and have been surviving) the internet revolution.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
At one time I would have been proud of that fact.
Now I find it depressing. Given the stellar history they have of treating the content creators so well, I’m really not sure their survival is something I can willingly cheer on.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Civilization is about making people — especially the inherited Rich — FOLLOW RULES.
No, civilization is about people agreeing to follow rules for their mutual benefit. Do you think you’re a god or something? Civilization IS people – there are no super-people to make the people follow the rules.
When the rules are broken, the people change them, because rules only exist by consent of the people. You are such a megalomaniac it’s actually kind of frightening…
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
…so the best civilization is one that allows for zero freedoms, to ensure that all citizens always follow the rules?
Issues like these remind me of the Golden rule.
He who has the gold, makes the rules.
So Mike, does this mean you accept that SOPA doesn’t actually “break” the internet in any literal way, and rather it’s just an emotional thing that you feel at the loss of your business strategies?
I just love
I just love OOTB and the AC’s, I can just rip down the page hitting “report” and skip to reading more relevant and cogent comments.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
@”MrWilson, Nov 16th, 2011 @ 9:37am
So then you would agree that our civilization has failed in its purpose and needs to be rebuilt? Because I don’t see the wealthy following any rules other than “there are no rules” or “show me the money.”
—————
I’d agree in general. The Rich — through owning gov’ts – are now outside of control. As I’ve said MANY times here.
I just love
You’ve just described my morning.
Re:
Where the hell do you get that idea from his article? Mike isn’t the only person saying this will damage the Internet as a whole, many of the people who helped create and run the Internet have said so also.
Values
Mike, I am curious… Do you believe upholding the values of the internet are more important than upholding the actual rights of individual creators to decide for themselves how to distribute their own work? Do you think the interests of technology to be “open” should overrule the interests of individuals to not be exploited?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
@ Marcus Carab:
How can you POSSIBLY mis-read this:
“Civilization is about making people — especially the inherited Rich — FOLLOW RULES.”
As implying that doesn’t include “mutual benefit”? It’s always The Rich who break the rules. That’s the definition of a “king” or “queen”: somone not bound by the rules that other people are.
You’re such a hidebound dolt that you see my handle and go off yapping against whatever I say, like a DOG.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Accessing my property without my permission is illegal. Always has been, always will be.
You can try to FUD this fact up any way you want, but it won’t change anything.
I can’t believe how greedy and selfish you people are. You’ve beenbeen ripping us off every day for over a decade. You deserve everything that is now happening.
Values
Exploited? Hah. You’re so uncool. You probably think that the content creators should get a cut of the riches running into the search engines.
Now get to work and start editing more pages at Wikipedia. Quit wasting your cycles around here. Go do the research for free. Then you’ll be cool again.
” I am a a part of the content industry. As is Brad. The new content industry absolutely gets it. It’s why it embraces these platforms, uses them to create, distribute, promote, connect and monetize. It’s the old gatekeepers who don’t believe in this view of the internet.”
Let’s talk about this: if you want to do things a new way, you are more than free to do it. Do any “old gatekeepers” stop you from running this blog? Do they stop a musician from recording a song and putting it on their own website? So they stop you from publishing your words, or from freely marketing new music or movies in any way you choose?
Of course they don’t. It’s dishonest as hell to suggest they do.
I think your problem is that much of what you see as marketing tools for your “new content industry” pays it’s bills and made it’s bones by grifting content. They have grown up and built their audiences on playing the “DMCA safe harbor” game. Without that content, without that grifting, your new tools would be as vacant as Step2… possible more so.
Nobody will stop you tomorrow morning from opening an artist promotional website, with all their videos, all their songs, and all that stuff – but you really need to know who they are, and not just except random stuff.
You wouldn’t do it in the real world, so why should you be able to do it online?
Re:
Nathan, the “break the internet” claim is all about DNSSEC, and nothing else. When you dig down, the whole thing hinges on a security product that isn’t widely used, isn’t widely implemented, and likely will never be. We will be on IPv8 (after v6) long before it would actually have been turned on.
So if something not currently in use, not backwards compatible, and not likely to get full adoption is the thing that “breaks” the internet, you got to wonder how bad off it was to start with.
The entertainment industry does not share this view of human nature.
Of course they don’t. Anyone who actually looks at how the entertainment industry in general is structured, it it designed to maximize profits off of the labors or others. The very last thing the major music labels and movies studios want is to actually empower people.
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
Copyright is a deal from society. Don’t bother to tell me that it WAS for a limited time and has been broken essentially unilaterally, I agree, and I’m against Big Media because it’s big and they too (the collectors) are little more than grifters. I’m for taxing them into MUCH less activity. And I’m FOR “limited times”, don’t support Big Media in bribing politicians for perpetual “rights”. If you’re “pirating” content more than 28 years old, that’s fine with me.
However, NEW material is another matter. This baboon is saying that the internet is built on “trust” when the item under dispute is whether content producers can “trust” people to NOT pirate it. The answer is obviously NO, so you pirate apologists then make up notions like “can’t stop me”, and “piracy is promotion”, and “new business model”. Phooey.
Big Media CANNOT TRUST people to PAY for content. That’s EVIDENT, not hypothetical.
Nor is production a matter of “sharing” for free. You “share” in society by giving Big Media a reward for what they produce. — I don’t LIKE the ridiculous returns they get from mass audiences for mere acting and entertainment: I’d TAX the hell out of them. But that’s a matter of degree, NOT principle.
