The Blackout Day

This site is not blacking out in protest.  It could have looked like this today:

It's not that I condone or support piracy, it's that I condone and support the United States Constitution and the freedom of speech.  This is not about theft; it's about censorship.  And until they figure out the right way to do it, I cannot in good conscience support it.

There would be little point of me going dark, other than a meaningless gesture of defiance, so I'm sharing my own take on the subject as well as links to a few other blog posts I've found that discuss the dangers of SOPA and PIPA.  I've written about this before, but it's an important subject, one everyone should understand.

I'm not the only one who has an opinion on this.  Author Chuck Wendig shares his awesome take on it over on his blog, Terrible Minds.  John Scalzi weighs in on it.  Chris Heald has another solid write-up on it.  Just Google it if you want to find more.  They're not completely blacked out, but they do not support the bill.  I'd tell you to use Wikipedia, but they're blacked out, which is what they'd be like if SOPA and PIPA pass.  Experts have weighed in on this subject.  And if you'd like to contribute your two cents on the subject, here is a good place to start.

And my thoughts on it?  I talked about the following points elsewhere, and thought I'd share here.  I've taken these points from the various experts speaking out against the bill and put them into my own words.  Feel free to use this information when writing to your government representative(s) or passing along information about the subject.

SOPA will cause serious additional problems, including the following:

1. It would negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity. This means it would cause more security breaches and less effective security, possibly at the expense of national defense and U.S. business and commercial interests. Military and corporate espionage is already a problem that negatively impacts the U.S. and our way of life. This would exacerbate that problem.

2. It would negatively impact Internet functionality by eroding DNS structure, which is the opposite of the way technology is supposed to work. This is counter-intuitive to basic progress.

3. It would delay the full adoption of DNSSEC and its security improvements over DNS, which is what Internet folks have been trying to do to improve virtual security. This would create a less secure Internet environment in the future, less secure than the one we now have security issues with.

4. It would assign liability to site owners for everything users post, without consideration for whether or not the user posted without permission. Site owners could face jail time or heavy fines, and DNS blacklisting. This would probably shut down a site like Seahawks.NET, or at the very least, make it very inhospitable and undesirable to visit, killing any real amount of traffic to the site.

5. It would require web services like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to monitor and aggressively filter everything all users upload, equating to a ton of extra manpower and energy, and tremendously reduced/filtered/censored content. This completely violates the constitutional right of the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not limited to any particular topics, agendas, or subjects, and is guaranteed. Copyright protection, which is supposedly the issue here is an entirely different subject than piracy, and abiding by copyright laws do not violate one's freedom of speech.

6. It would deny site owners due process of law, by initiating a DNS blacklisting based solely on a good faith assertion by an individual copyright or intellectual property owner. This completely violates due process of an individual as guaranteed by our judicial process.

7. It would give the U.S. government the power to selectively censor the web using techniques similar to those used in China, Malaysia and Iran. This is an Orwellian concept we as a nation have long stood against, and have spoken out against these practices with extreme vigor. Doing this would also cripple the U.S. as a viable destination for new online business, as it would make the establishment of one very undesirable, similar to how the online environments of China, Malaysia and Iran are currently.

A few of the options that would work to combat piracy:

1. Release products such as movies simultaneously worldwide. It costs nothing more to do this, and completely undermines the reasons people put pirated copies up in the first place. This would greatly cut back on the onslaught of pirated cam/DVD rips that make the products available where they are not yet legally released. This cuts back on piracy caused by people's inability to wait for a product's release, such as a highly anticipated movie debut.

2. Do away with DRM restrictions. They don't work at all, and only frustrate legitimate paid customers, encouraging them to pirate themselves. This would allow customers the ability to back up their purchased items. They should also not have to buy back their entire library/collection if a device becomes inoperable or they switch to a different platform. This cuts back on hoarding pirated copies of items a consumer wishes not to lose, even if they bought the product legally.

