It’s a black day for the latest Hollywood Internet “block” busting SOPA 0pera
The latest multi-million dollar production to come out of Hollywood is an epic battle that has split the opinion of the US business community right down the middle. And the gloves are very clearly off! Wednesday 18th January 2012 promises to be a monumental day in the fight for freedom of speech as some of your favourite websites go on strike.
The new faces and Web 2.0 innovators of Silicon Valley have united with bloggers, free press and freedom software activists, to fight proposed legislation, which is supported by some tech giants, including Microsoft and Adobe, the US film and music industry and the US Chambers of Commerce. So what’s the story? Ever heard of SOPA or its sibling PIPA? Well if you haven’t then it really is time that you did, especially if you or anyone that uses your Internet connection has ever downloaded software, songs or movies illegally or perhaps shared a link to pirated content with friends via a social media site or forum. Even if you thought what you were doing was legal here in the UK, you could still face huge fines from US corporations, have your website’s revenue streams blocked and monies confiscated, or even have your website disappear from the face of the cyber world without a moment’s notice. Worst still you could face years imprisoned in a US jail!
Copyright law varies from country to country and what is deemed legal in one may well be illegal in another. International copyright laws and intellectual property agreements are notoriously complicated and difficult to police, as has been the case since the laws were introduced many many decades ago. However, the rapid expansion of the Internet has made those differences all the more apparent now that information can move seamlessly across international borders, in many cases relatively unrestricted. It has become all too easy for anyone to produce and obtain unauthorised copies of copyrighted goods and to break these laws without even having to leave the comfort of their own home; this has only been made simpler by the widespread use of file-sharing software. There are many that are calling for a review of the copyright laws with some make a compelling argument for abolishing them altogether or at least for aligning the laws more with the current needs of society, and others calling for tougher penalties on those deemed to be breaking existing laws.
Many companies, predominantly in the proprietary software and entertainment industries, are complaining of such an exponential growth in digital piracy that it is threatening to destroy not only their own organisation but their very industry. Enter Protect IP Act (PIPA), a bill submitted to the US Senate in May 2011, with stated goals of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods”, and calls for enhanced enforcement against any that are operated and registered overseas. PIPA was joined in the US House of Representatives several months later by sister bill Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). It builds on the proposals of PIPA and calls for streaming of illegal content to be a felony act. The bill would authorise the US Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites outside US jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights of US businesses, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.
Both bills called for a block on foreign “rogue” websites from all DNS servers under US jurisdiction if a site is viewed as infringing US copyright laws, SOPA going further and proposing blocking IP addresses and Deep Packet Inspection solutions. This would have effectively made the website invisible from any user inside the US, a move welcomed by the Chinese government, who use a similar solution to deal with websites deemed a risk to national security! In the past 48 hours however the chief sponsors of both bills have agreed to remove the DNS blocking clause, as pressure from their opponents mounts, and a statement released by the Obama administration saying it would not support any “legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet”, have forced the sponsors to reconsider the wider implications of using such a draconian proposal. Whilst it has not been ruled out altogether in the future, DNS blocking has at least been tabled for now pending broader discussions that include representatives of all stakeholders of the Internet. But opponents caution vigilance and say there can be no compromise, the bills must be thrown out altogether. Even without this clause, these bills are still extremely flawed and if either is passed into law could have far-reaching implications for citizens around the world. They propose to come down very hard and impose long prison sentences in the US on anyone who they deem to have broken US copyright law; this, regardless of where they are in the world, and using any means at their disposal to bring alleged perpetrators to justice, including requesting extradition of citizens from other countries.
Sounds far-fetched? Think it will never happen, that the US wouldn’t do that? Tell that to UK computing student Richard O’Dwyer, wanted by the US for creating a search engine that allowed users to share links to their favourite TV shows and movies. He has just lost his case at Westminster Magistrates Court and now faces extradition to the US and charges equivalent to 10 years in prison if found guilty. Despite a previous ruling in the UK clearing a similar UK site, TVLinks, from having breached UK copyright law, and without having seen any of the evidence the US has against Richard, the judge ruled in favour of extradition on Friday 13th, leaving Richard at the mercy of the US law courts for doing something that hasn’t even been proved to be a criminal offence in the UK! An ill-fated day not just for Richard but for all UK Internet users and one that may well go down in history as the beginning of the end of the freedoms we have grown to love and expect from the web.
PIPA was initially passed in the Senate but sensible Senator Ron Wyden placed a hold on it stating concerns over possible damage to freedom of speech, innovation, and Internet integrity, a fear mirrored by organisations such as Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. Opposition to PIPA has also been met by many of the US global technology giants who wrote an open letter to Congress, signed by 130 technology entrepreneurs and CEOs, amongst them Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Twitter, expressing great concern that the law in its present form would “hurt economic growth and chill innovation in legitimate services that help people create, communicate, and make money online”. Google’s Chairman, Eric Schmidt likened the proposed bill to the censorship framework used in China and fears the US could be heading for its own “Great Firewall”. Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association said SOPA “attempts a radical restructuring of the laws governing the Internet” and that “it would undo the legal safe harbors that have allowed a world-leading Internet industry to flourish over the last decade [and] would expose legitimate American businesses and innovators to broad and open-ended liability.” As they currently stand the bills give US authorities the power to potentially take action against any website that has US users, impacting directly on any UK business or website with US traffic, and propose technical solutions that could effectively kill e-commerce, social media or any site that allows users to post information. It could mean the end of open-source software projects and freeware sharing and would create a huge increase in the use of identity-masking solutions, such as proxy servers and file-sharing software, pushing any subversive activity further underground; this would make it much more difficult to detect serious crimes such as terrorism activity. The bills could also have grave implications for foreign relations and international laws and is sure to cost countries fortunes in court challenges, something we would all wish to avoid in these days of severe cut backs.