Re:
So that makes gun shops “Murder Grifters” and should be held responsible for everyone who may use their guns to do bad things like murder people.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Sorry Blue, not everyone shares your simplistic, distopian, anti-corporate, anti-rich view of society and human nature.
Again I ask you: who is doing the “making” when you say “making people follow rules”. Answer: PEOPLE. You really do have a god complex, don’t you?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Accessing my property without my permission is illegal. Always has been, always will be.
What does that have to do with copyright?
Values
Do you believe upholding the values of the internet are more important than upholding the actual rights of individual creators to decide for themselves how to distribute their own work?
I can’t speak for Mike but: yes. Absolutely. 100%
The rights of creators to control their work are artificial and exist for the benefit of society as a whole, not just the creators. Those rights have been massively expanded, way past the point that they fulfill their initial purpose. The idea that copyright is solely about protecting creators is FALSE – and just because you believe it now doesn’t make it true.
I believe in providing certain reasonable rights to creators. We are way past that point. So yes, the internet is far, far more important than protecting multi-generational monopolies on content.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
It’s also not true. Some people steal without compunction. Most do not, but will steal under the right circumstances. Those circumstances are usually much more than just the ability to do it.
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
So why are people still watching TV and going to the movies?
When you say “Pirate Apologists”, do you include Lawrence Lessig, whose ideology on copyright formed the basis of the pirate party? Because over and over, he said that piracy is wrong. My point is, you should look at the data and extrapolate from that. Just ask Tim O’Reilly.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
“I’m such a hidebound dolt that I see Mike post and go off yapping against whatever he said, like a DOG.”
ftfy
hehehe
on a more serious note, hidebounds a new word for me and I like it so thanks for that
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
Why is it that you believe the only compensation is just monetary?
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
Fine. Let’s take that as a given for the sake of argument.
That, however, means that it’s up to Big Media to determine how to do business in that environment. It doesn’t give them any right to use legislation as a hammer to restrict and limit the use of any communications tools by other people — which is what this legislation does.
If they can’t find a way to survive in this environment, that’s too bad. Really. But it doesn’t mean they have the right to harm uninvolved others in a mad scramble for survival.
Re:
Not just DNSSEC, for starters, you also have:
– the fragmentation that ensues when each nation follows our lead and decides to have a different set of DNS rules than the rest of the world.
– the fragmentation of Internet commerce and speech when companies must ensure that their sites are somehow blocked from being accessed by nations that don’t like them, and that they do not accept currency of nations that don’t approve of their sites. (Are you taking notes, Iran?)
Re:
This is a true and valid point.
Many people from all viewpoints are not happy with SOPA.
To discount them all is willfully ignorant. Some of them are your peers. Others are lawmakers, etc. Not just the average guy, like myself.
Values
How is the “exclusive right” to authors under the Constitution any more “artificial” than the individual right to free speech, free assembly, or equal protection? Aren’t they all artificial in that they were created by consent of the governed under the rule of law? Should these other individual rights be so casually dismissed, simply because a particular state of affairs makes it easy to do so?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Maybe if you created something worthwhile. Instead we get sequels and reality TV. Not to mention whatever that crap on FM radio is.
If I pirate it, you are charging too much. I only make financial transactions where I get my monies worth.
Values
I think that Content Creators deserve their due.
I don’t feel that the Gate Keepers are so deserving.
I know you didn’t ask me but I did want to make that point.
Thanks for giving me that opportunity.
FTW!
I’m starting to think the idiot gatekeepers and politicians are doing exactly what your hardcore hackers/pirates want them/expect them to do. It’s all about control right? What happens when DNS goes P2P or something like P2P? Where would we be if napster was set up that way? I’m thinking this may not be a bad thing this SOPA…. This isn’t damage, this is a fucking train wreck, but this could blossom into new technologies that prevent this very thing… we could be watching the evolution of the internet into a completely user owned/controlled thing….. I can almost see the script kiddies hard at work, like so many elves at Xmas, hoping to be the first to create the next “stick it to the man” app that routes around this… exciting no?
I’m betting these idiots are signaling the beginning of a new era by trying to destroy the current one.. but think about it… hasn’t this always been the way?
“A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries; a world where anything is possible.”
Careful what you wish for gatekeepers, this could actually turn out to be a FTW for the pirates.
Values
How is the “exclusive right” to authors under the Constitution any more “artificial” than the individual right to free speech, free assembly, or equal protection? Aren’t they all artificial in that they were created by consent of the governed under the rule of law? Should these other individual rights be so casually dismissed, simply because a particular state of affairs makes it easy to do so?
Excellent question. This is something copyright supporters like to do – try to make it sound like copyright is enshrined in the constitution alongside things like freedom of speech.
But that’s highly misleading.
The constitution allows congress to grant exclusive rights to creators for a limited time. That’s all. It does not strictly guarantee very specific, explicit rights in the way that, for example, the first amendment does.
Opposing copyright as it exists today is not “casually dismissing” anything from the constitution. I’m not claiming that congress should lose the ability to create copyright law – simply that they have already gone too far, and SOPA goes even further.
If you look at the language of the copyright clause versus the first amendment, it is entirely clear which one takes precedence. The former permits congress to grant certain rights, the latter explicitly states that congress shall create no law abridging freedom of speech.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Sucks to have those cards turned around proper don’t it?
Your shit is mine now bitch. That’s FUD. Works good don’t it?
Copy”right” is no longer applicable. To which mere creation of your works should now be put to question: “What will I do with my works?”
Wishing back the natural flow of the spring waters back into the underground well from whence it comes is not an option. Any laws attempting to cork it will soar, cause a brief tremble and die.
