
SOPA Hearing is Streaming Live - bproper
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_11162011.html
======
boredguy8
Zoe Lofgren's statements were really good, and her criticisms of the way the
hearing was structured (5 for, 1 against, no engineers) were compelling. Her
question of, "How many sites would you want to see taken down?" and the
dodging is telling, too.

And Darrell Issa did a phenomenal job calling into question the need for the
legislation because of the function of the ITC & usefulness of administrative
law solutions already in place.

Wow, Dennis Ross (R-FL) apparently doesn't understand that free speech
protections apply to the GOVERNMENT, not to business. "Congress shall make no
law ... abridging the freedom of speech..." So yes, when Google takes down a
site, it's not unconstitutional. When the government does it, in some
instances, that is unconstitutional.

~~~
_delirium
I agree on those two, but unfortunately I haven't heard much encouraging come
from anyone else. Two people on a 38-member committee is not a strong
showing...

~~~
rhizome
Any political action that can restrict the behavior of business is crippled in
advance.

~~~
anigbrowl
Not so. The Republicans have a large majority in the House at present and the
SOPA bill was introduced by the chairman of this committee. That's why the
hearing is tilted unusually heavily in favor of the proponents. 'Business'
includes all the tech companies who are lobbying uphill against SOPA as well.

~~~
rhizome
The tech companies lobbying uphill are copyright consumers in this context.
They are users, and the copyright owners' interests are those being
prioritized, and whose interests have been favored in the entire SOPA (and
before) movement. That the hearings are tilted in favor of copyright owners is
simply public evidence of structural bigotry.

------
feralchimp
Chair: "I came to this meeting undecided on this bill, and hoping to make up
my mind during this discussion, but this discussion is bringing up concerns
(e.g. interference with DNSSec) that seem highly problematic. Can the
panelists comment on whether this bill would dis-incentivize adoption of more
secure standards like DNSSec?"

"We disagree." - big content shill

Chair: "If you believe these concerns are unfounded, please submit written
responses to that specific question explaining why you believe that."..."I'm
very concerned that these [DNSSec] experts are not part of this hearing!"

Yes bro!

~~~
spydum
To quote tptateck as he has recently enlightened me:

[quote] I just don't think "it breaks DNSSEC" is the most compelling or
intellectually honest argument. I think the honest argument is, "because we
don't think any one authority will be an adequate steward of the
Internet".[/quote]

I think that point is just as salient for SOPA as it is for PROTECT-IP. Don't
setup that argument for them to knock down. Keep the focus on holding the
copyright infringers accountable, not the service providers in-between.

------
mmaunder
10:45am mountain time: Ted Poe (R-TX): "This panel or this committee is made
up of former prosecutors, defense lawyers and there are even two former judges
here."

Consider the conflict of interest that exists when lawyers are making our
laws. In this case if this bill passes there will be more laws and legal
complexity and consequently more work to go around for everyone on the panel
and all their previous and current firms and law school mates.

It's like asking a team of developers to get together and vote on whether a
problem is best solved by writing more code or doing nothing.

~~~
codyrobbins
You’re joking, right? Who would you propose is more qualified to draft the
word of the actual laws than lawyers? What lawyers _are_ at their essence are
experts in law—the word ‘lawyer’ even has the word ‘law’ in it.

 _It's like asking a team of developers to get together and vote on whether a
problem is best solved by writing more code or doing nothing._

Who would you ask whether code needs to be written, then? The lawyers who
aren’t dealing in law? Housewives? Veterinarians?

It’s the same thing with lobbyists—they end up getting hired by government
because they are experts in what they are talking about. You’re going to be
very hard-pressed to find an expert that doesn’t have some vested interest
somewhere in what they’re talking about.

 _Consider the conflict of interest that exists…_

A common tactic I see when people argue about politics is that because someone
_could_ be doing something corrupt then it means that they then therefore
_are_ doing it. I could certainly go walk outside and push someone in front of
a bus right now, but assuming I’m a murderer just because I could is not a
good assumption. Conflicts of interest certainly raise the possibility of
wrongdoing and should be scrutinized, but the simple existence of a conflict
of interest is not proof of wrongdoing; for that you need not aspersions but,
well, proof.

I am staunchly against SOPA being enacted without industry input, and I think
it’s misguided to try to prop up dying content businesses that aren’t
innovating, but spouting conspiracy theories about the politicians passing it
for their own benefit isn’t going to help.

~~~
mmaunder
Actually this is an established theory. Here's Dr Clifford Winston, Senior
Fellow at the Brookings Institution chatting to Prof. Russ Roberts of George
Mason University about the conflict of interest when lawyers make our laws.
They also cover the bar system maintaining artificial scarcity among lawyers,
thereby inflating legal fees.

[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/09/winston_on_lawy.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/09/winston_on_lawy.html)

~~~
anigbrowl
You could just as easily ask why the bar has been certifying to many law
schools when there are so many unemployed lawyers and less than half of JD
graduates are able to get jobs practicing law. I'm kind of supportive of
Winston's proposals for deregulating the legal services market, but there is
definitely not an artificial scarcity.

