The White House's Response to SOPA

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#/!/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet

by sim0n • 15 years ago

290 148 15 years ago

wwws.whitehouse.gov

jinushaun• 15 years ago

Starts with them being strongly against SOPA/PIPA. Ends with them effectively being for SOPA/PIPA. Hmm…

n_coats• 15 years ago

Sounds like politics to me...

nl2• 15 years ago

Well.. no.

They specifically say Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security.... We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.

There may well be some future form of legislation that has some of the same goals of SOPA, but if it leaves that out then it isn't the same legislation that has everyone so upset.

Any new legislation should be treated on its merits. Be cynical, sure, but give them some credit for that statement - it is quite significant.

tumult• 15 years ago

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios.

One of these things is not like the others.

While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. That is why the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response.

We fully support the censorship of the internet, which baffles and scares us. However, this single step may have been too drastic. Please allow us some time to find stepping stones.

kmfrk• 15 years ago

That press statement, to me, is a typical example of using transparency as a political tool to give citizens a false sense of participation.

This is Obama's passivity during the LGBT rights activities during 2011 all over again.

(Well, except that I am sure he wasn't paid to sit idly by when the LGBT movement was at its apex.)

Keep calm and carry on.

darrellsilver• 15 years ago

Is this "passivity" a critique or praise of Obama? Not to go too far off-topic, but...

Despite the economy and foreign policy being by far the most important issue throughout his presidency, his administration has been quite active and successful on LGBT issues.

They've repealed DADT, changed the rules for LGBT in foreign service and passed Matthew Shepard hate crimes legislation.

He's done all this without making LGBT issues a public spectacle, with a Congress that hates him and a public that hasn't made up its mind. It's for these reasons that HRC provides its full-throated support for Obama.

Again -- I'm sorry for derailing the SOPA discussion, but we should keep our facts and impressions well-founded or our primary arguments will fall flat.

jeffreymcmanus2• 15 years ago

I remember 2011, wasn't that the year when don't ask don't tell got repealed?

nl2• 15 years ago

Sure, but you can cherry-pick other parts, too:

Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.

Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security

etc etc

It's not a perfect statement, but real politics is about compromise.

Perhaps a solution can be found so goods manufactures can have some course of action against counterfeit-good websites, without it destroying the internet. I'm not sure what that solution could be, but we shouldn't preclude the possibility.

jonhohle• 15 years ago

> Perhaps a solution can be found so goods manufactures can have some course of action against counterfeit-good websites, without it destroying the internet. I'm not sure what that solution could be, but we shouldn't preclude the possibility.

The civil court system?

xbryanx• 15 years ago

Compromise is appropriate and necessary when advancing civil liberties and protections that have traditionally been ignored by society, not when compromise involves abolishing existing protected liberties.

yummyfajitas3• 15 years ago

Politics isn't a compromise, it's a ratchet. The laws the entrenched interests want are rarely repealed - they are only passed. So we get the DMCA, but we never compromise and eliminate some of the bad parts. We get SOPA (perhaps watered down), and once it's passed, we'll never eliminate the bad parts. Then they try again.

In much the same way, the emergency of 9/11 is over, yet the patriot act still lives. Similarly, bureaucracies get created, but never seem to get destroyed.

Compromise slows things down, but it never seems to stop it. And compromise always goes one way. That's why we can't be satisfied with compromise.

ryanhuff• 15 years ago

Its pretty clear that the government wants is to inject themselves in the whole distribution chain of online commerce, from advertising, search, payment, etc. DNS was just one link. That's pretty worrisome.

kragen• 15 years ago

> It's not a perfect statement, but real politics is about compromise.

We can't win by repeatedly compromising between the status quo and the extremist positions adopted by the MAFIAA. The best we can do is lose more slowly. To win, we need to take the offensive legislatively as well as technologically. I tweeted 25 proposals for this yesterday; here are a couple:

• Instead of fighting to keep DMCA's safe-harbor provisions, let's work to expand them. For example, make filing a false notice costly for the filer: provide a civil cause of action to the speaker whose speech is squelched, with statutory damages of, say, US$3000.