Previous distribution models are now irrelevant. Clearly, attempting to control your old model with absurd, obscene, grotesque and all around bad law is your last chance at the failure prize.
You do not own culture. Culture is people. Even your initial grass roots, never been done before “works” are derived from people.
When you have to air-brush out a picture of a celebrity’s tee shirt of tweety-bird for fear of a boot on your throat you’re attempting (and succeeding) to own culture. You want to get paid forevermore for a cartoon bird. That’s broken.
So, go figure out what to do with your works instead of your boots – it’s been done for centuries and I’m quite sure you’ll come up with something amenable.
“for over a decade” – you slimy whiney horsewhipped excuse for a creator – *you* deserve everything that is now happening because you sat on your laurels thinking old school was new school was forever school. Go back to school.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Your tin foil hat is leaking, better put another layer on.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
So you dislike content? If you take all the rights away from content creators you get no new content.
Re: Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
It’s a good job cave men didn’t think like that when drawing on cave walls. Their creations were intrinsic in nature as opposed to todays extrinsic greed bags. It’s not about the creators but those that manipulate the artist and the public.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Civilization is about making people — especially the inherited Rich — FOLLOW RULES.
Then follow the rules and stop stealing my government.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Since when are electrical impulses on a wire your exclusive property? Can I claim that you’re breathing *my* exclusive air and demand royalties?
Stop conflating tangible property with information. They aren’t the same in any practical sense, neither should they be in any legal sense.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
That’s not always true. There were works created before copyright; Copyright just serves as an incentive.
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
1. With copyright extended so far out, I feel that the deal was broken on the other side. Dang, its longer than the average lifetime at this point.
2. With one fell swoop, you have just condemned your paying customers (Remember those people that go to movies??). Try a little harder to not be so all encompassing with those that willingly pay you.
3. Who made this deal? Really, as I remember it, copyright was an after thought from Jefferson. Who was not too keen on the idea overall. So, deal from society is a bit of an overstatement.
Don’t get me wrong. If you made something I like and we agree on the price (This seems to be the crux of the issue.), then I have been known (Frequently according to my wife.) to buy your product.
Isn’t it funny how both sides of the argument appear to be telling the other side that they are acting like they are entitled.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
You do realize that reality TV programming discorages piracy, RIGHT? All those competitions on TV are to get butts glued to TV sets. No one wants to be the last person to know that someone was voted off the island. It encourages LIVE viewing instead of time-shifted viewing.
Re:
No, and I have to say I hate this argument.
Gun shops don’t do anything overt to promote crime, except sell the product. They don’t host murderer forums, they don’t list good targets, they don’t allow you to get more karma in the community for bragging about the people you killed…
It’s rather different.
If gun shops were active participants in every step of the process, supporting the shooter, training them how to hit a head shot, listing the places the victim is located, sending someone along as a spotter, helping them out to hold the gun right, etc… it would be different.
See?
Perhaps we should get hold of Iran or Libya and see if they can drop a couple nukes on DC and Hollywood. Take them out from orbit?it’s the only way to be sure.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
I just dislike Hollywood’s unnovative content. And the mainstream record labels couldn’t innovate their way off of an escalator.
Maybe I sound like some kind of hipster snob when I say this, but I don’t see any downside to your contention if it means that Hollywood and the Mainstream Recording industry are disincentivized into bankruptcy.
I’m confident some creative, innovative upstart will be happy to step up and fill the role.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
I will call your bluff on that one. Creation is such a core part of what it is to be human. Perhaps the creators who are only in it to become obscenely wealthy will no longer create, and perhaps that will be for the better. In my ample free time (a few hours per month) I play bass in a local band. We have no aspirations for stardom, and we are all doing well enough in our day jobs that we have a little bit of time to do this. We play for the sheer enjoyment of it, and our audiences (small as they usually are) pick up on that.
Yes, I know that Hollywood blockbusters and video games are multi-million dollar endeavors. But insofar as music goes, it may be time to give those who create art for the sake of art priority of the Lars Ulrich’s of the world.
Re:
There will never be such a thing as “IPv8.” v6 has enough addresses to cover about every 3rd atom in the universe.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
The answer is to find another line of work. Just as music labels are being merged due to lack of sales (EMI folded because of it’s inability to repay debt which was caused by floundering sales which were exacerbated by increased music piracy), film studios will face a similar demise unless piracy is curttailed.
Without copyright law you would have no “Dark Knight”, no “Inception”, etc… These are movies that simply would not have been made without existing copyright protection. The budgets are too big for an independent production company to take a chance.
How do you make content creators happy and the public happy at the same time? Stop rampant piracy to regain the trust of the studios/labels, at this point the public has lost their trust.
The public lost the trust of the industry years ago when virulent piracy began. Napster destroyed the music labels trust in the public and TPB/Torrent piracy has destroyed the movie industry’s trust of the public as well. Trust is a two-way street, you have to earn it.
Values
Why are they “due” anything? Why do they “deserve” income perpetuity for a single work?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Quote:
Without copyright we may have had better things to do dude, seriously.
To me, the SOPA debate at its core is about content creation vs. consumption. The earlier innovations of radio, TV, offset printing press and satellite broadcasting lent themselves to a broadcast model that tended to encourage centralization of services to consumers.
The Internet (and related modern computing & recording technologies) are truly disruptive because they fundamentally changes the cost of production and the cost of distribution. Loss of control of the distribution networks is a huge loss of control for printing / media / music industries.
