SOPA Blues

I was going to write the annual arbitrary movie awards tonight, but since the web has apparently gone on strike, I figured I’d spend a little time talking about that instead. Many sites, including the likes of Wikipedia and Reddit, have instituted a complete blackout as part of a protest against two ill-conceived pieces of censorship legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Congress (these laws are called the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act, henceforth to be referred to as SOPA and PIPA). I can’t even begin to pretend that blacking out my humble little site would accomplish anything, but since a lot of my personal and professional livelihood depends on the internet, I suppose I can’t ignore this either.

For the uninitiated, if the bills known as SOPA and PIPA become law, many websites could be taken offline involuntarily, without warning, and without due process of law, based on little more than an alleged copyright owner’s unproven and uncontested allegations of infringement1. The reason Wikipedia is blacked out today is that they depend solely on user-contributed content, which means they would be a ripe target for overzealous copyright holders. Sites like Google haven’t blacked themselves out, but have staged a bit of a protest as well, because under the provisions of the bill, even just linking to a site that infringes upon copyright is grounds for action (and thus search engines have a vested interest in defeating these bills). You could argue that these bills are well intentioned, and from what I can tell, their original purpose seemed to be more about foreign websites and DNS, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and as written, these bills are completely absurd.

Lots of other sites have been registering their feelings on the matter. ArsTechnica has been posting up a storm. Shamus has a good post on the subject which is followed by a lively comment thread. But I think Aziz hits the nail on the head:

Looks like the DNS provisions in SOPA are getting pulled, and the House is delaying action on the bill until February, so it’s gratifying to see that the activism had an effect. However, that activism would have been put to better use to educate people about why DRM is harmful, why piracy should be fought not with law but with smarter pro-consumer marketing by content owners (lowered prices, more options for digital distribution, removal of DRM, fair use, and ubiquitous time-shifting). Look at the ridiculous limitations on Hulu Plus – even if you’re a paid subscriber, some shows won’t air episodes until the week after, old episodes are not always available, some episodes can only be watched on the computer and are restricted from mobile devices. These are utterly arbitrary limitations on watching content that just drive people into the pirates’ arms.

I may disagree with some of the other things in Aziz’s post, but the above paragraph is important, and for some reason, people aren’t talking about this aspect of the story. Sure, some folks are disputing the numbers, but few are pointing out the things that IP owners could be doing instead of legislation. For my money, the most important thing that IP owners have forgotten is convenience. Aziz points out Hulu, which is one of the worst services I’ve ever seen in terms of being convenient or even just intuitive to customers. I understand that piracy is frustrating for content owners and artists, but this is not the way to fight piracy. It might be disheartening to acknowledge that piracy will always exist, but it probably will, so we’re going to have to figure out a way to deal with it. The one thing we’ve seen work is convenience. Despite the fact that iTunes had DRM, it was loose enough and convenient enough that it became a massive success (it now doesn’t have DRM, which is even better). People want to spend money on this stuff, but more often than not, content owners are making it harder on the paying customer than on the pirate. SOPA/PIPA is just the latest example of this sort of thing.

I’ve already written about my thoughts on Intellectual Property, Copyright and DRM, so I encourage you to check that out. And if you’re so inclined, you can find out what senators and representatives are supporting these bills, and throw them out in November (or in a few years, if need be). I also try to support companies or individuals that put out DRM-free content (for example, Louis CK’s latest concert video has been made available, DRM free, and has apparently been a success).

Intellectual Property and Copyright is a big subject, and I have to be honest in that I don’t have all the answers. But the way it works right now just doesn’t seem right. A copyrighted work released just before I was born (i.e. Star Wars) probably won’t enter the public domain until after I’m dead (I’m generally an optimistic guy, so I won’t complain if I do make it to 2072, but still). Both protection and expiration are important parts of the way copyright works in the U.S. It’s a balancing act, to be sure, but I think the pendulum has swung too far in one direction. Maybe it’s time we swing it back. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to participate in a different kind of blackout to protest SOPA.

1 – Thanks to James for the concise description. There are lots of much longer longer and better sourced descriptions of the shortcomings of this bill and the issues surrounding it, so I won’t belabor the point here.