• Legalize noncommercial copyright infringement completely, as long as proper credit is given. The current copyright law was written over the course of 200 years with the idea that it was regulating the commercial activities of publishing companies, and it's far, far too complex to expect ordinary people to understand, particularly in relation to their hobbies. But over the last 30 or 40 years, it's accidentally come to apply every time you SMS your friends or celebrate a birthday in a restaurant. Laws should codify and enforce social norms, not contradict them. This proposal would bring copyright law in line with current social norms among the YouTube set.

• The NET Act redefined "commercial gain" to include the expectation of receiving copyrighted works. Repeal that, because otherwise it criminalizes BitTorrent. (It was actually enacted in order to criminalize David LaMacchia's open-access FTP site, which was a sort of mid-1990s version of MediaFire or DropBox.)

• Require all software developed under government contracts to be released as open source unless it's classified. Taking taxpayer money and investing it in the creation of privately-owned capital goods, such as valuable software copyrights, is straight-up corruption, bordering on embezzlement. If the taxpayers paid for it, they should have the right to use it, as long as that use doesn't interfere with the use it was built for.

• Eliminate FCC device approval for license-free bands like ISM 2.4GHz; prosecute only if illegal emissions occur. This would open up an immense space for hobbyist experimentation in new means of communication, and additionally make it a lot easier to get Wi-Fi cards working on Linux, since right now manufacturers claim the FCC forbids them from providing source to their radio firmware.

djtumolo• 15 years ago

While I think we agree, I don't think cynicism is the way to go about it.

"Information wants to be free" is real, and passing laws to stop it is a fool's errand.

We should be working to harness this new distribution network, and build content businesses that work with piracy, not against it.

stfu• 15 years ago

Additionally the timing is very "suspicious". When already a co-sponsor of the bill announces that some re-drafting is necessary it seems like a very convenient timing to join the train.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

I voted for Obama, but when he says "Let us be clear", you know some bullshit is coming.

Jgrubb• 15 years ago

Quote of the day.

Pelayo• 15 years ago

And anything that starts with "Look...".

jimbokun3• 15 years ago

To me, bullshit indicates that the speaker does not actually believe what he says.

Is it possible that Obama just has different values from you? The way I read it, he very plainly is in favor of prosecuting copyright violators, and simply wants to eliminate some of the more egregious provisions of the currently proposed law.

I don't think Obama is trying to obfuscate that view in any way, and is being very clear about it.

bendotc2• 15 years ago

While I agree with the sentiment, this isn't written under Obama's name. Its listed authors are Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt.

sgaither• 15 years ago

Most of the anti-SOPA companies like Google would agree with the sentiment of this statement. Look at their statement during the SOPA hearings. http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Oyama%2011162011.pdf

"While we have serious concerns with SOPA as written, we look forward to working with the Committee to find focused mechanisms that effectively target foreign rogue sites. Already, Google and other companies are engaged in voluntary, industry-led efforts to attack the problem. As detailed below, we believe that legislation guided by common sense principles and focused on eliminating the financial incentives for rogue sites – while avoiding collateral damage – would receive wide support from the technology sector."

Not everyone who is against SOPA is also (publicly) OK with online piracy...they limit their arguments to the logistical problems introduce by SOPA enforcement

paganel2• 15 years ago

You put too much into their words, but it's simple, they just don't get it. And it's not just the US Government, or the UK Government, or any other Government, it's the entire ruling class who just sits with its head in the sand and wishes that things would just remain the same. The last two times when that huge of a disconnect happened we had the French Revolution and Lenin's grabbing of power in Russia, let's just hope that this time things will be smoother.

Silhouette5• 15 years ago

In what way do the authors of this statement "not get it"?

This thread seems to be full of a depressing amount of cynicism, FUD, or outright lies aimed at the people responsible, but it seems to be one big ad hominem. I don't see a lot of comments even trying to address the substance of the statement.

I do see several posts dismissing the whole response as empty rhetoric that doesn't say anything, even though there are several measures they say quite plainly and unambiguously they won't support (and it is good that they won't). OK, we get it, some of you don't trust Obama/government/the US/whoever. If you start from the position that they're just generating emtpy waffle to appease the critics, you have immediately rendered any contribution you might make irrelevant, since you presuppose that nothing you say matters anyway.