Of course, you might be wondering why decent legal services still cost upwards
of $300/hour, and my answer to that would be that a lawyer who charges $50 an
hour has a hard time getting taken seriously. I've seen people come into
internet forums asking the most asinine questions before going on to explain
that they didn't trust the answers they received from their public defender,
because he works for free and therefore he must not be any good.

------
feralchimp
Reps now bitching that Google's senior management is not in the room. FUCK
YOU, SENATOR. Those people deliver more value per day than you will deliver in
your entire career as a public servant.

Oh god: "Why not hire some whiz kids?"

What a goddamned fool.

"We have the brainpower in this country [to design a machine to distinguish
copyrighted works from non-copyrighted works]."

Actually, no, we don't. Fair use is a thing, holmes.

~~~
jlind
And then cutting off the answer when it's exactly what he doesn't want to
hear.

Certainly frustrating.

~~~
jshort
She clearly explained why it was not do-able, and then he goes on to saying
that it is. Hire those "wiz kids" I'm sure they can do it!

------
jeffreyg
I'm listening currently (11:43a EST) and they're quoting cyber security
experts about how it could undermine security. From consumer union groups
about how it affects consumer safety, from venture capitalists about how it
can stifle innovation. A lady right now is addressing how it's an issue that
they don't have any technical expertise on the panel. It's not ALL madness..

~~~
davidhansen
That's not the madness of the legislative process.

You'll witness the madness play out when the legislators, having given the
plebes their "voice", ignore every single one of them and proceed with
graduating the bill to a full vote. Which will likely pass.

~~~
tomkinstinch
If it does pass, there is still a chance (however small and expensive) that it
will be ruled against in the courts. The judiciary seems like the branch least
impacted by the influence of big-media.

~~~
JoshTriplett
That requires someone to bring a relevant legal case to an appropriately
positioned judicial body, which requires a great deal of money, and two sides
willing to take it that far.

~~~
regularfry
Doesn't that just mean YouTube v. Viacom redux?

~~~
Natsu
Viacom v. YouTube. The one who complains is listed first.

But yes, it does mean wasting a lot of money on lawyers to fight a very bad
law which Google could instead be using to build computer-driven cars, improve
machine translation, and to create more high-paying jobs.

Instead, we're getting the broken window version where they're forced to
create more highly-paid lawyers, instead.

------
feralchimp
Sorry for not attributing all these...exchange is between a Rep whose
nameplate isn't vieible and multiple witnesses, primarily Ms. Oyama.

"We have harshly criticized governments whose service providers monitor and
censor the actions of their users. [...] How would this legislation affect our
diplomacy with nations like Iran, for example?"

"When there are realtime events, it's important that content services allow
for infrastructure to support realtime public response to those events."

"This bill hurts both large and small content intermediaries severely, but in
different ways."

"We've seen Libyan officials trying to take rivals' YouTube channels out of
their national internet stream."

"The Justice Department has new responsibilities under SOPA while at the same
time we've been talking about downsizing government. Are we creating an
unmeetable burden for U.S. Gov as well as content intermediaries?"

------
feralchimp
"The #1 way to decrease piracy is to increase the number and quality of
legitimate content services on the internet."

Preach it, sister.

~~~
polshaw
The shift in focus to movie piracy from music piracy (where there are many
mature legit content services) is tell here, imo.

------
davedx
"...protect American jobs..."

"...innocent civilians and American soldiers at risk..."

Who would have thought BitTorrent was such a threat to American civilisation?

~~~
westinghouse
...and has been destroying the country for over a decade.

~~~
Groxx
Well yeah, look what it did to the housing market!

------
UrLicht
So I've been doing every google search these clueless legislators have brought
up in defense of the act:

"You can search for 'free harry potter movie' and watch it for free"

"You can go type 'j edgar' into google and piracy links show up above
legitimate links"

"You can watch breaking dawn online right now, and it's not even out yet"

etc...

Try them yourself as they bring them up. They're full of bullshit.

~~~
libraryatnight
I've been doing the same. It's really infuriating listening to these people
lie through their teeth, and go mostly unchecked.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
Although it's really not that complicated to find a free stream for Harry
Potter movies. I found all of them with just a few minutes checking Google-
results, although the quality of the stream wasn't too high. Then again I'm
pretty sure I'll continue to find ways to stream Harry Potter movies as well
in future no matter if this law passes or not (I might have to search a few
more minutes then, that's probably about it).

------
msmith
12:19PM central time - The chairman, Rep. Smith, was asking whether this bill
would impact our ability to implement DNSSEC. He seemed legitimately concerned
that it could weaken security on the internet.

I have no idea whether there's any basis for concern, but I'm sure we have
some DNSSEC experts here on HN. Comments?