3. Release quality beta/test issues for products such as video games, allowing full previews of the product and enticing people to buy the item instead of illegally procuring it to see whether it's worth spending $60 bucks for. This cuts back tremendously on the "exploratory" type of piracy.

4. Provide quality updates and additional material and support for legally purchased products. This already has a proven track record for sales as products like AVG anti-virus software packages have shown. This does away with the need to pirate in the first place, as most of the product typically needed for the casual user is available at zero cost anyway.

5. Stop crippling content so that it only works on one device, or only works if the reader is given permission by a retailer or publisher to open the file. This again cuts back on piracy for ease of use or the sake of convenience.

6. Release quality digital works for those products that don't have them, such as movies and books. This would prevent piracy of those products to create a product where a vacuum or sub-standard product exists.

None of those options require legislation. Money (2.5+ million so far) spent lobbying for this draconian legislation would be better spent implementing these options. We live in a digital world. It's time business practices adapted to reflect that. The argument has been made that the onus for this should not be on the owners of the copyrighted material to protect it, as the pirates are the ones in the wrong, but this isn't the case. Physical store owners/proprietors assume the costs for any protection of their store from vandalism and theft, such as locks, surveillance equipment, physical security, and electronic anti-theft measures. Virtual proprietors can and are already held to the same standards and have the same laws governing property and copyright protection as physical ones.

And this is on top of the fact that this draconian legislation won't even work. At least not as it's advertised.  Its effectiveness already has work-arounds. There is already a "DeSopa" download that circumvents what they're trying to do to catch those sites and make them inaccessible. There will always be a workaround.  This means that those sites will still be available, while legitimate sites like this one will be under constant threat, subject to censor, and/or shut down.

This should be obvious to anyone at least somewhat educated on the subject, and especially to lawmakers.  Which means either they're dumb as posts and truly believe it will work, or they are doing this only for increased Internet censorship ability and the silver coin lining their pockets from the Judas-like betrayal of the media conglomerates against the constitution.

Welcome to the Commercial Age

Several controversial bills have been making the rounds in U.S. legislative circles lately, one of which, H.R. 3261 Stop Online Piracy Act, otherwise known as the "SOPA bill", stands to cause the most impact on our every day lives.

We've seen the anti-piracy campaign since our childhood.  It's an old tune.  Piracy is the same as stealing, and stealing is wrong and illegal.  On the surface, it's a pretty simple concept, and one that's easy to get behind.  It's also a concept that strikes close to home with me.  I'm an author, and as such, I stand to be affected by the piracy of my own work.  I've invested some time and effort into studying the topic, and if you're an author, I suggest you do the same.  It's in your best interests.

While the anti-piracy stance seems on the surface to be a no-brainer - full of justice, integrity, and the maintenance of good law and order, it's not so simple.  Of course, nothing ever is.  There are two sides to this, and the flip side is as compelling, or more so, once you dig a little deeper into the topic.

Piracy is a Crime, © Stephen Dann

If piracy is stealing, why would anti-piracy laws not be necessarily a good thing?  How could one condone such illegal behavior with good conscience?  How could one advocate against something that supports the laws of the land, especially laws that ensure the creator of something gets a fair share of the profits gained from its sale?  Because most people don't really even understand the issue.

Part of the problem is understanding Digital Rights Management, or DRM, and what it prevents and causes, and more importantly, what it doesn't.  DRM was created with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to fight copyright infringement online and help the copyright holder maintain artistic control and keep earning money from their work.  At least that's how it's supposed to work.

The virtual world has created problems we're often unfamiliar with because of what it is and how it works.  When I was young and I wanted to buy music, a movie, or a book, I'd go to the store, part with my hard-earned money and return with a physical copy of what I wanted.  It was mine, and I was free from that point on to do with it what I wished.  I'd given the author his cut of the profits by purchasing the item.  From there, if I wanted to read it, give it to my sister to read, and then legally sell it to a friend for whatever he wanted to pay for it, I could.  The book was mine because I'd purchased it.  It didn't matter how many times it was sold, traded or given away after the initial purchase.

