Stop Online Piracy Act Can Be Used to Shut Down Legitimate Websites

By Madison Ruppert
End The Lie

The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, proposed in the House of Representatives, would put completely legitimate sites like countless alternative news outlets at risk of being shut down, along with literally any site that freely allows users to post content.That includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, Craigslist, Dropbox and literally any website or service that allows users to upload content.

The United States Attorney General can not only seek court orders against “foreign infringing sites,” meaning any website with a non-U.S. domain name, but can also demand that internet service providers (ISPs) would have to cut off access to the site by not resolving domain name requests.

If served with one of the Attorney General’s court orders, search engines would have to remove any links to the site, payment networks would have to stop all payments to the site from U.S. customers and advertising networks would be forced to stop serving advertisements about the website or for the website.

SOPA would require that within five days of receiving an allegation by a copyright holder, payment services and advertising networks would have to cut off all business with the site either U.S. based or foreign.


All the copyright holder has to do is allege that the site is “dedicated to the theft of property,” and if the payment provider and advertising networks don’t cease business within five days, the copyright holder can file a private lawsuit against the site compelling the payment service and others to cut off relations.

The Atlantic reports that the definition of “dedicated” in this bill “has little relation to common usage,” and in addressing the bill they characterize it as experts in the technical, operational, academic and research communities who are the leading domain name system (DNS) designers, operators, and researchers who have also published numerous peer-reviewed academic studies regarding the architecture and security of the DNS have pointed out (PDF), this will create major cybersecurity and other technical concerns that did not exist previously.

The above-linked technical whitepaper regarding the PROTECT IP Act also quite interestingly points out that the DNS filters could be easily circumvented, essentially making one of the biggest parts of the bill null and void.

The thing that the House and Senate don’t seem to realize is that there will always be online pirates and they will always find a way around whatever roadblocks are put in their way.
The issue is that this can and likely will be used to target important platforms for sharing information like YouTube and blog platforms like WordPress and Blogger.

All it would take is for a copyright holder to find one bit of infringing content and then it could very well be the end of the website, despite the massive amounts of legitimate content.
We must remember that major websites like YouTube and blog platforms are quite skilled and hasty when it comes to removing infringing content from their websites.

SOPA would also endanger the entire spirit of the internet which has pioneered social media and free expression, giving a platform to writers like myself who might otherwise be sidelined by the establishment media.

The following are companies that signed this letter which was written in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which is the House’s equivalent of the PROTECT IP Act, which I have previously exposed as China-style internet censorship on steroids.