~~~
tptacek
DNSSEC is a bad idea that will damage the Internet. I think it's irrelevant to
the discussion at hand.

~~~
marshray
Perhaps. But this bill would breaks DNSSEC for the same reasons that it breaks
"infringement-inducing sites". It's going to pose the same difficulty to any
other organized security features added to DNS.

The result will be chaos.

~~~
tptacek
Totally not arguing for SOPA. But SOPA doesn't break DNS edge security systems
like DNScurve, and those are the solutions we actually need.

~~~
marshray
Skimming the site, it looks to me like DNSCurve is more of a transport
protocol for DNS records, almost like running DNS over DTLS. This would
certainly be a useful improvement, but I don't see where it talks about how
the records are authenticated.

It is pushing off the "do you trust (Versign+USDoJ | greatfirewall.cn) to give
you the legitimate answer to your .com query" problem. Which is the kind of
problem that the Internet is good at routing around but would be bad for it to
do so.

E.g., users will (at best) change to alternative DNS systems or (at worst)
toss out this hierarchical authority naming concept entirely. Consider how
many users simply _wouldn't notice_ if Google started returning IP addresses
or proxy names for search results. Or maybe they set up an alternate with
their own naming scheme for Chrome, Android, ChromeOS, and everyone with their
search bar. (Oh wait, I just Googled it and they already did that and I didn't
notice [http://www.infoworld.com/t/dns/google-launches-
alternative-d...](http://www.infoworld.com/t/dns/google-launches-alternative-
dns-resolver-918) )

If Google does it, then Microsoft must too. And Amazon, and The Pirate Bay and
so then we need a protocol for deciding which DNS system the client will use
on a per-request basis, and civil-rights-disrespecting governments try to
sabotage that too and round-we-go the Internet we know and love is circling
the drain.

~~~
tptacek
The point of DNScurve is not to bother attempting to create a cryptographic
chain of custody for all DNS records (which is what DNSSEC does), at least not
until after we've set it up so that a browser can make a request of a server
that cannot be tampered with.

It is a vastly simpler, tactical solution to the DNS "security problem" (I'm a
skeptic about the long term importance of this problem too).

~~~
marshray
So why would a kernel-level rootkit like TDSS start dropping the DNSChanger
trojan on 600K to 1M machines?

Just another pay-per-install malware module?

Hard for AV to detect the settings are wrong?

[http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Researchers-Discover-
Link-...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Researchers-Discover-Link-Between-
TDSS-Rootkit-and-DNSchanger-Trojan-753018/)

~~~
tptacek
I can't see any connection between what a kernel-level rootkit does and how we
should secure DNS. If you lose your kernel, you're done, full stop.

------
feralchimp
"We know right now that a young film-maker starting out today will not be able
to have a career because of piracy."

ORLY? We know that? Someone had better tell the market, which continues to
fund (and see returns on) indie films.

~~~
sp332
This is really funny, since Justin Bieber claimed recently that his career
would never have existed if this law had been applied to him.
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/justin-
biebe...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/justin-bieber-
streaming-bill-author-should-be-locked-up.ars)

------
feralchimp
"I object to this bill in its current form because I believe it _fails to use
existing tools_ [injunctive relief] and does a worse job than those existing
tools at solving this problem." - Mr. Issa (for the micro-win)

Unclear whether Mr. Issa's alternative bill (yet to be seen, focused on
empowering the FTC to issue injuctions) would allow for DNS-based remedies,
whether the injunctions would take more traditional forms like
fines/C+D/damages, etc.

------
ggwicz
Please just stop. The people/bands I download are not ones I'd pay for right
out of the gate.

For example: Pink Floyd. I hear a lot about them, but don't know if I'd like
them. So I downloaded some of their popular albums for free and gave them a
listen.

After recovering from the awesomeness, I've since bought two of those albums
on iTunes, and yesterday 3 friends and I _each_ dropped $78 on tickets for a
concert with one of the old band members.

If I could only pay for it, which is the record company's ideal world, I
would've seen the $16.99 price tag on iTunes and not taken the chance of
listening to it.

The people downloading something illegally are, for the most part, not the
same people who'd be paying for it.

~~~
jaaron
Though these days with services like Spotify, Rdio, and Pandora, you have
free, legal access to huge libraries of music. It's at least enough to allow
for use cases like the one you mention.

Yes, I know these services are not available in many jurisdictions and that's
a shame and I believe it will change over time. Point is, the situation is
getting better and the so called "need" to pirate music is increasingly gone.

~~~
ggwicz
Yes, the need is going down. That's _one_ reason why this law is unnecessary.

------
rglover
This is truly a waste of humanity's time.

Edit: Check out the guy in the back on his iphone most likely looking at some
form of "infringing content."

