Internet giants place full-page anti-SOPA ad in NYT

Congress may not want to hear from opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act at today's hearing, but that hasn't stopped a broad coalition of (often fierce) competitors representing the Internet's giants from placing an ad in today's NYT, signed by Google, Facebook, Mozilla, Zynga, eBay, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and AOL.

We support the bills’ stated goals—providing additional enforcement tools to combat foreign “rogue” websites that are dedicated to copyright infringement or counterfeiting. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new and uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of websites. We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity. We cannot support these bills as written and ask that you consider more targeted ways to combat foreign “rogue” websites dedicated to copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting, while preserving the innovation and dynamism that has made the Internet such an important driver of economic growth and job creation.
One issue merits special attention. We are very concerned that the bills as written would seriously (DMCA) to provide a safe harbor for Internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites. Since their enactment in 1998, the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions for online service providers have been a cornerstone of the U.S. Internet and technology industry’s growth and jeopardize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike information lawfully online.

We stand together to protect innovation (PDF)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Business • censorship • Copyfight • corporatism • free speech • law • sopa • web theory

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Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

http://twitter.com/xcablex Peter

May the games of power between politics and economy begin … once again.
- http://twitter.com/LambdaCalculus Robert Menes
  
  We need an epic, sweeping, dramatic piece of music for this moment.
  - Brian O’Shea
    
    Any such music would most likely be copyrighted, and therefore couldn’t be used for this purpose. :p
- Caitlin Cogan Doemner
  
  Oh, it’s economy vs economy in the public sector ring. Hollywood vs. Google might be a good showdown title…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=749833892 Florian Braun

So not only does big business own congress but it is the wrong kind of big business, if any corporation is going to have undue influence on the government i would want it to be Google, they seem to have some sense of ethics, unlike the entertainment industry apparently.
- http://www.facebook.com/brianrazencain Brian Cain
  
  You obviously never read that short story about when Google takes over the TSA
  
  edit: I know it’s online but I can’t remember the name or the author.
  - Morkl
    
    How about Scroogled, by Cory Doctorow? http://craphound.com/?p=1902
    - http://www.facebook.com/brianrazencain Brian Cain
      
      WHAT A CO-WINK-A-DINK!
  - http://twitter.com/mcb3k Matthew
    
    I think you’re talking about “Scroogled”, which is by Cory Doctorow (the man who wrote this article :P)
    
    The download for it is at http://craphound.com/?p=1902
- http://twitter.com/ScottKellum Scott Kellum
  
  Google also understands the Internet unlike the MPAA and RIAA.
Graysmith

Microsoft and Apple should’ve gotten in on this too.
- https://plus.google.com/117702410245683101961/posts Lucian Armasu
  
  Microsoft is actually sponsoring the bill.
- tcarnell
  
  Apple? but they are one of unethical ‘entertainment’ companies and would benefit greatly when the US start pulling down thousands of media/content websites.
- r4vi
  
  Microsoft through their lobbying arm at the Business Software Association are lobbying FOR the motion.
- http://twitter.com/rususeruru Russell Pitts
  
  Microsoft stands to earn money from the bill’s passage, more so than from it floundering.
- http://profiles.google.com/joshstrike Josh Strike
  
  No, I think Apple will be just fine. No pirated apps or movies in Apple-land. And it wouldn’t hurt them if Google got taken down a peg or two.
- http://shmerl.blogspot.com/ Shmerl
  
  They sold their souls to big content, so it’s not surprising they didn’t protest.
- https://plus.google.com/117702410245683101961/posts Lucian Armasu
  
  Microsoft is actually sponsoring the bill.
- kev rat
  
  those 2 want the bill to pass
- Seth Huber
  
  Unfortunately, Microsoft and Apple support SOPA:
  http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/17/which-tech-companies-back-sopa-microsoft-apple-and-27-others/
- http://www.standupforkids.org blackroseMD1
  
  Yeah, except they are actually on the other side, as part of the Software Business Alliance, who have come out in support of SOPA.
- http://twitter.com/sameerverma Sameer Verma
  
  But they didn’t. Hmm.
- Uni Dahl
  
  OMG! This might come as a surprise to you, but it is Microsoft and Apple are pushing this (albeit not on their own). Here is some more insight:
  http://www.osnews.com/story/25345/EU_Speaks_Out_Against_Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
  
  Food for thought next time you need a new phone or any other hardware.
- http://polymorphicninja.blogspot.com/ Polymorphic Ninja
  
  They did. Only in support of the bills.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Abdul-Alhazred/100000416725737 Abdul Alhazred

It’s fantastic that we’ve actually got some large corporations with opposing interests in this matter. Maybe, if their respective lobbies butt heads hard enough to cancel each other out, the small waves the public makes can actually decide an issue for once?
Tom Pappalardo

Jeez, huge corporations. Hire a freakin’ graphic designer.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=749833892 Florian Braun
  
  I think they were going for “Plain and respectable” not sure how it worked out though.
- http://twitter.com/boinzy Daniel Burns
  
  It’s a simple letter with a focus on the message. I think it’s perfect.
- http://www.facebook.com/nelica.sinclaire Brad O’Neal
  
  To do what? Design a fancy box around their statement in the newspaper?
Scott Rubin

Does anyone know if the hearing will be on C-SPAN?
- kpelt
  
  I don’t think so, but it is being streamed here: http://judiciary.house.gov/
Daniel Smith

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

It’s a little behind schedule, but 1984 seems to have finally arrived…..
- Martijn
  
  It’s government. They’ve taken quite a bit longer to implement it, but they’re finally getting there. Next step: an exhaustive list of words we can use and what they really mean.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

Done and shared.

Pretty damn scary. A harbinger of our future for sure.
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

Of course the government wants the ability to block internet websites.

