Explaining Piracy

So, okay...I think we can all agree that SOPA is DOA. The bill is poison, and any elected official who is caught supporting it would no doubt fall prey to the internet vigilantism that wrecked the thing in the first place.

The SOPA backers are now discovering, do not mess with the internet.

Where does that leave us? Well, obviously, I think everyone has now seen that a handful of tech companies can whip their members into a frenzy. If these supposedly neutral corporations decide to weigh in on political matters, they can have a tremendous influence.

Sour grapes? Not really...at least, I hope not. Like I said before, if SOPA were to pass, I would probably eventually find myself out of a job. I'm honestly agnostic on the bill. I thought it was a good idea, and I was annoyed by the misinformation and hysterics...but as for actually passing the damn thing...it would probably complicate my life more than it would help it.

But, lost in this whole thing is the piracy issue. Maybe not lost, necessarily, since people are now talking about piracy and hopefully a compromise bill can be passed in the near future. However, anything that does not include the provisions outlined in SOPA will be toothless, and nothing will change.

Consequently, I feel the need to explain how piracy works, because no one really seems to know. I'll also explain why anti-piracy efforts have been largely ineffective up to this point (I can't go into a lot of detail...but hopefully I can give you all the gist).

Online piracy is a moneymaking endeavor for everyone involved; that is why people do it. I can't tell you how, because this could be construed as a "how to make money off of piracy" article...but you'll just have to trust me. From the lowliest uploader to the multi-million dollar rogue hosting companies, everyone is making money off of piracy...and none of it is going back to the content creators. Not a damn cent. That's the shittiest thing about piracy.

But here's the main problem with enforcement: internet piracy is global. "U.S. exports of film and entertainment media often attain shares in international markets in excess of 90 percent due to high global interest in U.S. filmed entertainment" (source). This means that the vast majority of entertainment content consumed worldwide is produced in the United States. So, foreign websites can distribute illegal content free to US consumers with impunity. Anyone can see how that's a problem.

So how do we stop it? We use the DMCA. Seems fair, right? I mean, not very much has changed since the law was passed in 1998...especially not on the internet. 56k modems!? Lightning fast!!!



Yeah, there are many problems with the DMCA...which is not a terrible law; it's just out of date. Here's three biggies:

1) Jurisdiction. The DMCA only applies to websites hosted in the United States. Very few pirate websites are hosted in the United States, which pretty much breaks this law from the get-go.

2) ID Requirements. A lawful take-down notice must include "identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed." This means that copyright holders must personally verify each link they are examining. That's fine with the little 1998 internet, spearheaded by those tech giants AOL and Prodigy...but the 2012 internet scoffs at your feeble attempts to quantify its vastness. There is just too much out there now, and we poor enforcement folk are getting buried.

3) Safe Harbor. It's a great idea in theory...but in practice it just ends up making enforcement impossible. Here's how it works -- one "linking" site allows anonymous users to posts links (their defense: "we don't host any content, so we're not breaking laws"), a second, "hosting" site allows anonymous users to post videos (their defense: "safe harbor; we remove content only if we receive an official letter from the copyright owner"). One site points to the other site, and everyone makes money. If a video is removed, it can be immediately uploaded again with no repercussions (some sites even offer multiple URLs for a single video -- if one URL is removed, you don't even need to re-upload). Unless this safe harbor loophole is closed, piracy will continue ad infinitum. Simply put, websites must be held accountable for their content, whether it's user-generated or not.

So there it is. Any new anti-piracy law must close those loopholes. SOPA would have done that, but everyone freaked out and now SOPA is going away. The OPEN Act is limp-wristed and impotent, and will make enforcement even more of a bastard than it already is (Really? The tiny, underfunded International Trade Commission? Really?).

The truth, as I've said before, is that the anti-SOPA hysteria is being fed by major corporations. This is not some kind of "grass roots movement." Both industries stand to take a financial pounding; entertainment via piracy, and internet via loss of piracy (which accounts for 1/4 of all web traffic -- source). In this propaganda war, the massive billion-dollar entertainment corporations lost to the massive billion-dollar internet corporations.