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Hacking Politics: name-your-price ebook on the history of the SOPA fight

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:37:09 +0000

Hacking Politics is a new book recounting the history of the fight against SOPA, when geeks, hackers and activists turned Washington politics upside-down and changed how Congress thinks about the Internet. It collects essays by many people (including me): Aaron Swartz, Larry Lessig, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Masnick, Kim Dotcom, Nicole Powers, Tiffiny Cheng, Alexis Ohanian, and many others. It's a name-your-price ebook download.

Hacking Politics is a firsthand account of how a ragtag band of activists and technologists overcame a $90 million lobbying machine to defeat the most serious threat to Internet freedom in memory. The book is a revealing look at how Washington works today – and how citizens successfully fought back.
Written by the core Internet figures – video gamers, Tea Partiers, tech titans, lefty activists and ordinary Americans among them – who defeated a pair of special interest bills called SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) and PIPA (“Protect IP Act”), Hacking Politics provides the first detailed account of the glorious, grand chaos that led to the demise of that legislation and helped foster an Internet-based network of amateur activists.

Hacking Politics

Name-your-price SOPA history

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:40:28 +0000

Alan sez, "Demand Progress, part of Aaron Swartz's legacy, has been working for a while on a collection of essays and thoughts by people including Aaron, Lawrence Lessig, Techdirt's Mike Masnick, and Kim Dotcom. The collection is now available in ebook and paperback form. You can even pay in bitcoins, if that's how you roll."

Cellphone unlocking is the first step toward post-SOPA copyright reform

Derek Khanna — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:30:32 +0000

Yale Law Fellow with the Information Society Project, columnist and policy expert Derek Khanna authored the controversial House Republican Study Committee memo “Three Myths about Copyright Law.” The memo on copyright reform was praised throughout the tech community as being "brilliant" and a "breath of fresh air." He has spoken at the Consumer Electronics Show as a technology expert and will be speaking at Freedom to Connect and the Conservative Political Action Conference. Derek was referred to as a “rising star” in the party by David Brooks in the New York Times. Mr. Khanna continues to be a major thought leader on technology issues and disruptive innovation

With SOPA, the industry had the money, the lobbyists, and the organization. But we, the digital generation, are the trump card—and we won. Now it’s up to us to make sure that the historic protest was not merely a historical aberration.

When I wrote the copyright report for the House Republican Study Committee, I had no idea the outpouring of support I would receive from the digital generation that I belong to. I wrote it solely to start a conversation amongst our Congressional Members, but instead I have seen it engage thousands of average people. The report was published on November 16, 2012. Two weeks later, on December 7, 2012, I was informed that I would not be retained as a staffer.

Despite the personal consequences, I am not giving up. I'm just getting started, and I'm not scared by a temporary setback. I'm emboldened by it. And I don't think I'm the only one, or that I'm one of a few.

The conversation that the copyright report started is inspirational, in the face of a political establishment (on both sides of the aisle) which often refuses to acknowledge that we are paying attention. It is up to us, the public, to be engaged. If we are not satisfied with our policy-makers and the policies that they enact, we can change the policies by challenging them.

We have the ideas, we have the tools, and we have the organization.

President Obama and the Tea Party show that an energized and engaged citizenry can elect candidates in grassroots movements. And we have seen them stop legislation in its tracks. SOPA’s opposition proved that a united digital movement can stop legislation that is expected to pass despite overwhelming odds, special interest’ cronies, and powerful politicians.

Working on Capitol Hill during SOPA was humbling.

For weeks many of the technology-savvy staffers saw the storm clouds of opposition against SOPA building, but we had no idea how massive or sudden the storm surge would be. Many of us were strongly against what we saw as internet censorship from the beginning, working behind the scenes to try and get our bosses on the right side of the issue. Many of us were brushed aside.

But, on January 18, the effect of the movement was deafening. Voters crashed congressional circuit boards and websites, tweeting and facebooking at Representatives and Senators in record numbers. Most of us had never seen anything like this before, and for many it was an abrupt, sobering reminder of what democracy really is. Members’ sudden, vocal opposition of legislation that they were co-sponsoring was a watershed moment; though I would argue that it was also proof of concept for something even bigger.

SOPA awoke the sleeping giant.

A digital generation is ready to change politics and policies, and they will succeed. They will do this by rallying behind new ideas, coalescing around legislation, and by leading campaigns for passage. The show of force during SOPA was impressive. But getting legislation on the table for consideration requires another level of activism. It's a challenge that we will soon rise to.

Politics is not exclusive to the intellectual, elected, or rich. Politics starts at kitchen tables, water coolers, gyms, bars, and churches. But how does it manifest itself as real change? Put simply: Idea + Movement + Effort = Legislation

I am confident that we can do this, even the special interests expect us to give up. To them, politics is about vested interests, donations and who has the biggest hired guns. Their cronies are counting on us being overwhelmed. They are banking on us fearing failure, on our failing to try in the first place.

I invite you to join us and continue this fight for future battles.

How do we start?

This fight is going to take a generation. It's going to take a movement. But let me suggest, for what it’s worth, a few pointers.

