SOPA and PIPA

Uploaded by khanacademy http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy on Jan 18, 2012

What SOPA and PIPA are at face value and what they could end up enabling

Lets say that you´re the owner of some copyrighted material.

Maybe its a movie, maybe its music of some kind

and you observe that there is a site that is operating

outside of the US and that side - at least in your mind -

seems to be infringing on your copyright by US law

so this is the site - you think is doing illegal at least by US standards.

The Problem ist that theres nothing you can do -

its operating outside of Us soil and outside the US laws.

You can even go to the government, even if the government wanted to do something

it really couldn´t. Because once again its outside US restrictions.

The purpose of SOPA and it seems really banal at first

is to give some tools to the actors to stop this.

The Problem and we´ll see that its quite a large problem is,

that it gives tools to these actors to do much more than to stop illegal activities.

That allows essentially, to some degree -- kind of a witch hunt

anyone that might have a wish of enabling this type of activity.

There won´t even just be for foreign sites.

So lets write this down, so SOPA stands for:

Stop Online Piracy Act -

that sounds pretty reasonable.

And this is the version of the bill that comes from the house of representatives.

The one from the senate is slightly different

- but they have the same intent - its PIPA.

And what it does is - you can´t go after these -

this site itself maybe you can go after sites that is somehow benefiting this site.

And those sites are inside the United States.

So this is outside, this is inside the United States.

So things that are doing that might incloud search engings.

So search engings like Google or Bing.

They obviously link to this site here. You might have ad networks -

so sites that allow this site over here to display ads and to get revenue from them -

that are benefting this site over here.

You might have payment sites like PayPal

or Creditcard processors that this site uses to collect revenue.

And maybe most importantly you have things like the DNS servers within the US

that associate this sites domain name with the actuall servers.

And I wont get to technically about that, but when you type in

www.shady.foreign

and once again we´re gonna see that this site might

not even have to be shady or foreign

but when you type something like that in -

there´re servers in the United states that associate that with these servers

that might be operated outsite the United States - that associate this text with a number

that points to this website, that points to this website servers.

So this are all things within the United States -

that to some degreee this site is dependend on.

So what SOPA does is, it allows these actors here -

the ones that are obviously concerned with enforcing their copyrights -

the issue court orders and notices to these actors right over here

that essentially compels them, very strongly to immediately

cut of thights with this illegal site - or what they thing is an illegal site

Now that might seem reasonable to you - exept for the fact that

its kind of a shoot first and thing later type of policy

The basic way it works is, you presume guilt until this guy

somehow to proof his innocence and we´ll see

this guy isn´t naturally outside the US.

It might even be completely legal and what I would consider

completely legal sites inside the US.

Essentially as soon as this allegation is made and either a court order

or a notice is payed these enablers have to cut off tights to this site -

and you can imagine these cut off thighs to this site

- this sites´ business - whatever it might be - whether illegal or legal

- immediatly gets obliterated, especially this one here

including search engines, Ad networks and payment.

And if they don´t comply then these guys are going to start having illegal balast.

So these guys are not going to have to comply and that by itself is hard

but if they don´t comply, then theirselfs are going to be in trouble.

Now it gets really obviously creepy, when you start

going into - so when you thing of this - you´re like

okay, so maybe we can work arround this a little bit.

But it gets creepy when you even know that this is the spirit of the legislation.

Whe you actually read the wording of the legislation

and obviously thats what matters - not the name or the intent.

But actually how its worded. The way its worded

- it´s pretty clear that its intent is to go after much more

than a site that explicitly selling illegal pharmaceuticals or

allowing people to download movies or, or videos or music

that these owners don´t have access to.

When you read the wording its pretty clear that they want to be able

to shut down anything that isn´t in any way associating with itselfs -

or in any way enabeling it.

And you see it in the wording. So this is actually section 1.0.3 of the SOPA legislation

- and this is how the definy a site that is dedicated to theft of US Property.

So an internet site is dedicated to theft of US Property -

So an internet site is dedicated to theft of US Property if -

and so you know its useable by people in the United States -

and this is interessting. It´s primary designed to operated for purpose of,

has only limited purpose or use other than,

or is marketed by its operater or another acting in concert

with that operater for use in offering goods or services

that engages in, enables or facilitates - now that is interesting -

enables or facilitates all of these violations.

And these are the violations that would be illegal:

You´re selling things that you can´t sell,

you´re infringing on other people´s copyright.

And it might seem harmless, this enables or facilitates until you thing about

what that could encapsulate.

If I have a site, like this, I´am part of a site : Khan academy

Let´s say someone puts a message on Khan Academy

and from Khan Academy they link to a site that actually is really illegal

and that is really shady and they link to it in the message words.