Some believe that SOPA, in particular, has been deliberately written so that sites such as Wikileaks can be systematically taken down and made to disappear, as it briefly did when the US Embassy cables were released. They fear the propaganda machine and lobbyists will manage to sneak this in to law, however they have some big opponents who seem to have finally had enough and are willing to make a stand; Facebook, Google, Yahoo and a whole host of other Internet giants are threatening to go on strike if the government don’t listen and hold a fair and unbiased debate about the bills. The first wave of protest has been spearheaded by Reddit.com, and has called for an Internet Blackout on Wednesday 18th January. They are being joined by Tumblr, Firefox and Wikipedia, who will use various measures to raise the Internet public’s awareness of the bills and offer advice on how users can contribute in the campaign to stop either coming into law. Other sites may well join in as new names are added to the list hourly.
Senator Wyden has recently submitted an alternative bill, The Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN), which has seen growing support from US politicians and tech giants Google and Facebook have given positive reactions to the bill so far. It proposes focusing on shutting down the funding streams of pirate sites, and placing enforcement powers with the US International Trade Committee rather than with the US Justice Dept as proposed by SOPA/PIPA. Whilst OPEN is an obvious improvement on SOPA/PIPA and does afford some protections to new tech companies innovating on the web it still proposes to change the status quo in ways that could have far-reaching consequences that are in need of urgent debate.
You may be asking what the SOPA opera playing out oversees has to do with Richard’s case or any of us in the UK for that matter. After all, none of these bills have been passed into law yet and Richard is being charged under existing copyright laws. Well I am not alone in thinking it actually means quite a lot. Richard’s situation is very unique in a number of ways and highlights several issues, not least one that has been bubbling away for some time now. Who has jurisdiction over the Internet?
This is not the first time an extradition has been sought for alleged perpetrators of “cyber” crimes, but it is the first time an agreement intended to be used to facilitate the extraction of enemies of the state, terrorists, spies and murderers, has been used for someone who runs a user-generated content site and will be the first trial of its kind in the US, setting legal precedents. Even if we set aside the question of bias towards the US in the current Extradition Treaty, something unanimously agreed in Parliament recently needed revising, and the potential Human Rights violations that Richard could experience, we have to seriously consider the fact that by allowing him to face charges in the US for something that took place entirely in the UK, we are handing over Internet law-making powers to the US government. I believe this case is testing the sovereignty of the Internet and sets the scene for the impending consequences of SOPA, PIPA, OPEN or any other subsequent laws proposed by the US, or any other country for that matter, concerning Internet governance.
In order for any such law to be enforceable, the US authorities would need the cooperation of other nations or risk finding itself isolated behind its own “Great Firewall” and its online businesses crippled by competitors outside of its jurisdiction. Well, if it was seeking proof that the UK wouldn’t put up any resistance to the US becoming judge and jury over the Internet before debating the bills, they just got it! We handed Richard over to them on a plate. Had we refused to send him to the US for something he did whilst sat in his bedroom in the UK we would have been sending a clear message to the US authorities that the UK values its citizens and its judicial system and dealt a crippling blow to SOPA, PIPA and any other Mickey Mouse bill they try to pass in the future. Instead we have just told the US authorities in no uncertain terms that they can decide what we see and do on the web, and where and how alleged Internet crime is dealt with.
In my opinion the first battle may seem to have been won by opponents of the bills but there is still a very long way to go, and round two has been won by Hollywood. Even before attempting to pass any of these bills we have rolled over and played dead. We have left Richard to enter the lion’s den to face the multi-billion dollar making movie industry’s legal teams all alone, forced to await trail in a US jail, with no chance of obtaining bail and little money to fight his case. What a spark of hope we must have injected in the bills’ supporters!
This case highlights the need for greater discussion in the UK on several important topics. Not least of these is the mounting argument of the fitness for purpose of the current copyright and intellectual property laws, which will no doubt only find momentum from the draconian enforcement solutions currently under proposal, particularly SOPA/PIPA and the greater government control and censorship they will bring. More importantly there is a long-overdue discussion needed on what constitutes a crime on the Internet, where did it take place, where should any charges be brought and any dues paid. Richard’s situation has made this debate all the more urgent, as left unchallenged we are giving up our sovereign rights to the US, handing over the power to decide our laws to a foreign nation. We should heed the warnings of the past and realise that this situation will only worsen, Richard will by no means be an isolated case. Which leads to my final point that urgently needs attention. The UK/US extradition treaty must be amended immediately to ensure that UK citizens wanted in the US are afforded the same safeguards as their US counterparts wanted in the UK. Our judges need to be given the powers to see the evidence against a defendant, the freedom to consider the nature of the crime and its degree of seriousness, and the authority to demand a trial in the UK for crimes deemed to have been committed on UK soil. This would stop the shameful abuse of the treaty by the US authorities.
If we don’t fight back now, and hard, we may very soon find ourselves joining Chinese citizens, locked behind an information prison of our own making. Most certainly if Mickey Mouse wins it will be the end of the Internet as we in the democratised West know it and we can look forward to many more fairy tales to come from LA LA Land!
Deborah Adshead
17 January 2012
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