• We cannot continue to stay on the defensive, watching and waiting for the next SOPA. If we slumber, they will sneak provisions into law that do effectively the same or similar things as SOPA. The best defense is a solid offense.

• We should recognize that the next SOPA may not be like the old one. The content industry will likely be smart enough to try to accomplish the same ends through other legal avenues.

• We must analyze existing law. Our current laws are already, in some ways, nearly as bad as SOPA would have been.

• We must recognize that progress will require support from Republicans and Democrats alike, and therefore we need to be strategic in our battle choices.

• While we may have different perspectives and different priorities, we need to focus on areas of common interest where we form a collective whole.

• We should focus upon asymmetrical warfare. We shouldn’t be focused upon the big, fix-everything bill. We are the insurgents—and in the words of the famous Apple commercial, we need to think different.

We need a series of small, and highly strategic, affirmative victories. Such victories are hard to find, but they form the logical progression for a movement. Doing so will fulfill critical goals, each of which are strategic for overall success.

1. This will create an operating and ongoing coalition of post-SOPA actors.
2. It will change the dialogue and framing of the issues.
3. It will highlight the David v. Goliath nature of the fight, and thereby gain mainstream media attention.

Where do we start?

I believe that the first battle is on cellphone unlocking. Making the personal use of this technology illegal was a clear misstep and a major opportunity.

On January 26, 2013, it became illegal to unlock new phones. Unlocking is a technique to alter the settings on your phone to let you use it with compatible cellular networks operated by other carriers. Doing so now could place you in legal liability: up to 5 years in jail and a $500,000 fine. This is a violation of our property rights. It makes you wonder: if you can’t alter the settings on your phone, do you even own it?

This is just one clear example of intellectual property laws run amok: the underlying law was created to protect copyright, but it’s being applied in a situation that no legislator expected when they voted for the bill in 1998. It’s a clear example of crony capitalism, where a few companies asked for the law to be changed to their pecuniary benefit—despite the invasion of our property rights, its impact upon consumers, and its impact upon the overall market. The decision created even higher thresholds to entry for new market participants, which hinders competition and leads to less innovation.

When the Librarian of Congress (who had previously provided exceptions allowing this activity) issued a ruling on this issue on October 28, 2012, Congress refused to act. When that ruling went into effect, months later on January 26, 2013, Congress refused to act. On January 27, 2013, I published an article in the Atlantic, The Most ridiculous law of 2013 (So Far): It is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone, which brought more attention to this issue and was read by more than a million people. Despite this attention, Congress refused to act. At the time, I called their failure to address this issue a 'dereliction of duty.'

The SOPA generation sparked a White House petition to allow cellphone unlocking and Sina Khanifar and I advocated heavily on this issue over the past three weeks (Sina created the petition). During that time, Public Knowledge’s question on this issue was submitted for President Obama in the Google Plus Hangout. It was one of the most popular questions submitted. Rep. Defazo, Vint Cerf, and the National College Republicans all tweeted in favor of the petition. And yesterday, on February 21, 2013, at around 7:37 AM EST, the 100,000 signature threshold was crossed on the petition, thereby meeting the threshold required for the White House to provide a formal response. (We are currently over 110,000 signatures).

I propose that the post-SOPA protest coalition take this issue on forcefully, and encourage Congress to pass a bill that codifies permanent exemptions to the DMCA.

Dear Congress,
Please remove these items from your DMCA contraband list (both for developing the technology, selling and using the technology):
• Technology for unlocking and jail-breaking (currently allowed for iPhone, not allowed for iPad).
• Adaptability technology for the blind to have e-books aloud (currently subject to triennial review by the Librarian of Congress – it’s legal to use the technology but illegal to develop or sell).
• Technology to back-up our own DVD’s and Blu-Ray discs for personal use (current law makes this illegal and injunctions have even been used to shut down websites discussing this technology).
Signed,
The people

That we should have to petition our own government to remove these items from a “technological blacklist” is a clear example of how bad the problem has gotten—and why we can’t be satisfied with merely waiting for the next SOPA. If we win this battle, it will lay the groundwork for rethinking other parts of how our legal system affect technology, and how it allows crony capitalism to stifle innovation.

If you agree with me that this is the first of many strategic and winnable battles, the window to sign continues until Saturday. This is a milestone that will help start this process.

A Call to Arms

It’s up to us: was the historic protest against SOPA merely a historical aberration, or was it the beginning of a new historical norm? They had all the chips in SOPA: they had the money, they had the lobbyists, and they had the organization. But we are the trump card—the digital generation—and we won.

We're putting those special interests on notice. We are here, and we aren’t backing down. There are millions of Americans who believe that we deserve better from our politicians. For those willing to commence the next key battle on copyright reform, this is our call to arms.

You can follow Derek on Twitter at @Dkhanna11

Photo:REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

Lessig's Harvard Law lecture: "Aaron's Law"

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:36:37 +0000

Larry Lessig's Harvard Law address, "Aaron's Laws - Law and Justice in a Digital Age" is a riveting, bittersweet talk on the state of Internet law, and law in general, and, always, corruption, money and the abuse of power. If you want to understand how our world got to its present messed-up state, look no further. Then do something about it.

