SOPA will kill the internet
A small protest by a number of sites simulated the censorship that could be seen.
There are already a lot of things that are threatening the open network that we call the Internet, but none are as terrible of an idea as a US bill called H.R.3261(PDF) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). As a Canadian we should watch and wait, but we can help to put a stop to this.
I don’t like long diatribes so here is the skinny on what this bill proposes to do.
- It’s proposed as a bill designed to stop piracy. That doesn’t sound too bad does it?
- It is proposed that to stop piracy the law will block US customer access to websites that are “capable of” or “seem to encourage” copyright infringement.
- Once a website is blocked, all customers in the United States are blocked from accessing the entire site.
What constitutes a capability to, or an encouragement to participate in copyright infringement?
- Talking about copyrighted material
- Having a user submitted comment on your site that references copyrighted material
- Showing an example of copyrighted material (as in a screenshot like the one above, or an example in a news article)
What gets blocked?
- The loose wording of the law doesn’t define well enough the criteria for blocking a site. If a site gets blocked the entire domain name for the whole site is blocked. Here are a couple of examples that could happen if the law is passed written exactly as is.
- NPR has a screenshot of an offending piece of artwork illustrating an article about art theft. npr.com is blocked
- A wordpress blog on wordpress.com is hosting illegal files. Everyone’s blog on wordpress.com is blocked
- Facebook has users that are hosting illegal files. facebook.com is blocked
- You can search for illegal things in Google. You can see where this is going…
Blocking a site like facebook.com will stop piracy though, and the world is safe again?
If you block a website’s domain name you are stopping a customer from typing in “www.domainname.com“.
A domain name is an easy to read and memorable way of accessing a website. A domain name is converted into in IP address by a computer called a Domain Name Server (DNS). An IP address is like a phone number to a website and the DNS is like the yellow pages translating www.domainname.com into 192.168.0.1
The new law proposes to block domain names only, IP addresses can still be used to go to the site. If Google.com gets blocked people can still go to http://74.125.224.72/ to get around it.
Who would have the knowledge to go directly to an IP address to get around a blocked domain name? Expert users, and clever pirates. This law only hurts people that aren’t as familiar with the Internet. This law hurts you, and still enables pirates to continue doing what they want.
In a way, this is like blocking the phonebook from telephone users.
In reality this law is to help censor the Internet from regular users
Because the law is targeted at non expert users, because the measures are proposed to block entire sties, because the criteria used to identify a site that encourages copyright infringement is so broad, I don’t think this is a law to stop pirates. I feel this law is intended to allow some form of control over the open and free Internet.
Who is against this? And what can I as a Canadian do but watch and wait?
Here are the list of companies in the United States that have spoken out against the bill by acting in a a day of protest, placing the “this site could be censored” popup on their site or displaying a black bar over their site logo with the words “STOP CENSORSHIP”
- Yahoo!
- AOL
- eBay
- Mozilla Corporation
- Brookings Institution
- Reporters Without Borders
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- ACLU
- Human Rights Watch.
What can I do, I’m just a Canadian
As a Canadian, we can sign this petition. Registration is required. A US zip code is not. If that’s not enough, you can donate money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation who help companies hire lawyers and train lawyers in copyright law and fair use.
It’s not that I don’t trust you Joel, It’s just that this seems a bit inflamitory
It’s pretty likely this law will not pass in its current draft.
I’m not angry that this is a threat to the freedoms of the Internet – it’s received too much bad press to be a threat anymore, but I am angry that such a ridiculous law is being proposed in the first place.
The technical inadequacy that lawmakers seem to have when it comes to governing the Internet is proven with every waste of money like this.
- No Internet developer would have thought blocking the domain names a good idea, if an IP address is still accessible.
- No law maker should have thought that blocking an entire site for the sake of one user would be a good idea.
All this techno-ignorance in the hands of people that are affecting changes simply floors me.
There are a few resources you can go online to learn more about this terrible idea.
American Censorship Day, one of several campaigns to stop SOPA, has come and gone, but you can still learn about the law.
For more information, visit this List Apart article, Wikipedia the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Lifehacker, and read the bill for yourself (PDF).