Tag Archives: protect ip

Where the Comic Book Industry Stands on #SOPA and #PIPA

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We’ll be keeping a list of publishers, blogs, creators and more and where they stand on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).  Don’t know what SOPA or PIPA are?  The short is, they’re legislation that threatens how we interact online every day.  We posted a longer explanation as to why this legislation needs to be stopped, we encourage you to read it, spread it around and take action today.

Below will be an ongoing listing of those who stand against and for SOPA and PIPA.  We’ve asked publishers where they stand and have yet to hear back from any.  As we receive responses we’ll post them in full.  Put pressure on them to respond, as consumers we deserve to know where they stand on this legislation.  Also, creators and other blogs have been silent.  Ask them to stand up for free speech and a free internet!

Sign the petition and demand to know where publishers stand!

SOPA and the Comic Book Industry

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On Friday, news broke that Marvel Entertainment and Disney both support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261.  That legislation in the House of Representatives as well as it’s similar sister legislation in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), S. 968 and S. 978, is the latest effort of copyright holders to crack down on the rampant piracy online.  Both pieces of legislation are broken and would do little other than to stifle technical innovation and free speech, but that hasn’t stopped the entertainment industry from spending over $1.9 million to get the legislation passed.

The legislation’s main thrust is providing tools to stop foreign infringing websites from being accessed in the United States and penalizing those websites.  Actions such as seizure, cutting off of funds and stopping of advertising are all methods that would be legal through this legislation.  Some of these techniques are currently being used today in mass seizure of websites by I.C.E.  The problem is, the legislation wouldn’t solve the problem.

The legislation is vague forcing websites, hosts, advertisers and payment systems to create a blacklist blocking offending websites from being accessed.  An internet blacklist is a technique employed by such stellar countries as Iran and China.  The problem is that this “tech fix” doesn’t solve the issue at all.  The websites can still be accessed in foreign countries, by masking your location and already there is a Firefox plug-in to get around such censorship.  There’s a reason that a group of 83 Internet inventors and engineers sent an open letter to members of the United States Congress voicing their opposition.

It would also allow mass seizures without due process by court order.  Websites would be able to respond and fight the seizure, after the act has been done.  So, in that year you spend in court fighting, your website is down.  Expect this to be used in retaliatory fashion.  I.C.E. has already shown they are utterly incompetent when it comes to this technique, usually catching innocent websites in the mix.  Keep in mind too that websites and individuals could share IP addresses and the whole process gets murkier.

CensorshipThe legislation also allows internet service providers to block websites that are deemed to be health risks to the public and they are protected from action by their customers.  There doesn’t have to be proof that there’s a risk, they can just do it.  So much for Net Neutrality.

What bothers to me is that the legislation also kills creativity and threatens innocent fans celebrating the entertainment they love.  We’ve posted videos of video game players doing walk throughs of games, the video of a wedding party entering to Chris Brown’s Forever, and our recently posted spoof videos of the Dark Knight Rises trailer, video of folks covering a song or singing karaoke, all would be illegal under SOPA.  Justin Bieber became famous covering other artist’s songs on Youtube, he could now be jailed for that, which is why this is called the “anti-Bieber bill.”  Prince has sued a mother for posting a video of her kid dancing to one of his songs.  Copyright holders as is can’t be trusted with the laws we have, we want to give them more?

Even crazier, just linking to an infringing website could get you in trouble.  There goes my Facebook status and Twitter posts and say bye-bye to Tumblr.

When it comes to the comic book industry, websites dedicated to art and fan art, like DeviantArt, could be caught in seizures.  A search on the popular website found 48423 items returned for Spider-Man, 59857 for Iron Man, 31760 for Captain America and 90334 for X-men

I’m not even going into the hypocrisy of elected officials writing pushing this legislation.  Piracy runs rampant in government offices (I’ve seen it first hand), but the RIAA has been caught torrenting as well as foreign elected officials and copyright holders.  That’s the definition of hypocrisy.

And that brings us back to the comic book industry.  Marvel and Disney have stated their support for the legislation.  We’ve reached out to them, as well as other comic book publishers for their stance and to explain their stance on the legislation.  Pressure has been brought upon other supporters of the legislation and resulted in a positive outcome (though there’s disagreement how sincere GoDaddy really is), but until I get clarification from Marvel I don’t want to call for a boycott quite yet.

I am calling for publishers to state their stance and make their opinion public, sign this petition and show as a consumer you want to know too so you can make a better informed decision as to whether you want to continue your support.

