SOPA WON’T WORK

Many experts have said that SOPA and PIPA are not only draconian, but that they fail to address the root problem.

A former intellectual property law school professor points out:

As reported by Forbes , the Atlantic Monthly and others, coders are already developing work-arounds to SOPA and PIPA. For example, a developer using the alias “Tamer Rizk” launched DeSopa , an add-on for the popular Firefox browser that would allow users to visit sites blocked by the proposed copyright protection measures proposed under SOPA. So not only these bills are not only draconian, but they won’t work.

Jay McDaniel – a plaintiff’s attorney for content providers fighting torrent–based copyright infringement – agrees:

There is a simple solution to the dilemma of digital piracy, however, one that will cost the government nothing, that will protect free speech and that will ultimately bring an end to a practice that is undermining the viability of our cultural industries. More importantly, it will enable Congress to avoid polluting legitimate free speech issues with behavior that is neither protected by the Constitution nor lawful.

Simply let copyright holders exercise the right to efficiently discover the identity of infringers. Copyright law as it presently exists with its substantial civil remedies will take care of the rest of the problem.

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The answer is simple. Congress should overrule two decisions that held that copyright owners could not use the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to subpoena the identities of infringers directly from cable internet service providers. These two decisions, Recording Indus. Ass’n of America v. Verizon Internet Servs., Inc., 351 F.3d 1299 (D.C. Cir. 2003) and In re Charter Communications, Inc., 393 F.3d 771 (8th Cir. 2005), have made it extremely difficult for copyright owners to find and prosecute civil claims against the wide-spread piracy that occurs on peer-to-peer networks.

Both cases involved attempts by copyright owners to use a provision in the DMCA that allows the owners to issue takedown notices to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and to also obtain a subpoena to learn the identity of the infringer. The Verizon and Charter Communications courts held that the takedown notice-subpoena provisions did not apply to claims seeking to discover the identity of Internet account holders.

It was a strained reading of the statute to begin with, and it has led to a morass of litigation and discovery disputes in which there are conflicting jurisdictional and venue decisions on a nearly daily basis. More significantly these decisions closed the courthouse doors to any copyright holder that cannot demonstrate widespread copying sufficient to justify bringing a large “John Doe” action just to find out who the culprits are. Moreover, in a relatively small number of cases, hostile district judges are unwilling to let the cases go forward in any reasonably economic manner.

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Copyright holders know that their works are being pirated. They know where they are being pirated and how they are being pirated. But they simply cannot get to the pirates. If Congress were to overrule these decisions, the problem would disappear as the people who break the law would find themselves facing the serious consequences of a civil infringement suit. The infringers would pay for the remedy through statutory fee shifting.

Private enforcement litigation would replace the need for government oversight of our Internet habits, and those who break the law would fund the system. Digital piracy, in its present form, would quickly come to a halt for the same reason that we don’t shoplift copies of DVDs from Walmart. It’s too easy to get caught and the penalties are too severe.