The Obama Administration on Saturday took a stance on two pieces of anti-online piracy legislation moving through Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate —- saying it would not support the bills as currently written, handing the biggest victory yet to a growing chorus of critics of the bills.
Fittingly enough, the Administration’s response came by way of a blog post published in response to two online petitions. As the post states:
“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet….
Even more promising for critics of the bills, the Administration came down firmly against one of the most vehemently opposed portions of the bills — the part that would give the government the power to force Internet Service Providers to stop loading overseas webpages accused of piracy. Under the original versions of SOPA and PIPA, ISPs would be required to change their Doman Name System settings to block sites accused of piracy, a measure that critics said would essentially break the Internet and make it more insecure.
The Administration statement basically agrees with the critics wholeheartedly on this one:
“We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.
The two primary architects of the bills — Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) both decided late last week to remove the DNS-blocking provisions before even the Administration released its public statement.
Further, SOPA’s passage through the House seems to have been indefinitely stalled, as SOPA critic Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said on Saturday that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) promised not to bring the bill up to the full House for a vote until a consensus is reached, The Hill reported.
Carl Franzen
Carl Franzen is TPM Idea Lab's tech reporter. He used to work for The Daily, AOL and The Atlantic Wire (though not simultaneously, thankfully). He's never met a button that didn't need to be pressed. He can be reached at carl@talkingpointsmemo.com.
Hopefully he means this more than when he said he was against the Bush tax cuts, and telcom immunity, and the patriot act, and NDAA, and arresting medical Mj folks, and on and on.
Very confused on this issue ?? But anything Rupert Murdoch is for I am against !
after pelosi showered her outrage on Bush why isnt she outraged at the Obama crminality? selling guns to the Zeta Mexican Drug Cartel using stimulus money/ (etc) Pelosi was in charge of vetting Obama to assure his eligibility and someehow bypassed this process- why wont this lousy birth certificate issue go away? Because it's true that Obama FORGED his birth certificate and is the biggest FRAUD ever to deceive America-
Roland Saffy Wait, so now you are all in favor of control?
The fact you are a birthed nut ball should indicate I shouldn't ten waste my time responding to your insane nonsense, but it is musing how you are suddenly outraged that Obama wasn't grabbing guns.
Roland Saffy "all in favor of gun control" I mean.
Roland Saffy How is the weather in LaLaLand today ??
Roland Saffy And here I was thinking the biggest fraud to ever deceive America was Pauley Shore.
Why did we think he was funny exactly?
Roland Saffy If you are crazy enough to still be bring up the brother thing, I wouldn't trust you with a gun. I think you just shot yourself in the foot which is a head shot considering it was in your mouth at the time.
Roland Saffy You're an idiot.
Can't tell if trolling or just a completely stoned wanker.
Oh wait, the latter.
Wrong! He didn't say that he opposed the bills. He basically road the fence to not piss off anybody! That Obama's MO. He will act like he's being a centrist, but, in the end, he will sign anything put before him! Obama has been bought-off by Wall Street. You people need to wake-up and stop being lemmings.
TotalRecall9 And start being psychics?
TotalRecall9 Damn! if you'd only used the word "sheeple" as well, i'd have had Bingo.
What a crock, he said he wouldn't support the NDAA, and the Patriot Act...but he DID! {{Double Yawn}}
liznovascotia He wasn't even in Congress when the Patriot Act was signed, and the NDAA was modified to not expand dentition powers beyond what existing law was/is due to his veto threat.
You are howling at the moon and trying to find something to be outraged over.
liznovascotia NDAA passed with a veto-proof majority anyway, so it wouldn't have matter whether or not he signed it.
Bad headline. Actually I think this is a good step in the right direction to enact a viable anti-pay bill that will put a lid on piracy for profit. Attention should be focused on those who profit from online piracy. That would include the pirates of course, but more significantly it includes the U.S. corporations like Google, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, etc. who funnel money to pirate operations via ad accounts and/or payment processing. Since they make money in the process they are, of course, very much lobbying to keep things just the way they are.