I don't see a single post acknowledging that any realistic official position on this sort of issue must strike a balance between addressing genuine problems with piracy and addressing genuine technical/ethical concerns with the measures used to do so. In fact, that's my big problem with much of the opposition to proposed laws like this: it's all reactive and complaining about bad laws, but no-one is stepping up to propose a real solution that is more technically and ethically acceptable and still does something about the original problem. Shouting abuse from the cheap seats isn't going to advance the debate in any useful way.

Sadly, the level of debate here is more like Slashdot lite than anything constructive: information wants to be free, they wouldn't have bought it anyway so it's not a lost sale, artists aren't entitled to any income and should just give live performances, the big media companies are asking for it with their consumer-hostile policies, intellectual property isn't real property and copyright infringement isn't theft, yada yada. It's just rationalising breaking the law, and I would bet good money that most people doing so haven't got the slightest clue about how many people work in creative industries and the real economics of those industries, though I'd also bet that the same people are among the first to complain about the state of the economy as their taxes go up, unemployment rises, their investment/pension returns fall, and so on.

So, can we please try to have a constructive, balanced debate about this issue from now on? We have clearly reached a tipping point. There is potentially more public awareness and support for action from other businesses both large and small now than at any time in a generation. We can make a robust case that the whole system is broken and needs to be restored to some kind of sanity that can be accepted as reasonable by most people and enforced against the remainder, or we can continue to throw stones at the glass house and convince the political classes beyond any doubt that the lobbyists are the only sane people in the game.

ajays• 15 years ago

I disagree; actually, they _do_ get it. The ruling class gets it very well indeed. They saw the use of the Internet in the Jasmine Revolutions, and are shit scared about it spreading to other countries. This is why they want to jump in and get control of the Internet _now_, while there is still time.

This time they tried the excuse of music and movies (because hey, who doesn't like good music and entertainment?). Next time they'll try with something else (maybe the usual standby, child porn).

Make no mistake about it: SOPA/PIPA will happen, unless we really ratchet up the resistance. A few phone calls to a senator don't cut it. Users likes us, and companies like Google, Facebook, etc. need to put down some serious cash.

Welcome to the big leagues!

ck22• 15 years ago

Words are very very cheap, especially in an election year.

If SOPA passes, the only way to fight it is to make sure it's reverse abused - if a fortune 500 posts a copyrighted image onto their site, get the entire website blocked. If a media outlet uses your youtube video inside their own video broadcast without permission, get their entire website blocked.

Pretty sure all the major news outlet websites could be taken offline at least once a month.

emilsedgh• 15 years ago

Do you honestly think you can take down a fotrune 500 company's website because they infrige a single image's copyright?

Of course they can do it to people, though.

ck22• 15 years ago

If it works like the DMCA system I am positive you could do that.

Even if the corporation owns their own servers the connectivity provider would be required to obey your demand to disconnect them.

Just make sure you aren't doing false claims because that would certainly end up with prison time.

This is exactly how the DMCA works now.

rayiner7• 15 years ago

Sure, with a cooperative judge. Which is why this made-up problem of judicial activism is such a huge threat to democracy. As a highly distributed system, the judiciary is the hardest thing for corporate interests to corrupt.

polymatter• 15 years ago

I'm pretty sure discretion will be used to determine which websites will get forcibly removed.

The real danger is this allows big and powerful interests to kill sites that they don't agree with, without any reasonable investigation or judicial oversight.

jeffreymcmanus2• 15 years ago

"discretion" isn't actually called for in the statute.

The only real "discretion" that should come into play here is the due process imposed by a court (which also unfortunately is not called for in the statute).

MichaelApproved• 15 years ago

"If a media outlet uses your youtube video inside their own video broadcast without permission, get their entire website blocked."

Will YouTube be around if SOPA passes?

literalusername• 15 years ago

So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here?

I want you to go home, and stop legislating the Internet.

54mf• 15 years ago

This is what jumped out at me. It's a disgusting attempt to reframe the discussion, which is exactly what SOPA/PIPA proponents want. We can discuss where we go from here after we destroy the horrific pending legislation.

jebblue• 15 years ago

The Internet will not remain the Wild West of the world forever.

gnaritas• 15 years ago

Why shouldn't it?