~~~
ypcx
It is. I believe heavyweights like Google won't let them get away with this.
They have lobbyists too.

~~~
nextparadigms
There are also heavyweights like Microsoft who are _sponsoring_ the bill. My
guess is there are still more money being invested to make this a reality than
otherwise.

~~~
mdwrigh2
Do you have a source for that info? A quick Google search turns up nothing on
Microsoft's stance on SOPA.

~~~
_delirium
It doesn't look like Microsoft is directly lobbying either way, but the
Business Software Alliance has been lobbying heavily in favor, and Microsoft
is often considered the dominant player in the BSA.

------
feralchimp
"Stealin' is stealin' and thieves are people we oughtta deal with!"

"If I had my way I'd lock all three of ya in a room and don't come out until
you agree."

"As a consumer I can't tell who's a thief and who's not a thief. What can
Google offer this bill that would allow Google to sign on to this bill?"

How is "Google signing on" the key issue here? Is Google the gatekeeper to
basic constitutionality in legislation now?

"Google would publicly support a "follow the money" approach."

~~~
airlocksoftware
Seriously, I have the sickest feeling in the pit of my stomach. These
congresspeople don't understand what's going on AT ALL, and the deck is
already stacked against anti-SOPA activists. They don't seem to be even
discussing the constitutionality of what they're suggesting.

~~~
srdev
Maybe I'm just cynical, but I think that's because discussing
constitutionality isn't a winning strategy. Constitutionality hasn't been a
primary concern in the legislative process for a while, especially when
internet commerce is involved.

------
lancewiggs
Thanks everyone for the stream of comments. This law has global implications
for how the internet works, or does not work.

1: The real question we should be asking is the source of the SOPA text. It
was pretty clearly written by lobbyists, for their clients, and its just as
clear that the committee has no idea about the contents. We should be
attacking/ranting at the sponsoring companies while helping the congress
people to understand through measured lobbying and public action.

2: Larry Lessig's latest book covers the process of making USA's laws
extraordinarily well. Congress people are trying to do the right thing, but
it's hard to believe laws are made in an unbiased manner when we look at the
flow of cash supporting their elections.

3: New Zealand had a similar moment when copyright legislation was debated
earlier this year, and the tech community suddenly saw how laws were made. It
was a rush job, not pretty and the major parties suffered for it as they took
stances which often lacked logic. We now have an election on, wand while it is
not a big issue, I expect we will see a lot more support for the Green party,
who were the only ones crying foul.

------
invalidOrTaken
Did Mr. Ross just equate government censorship with corporate page takedowns?
The difference: one is prohibited by the Constitution, one is not.

~~~
tobinfricke
I think you mean 'equate'; equivocation is a deceptive/evasive form of speech.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
Thank you; edited.

------
throwaway64
<http://www.livestream.com/sopaproceedings> re stream for anybody who is
having trouble viewing it

------
feralchimp
"From which countries originate the biggest threats of digital piracy?"

"Is China on your list?"

"What might be the total losses due to piracy [...] any studies done on that?
Does anyone have a more comprehensive solution [than shutting down websites]?"

What does Mr. King want to hear? Bomb China and Russia and Sweden because OH
NOEZ PIRACY? What. The. Fuck?

"Are you aware of state sponsored IP theft? China?"

Good god, man.

------
feralchimp
"Is it possible under this legislation that [the largest search engines in
Russia and China] could be disappeared from the US DNS system? And if so, how
should we expect the Russian and Chinese governments to respond to such
action?"

\- Mr. Cohen

------
ggwicz
Just watched a guy talk about countries who are using practices like this.

He says "the Internet is working just fine there".

One of these places is Turkey. A guy got arrested there for talking about a
Chuck Palahniuk novel there on some sort of forum or similar.

~~~
dasil003
We had to delay the launch of our streaming service in Turkey because our CDN
was inexplicably censored by the government without recourse—and having
nothing to do with us! So I can point to at least one case of significant
material loss for Turkish consumers due to Internet shenanigans.

~~~
ggwicz
Yeah, it's insane. This law isn't that extreme yet but it's a push over the
ledge towards censorship (it seems...)

------
click170
Is there a chat room we can go to discuss the stream live so we aren't
increasing the signal to noise ratio here?

~~~
chops
Freenode: #startups ?

Or could always make a #sopa on freenode.

~~~
click170
#sopa on freenode it is.

------
click170
How unfortunate. Ms. Jackson-Lee seems to have fallen for the fallacious
argument that every file that was downloaded would have otherwise been bought
if piracy wasn't a viable option. This does not bode well for the future...

~~~
feralchimp
"stealing our nation's genius"

FAIL. Genius, like digital bits, are not zero sum. This isn't digital
Highlander; a kid pirating a film does not magically soak up (and away) the
genius of the auteur.

~~~
mirkules
The solution, of course, is to stifle our nation's genius so that nobody can
steal it.

Nice Highlander metaphor, btw.

------
libraryatnight
It's scary hearing some of this. I don't think some of these people use the
internet, except to find reasons to censor the internet.