1-800 Contacts, Inc.
1-800-PetMeds
2b1 Inc
3M Company
ABRO Industries, Inc.
Acushnet Company
adidas America
Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed)
Allen Russell Photograph
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
Alliance of Visual Artists (AVA)
Altria Client Services
American Apparel and Footwear Association
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Board of Internal Medicine
American Federation of Musicians
American Gramaphone LLC
American Made Alliance
American Mental Health Counselors Association
American Photographic Artists
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers
American Society of Picture Professionals
American Watch Association
Anatoly Pronin Photography
Andrea Rugg Photography
Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Initiative (ACAPI)
Applied DNA Sciences
Art Holeman Photography
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP)
Association of Test Publishers
AstraZeneca plc
Australian Medical Council
Autodesk, Inc.
Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association
Baker & Taylor Ent.
Bay State Psychological Associates
Beachbody, LLC
Beam Global Spirits & Wine
Blue Sky Studios, Inc.
Bose Corporation
Braasch Biotech LLC
Brian Stevenson Photography
Brigid Collins Family Support Center
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
Burberry
C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.
Callaway Golf Company
Cascade Designs Incorporated
Caterpillar Inc.
Caveon, LLC
CBS Corporation
Cengage Learning
Center for Credentialing & Education
Center Stage Photography
CFA Institute
Chanel USA
Christopher Semmes Photography
Church Music Publishers Association
CMH Images
Coach
Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy (CACP)
Columbia Sportswear Company
Comcast Corporation
Commercial Photo Design
Commercial Photographers International
Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System
Consumer Healthcare Products Association
Copyright Alliance
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)
Coty Inc.
Council of Fashion Designers of America
Country Music Association
CropLife America
Cross-Entertainment LLC
CSA Group
CVS Caremark
D’Addario & Company, Inc.
Dan Sherwood Photography
Danita Delimont Stock Photography
Dayco Products, LLC
Deluxe Entertainment Services Group
Dennyfoto
Derek DiLuzio Photography
DeVaul Photography
Direct Selling Association (DSA)
Directional Insight
Distefano Enterprises Inc.
Doriguzzi Photographic Artistry
Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Dolce & Gabbana USA, INC.
Dollar General Corporation
Don Grall Photography
Dunford Architectural Photography
Eagle Rock Entertainment
Ed McDonald Photography
Educational & Industrial Testing Service
Electronic Arts, Inc.
Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA)
Eli Lilly and Company
Englebert Photography
Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
ERAI, Inc.
Eric Meola Studio Inc
Evidence Photographers International Council
Ex Officio
Exxel Outdoors
FAME Publishing Co., LLC.
FAME Recording Studios
Far Bank Enterprises
Fashion Business Incorporated
Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy
Fender Musical Instrument Company
Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America (FDRA)
Ford Motor Company
Fortune Brands, Inc.
Fred J. Lord Photography
GAR Associates
Gelderland Productions, L.L.C.
Gemvision Corporation
Gibson Guitar Corp.
GlaxoSmithKline
Gospel Music Association
Governors America Corp.
Graduate Management Admission Council
Graphic Artists Guild
Greeting Card Association (GCA)
Greg Nikas Photography
Guru Denim
H.S. Marketing & Design, Inc.
Harley-Davidson Motor Company
HarperCollins Publishers
Harry Fox Agency
Hastings Entertainment, Inc.
ICM Distributing Company, Inc.
IDS Publishing
IEC Electronics corp.
Images Plus
Imaging Supplies Coalition (ISC)
Independent Distributors of Electronics Association (IDEA)
INgrooves
Innate-gear
International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
International Trademark Association (INTA)
IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries
Ira Montgomery Photography
J.S. Grove Photography
James Drug Inc.
Jaynes Gallery
JCPage Photography
Jean Poland Photography
Jeff Stevensen Photography
John Fulton Photography
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Johnson & Johnson
Juicy Couture, Inc
Julien McRoberts Photography
K&R Photographics
kate spade
Kekepana International Services
Kenneth Garrett, photographer for National Geographic
Killing Jar Productions LLC
Lacoste USA
Leatherman Tool Group, Inc.
Lexmark International, Inc.
Light Perspectives
Linda Olsen Photography
Little Dog Records
Liz Claiborne, Inc
L’Oréal USA
Lucky Brand Jeans
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton
Macmillan
Major League Baseball
Marcia Andberg Associates LLC
Mark Niederman Photography
Marmot
Marona Photography
McLain Photography Inc
Merck & Co., Inc.
Messy Face Designs, Inc.
Michael Stern Photography
MicroRam Electronics, Inc.
Minter Works of Art
Mira Images
Monster Cable Products, Inc.
Moose’s Photos
Morningstar Films LLC
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
MotionMasters
Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association
MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
Mr. Theodor Feibel (sole proprietor)
Music Managers Forum-U.S.
Nashville Songwriters Association International
Natalie Neckyfarow Actor/Dancer/Singer
National Association of Broadcasters
National Association of Manufacturers
National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM)
National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)
National Basketball Association (NBA)
National Board for Certified Counselors
National Board for Certified Counselors Foundation
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA)
National Football League (NFL)
National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA)
National Retail Federation (NRF)
NBCUniversal
Nervous Tattoo Inc., dba Ed Hardy
New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.
New Era Cap Co Inc
New Levels Ent. Co. LLC
News Corporation
Next Decade Entertainment, Inc.
NHL Enterprises, L.P.
Nicholas Petrucci, Artist, LLC
Nike, Inc.
Nintendo of America Inc.
Nissle Fine Art Photography
North Dakota Pharmacists Association
North Dakota Pharmacy Service Corporation
Oakley, Inc.
One Voice Recordings
OpSec Security, Inc.
Outdoor Industry Association
Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI)
Outdoor Research, Inc
Pacific Component Xchange, Inc.
Party Killer Films LLC
Pearson Clinical Assessment
Peavey Electronics Corporation
Perry Ellis International
Personal Care Products Council
Peter C. Brandt, Architectural and Fine Art Photography
Peter Hawkins Photography, Inc.
Petzl America
Pfizer Inc.
PGA of America
Philip Morris International
Photojournalist Dave Bartruff
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Pigfactory Music
PING
PNW Images
Premier League
Production Music Association (PMA)
Professional Photographers of America
Quality Float Works, Inc.
Raging Waters Music
Ralph Lauren Corporation
Ramsay Corporation
Rebel Photo
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Red4 Music/Doogs Rock Inc
Red Wing Shoe Company
Reebok International Ltd.
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA)
Revlon
Richard Flutie Photography
Rite Aid
Robin Davis Photography, Inc.
Rodger Scott Craig, a member of Liverpool Express, The Merseybeats, Fortune, Harlan
Cage, 101 South, and Mtunz Media
Roger Smith Photography Services
Rolex Watch USA Inc.
Romance Writers of America (RWA)
Rosetta Stone Inc.
Saddle Creek
Sage Studios LLC
Sam D’Amico Photography
Schneider Electric
Sean McGinty Photography
Secret Sea Visions (Photography)
SESAC, Inc.
SG Industries, Inc.
Shure Incorporated
SIGMA Assessment Systems
Six Degrees Records
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
SMC Entertainment
SMT Corp.
SoBe Entertainment
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Sony Electronics Inc.
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Soul Appeal Records and Music
SoundExchange
Southern Gothic LLC
Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA)
SPI (The Plastics Industry Trade Association)
Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association
Sports Rights Owners Coalition
Spring Fever Productions LLC
Spyder Active Sports, Inc
Stenbakken Photography
Stephen Dantzig Photography
Stock Artist Alliance
Stuart Weitzman Holdings, LLC
Student Photographic Society
Studio 404
SunRise Solar Inc.
Taylor Glenn Photographs
Taylor Guitars
Taylor Made Golf Company, Inc.
Tednologies, Inc.
The Cambridge Don
The Collegiate Licensing Company/IMG College
The Donath Group, Inc.
The Dow Chemical Company
The Estee Lauder Companies
The McGraw-Hill Companies
The Music People! Inc.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
The Recording Academy (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences)
The Timberland Company
The Walt Disney Company
Tiffany & Co.
Time Warner Inc.
Tony Bullard Photography
Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc.
TRA Global
Tricoast Worldwide
Trio Productions, Inc. / Songscape Music,
Twist & Shout, Inc.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Underwriters Laboratories Inc.
Universal Music Group
Uniweld Products Inc.
VF Corporation
Viacom
Vibram USA, Inc
Virtual Chip Exchange USA, Inc.
Voltage Pictures, LLC
W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co.
Walcott Studio, LLC
Wal-Mart
Warner Music Group
Wendy Kaveney Photography
Western Psychological Services
Westmorland Images, LLC
Wild & Associates, Inc.
Wild Eye Photos LLC
William Sutton Photography
Willis Music
WindLegends Ink LLC
Winestem Company
Winslow Research Institute
Wolfe Video
Wolverine World Wide, Inc.
Woolrich, Inc.
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
Xerox Corporation
Zippo Manufacturing Company
Zumba Fitness, LLC