My opinion of SOPA is that if passed, it will help drive the lowest common denominator for censorship & content control. It will help drive distributed DNS faster and will also encourage dark nets / micro-nets for communities that choose to play outside the framework.
And the content will still be online, but offshore somewhere. Any “whack a mole” legislation will fail in the long run, but make life very painful for many folks in the short run.
Of course, there is also the unintended consequences to the companies pushing this legislation. Note that they are just as vunerable to being taken offline or taken down for any small infraction as anyone else. Imagine how disruptive to their business it would be if they make the smallest mistake and the content owner decides to enforce their SOPA rights.
Re:
Quite right, quite right.
We should outlaw people.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
nobody ever makes nothin for free you freetard grifters!
Re:
Is Google doing that to Copyright infringers who upload to YouTube? Because Google could be held liable under SOPA even if all they did was sell the proverbial gun. They would be a “Content Grifter” you so hate.
Values
Their work?
What work does a guy do when he sends a bill for a gig that he didn’t show up, he didn’t perform, he didn’t coordinate, he didn’t organize?
That doesn’t sound like any type of good work I know of, does that sound right to you?
Did you pay Ford today already for their “work” and will continue to do so everytime you use it to make money like driving yourself to studios to record something?
Doesn't Work
Once again, Mike Masnick shows that he doesn’t understand piracy and he doesn’t understand the economics of it. I work in software. I know that his pro-piracy, anti-copyright model simply won’t work. At this point, he’s either economically illiterate and engaged in motivated reasoning (i.e. reasoning about copyright and piracy with the intention of arriving at a predefined conclusion) or he’s just sucking up to the millions of pirates out there by telling them what they want to hear and making ad-based revenue off them by getting page-hits.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
I hear you. I really do but I don’t agree that the content you listed would not exist without the copyright protection we have today.
How about the copyright protection of 1920’s? Wasn’t that long enough?
And rampant piracy seems like, you are overstating your case given the Massive Profits being made. Not saying piracy doesn’t exist but, wow, I wish I had 1% of the profits from either of those movies.
(And I contributed to the massive profits of both of those movies btw.)
Values
There are no “exclusive rights” under the constitution. There is the POSSIBILITY of congress granting “exclusive rights” if they so feel inclined to do so, congress can end copyright and it would be constitutional.
Values
Check what the AC said: He said nothing about copyright (and therefore income) being in perpetuity. He just said that while it’s under copyright, they should get their due.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
We may have all learned how to ride uincycles too. Does it really matter?
“might” and “may” are the words of those with no answer.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Whatever, I rather go without Inception than go without privacy and free speech.
I mean, people used to give their lives for freedom.
I’d feel pretty damn spoiled if I traded it away for Inception or the latest Batman iteration.
Re:
Actually, that is pretty much what they are doing. They don’t just provide blank storage, rather they present the content in page format, with similar content, promote it on other pages on their site, put advertising around it, on it, and through it, and encourage people to keep uploading more – so they can make more money.
It seems pretty obvious that Youtube isn’t just some innocent host giving you dry storage – they are a website publishing user contributed content, and as such, they are not just a part of the process (say like a browser or your ISP) but an active participant in making sure the content is published, distributed, and promoted within their website.
They cannot wash their hands of the nature of their business, which is to make money off of user contributed content.
Values
Yet, both are in the constitution, and you have to agree that the congress is well within it’s rights to grant “exclusive rights” as it sees fit under the constitution.
So what you are saying is that copyright is constitutional, and that supporting rights as granted in the constitution is a good thing.
Glad we agree!
“The entertainment industry does not share this view of human nature.”
I noticed over the years that people view others as they see themselves. In the case of the “media friend” mentioned in the article. It shows him to be someone who doesn’t trust, and takes advantage of others.
“He cited other examples of moral failing suggesting that he believes that in general people will take advantage of others if given the chance.”
Re:
Well then you don’t need SOPA because if it doesn’t brake communications it also doesn’t break piracy.
Piracy is communication of data to others.
How many ways you can communicate something?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Accessing my property without my permission is illegal.
Here’s what it comes down to:
A large number of people do not agree with your view on what your property is.
Ideas, words, sounds, and pictures which can be infinitely copied without destroying the originals do not fit my definition of property that any individual or corporation can own. Those things are parts of culture, which by definition is shared among many or all members of society.
No amount of laws can change that.
I am willing to make certain compromises between my view of property and yours. But those must be real compromises and not ever more draconian edicts enacted by a corrupt process in which my views are ignored.
Re:
“They cannot wash their hands of the nature of their business, which is to make money off of user contributed content.”
They will admit that, I will admit that, Mike will admit that. They will not admit that they are in the business of making money off of illegally uploaded content. They will actually sit you down and explain to you why they aren’t. They are a platform for new content to be created and shared, and they go out of their way to take down infringing content when it’s pointed out to them.
Yet, thanks to this law, Youtube will be shut down due to the ignorance of you and people like you (Viacom).
It's a matter of proportion
Bureaucrats don’t seem to have any sense of proportion. As a university admin years ago, I had to stop the Registrar’s office from putting in place a draconian set of checks that would have rendered on-line registration an agony for the students it was supposed to benefit. The problem? Some registrants lied about their credentials and had to be thrown out of classes when this came to light. I asked how many. The answer turned out to be about two per thousand. The whole user-friendly system would have been subverted for 998 students to catch 2. SOPA, in my view, is the same.
Re:
It’s just a damn shame that we are supposed to live in a democracy, not an oligarchy. Thank you for revealing that the AA’s are the actual owners of this country. You did our side’s (the lessigists) work for us!
