MPAA Tries Its Hand At Comedy With A Top 10 List In Favor Of Censoring The Internet

from the want-to-try-that-again dept

The PROTECT IP Act will preserve American jobs and encourage economic growth.

Internet piracy and counterfeiting puts millions of American jobs at risk. More than 10.6 million Americans depend on the copyright industries for their jobs. That�s about 1 in 10 private sector jobs in the U.S. And about 2.2 million Americans depend on the film and television industries for their jobs. Many of these Americans work behind the scenes in good paying middle class jobs.

Internet piracy and counterfeiting is a danger to consumers and national security.

Many websites dedicated to piracy and counterfeiting appear to be legitimate. Consumers looking for prescription drugs online have unknowingly purchased counterfeit goods such as tainted medicine. And the defense industry is very susceptible to counterfeit parts because many defense systems rely on electronic parts that are no longer produced by the original manufacturer. An Armed Services Committee investigation has found over 1 million suspect counterfeit electronic parts that were purchased for the defense supply chain.

Internet piracy and counterfeiting funds organized crime networks.

Many organized crime networks engage in Internet piracy and counterfeiting. They often use the profits from this activity to fund other criminal enterprises that are violent and dangerous.

Arguing that piracy is integral to [organized crime & terrorist] networks means ignoring the dramatic changes in the technology and organizational structure of the pirate market over the past decade. By necessity, evidentiary standards become very loose. Decades-old stories are recycled as proof of contemporary terrorist connections, anecdotes stand in as evidence of wider systemic linkages, and the threshold for what counts as organized crime is set very low. The RAND study, which reprises and builds on earlier IFPI and Interpol reporting, is constructed almost entirely around such practices. Prominent stories about IRA involvement in movie piracy and Hezbollah involvement in DVD and software piracy date, respectively, to the 1980s and 1990s. Street vendor networks in Mexico City--a subject we treat at length in the Mexico chapter--are mischaracterized as criminal gangs connected with the drug trade. Piracy in Russia is attributed to criminal mafias rather than to the chronically porous boundary between licit and illicit enterprise. The Pakistani criminal gang D-Company, far from "forging a clear pirate monopoly" in Bollywood, in RAND's words, plays a small and diminishing part in Indian DVD piracy--its smuggling networks dwarfed by local production.



The US record isn't more convincing in this regard. Jeffrey McIllwain examined the Department of Justice�s IP-related prosecutions between 2000 and 2004 and found that only 49 out of the 105 cases alleged that the defendant operated within larger, organized networks. Nearly all of these were "warez" distribution groups for pirated software--hacker communities that are explicitly and often fiercely non-commercial in orientation. McIllwain found "no overt references to professional organized crime groups" in any of the DOJ's criminal charges (McIllwain 2005:27). If organized crime is a serious problem in these contexts, it should not be difficult to produce a stronger evidentiary record.

Copyright protection encourages innovation and free speech.

Copyright protection laws have helped create the Internet of today, alive with free speech, innovation and commerce. Copyright laws in the U.S. uphold free speech while encouraging innovation by giving an economic incentive for artists and investors to create new content and distribute it on the Internet. And noted First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams has concluded that the PROTECT IP Act protects free speech.

The PROTECT IP Act provides needed tools to target criminals beyond the reach of current laws.

Foreign websites that traffic in counterfeit goods and stolen content are violating copyright protection but are often beyond the reach of our current laws. The PROTECT IP Act targets criminal behavior. Everyone engaged in legal commerce on the Internet should welcome this legislation.

Google claims the PROTECT IP Act �threatens the ability for free speech.� Copyright law has promoted free speech on the Internet.

The PROTECT IP Act, like content protection law before it, promotes free speech. Content protection law has given us the Internet today, alive with free speech, commerce, and innovation. In fact, noted First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams stated that the PROTECT IP Act upholds our First Amendment Rights. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has written, �The State Department is strongly committed to advancing both Internet freedom and the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights on the Internet. Indeed, these two priorities are consistent.�

Google claims that the PROTECT IP Act will be a burden to taxpayers. Criminals involved in Internet piracy do not pay taxes and the PROTECT IP Act will preserve American jobs.

Criminals who profit from piracy do not pay taxes. Internet piracy and counterfeiting puts millions of American jobs at risk. More than 10.6 million Americans depend on the copyright industries for their jobs. That�s about 1 in 10 private sector jobs in the U.S. And about 2.2 million Americans depend on the film and television industries for their jobs. Many of these Americans work behind the scenes in good paying middle class jobs.

Google claims that the bill �is a trial lawyers dream.� The PROTECT IP Act is a nightmare for criminals.

The PROTECT IP Act provides needed tools to go after criminals beyond the reach of our current laws. It targets criminals who profit from trafficking in counterfeit goods and stolen content. Many organized crime networks make millions of dollars from Internet piracy and counterfeiting.

Google claims the PROTECT IP Act �seeks to regulate the Internet.� The bill penalizes activity that is already criminal but beyond the reach of our current laws.

Foreign websites that traffic in counterfeit goods and stolen content are violating copyright protection but are often beyond the reach of our current laws. The PROTECT IP Act targets criminal behavior. Everyone engage in legal commerce on the Internet should welcome this legislation.

Google claims the PROTECT IP Act is �a threat to our national security.� Site blocking techniques are already in use and the Senate Armed Services Committee has shown that counterfeiting is a threat to our national security.