NanoWar• 15 years ago

How is cyber security risk related to online piracy? I dont get it.

freejack• 15 years ago

Its not. But a lobbyist said so at some point and it gets repeated as truth.

lloeki• 15 years ago

I seem to recall I read somewhere here that SOPA would actually threaten DNSSEC. Can't find it again. Maybe I misread.

rmassie• 15 years ago

I posted this in the comments on the FastCompany article, but it applies here too.

"the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders"

New legal tools aren't needed in the US. If you're going to stop international piracy, you need to encourage other countries to pass DMCA style laws, not anything more draconian like 3-strikes laws. The DMCA has allowed innovation in technology to happen while still providing a method for take-down that results in a judge seeing it if it is contested.

I understand they're trying to find middle ground, but there really is no middle ground to be had. I also contest the idea that it's actually harming jobs. During the economic downturn the media industries have been doing just fine, much better than the rest of the economy. Combating piracy with SOPA and PIPA style laws will not result in an increase in revenue and will almost certainly result in a decrease. It shows a lack of understanding on the part of the White House.

DevX101• 15 years ago

This was a good response. It obviously doesn't solve the issue, but I wouldn't expect it to do so from a simple internet petition. What this does is block support for one of the more egregious parts of the bill and invites internet engineers to the table to craft a better bill.

The technology industry can't simply be reactive to bad laws. It has to be proactive in promoting the passage of good laws.

Get the signatories to this letter[1] and have them come up with a law, independent of SOPA, that defines protections for internet freedom.

After that's done (or in parallel), go back to the table with the MPAA and other SOPA sponsors to see how online piracy can be addressed in a way that does not conflict with the previous law.

1. https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-L...

Vivtek2• 15 years ago

What this does is block support

What it does is make you happy, at the expense of some nice, non-binding rhetoric that Obama will happily violate as soon as he finds it expedient. Just like every other rhetoric he's ever emitted - all of which gives me warm fuzzies, too; I'd pay to listen to him talk all day. But Guantánamo is still in business, and so would SOPA be if he had an iota of political hay to make from it.

jimbokun3• 15 years ago

The fuzzies com from people just assuming he shares their viewpoints because he is on the "left," "progressive" side of politics. But if you look at what he actually said during his campaign, versus what people read into what he was saying, it predicted the way he actually governs fairly well. Sure, he has not followed up on all of his campaign promises, but they were a pretty good indicator for what he has actually done since taking office.

tzs• 15 years ago

> But Guantánamo is still in business

What could Obama have done about that? He tried within a week of taking office to shut it down, but was blocked by Congress, the States, and various foreign governments.

rayiner7• 15 years ago

> But Guantánamo is still in business,

You can't extoll the virtues of a distributed, decentralized government then sweep its implications under the rug when you want to criticize a particular person.

josscrowcroft• 15 years ago

A fantastic and eloquent display of saying virtually nothing at all.

ajross2• 15 years ago

Yes, but some of those nothings are important. It doesn't say "the whitehouse supports SOPA as-is", it doesn't say the president will sign it. It doesn't attack the opponents of the bill, instead embracing lots of their language.

(It also has some real meat too: like "We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.")

What this is, is a cave. SOPA lost, and the Whitehouse is cutting bait. Maybe there will be another bill, maybe not. But SOPA has gone from being a cheery bipartisan bill that "everyone" supports to a controversial bill that no politician in their right mind will get behind.

So they'll all say something like this: we need to honor the interests of party A in a way that doesn't infringe the interests of party B because this is very very important yada yada yada. And then they'll do nothing.

We won. Pop the cork. Just don't expect profuse apologies coming from the folks in Washington.

ashcairo• 15 years ago

I guess it reads so topsy turny because it was written by three different people; a legal expert, a security expert and a health care expert.

I'm with Neil deGrasse Tyson.. More engineers should get into politics.

Derbasti• 15 years ago

How can there ever be a legislative tool to fight foreign pirates? By definition, national laws only ever work within one's own border.