------
inmygarage
The person speaking now has pointed out that there are 5 people in favor of
the bill and only 1 speaking against it. She also lamented the fact that there
are zero technical experts speaking.

------
herbivore
I would rather download the SOPA Hearing video in 720p HD quality than watch a
crappy cheap low quality lowres version. Offer next day 720p/1080p HD version
of TV shows and movies and piracy will go down. Even iTunes HD versions are
crap, not to mention Netflix 2002-era stream quality.

------
pasbesoin
This is simplistic, but I think the people who make the technology work need
to (find ways to) stop providing support -- stop enabling -- the Luddites who
seek to monopolize it for their own gain.

Simply/simplistically put: Unplug them. We'd all be better off.

------
tomlin
If this goes through, it is doubtful that the US will remain the tech startup
mecha for very long afterwards. Just about any revolutionary technology could
find itself in hot water with this bill. A sad day if this gets passed.

------
namidark
Mr Rogs(Ross?) statements are ridiculous and he's not giving the female
(lawyer?) a chance to respond and fully explain what he's asking -- and then
he switches to CP as a defense in eliminating our free speech on the internet

------
feralchimp
People in the chamber are now comparing search results on their iPads. So
that's something.

"Service providers do not have the technical means to do what this bill
requires."

^^^^^^^^ more like that. Update: that was Zoe Lofgren again.

~~~
VMG
Is this the right argument? Should the bill pass once the requirements are
there?

------
kapitalx
I don't understand why they are talking about counterfit medicine. Is that
covered under the DMCA? OR SOPA?

~~~
JoshTriplett
SOPA claims to cover counterfeit goods as well, and some of the previous DNS-
based censorship targeted sites distributing counterfeit goods.

------
nextparadigms
Was there anyone from an organization like EFF invited? Or just
representatives from companies? Because I could see how companies could agree
to supporting a bill as long as it's viable for them, but that doesn't
necessarily mean it's something good for the people, too. Who's actually
protecting the interests of people there?

All I can see is politicians saying "this SOPA breaking the Internet is
nonsense". And yet, they didn't even invite engineers there to testify for
that.

------
nazgulnarsil
Watching the legislative process for people who claim to believe in democracy
is sort of like actually reading the bible for people who claim to be
christian.

------
draggnar
Cohmert just proved the point of piracy

he searched for some obscure song and found it free illegally but not on
iTunes. if it was available then he would have bought it.

~~~
anatoli
It pains me that from what he said he took the gigantic leap to "we need to
make it more obvious that it's illegal" rather than the tiny one to "we need
to find a way to make it easier to get legally".

------
ajankovic
Final result of this SOPA campaign is going to show how much influence does
American internet users actually have in the "Real" world.

------
spenrose
If you know what you believe about SOPA (and its Senate equivalent), ignore
the stream, call your Congress critters, and tell them what you think. Then
after the vote, call them and thank or complain. No, it's not much, but it's
almost certainly more efficacious than voting. Especially since you can
legally do it many times.

------
sycren
So... Tech companies, feel like moving your base of operations to Europe? We
really need some investment right now ;)

~~~
sukuriant
What does it take to move to Europe and join a tech-based company there..?

~~~
sycren
temporary move or permanent? If you find a company interested in hiring you,
it should be easy to get a working visa. A permanent move may be more
difficult.

------
radagaisus
This seems like an appropriate place to write this.

I'm a self taught programmer. If it wasn't for the internets I would be a
pretty poor guy. Spolsky gave a nice answer on SO about teaching a newcomer
how to program. He listed SICP, k&R and Code. I read SICP online and I
downloaded a version of K&R. Both books had a fundamentally awesome impact on
me and I just decided I should buy them along with Code.

All the tech books I've ever read I read online with the exception of The
Definitive Guide to Action Script 5, which cost me 50$.

SICP is on sale for 80$ K&R is 50$

If I'm poor (or: a kid) I don't have 50$. Denying me the option to steal this
books without harming anyone will just make me less educated.

~~~
marshray
SICP is full text online by the publisher, you didn't "steal" it. You didn't
need to "steal" K&R. It's a classic, but there are a whole lot of successful
programmers who've never read it.

I don't know where you are, but everywhere I've lived in the US there's at
least one very cheap book on C in every used book sale or public library.
Today of course, we have more information about programming and Computer
Science free on the web than anyone could ever have time to read.

I do buy relatively expensive computer books today when they fit my budget,
but it's a rare book that has information I couldn't find on the web.

~~~
radagaisus
No, I didn't need to steal K&R, but it's better than online tutorials. If
there's one thing that you should be allowed to steal, it's education.

------
feralchimp
"Nobody has this old track that I love available to buy online, but people
offer it online for free. When we talk about following the money, that's
pretty impractical if the business is in (for example) China. [...] Why is it
too onerous to block sites after probable cause is met and a federal judge
concludes the site meets the description of 'dedicated to infringement'?"

Fair enough question. When the money is all interior to some foreign country,
and doesn't touch typical payment hubs (e.g. Visa), how does "follow the
money" address the problem effectively?

Well, because putting DNS in the hands of any single government or financial
interest is a terrible remedy.

------
feralchimp
Mr. Ross's "I think simply" folksy routine makes me want to slap a bitch.

