
Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT - andrewdumont
http://boingboing.net/2011/11/16/internet-giants-place-full-pag.html
======
tomjen3
If that is the kind of ads tech giants make, then we have all lost.

This needs more Don Draper and less wall of text. It needs to tell a
compelling story with a righteous underdog fighting the good fight which would
be squashed if this law passes. It needs to paint anybody who support it as a
traitor to America(TH).

And it needs to rebrand it the "Killing the American Dream Act" so that nobody
can politically afford to support it.

~~~
marquis
Just posted: Republican Darrell Issa says "it has no chance of passage".

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/17/idUS40280193622011...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/17/idUS402801936220111117)

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protomyth
The tech industry has enough money to buy 10x more lobbyists than the
entertainment industry. This would be a wiser investment than the ads.

~~~
teej
I know it may seem that way on the surface, but the proponents of this bill
are larger than you think.

The MPAA represents companies with a combined market cap of $250 billion
dollars. That's small enough for us to beat, but Pfizer ($150bn market cap)
and Microsoft ($220bn market cap) are also major proponents. All together,
there's a LOT of muscle behind this act, lobbyists alone aren't going to cut
it.

~~~
meterplech
Not to sound naive here- but why does Microsoft support this if all the others
don't?

~~~
_delirium
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) seems to be in favor:
[http://www.bsa.org/country/News%20and%20Events/News%20Archiv...](http://www.bsa.org/country/News%20and%20Events/News%20Archives/en/2011/en-10262011-smithbill.aspx)

Its members are made up of mainly non-web technology companies that sell
expensive products and are worried about piracy or counterfeiting of those
products: Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, Symantec, etc. Conversely, they
don't run user-generated-content sites like YouTube or Facebook, so aren't
worried about the problems with weakening safe harbors.

~~~
fmota
Allow me to be cynical but, if SOPA passes and breaks the Internet, these
software companies would gain a lot. Especially Microsoft. Remember the "good
old days" of Microsoft Everything? I hope you're as fond of them as these
software companies seem to be.

~~~
einhverfr
The paranoid security geek in me says "You know those Microsoft contributions
to SAMBA lately? Could they go for a takedown order of the open source project
on the allegation of copyright infringement now and make the SAMBA project
fight to get their domain back?"

~~~
sliverstorm
Is "You gave it to me!" no longer a valid defense as for why you have someone
else's IP?

~~~
Symmetry
Yes it certainly is. And its so obvious that I bet the trial would take less
than a year. But that's a year where Samba doesn't have a web page now.

------
thematt
If Google was serious they'd put something on their front page. The readership
of the New York Times is nothing compared to Google's traffic.

~~~
jrockway
With great power comes great responsibility. If Google uses their core product
for every political battle they need to engage in, it cheapens the brand. SOPA
is evil, but it's not going to severely injure Google. So it's not worth
cheapening their product for.

~~~
redthrowaway
While I agree with you that they need to be careful not to cheapen their
brand, I'd argue that they have a history of displaying custom doodles for far
less significant things. A simple "stop censorship" doodle, akin to those
being displayed by a number of other websites, would go a long way without
cheapening Google's brand.

~~~
jrockway
"Merry Christmas" is a very different message from "Get rid of a law that will
cause us to make less money".

