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Copyright changes in the wind

Right now there are moves afoot in the USA to give certain parties huge power over what you can an can't access on the internet.

Sounds like China or some Middle-Eastern dictatorship doesn't it?

What I'm talking about is the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) which is being proposed as a way of dealing with the issue of unauthorised distribution and downloading of content which ought to be protected by copyright.

Now let me disclose right from the start that I am someone who relies on the provisions of copyright law to protect much of the work I create. Of course I should qualify that by saying that I rely "in part" on copyright law -- I'm not stupid enough to believe that a few pages of text, signed into law by a bunch of politicians, is going to stop anyone from using my works without permission if they decide to do so.

In order to deliver more practical ways of restricting the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted material, the USA has drafted its SOPA legislation and you'd think, as someone whose work it is designed to protect, I'd be chuffed to bits.

Well I'm not -- in fact far from it.

The reality is that SOPA is a nasty, freedom-robbing bit of proposed legislation which, if passed into law, represents an incredibly dangerous precedent.

SOPA would give authorities the right to block access to any website or other service that were deemed to be engaged in activities likely to result in a breach of copyright. Yes -- we are talking about "blocking" and censorship.

Sounds fair?

The hell it does!

This law is not too far removed from NZ's own "three strikes" law -- insomuch as it might well end up punishing the wrong party for copyright infringements.

If passed in its current form, SOPA would (for instance) allow for an ISP or hosting company to be disconnected from the Net if *any* of its customers engage in a breach of copyright law. It has the potential to penalise a huge swathe of the Net community for the actions of a few.

In fact, under the proposed law, sites such as YouTube and Google could effectively be kicked off the Net -- unless they can guarantee that no user of those services is committing any breach of copyright through those services.

Now one only has to look at YouTube to see that there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of copyright-infringing videos on the site. Many of these infringing uploads are deleted pretty quickly but some have been there an awfully long time -- flying just under the radar.

If a YouTube competitor wanted to get the company out of the online video business, all they have to do under SOPA is to file complaints with evidence that YouTube is hosting infringing material and that they continue to host (albeit new) infringing material over a period of time.

Will special dispensation be given to YouTube?

And what about Google, Bing and the other search engines?

If they repeatedly link to unlawfully published copyrighted material, they will also be in breach of SOPA. Will authorities step in and disconnect them from the Net?

I strongly doubt it.

So it would appear that SOPA is a law that will only affect those who aren't large or powerful enough to resist its draconian provisions.

Will we see a version of SOPA here in NZ?

Yes, of course we will. When it comes to legislation in respect to the online world, NZ has played "follow the leader" for years now -- and will continue to do so. We followed the USA with their CANSPAM laws and we've followed others with our "three strikes" law.

While, as someone who enjoys the protections that copyright offers, I support the goal of SOPA, I also strongly disagree with the way it will effectively fragment the industry into "those who are big enough to be immune" and "those who are too small to resist".

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