Protecting IP Rights...No, the Other One

Recently, a friend of mine (Nate) and I had a nice little debate about the anti-piracy laws being introduced to Congress this year.  Specifically, we talked about the PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (S.968, otherwise known as the PRevent Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property act) introduced to the Senate back in May.  However, we may as well include the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R.3261), introduced to the House in October, since it includes PROTECT IP.  That’s right; we’re not talking about Internet Protocol again here, although you would never know if you read the plethora of comments around the web regarding this bill.  This is all about updating copyright and trademark law to account for modern technology.  Sounds sensible, yet it has caused a torrent of rage across the internet—even from those who don’t actively visit places like The Pirate Bay–resulting in the mass voicing of fear of government censorship, loss of privacy, and the end of the internet as we know it.  Now that sounds like serious business.

  There’s a 2 parrot minimum for serious piracy.

 

Nate had originally posted a link on my Facebook wall to a site very much against these new laws, going so far as to  claim they would “break the internet,” and “stifle free speech and innovation, and even threaten popular web services like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.”  Well, I guess that explains the hysteria because that would be pretty terrible.  Admittedly, this seemed a bit sensationalist to me, so I went ahead and read the proposed bills, and my suspicions were confirmed.  The bills simply seek to hold those who create sites dedicated to stealing IP to be held liable for their actions.  It stops there, as well.  There is no liability for advertisers and financiers, and there is no mention of prosecuting those who use the site; it is all about going after the owners and operators of the domain name.  Considering currently the RIAA sues individuals for each song they download, this seems like a better deal for the average pirate…err…consumer.

 “Yargh, but now where me be downloadin’ the latest Family Guy?”

 So what is this really all about, anyway?  Intellectual Property, the other IP, is all around us:  music, art, literary works, software, movies, any and all intangible properties created through intellectual processes.  We, as consumers, spend billions every year on IP, but yet it’s no secret virtual piracy in this digital age is rampant.  Illegal copying and distribution of IP has existed since the means to copy various forms of it were made commonplace in households (copy machines, recordable cassettes, VCRs, CD burners), but piracy really only became mainstream in the late 90s with the advent of digital music (.mp3 format) and the godfather of P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing programs, Napster.  While Napster was ultimately shut down after just 2 years of service, the notion of “free” IP was already instilled into a significant portion of our society (at its peak, Napster had 80 million registered users, which was about 22% of worldwide internet users back in 2000).  Countless offshoots of the program were created, and are still around today due to legal loopholes including outdated law and jurisdictional issues.  Now billions in revenue are lost every year to piracy, and billions more are spent by companies to try to protect their IP.

The list of supporters of these bills to extend legal protection of IP to the internet makes perfect sense: the music industry, Hollywood, game and software developers, and basically anyone that offers digital content which is commonly pirated online.  Surprisingly (to me, at least), Google is against this bill.  I find it odd because they already willingly do so much with YouTube and their many other services to remove copyrighted material.  I guess this somehow fits into their novel idea to “make money without doing evil.” 

 Not even a little evil?

Unsurprisingly, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is against these laws just as they are against any sort of regulation of the internet.  Really, though, the EFF are the anarchist of the digital world; that is, their theory of absolute freedom sounds good on paper, but—once you realize laws exist because people naturally tend to group themselves with others who share similar beliefs (the basis of the many levels of society), and, as such, come up with agreements about how we all should treat each other with a certain level of civility (as low as said level may be)—absolute freedom just seems silly.

Regardless, we already established the fact these bills are only after those who run sites which serve no other real purpose than the illegal distribution of IP.  Social media sites do not fall under this category in the slightest.  So, that leaves the stifling of creativity and innovation, and the loss of privacy as the issues driving the outcry against this legislation.  However, since the legislation is only after domain owners, there is no reason (or even permission) to look into users of these services, meaning the privacy issue is non-existent.  Unless, of course, you are the owner of one of the soon-to-be-deemed-illegal domains, and your ISP will be legally obligated to turn over your information and block access to your site.  Beyond that, search engines like Google would also be obligated to remove you from their search results, but they don’t want to take part in your ill-gotten gains anyway.  As for stagnating creativity and innovation, I would think stopping the illegal use of other peoples’ creative and innovative property would promote us to create our own, original IP.  Maybe what qualifies as art eludes me, but setting a song you did not write to Japanese anime you did not draw to add to the other thousands of dubbed anime videos on YouTube does not seem all that innovative.

 Music only detracts from the profound revelations anyway.

In the end, PROTECT IP and SOPA are only trying to ensure those talented folks who provide us with countless hours of entertainment are properly compensated for their work.  It gives them a reason to keep creating.  It just so happens to be a beautiful side-effect less convenient access to other peoples’ hard work will force us to bring our own visions to fruition.  That is if the legislation is properly implemented, interpreted, and executed well enough to be effective.  Hey, it could happen.

Of course, the ultimate solution to stem copyright infringement would be to only come up with terrible ideas nobody would want to steal, such as a strap-on bovine “gas factory” designed to turn cow farts into biofuel.  Seriously.