Doesn't Work
Hmmmm.
I just can’t agree with you on this. I know Mike has been invited to many conferences discussing this very issue with members of the Entertainment industry. So, as much as he is vilified by some commentators in this blog, I suspect he is respected.
Secondly, I read this blog to get both sides of the argument. I noticed your comment didn’t I? To say what Mike prints is just for the page hits is a bit disingenuous. After all, you and others are here. I suspect you and I read this blog for many of the exact same reasons.
Doesn't Work
[citation needed]
Doesn't Work
“I work in software. I know that his pro-piracy, anti-copyright model simply won’t work.”
Funny, I work in software too, and I know it works.
Also my company is bigger than yours.
Suck that up.
TL;DR:[Citation needed]
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
@ Anonymous Coward, Nov 16th, 2011 @ 10:26am
>>> “That, however, means that it’s up to Big Media to determine how to do business in that environment.”
Well, what’s YOUR way that Big Media might now do business? — There is NONE, so you quite logically say next:
>>> “If they can’t find a way to survive in this environment, that’s too bad. Really.”
And there’s NO one here who more than me wishes for Big Media to turn into small media! So we agree there.
BUT let’s posit that the public STILL wishes the content that Big Media churns out. Then I don’t see ANY other way than pretty much current copyright “system”. IF the content is desired, then there MUST be exclusive distribution rights that go with it. The piracy situation IS increasing, and that CANNOT be left unchecked. I think everyone does agree that the system would collapse without copyright.
The legal loophole of separate links and hosts for symbiotic infringement needs to be stopped up, and probably will be. I don’t see that goal as bad at all, NOR do I see much else being affected.
So as a practical matter, Big Media has money and uses it to bribe politicians for new laws. In my view, even SOPA doesn’t stomp on your rights. — Mike and his cohorts, however, rightly see SOPA as drying up their “freedom” to leverage the content that others have produced.
I’m not for grifters, not even (gasp) Youtube! Facebook, Twitter, and even Google can all dry up and blow away too. (I don’t like the advertising support model, NOR expect it to last because nearly all advertising can now be avoided.)
But this notion that “trust” and “sharing” are what drives the internet — HA! It’s EASY MONEY driving it, and it’s mostly grifters (especially those selling advertising, drawn by stolen “content”) who benefit. That too can ALL dry up far as I care. Doesn’t actually produce anything, just SKIMS from actual production.
The whole internet needs a “new business model”. There’s NO actual value added to society from the internet, no matter how /entertaining/ it is.
Re:
“We will be on IPv8 (after v6)”
This statement shows just how clueless you are about how the internet works, and how little anyone should trust you with anything related to the internet (especially if it will be “broken”)
IPv6 will last for quite a long time…. and v7 would come before 8. IPv6 has roughly 340 undecillion address, that will last for a few thousand years.
Values
Yet, both are in the constitution, and you have to agree that the congress is well within it’s rights to grant “exclusive rights” as it sees fit under the constitution.
You’re trying the misleading thing yet again. Copyright is NOT in the constitution. The ability to create it is.
As I said above, I am not saying congress should lose that ability. I am saying that the copyright they have created is not good, and SOPA will make it even worse.
Nothing in the copyright clause says “nobody gets to express their opinion on the exclusive rights that congress grants”. See, that’s what we’re doing here: talking about the law, and what we think is wrong with it.
So what you are saying is that copyright is constitutional, and that supporting rights as granted in the constitution is a good thing.
Umm, no. That’s not what I’m saying. Once again: copyright is not in the constitution. The ability to create it is. So yes, I support the constitutionally sanctioned ability of congress to create copyright law – I also believe that they have done it badly, and I do NOT support these proposed extensions of it. Why are you having so much trouble understanding this?
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
So close…you almost went the entire comment without doing your trademarked /.
FYI, it’s just as bad to emphasise words by capitalising them too often.
There are ways to do business in the new environment, the only problem is we have told you many methods countless times and every single time, you ignore it.
As for if content is desired, that there must be exclusive control over it? What about those who want to release their work for free? They don’t want exclusive control over it.
SOPA does stomp on our rights. The private right to action completely ignores the courts and punishes the accused, without a single shred of evidence being given. Even if a startup fights it in court, they’ll just have a Pyrrhic victory. Plus, I love the dichotomy. You admit that “Big Media” buys laws, but then, the very next sentence, you say that this Big Media-bought law doesn’t stomp on rights.
If Google, Facebook et al fail in the marketplace within the next few years because eventually their advertising business model fails…then that’s the marketplace at work. No stupid laws needed. No-one’s rights to free speech stomped.
Plus, your last sentence. God, you are truly the dumbest, stupidest and most idiotic human I have ever had the displeasure to communicate with. The internet gives no value to society? It’s the single greatest communications tool in the history of mankind! Perhaps its greatest accomplishment is the Arab Spring! You know, that little thing that toppled dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
Values
Umm, no. That’s not what I’m saying. Once again: copyright is not in the constitution. The ability to create it is. So yes, I support the constitutionally sanctioned ability of congress to create copyright law – I also believe that they have done it badly, and I do NOT support these proposed extensions of it. Why are you having so much trouble understanding this?
Let’s expand on this a bit. The Constitution allows Congress to create laws that allow for advancement of the arts and sciences. In other words, they can permit laws that allow for copyright, so long as it benefits knowledge and learning.
By all of the complex laws and proceedings of SOPA and Protect IP, they do not benefit knowledge and learning at all. Rather, they all take away any benefits of DNSSEC, the internet as a whole, the financial payment services provided by Mastercard and Visa, and mislead the public about what they already feel is not in their best interests.