GB Court orders BT to block pirate links website

(It will happen here in the US soon, too. --jef)

+++++

28th July, 2011 by Henna Butt

A High Court judge has ruled that BT, Britain’s largest ISP must block access to Newzbin 2, a website, which like many others provides links to pirated movies.

This is a landmark case in that an ISP has not previously been asked to block a website of this nature. This ruling will provide precedent for further action to be taken with different ISPs in order to block the vast numbers of similar websites that provide links to pirated material.

Justice Arnold stated: “In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin 2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes.”

The legal action was launched by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) who celebrated the ruling as a victory for people working in creative industries.

The digital rights organisation the Open Rights Group argued that the ruling could set a “dangerous” precedent, challenging the freedom and openness upon which the Internet has been built.

“There are serious risks of legitimate content being blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is boosting creators’ ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand,” said ORG campaigner Peter Bradwell.

Once a ruling allows the blocking of a website then questions in future will arise over the conditions which make a site worthy of being blocked and it is this potential for ‘gagging’ that we must be wary of.

53 gay porn pirates face new round of P2P lawsuits

(So, if the RIAA's biggest target is gay porn sharers, I have to wonder about their ability to prosecute. I mean, I guess there are several gay porn sharers out there, but more than people sharing Avatar?--jef)

***

Gay porn pirates face new P2P lawsuits

By Nate Anderson | 08/11/10 | Ars Technica

It's not just the game plan of the RIAA and the new US Copyright Group—numerous rightsholders have resorted to mass federal lawsuits against P2P users, including those in the gay porn industry. On Monday, Lucas Entertainment filed its first such lawsuit targeting 53 BitTorrent users alleged to have shared its pornographic film Kings of New York.

The complaint is brief. Lucas says nothing about why it thinks that these users downloaded its film except to note that "monitoring of online infringement of Plaintiff's motion picture is ongoing." Instead, it has simply presented the judge with a list of 53 IP addresses, all of which are said to have visited gay-torrents.net ("a private website known for its vast index of videos depicting gay pornography") and then shared the film in question.

In a separate sworn declaration filed yesterday, however, Lucas shed some light on its information collection practices. What does a porn producer know about tracking BitTorrent users? Little, so Lucas hired the Copyright Defense Agency, a new firm with an almost nonfunctional website.

You too can become a BitTorrent detective!