You can take action right now and voice your opinion on the legislation.  Tell your elected officials this legislation “shall not pass.”

Congress and the House Judiciary Committee where SOPA remains in mark-up are currently on break, but when they return in January it will be one a hot topic and debated early in the Congressional session.  We’ll bring further coverage of this important debate and legislation and expect further calls to action.

Update: Gizmodo has a list of all of the companies and organizations supporting SOPA according to the House Judiciary Committee, there’s also this crowd sourced Google Doc.  Take a moment to call and email some of these companies to voice your displeasure.  If you live in the United States, you can write your Representative and Senators through this action hosted by the Entertainment Consumers Association.

Full disclosure: I consult for the ECA which has been a lead organization fighting SOPA and PIPA

Switzerland Comes Out With Facts On Downloading and Piracy. Concludes It Should Remain Legal.

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One of the arguments against piracy when it comes to downloading goods is that money is lost that would have otherwise been spent.  The problem is, there’s no way to prove this.  Switzerland took up the challenge, commissioning a study to look into the subject and whether piracy should remain legal, and it’s conclusion is it SHOULD.  In a country where a third of those over 15 have downloaded movies, music and games for personal use the government has concluded it’s actually good for copyright holders as the money is eventually spent.

The report states this is just the changing times:

Every time a new media technology has been made available, it has always been ‘abused’. This is the price we pay for progress. Winners will be those who are able to use the new technology to their advantages and losers those who missed this development and continue to follow old business models.

The report used a Dutch study to figure out the impact on copyright holders as the two countries are similar.  It turns out, downloaders spend more on entertainment.  Via TorrentFreak:

The report states that around a third of Swiss citizens over 15 years old download pirated music, movies and games from the Internet. However, these people don’t spend less money as a result because the budgets they reserve for entertainment are fairly constant. This means that downloading is mostly complementary.

The other side of piracy, based on the Dutch study, is that downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors to concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. And in the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from the sampling effect of file-sharing.

The report also examines laws in other countries that have implemented to fight online piracy such as the three strikes rule.  It mentions how this might not be legal in the first place as the UN Human Rights Council claimed internet access a human right.  It also brings up the topic of filtering and blocking access to websites for piracy, but concludes this violates free speech.

TorrentFreak sums it up nicely:

The overall suggestion the Swiss government communicates to the entertainment industries is that they should adapt to the change in consumer behavior, or die. They see absolutely no need to change the law because downloading has no proven negative impact on the production of national culture.

With SOPA and Protect IP being debated in the United States, it’ll be interesting to see if this study plays into the debate at all.

Take Action – Stop Protect IP and SOPA

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CensorshipYou might have noticed Wednesday numerous websites you went to had their logos blacked out, censored on their own.  “Don’t Let the Government Censor the Internet,” that’s the rally cry being taken up this week as people and organizations from all sides of the aisles have come together to stop H.R. 3261, S. 968 and S. 978 also known as SOPA and Protect IP.  The legislation is a scary specter looming over the internet and how we share information.

The legislation is the latest attempt to crack down on the theft of intellectual property and copyright.  The legislation does a couple of things that’s scary:

  • Through a court order the Attorney General can seize websites accused of violating copyright,
  • The legislation lifts the safe harbor language in the DMCA that protects websites from the idiocy of what their users do (for instance I’m not liable for your comments),
  • The legislation allows internet service providers to block websites (without fear of lawsuit) that are deemed a threat to “health and public safety”
  • The legislation would make it illegal to share material on the net the way we’ve done so for years and decades, it destroys the concept of Fair Use.  You could be fined or go to jail.
  • A few infringing links are enough to justify censoring an entire site, blocking good content along with the bad.
  • The US will be able to block a site’s web traffic, ad traffic and search traffic using the same website censorship methods used by China, Iran and Syria.

This legislation is ludicrous and scary.  The average person shouldn’t fear jail time because they remixed a song or music is playing in the background of a video.  We should be able to post our video game speed trials.  I should be able to post images of comics I review or show them off in video, without the fear of everything being seized.  The legislation is flawed.  Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the elected officials championing it and sponsor, has stated “I’m not a technical expert on this,” followed by “I’m trying to ferret this out.”  That’s his response to the fact the bill is flawed.  That shows how broken and not thought out this legislation is.

Take action now and write your elected officials in Washington, DC and tell them “HELL NO” to this.

Disclosure – Brett consults for the ECA as the Online Advocacy Manager
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