~~~
enmaku
More like "stop a bill from being passed into law which may shut down us and
the rest of the internet as you know it" - do you have any idea how much labor
it would take to be a search engine, video site or social networking site if
you were liable for the legal status of all user-created content? Practically
every site you use would go under, including the one we're on right now.

~~~
bluedanieru
Well, that's not how it would happen of course. It's actually worse than you
think. If the law were used like you propose, there would be a massive outcry
to the point that it would have to be invalidated. Instead, it will be
selectively enforced, like everything else these days, in the interest of
maintaining power and control for the parties that have purchased this law
from their government.

Of course, in ten years time it could have an industry-wide chilling effect
much like the DMCA, however in the meantime that will not happen. That's not
how you introduce creeping, malicious legislation, and the folks responsible
for this know that, of course.

------
skb_
I've been thinking a bit about this and it's more a detriment to the United
States than it is to the Internet. Censorship is a losing battle, especially
with an educated public. There's just no way that this can work, it's a
perpetual cat and mouse at best.

I feel that SOPA will pass, there's no doubt in my mind - it will just be a
much watered down version, much like any other bill that passes these days.
Even this so-called "anti-SOPA" ad is not really anti-SOPA, it just disagrees
with certain aspects of the bill. They're basically asking for a compromise
and they'll get it. There will probably be a long and expensive process in
order to shut sites down. There will probably be some clauses about staying up
if you are compliant with take-down notices. And there will probably be more
bureaucrats added to the system, with jobs that are essentially useless and
another needless expense. Ultimately, it will be like the War on Drugs, War on
Terror, TSA and what have you; some far-fetched, pie in the sky plan that
never had a chance of working in the first place.

The sad part is that people in Washington don't understand the consequences of
what they are doing. They seem to think they have a blank check to play around
with. Slowly but surely, they add things like this and the government gets
bigger and more expensive to run. You can't just fire bureaucrats, they have a
knack for sticking around.

I can't help but feel like I'm watching the slow death of a once great nation.
I haven't heard anything lately coming out of Capitol Hill that has any
semblance of intelligence.

~~~
theoj
>> And there will probably be more bureaucrats added to the system, with jobs
that are essentially useless and another needless expense.

This is really twisted. The industry is taking something it wants to do --
draconian copyright enforcement -- and passing that activity (plus the cost)
to taxpayers. The system is broken. You can clearly see that when special
interest groups that represent a small minority can get taxpayer money and
spend it against the majority while at the same time getting the majority to
pay.

------
mikemoka
Web companies should know how to write a readable text, it's pity they could
just come up with something like that.

This text is not coincise, it doesn't draw the attention of the reader to any
specific point and it shows several other shortcomings, if the message ever
comes across I am pretty sure this page won't help.

~~~
thomasgerbe
Yes, they could've come up with one or two sentences that appealed to the
emotion and pushed the reader to a custom url relating to this issue. Or even
an exaggerated screenshot of what could happen if the bill passes.

Ah well. Rational writeups are all fine and good but not when you probably
have a split second to capture the attention with an ad.

~~~
lancewiggs
It's aimed at the committee members, not the average punter, and it is serious
because an emotional non-fact-based driven approach would backfire. The
NYTimes location hints at the power they have to do more.

------
grandalf
If you're in the tech industry and you realize how stupid this proposed law
is, realize that it's no more stupid than the vast majority of laws passed by
congress, you're just better equipped to judge it.

~~~
JoshTriplett
"when a respected information source covers something where you have on-the-
ground experience, the result is often to make you wonder how much fecal
matter you’ve swallowed in areas outside your own expertise." -- Rusty Russell

------
panthera
The ad proves the old maxim true: "Everyone's a reactionary against something
they know about."

Nearly all of the companies listed in this ad were heavy donors to the Obama
administration. Now they understand what their donation got them.

Everyone in the Internet industry feels extreme pain when these regulations
are proposed, and rightly so. SOPA is an insane example of a bankrupt
government flailing about.

However, the same commentariat thinks that regulation is somehow "necessary"
in medicine, law, or energy.

("<Calamity-of-the-day> could have been prevented if we just had more rules on
the books! Surely the evil profit-making corporations would cut every corner
they could, just to make a buck! It's not like taking it in the shorts every
single day in the press will hit their stock price!")

Once you've tasted government intervention in your industry, you'll want some
mouthwash.

~~~
i386
Its simple to think that regulation is good and bad if you generalize and say
that no industry should/should not be regulated just because it causes
inconvenience.