Lessig on "Aaron's Laws - Law and Justice in a Digital Age"

Fall of SOPA explained in 3 minute video

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 07:16:17 +0000

Simon sez, " This is a short motion graphic video concisely documenting the fall of SOPA with great attention to detail, and recognising future bills that may be a threat to online democracy. It is notable for the way in which it highlights SOPA as a great moment in history; a bill that threatened democracy was felled by one the greatest democratic sources in the world -- the internet."

The Fall Of SOPA

Survey for SOPA fighters

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:57:02 +0000

Dierdre from the I-School at Berkeley sez, "Did you take part in history? Want to contribute your story? We want to know it. Contribute to a knowledge base designed to shed light on the public's role in the debates. Many folks have written the people out of the narrative. We know you were there, we want to make sure your role isn't lost in the dustbin. We promise to let you know what we find."

France remains America's copyright crash-test dummy: about to ditch HADOPI, poised to adopt the dregs of SOPA instead

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 17:11:42 +0000

France is on the verge of killing its ill-starred HADOPI system, whereby people who are accused of multiple acts of copyright infringement are disconnected from the Internet, along with everyone in their homes. After two years, HADOPI has spent a fortune and has nothing to show for it. HADOPI was enacted thanks to enormous pressure from American entertainment companies and the US Trade Representative, and was the first of the "three strikes" rules to make it into law (New Zealand and the UK also both capitulated to Pax America shortly after).

But the new president Hollande is determined to continue to have France play the role of crash-test dummy for America's failed copyright policy. As a condition of dismantling HADOPI, his government has proposed enacting the worst provisions of SOPA, the US copyright proposal that America roundly rejected last year. Under SOPA.fr, the French government will make intermediaries (payment processors, search engines, web hosts) liable for infringement, with broad surveillance and censorship powers.

French Hadopi Scheme Gutted; Other Bad Ideas To Be Introduced Instead

SOPA's daddy, Lamar Smith, to chair the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:11:36 +0000

Mr_raccoon sez, "Remember Lamar Smith (the guy who tried to pass off SOPA as being good for the internet)? Well there is a lot of talk about his chairing the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. The GOP is set to vote on this today. This is like making an arsonist the fire-chief."

Internet Voter Registration Day: pledge to vote, and get your friends to pledge, and scare the piss out of SOPA-loving DC insiders

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:21:21 +0000

Tiffiniy from the SOPA-killing activist group Fight for the Future sez,

Remember when we worked together and beat back internet censorship and SOPA, and changed the world earlier this year? 2012 is a historic year for our basic rights on the web - the year the internet came alive and fought for free speech and freedom. Sites like Boing Boing depend on an open and free web, and so doesn't much of what you love and do on the web.
Unfortunately, Congress still only cares about the opinions of likely voters. If everyone who cares about internet freedom stays at home this election, Congress will bring back SOPA. That's why we've been working on a campaign to turn out a massive number of internet users at the polls, and we're asking people to join us tomorrow for Internet Voter Registration Day, right before a bunch of state deadlines, by pledging that you'll vote, and register if you need to: internetvotes.org.
Washington insiders thought SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA were all 'certain to pass.' How did the internet win against those bills? Because people stood up to protect free speech and the transformative power of the internet in their lives.
Let's dramatically increase the number of people egging each other on to vote, which has shown to get people to the polls. The first thing we're asking people to do is to get our friends to pledge and register to vote starting Tuesday, National Voter Registration Day (right before a bunch of state deadlines with time to send in your forms). Then we'll work together to mobilize millions of internet users to get to the polls. People can use our tools to see which of their friends are voting and registered, mobilize their audiences into voting blocks for their cause, site, or group, get important voting information, and make sure their friends go vote.

Promise to vote for the internet in 2012 (Thanks, Tiffiniy!)

LEAKED! TPP: the Son of ACTA will oblige America and other countries to throw out privacy, free speech and due process for easier copyright enforcement

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 01:00:04 +0000

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the son of ACTA, a secretive copyright and trade treaty being negotiated by the Pacific Rim nations, including the USA and Canada. As with ACTA, the secretive negotiation process means that the treaty's provisions represent an extremist corporate agenda where due process, privacy and free expression are tossed out the window in favor of streamlined copyright enforcement. If this passes, America will have a trade obligation to implement all the worst stuff in SOPA, and then some. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Carolina Rossini and Kurt Opsahl explain:

TPP article 16.3 mandates a system of ISP liability that goes beyond DMCA standards and U.S. case law. In sum, the TPP pushes a framework beyond ACTA[1] and possibly the spirit of the DMCA, since it opens the doors for:
* Three-strikes policies and laws that require Internet intermediaries to terminate their users’ Internet access on repeat allegations of copyright infringement
* Requirements for Internet intermediaries to filter all Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material
* ISP obligations to block access to websites that allegedly infringe or facilitate copyright infringement
* Efforts to force intermediaries to disclose the identities of their customers to IP rightsholders on an allegation of copyright infringement.

