Why I care so much about stopping SOPA/PIPA (and why you should care too)

As someone who works with, and is constantly immersed in, the Internet, I’ve been hearing a lot about SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act, in the House) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act, in the Senate) over the last couple of months. But I suspect most Americans have heard much less about these bills currently under “debate” in the US House of Representatives and Senate. That’s the way the sponsors of these bills (and their corporate donors) likely want it.

You can read the text of the bills, or the innocuous-sounding summaries the government has published. On the surface, without careful reflection, they seem like good ideas, designed to protect hard-working American creators from having their intellectual property stolen. But the implications of these bills, for freedom of speech, for innovation, even for the very feasibility of their technical implementation, are anything but innocuous, and may irreparably harm, rather than protect, the American economy.

What’s it really all about?

Let us be frank: the true objective of these bills is not to prevent illicit foreign websites from destroying American jobs by stealing our movies and music. It is to prop up a dying dinosaur media industry that would rather kill innovation than have to learn to change. Follow the money. A simple look at the lists of corporate supporters of SOPA/PIPA, along with the corresponding list of companies that oppose these bills, tells the story.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), countless “old media” conglomerates. These are the companies that want these bills to pass, because they are in their death throes after over a decade of spending their dwindling profits on fighting, in any way they can, the changes the Internet has wrought, refusing to admit that the massive profits they achieved from the 1970s through the 1990s were built upon an unsustainable model. These industries refuse to adapt. Adaptation is hard. But the world changes. You have to be prepared to change with it, or die.

So what’s the threat?

The Internet has fundamentally transformed the way people communicate, and as a result it has changed the way they get their entertainment. Sure, piracy is a problem. It needs to be dealt with. But there are also huge opportunities to build profitable businesses legitimately selling entertainment products (intellectual property) online. iTunes, Amazon and Netflix prove that. The problem for old media, though, is that the Internet has obviated their role as a high-markup middleman. Look at Louis CK’s wildly successful experiment in DIY production and promotion. Change or die.

True, as the old entertainment industry contracts, American jobs are being lost. But the entertainment industry is a small piece of America’s GDP. By contrast, the Internet, and more broadly, information technology, is significantly larger. (According to Census Bureau data, in 2008 the film, recording and broadcasting industries employed 643,089 people; information services, software publishers and computer systems employed 3,443,162 people.)

The Internet is possibly the brightest spot in America’s economy right now, and it is profoundly threatened by what SOPA/PIPA could do. So, in effect, Congress is preparing to kill (or at least maim) one of the most thriving parts of our economy to save a sector that is going to die anyway. (I’m trying to think of an analogy to make here but they’re all too gruesome.)

How does it work?

Aside from understanding the true motivations of SOPA/PIPA, it’s just as important to understand the implications these bills have for American Internet companies, our cherished freedom of speech, and the daily use of the Internet, even by Americans who by and large are engaging in purely harmless, infringement-free activities.

I’m about as squeaky-clean as Internet users come when it comes to copyright. Sure, I may have a handful of music files on my hard drive that I got from friends, just like we’d dub cassettes of our favorite CDs back in the late ’80s and early ’90s to share. Ever heard of a mixtape? But the overwhelming majority of my 18,000+ songs were purchased legitimately, either on CD or through download services like iTunes or Amazon. And a lot of the music I own, I purchased because I learned about it through friends. Even if they had already given me copies of the music. Even in the peak of the music industry’s profits from CD sales in the ’90s, that’s how it worked.

(I’m also a content producer myself, as a blog writer and independent musician. I’m skeptical of current copyright law and as such have taken to releasing all of my work under Creative Commons licensing. But that’s a topic for another post.)

The point is, sharing music doesn’t necessarily reduce music sales. I’d argue that, in limited quantities, between friends with similar tastes, it actually encourages music sales. But even if we agree that illicit copying and redistribution of things like movies and music is bad (and, when it’s done at a large scale, I do) piracy is not what’s killing old media — mediocre content and exorbitant pricing are. And SOPA/PIPA can’t help that.

The real danger of these bills is in their implementation. While ostensibly they’re only targeted at foreign websites, their means of recourse against infringers could result in the blocking of entire sites due to the alleged infringing activities of one member. This sledgehammer approach has broad-reaching implications for all Internet users in the United States (to say nothing of what it means for free speech, and the company it places America in amongst governments that censor the Internet).

