Much more than just online piracy at stake

The online community was buzzing last week about the blackout protest on Wednesday by major American websites against proposed anti-piracy legislation. It was, however but one battle in a much wider cyber war as governments and regimes across the globe are battling to come to grips with the ever growing power the World Wide Net in its social network manifestations is giving to the citizens and groups or organisations in their midst.

Wednesday’s protest was unprecedented in many ways and the Internet blackout by a number of prominent American websites and led by Wikipedia in opposition to anti-piracy legislation on the table in the US House of Representatives and Senate, has sparked widespread debate over online freedoms.

The corresponding bills are known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the Senate. The proposed legislation is meant to cut access to foreign websites that provide copyrighted content or counterfeit products. But opponents argue that the bills threaten free speech and online innovation.

Led by Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, which blacked out its site for the day, thousands of other sites also expressed their opposition to the proposed legislation, which they claim is tantamount to censorship. Search-engine giant Google put a mock censorship bar over its logo for the day, and many of the sites that took part in the blackout urged users to contact their lawmakers about the bills.

Other side of the coin

But figures from  the other side of the battle, including the film and music industries, redoubled their efforts to gain support for the proposal.

An anti-piracy group called Creative America, backed by Hollywood studios, guilds and unions, began an advertising  campaign it planned to air in key legislative districts. The organisation claims online piracy costs US workers in film and television some $5.5 billion each year.

SOPA will ban websites from linking to others that violate copyright law. That may be obvious when it comes to the free, illegal downloading of films.

But there is much wider implication. For example sites such as the controversial (whistleblower) platform WikiLeaks, which has published highly explosive documents that damaged the reputation of the US could also fall foul to such legislation. With the argument that it wants to protect copyrights, the state could simultaeously create an instrument through which it can comfortably hide its own problems.

The bills could simply allow the Internet to be restricted. There is already talk that it could be divided nto a clean Internet and an unregulated shadow Internet in which users share ideas, forge ideas and eventually become the real Internet again.

Renowned legal scholar and Professor of Law at Harvard’s Kennedy School of  Government, Johathan  Zittrain in an analitical article for Information Clearing House among  nothers writes about SOPA:

• “DNS blocking is one of the techniques that China uses to prevent access to dissident websites, and has serious technical ramifications. Sandia National Laboratories published a letter, after being asked for comment, characterising the proposed DNS filtering as "whack-a-mole". ISOC also released a paper detailing how DNS blocking would undermine the internet architecture;
• “SOPA critics point to the vagueness of the phrase "technically feasible and reasonable measures" when questioning the burden the act will place on intermediaries. An elephant in the room is whether this requirement would necessitate active monitoring of all content to prevent access to previously noticed infringing sites and/or content;
• “While the current statute is limited to copyright infringement, the concern is that it establishes an architecture for widespread - indeed, nationwide - technical implementations of censorship; and
• “… alleged infringers may find their sites blocked and their funding cut off without any sort of due process.’’

In another Information Clearing House article, Lance Ulanoff writes that “… the Stop Online Piracy Act, … was not written by people who fundamentally misunderstand how the web works. They understand all too well, and want to change it forever.”

He argues that  “It’s not just books, music and movies. The Internet is empowering people to create all sorts of businesses and distribution systems. They leapfrog the old hurdles, ignore the gatekeepers and go straight to the public;” and

“When you turn copyright infringement into a felony and say that anyone can accuse a website of providing ”infringing” tools (and apply severe penalties whether or not you do something about it), you are essentially making it impossible for anyone to do anything online without fear of retribution.

“This is just as the authors and backers want it, though. Fear is a powerful motivator. It will grind the engine of the Internet to a halt and when everyone is wondering what to do

next, trying to figure out where they get their daily fix of viral videos or post their latest Bieber cover song, there will be media companies. They’ll be standing there, smiling, with open arms. One hand will be ready to give you a warm embrace, while the other collects your money.”