Incredibly, it gets worse:

If the copyright maximalists have their way, the TPP will include a “side-letter,” an agreement annexed to the TPP to bind the countries to strict procedures enabling copyright owners to insist material are removed from the Internet. This strict notice-and-takedown regime is not new—in 2004, Chile rejected the same proposal in its bi-lateral trade agreement with the United States. Without the shackles of the proposed requirements, Chile then implemented a much more balanced takedown procedure in its 2010 Copyright Law, which provides greater protection to Internet users’ expression and privacy than the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s copyright safe harbor regime.
Instead of ensuring due process and judicial involvement in takedowns, the TPP proposal encourages the spread of models that have been proven inefficient and have chilling unintended consequences, such as the HADOPI Law in France or the DMCA.

TPP Creates Legal Incentives For ISPs To Police The Internet. What Is At Risk? Your Rights.

Slick anti-corruption video takes on US copyright system

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 04:00:25 +0000

This anonymously funded movie satirizing the corruption of the copyright system in the USA has been viewed more than 10,000,000 times. The creators, who maintain the website political-prostitution.com, explain that "the U.S. Government is making a major push to enforce its laws abroad with complete disregard for sovereignty of other nations in order to extradite so-called 'criminals' to the US where they will be tried for their 'crimes' in American court."

Ars Technica's Timothy Lee spoke to some of the creators:

On Wednesday, Ars talked to an individual behind the video. He said he and a friend paid for the video out of their own pockets. They are hoping to "raise awareness" of what they view as America's repressive copyright policies.
The video has three scenes. In the first, the "American Motion Picture Association" announces it has hired "Senator Chris Rodd" (clearly references to the MPAA and its chairman, former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)) to represent Hollywood. In the second scene, police carry out a military-style raid on a London home. The final scene takes place in an "undisclosed location." The kid arrested in London is now in chains, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a hood over his head. The young soldier guarding the prisoner asks an older American in a suit what the suspect did, and looks incredulous when he's told that he's been arrested for copyright infringement.
Obviously, the video is over-the-top. Nothing exactly like the incident depicted has happened in real life. The US government doesn't subject copyright defendants to the same harsh treatment as suspected terrorists. But after the commando-style raid on Kim Dotcom's mansion in January, it may be close enough to the truth to make effective propaganda.

As Lee points out, this movie is as slick as a Hollywood film itself.

Anonymous donors bring Hollywood production values to anti-MPAA video

Former MPAA CTO who switched sides explains to the White House why SOPA is stupid

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:55:54 +0000

You may remember Paul Brigner, the geek who quit his job as CTO of the MPAA to work for its arch-rival net-freedom advocates at the Internet Society, who manage the .ORG top-level domain. He has just filed comments with the White House's IP Czar rubbishing the techniques proposed in SOPA, which contemplated censoring the Internet by tinkering with the domain-name service in the hopes of reducing copyright infringement. At the time that Brigner left the MPAA for ISOC, a lot of us were worried that he'd officially endorsed SOPA and argued in favor of it at Congress. Brigner and ISOC both assured us that he'd had a genuine change of heart, and these comments are the proof in the pudding. As Mike Masnick notes, Brigner was a pretty half-hearted, ineffective SOPA advocate, but he's a rip-snortin', ass-kicking critic of it.

We are also of the opinion that any enforcement attempts – at both national and international levels – should ensure and not jeopardize the stability, interoperability and efficiency of the Internet, its technologies and underlying platforms. The Internet – a network of networks – is based on an open and distributed architecture. This model should be preserved and should surpass any enforcement efforts. For the Internet Society preserving the original nature of the Internet is particularly significant, especially when enforcement is targeting domain names and the Domain Name System (DNS) in general. There are significant concerns from using the DNS as a channel for intellectual property enforcement and various contributions have been made on this issue by both the Internet Society and the technical community. It needs to be highlighted that from a security perspective, in particular, DNS filtering is incompatible with an important security technology called Domain Name Security Extensions or DNSSEC. In fact, there is great potential for DNSSEC to be weakened by proposals that seek to filter domain names. This means that DNS filtering proposals could ultimately reduce global Internet security, introduce new vulnerabilities, and put individual users at risk.
Our second recommendation relates to the legal tools that should be in place in any enforcement design. ISOC would like to stress the absolute need for any enforcement provisions to be prescribed according to the rule of law and due process. We believe that combating online infringement of intellectual property is a significant objective. However, it is equally important that this objective is achieved through lawful and legal paths and in accordance with the notion of constitutional proportionality. In this regard, enforcement provisions – both within and outside the context of intellectual property – should respect the fundamental human rights and civil liberties of individuals and, subsequently, those of Internet users. They should not seek to impose unbearable constitutional constraints and should not prohibit users from exercising their constitutional rights of free speech, freedom of association and freedom of expression.
As a general recommendation, we would like to emphasize our belief that all discussions pertaining to the Internet, including those relating to intellectual property - both at a national and international level - should follow open and transparent processes.

