The Stop Online Piracy Act: the blindness continues

-- By DiegodelaPuente - 15 Nov 2011

The Unfortunate Stop Online Piracy Act's discussion

Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress’ actual discussion about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), does not contribute to the Net development; on the contrary, it distracts the attention on real matters: copyright is no longer needed under the Net’s conception. In sum, SOPA tries to expand the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders’ power allowing seeking court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. As Representative Lamar Smith, one of the chief sponsors of the bill, said, SOPA is need because rogue websites are stealing and selling American innovations. Moreover, even SOPA’s most important detractors, Google, Facebook, AOL and Twitter, are only talking about Internet censorship or a chilling effect on speech, rather than proposing a change from the actual copyright framework in accordance of the new technological trends.

Stop Online Piracy Act

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

- David Kravets, Chief Sponsor Wavers on Web Censorship Bill in Charged Hearing, Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/piracy-blacklisting-bill)

- http://americancensorship.org

- SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) debate: Why are Google and Facebook against it? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/sopa-stop-online-piracy-act-debate-why-are-google-and-facebook-against-it/2011/11/17/gIQAvLubVN_story.html)

The intellectual property market

SOPA’s proponents, mainly, the Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America, Business Software Alliance and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say the bill will protect intellectual property market, including the resultant revenue and jobs; however, it is really protecting the earnings of the content industries monopolies. It seems that once again, as in the wireless telecommunications industry, the Law, in this case the copyright law, is the last to take notice of the changes that are taking place in the real world, because it is outdated and lacks of effectiveness in the Net.

For instance, discussing the music industry, SOPA is supposed to protect singers’ intellectual property, enabling them to pursue a profit. Some journalist, such as Dr. Robert Levine (former Billboard executive editor), thinks that the best way to save artists’ jobs is to strengthen copyright laws, by the way also opposing to the idea of a free an open Internet. I disagree with that statement and that opinion current opinion and consider that the actual copyright policy should change.

Free media content

- Does culture really want to be free? (November 1, 2011) (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/01/does_culture_really_want_to_be_free/singleton)

- Gerd Leonhard, The Future of the Content Industries (April 2011) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLxEqy3lngk)

- Gerd Leonhard, Free & Freemium Business Models (June 2011) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uOsLgTMGqc)

Section III

Subsection A

Subsection B

Conclusions

Information sources

Stop Online Piracy Act

- Stop Online Piracy Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act)

- David Kravets, Chief Sponsor Wavers on Web Censorship Bill in Charged Hearing, Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/piracy-blacklisting-bill)

- SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) debate: Why are Google and Facebook against it? (http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/sopa-stop-online-piracy-act-debate-why-are-google-and-facebook-against-it/2011/11/17/gIQAvLubVN_story.html)

- Caitlin Bronson, Online Piracy Act Struggles in Congress (November 29, 2011) (http://www.thirdage.com/news/online-piracy-act-struggles-in-congress_11-29-2011)

- Stop the Stop Online Piracy Act Now (November 21, 2011) (http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/11/21/stop-the-stop-online-piracy-act-now.aspx)

- http://americancensorship.org

Media content

- Scott Timberg, Does culture really want to be free? (http://www.salon.com/2011/11/01/does_culture_really_want_to_be_free/singleton)

- Melody Walker, Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy (http://www.physorg.com/news155495067.html)

- Steven Levy, Facebook, Spotify and the Future of Music (http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/10/ff_music)

- Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly (http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm)

- Danny Colligan, What We Lose When We Embrace Copyright (http://questioncopyright.org/what_we_lose_when_we_embrace_copyright)

- Joost Smiers and Marieke van Schijndel, Imagine a world without copyright, New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/opinion/07iht-edsmiers.html?pagewanted=all)

- David Cravets, U.S. Copyright Czar Cozied Up to Content Industry, E-Mails Show, Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/copyright-czar-cozies-up)

- Eric Schlachter, The Intellectual Property Renaissance in Cyberspace: Why Copyright Law Could Be Unimportant on the Internet, Berkeley Technological Law Journal (http://www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol12/Schlachter/html/reader.html)

- Nate Anderson, Big Content to FCC: don't kill our ISP filtering dream!, ARS Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/big-content-still-cant-compete-with-free.ars)

- Timothy B. Lee, The Stop Online Piracy Act: Big Content's full-on assault against the Safe Harbor, ARS Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/the-stop-online-piracy-act-big-contents-full-on-assault-against-the-safe-harbor.ars

- Nate Anderson, File-sharers are content industry's "largest customers", ARS Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/file-sharers-are-content-industrys-largest-customers.ars)

- Nico van EIJK, Legal, Economic and Cultural Aspects of File Sharing (http://www.ivir.nl/publications/vaneijk/Communications&Strategies_2010.pdf)

- Eric Steven Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar)

- What would Jesus hack? Cybertheology: Just how much does Christian doctrine have in common with the open-source software movement?, The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/21527031)

- Mark A. Lemley, Is the Sky Falling Dawn on the Content Industries?, 9 Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law 125 (http://www.jthtl.org/content/articles/V9I1/JTHTLv9i1_Lemley.PDF)

- Mike Masnik, Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period, Techdirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070215/002923.shtml)

- JRC Scientific and Technical Reports, The Future Evolution of the Creative Content Industries (http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC47964.pdf)

- Scott Berinato, The iTunes Effect and the Future of Content, Havard Business Review (http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/01/the-itunes-effect-and-the-futu.html)

- Gerd Leonhard, The Future of the Content Industries (April 2011) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLxEqy3lngk)

- Gerd Leonhard, Free & Freemium Business Models (June 2011) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uOsLgTMGqc)

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