Complications arise in the virtual world when we purchase a book because it isn't physical, and therefore needs a place to reside.  Further complications arise when we understand that moving anything digital isn't moving it at all.  It's copying it.  Even if we destroy the original, we've still copied it to move it.  And that's where DRM becomes an issue.  To a computer, there is no difference between copying a file from an old computer to a new one, retaining possession of the work, and duplicating it to another person's computer for their use.  DRM attempts to curb the illegal distribution of virtual works, but at the expense of taking away rights the owner would have if it were a physical copy.  Furthermore, the point can be made that publishers are actually encouraging piracy with their anti-piracy efforts.

This discussion gets even more interesting when we learn that many authors are against DRM, because in clamping down on the illegal distribution of their work, it limits accessibility and arguably doesn't stop people from stealing it anyway.  And several authors have pointed out that encouraging people to pirate their works has boosted sales, not stifled them.  After all, obscurity, not piracy is an author's worst enemy.

So how does this relate to the SOPA laws the government is trying to pass now?  Well, the two are loosely affiliated, guided by the same goal, and that goal is commercialism.  The entertainment industry, including commercial television, motion picture, music, and cable and satellite distribution entities, has spent a collective $2.5 million dollars so far lobbying congress to pass this bill.  And it's all in the name of controlling content, and as a result, money from that content.

Already we're seeing the effects of a bill not yet even passed into law.  Courts are already imposing online crackdowns, much like what we'll see happening with this bill.  Because of the bill's general and ambiguous wording, entire websites can be shut down virtually at will, and indeed the popular, user-driven content site Reddit has already warned this bill would likely be the end of the site.  And if Reddit, a site owned by a parent company with a good deal of resources to deal with SOPA-generated claims, fears it won't survive, smaller sites don't have a chance.

It's been said SOPA will kill the Internet, or at least kill the Internet as we know it.  Many people are echoing this sentiment; it's not a knee-jerk reaction by a few on the lunatic fringe.  Many are voicing concerns against it, loudly and repeatedly.  It's a legitimate concern.  Unfortunately, corporations, driven by profit motives, and not wanting to adapt old fashioned business models, are throwing money at this bill hand over fist.  And because congress still seems to have the intellect of a five-year-old regarding such newfangled technology such as teh interwebz, they're going to take money and run, passing this bill along the way.

I'm scared of this bill.  I blog here, and share virtual content in part to build my online presence and let people know about my writing.  It's how many authors and artists battle the obscurity that threatens to stifle the sales and promotion of their books.  Most just want a voice.  We want our books out there for people to read.  It's not about the money, but we know the originators deserve compensation for their work.  I know if this blog disappeared, it would be a lot of extra work and time lost, and it would cost much more to get back to even where I am now.  I try diligently to use only work that's labeled for reuse, and I always credit the originator to my best ability.  But it would only take getting it wrong only once to make all this disappear, and that's scary.

In spite of huge advances in user-driven content everywhere you look, society is driven more and more by commercialism.  Big business is behind almost everything, and is going strong no matter how loudly folks like OWS scream about it, or how quickly anti-corporate sentiment trends on Twitter.  Big business is good.  It provides a lot for society - a lot we don't often even see.  But in some cases, it's driven by goals that ultimately work against it's own long-term good.  "Make the money now and get out" is the mantra repeated by those in charge.  And they repeat that because what's good in the long run for business often is contrary to their own short-term good.

Some, like those behind the "DeSopa" Firefox add-on, are already hard at work to combat the effects of SOPA, which is a good thing.  Technology is largely misunderstood because it's always changing.  It's always a step ahead of you, even when you're the one creating it.  It will survive, even against such draconian measures as the SOPA.  In the meantime, hunker down against the inevitable, watch the Internet crumble around your ears, and then stand by as those short-sighted enough to enact the bill struggle to reverse their self-destructive decisions.