Former MPAA CTO Tells The White House Why SOPA Is The Wrong Approach For IP Enforcement

Vote against CISPA, SOPA and PIPA in 2012

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:04:12 +0000

A reader writes, "The Bill of Rights Defense Committee has a list of candidates who are running for Congress who strongly oppose indefinite detention of American citizens and SOPA/CISPA. The link also mentions current incumbents who are working to defend the Internet."

Pro-wrestler boycotts WWE over SOPA support

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:30:49 +0000

@DTEFLON #WWE asked me to appear but I just cannot do anything with them for as long as they continue their support of #SOAP/#CISPA
— Sean Morley (@ValVenisEnt) July 18, 2012

Sean Morley, AKA Val Venis, a professional wrestler, has informed a fan via Twitter that "#WWE‬ asked me to appear but I just cannot do anything with them for as long as they continue their support of ‪#SOAP‬/#CISPA"

Kick ass, dude. From Techdirt:

While the WWE was never listed on the official Judiciary Committee list of supporters, the organization made many community sourced lists as a supporter of SOPA. Regardless of when and how the WWE came to be supportive of the unpopular bills, this shows that there is a long lasting bitter aftertaste left in the mouths of those who feel betrayed by organizations that supported SOPA and CISPA.

WWE Raw SuperShow One Wrestler Short Due To SOPA Support

Too many lobbyists, not enough strategists

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:57:59 +0000

A bit of pithy insight from the latest EDRIgram: "the intellectual property lobby employs too many lobbyists and too few strategists." In other words, Big Content can get lawmakers to do their bidding, even when doing so discredits them and riles up the opposition. (via Beyond the Beyond)

Internet Defense League will spring into action when dumb laws are proposed, guided by the CAT SIGNAL!

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:03:59 +0000

Holmes from Fight for the Future sez, "The Internet Defense League is a post-SOPA network of sites that use their reach to defend and improve the web. Because it can sound the alarm quickly to millions of people, people are calling it a 'bat-signal for the Internet'. The league is launching on July 19th, the same night that the new Batman movie. And the plan is to have actual spotlights beaming actual 'cat-signals' across buildings and clouds in cities around the world. We just launched a crowd-funding campaign. Help plan a party or pitch-in to make them happen."

So on Thursday night, as Hollywood’s latest superhero movie opens in theaters for a midnight showing, IDL members in select cities can celebrate the launch around powerful spotlights rented for the occasion. The spotlights will beam the IDL’s “cat-signal” into the stratosphere, across obliging clouds, or onto neighboring buildings.
Plus we've got a bunch of other cool items for league members who donate.

The Internet Defense League - Protecting the Free Internet since 2012

FCC: SOPA is terrible (when Russia does it)

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:14:03 +0000

FCC chief Julius Genachowski has slammed the Russian government for considering a law that will make it possible to ban websites in the country for violating nebulous, poorly policed "illegal content" rules. Which is basically what SOPA proposed: "The world’s experience with the Internet provides a clear lesson: a free and open Internet promotes economic growth and freedom; restricting the free flow of information is bad for consumers, businesses, and societies." Preach it, brother! (Thanks, Ben!)

What's wrong with TPP, the son of ACTA

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:52:14 +0000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Carolina Rossini has a very good editorial explaining what's wrong with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret trade treaty with punishing copyright provisions that's being negotiated by the USA, repeating the worst sins of ACTA and magnifying them (among other thing, TPP will make implementing the notorious SOPA into a trade obligation for the US).

As Rossini writes, this is no way to make good policy, and undermines the legitimate trade priorities of the US and its partners by entangling them in a dirty, secretive process that has no checks on the excesses of corporate representatives from the entertainment industry.

So, in summary, the USTR has released a public blog post about a secret proposal to expand something – a filtering mechanism on copyright limitations and exceptions – which might have real social, moral, and economic value. And all we know is that the only thing the authors of the proposal really wanted to make public was the fact that no matter what the content was, it was subject to enough international restrictions that it could be effectively gutted. The only thing 21st century about that is they used a blog to tell us about it.

Is the TPP - framed as a "21st century" agreement - the best way to build a 21st century society?

Is your member of Congress on the House Judiciary Committee? We need you to fight the return of SOPA!

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:16:54 +0000

As I wrote yesterday, Rep Lamar "SOPA" Smith is trying to sneak through another variation on SOPA in the form of the the Intellectual Property Attache Act, which was steaming through Congress without any public scrutiny or debate.

Now it's begun to stumble, and TechDirt reports that "support for the bill is wavering. Some of the named co-sponsors have made it clear that they're just as unhappy that the bill was being rushed out this way without public comment and were uncomfortable with some of the specifics in the bill -- and that these concerns mean that the bill may actually be delayed."

Many of our American readers will be constituents of the Congresspeople on the House Judiciary Committee, where the Intellectual Property Attache Act originates. If you do, please take a moment to call your Congressperson's constituency office and let them know that this isn't how you want your country's Internet policy made, nohow.

Let The Judiciary Committee Know That Creating A Mini-SOPA Without Public Participation Is Unacceptable

SOPA IS BACK: Lamar Smith trying to quietly revive SOPA and cram it down the world's throats

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:19:47 +0000

It's not just ACTA that is being snuck back into law through undemocratic means. Lamar Smith, the powerful committee chairman and corporatist archvillain who tried to ram through SOPA last year is now bent on reviving his slain monster and unleash it upon the earth.