~~~
angersock
Also the random pandering involving child pornography. THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
Gah.

------
feralchimp
Rare well-turned to Mr. Deutch: "Follow the money" leads to Google!

Google's response: "We spent a ton of time and money to create tools to allow
rights holders to identify infringing content."

------
feralchimp
"This isn't to protect the big dogs in Hollywood. This is for [set builders,
etc.]"

So are those guys still getting paid, or aren't they? Are movies still making
money, or aren't they?

------
feralchimp
They need to chill with drawing parallels between child porn and copyrighted
movies. It's technically distinct and morally distinct. Just...no.

------
shmerl
Did anyone record the stream? I couldn't see it live.

------
feralchimp
"Would you agree that the current piracy landscape makes it much more
difficult to start a new fee-based distribution model vs. a free/ad-supported
distribution model?"

Good question. Piracy status quo, without some sort of crackdown, already
skews the "legitimate" distribution models to those that benefit companies
with Google's model (e.g. for YouTube).

~~~
isleyaardvark
I'm not convinced government should be concerned about the effectiveness of
different business models.

------
feralchimp
Interesting point about reordering search results to favor known-legit content
distribution channels...roughly: "Can we get Google to put Netflix above TPB
in search results?"

If this is still a terrible idea, it's not an obviously terrible one.

~~~
mMark
It's terrible in that a lot of the times smaller organic sites are much more
relevant than big-box "trusted" sites. That's why organic search algorithms
are good.

Furthermore, there's a terrible burden for startups moving into certain spaces
if suddenly you can't get ranked because you're not a Trusted source.

Plus, controlling search engine neutrality or listing position is not the
business of the government or rightsholder. Remember, Google is a private
entity.

~~~
feralchimp
So instead of framing it in terms of "promoting known-legit" sites, what about
"demote known-sketchy" sites?

Does that help your concerns about effects on unknowns, startups, etc? All the
non-sketchy results should still be organically ranked, right?

------
angersock
"Google just said that content owners are responsible for rogue websites. That
can't be the truth."

Yes, truly, in a free market, seller policies cannot possibly influence the
creation of market alternatives.

------
dmauro
Finally someone is asking the right question. Thank you Ms. Waters.

------
mwsherman
Stream is working fine for me. The content makes me wish we could find a way
to firewall ourselves from powerful Luddites.

------
ukgent
to the UK works via media player, but at work can not test sound.

This is not looking good brothers on the otherside of the sea. What i read
today is a 5to1 debate :/ and i got a horriable feeling the nervous looking
girl might be the 1 against :/

~~~
loungin
Got any room on your side of the pond?

~~~
a3camero
You don't need to go that far. Canada! We're not far away and most day-to-day
things are the same here.

Also our Supreme Court recently ruled that hyperlinks are like footnotes in a
book so publishing a hyperlink to defamatory material doesn't mean you're
responsible for the defamatory material (not republication). Sensible ruling.
Heading in direction of internet freedom not away from it.

~~~
loungin
Honestly, I had not heard that, that's awesome. Keep going that way and I'll
ditch the Cali sun for your forests (sorry ukgent :)

~~~
a3camero
Should have included case in original post:
<http://scc.lexum.org/en/2011/2011scc47/2011scc47.html>

------
artursapek
I can't watch the stream, but the comments here are endlessly interesting.

------
sixtofour
Quality is unbearable.

~~~
Vivtek
Content is, too, I imagine.

~~~
feralchimp
Disagree with both of you. Video and audio are both smooth and free of
dropouts, and the testimony of this attorney (who is she, btw?) is clear and
informative.

Compared to some other hearings, the reps asking questions seem legitimately
interested in making the bill suck a lot less. Time will tell, I suppose, and
it sucks that this bill made it this far, but I'd highly recommend watching
the feed if you care about the outcome.

For example, your next letter to your elected representative could reference
specific content of the discussion rather than rehashing something that was
talked about. Nothing says "I care" like "I cared enough to sit through the
same hearing you did."

~~~
JoshTriplett
> the reps asking questions seem legitimately interested in making the bill
> suck a lot less

That seems like a large part of the problem; they treat it as a foregone
conclusion that the bill will pass, perhaps with a bit of tweaking. This bill
needs to die. All bills should have the presumption of failure, with a very
high bar to get them to pass, not the other way around.

~~~
cynest
The problem is the "think of the children" argument will come back to haunt
them come next election season.