Felonizing innocent people is not progressing the arts and sciences.
Neither is suing them into oblivion for using a clip of a movie.
So what the Copyright clause is about is how to allow others to use material and any monetary benefits of enforcement are weighed against advancement of knowledge. 1st Amendment concerns trump the monetary concerns. That’s what people have constantly pointed out.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
FINALLY! Can you go away now so the rest of us can get back to normal lives? Stop trying to drive that greed driven, rehashed, unimaginative stuff you call content down our throats and just move along.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
If the Catholic Church survived the invention of the printing press, the old gatekeepers can and will survive (and have been surviving) the internet revolution.
The Catholic church has some advantages that those gatekeepers don’t have. The principal one being a core message and values that are much better than the church itself. When it gets into trouble it can re-invent itself by going back to that core message.
Few commercial enterprises have lived longer than 100 years. Churches, Universities monasteries etc have something to teach them about resilience and longevity.
Values
“I think that Content Creators deserve their due.
I don’t feel that the Gate Keepers are so deserving.”
Something to keep in mind is that “gatekeepers” are in most cases legal partnerships by consent between the content creator and a record label, publisher, production company. To support one is to support the other, as much as it may feel weird some of the time, especially after the litigation we’ve seen. The point is that the creator legally gets to make the decision as to how their work will be distributed, not us.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Accessing my property without my permission is illegal.
Copyrighted works are not “property”. Look up copyright law and you will not find that word used.
The term “intellectual property” is a misleading catch all. It has obviously misled you.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
That’s the only lesson of history. It’s the definition of piracy.
No the lesson of history is that people never learn the lesson of history. (In this case the guilty parties are the “content industry”).
Sharing is a social activity by social primates
Research has recently shown that we have evolved to prefer
hanging out with people who are willing to help and share
with us. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-social-networks-cooperation-discourage-selfishness.html
So given a chance to interact freely people will naturally
share. Those who seek to “put a stop to sharing” are
fighting human nature.
Yet those who embrace the sharing will be rewarded, I
mention RedHat as but a single example. When it first got
started I heard “They can’t make money if anybody can just
copy their CDs and give them away. They will go belly up
soon.” Going on nineteen years now, still waiting for the
bankruptcy annoucements to begin.
Those who do not cooperate are ostracized. The big media
companies want government power to cooerce payment without
providing value.
That their content is near infinite value in their minds
does not mean squat to me. I will pay for what I value
more than what you ask. But you demanding government to
empower you to kill off by economic starvation every outlet
not paying you what tribute you think you should be getting
is a recipe for disaster thoughout all of the economy not
just for content creators.
Saying that SOPA is not intended for use against legitimate
services/companies is to ignore things like Spotify owners
pushing to get Grooveshark outlawed so that competition is
off the table.
And what about the German counterpart of RIAA demanding
payment for Creative Commons licensed music ? Since it is
licensed, by definition, is not “theirs” to demand payment
for.
Claiming that ANYONE deserves perpetual payment for a
single act is not a reflection of reality. That media
companies have been bribing goverments to extend the
duration of that imbalance should appall every citizen.
The people who say “Copyright should be for the benefit of
the People” are ignoring the history of copyright. It was
initially set up so that the Crown could get censorship
enforced by non-govermnent agents. Saying Copyright is
anything but censorship is another lie to perpetuate the
con.
Claiming that SOPA will not be used by antisocial
individuals ignores the fact that “pulling the trigger” of
shutting off their payments and credit has absolutely no
down side. If some penalty were involved then perhaps
abuses would be limited but without cost to the initiator
we will get the spam mentality propagating into ever
wideneing spheres of our economy.
The thinking of almost every business will be “If I strike
first then SOPA will kill my competion but if I wait then
they can kill me just as easily at any moment”. Talk
about “First Strike” wins !
Don’t like that new shoe store offering to undercut your
prices ? Holler “infringement” because they play Creative
Commons licensed music over their intercom and get them
shut down before they do it to you.
Values
Actually my reading of your constitution is that the copyright clause is there not to enable Congress to enact a copyright law but rather to prevent individual states from doing it.
My beef with Big Music....
“AHMAHGAWD…PIRATES!”
Artist sits down at studio.
Artist records song.
Now, look around the room. You have what, the Artist, band members, some sound guys…..
How in the world does that recording even make it out of the studio?
Only people in THAT ROOM have access to that recording. So, tell me how, just how, does the Average Working Joe at home ever even get access to that recording?
Answer: They don’t. That is all, 100%, industry insider leaks.
So now my question is, why is Big Music/Content not coming down on the people on the inside that are doing the leaking to begin with?
There is no way some Grandma in Missouri can or would even break into the recording studio to get the music…..so if the song is leaked to the Internet……THAT’S YOUR FAULT!
Blaming the people on the Internet for being dirty pirates for finding the song online is like having your kid leave the gate to the cow pasture open, or worse, having your kid lead the bull out of the cow pasture, and then it impregnates a bunch of other cows, and then YOU sue the neighbors demanding money for the calves that were born out of your bull getting off your property.
The problem is, they don’t want to have to point the finger at themselves and create rules/regulations for the people that WORK in the industry. They want to blame everyone else.
I dare any Big Media/Content/Move person to go work in an Aerospace Manufacturing facility for a while. You have no clue how much paperwork and traceability is required from bare metal to finished airplane……why don’t YOU GUYS put some effort in to MAKE SURE that nothing gets leaked before you want it to.
