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MPAA Unhappy With Google's Opposition to Anti-American Copyright Legislation

Most technologists, bloggers, journalists, and in general, those who support the First Amendment of the US Constitution, were adamantly against the CIOCA Act - or the "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act". The bill would have given the Department of Justice, and indeed copyright holders, the arbitrary right to infringe on free speech by shutting down website deemed to be infringing - all without the benefit of due process.

The internet celebrated when CIOCA was died when the last year's Congress went out of session. But hey, there's a new class in town, and this year's Congress has reintroduced CIOCA. This time, it's virtually the same game with a different name - the Protect IP Act, or PIPA for short.

Much like the CIOCA act, PIPA is being near-universally derided by just about everyone who believes in the US Constitution and the Amendments that grant us the freedoms to participate in a democratic society. One slight different between PIPA from CIOCA is that PIPA concentrates its efforts on foreign websites. As recent domain seizures in the US have already proven, the authorities already have enough power to drop US websites. But PIPA goes much further than this.

What PIPA would create is the Great Firewall of America. US authorities, on the behest of a copyright complaint or other legal action, or even their own behest, can file an action to force DNS (Directory Name Service) providers to block certain websites deemed infringing. You see, when you enter a domain name in your browser, it needs to know the IP address of the website - a domain name (say, Slyck.com), means nothing to FireFox. It needs to talk to the DNS provider first, reference the domain name to the IP address, and bam - you're connected. One of the provisions of PIPA would prevent this from happening (but you can still connect via the sites IP address...)

Also being targeted are credit card processors and "search interactive services". That means sites like Google could also be forced to remove or block content - something Google flipped out about yesterday. From Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt:

"if there is a law that requires DNS [domain name systems, the protocol that allows users to connect to websites], to do X and it’s passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it...If it's a request the answer is we wouldn't do it, if it's a discussion we wouldn't do it."

Good for Google - and indeed good for the opposition to PIPA. The stronger the anti-PIPA camp, the less chance this has of becoming law. The MPAA caught wind of Schmit's comments, prompting a blog post in response. From Michael O’Leary, the MPAA's executive vice president for government affairs:

"Is Eric Schmidt really suggesting that if Congress passes a law and President Obama signs it, Google wouldn’t follow it? As an American company respected around the world, it’s unfortunate that, at least according to its executive chairman’s comments, Google seems to think it’s above America’s laws.

We’ve heard this ‘but the law doesn’t apply to me’ argument before – but usually, it comes from content thieves, not a Fortune 500 company. Google should know better. And the notion that China would use a bi-partisan, narrowly tailored bill as a pretext for censorship is laughable, as Google knows, China does what China does."

He actually has a good point about Google and China - considering Schmit further made a comparison between this bill and the Great Firewall of China. Rather curious considering Google's own work helped maintain this policy, however to Google's credit, they no longer collaborate with the Communist Chinese government.

From the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge:

"This new provision gives private parties the ability to get injunctions against credit card companies [and] ad network[s]...that serve targeted sites. One of the few upsides of the old bill was the fact that those who trusted the prosecutorial discretion of the government could take solace in the fact that only a foolhardy federal prosecutor would go after the edge cases of Internet entrepreneurs whose business models might be in good faith, though they ruffled the feathers of rightsholders. With the introduction of a private right of action, the injunctions issuing from this bill can now be called forth at the litigious whim of any copyright holder."

Aside from the political bickering, the PIPA act as it is currently written is wholly inadequate to confront the perceived issues of internet piracy. Although the MPAA claims the provisions of the bill are narrow, they are anything but. The bill is clearly written with copyright holders in mind, while side stepping the virtues of due process. Americans deserve better than this.

Tags: google, mpaa, p2p, CIOCA, PIPA

Comcast Users Blocked From The Pirate Bay

It's Com-Castic time for Comcast Pirate Bay Users.

May 12
Starting few hours ago, Comcast subscribers began reporting issues with accessing The Pirate Bay.

Although downtime is nothing new for users of the popular BitTorrent site, this time around the connectivity issues appear to be affecting only a select group.

Several tests and numerous user reports reveal that Comcast subscribers from all across the United States are unable to connect to The Pirate Bay. The traceroute from Comcast connections stops at thepiratebay.piratpartiet.se, as it’s supposed to, but The Pirate Bay website does not appear.

Further tests show that the blockade is not DNS related. What is actually causing the issue is uncertain at this point.

Although there’s been a lot of talk about censorship lately, it seems doubtful that this is an intentional blockade on Comcast’s part. That said, there is clearly a mismatch between the Comcast network and The Pirate Bay site which leaves access to the rest of the Internet unaffected.

TorrentFreak spoke to The Pirate Bay team who confirmed that there’s a significant drop in visitors from the U.S. They are currently investigating the issue to see if there’s anything they can do on their end.

When it comes to BitTorrent blocking, Comcast already has quite a reputation. In 2007 TorrentFreak broke the news that Comcast was actively blocking BitTorrent traffic. Comcast initially denied, but later admitted its wrongdoings.

Comcast’s BitTorrent blocking fueled the Net Neutrality debates and eventually resulted in an FCC investigation and various lawsuits. A class action lawsuit was settled by the ISP who reserved a $16 million fund for affected subscribers.

In the light of all the previous legal issues it therefore seems unlikely that Comcast has ventured out on its own to block The Pirate Bay website.

When there’s more information available on the current issues we’ll update this article. In the meantime Comcast users can access the site through Anonymouse and other proxies.

Update: It appears that many Rogers users in Canada have problems accessing the site as well.

Tags: pirate bay, piratebay, comcast, blocked, p2p

Spokesperson Shigenori Yoshida said it plans to fully restore service by the end of the month. Company wants to ensure complete integrity of the system.

The Sony PlayStation Network has been down for almost 3 weeks now, and according to a report it appears that users will have to wait three weeks more.

The PSN network was shuttered April 20th after it was discovered that hackers had breached the network’s security, and that over 70 million accounts may have been comprised – including credit card information.

Sony said a week ago that some services would soon be available, but it decided to delay the move in order to ensure system security which it says is "vital for the process of restoration."

"Additional comprehensive system checks and testing are still required, and we must complete that process before bringing the systems online," it says.

According to spokesperson Shigenori Yoshida, it now plans to fully restore PSN services by May 31st.

Sony has already announced a "Welcome Back" program for affected users to ”thank its customers for their patience and loyalty.” It includes a combination of free entertainment and service offerings as well as 30 days of free PlayStation Plus premium service for existing PlayStation Network customers. It’s also offered a year’s worth of identity theft protection.

In the meantime, Sony so far faces at least three class-action lawsuits. The first two, both filed in California courtrooms, accuse Sony of negligence for allowing a breach to occur in the first place, and for falling to inform users in a timely manner after it occurred. The third alleges breach of privacy.

Tags: sony, filesharing, hackers, payback, playstation