The
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the
Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills got a lot of attention yesterday when sites like
Wikipedia went dark to raise awareness of and in protest against what they feel are the bills overreaching and dangerous implications. Here's an open letter from
www.stopthewall.us that expresses some of those concerns:
We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services – artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.
We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.
The relevant aspect to computer audio is the attempt to deal with access to websites that media companies/copyright holders believe offer illegal access to music, i.e. copyright and trademark infringement. Sites like YouTube and Soundcloud could very well be prime targets and the contention among dissenters is that large media companies would have the ability to shut down websites without due process. Further, websites that do not have the financial clout to fight even frivolous claims could very well be forced out of business.
PIPA and SOPA's clout also extends to websites that link to or provide search results from deemed offenders. The gist of this aspect of the proposed law is that site owners should be responsible for policing their content even is this content amounts to a hyperlink. Credit card companies and advertisers that do business with alleged offending websites are also within the purview of the Bill's rights as they could be forced to stop providing services to deemed offenders.
These bills do have support from many people and organizations inside the music industry including the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), the largest trade organization of independent musicians and labels. From the A2IM website:
Today a number of websites are shutting down in protest of proposed anti-piracy legislation. They are taking a unilateral action to make their content unavailable. However, under current law, A2IM members whose copyrights are infringed upon cannot take similar action. Our independent labels and their artists have no practical way of taking down illegal links to their music from rogue foreign websites accessed via U.S. search engines.
We urge these search engines to support U.S. content creators by working toward anti-piracy legislation acceptable to all. Let’s have a debate that genuinely acknowledges that the voices within our joint communities are deep, broad and diverse and let’s all agree that doing nothing is not an option.
The media has portrayed the issue as that of two giant industries (movies/music and technology) in conflict, as though this was a battle solely between very rich businesses. In fact, our members are small and medium sized independent businesses that invest in the creation of music and whose very existence is being threatened by the availability of illegal content on line. We look forward to solution oriented discussions among all parties.
While the issues of 'music piracy' and 'illegal downloads' are certainly valid and need addressing, Sopa and Pipa appear to be yet another heavy-handed ham-fisted attempt that puts too much power in the hands of those companies who have the financial resources to directly impact the content of the proposed laws.
It's worth noting that the apparent means to block access to alleged offending sites is by editing their Domain Name Service (DNS) record. In effect, this would dissociate a website's IP address from their domain name so if you tried reaching a blocked site by entering its domain name in your browser, "www.soundcloud.com" for example, you would not get there. However one workaround to this scenario is to simply enter the website's IP address in your web browser instead.
