Today, January 18, 2012, has become a protest day against the US government bills called SOPA and PIPA. Major sites like google, wikipedia, reddit, wordpress, tumblr, and mozilla, along with literally thousands of others, are raising awareness by ‘going dark’ in various degrees. Other sites aren’t ‘going dark’, but are spreading the word by highlighting their views on the proposed legislation on their front pages. Overall, it has been extremely successful – discussion is rampant across the internet among the less technical crowd, which was exactly the goal.
Generally, the tech community feels that the SOPA/PIPA proposals are a problem because they give too much power to interest groups with no accountability like the MPAA, and because they propose the heavy handed and poorly thought out ‘solution’ of DNS blocking that will do essentially nothing to the illegal pirate sites that are supposed to be the target, yet will incur huge costs for sites operating legitimately on the internet.
I personally would add that any suggestion to take away freedoms and give policing power to private interest groups is a really really bad idea.
As publicity ramped up yesterday, the MPAA released this statement.
Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.
It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.
A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.
As terrified as I am that these people have jobs, let alone astronomical budgets and countless politicians in their pockets, I can’t help but feel amazed at the sheer amount of blatent crazy they crammed into these three short paragraphs. Let’s start at the top!
White House…responded to the major concerns expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together…
They might be talking about this, but they would be crazy to imply that is on their side. I encourage you to read the White House stance, but from where I’m sitting it basically says everything the protesters have been saying: piracy sucks and needs to be fought actively but not at the expense of internet freedom and not in a way that punishes legitimate businesses.
…some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem…
So much crazy in one little sentence fragment! First of all, gathering like minded people together to contact their representatives about how they feel about upcoming legislation is EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Exactly. Derisively calling this a stunt is sheer stupidity, but it does a good job of highlighting the MPAA’s views toward the system. Secondly – punishing their users? Seriously? Even if these sites are ‘punishing their users’, which they most certainly are NOT, does the MPAA actually have a problem with that? Are they not allowed to select the content on their sites? Wouldn’t the MPAA, who would benefit immensely from this legislation passing, want these sites to lose support? Lastly, these companies are the entire reason a discussion is even happening. Implying they are in some way unwilling to provide feedback and propose better solutions is crazy on a new level, even for these guys. The doublethink that is going on over there must be palpable.
It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.
This is absolutely crazy. Every single website should always have the right/power/freedom to not only select their content but to decide if they are going to show that content, ‘go dark’, push their political agendas, or shutdown altogether. The MPAA, on the other hand, has a long list of what I would call actual ‘abuses of power’. Maybe they don’t know what this phrase means?
It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.
Here, let me fix that.
It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts [CITATION NEEDED] to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests [CITATION NEEDED].
There, that’s better.
[the blackouts are] designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals
WHAT? Are we still having the same discussion here? I’m not sure what is more crazy: the MPAA is saying that getting citizens to contact their representatives is a punishment, or implying that these sites (many of which create high paying American jobs) asking not to be destroyed by crazy legislation means they are somehow against American jobs.
It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.
Hyperbole is another one of those words they should be careful of. For those of you playing at home, hyperbole is an english word meaning “Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally”. In this case, the MPAA is saying one or more of the following:
- “these companies are exaggerating their claims that censoring the internet is bad and that we should not be putting legislative power into the hands of interest groups”
- “these companies don’t actually intend for anyone to take literally their claims that censoring the internet is bad and that we should not be putting legislative power into the hands of interest groups”
- “all these guys are liars and jerk heads!”
Maybe I can clear this up for them with some examples. Encouraging people to make their voices heard is not hyperbole or exaggeration. Better ways to describe this might be ‘taking part in your government’ or ‘discouraging corruption using the voices of the people’. On the other hand, here are some articles detailing how the MPAA has exaggerated and falsified their numbers about losses to piracy. Summary – the MPAA claims every single person to watch a pirated clip, episode, or film would have purchased the entire DVD at full price (which is absolutely crazy). On top of that, one of their examples is that when they sell a $10 DVD, $7 of those dollars go to the manufacturer and $2 goes to the shipper, for a total of $19 of loss! Somehow they are claiming that the $10 you spend on a DVD becomes $19 of payout. I’m honestly shocked any of their accountants are still employed.
tl;dr – the MPAA is a crazy, lying, hypocritical group of power-hungry psychopaths who either don’t understand representative government or would rather this country be less concerned with its citizens’ freedom and more concerned the MPAA’s profits.
), and they line up theirs in the same way, no crime has happened here. Really. If you learn a song from the radio, it’s all there in your brain. Do you feel like you stole it? Of course not. There is something inherent in stealing, which is taking something away from someone else and keeping it. This is simply not the case. Nobody has lost anything, you have made a duplicate in exactly the same way as making a mix tape off the radio or taking a picture of a painting or literally just remembering something. Now taking that and selling it, that is abusing intellectual property, which is a different beast altogether.
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