Well under this am I enabling, as Khan Academy enabling or facilitating -

and if thats the case the Khan Academy - by this definition -

would be concidered to be a site that is dedicated to theft of US properties.

And there are much bigger players, than is Khan Academy,

that can be thrown into this bucket, like Youtube or Vimeo or any site.

Or even a news site, that allows people to comments,

or allows people ot put images things like Flickr.

That maybe had - in some way - their users infringing on the copyright

now all the sudden the whole site - based on this definition - the enire site

can be definded dedicated to theft of US property.

By this definiton Youtube could be that, if its viewed in kind of

you´re enabeling or facilitating.

Khan Academy, any news site could be viewed like that.

Vimeo could be viewed that way,

a photosharing site could be viewed like that.

People might take a photo or something that they don´t have the copyright

and upload an image and all the sudden - by this definition -

based on just a sense thats beeing violated,

they won´t just be able to shut down the illegal sites.

They would be able to shut down things like Youtube, or Vimeo

or even things like CNN.com, if someone puts some message

or an image, that they thing is somehow violating.

And so ist not just going - right now the methodology is

if there is some content on Youtube or Vimeo or some other sites,

that they feel is infringing on their copyrights -

there are laws, where they contact Youtube directly,

they point them to the content, that seems to be infringing

and Youtube or Vimeo or who ever will take down that content.

But what this allows them to do is shoot first and thing later.

Oh, look: You´re enabling that, if they could some court

to give a court order, X can start giving notice to these players over here

to cut of thights wiht major - what I would concider very legal sites -

like Youtube or Vimeo or CNN.

It´s really almost any site that allows people to upload things

or put links on it, which is almost - Facebook is another one -

anything that has user generated content.

On just a whim they could take down the entire site -

not just take down that user generated content -

they could, on just convincing one judge, or convincing any of these,

they could cut of thights wiht Facebook.

Not even making Facebook that - you can´t even point to Facebook anymore.

CNN - they could just completly take down these sites on a whim.

And it gets worse than that, because you would say

well if they can take this down on a whim and you know

maybe they kind of thought it was, but they didn´t do homework

and then they realize that it wasn´t copyright infringement.

Couldn´t these guys sue back, although the damage would have been down,

these sites would have been taken down,

it would have lost millions or billions of dollars.

Millions or tenth or hundreds of users would not be able to access these things

and this would also be true for wikipedia

if someone uploaded something that wasn´t completly, 100 % verdict.

They could take down the entire site, not just that content.

And you say: Okay, thats bad enough!

But couldn´t these people say: Hey, look you´re wrongfully took us down

we´re going to sue you now. Well to see that they can´t and

to see how onesided this legislation is notice:

The threshold for beeing able to sued back, if you kind of

misrepresented a violation - the only way you´re kind of held

accoutable is if you´re knowingly materially misrepresented the violation.

So, if the copyright holder says: Oh, I think someone on Youtube

- I feel pretty good that someone on Youtube is violenting

and that Youtube is enabling a violation and therefore Youtube

is a site dedicated to theft of US Propertie and it later on

it finds out that it wasn´t, it was fair used or maybe that person

actually did have the copyright to it.

They can´t be sued, because they said: Oh, I just thought it was.

They werent knowingly materially misrepresenting themselfs.

So even if it ends up, not even beeing a violation, these guys

could take the site down. Maybe some small producers actually

secured the rights, put it up on Youtube and them

,all the sudden these guys take down all of Youtube based on

not actually knowing what they are talking about.

And they can´t even be a counter sued in that case, based on the law.

And it gets even creepier than that, because to be concidered this

you don´t even just enable or facilitate - which is almost everything -

one could argue a computer is enabling or facilitating this on some level.

But you are concidered to be site, dedicated to theft of US property.

Even if you do nothing illegal, even if you don´t enable anything illegal -

but if you just take actions that make it difficult for parties to confirm

that you´re doing something illegal. So if you view this in the physical world:

Obvioulsy some people are doing illegal things in their homes

and obviously some people lock their door to keep people out of their homes.

And maybe people are doing illegal things, it would even be

more likely to look their doors and close their shutters.

What this would do and this would do in the virtual sense,

is that say: Look! Just by taking the action of closing your shutters

and looking your doors. Which makes it hard for federal agents to confirm

that you´re doing illegal things - just by doing that - that itself is an illegal act.

This is maybe one of the creepiest and draconian Intrusions of privacy,

that I have actually heard of -

that was even attempted to be passed into law.

So if I where you - just as a privacy and liberty loving American - I´d be worried.