townie ramblings

Yesterday a local reporter interested in hearing concerns Vermonters have about Senator Leahy’s COICA S. 3804 bill asked me what question I would ask the Senator if given the opportunity. The following is an excerpt from my response email….

I guess the primary concern for [me] is that the COICA bill doesn’t appear to give any consideration to fair use and in essence would give ISP’s the green light to create a blacklist of censored domains (entire websites) rather than specific URL’s or subdomains where the infringing content lives. For instance, If I personally decided to upload snippets of my favorite copyrighted music videos simply as a means of sharing a part of our culture that I am interested in rather than for financial gain, YouTube, or likely the website of a smaller competitor from outside the U.S., could be [blocked] in its entirety rather than the pages these videos live on.

It’s funny, I’m way less concerned with the threat to free speech in terms of objectionable content but rather the threat to our right to fair use. I guess if I had to ask one question it would be….

The Internet’s open architecture as we know it is a platform for creativity and innovation unlike anything the world has seen and is a tremendous resource for people around the world to share information and culture and has provided boundless new opportunities to exercise our right to fair use by criticizing or commenting on the information being shared. What are the mechanisms in the COICA bill for determining copyrighted content and identifying infringing domains and are there any protections included for the individuals, educational institutions, media outlets and nonprofit groups around the world currently exercising their right to fair use?

I’m also [disturbed] by what seems to be an emphasis on “foreign” sites = “bad” sites, but that is a whole other can of worms….

There are a myriad of other issues ranging from what this bill could do to the basic functionality of the DNS system which I have to admit is a bit above my pay grade, to what seems to be a large scale circumvention of due process. If you care to, please read a few of them for yourself…

Links to articles including thought provoking perspectives from the growing opposition to COICA S.3804:

UPDATE: The Case Against COICA – Electronic Frontier Foundation

Senate Panel Approves Domain Name Seizure Bill – CNet

Letter from Net Coalition Opposing COICA – Publicknowledge.org

Nothing to See Here – Susan Crawford Blog

Wyden Threatens to Block Online IP Bill – National Journal

Online Seizure and Counterfeit Bill: Burning the House to Roast the Pig – Huffington Post

Pirate Slaying Censorship Bill Gets Unanimous Support – Ars Technica

Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee – Wired.com Epicenter

Understanding COICA, America’s horrific proposed net-censorship bill – Cory Doctorow

COICA Fact Sheet – DemandProgess.org

The Secret Plot to Censor the Internet – And How You Can Stop It – Huffington post

Senate Needs to Rein in Copyright Bill – Center for Democracy & Technology

MPAA Boss Defends Censorships with Blatantly False Claims – techdirt.com

It’s no secret, Microsoft and News Corp are in early discussions about forming an exclusive alliance that would include the removal from Google’s search indexes of all online content provided by the growing number of News Corp publications. This would in effect make news items coming from 25 Australian outlets, half a dozen from the UK, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Dow Jones available exclusively on Microsoft’s Bing. If nothing else, the partnership is guaranteed to cause a stir if not a huge shakeup as far as the consumption of online news is concerned. What is also highly likely to stem from this, is an even more volatile relationship than the one we know now, between smaller news providers/independent content creators and Murdoch’s media empire.

One of the key issues at hand for content providers everywhere is not the global media giant and his relentless drive to charge fees to the readers and viewers of News Corp content. It is the ever-present threat he has chosen to hang over the heads of other online news providers. When asked whether or not his mission to charge for News Corp’s online content can be successful when other large international news sources, specifically the BBC, continue to offer online news for free, Murdoch is quoted as saying…

But we’re better…. And anyway, if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we’ll be suing them for copyright. They’ll have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can’t steal from newspapers.

First things first, does anyone actually see the BBC as a pack of thieves? or Murdoch as a victim of theft? After reading how easily he threatens to drag the online news industry into the court system, a few questions come to mind… How far down the line with their lawsuits will News Corp choose to go? Will they stop at large international corporations or come after smaller folks… folks that you and I know personally? What will happen to our beloved second hand news sources in the blogoshpere? Will Murdoch’s forcefulness evolve into a relationship with consumers of online news like the ones we are seeing between the RIAA and consumers of music? MPAA and consumers of home movies? YouTube and independent media makers?

Picture this: Waking up with a hot pot of Speeder’s coffee, sitting down to read the online news, opening up the admin panel on your blog to speak your piece, and seeing a take down notice in place of yesterday’s post…Faulty footnote perhaps?