john.bowers

The problem with PIPA is not what it targets—none of the strong critics of PIPA (or SOPA) oppose targeting piracy. The problem with PIPA is that there is no real recourse against a copyright holder who makes a false copyright claim (we’ve already seen the result of this from the DMCA, where plenty of fair use videos were taken down from, e.g. YouTube, because of erroneous complaints on the part of the copyright holders only to be later reinstated. That reinstatement could only occur because the DMCA has a real appeals process so that large companies with lots of money can’t completely bully the little guy out—PIPA has no such appeals process). 

Another problem is that once you have been blacklisted, there is virtually no way to get un-blacklisted. If you aren’t a US company, you may not even be notified that you are being moved against in the US and once its done its done. I can see this as an easy way for domestic corporations to eliminate competition by foreign companies.

Finally, this is scratching an itch that doesn’t need to be scratched. It is already illegal to pirate in this country. The reason PIPA (and SOPA) exist at all is that the big copyright holders (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are tired of having to go after actual infringers (it’s time consuming) and would prefer to just carpet bomb the internet to blast them out. They want a method that puts more power in their own hands, even though there are already sufficient methods for dealing with this in the courts.

Plus, if this were applied domestically (which it currently isn’t, but this is clearly a stepping stone strategy), sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Tumblr would be in serious trouble. Why? Because there is plenty of copyright infringement on all of these sites and a decent legal team should be able to show Tumblr page after Tumblr page to argue that Tumblr is dedicated to infringing material—which is the PIPA (not SOPA) requirement. This essentially overthrows the Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA, which were put in for a very good reason—that to allow for user generated content, you have to hold the users and not the harbors responsible for the content (as long as the harbor responds to takedown requests in a reasonable time frame), otherwise it is just too costly to run a harbor. 

Oh, one last thing: it also targets sites that give you methods for removing DRM. The courts are still out, in some sense, on whether this should be legal or not, but many of us think it should be legal to remove DRM. Why can’t I buy a DVD and rip it to my iPod? If PIPA goes through they will be able to shut down sites that provide applications like HandBrake that have 1.) completely legitimate uses—you can make your own DVDs of say, home movies and then rip them later if you lost the files and 2.) what should be legitimate uses, of backing up your own stuff. 

I should have one post-script here: I don’t pirate. So I don’t care a whip about protecting things like the PirateBay. 

EDIT: You said that it is only targeting websites that are “deliberately violating copyright infringement [sic].” This isn’t true. It is targeting websites that are primarily used by their users for copyright infringement, which is different. And the language is vague enough for potentially broad interpretations. What if, for example, it turns out that almost every DropBox user at some point passes an image to a friend using his or her DropBox that was ripped from a website somewhere? Potentially, an argument could be made that DropBox is being primarily used for piracy, and then be shut down. So DropBox would have to start looking through our personal files (!) to make sure we weren’t ever infringing.

orotund-hoyden:

It is only targeting websites that are deliberately violating copyright infringement, like MegaUpload. So yes, I’m a little bummed I wouldn’t be able to watch missed TV episodes, or download free music, but you know what? That’s illegal, and I’m okay with supporting the artists that worked their…