Regulation should be in place to put safeties into a system. What i mean by
that is don't let people "cheat" too much. By cheating the reasonable bounds
of the system the whole system would suffer (people dying, civil liberties
slashed or financial systems collapsing).

That said industries you would want tight regulation on is in the food or
medical industries.

Nothing is black and white but always varying shades of grey.

------
ck2
Where is the url in there for more information/followup? Wasted opportunity.

I don't mean to diminish this effort but just imagine this kind of response
every time we decided to declare war somewhere far far away. I'd be impressed.
Certainly sending people to be maimed or killed is just as critical?

~~~
philwelch
Don't you remember the momentous uproar over Iraq? There were non-stop
protests for at least a year before the war actually started, and for years
afterwards.

There were no similar protests over Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya because the
US was only providing air support, and because Afghanistan started only a
month after 9/11 and everyone was still shocked and compliant.

~~~
Vivtek
ck2 probably doesn't remember the momentous uproar over Iraq because the media
was not at all interested in covering the protests. Unless you were in a city
where a protest was going on and physically saw it, it basically didn't
happen.

And there _were_ protests over Afghanistan; I participated in some myself. We
weren't all shocked and compliant - the first thing I said upon seeing burning
towers on the TV at the Indiana University Student Union was "Reichstag", and
I wasn't wrong.

~~~
philwelch
There are protests over everything at all times. That's why the media doesn't
cover them. They aren't news. There are crowds of demonstrators in every major
city, outside of every abortion clinic, and on the National Mall in DC 24
hours a day.

The Iraq protests were the largest protest movement in decades and lasted for
years. It really wasn't difficult to find out about them.

> the first thing I said upon seeing burning towers on the TV at the Indiana
> University Student Union was "Reichstag", and I wasn't wrong.

Well, there's always _someone_ comparing the current administration to
Nazis....

~~~
Vivtek
_It really wasn't difficult to find out about them._

Heh. You live in a large city.

~~~
philwelch
Only since January. I only lived in small towns, not even metropolitan areas,
up until then.

------
jamiequint
There was also a full page ad in today's Wall Street Journal, same letter.
<http://pic.twitter.com/jisFPt4s>

------
damoncali
Am I the only one that did a double-take when I saw Zynga on there?

~~~
dylangs1030
Despite their recent PR blunder (and what a blunder it was), they're still
considered a tech giant. Their IPO passed a billion benchmark, so they are in
a position to say, "Hey, look at us, we kinda know a thing or two about the
internet."

~~~
damoncali
Giant? There are a bajillion small tech companies across the country that make
more money than that.

~~~
dylangs1030
In terms of their industry - no company does as well with social networking
games. It piggybacked on Facebook's success before Facebook made it more
difficult to become very successful in that area.

------
therandomguy
I wonder if we can start a site called PoliticiansAgainstInternet.org, get it
a lot of publicity and sway the votes away from them. It should be so popular
that politicians will dread getting on that list. Maybe Anon can dig up more
dirt and expose it on there?

~~~
therandomguy
*not sure how to edit the comment, hence replying.

The site would have "pay to promote button". People who care keeps donating
which will directly fuel the ad campaigns set up on adsense, facebook ads,
twitter promoted links etc. It will be all over the place.

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bobbles
95% of people would look at that wall of text and turn the page.. they really
needed something that would actually draw in peoples attention if they want it
to get noticed

~~~
krschultz
The 5% that read it are the ones who influence policy in Washington. The most
powerful thing on that page is not the text - it's the logos on the bottom.
The average senator can not tell you the difference between a DNS server and a
Warez server, but they know who Facebook, Google, eBay, et al are.