According to Eric Green, CDA's chief operating officer and a former Verizon mid-level manager, he took over CDA's operation in July of this year and operates from Las Colinas, Texas. On August 5, under contract from Lucas, Green "searched for the film on public and private torrent sites," then downloaded what he found on gay-torrents.net. He then recorded the IP address of every computer serving him pieces of the file. Sophisticated, this was not.

While some companies have custom software and carefully documented processes, Green "recorded what I observed both as plain text in a spreadsheet and through a series of screenshots executed through the Windows Operating System, which captured exactly what was being displayed on my computer screen at the time the screenshots were taken. The time of these observations was duly noted in my spreadsheet."

Next, he took his 53 IP addresses and sent each one to MaxMind, an IP lookup service, which told him which service provider controlled the block of addresses that included his target. Green then "manually" did his own reverse DNS lookup "to confirm that the IP addresses were not faked and that they properly corresponded with their internet routing assignments, as designated by the listed service provider."

When his torrent download completed, Green took a look. He "opened the file and watched enough of the film, at varying intervals, to determine it was indeed the film for which it was named, Plaintiff’s film, Kings of New York. It was indeed a perfect and unauthorized copy of said film. I then saved copies of my logs and screenshots to a secure and private web server for archival purposes."

Moving quickly

The time between the alleged infringement and the filing of the federal lawsuit was amazingly short: three or four days. The infringements were detected on August 5-6, and the Lucas lawsuit was filed on August 9.

In addition, the company has already asked the judge to force ISPs to respond to subpoenas in 15 days or less. Clearly, speed is an issue.

The suit also claims the copyright infringement here was "intentional," which opens the door to much higher statutory damages that top out at $150,000 per infringement.

More defendants will be added to the case before it's over. Lucas suggests that "information obtained in discovery will lead to the identification of additional infringing parties," and its ongoing "monitoring" may contribute more names, too. These sorts of schemes generally rely more on settlement letters than actual trials to collect the cash, however; something that may be doubly true when gay porn is the issue.

Comcast Loses Class Action Lawsuit vs. its P2P Users

Comcast owes P2P users $16; yes, they should take it
By Nate Anderson

Robb Topolski, the man who helped unearth Comcast's P2P interference, wants Comcast customers to opt out of the $16 they have coming to them from a class action lawsuit. But Eric Somers, the lawyer leading the class-action case, just can't understand the sentiment.

"This is a good settlement," he told Ars. "If you opt out, you're basically giving that money to Comcast."

At issue is the settlement of the Hart v. Comcast class action, a resolution three years in the making. When John Hart noticed that his BitTorrent connections would "hang"—sometimes for an entire night—he called up Somers and asked if he knew anything about it. Comcast was still denying that P2P upload blocks were in place on its network, and it took the legal team time to figure out what was happening.

Hart's case was the first one filed, and his lawyers were eventually certified as counsel for the entire class of affected Comcast users. Since 2008, Somers and his team have argued that Comcast violated the FCC's Internet Policy Statement (PDF); the FCC famously agreed. Comcast agreed to settle the class action suit rather than proceed to trial.

The deal puts Comcast on the hook for $16 million, plus up to $3 million extra for the lawyers. That $16 million will be split up between every Comcast subscriber who was affected, with a cap of $16 per person—but no one gets any money unless they sign onto the class at the official settlement website. Any unclaimed money goes right back into Comcast's coffers.

Best possible result?

Somers believes this is the best deal he could get—and better than anyone is going to get in the future. As the judge noted, the damages here aren't easily quantifiable, and Comcast argued that people were barely affected; they could still do e-mail, browse the Web, even download on BitTorrent. Where was the real harm?

As for putting that $16 million pot to better use, say by funding some bigger public project, Somers said he'd love to do that—but courts frown on class-action awards going anywhere but to those actually harmed.

Sixteen dollars isn't enough to do much more than buy a bottle of decent wine, but Somers says that those who want the small individual payouts to do more common good should donate them somewhere like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "That would be fantastic," he said.

Besides, he argues, if you're concerned about the settlement, look at what just happened in DC. There, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit recently tossed out the FCC's entire authority over "network management"and invalidated the agency's Comcast order. If the case went to trial, the ruling "makes it more difficult to win the case, absolutely."

What about the common complaint about class actions, that they disburse tiny amounts of money to victims but concentrate large sums on a single law firm? "There was an enormous amount of work" on this case, Somers said, pointing out that his firm has fronted the money on this case since the beginning and that it fought to keep its own award from coming out of the general class settlement fund.

After creating the $16 million pot of cash, Somers now wants to see people claim it: "I don't think anyone's going to do any better than that."