On January 18th Wikipedia and many other high
profile websites will be shutting themselves down for the day (or half day in
many cases) in protest of the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills in the United States
congress. These bills intended to be a
tool to fight against online piracy. I
believe that was the initial intent and that intent is good. Content Piracy is already illegal. These bills would not suddenly make them
legal. What these bills will do is
empower companies and the government.
The power given allows them to circumvent constitutional rights and rule
of law. A simple accusation of piracy is
enough cause (according to these bills) search and seizure of any company or
individual by the government. Instead of being innocent until proven guilty
the accused would be considered guilty.
This may be a harsh and over simplification of the bills but the
possibility is there.
The problem with online privacy is that it is a difficult
task to enforce. It takes time, equipment
and manpower. Remove the red tape (like
getting a court order, proving quilt, following the law, etc.) and the task
becomes much more simple. As written, it
is my opinion that SOPA and PIPA are not good for the public nor are they good
for business.
As a blogger, writer, author, and video creator, I do not
want my content illegal used. Why? Because my content is my product. My product provides income. If that income is circumvented then I loose. Yes, illegal copyright infringement hurts my
wallet so I don’t like it. I’m selfish
that way. I have only been creating CAD
training videos for a few years but those videos have already been pirated and
given away illegally on the internet. I
would love to extend my accusatory index finger at the perpetrators and shout “STOP
THIEF!!!” But I can’t. There is a proper process to follow. If SOPA/PIPA are passed then I will have the
power to shut them down and send the government into their businesses, homes
and into the homes and business of the people providing them internet
connections, hosting space, etc. Anyone
that downloaded the files illegally can be searched, jailed and held. When your adolescent child downloads illegal
CAD Training videos so he can create a drawing for a school project remember
SOPA/PIPA could have been stopped while you and your home computers are being
carried off to jail.
Ok. That’s
extreme. I know, and it’s probably not
fair either. But the U.S. government,
though it claims to be free, has in the past, gone on “witch hunts” against
groups of people on far less of an accusation.
It will happen again unless we hold our representatives accountable to
the people.
Let’s get back to reality for a minute. Let’s look at things from a small engineering
or architectural firm’s perspective. A
firm the with twenty or thirty (or even one hundred) employees does not have a
lot of resources. However, most of us
work for a company about that size. If
you have created a drawing or exhibit with a project location map on it, what
data did you use? Was it the GIS
linework that was provided to you from your local municipality? Or did you PRINT SCREEN and use an image from
Google Maps? If you did the later then
you committed a copyright violation. OOPS! If that drawing gets anywhere near the
internet or if you host a similarly obtained image on your company website you
are in violation of SOPS/PIPA and could be subject to a whole lot of
trouble. The reason is that Google has a
copyright on the Google Maps data (the image) and there are certain procedures
that have to be followed in order to use that data. If you followed their procedures then you are
not in violation. What are those
procedures? Better find out and soon
because if you don’t know then you probably aren’t following them.
Let’s look at something else while we are at it. My friend and fellow CAD Trainer, Michael E. Bell
had a website called “autocadtrainerguy.com”.
Now Michael is a professional CAD Trainer and has been for a very long
time. He is well respected and depends
on Autodesk products for a living. Very
much the same way you and I do. A few
months ago Autodesk contacted him to let him know that his URL (website
address) was a copyright violation and that he needed to stop. He was happy to oblige because technically it
was in violation, as far as I understand it.
His new site is CADTRAINERGUY.COM.
(Go check it out.) Under
SOPA/PIPA Autodesk could have called the authorities and had his website forced
down, his IP, his hosting service, and have seized Michael’s computers and
training material. Michael wasn’t the
only website Autodesk sought out and I bet they won’t be the last. I’m ok with that. Why?
Because if there is a copyright infringement then it needs to stop. Autodesk seems to have handled things well
and within the boundaries of the law. By
the way, Autodesk has publicly announced that they do not support SOPA. If anyone would Autodesk would support it
because AutoCAD (and other Autodesk products) is one of the most pirated
programs in the world. If SOPA passes
and you are using an illegal version of AutoCAD you might want to freak out.
Long and short I do want copyright protection but I do not
want to subvert the rule of law. And I do apologize if I have missed the mark on this but it is what I am thinking and feeling.
Sorry for
the rant. Move along…nothing to see here…
This is going to be one big cluster F***. If people like autodesk are going after sites and blogs simply because of a word WITHIN the blog/site name, pretty much 90% of every site out there will get affected (ie. shut down).
ReplyDeleteHow many sites out there are created by "fans" alone? Take the upcoming movie "Dark Knight Rises" by Warner Bros. There are numerous fan sites out there dedicated to bringing news and rumors about the new movie, and with site names like: http://darkknightrisesrumors.com/ you can bet they will be shut down in a hurry even though the site does NOT generate any revenue from it. In fact, simply using the term "Dark Knight Rises" has put THIS site at risk.
Stupid.
This is the 21st century version of prohibition, and if the legislation is passed, there WILL be an internet black-market. I can see hackers now rummaging through landfills looking for discarded hard-drives to they can make their own "ghost servers".
That's exactly my point. With SOPA/PIPA (as I understand it) whoever has this rumor site could be subjected to searches and jail time without going through due process of law. Or at least very little. Why? That site is not stealing info but it may be posting copyrighted material without permission. Is it really harming anything? I don't know but sites like that are in jeopardy.
ReplyDeleteThe bigger problemis that, as I understand it, the bills are written so that just accusing a site of infringing copyright is enough to have it taken down, now judge, no jury, no immediate recourse. E.g., you just named AutoCAD and for some reason they want you down. They can cry 'Copyright violation' to your provider, and he has to take you down without even checking whether the claim is correct. Sure, you can then take them to court, but you'd have to prove that you were not infringing, not the other way round. And while the case is at the courts, your site remains down. When iot gets back up (after two, three, five years), who will even remember it? They'd have feectively shut you down, even though you did nothing wrong...
ReplyDeleteEven worse: parody/satire (explicitly exempt from some copyright rules, and protected) could easily be shut down like that and when the court case finally trickles through, the satire opr parody would have lost all bite and public interest. It's a company's wet dream when it comes to silencing discontent customers.