The new bill, the Intellectual Property Attache Act, will create a class of political officers who will see to it that all US trade negotiations and discussions advance SOPA-like provisions in foreign law. And as we've seen with other trade deals, one way to get unpopular measures into US law is to impose them on other countries, then agree to "harmonize" at home.

True to form, Smith is trying to cram his law onto the books without any substantive debate or scrutiny, just as he tried with SOPA. When you're serving corporate masters instead of the public interest, the less debate, the better.

The specifics of the bill appear to go further than the version in SOPA. It is clear that the bill itself is framed from the maximalist perspective. There is nothing about the rights of the public, or of other countries to design their own IP regimes. It notes that the role of the attaches is: to advance the intellectual property rights of United States persons and their licensees;
The bill also "elevates" the IP attaches out of the US Patent and Trademark Office, and sets them up as their own agency, including a new role: the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. Yes, we'll get another IP Czar, this time focused in the Commerce Department.
When even the USTR is recognizing the importance of limitations and exceptions to copyright, to have Congress push a bill that basically ignores limitations and exceptions and only looks to expand Hollywood's special thugs within the diplomatic corp. seems like a huge problem.

Lamar Smith Looking To Sneak Through SOPA In Bits & Pieces, Starting With Expanding Hollywood's Global Police Force

Hollywood's secret, aggressive copyright lobbying campaign in Canada

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 14:29:44 +0000

Michael Geist sez,

Over the past few years, the Motion Picture Association - Canada, the Canadian arm of the MPAA, has recorded nearly 100 meetings with government ministers, MPs, and senior officials. While their lobbying effort will not come as a surprise, last October there were several meetings that fell outside the norm. On October 18, 2011, MPA-Canada reports meeting with Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore, Foreign Minister John Baird, and Industry Canada Senior Associate Deputy Minister Simon Kennedy, all on the same day. These meetings occured less than three weeks after the introduction of Bill C-11 and the decision to sign ACTA, and only eight days before SOPA was launched in the U.S.
To get a sense of how rare these meeting were, this is the only registered meeting John Baird has had on intellectual property since Bill C-11 was introduced and ACTA was signed by Canada. Similarly, since the introduction of Bill C-11, James Moore has only two intellectual property meetings listed - this one with MPA-Canada and one in March 2012 with the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (in fact, Moore had only three meetings on intellectual property in all of 2011. Those meetings were with MPA-Canada, the Canadian Recording Industry Association, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce). Even the Simon Kennedy meeting was a rarity as he has had multiple meetings with pharmaceutical companies, but only two (MPA-Canada and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) that appear to have included copyright. Given how unusual it is for a single lobby group to gain access to two of Canada's leading cabinet ministers and a senior department official on the same day, it begs the question of how they did it.

The MPAA's Secret Lobby Campaign on Bill C-11 and a Canadian SOPA

Internet governance shifting from civil society to government, and getting less free

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:57:37 +0000

James from the New America Foundation sez, "I wanted to share this blog post on why civil society voice is essential in Internet governance and some efforts shift control to government-only entities:"

While Indian courts are attempting to control content domestically, a simultaneous effort from Indiaâ€™s national government is focused on increasing governmental control of the global Internet. Last October, India submitted a proposal to the United Nations for the creation of a UN Committee for Internet-related policies (CIRP). CIRP would be a government-only body tasked with overseeing Internet governance and standards setting.
This would alter the current landscape of international Internet governance, which is a multi-stakeholder process including civil society as well as government actors. The US-based public policy organization Center for Democracy and Technology describes the current model as "bottom-up, decentralized, consensus-driven approach in which governments, industry, engineers, and civil society" contribute to policy outcomes. The distribution of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and top level domains, for example, is managed by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization. Organizations like Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium work together with engineers to develop standards.

Giving Civil Society a Voice in Internet Governance (Thanks, James!)

SOPA fighters handily fund billboard outside Lamar Smith's office

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:52:34 +0000

Holmes sez, "A crowd-funded, Texan-themed billboard for Lamar Smith (R-TX) is currently emblazoned across the Texas sky. The billboard says 'Don't Mess with the Internet', and it just took flight this morning right outside the San Antonio offices of SOPA-sponsor Lamar Smith. The crowdfunding campaign went so well that in just two days in March we raised enough for two billboards, so there's one in up in Austin too (on 'Lamar Blvd', appropriately enough). There’s even a t-shirt, available from Breadpig, Reddit co-founder’s philanthropic merch site. Proceeds support Fight for the Future and its latest project, the Internet Defense League."

SOPA author Lamar Smith (R-TX) gets a crowd-funded billboard... right outside his San Antonio office. (Thanks, holmesworcester!)

Princess awards First Amendment lawyer "Defender of Internet" medal for SOPA fight

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:05:37 +0000

Marvin Ammori's recently-bestowed freedom bling. Note the Nyan Cat.