Remember, there are a lot of people out there who go to Google and type in
www.gmail.com into the search box on a daily basis. To them, Google IS the
internet.

~~~
bobbles
I was just thinking about it and I'm sure if all the page said was 'Stop SOPA'
and had all of those logos there.. I would be _wanting_ to find out more about
the issue.

------
dmboyd
> We support the bills’ stated goals "providing additional enforcement tools
> to combat foreign "rogue" websites that are dedicated to copyright
> infringement or counterfeiting"...

Why doesn't anyone just call bullshit on the whole concept of the US extending
its law to apply to the rest of the world?

~~~
dylangs1030
Well, because while that's a popular theme in United States history, it's not
relevant here. The websites in other countries would not be literally sued
into oblivion if their servers aren't in U.S. territory - they'd be blocked
via DNS intervention.

So, really, the United States wouldn't be extending its law to apply anywhere
else but the United States. It would be blocking what content is viewable
within the borders. But this isn't even the real issue - because you can still
bypass this using the IP address directly instead of the domain name. The real
issue is the corporate abuses which could be allowed to take place within our
borders if websites aren't deemed to be doing enough. It could make the
internet environment tyrannical in content control for fear of websites being
shut down.

------
muppetman
This is great. It's just a shame the last time anyone picked up a paper was
about 10 years ago. Can't argue with the sentiment though.

~~~
suivix
Senior citizens pick up papers, and all of them go to the voting booths.

~~~
muppetman
Yes, but do Senior Citizens recognise many of those brands?

~~~
robertk
Yes.

------
baby
What is also impressive is the presence of Zynga in the internet giants club.

~~~
myoder
I was thinking the exact same thing!

~~~
wtvanhest
I was thinking the opposite. Outside of Silicon Valley people say things like,
you know Zynga... the company that made farmville. People think it is a 1
employee company. (I know they have a $B+ valuation, but no one outside the
valley does, especially not law makers)

------
swasheck
Well played, MS and Apple.

~~~
chollida1
I don't want this to sound snarky but....

Do you know that they were invited and declined?

is it possible that no one asked them to join, or declined to let them join?

~~~
yahelc
It's certainly in Apple's interest that this pass. Less piracy -> More iTunes
customers. More iTunes customers -> More iOS devices sold. More iOS devices
sold -> More profit for Apple.

~~~
JoshTriplett
These bills would also allow someone to demand the takedown of the entire
iTunes store over a single allegation of copyright infringement in a single
app. Consider how much trouble they've had with patent trolls in the past.

~~~
yahelc
iTunes Store != App Store

------
roxtar
Did anyone notice the missing Godzilla-head in Mozilla's logo?

------
d0mine
The irony. The giants of Internet advertising spread their message via dead-
tree paper ads.

~~~
qsun
because dead-tree paper is cheaper

------
natch
A TLDR skim of this ad by the average NYT reader will see only this: We
support the bill.

Yes, I omitted the words "goals of the" [edit: 's stated goals] but I'm
talking about what the average reader will get out of the ad before they flip
to the next page.

Not good, imho. And yes, they do care about the average reader. If they were
trying to reach people other than the average reader, there are better ways to
do that.

~~~
lotu
That is irrelevant as the average NYT reader is not the target of this ad.
This ad is a letter to the people listed in the first line, delivered to them
via the NYT. Unlike a letter which will be handled by an intern this letter
will be read directly by the congressmen it is addressed to, and by spending
the money for the full page ad they express who serious they are about this.

~~~
natch
Then it's even worse, because the average congressperson is not nearly as
bright as the average NYT reader.

------
artursapek
Very nice. It's a nice touch that the logos at the bottom are in alphabetical
order. I want a copy of this

------
jpdoctor
Full page ad? Big deal. Obviously they screwed up by not buying a bunch of
senators and congressman.

Fools.

------
Igor_Bratnikov
Glad to see a public stance by the internet community

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sidwyn
Besides the gist of the ad, I noticed that Facebook did not use their logo
without a background (AOL too).

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iradik
Huh. Google should take out an ad on its front page!

Maybe censor all requests coming from the .gov domains.