What’s worse, it won’t even work. Already there is much discussion online of means of circumvention (which I will not link to here), and, worse, it breaks the Internet. I don’t just mean that it is going to destroy the way we use the Internet. I mean it actually runs contrary, on a deep technical level, to how the Internet functions. Even SOPA supporter Comcast (my ISP… for now) admits, albeit inadvertently, that at least on a technical level the requirements of the law are incompatible with how the Internet works.

A threat to America’s small-business owners

I’m one of those fabled “small business owners” politicians so love to talk about. I’ve been freelancing full-time in web development since 2008. Business has been great, even through the worst economic times in America since the Great Depression. All of the work I do is 100% legitimate, for honest, productive American businesses. This is the new economy, and it is America’s best hope for a brighter future. I’m expecting to expand my business this year, becoming an even larger presence in the community and helping to further spur on positive economic activity.

But SOPA/PIPA threaten the way I do business. Republicans in Congress put on some great political theater in 2009-2010 in their fight against “Obamacare,” claiming its provisions represented an undue threat to small businesses. But here we have a real threat to small and growing Internet-related businesses. If passed, these laws will impose odious burdens of monitoring and self-policing upon website owners, and the threat of takedown without due process will have a chilling effect on whether or not new ventures even get started. In short, nothing could more effectively put the brakes on this “engine of growth” for the American economy.

Take action

So what can you do? Old media still has deep pockets, and is well-represented on K Street. It has the ears of Congress. But, last I checked, these elected officials do also still represent us, the individual Americans who will be affected by these bills. So call them. Politely tell them why you believe these bills are bad. Check out other online resources that can help you get involved.

I will admit, however, that personally I have not attempted to contact any of my representatives. I already know that my House representative, Keith Ellison, opposes SOPA. Over in the Senate, unfortunately, Amy Klobuchar is one of the sponsors of PIPA. And, despite his genuine progressive spirit and work on behalf of American individuals, Al Franken is simply too deeply connected to old media not to also back PIPA. I sincerely doubt either of Minnesota’s senators will be convinced to change their position, no matter how many constituents call them.

But your representatives may still be on the fence. Reach out to them. Let them know why you think these bills are not just bad, but downright dangerous for America. The implications for America if they pass are far bleaker than the prognosis for the industries they are intending to protect.

And, this is an election year. Vote. While it will most likely be too late to affect SOPA/PIPA, do your part to make sure none of its supporters get re-elected in November. I have been a strong supporter of Amy Klobuchar in the past, even having donated to her first campaign, but unless she withdraws her sponsorship of PIPA, I will not be voting for her re-election this year.

As someone who works in the Internet, the implications of SOPA/PIPA are huge for me and for my business. But this affects us all.

Tell me more!

As with a lot of hot-button issues, when I get my dander up it’s sometimes hard for me to calmly and clearly explain the rationale for my argument. I’ve linked throughout this post to some great resources for learning more about what SOPA/PIPA is and why it’s bad, but as I come across other sites that do a more effective job of explaining it than I have, I’ll add them here.

Other sites discussing problems with SOPA/PIPA

Updates on the fight against SOPA/PIPA

A tale of two decades

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

–Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

We’re approaching the tenth anniversary of two pivotal events in the early 21st century. One is perhaps the darkest day America has faced since, at least, World War II. The other was the seemingly inauspicious debut of an electronic device that would soon herald an era of unprecedented advancement in consumer technology.

That I should even place the World Trade Center attacks and the introduction of the iPod into the same blog post, much less the same sentence, is surely offensive to some and perhaps befuddling to most of the rest. But I think it cannot be denied that, while September 11, 2001 ushered in one of the darkest political times in American history, at least the darkest in my lifetime, October 23, 2001 — the day Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod — was perhaps the day that we formally entered “the future” as I (and many others like me) envisioned it in childhood: dazzling technological devices that we can carry around in our pockets and, increasingly, seem capable of doing just about anything.

As New York solemnly builds a monument to the tragic loss of over 3,000 lives on that Tuesday morning, an event that will surely be commemorated in countless ways by millions of Americans next month, we technophiles are learning about more sad news, with the resignation of Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. Though he’s intensely private about his personal life, it is well known that Steve Jobs underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, had a liver transplant in 2009, and has had limited involvement with Apple’s day-to-day operations since he took medical leave this past January. His resignation yesterday may mean his health has suffered further declines, but that is not for us to dwell on. Leave Steve alone to enjoy his life as best he can, for as much as he has left of it.