The internet offers the organizational mechanisms to take down entire governments!

They’re scared to death!!!
- http://www.about.me/patrickcurl Patrick Curl
  
  No crap, look at Occupy Wallstreet, and even more so the protests in Egypt, Syria, and other middle east countries that toppled whole governments. We’re on the verge of a new kind of internet-fueled democracy hybrid because of people standing up for their rights, or what they deem should be their inalienable rights, and fighting for their freedom. Facebook and Twitter are going to revolutionize the world over the next 10 years..
Arthur McGiven

I am sure that someone with better historical knowledge than me could write a great study about how the last 150 years or so of American history is in fact the story of how robber barons strove to control the Congress and then the country. By the time they are done the USA could be a police state that will make the late eastern bloc countries look like amateurs.
Lobster

Oh yeah, if there’s one company I associate with “protecting innovation,” it’s Zynga.
theoneeyedman

It was in today’s Wall Street Journal as well.
- http://fred.myopenid.com/ Fred
  
  It was also in “Roll Call”, “Politico”, and “The Hill”, I believe.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QKGGRQRAWZTR552K6SUNB7OTYI Kodiang

It is a shame for a country like US where everything is privatised to a few corporations. Maybe US of A should stop electing their President, let the top 50 corporations choose among their CEOs to run the country and among their board members as congressmen. One thing I’m very certain, while the evil corporations are milking dry the American public and the congressmen fill their election coffers with corporate bribery, other countries will move on. Who care about American copyright?
You_Sir_Cannot

Today at BoingBoing I learned of 2 new “internet giants”, Zynga and LinkedIn.

Thanks BoingBoing.
http://profiles.google.com/hyouko.kun Chris Drouin

Zynga’s pretty big and getting bigger – they’ve filed for a $1 billion IPO. Not a fan, though. They got there in part by engaging in a number of potentially questionable practices (some of their early games were straight rips from competitors, some of the advertising they’ve done in the past is borderline fraudulent/scammy, they put pressure on employees to give up pre-IPO shares or face termination, their games are arguably designed to extract money from vulnerable / addictive personality types…)

Edit: Reading some more, apparently their expected valuation post-IPO is actually $20 billion. It’s probably fair to call them an ‘internet giant’.
Dan Allard

Zynga seems like the ‘Triumph the insult comic dog’ of the group: just add “for me to poop on” to the end and it makes total sense.
Millo Lopez

Microsoft is suspiciously absent.
- Star Jonestown
  
  … And no Amazon.
  
  Not “suspicious” though.
- http://twitter.com/sameerverma Sameer Verma
  
  So is Apple.
garycal

One tangible way to show opposition to the bills is to move your domain registration and hosting away from “Go Daddy”, a company described as the entertainment “industry’s biggest tech ally on the bills” ( http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68448_Page3.html ). There are plenty of deserving registrars and web hosts *not* supporting the bills.
- trefecta
  
  Did that when the GoDaddy CEO shot an elephant to give the people of the area “a valuable source of protein”.
  http://boingboing.net/2011/04/01/godaddy-ceo-unable-t.html
Quothz

So a bunch of companies, most with haunting ethical questions over them or quietly forgotten behind them, have gathered to oppose a somewhat draconian law. They’re doing this because they favor the current, slightly-less-draconian law, which gives large media companies more tools to bully individuals with little recourse. This is because the new law will give large media companies more tools to bully them. They have nothing but praise for the law in place that protects them but hurts people.

Don’t be fooled, folks. These guys don’t care about you, they’re protecting their respective bottom lines. If what they’re doing is good, it’s only incidental – don’t praise them for it. Likely as not, next time they’ll be lobbying for something that’ll hurt you.
- Daniel Smith
  
  As my telepathic skills are not highly developed, and IMHO results trump intentions every time, I’m entirely comfortable with praising a corporation when they do the right thing…even if the little paranoid voice in my head thinks they may be doing it for the wrong reasons or have not always acted as I would have had them do. And maybe, just maybe, praising them when they do good instead of condemning them even when they do do good will influence them to do good more often.
http://homebiss.blogspot.com/ Saidul A Shaari

Yeah, baby. Way to go!
http://twitter.com/benwerd Ben Werdmuller

“Foreign rogue websites”?!

Nonetheless, great stuff.
Henry Hanse

I wonder how the Occupy Wall Street protesters will react…they may choose either free speech or no lobbyists.
obah

Just thinking: would it be illegal for a marketing office not in USA to start offering services where they’d plant “illegal (in USA) links” to a site and report it straight away to the cencors? F.e.x if the marketing office was in Russia would there be anyway for USA to make them stop?
- dnebdal
  
  Technically, I guess they’d be guilty of “using a service hosted on US soil for purposes illegal there”, or whatever the exact phrase they use to (try to) extradite random foreigners is. I doubt Russia would comply, mind you – but given enough diplomatic pressure they might still shut them down.
mrtortoise

Why not just claim the internet is a vegetable … that seems to work if you want things done in the US
Thomas Lukasik

Microsoft and Apple aren’t Internet companies — they “missed the boat” as far as the Internet is concerned. That reality isn’t likely to change, if it hasn’t by now — and they know it.

So it’s no wonder that they would support legislation that threatens technology companies like Google, eBay and Facebook – companies that did get the Internet, and are literally synonymous with it. I suspect that in their minds, any hurt they can put on the successful Internet players might level the playing field a little for them.
diplodicus

THE JPEGS! IT BURNS THE EYESES!

Seriously, never EVER EVER EVER use jpeg for text. Every time you do, 32 baby seals are clubbed.
http://twitter.com/akjak Ariel Phifer

I’m amused that the author(s) of the ad managed to squeeze in a lot of current political buzzwords. Gotta speak DC’s language, after all.