~~~
fryguy
They really should. Should the 10 year old girl that posted a video on youtube
of herself singing along with a Justin Beiber song be considered a felon and
put in jail for 5 years?

~~~
JoshTriplett
And should one person doing so cause YouTube to get shut down?

------
veyron
Is there anyone liveblogging the proceedings?

~~~
feralchimp
Anyone object to me using this comments thread to do that?

------
libraryatnight
"I know crime when I see it." Do you?

------
josscrowcroft
Jesus, the horror, the horror!

------
werdnanoslen
stream is broken for me

~~~
cypherpunks01
Works for me, open with VLC. Audio is only in my right ear though.

~~~
uptown
I think the left audio channel was reported as copyright infringing.

------
feralchimp
"silicone valley"

Mispronunciation win!

~~~
brohee
Is that that place near LA producing 80% of the world porn?

------
noduerme
This is SO OFFENSIVE!!! She gives such great, clear technical answers -- they
can detect child porn by a combination of reverse image search analysis and
manual checks, but they can't visually tell whether a movie or song is
licensed to play. Makes sense. "I'm sure we have the technology, we have the
brainpower," responds some congrasshole. What fucking idiots these people are.
They don't have a right to dictate terms to people smarter than them.

After watching this incredibly infuriating thing, I hope they pass it. I hope
it passes, and the economy of the US tanks, and it eats itself. Fuck these
people, and fuck everyone who voted for them.

If you're the only person in the room who has technical expertise, Submit your
comments in writing.

~~~
sv123
His response to her explanation about how they don't have the technology was
"Google does have the technology". These people are all idiots.

~~~
jarin
YouTube does have automated copyright detection though

~~~
trip42
You mean YouTube has information on all of the photographs I've ever taken and
who I've licensed them to? I don't recall making this information public, so I
don't see how they could possibly detect copyright infringement of my content.

~~~
noduerme
Throw one of your images at tineye.com. It's a reverse image analysis tool;
their algorithm is under wraps, but I'm sure a few people around here could
speculate on how it works. It works nicely with cropped and scaled images,
which is a hint =)

~~~
sv123
I think his point was that you can certainly detect an image in use on other
sites but that does not matter because it may or may not be infringement.
Nobody could possibly know if he licensed his work to be used by certain sites
or not.

~~~
noduerme
The comment you guys are responding to was in jest. I wrote the original post
in this subthread. My point about Tineye was that it's obviously capable of
picking up duplicates (which is the immediate question I was responding to)
and equally incapable of determining which of those duplicates are licensed.

------
ThaddeusQuay2
These hearings are nothing more than democracy theater, and I'm a bit
surprised that otherwise smart people, namely most of those posting on HN,
actually believe differently. The government has already shown, many times,
its willingness and ability to shut down sites, unilaterally, by simply
telling ICANN to redirect where a domain points. SOPA is merely a
formalization of that power. I surmise that the best way to let a congressman
know that you are serious about this issue is to put a bullet in the head of
the congressman sitting next to him. If you aren't willing to go that far to
protect your freedom, then you are just as full of hot air as the OWS crowd. I
don't expect upvotes on this comment, but I am certain that all of the
downvotes will come from cowards, the uniformed, idealists, or agents of the
government. DNS is broken, and needs either extreme violence to protect its
existing fragility, or an awesome technical improvement that will pry the
government's grubby fingers off of it for good. Take your pick as to the best
route, but wishing for logic and common sense at these hearings is pointless.

EDIT: I should point out the following, for those who think that there really
is no need to worry. "Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users: It becomes a felony
with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost
more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user,
e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook." - <http://americancensorship.org> A
felony is a felony is a felony. Once you are guilty of one, your life changes
significantly. It all comes down to which law you are willing to break. Just a
couple of decades ago, murder and treason were pretty much the only serious
crimes. Now, manipulate certain bits in a particular way, and it's treated as
almost the same thing. Think about how much we've already lost through our
passivity, and how much more we have to lose.

------
HilbertSpace
Let's see, we're ready for another exciting episode of 'Hackers Go to
Washington' or 'As The Real World Turns':

Step 1. At a fancy lunch spot on Rodeo Drive a lobbyist gets with someone in
Hollywood, and they talk about a Hollywood dream law, e.g., shut down Internet
movie sharing or some such, just to pick a hypothetical issue! Wink, wink!

Step 2. The lobbyist sells the Hollywood guy on an effort to get the dream law
passed. "Sign your check, and we will get started from our M Street offices."
They do get started and draft the Hollywood Dream Act.

Step 3. The lobbyist finds some Dumb-Dumb legislators on Capital Hill who are
not very bright, not doing very well, and need some campaign donations, maybe
some trips to Vegas, etc. and hands them copies of the Hollywood Dream Act and
some campaign donations, trips to Vegas, etc. Maybe if we did some searching
we could find a list of the Dumb-Dumbs? Ah, that would assume that Dumb-Dumbs
exist! I ask you, are there any Dumb-Dumbs on Capital Hill?

Step 4. The Dumb-Dumbs hold hearings and look like they are about to get the
Hollywood Dream Act passed.

Step 5. People who oppose the Hollywood Dream Act, and there is no shortage,
get up on their hind legs, write checks to other lobbyists on M Street, and
the battle is on. Legislators who oppose the Hollywood Dream Act get campaign
donations, trips to Vegas, etc.

Step 6. The Hollywood Dream Act dies in committee or in negotiations between
the House and Senate or has some killer amendments added, etc.

Ah, it was always just the 'Hollywood Dumb-Dumb Public Wet Dream Act' or 'Who
Gets Screwed As the World Turns' anyway!

Net, M Street gets richer; both the Dumb-Dumbs and all the opposing
legislators get campaign donations, which they don't return, and trips to
Vegas, but nothing real happens. It's just Hollywood.

Naw, no one would ever do anything so stupid. That would be called a 'scam',
and that's SUCH a pejorative locution! We can be SURE that M Street and
Capitol Hill would NEVER engage in anything like a scam, can't we?

