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There’s been a huge flood of news, articles, stories and posts on SOPA recently.  Many people are scratching their heads, wondering what this SOPA thing is all about.  So this is a quick primer on why I believe SOPA is bad.

As stated above, this is my opinion (that is, Eric Robichaud, CEO of 401 Consulting).  I’m neither a laywer nor a politician, so I invite you to view the actual, full text of the proposed bill here and judge for yourself.  That said, here is my overview / option on the matter.

The “Stop Online Piracy Act” bill, aka “SOPA”, is aimed at, well, stopping online piracy of copyrighted materials.  I certainly have my own opinions about copyright laws and approaches to this subject, but at no time am I debating the validity of protecting one’s copyrights.  This debate isn’t about whether or not to stop piracy online.  It’s about how to stop it.  And SOPA isn’t the way.

SOPA is far too broad-reaching, and far too vague in it’s language.  It overrules carefully crafted provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (aka “DMCA”), makes the wrong people liable for infringements, sets up website owners for massive lawsuits, and more.

For example, the DMCA has “safe harbor” provisions for web site operators and digital carriers. If I post an illegal video to Facebook, then Facebook is required to forcibly take it down if notified about it.  Stated another way, Facebook’s liability is merely to respond when notified.  They’re not liable for the original posting.  Under SOPA, Facebook itself is liable, and could be legally shut down, and sued!

The bill targets sites that are “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” That seems reasonable at first.  Except when you read how they define “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.”  They define such a site (and therefore subject it to being shut down) if it is “primarily designed for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables copyright violation.”

Read that closely.

The site does not have to be design for the purpose of copyright violation (such as “The Pirate Bay”).  No, it only has to be designed in such as way that it offers services that enable copyright violation!   So basically, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Dropbox, and nearly ANY site on the internet that allows anyone to upload content, would all suddenly become violators!

Facebook has no idea what it’s 800 million users are doing in real-time, at any given moment.  It’s impossible to police.  Facebook provides a communication and content-sharing platform.   But SOPA puts the onus squarely upon the website operator (eg. Facebook).

The DMCA already states that posting copyright materials is illegal, but doesn’t make the website liable (unless the website itself posted the content of course) — the website is required to remove offending material when alerted.  SOPA overrules all of that.

SOPA also grants the U.S. Attorney General the sole right to police foreign websites where it has no jurisdiction.  If it notices infringing materials on a foreign website, it can censor the site in the U.S. by requiring all internet ISPs, DNS providers, search engines, etc. to permanently block access to the site, making it invisible to U.S. citizens.  If it’s a foreign site that the U.S. government can’t take down, it can block it.

Personally, I try to not be a conspiracy theorist, but I see this as one of the primary motivations behind SOPA — to give the government the ability to censor websites it doesn’t like.  Is Wiki Leaks embarrassing?  No problem – gone in a heartbeat.  What are we now, China?

There’s a lot more to this bill too.  For instance, a copyright owner can now sue the offending website without any ceilings or limitations on damages, including attorneys fees, and will win if the website cannot prove that they’re not “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.”  And the way this is all worded (see above), it’s nearly impossible to prove that it isn’t!  This becomes a field day for attorneys, and an entrepreneurs worst nightmare.

SOPA tramples free speech.  SOPA makes the wrong people liable for copyright infringement.  And it will kill innovation — who wants to launch a new site that will just get you sued or worse?  We’ll never see the next Facebook, YouTube or Google.

I’m not here to debate the merits of Wiki Leaks or copyright law in general.  Just merely giving the high-level overview of why I’m against SOPA. It’s the legal equivalent of using a nuke to kill an ant.  So what if hundreds of square miles are a radioactive wasteland now, millions of people were killed, and billions in property destroyed — we got the ant!

There are proper and reasonable ways to do things.  This just isn’t it.