Constitutional law expert Marvin Ammori, one of the First Amendment scholars along with Larry Tribe who explained how SOPA would violate the First Amendment, shares a wonderful story with Boing Boing. Snip from his blog post:

When I was quite young, I saw the first Star Wars movie and believed that, if I took part in a great cause, it would end with a medal ceremony and a princess conferring the medal. It has finally happened.

Last night, I received a medal from Princess Tiffiniy Ying Cheng of Fight for the Future, representing the “committee for the Defenders of the Internet.” Bestowed upon me was the Nyan Cat Medal of Internet Awesomeness, the “highest honor known to Internet Defenders.” I could not be more honored.

Princess Tiffiniy’s organization was one of the leaders in the Battle of SOPA. She and her partner Holmes Wilson are pretty amazingly brilliant–they were the people who organized the Free Justin Bieber campaign, led American Censorship Day on November 16, and were among the leaders organizing the January 18 Blackout. Many people pulled together from an array of communities to fight SOPA–Redditers, Wikipedians, civil libertarians, entrepreneurs, artists, venture capitalists, tech executives, consumer electronics makers, tech bloggers–alongside millions of people who just love the Internet and hate Internet censorship, from technologically advanced Wookiies to technologically challenged Ewoks. Many awesome people were involved in leading, coordinating, and taking the time to fight SOPA.

Read the rest of his story, and see a larger version of the pic: "Medal Ceremony in Real Life: for Internet Awesomeness." [ammori.org] Fast Company also gave him props.

Nerd fatalism, nerd determinism: the problem with nerd politics

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:46:57 +0000

My latest Guardian column is "The problem with nerd politics," and it discusses the twin evils of "nerd determinism" and "nerd fatalism" -- both convenient excuses for people who care about technology policy to avoid politics.

In "nerd determinism," technologists dismiss dangerous and stupid political, legal and regulatory proposals on the grounds that they are technologically infeasible. Geeks who care about privacy dismiss broad wiretapping laws, easy lawful interception standards, and other networked surveillance on the grounds that they themselves can evade this surveillance. For example, US and EU police agencies demand that network carriers include backdoors for criminal investigations, and geeks snort derisively and say that none of that will work on smart people who use good cryptography in their email and web sessions.
But, while it's true that geeks can get around this sort of thing – and other bad network policies, such as network-level censorship, or vendor locks on our tablets, phones, consoles, and computers – this isn't enough to protect us, let alone the world. It doesn't matter how good your email provider is, or how secure your messages are, if 95% of the people you correspond with use a free webmail service with a lawful interception backdoor, and if none of those people can figure out how to use crypto, then nearly all your email will be within reach of spooks and control-freaks and cops on fishing expeditions.
What's more, things that aren't legal don't attract monetary investment. In the UK, where it's legal to unlock your mobile phone, you can just walk into shops all over town and get your handset unlocked while you wait. When this was illegal in the US (it's marginally legal at the moment), only people who could navigate difficult-to-follow online instructions could unlock their phones. No merchant would pay to staff a phone-unlocking role at the corner shop (my dry-cleaner has someone sitting behind a card-table who'll unlock any phone you bring him for a fiver). Without customers, the people who make phone-unlocking tools will only polish them to the point where they're functional for their creators. The kind of polish that marks the difference between a tool and a product is often driven by investment, markets and commercialism.

The problem with nerd politics

Yochai Benkler explains SOPA

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:08:02 +0000

The Guardian: Blueprint for Democratic Participation from The Guardian and The Paley Center for Media on FORA.tv

Here's Yochai Benkler -- author of Wealth of Networks, one of the most important books written about how the Internet changes society -- describing the fight to stop SOPA with laser clarity and precision, cutting through the DC/media consensus that "Google killed SOPA" or "Wikipedia killed SOPA" and showing instead how the ecosystem of people who care about networks collaborated to do the unprecedented.

The Guardian: Blueprint for Democratic Participation (via Michael Geist)

Reddit's TestPAC is campaigning to defeat Lamar Smith, SOPA's daddy

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 06 May 2012 05:43:20 +0000

TestPAC, the PAC founded on Reddit to carry on the momentum from the SOPA fight earlier this year, is in the midst of its inaugural campaign: seeking to oust long-term Texas congressman Lamar Smith, who authored the bill and attempted to ram it through his committee without any substantive debate, after taking large campaign contributions from the entertainment industry through several election cycles. Now, TestPAC has "boots on the ground" in Smith's home district and the campaign is in full swing, and seeking your support:

As some of you are aware, for the last 3 months, TestPAC has been working tirelessly to put together a comprehensive campaign to increase awareness about Lamar Smith’s legislative irresponsibility with the ultimate goal of defeating him in the May 29th primary.
It’s amazing to see what we have accomplished in the last 3 months. We went from a handful of Redditors passionate in their opposition of SOPA to a membership base of over 1,200 subscribers, we have over 500 followers on Facebook, and almost 600 on Twitter. We have funded a billboard in Lamar’s backyard, produced a professionally done advertisement, and have been featured in some major media outlets like Mashable, Mother Jones, BoingBoing and TheNextWeb.
In addition to all of this, today we are proud to announce the launch of our field campaign.
Boots are on the ground, led by Andy Posterick, TestPAC’s Treasurer who drove 12 hours from Phoenix, AZ to Kerrville, TX to lead a group of 10 volunteers to assist with handing out fliers, putting up signs and interacting with the voters in Lamar’s district. We are stepping out from behind our keyboards and monitors and getting out into the streets. We are making it happen, and we are here in TX-21 every weekend for the next 3 weeks.
Lamar Smith knows TestPAC is knocking. Several reporters who wrote about us have contacted him and his staff for comment. They know we are out there working to send him home from Washington. Now it’s time that he sees us in his district, connecting with voters and working to send him packing.
We need Reddit's Help
We're holding a 5k moneybomb today, in order to double our TV exposure and help fund the ground campaign. Reddit, every day there are posts about SOPA, PCIP, or CISPA. TestPAC is turning those words into actions. Can you help us?
If you can donate, here is the link to do so. If not, please spread the word on Facebook & Twitter.

If Canadians were allowed to donate, I would donate. As it is, all I can do is ask you to kick in to support the campaign.

TestPAC has boots on the ground in Lamar Smith's district. Our field campaign has started. Our TV ad is ready to go. Reddit, let's do this thing. (self.politics)

SOPA-fighting champs DemandProgress want to hire a lead writer

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:06:13 +0000

DemandProgress, the activist organization that was one of the main movers in the history-making fight against SOPA, is looking to hire a "Lead writer," who lives in NYC (or can relocate). Co-founder Aaron Swartz explains,

It’s a pretty incredible job: you’ll be leading a new lab to try to pioneer innovative ways of thinking about what works in online campaigning. And because it’s so experimental, it doesn’t require a whole lot of experience—in fact, not having any preconceptions might be a plus. It’d be perfect, for example, for a smart kid straight out of college.

They've also got some internships available.

Incredible opportunity: looking for a writer

Why a pro-SOPA MPAA technologist changed sides and went to work for ISOC

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:20:21 +0000

My latest Guardian column is "Why did an MPAA executive join the Internet Society?" which digs into the backstory on the appointment of former MPAA CTO Paul Brigner as North American director of the copyright-reforming, pro-net-neutrality Network Society group, which manages the .ORG domain name registry.

I asked Brigner whether his statements about DNS blocking and seizure and net neutrality had been sincere. "There are certainly a number of statements attributed to me that demonstrate my past thoughts on DNS and other issues," he answered. "I would not have stated them if I didn't believe them. But the true nature of my work was focused on trying to build bridges with the technology community and the content community and find solutions to our common problems. As I became more ingrained in the debate, I became more educated on the realities of these issues, and the reality is that a mandated technical solution just isn't a viable option for the future of the internet. When presented with the facts over time, it was clear I had to adjust my thinking.
"My views have evolved over the last year as I engaged with leading technologists on DNSSEC. Through those discussions, I came to believe that legislating technological approaches to fight copyright violations threatens the architecture of the internet. However, I do think that voluntary measures could be developed and implemented to help address the issue.
"I will most definitely advocate on Internet Society's behalf in favor of all issues listed, and I share the organization's views on all of those topics. I would not have joined the organisation otherwise, and I look forward to advocating on its behalf."

Update: Joly sez, "After his appointment we (ISOC-NY) did pull Paul up on the carpet to explain himself - you can find the salient MPAA passage here

Why did an MPAA executive join the Internet Society?

(Image: Stop SOPA!, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 51295441@N07's photostream)

CISPA is SOPA 2.0: petition to stop it

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:59:24 +0000

CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523), is a successor, of sorts, to the loathesome SOPA legislative proposal, which was shot down in flames earlier this year. EFF's chilling analysis of the bill shows how it could be used to give copyright enforcers carte blanche to spy on Internet users and censoring the Internet (it would also give these powers to companies and governments who'd been embarrassed by sites like Wikileaks).

Under the proposed legislation, a company that protects itself or other companies against “cybersecurity threats” can “use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property” of the company under threat. But because “us[ing] cybersecurity systems” is incredibly vague, it could be interpreted to mean monitoring email, filtering content, or even blocking access to sites. A company acting on a “cybersecurity threat” would be able to bypass all existing laws, including laws prohibiting telcos from routinely monitoring communications, so long as it acted in “good faith.”
The broad language around what constitutes a cybersecurity threat leaves the door wide open for abuse. For example, the bill defines “cyber threat intelligence” and “cybersecurity purpose” to include “theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.”
Yes, intellectual property. It’s a little piece of SOPA wrapped up in a bill that’s supposedly designed to facilitate detection of and defense against cybersecurity threats. The language is so vague that an ISP could use it to monitor communications of subscribers for potential infringement of intellectual property. An ISP could even interpret this bill as allowing them to block accounts believed to be infringing, block access to websites like The Pirate Bay believed to carry infringing content, or take other measures provided they claimed it was motivated by cybersecurity concerns.

There's a DemandProgress petition against CISPA (DemandProgress was one of the leaders of the SOPA fight).