Personal concerns aside, the departure of Steve Jobs marks the end of an era. It would be little exaggeration to declare the past decade “The Decade of Apple” in terms of technology. Apple didn’t invent every technology it sells; like any modern company it relies upon the past developments of others, just as it outsources its manufacturing to companies like Foxconn in China. But the thing that Apple has done, largely due to Steve Jobs and his visionary leadership, is invent ways to turn these technologies into compelling, “magical,” transformative devices. And along the way he has transformed Apple into a finely tuned machine itself, capable of creating these products of unparalleled originality and unlimited usefulness, at highly competitive (sometimes unmatchable) prices, with such efficiency that the company has gone from “90 days away from bankruptcy” (as it was so famously described just before Jobs’ return at the end of 1996) to vying with Exxon to be the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

I’ve read plenty of gloom-and-doom speculation about the future of Apple without Steve Jobs, especially in the last 15 hours or so since the announcement of his resignation. Most of it is utterly ludicrous. New CEO Tim Cook and the rest of his executive team are more than capable of carrying on producing great products without Steve Jobs (or with him in a far more limited role as Chairman of the Board). Whether, over the longer term, they’ll be able to continue inventing new products as transformative as the iPod, iPhone and iPad (and whether they’ll all have to have names starting with “iP”), only time will tell. But now is clearly not the time to sell Apple stock, if you own any. (And if you don’t, maybe you should buy some… which is what I should probably be doing right now instead of writing this.)

A tale of two decades. While the September 11 attacks, and the wars, economic turmoil and political polarization that followed them, have made the last decade one of the most difficult in our nation’s history, Steve Jobs and his work at Apple have led the way for the past decade to become one of the most exciting and transformative we’ve ever seen in terms of technological advancement and, in particular, what technology can do to improve people’s everyday lives.

So, thank you, Steve Jobs, for providing a counterpoint to what was otherwise a dark decade of foolishness, incredulity and despair. Thank you for bringing to the world your wisdom, belief and hope. I spend much of every day relying on Apple devices, from using the C25K app on my iPhone during my morning run, to building websites in BBEdit on my MacBook Air, to relaxing in the evening watching “Mad Men” on Netflix with my Apple TV.

There are plenty of things going on in the world right now that are cause for sadness, frustration, anger, confusion, and despair. But the simple joy and unprecedented utility of these devices that Steve Jobs and the rest of the minds at Apple have created give me hope. If people can produce things so well-designed, so incredibly useful, so delightful, then perhaps, someday, we can get all of the rest right too.

“Fake Steve Jobs” on the true cost of Chinese manufacturing

I often complain about how just about everything is made in China these days. It’s about the exploitation of workers for the sake of cheaper goods. Well, in case you didn’t hear about it, a worker at the Chinese factory that makes iPhones committed suicide recently because he lost a prototype fourth-generation iPhone. And why did he commit suicide over this? Because he was apparently being tortured by his employers (Foxconn) over it. Presumably because this is the kind of mistake that might cost Foxconn their lucrative contract with Apple.

What was that factory worker’s life worth? Less than Foxconn’s iPhone manufacturing contract? Less than Apple’s potentially stolen trade secrets?

“Fake Steve Jobs” has posted a blog entry on the matter. If you’ve never read his blog before, the tone may be a bit shocking to you, but cut through the parody and there are a couple of paragraphs here that are probably the best critique ever of our reliance on cheap Chinese labor to manufacture the high-tech, low-cost devices we consume so voraciously:

Well, this is the world we are living in. These are the people we are dealing with. This is how we have to deal with them. We can’t make these products in the United States. Nobody could afford to buy them if we did. And, frankly, the quality would be about half what we get out of China. But these guys play rough. They really do. They are not nice people. And, though we talk a good game about how we insist on workers being treated with dignity, blah blah blah, well, I mean, come on. Have you ever been to China? We have. We’ve been to China. We know what goes on there. We know how they open your mail, and listen to your phone calls, and let their factories pollute like crazy and exploit workers, all in the name of progress. And we turn a blind eye to it. We let them know when we’re coming to visit, and they give us a tour and put on a little show of how great things are, and how wonderful the dorm life is, and afterward we pretend to keep an eye on them — but it’s all theater. It is. We know it. What’s more, you know it. Everyone knows it.

We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. There’s no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. No way. And don’t be confused — what we’re talking about here is our way of life. Our standard of living. You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them, people who will do anything to get a life that is a tiny bit better than the shitty one they were born into, people who get exploited and treated like shit and, in the worst of all cases, pay with their lives.

