The Protect IP Act (in the U.S. Senate) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House of Representatives) have caused incredible uproar in the Internet geek community over the last few weeks. If passed, the more egregious SOPA would restructure the means with which owners of various Intellectual Property (IP) rights owners could penalize websites that "facilitate" the illegal sharing of music, movies and other media.
SOPA would do away with the familiar "safe harbor" system that protects sites like Facebook and Youtube from prosecution so long as they act in good faith and immediately remove offending material upon notice. Under the new law, IP owners would have the right to delete entire websites found hosting copyrighted content and send notice to fund transferring entities such as MasterCard, VISA and PayPal. The offending websites would then have a narrow five-day window to appeal this notice and prevent a cutoff of cash flow. No trial would be required for these shutdowns to take place.
The Internet behemoths' lobby NetCoalition (eBay, Google, Amazon.com, etc) strongly opposes the bill, and several tech bloggers have suggested that these large companies would have to employ thousands in order to police the content of their sites and avoid a shutdown. The potentially imminent new net regime provokes chilling comparisons to China, a society where Twitter copycats like Sina Weibo are compelled to enlist armies of content censors and become tools in the systematic suppression of political dissent.
Perhaps more terrifying to the members of NetCoalition are the costs inherent in the application of this new piracy subdual scheme. The costs could be astronomical and would certainly hinder the growth of small, innovative new web projects. Imagine a world where Tumblr had never been able to establish itself due its inability to hire enough censors to keep up with its irrepressible growth. Clearly, a world under SOPA would not be a world changed for the better (okay, maybe Tumblr wasn't the best example).
More importantly, each of the two bills threaten our ability as music lovers to consume unlimited amounts of free music. Most of the respectable, mainstream dialogue I've read on the Protect IP Act and SOPA delicately avoids the fact that either of these laws would immediately make the lives of music lovers much more difficult. Many (most?) of us cool kids have begun to expect certain conveniences.
As late as 2009, I had yet to discover post-Napster filesharing websites like Mediafire. Then as now, music was easily my greatest expense after food and alcohol (rent has since been added to the pain). Though my expenditures on music have remained constant, the freedom of online file sharing has allowed my listening to expand exponentially.
Whereas I had once combed through used CD stacks for hours in the hopes of maybe finding a rare Flipper or Melvins compilation, I can now find and listen to those same rare albums within minutes. The emotional and intellectual impact of this shift has been invaluable. As a result of a greatly decreased opportunity cost, I have also been able to expand my horizons and sample genres that I otherwise never would have had the good fortune to hear. I doubt, for example, that I ever would have risked my hard earned pocket change for an ambient techno or hard bop jazz record before I had the chance to sample these genres. Today, I currently own physical copies of both.
Sure, I occasionally feel guilty for illegal downloading, but in my own little world I had begun to suspect the music industry and I had come to a sort of tacit agreement. In return for my purchase of three or four vinyl records a month, I would get unlimited access to the infinite sum of the digitized international pop culture for all time. It was simple, it was clean. It felt so right. I feel betrayed.
I feel unappreciated for the enormous money I have thrown at the American Federation of Musicians and the RIAA and the MPAA, huge supporters of these bills, along with a weird coalition that includes the Chamber of Commerce AND the Teamsters. The fact that Congress would dare rock my world to its very core disgusts me. I will not go down without a fight. Who knows, I may even send my Congressman an email.
Have an opposing viewpoint about the Proctect IP Act or the SOPA act? Agree whole-heartedly? Let Alex know at seraphin@wisc.edu.