Site blocking techniques are not new. They are currently used to combat all kinds of harmful behavior including spam, phishing, malware, viruses, and other forms of Internet crime, all without claims of Internet censorship or harm to the Internet. And, the defense industry is very susceptible to counterfeit parts because many defense systems rely on electronic parts that are no longer produced by the original manufacturer. An Armed Services Committee investigation has found over 1 million suspect counterfeit electronic parts that were purchased for the defense supply chain.

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The MPAA has been sending around a sort of "top 10 list" to folks in Congress about why they should vote to censor the internet via PROTECT IP (PIPA). It's actually two different top five lists. The first is five reasons to vote for the law. The second is five reasons that "Google" is wrong about the law (as if Google is the only one complaining about the law -- which is pure hogwash). Of course, the ten reasons don't make much sense, and we figured that it might be helpful to shine a little of that reality light on the claims:Misleading in the extreme. First of all, as we've explained at great length over and over again in the past, "the copyright industries" (a made up term by the folks who support more draconian copyright legislation) does not mean that these people rely on. Much of those jobs would exist with or without copyright. The myth here is that, but for copyright, those jobs wouldn't exist. Yet that's ridiculous. It assumes, a priori, that without copyright there would be no content creation at all. That's completely ridiculous. In fact, as we've seen, as copyright has been ignored, it's actually resulted in much greater output , and the size of these copyright industries has continued to grow and has outpaced the rest of the economy. Furthermore, using the exact same methodology as "the copyright industries," it actually can be shown that it's exceptions to copyright law that create even more jobs -- and thus the conclusion might be that copyright law should be weaker, not stronger.Ah, the massive bogus conflation argument again. First of all, if counterfeit drugs are really a problem (and the data suggests that it's a very small problem), then craft legislation that targets just that. Don't lump it in with tons of other stuff that are not a danger to consumers. Ditto for military equipment. First of all, why is our military buying parts from "rogue sites"? Last I checked, the military, as a part of the government, had to buy from providers with a GSA contract, which are not easy to get. If somehow folks are buying around that, then that's an issue and let's deal with that. But lumping both of those, very narrow, and very limited, problems in with the much wider, but totally unrelated, issue of infringement online is dishonest and dangerous.Bullshit. Seriously. This one is total bullshit. The argument has been entirely discredited based on a recent comprehensive study of the issue. From that SSRC reportBut the MPAA fact sheet does not provide a stronger evidentiary record. It just repeats the bullshit.Copyright protection, when done carefullyencourage free speech. When done wrong, it clearly limits and inhibits free speech. This is not a debate. Even the courts admit that copyright done wrong can and does inhibit free speech. That is our concern here. PROTECT IP is copyright done wrong. Floyd Abrams was hired by the MPAA to support PROTECT IP. Yet, well over 100 legal scholars, including constitutional experts like Laurence Tribe have said that it violates the First Amendment . The MPAA has yet to turn up anyone other than Floyd Abrams. And, even Abrams admits that these laws would censor protected speech -- he just doesn't think it's to the level that it's a problem.There are other, better, ways to deal with the narrow issue of sites that are outside of our laws. The Wyden/Issa proposal , for example, narrowly targets that specific problem without all of the collateral damage.Next up, are the anti-Google points, which repeat much of the above, but with a special anti-Google spin:See above for the Floyd Abrams crap. As for Clinton, she commented on copyright law in general , not the specific proposals under way. The two prioritiesbe consistent, but they can also be opposing. In fact, we've heard directly from multiple people within the State Department that they're very much opposed to these bills, and that they will undermine their internet freedom arguments.Totally misleading. We already debunked the bogus jobs claim above, but more importantly, which sector of the economy has actually been creatingjobs these days? Tech. Facebook alone has created somewhere around a quarter of a million jobs itself, not by hiring, but through the companies that built off its platform. eBay has enabled over 750,000 small businesses to be built on its platform. Those people pay lots of taxes. Taking away and limiting the ability of the next generation of platforms to enable these new businesses and new jobs will significantly impact economic growth and taxes.The bill is a nightmare for the entire internet. Its broad definitions mean that it will target significantly more than just the "worst of the worst." And when people tried to narrow the definition, the MPAA threw a hissy fit. That's because this isn't about going after the really bad actors. This is about the MPAA being unable to adapt and wishing to control new legitimate platforms as well.This is especially disingenuous. The bill works by putting massive compliance costs on tons of internet companies. Creating a startup is going to involve a huge legal budget. The fact that PROTECT IP only "targets" foreign sites, ignores that the mechanism for such "targets" is to use internet companies as cannon fodder. That's a problem.This is the craziest claim of all. Look at all of the credible people who have pointed out that PROTECT IP's DNS blocking will be a threat to national security. This includes Stewart Baker , the former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary and former NSA General Counsel. It includes Sandia National Labs , which is an expert in computer security issues, and it includes the freaking people who more or less built the DNS system . In all this time the MPAA has never brought out any expert who can argue to the contrary. The best it's done is have a guy from Hollywood claim he "doesn't agree" with these assessments.The MPAA's arguments here are dishonest, disingenuous and downright dangerous. Because they don't want to adapt to a changing market, they've decided that collateral damage to security, the economy and innovation are no big deal. Hopefully those in Congress are able to see through the facade.

Filed Under: censorship, congress, pipa, protect ip, sopa

Companies: mpaa