Isn't it sad to see how hard a time governments have with coping with internationalization?

pedalpete• 15 years ago

I don't know that they are focusing outside their borders. They are acknowledging that they understand the challenges of internationalization. Copyright laws are not equal internationally, and of course you can host your servers everywhere, but what they can do, which is the scary part, is block the infringing domain within their borders which would cut the infringing company out of the US market, and if other countries followed suit, you've essentially got an active international domain filtering system which is very threatening to free speach. This is how I see the problem.

It is a small step to filtering the internet, first because of piracy, but the same system once in place, could be used to block other content the gov't views as not for consumption by it's citizens.

I think much of the concern over SOPA is not the fear that the government would actually do that, but why take that risk and head down that road.

furyg3• 15 years ago

I'm not quite clear on how large-scale piracy has anything to do with security (cyber or otherwise).

maeon3• 15 years ago

Sites like wiki-leaks and people who use PTP protocols to expose and make transparent the slimy deals and long term political agendas of the rulers, congress and the federal reserve.

The "censor the internet" functionality will increase security by providing congress a big red button in the whitehouse: "erase_this_file_all_over_the_world_and_block_access_to_it_and_everything_like_it(int threat_level);"

jamii• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative...

Apparently, DNSSEC would not be able to distinguish between malicious redirection and US DNS blocking. If it treated them both the same way it might be regarded as circumventing the DNS block which would, naturally, be illegal.

markkat• 15 years ago

"I guarantee that I will add a strongly worded signing statement that will indicate that I do not wholly approve SOPA when I sign it."

Sorry, but I have little faith that this administration will do the right thing. If Obama said what he will specifically not sign off on, then I might be a bit more optimistic.

vaksel• 15 years ago

+ we don't have a king, what one administration does, won't mean jack when another administration takes reigns. These guys want these tools so they can use them eventually.

warmfuzzykitten• 15 years ago

He said he wouldn't sign the NDAA, then he did. The only thing worse would be a President who won't even say he won't sign bad laws.

jsz0• 15 years ago

He said he wouldn't sign NDAA until certain provisions were removed and they were.

uptown• 15 years ago

The stated focus of SOPA reminds me a lot of the Patriot Act in that it's initial intent is focused on "foreign websites". The Patriot Act was defined as a tool to be used to monitor foreign communications but has gradually expanded to cover more domestic matters. Make the public accept something they're less likely to oppose by making it "not about them" ... then turn around and tweak a few provisions to expand the scope once all the pieces are in place.

klahaeck• 15 years ago

A lot filler with no definitive position, for or against. You can't write a response that everyone in the country will approve of. Take a stance, please.

drinian2• 15 years ago

new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity.

In short, reserving the right to build a Great Firewall around the US.

rquantz2• 15 years ago

What am I missing here? This statement and your response seem utterly unrelated. This is what I read:

targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law

A gap exists in current law, and new laws should be aimed at that gap instead of at increasing penalties for existing law.

cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws

The new law should not criminalize things that are not already illegal.

with strong due process

It shouldn't give the government the right to take away property without trial.

focused on criminal activity

Rather than, for instance, speech the government doesn't like.

You can disbelieve the statement, but I don't see a way to read this as an implicit reservation of the right to China-style censorship. It is in fact claiming exactly the opposite.

I'm not saying that I totally trust the Administration's motives, or that I believe they will necessarily do the right thing, but I don't think this sentence has any sinister undertones. What do you see in here that says otherwise?

pbz• 15 years ago

Foreign sites are outside of the "current US law". The only way you can influence them would be to either "convince" the foreign nation to follow the US law, unlikely for most countries, or somehow block the site and hence the great US firewall.

bediger5• 15 years ago

The "gap" existing in current laws hasn't been demonstrated. That's one of the real issues here. How much harm does counterfeit drugs do? How much harm does "stolen" "IP" do?

Once we establish harm, then we can propose solutions. Once we propose solutions, we can see if any solution actually cures the problem, and doesn't cause more problems than it solves.

That's basic policy making 101. Don't make everyone look at your Beautiful Assistant while you shove the problems induced by the solution behind the black curtain.

drinian2• 15 years ago

Everything that China blocks with their national firewall is considered "illegal" in China. That is, in fact, the exact same justification, even the same wording, that was used to build the Great Firewall of China.