I’ve read plenty about the conditions in Chinese factories, enough to make me want to never buy anything that says “Made in China” on the label. But, honestly, that’s getting nearly impossible these days. It’s not just about being too cheap to buy the more expensive version of the product made somewhere else with better labor laws; it’s that in many cases there is no other option that wasn’t also made in China.

Apple products present the biggest dilemma for me personally. I’ve been a Mac-o-phile for over 15 years. I’ve staked my livelihood around work that depends integrally on things Apple makes, and they’re all made in China. And Apple’s not alone — as far as I know, all of the major computer companies contract out their manufacturing to Chinese firms. I suppose I could build my own PCs and switch to Linux, but even then, it would be hard to find all of the necessary components that go into a computer, with a “nothing-made-in-China” restriction.

So, for me, in many cases, boycotting Chinese-made goods is simply impossible. But I do what I can. If there’s another option, I’ll take it. I’m willing to pay more if I have to. And even though I’m writing this on an Apple computer that was manufactured in one of these same Chinese factories, perhaps speaking out on the matter is some small penance for my complicity in what’s going on.

There’s more on the story from Gizmodo and, as usual, I learned about it all from Daring Fireball.

Forget red state/blue state: it’s really red browser/blue browser

Sean Tevis browser statsAnyone who’s read this blog for any period of time knows my political leanings pretty well. I’m about as liberal as they come in this country (which means I’m probably middle-of-the-road anywhere else). And the same reader(s) probably also know(s) how I feel about Internet Explorer 6.

Well it’s interesting to see that there seems to be a correlation between political viewpoint and web browser usage. As (almost) always, this comes from Daring Fireball. We’re looking at the decidedly non-traditional campaign blog of Kansas Democrat Sean Tevis. His campaign did a survey that, among other things, discovered that users of outdated browsers like Internet Explorer 6, AOL, “Don’t Know” and “No Internet” preferred, strongly, his Republican opponent, while users of Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari preferred Tevis. Interestingly, IE 7/8 users slightly favored Tevis.

It would be interesting to see the raw numbers, rather than just percent deviation, to get a sense of the relative proportions of the electorate who fell into each category, especially considering that Tevis apparently lost, by a small margin.

It’s also interesting to look at the strength of each group’s leanings. Those who most strongly favored the Republican candidate were the AOL users and non-Internet users, a.k.a. the Luddites. Chrome users (all on Windows) were the strongest Tevis supporters, followed by Safari (presumably all or nearly all Mac) users. Firefox users were slightly weaker supporters of Tevis. This makes sense to me in that I suspect there’s a high correlation between “average” Mac users (who almost all use Safari, just like most “average” Windows users run IE) and Democratic leanings, whereas users of Firefox (and of open source software in general) are as likely (or moreso) to be libertarian as liberal. Opera… well… I don’t know. Contrarians?

That IE 7/8 users slightly favored Tevis is most interesting to me. IE 7/8 represent by far the largest percentage of the Internet-using population. And the country as a whole moved slightly in the Democrats’ direction in the 2008 election. But Kansas is far more conservative than the US populace as a whole; combine that with the “No Internet” crowd, and a small margin of victory in favor of the Republican candidate makes sense.

P.S. Sean Tevis for President 2016.

Unless you’re a web geek, you probably don’t know what this means…

whitehouse.gov…but it’s a good thing.

From kottke.org: The country’s new robots.txt file.

Well, it’s probably easy to read too much into this. But the short story of it is that President Obama’s new whitehouse.gov website is blocking a lot less content from search engine “spiders” than that of Ex-President Bush (oh, that has a sweet ring to it).

Now there are plenty of reasons for putting things into your robots.txt file, and most of them have nothing to do with trying to withhold information from the public.

It’s rather odd, though, the set of directories Bush’s site was blocking from the spiders. I find expectmore and help especially amusing. The others aren’t quite so funny. What exactly about omb (Office of Management and Budget) did they need to hide? And… uh… well… 911 kind of goes without saying.

Why block these pages from being indexed by search engines? Good question. And here, I think, is the answer: to make it harder for the average citizen to keep track of changes that have been made to those pages by accessing Google’s cached versions (or, perhaps even more damning, the indefinitely-archived snapshots on the Wayback Machine).

But, it’s a new day. President Obama has promised a much more open and transparent White House, and if the visible underbelly of its website is any indication, he intends to keep his promise.

Also of interest: Here’s a comparison of the old and new whitehouse.gov sites.