Web Piracy Bill Could end Internet in U.S. and Europe

By AMY SCHATZ

WASHINGTON—Supporters of controversial antipiracy legislation face a struggle to regain momentum after the White House sided with irate Internet companies and users over the weekend and complained that the proposal could hurt innocent companies and undermine cybersecurity.
On Saturday, the White House outlined its opposition to two similar bills pending in the House and Senate that would crack down on the sale of pirated American movies, music and other goods on foreign-based websites. The bills would require Internet companies to hobble access to foreign pirate websites, bar search engines from linking to them and prevent U.S. companies from placing ads on them.
"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet," three White House advisers said in a statement released Saturday.
The Obama administration's opposition to the legislation represents a new hurdle for the Hollywood studios and other supporters, who complain that they lose billions of dollars each year as a result of pirated movies or other goods.
Lawmakers appeared to be on the verge of easily passing piracy legislation by a wide margin, but the prognosis for the measure is now uncertain.

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Associated Press

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, seen in 2010, says he is committed to a bipartisan bill.

The Senate is still scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the legislation on Jan. 24. House backers haven't announced any plans to advance the legislation, but they said Friday that they will remove a provision that worried some cybersecurity experts.
"I am committed to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House that protects free speech, the Internet and America's intellectual property," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R., Texas) said in a statement Saturday in response to the White House announcement.
The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act has stoked wild rhetoric from both supporters and detractors. Opponents, including technology companies, have compared some provisions in the legislation to methods used by dictatorial regimes.
To protest the proposed legislation, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia said it will close down its English language version for 24 hours on Wednesday.
But supporters say the competitiveness of the movie and television industry—and even that of American business as a whole—is at stake.
Major media companies that own TV channels and movie studios have been among the legislation's supporters. They worry that piracy could thwart their still nascent efforts to get consumers to pay for online content. In the TV business, for instance, channels are increasingly making their shows available online only to paying subscribers to cable and satellite operators—a system that could be undermined by pirate sites.
"It's very difficult to compete with free," said Rick Cotton, general counsel of Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal and a longtime proponent of stronger antipiracy measures. "New business models and new offerings are going to get stifled in the crib if there's an unlimited tidal wave of stolen content on the Internet."
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch has posted several messages on Twitter in recent days criticizing the Obama administration for not supporting the legislation and arguing that technology companies like Google Inc. have too much sway in Washington.
"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery," Mr. Murdoch wrote. He followed that message with an attack on Google, writing, "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying."
But he was less critical of Google in a subsequent message, writing, "Google great company doing many exciting things. Only one complaint, and it's important."
News Corp. owns 20th Century Fox Film, among other content providers. It also owns The Wall Street Journal.
"Google respects copyright—and we've worked hard to help rights holders deal with piracy. Last year we took down five million infringing Web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads," the company said in response to Mr. Murdoch's tweets. "Like many other tech companies, we believe that there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking U.S. companies to censor the Internet."
Sunday night, against the glittering backdrop of the Golden Globe Awards, Chris Dodd, the former U.S. senator who is now the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, worked the black-tie crowd to quell executives' concerns that the legislation might die.
Google, Twitter, Facebook Inc. and other Internet companies worry the legislation is written so broadly that it will impose new liabilities on domestic websites that aren't profiting from pirated material. The legislation would give the Justice Department authority to seek court orders to block domain names or search results for sites that are alleged to host pirate content. Opponents worry that innocent sites that host user-generated materials could get shut down.
Opponents are particularly concerned about the House legislation, which would allow the Hollywood studios and other content owners to ask credit-card processors to block payments to U.S. websites accused of hosting pirated material.
The bills "supposedly address real needs, but in practice are means by which bad actors (with lots of money and lawyers) can take sites down," Craig Newmark, founder of the online classified-ad site Craigslist, wrote in a blog post Monday. "Looks like the Internet is winning a battle against some really bad potential law."

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By the way I'm being hacked as I write this. Obviously someone doesn't want my opinion shown on this subject.

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When children aged 6 and over start going to jail because of the way this legislation is written while on

Facebook  the parents will take away the computers of all children.  Amazon.com will be over, so will EBay, so will all present internet powerhouse companies including Facebook and Google. 

The real problem with this antipiracy bill the way it is presently written is that it will end the internet. So, if you vote for it expect the internet to be over. It is as simple as that. I sympathize with Movie and music makers but if you only service the needs of  Media Corporations and put children in jail you end the internet for all intents and purposes. Anyone who actually understands this problem like the White House and Silicon Valley companies around the world do knows this. This legislation if passed ends the internet in the free world just by the reaction of Dad's, Mom's and their kids in jail from this legislation. No more internet in the free world if it passes. So, why are people going to pass it? Maybe to end globalization because the U.S. can't survive it? Neither can Europe! However, this would have had to be done about 10 to 15 years ago to be successful if that was what we wanted to do. All the non-Globalized companies have gone out of business already! This will only bankrupt whatever companies we have left. Watch and see.

The other reason that Rupert Murdock and others want this bill might be that this group expects a war with Iran and eventually China. This and the fact that China and other countries are stealing U.S. and European technology and advanced military technology through the Internet and in other related ways might be the reasoning behind ending the Internet. Possibly, they feel that the Internet is just too open and vulnerable and that the free world cannot survive with countries like Iran and China doing what they do anymore. In other articles I have written about how Globalization dis empowers all nation states. So, it makes sense that the most conservative among those in the western world would be terrified of the impending death of the nation state worldwide. For conservatives worldwide the exponential change that the Internet brings every single moment worldwide is too much. I understand this too. But what is the alternative? We would have had to stop the Internet 10 to 15 years ago. Now it will only bankrupt everyone. Conservatives haven't thought this through well enough obviously. I think everyone on earth is scared of globalization. But what is the alternative? It is like we all watched all the non-globalized corporations (ships) sink one by one. The only (ships) left are Globalized companies. This bill will only sink the Globalized companies now. What are we supposed to do, go back to the stone age now? Think about it! The old ways are gone. Look around at what is left. Are we all to drown if you sink the last ships with this legislation?