It's true, in many ways US law is much more just than Chinese law. But that doesn't mean that walling off US citizens from the rest of the Internet in any way is a good idea.

sehugg• 15 years ago

One of the authors, Victoria Espinel, made these suggestions to Congress last year (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-con...):

* Ensure that, in appropriate circumstances, infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony;

* Authorize DHS (including its component CBP) to share pre-seizure information about, and samples of, products and devices with rightholders to help DHS to determine whether the products are infringing or the devices are circumvention devices; and

* Give law enforcement wiretap authority for criminal copyright and trademark offenses.

Doesn't look like a "soft" position to me.

nhangen4• 15 years ago

Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy

I don't believe this.

provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders

Here we go being policemen of the world.

marquis• 15 years ago

That's in regards to US companies having their content/good pirated overseas, for example a fake pair of Levis being sold online. I don't get the sense that they want to (or think they can) control the internet outside the US, where it has nothing to do with US interests.

nhangen4• 15 years ago

My point is that a fake pair of Levis being sold online isn't going to harm anyone aside from the people foolish enough to buy them from the wrong source.

yummyfajitas3• 15 years ago

There are two separate issues with a fake pair of Levis. Does the customer know they are fake? And do the friends of the customer know they are fake?

The first is an easily solvable problem - Levis Corp could create a registry of verified vendors, which customers could check before buying.

The second one is the problem the law is trying to solve. People often buy a bag with a G written on it that they know doesn't come from Gucci. They get the status benefit of Gucci without actually paying $1000/bag.

I.e., it's basically a back door way of bringing back sumptuary laws: it's illegal to display status unless you have status.

ddw• 15 years ago

I can see it now: "I don't agree with everything in this bill, but I'm going to sign it."

I just don't believe them anymore.

sudonim2• 15 years ago

You guys do know Victoria Espinel right? Her position as "Copyright Czar" was created by Obama's government.

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Espinel:

Espinel received eleven letters of in support of the nomination from related organizations including the MPAA, the Copyright Alliance, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.[7] As the IPEC, Espinel has stated she has a singular objective: develop and implement a comprehensive, unified approach to IP enforcement for the U.S. government.[1]

So if the response reads a little suspicious, it's because she (and presumably the administration) has a side on the issue.

jimbokun3• 15 years ago

Why is it "suspicious?" Yes, the administration has a stance on this issue, one that is not popular amongst the readers of this site. But I don't think they are denying that stance or pretending to believe anything else.

sudonim2• 15 years ago

Suspicious was the wrong word. It reads to me like a lot of agreeing with SOPA opposition: "We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet."

But then tries to jam in:

"That is why the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders"

No! The internet has no borders. American laws and "rights" don't apply outside of the United States. That's why the United States tortures people outside of the US. You can't say that US law applies to copying MP3s, but not torture.

That's why if you read between the lines, the response is not saying "We agree with you.", it's saying "I'll get you next time, Gadget, next time."

jermar• 15 years ago

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small."

Online censorship is anti constitution, whether the activity is lawful or not. This whole thing is a mess.

goombastic• 15 years ago

As someone who has watched the US from outside, I find it difficult to understand how Obama has become the biggest sell out in history ever. This man is now seems the slave of the corporates that run the American congress. He seemed to represent hope, a new page and so many other things, and here we are in 2012, with the US wanting to gag the internet with despots and dictators from around the world waiting on the sidelines for these tools to be available.

How did this happen?

SoftwareMaven• 15 years ago

As someone who voted for him, it is beyond frustrating to feel the same way. I'd vote for Santorum before Oboma (not that I would ever vote for Santorum).

steve-howard• 15 years ago

I didn't vote for him in 2008 because despite his speaking ability and his lofty pretenses, I knew we'd be back to business as usual. We have a two-party system in which the biggest difference is who takes money from whom.

anamax• 15 years ago

> He seemed to represent hope

> How did this happen?

The word that you're looking for is "rube", as in "he played you for a sucker". Or rather, you played yourself for a sucker.

Obama has behaved as expected by anyone who actually paid attention.

hugoestr• 15 years ago

Oh, wait, didn't Obama claim similar concerns over NDAA? Good that he vetoed that bill.

slurgfest3• 15 years ago

Because it would obviously make sense to cut off funding for Veteran's health and ongoing security operations just to head off anyone telling outrageous stretchers about how it creates "martial law".