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
We heard that this “Open Source” thing was a sham as well.
That writing software took “real work” and “programmers
need to get paid”, else, they implied, nobody would program
ever again.
Open Source is thriving, even has Microsoft trying a
government enforced shakedown via patent litigation.
The Gatekeepers have always complained that any technology
they did not invent was the first sign of the coming
apocalypse.
A generation later, young replacements appeared, embraced
the new tech, provided the public something of value and
wound up with a larger market than the oldsters dreamed of.
Same story. Chicken Little’s face just changes.
YOU CAN'T TRUST PIRATES. They've broken the social contract!
“BUT let’s posit that the public STILL wishes the content that Big Media churns out. Then I don’t see ANY other way than pretty much current copyright “system”. IF the content is desired, then there MUST be exclusive distribution rights that go with it. The piracy situation IS increasing, and that CANNOT be left unchecked. I think everyone does agree that the system would collapse without copyright.”
Horseshit. What a load, seriously. I got news for you: PIRACY ALREADY EXISTS. Its going on every day, whether you like it or not, whether you legislate it or not. It’s been increasing ever since people started pirated things. And guess what? Big Media is making TONS of money, in some cases record profits, and paying their CEO’s double and triple what they were just a year or two ago. These laws will not reduce piracy ONE BIT, not one. It will be routed around, ignored. The only purpose of these laws is to stifle competition and put start ups out of business, and to restrict speech (as in, complain about a product or company, get slapped with a SOPA complaint in “good faith” that some copyright was broken and the site is “Dedicated to infringement” due to using a single logo or piece of art that is being complained about. Don’t think it will happen? It ALREADY HAS, many times, already, under the DMCA. This will be abuse on steroids to a level never seen.)
Values
I understand the distinction, but the point is that the exclusive rights of creators are explicitly supported by both the Constitution and in the long history of US law. They are no more or less “artificial” than the Bill of Rights are, as was your argument for copyright’s irrelevance. These rights are as real as any other. I agree that term lengths are an embarrassment to the spirit of copyright, but no more than Napster was or the Pirate Bay is. Creators rights are guaranteed by the law, and with each legal right granted comes a duty/responsibility to respect those rights (for citizens) and protect them (for gov’t).
Re: Values
They are no more or less “artificial” than the Bill of Rights are
It is absolutely artificial. Copyright is a privilege put in place solely for a utilitarian purpose. Without copyright statute, it wouldn’t exist in any way. Freedom of expression is a natural right that everyone has. Notice the Constitution doesn’t grant the right to free speech, it prohibits Congress from abridging that right. All it does for copyright is grant Congress the ability to create exclusive privileges.
Creators rights are guaranteed by the law, and with each legal right granted comes a duty/responsibility to respect those rights
To the extent the laws are ethical, yes.
> “Research has recently shown that we have evolved to prefer
hanging out with people who are willing to help and share
with us….”
Oh really? Are you *absolutely shocked* that stores require you to pay for merchandise before you walk out the door? Because your philosophy seems to be that the most successful stores are going to be those that share everything with everybody. I wonder where all those stores are, and why they haven’t driven Walmart out of business.
> “Yet those who embrace the sharing will be rewarded, I
mention RedHat as but a single example.”
What a brilliant example – a company that piggy-backed on open source work done by other people who make their money doing support and training. That system works great as long as you have these advantages: someone else does most of the software development work, your product is complicated enough that people need support and training, businesses use your product (because they have deep pockets). Try selling support for products that are designed to be simple, easy-to-use products (that need neither support or training) for consumers where you have do write all the code from the ground up.
> “The people who say “Copyright should be for the benefit of the People” are ignoring the history of copyright. It was
initially set up so that the Crown could get censorship
enforced by non-govermnent agents. Saying Copyright is
anything but censorship is another lie to perpetuate the
con.”
Let’s put this lie to rest already. The first copyrights were created for authors. The first copyright granted an author in Venice exclusive printing rights to his own book for 10 years – and it was over a century before England setup a copyright system. It’s historical revisionism to say it was setup by the crown to enforce censorship. You’re the one perpetuating historical revisionism.
Values
“The rights of creators to control their work are artificial and exist for the benefit of society as a whole, not just the creators.”
They are closely linked. Might want to re-read the wording of the Statute of Anne.
http://www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.html
> “Big Media is making TONS of money, in some cases record profits, and paying their CEO’s double and triple what they were just a year or two ago.”
What BS. The music industry’s sales are down around 70% compared to what they were 10 years ago. Movie Box Office profits in the US are down by around 15% compared to 10 years ago (once you compensate for inflation and population growth), and DVD/BlueRay sales are down by even larger amounts. (The claim was made around a year ago that Box Office profits hit a record high – but that was based on an error: they never compensated for inflation or population growth. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they didn’t even compensate for inflation.) I’m tired of people repeating the lie that everything is going great.
I am a a part of the content industry.
No Masnick, you’re a blogger and a ham-handed lobbyist. Under only the most absurdly broad meaning of that term are you actually in the content industry.
Re:
Ah HA! Here is the root of the problem.
Your definition of content and mine are totally different.
I think content can be made by anyone.
You think content should be defined by the legacy players.
Sorry, that time is over.
Let the free market decide who is going to make money on what the free market decides is content worth paying for.
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Yes, stealing is wrong. I don’t think you’re going to get an argument there.
Who are these “you people” you’re talking about? Certainly not me, or many (probably most) of the commenters here. I’ve not been ripping anyone off at all over the last decade, let alone on a daily basis. So why do I deserve being stripping of fundamental rights?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Correction: Civilization is about not murdering each other because we can.
