An uproar from Web-Aware citizens and organizations over proposed federal legislation was led by the blacking out of the Wikipedia.org (English Version) on January 18, 2012.
” Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.
Learn more. Contact your representatives. Your ZIP code:”
On January 19, 2012 a more complete story on the issue was published on Wikipedia. It reads for the most part as follows:
(NOTES: [1] The article has been slightly reformatted for easier online reading; all the words and web links to other sites and pages are from Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act, and [2], we have omitted the “Pro” arguments from the page simply because we are strongly opposed to the proposed legislation)
The PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 or PIPA), also known as Senate Bill 968 or S.968, is a proposed law with the stated goal of giving the US government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods”, especially those registered outside the U.S.[1] The bill was introduced on May 12, 2011, by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT)[2] and 11 bipartisan co-sponsors.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementation of the bill would cost the federal government $47 million through 2016, to cover enforcement costs and the hiring and training of 22 new special agents and 26 support staff.[3] The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill, but Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) placed a hold on it.[4]
The PROTECT IP Act is a re-write of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA),[5] which failed to pass in 2010. A similar House version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), was introduced on October 26, 2011.[6]
In the wake of online protests held on January 18, 2012, on January 20 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that a vote scheduled for January 24 would be postponed.[7][8]
Content
The bill defines infringement as distribution of illegal copies, counterfeit goods, or anti-digital rights management technology.
Infringement exists if “facts or circumstances suggest [the site] is used, primarily as a means for engaging in, enabling, or facilitating the activities described.”[9] The bill says that it does not alter existing substantive trademark or copyright law.[10]
The bill provides for “enhancing enforcement against rogue websites operated and registered overseas” and authorizes the United States Department of Justice to seek a court order in rem against websites dedicated to infringing activities, if through due diligence, an individual owner or operator cannot be located.[11] The bill requires the Attorney General to serve notice to the defendant.[12]
Once the court issues an order, it could be served on financial transaction providers, Internet advertising services, Internet service providers, and information location tools to require them to stop financial transactions with the rogue site and remove links to it.[13]
The term “information location tool” is borrowed from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is understood to refer to search engines but could cover other sites that link to content.[14]
The Protect IP Act says that an “information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order”. In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending “Internet site”.[15]
Nonauthoritative domain name servers would be ordered to take technically feasible and reasonable steps to prevent the domain name from resolving to the IP address of a website that had been found by the court to be “dedicated to infringing activities.”[16]
The website could still be reached by its IP address, but links or users that used the website’s domain name would not reach it. Search engines—such as Google—would be ordered to “(i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the [court] order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site.”[17]
Trademark and copyright holders who have been harmed by the activities of a website dedicated to infringing activities would be able to apply for a court injunction against the domain name to compel financial transaction providers and Internet advertising services to stop processing transactions to and placing ads on the website but would not be able to obtain the domain name remedies available to the Attorney General.[18]
Opponents
The English-language Wikipedia page on 18 January 2012, illustrating its international blackout in opposition to SOPA and PIPA.
Legislators
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (D) has publicly voiced opposition to the legislation, and placed a Senate hold on it in May 2011, citing concerns over possible damage to freedom of speech, innovation, and Internet integrity.[30]
Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (R) has also publicly voiced his opposition to the legislation as well as its sister bill in the House, SOPA.[31]
Congressional opponents of PROTECT IP have introduced an alternative bill called the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act).[32][33]
Companies and organizations
The legislation is opposed by the Mozilla Corporation,[34] Facebook,[34] Electronic Frontier Foundation,[35] Yahoo!, eBay, American Express, reddit, Google,[36] Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch,[37] English Wikipedia,[38], Uncyclopedia[citation needed], and many more. Internet entrepreneurs including Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley signed a letter to Congress expressing their opposition to the legislation.[39]
The Tea Party Patriots have argued that the bill “is bad for consumers”.[40]
A letter of opposition was signed by 130 technology entrepreneurs and executives and sent to Congress to express their concern that the law in its present form would “hurt economic growth and chill innovation in legitimate services that help people create, communicate, and make money online”.[41] English-language
Wikipedia sites joined other Internet sites on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 in protesting the PIPA and SOPA legislation by staging a “blackout” of service for 24 hours.
Known websites performing this include some websites such as: Wikipedia, CNet, Cheezburger network sites, and many more. In order to perform this, many websites denied access to their websites altogether.[42]
Others
Law professors Mark Lemley (Stanford University), David S. Levine (Elon University), and David G. Post (Temple University) have criticized the PROTECT IP Act and SOPA.[43]
Reception
On January 14, 2012, White House officials posted a statement saying, “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small”, and “We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet.”[44][45][46][47]
Technical objections to DNS blocking and redirection
The bill originally contained measures which would allow the stripping of rogue websites out of the Internet’s virtual “phone book.” Under what is technically known as Domain Name System (DNS) redirection, users would be directed by DNS to a government warning instead of to rogue web sites.[48]