Either way, the GOP wins

rayiner7• 15 years ago

NDAA = National Defense Authorization Act. It's the legislation that's passed every year to basically keep the Department of Defense in existence.

This is, of course, why we really need a line-item veto amendment. Because Congress can basically make a provision "un-vetoable" by including it in some giant appropriations bill.

chernevik• 15 years ago

"We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values."

Wrong. We do this every single time we instruct a jury that the accused must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, when we advise a drug dealer he needn't co-operate in his own prosecution. Our system explicitly agrees that the liberties it recognizes will be abused by some bad actors.

Failing on that principle, it fails on the less important ones. It doesn't support DNS filtering, but it doesn't reject it either. The implication is that it just might be okay if targeted with sufficient precision, and never mind the precedent set. Without recognizing the technical and civil rights principles that make DNS filtering unacceptable on principle, it goes on to place responsibility for piracy prevention on everyone -- "Washington needs to hear your best ideas".

In short, the statement accepts the MPAA's bottom line as an absolute requirement -- something must be done about piracy! -- without recognizing the tech community's as such. That, my friends, is how you lay the groundwork for a "compromise" in the eyes of well-meaning moderates who don't really understand the issue. If I were trying to set someone up as an unrealistic radical, I'd do so just like this.

Does the WH care about getting the fundamentals right in the eyes of those who really understand them? Or does it want to position those fundamentals as the excess demands of unreasonable people who just won't compromise constructively? A great deal could ride on the answer. And remember, the question is being put here by some White House staffer who doesn't seem to grasp the implications of the 5th Amendment.

rayiner7• 15 years ago

I think the response to this letter represents everything that's wrong with the tech community's approach to SOPA, etc.

You can't pretend the political process doesn't exist. We live in a country of 300 million people, each other their own interests, and this is the ugly way they all get hashed out.

At it's core, the White House's response to this petition is both reasonable and an opportunity. Basically they say: 1) we don't want to shut down Google, reddit, etc 2) we can't ignore the grievances of copyright holders, and asks the internet community for help reconciling (1) and (2).

Some of the things facilitated through places like thepiratebay.org are completely illegal, and I don't think anyone is trying to justify those activities. What people are doing, rather, is creating this extreme dichotomy: either thepiratebay.org exists completely in its current form, or you have to censor the entire internet. That is not the dichotomy you want to create, because losing that battle would be of course disastrous.

Given the current climate, and the status of Google, Apple, et al as the only bright part of a dismal economy, the tech industry is uniquely positioned to help pass an extremely narrow law that does little more than give people the political ammo to tell the MPAA/RIAA "hey you already got what you want!" But that'll require a willingness to participate in the political process that I don't think these companies have.

chc• 15 years ago

They did already get what they wanted. It was called the DMCA. I don't think your plan will do much more to stop them. They won't be satisfied until they completely eliminate piracy, and that won't happen without horrible measures (completely stamping out almost any crime is the same way)

rayiner7• 15 years ago

The DMCA, for all its warts, was a pretty decent solution. The DMCA safe harbor provisions, and the body of precedent that has been built up around it, has been crucial in allowing the growth of sites like Youtube.

The problem now is foreign sites that host copyrighted material, which the DMCA doesn't help with much. This is not an imaginary problem. Over Thanksgiving, my mom was showing my aunt how to download movies from these sites.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but "don't legislate the internet" won't be part of that solution. The world has laws, and the internet is just a way for real-world people to communicate. It will be subject to law. They can either be good laws protective of peoples' rights or they can be bad ones. If the technology community takes its marbles and goes home, it will be the latter.

meow• 15 years ago

tl;dr In this election year, we can't afford to anger either party.

pasbesoin• 15 years ago

Well, Barry, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

To quote a well known band, "We won't get fooled again."

guelo• 15 years ago

Is there really a piracy problem? Is there not enough entertainment being produced?

linuxhansl• 15 years ago

SOPA is bad.

Personally I do not understand why this gets so much more attention than the military spending act, which allows for indefinite detention on terrorist suspicion. And that includes US citizens.

The White House's Response to SOPA

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