Re:
Anyone who says “Not just the average guy, like myself.” is obviously not.
Re:
Actually… IPv6 only contains about 281 trillion addresses (2^48). Where as there are roughly 50 billion trillion atoms within a cubic centimeter of silicon…
You’re universe seems much smaller than mine…
Re:
And yet, of the three big labels that remain, their profits keep going up. Of the major studios, only MGM went belly-up in the financial crisis: Box-office receipts are constantly going up. Of the most infringed films of the past decade, most of them went on to make the Top 10 Grossing in the year of release.
So I have to say that this argument is at least flawed.
> ” Of the major studios, only MGM went belly-up in the financial crisis: Box-office receipts are constantly going up.”
Oh really? Here’s a list of yearly box office numbers going back to 1980. If you adjust those numbers for inflation and population growth, you’ll see that the biggest year at the box office was … 2002.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/
> “Of the most infringed films of the past decade, most of them went on to make the Top 10 Grossing in the year of release.”
So, you’re saying that pirates prefer to pirate popular movies. I understand you’re trying to imply that piracy resulted in extra sales, but when all movies are pirated, all you’re proving is that movie-payers and movie-pirates have similar tastes.
Values
Let me see if you get it this way: The constitution does not prohibit Congress from eliminating copyright or limiting its scope. It does say Congress shall create no law abridging freedom of speech.
The only constitutional requirement for the elimination of copyright might be Eminent domain. But that didn’t seem to matter when congress confiscated the public domain to give to a few rights holders with no renumeration.
> “It does say Congress shall create no law abridging freedom of speech.”
Are you aware that US copyright was created at the same time as “no law abridging freedom of speech”? It’s not like copyright law was some violation of free speech that occurred a century later while nobody was watching.
“The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, which limit the power of the U.S. federal government. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property including freedoms of religion, speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.
They were introduced by James Madison to the 1st United States Congress as a series of legislative articles, were adopted by the House of Representatives on August 21, 1789,[1][2] formally proposed by joint resolution of Congress on September 25, 1789, and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791, through the process of ratification by three-fourths of the States.”
“The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War. The stated object of the act was the “encouragement of learning,” and it achieved this by securing authors the “sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending” the copies of their “maps, charts, and books” for a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14 year term should the copyright holder still be alive.”
Re:
Are you aware that US copyright was created at the same time as “no law abridging freedom of speech”? It’s not like copyright law was some violation of free speech that occurred a century later while nobody was watching.
Are you aware that copyright law then and copyright law now bear almost no resemblance to each other?
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
Why don’t they broadcast it over the air then for free?
Think of all the piracy that could be eliminated.
By the way, when did they start voting people off of P.E.I.?
Values
I see dead people. They are making deposits at the bank from their “dues.”
They were also writing new songs and scripts on the back of their deposit slips.
Re:
I think you have it reversed. Which isn’t surprising.
Re:
You got it!
If someone accuses you of being a thief, I recommend you check their pockets.
Doesn't Work
Get together with other experienced ACs that support your view, and put up a site.
You work in software; you’re savvy enough to put one up. Then you can lay bare your credentials and your contributions to this debate.
Re:
I am not sure where you get the idea of “different DNS”, that doesn’t follow. There is still only one main DNS system, it will be a question if your local DNS resolves certain names. There is no “breaking” of the DNS.
The fragmentation of the internet has always been there. Try to get to a porn site from most arab nations (won’t work), or try to get facebook from China. That too fails. Yet, the “DNS” isn’t broken for the rest of us, and the internet continues to work.
You need to understand: legal sites selling legal products don’t have any issue. Illegal sites selling or making money from illegal content or products will have an issue – and that is just the right way to do it.
Re:
It’s kind of telling that you’ve yet to look at the other factors affecting the numbers. Ex: where’s the analysis on foreign sales of DVDs and tickets? The US dollar is also weak, and movie tickets have stagnated.
> “Are you aware that copyright law then and copyright law now bear almost no resemblance to each other?”
A distinction without a difference. Pirates and pirate apologists like Masnick still hate the original copyright law because it “breaks the internet”.
> “It’s kind of telling that you’ve yet to look at the other factors affecting the numbers. Ex: where’s the analysis on foreign sales of DVDs and tickets? The US dollar is also weak, and movie tickets have stagnated.”
Let’s review: someone makes the claim about box office receipts and profits going up and up. I lay down proof that they’re wrong. Now, the pirate apologists retreat to the next line – let’s blame something else. Is this going to be a never ending series of excuses designed to obscure the fact that piracy does affect the industry. And, no DVD and BlueRay sales are falling faster than Box Office receipts. At best, you can argue that the whole market is shifting to rental-based revenue, but I’d like *YOU* to present information to support that instead of throwing out assumptions and making me track down the information.
> “The US dollar is also weak, and movie tickets have stagnated.”
No, movie ticket sales have been declining.
Re:
Your wrong. I don’t know where you get your information from, but IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses. That’s 2^128 (approximately 340 undecillion or 3.4?10^38) addresses. The number of atom in the observable universe is about 10^82.
Re:
A distinction without a difference. Pirates and pirate apologists like Masnick still hate the original copyright law because it “breaks the internet”.
Umm, WHAT?
When has anyone ever said that original copyright law, drafted a couple centuries before the internet existed, breaks the internet?
You are just making stuff up now…
Human nature is to steal whenever possible.
And WITH copyright, there would have been no Shakespeare.