
The White House's Response to SOPA - sim0n
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#/!/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet
======
tumult
_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.

~~~
nl
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.

~~~
yummyfajitas
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want are rarely repealed - they are only passed.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.

~~~
ovi256
Bureaucracies and bad laws are destroyed - in wars when you're on the losing
side.

Just ask Japan and half of Europe after WW2 for example. Maybe that enabled
the great 30 years that followed ?

~~~
narrator
Very few governments will ever willfully simplify themselves. The trend is
always for more complexity, more departments, more officials, more wars, more
government employees. This happened with the Maya, the Romans, the Egyptians,
and practically ever other fallen civilization. That's because a civilization
gets used to solving problems in a certain way and when they start to get a
negative marginal return on their investment, they keep trudging along and
eventually the society collapses unless there's a new source of technological
capability that can keep things moving along. Anyway, that's just Joseph A.
Tainter's "Collapse Of Complex Societies" in a nutshell for ya'.

------
sehugg
One of the authors, Victoria Espinel, made these suggestions to Congress last
year ([http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-
con...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/15/concrete-steps-congress-can-
take-protect-americas-intellectual-property)):

* 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.

------
rayiner
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
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)

~~~
rayiner
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.

~~~
est
> Over Thanksgiving, my mom was showing my aunt how to download movies from
> these sites.

I am Chinese, I play tons of pirated games, over thanksgiving, I bought my
favorite ones on Steam at a discount price, even thought I have done playing
it.

The funny thing is, to pay for those games, I have to fake my country code and
get an American IP address using a VPN. Is it pirating if stuff are not even
available on my local market?

------
sudonim
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.

~~~
jimbokun
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.

~~~
sudonim
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."

------
ck2
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
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.

~~~
ck2
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.

~~~
ajross
No, the DMCA doesn't work like that. It doesn't require any action by the site
owner at all. It simply says that _if_ you demand removal in the proper manner
_and_ the content is removed from the site promptly, _then_ the site owner
cannot be held liable for any infringement. In practice, site owners are very
responsive to DMCA demands from "big content" and pretty much ignore them from
everyone else.

~~~
wl
Granted, the plural of anecdote is not data, but I've filed six DMCA takedown
notices for photographs I've placed under Creative Commons licenses but were
not used according to the terms of those licenses. Every company I dealt with
took swift action to take down the infringing material.

~~~
sunir
I am sure those were reasonable demands but the proposition here is for a
nuisance "work to rule" campaign. Understanding the political motivation, the
big companies _could_ call your bluff and wait for a court order, expensive to
obtain.

Not a real downside risk, but my point is that the circumstances are not
directly comparable once the intention is to kick the hornet's nest.

------
chernevik
"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.

------
DevX101
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...](https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/Internet-Engineers-
Letter.pdf)

~~~
Vivtek
_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.

~~~
rayiner
> 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.

~~~
Vivtek
I've been thinking about your response for most of the day. A rant follows.

I'm having real troubles seeing how torture is the direct result of a
distributed, decentralized government based on the Magna Carta and the rule of
law, and even greater difficulties with the idea that one man who happens to
be the fucking President of the United States and a Constitutional scholar who
promised to make America live up to its honor can't somehow induce the fucking
military of which he is the Commander in Chief to shut down an illegal torture
facility that is in blatant violation of our treaty obligations. That's not
sweeping the implications under the rug, that's what I consider to be, you
know, kind of the point of having a government. Or America, really. You want
to call Nazi-lite a natural outcome of a distributed decentralized government,
you just go right ahead, but we might as well just ask the last American out
to turn off the lights on democracy if that's so.

</rant> God, I hate politics.

------
rmassie
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.

------
literalusername
_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.

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

~~~
gnaritas
Why shouldn't it?

------
nhangen
_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
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.

~~~
yummyfajitas
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.

~~~
nhangen
You can't put a value on status. How do you propose they enforce it?

Furthermore, what's to stop me from sewing a Levi's tag on a pair of Wal-Mart
jeans?

There are bigger fish to fry, let the free market run its course.

~~~
bediger
I propose they enforce it selectively, because _everybody knows_ that a
certain class of people is entitled to show status, and that _certain other
classes_ of people are not entitled to it. "Sumptuary laws". I like that term.
It lets The Police take a few people down a notch or two when they're getting
too big for their britches. Yeah!

~~~
slurgfest
We are way down the rabbit hole here: from outlawing the sale of jeans labeled
"Levi's" produced by some Chinese company without an arrangement with Levi's,
to evil classist laws against wearing Levi's unless you're part of the upper
crust (wut?) and now all the way down to saying that the point is to let the
police abuse people.

No, seriously, this part REALLY IS about selling goods with misleading
labels... Levi's are not especially expensive, you can buy them easily at the
thrift store, and none of this has anything to do with letting the police
abuse people.

~~~
yummyfajitas
In NY, counterfeit goods are often sold in the following way. You buy a bag
that looks like a Hermes bag, but the label is blank. You get to choose your
own monogram for it for $20 extra. I.e., you go to chinatown and pay a guy to
write "Hermes" on an unlabeled bag. Such operations are often shut down by
undercover cops.

Are you really going to argue that this is about misleading labels, when the
customer deliberately chose the misleading label?

If it were about misleading labels, it would be legal to sell fake Levi's as
long as you post a sign saying "Attn Customer: This is NOT real Levi's". It's
not about misleading customers. It's about protecting the profits of status
sellers.

------
uptown
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.

------
drinian
_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.

~~~
rquantz
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?

~~~
drinian
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.

~~~
rquantz
_Everything that China blocks with their national firewall is considered
"illegal" in China._

Yes, but the statement refers to existing US law, not Chinese law. In the US,
speech is protected.

------
Derbasti
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
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.

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

~~~
ajross
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.

------
jinushaun
Starts with them being strongly against SOPA/PIPA. Ends with them effectively
being _for_ SOPA/PIPA. Hmm…

~~~
nl
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.

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

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

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

~~~
iclelland
The idea was that DNSSEC would make SOPA impossible -- proper implementation
of the standard would mean that if the US legislated a 'blackout' of a
particular name within the US, then clients would just naturally seek out
other trusted servers which would return the correct addresses.

Based on this, the assumption seemed to be that SOPA passing would render
DNSSEC effectively illegal within the US. Even if not actually illegal, it
would be perceived as too-risky-to-implement by large corporations;
effectively killing it.

------
ashcairo
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.

------
klahaeck
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.

------
furyg3
I'm not quite clear on how large-scale piracy has anything to do with security
(cyber or otherwise).

~~~
jamii
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Negative_impact_on_DNS.2C_DNSSEC_and_Internet_security)

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
"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.

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

------
ddw
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.

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

~~~
rayiner
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.

------
goombastic
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?

~~~
anamax
> 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.

------
linuxhansl
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.

------
pasbesoin
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."

------
jermar
"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.

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

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