~~~
Natsu
The idea that they're not seriously pushing for this is flawed. Yes, they've
hired expensive lobbyists, but that's not all they're doing. They've put up
their own campaigns ("Makers vs. Takers" I believe they called it) and are
pushing their own employees into supporting it.

Moreover, they have quite a bit of political support in this administration.
They've got everyone from the RIAA lawyers now in top Justice Department
spots, the new Copyright Czar, the US Trade Representative (who negotiated
ACTA), several members of the House Judiciary Committee (who are sponsors of
this bill), and Vice President Biden.

Don't underestimate their ability or willingness to pass crazy laws.

~~~
marquis
Here's the Makers vs Takers video. Replete with scary music and "The Daily
Show has been watched x million times.. illegally" (because Comedy Central
doesn't let the whole world watch it on their website? I watch it there and
sit through their ads. What's not working about that? Oh, I know. Sometimes my
net connection might suck. If I hypothetically can't watch it streaming in RT
I might look for other options.)

<http://www.viacom.com/news/Pages/anti-piracy.html>

~~~
TeMPOraL
It's a well made video, actually. I felt moved by it, at least a little bit.

I think hackers in tech industry should start making similar videos for our
own, arguing against SOPA. For that thing, we indeed do have the technology,
and we have the expertise.

~~~
ericd
I was almost moved, but it's so obviously manipulative in other ways that it's
kind of sickening. I'm not sure we have the stomach for competing on that
level.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It doesn't have to be manipulative. Just informative and moving. Truth doesn't
have to be manipulative to move people.

~~~
ericd
It doesn't have to be, but in this case, it is.

They've made a large part of this about the common working man, when that's
clearly not the motivation behind this video. They did it because they're
pandering to their audience, who cares about that.

Throw in repeated South Park and other brand cameos for broad based appeal and
an instant emotional connection (I have a hard time believing that Matt Stone
and Trey Parker support this given their history of railing on people who
complain about piracy as the reason they can't make money).

Finally, add in a lot of questionable statistics.

Basically, it's too carefully crafted for maximum impact to be or feel
authentic. It's professional work and half truths masquerading as heartfelt
interviews. That's why I say it's manipulative.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're right, it is. What I meant is that the tech industry doesn't have to
copy the 'manipulativeness' to make a convincing videos against SOPA.

~~~
ericd
Oh I see, sorry for misunderstanding you. You're probably right. It can be
hard to make a strictly factual video have the same emotional impact, though.

------
spwmoni
"Silicone Valley." Yep, Waters sure sounds informed.

~~~
uptown
Or how about "Solidan O'Brien"

------
noduerme
"If we could get Google to index those sites [iTunes over the Pirate Bay] in a
way that favored legitimacy..."

Hey, duck duck go might get some real legs if they work this one out =)

~~~
westinghouse
That sort of intentional favoritism could lead to legal action for search
engines. It's happened before.

------
drivebyacct2
Is there any silver lining here? Despite the over whelming feeling of disgust
I have for these godgie old farts running this country who think they know a
damn thing about the Internet, I can't help but wonder if passage of this bill
would finally ignite adoption of a better success to the Internet. Something
where security and privacy are baked in from the beginning and not an add-on.

------
1010101001
Are these hearings that house.gov streams archived somewhere? If not, why?

~~~
cowmix
I can not find an archive of it.. arg!

~~~
1010101001
Some House hearings are archived at judiciary.edgeboss.net. But not this one.

Some House hearings have transcripts at
judiciary.house.gov/hearings/transcripts/. But not this one.

I decided to read the bill instead. I highly recommend it. The definitions
alone are worth the read.

What if content is not addressed to a "location"?

What if there is no "site"?

What if a network is not accesible to the public?

------
sabat
"It's time to try something." "It's time to move."

Not if it means breaking the Internet.

