Remember all that talk of how the supporters of SOPA/PIPA were “humbled” by the protests of January 18th, and how they had learned their lessons about trying to push through a bill without actually involving the stakeholders? Remember the talk of how they hoped a new tone could be found in the debate? Yeah. Apparently someone forgot to send that memo to RIAA boss Cary Sherman, who has taken to the pages of the NY Times to lash out at those who fought against SOPA/PIPA, chalking the whole thing up to a massive “misinformation” campaign by Google and Wikipedia. The whole thing is chock full of ridiculous claims, so we might as well go through it bit by bit.

THE digital tsunami that swept over the Capitol last month, forcing Congress to set aside legislation to combat the online piracy of American music, movies, books and other creative works, raised questions about how the democratic process functions in the digital age.

Why yes, it did raise questions about the process by which the RIAA and MPAA write bills to regulate other industries without even letting those the bill would regulate have a seat at the table. It also raised questions about the way the RIAA and MPAA have successfully expanded copyright law in their own favor sixteen times in the last 35 years, by playing the moral panic game over and over again… and keeping any hint of reality out of the debate. What it showed was that the tools of communication finally allow the public speak up and that the users of the internet simply won’t accept the RIAA and MPAA’s version of protectionism and crony capitalism any more. But somehow, I don’t think that’s what Sherman meant…

Policy makers had recognized a constitutional (and economic) imperative to protect American property from theft, to shield consumers from counterfeit products and fraud, and to combat foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs.

Oh gosh. So much pure crap in a single sentence it’s difficult to know where to start. First of all, copyright is not property. It’s a government granted monopoly privilege over information. That’s very different. Also, it’s not theft when someone infringes… it’s infringement. Using such bogus language has been the way that the RIAA has induced moral panics for years, but part of the point of the protests was that the public simply isn’t buying it any more. Repeating the same tropes over again is just sad. 

Next, there is no “constitutional imperative” to pin secondary liability on innocent parties, to massively expand the nature of copyright law and the nature of enforcement. The only constitutional issue is that Congress has the right — but not the requirement, to create copyright and patent law if (and only if) it promotes the progress (of science and the useful arts). That’s got absolutely nothing to do with SOPA and PIPA, and it’s ridiculous and obnoxious to suggest otherwise. 

Conflating copyright infringement with counterfeiting, as he does right after that, is a cheap trick that we’ve discussed countless times. Counterfeiting is a very different issue from copyright infringement. If Congress wants to address “shielding consumers from counterfeit products and fraud,” then they should debate a bill that’s narrowly focused on that particular issue. But that’s not what they did here. SOPA and PIPA were much more focused on issues that had nothing whatsoever to do with protecting consumers.

(Source: anticapitalist)

The ink on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has not yet dried and the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is already negotiating another trade agreement. This one, called theTranspacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), would cover trade in goods and services and also include a proposed chapter on intellectual property (IP). Countries negotiating the TPP are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, U.S, and Vietnam.

In the past, the United States has used trade agreements as a tool to ratchet up intellectual property (IP) protections, ACTA being the most recent and perhaps the most egregious example. This upward ratchet harms U.S. citizens by codifying harmful provisions, such as the U.S. statutory damages regime and the anti-circumvention of DRM provisions in international rules and consequently preventing domestic reform. It also harms citizens of our trading partners when their governments are forced to adopt IP provisions not in their best interest. The TPP poses the danger of continuing this approach to IP in trade agreements.

God Dammit.

Here are some of his contact details:

Facebook http://facebook.com/Sen.Franken

Phone 202-224-5641

Online Web Form http://www.franken.senate.gov/?p=contact

YouTube http://www.youtube.com/SenatorFranken

ProPublica SOPA/PIPA record http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/F000457

(h/t)

sanityscraps:

nothing-rhymes-with-ianto:

anticapitalist:

That was fast.

A few days ago the news broke that the pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was put on hold until consensus was reached.

Although the announcement was rather vague, some news sites and blogs declared SOPA dead, or “shelved,” or erased from history.

Wishful thinking, because today SOPA is back in full force.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith just announced that the SOPA markup is expected to continue next month.

“To enact legislation that protects consumers, businesses and jobs from foreign thieves who steal America’s intellectual property, we will continue to bring together industry representatives and Members to find ways to combat online piracy,” Chairman Smith said.

“Due to the Republican and Democratic retreats taking place over the next two weeks, markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act is expected to resume in February.

“I am committed to continuing to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House that saves American jobs and protects intellectual property.”

Fuck you, Lamar Smith.

FUCK.

Guys, I posted this on January 17th and then occupyallstreets just now reblogged it, and everyone is freaking out.

Don’t worry. It’s not back YET.

Less than 24 hours after the SOPA/PIPA blackout protest, the effects are already quite visible: 19 Senators have thus far dropped support for PIPA; 8 million people used Wikipedia’s utility to look up their elected officials’ contact information; Google collected 4.5 million petition signatures only halfway through the protest; other websites invoked hundreds of thousands more people into action; and Jon Stewart laid into Congress on the absurdity of their actions with SOPA.

However, the fight to protect information and Internet freedom is far from over. It is quite saddening that, on the very same day of the protest, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Congress can re-copyright public domain works, and not even 24 hours later MegaUpload was shut down. SOPA and PIPA are still not dead, and PRO-IP is very much an existing law that is not only very similar to SOPA and PIPA, but is also very much abused like SOPA and PIPA likely will be.

Until Congress understands that neither bad-bill delays nor any amount of Big Content lobby money will silence those with legitimate, real concerns, everyone must continue to inundate their Congressmen with phone calls, E-Mails, letters, and town hall visits to make their voice heard: Do Not Censor The Internet.