Obama made it pretty clear that he supports action against this illegal activity and those who sustain it. Content creators (aka innovators) at every level have reason to be pleased. Finally someone took a pin and burst the balloon of raging rhetoric that has dominated the discussion of late. Maybe now reason can prevail and reasonable measures can be taken to reign in the lawlessness that online theft/counterfeiting represents.
Maybe some of us who aren't big companies can have our voices heard. Remember, even the "big" studios are made up of a lot of "little" people doing the grunt work. Hollywood is a factory too and everyone seems all too ready to dismiss those who work on the assembly line as having jobs that aren't worth consideration.
Of course there are plenty of smaller folk who work to create content (writers, photographers, musicians, etc) who are particularly vulnerable to the ravages of online theft (for profit).
DNS is off the table and that's a good thing. Now, hopefully we can move on to the real issues at hand.
Tomgrrrl Actually, most of the companies you mention do support the OPEN act, which does have the payment processing & ad account money cutoff stuff in it.
You guys need to see http://www.tromsite.com/
he'll sign it just like he signed NDAA.
mmdccbslm
{{{{{yawn}}}}}
mmdccbslm
Yet another emo-prog
jdreignmmdccbslm Ad hominem doesn't make your point; it proves you don't have one.
She responded to a poster with a single post. Around here, lately, that's the sign of a visiting Ron Paul supporter posing as something else.Joey Thompson jdreign mmdccbslm
Whatever the reasons there doesnt need to be a law covering everything...if they want to protect their content they should not put it online and go after criminals themselves...I dont want to have to give up fake freedoms cause they cant cover their own arses
harleybud73
If you want to protect you home from burglars, get a rifle and sit on the roof.
This is sad news. If Obama said he won't support SOPA today, that means there is a 97% chance he will support SOPA because "he has no choice."
apalemick So if he says he does support SOPA does that mean there's a 97% chance he will veto it because "he has no choice?" Or is it that you just have decided that no matter what he says, he's for it?
Flying Squidapalemick he must support it cause they told him to...he is as bought as anyone in the Congress....this is a smoke and mirrors show to play us all..this will get signed and it will not be good for our freedom to get info and content online...betcha
Flying Squidapalemick You know, being a Democrat is demoralizing as hell. We've gotten more progressive legislation passed out of this administration than we got out of 8 years of Bill Clinton and his triangulation, and yet we still get purity trolls who are angry that the president hasn't been their Magic Negro.
steve davisFlying Squidapalemick really now...do you feel that way...I doubt it but it was a great rant ...pointless but great
Clinton did some great stuff and with no help from a Congress of Democrats...Obama didnt work his first two years and that is his fault. He had the floor and wasted it being cautious
harleybud73steve davisapalemick What the hell are you talking about with this "Obama didnt work his first two years and that is his fault. "
Bush spent over a year on vacation during his first term. Obama passed health care reform, ended DADT, ended the war, killed Osama bin Laden, passed SCHIP reform, etc. etc.
harleybud73steve davisFlying Squidapalemick Great stuff like DADT? Huge disparities in drug sentencing? Huge welfare cuts? You are just another useless emo-prog who just doesn't like Obama, never have and so like the right wingers you just make up your own reality i.e.(he hasn't worked for the first 2 years) in order to justify your phony outrage. Luckily the country is waking back up for the election and people like you are no longer being taken seriously.
So in your view President Obama wasted time? And your cure is to dampen enthusiasm for him so that we can elect someone who won't waste time taking us back to the early 1900s? That is, helping any of the would be GOP candidates? Why is that? harleybud73 steve davis Flying Squid apalemick
steve davisFlying Squidapalemick Obama only did what his base forced on him after foot dragging as long as possible. He never lead the fight on anything.
bbrugg50steve davisapalemick Lie.
bbrugg50 that's some pretty magical "thinking" you got going on there.
Just keep the government away from the internet. Once the legislators start playing their games in order to justify accepting bribes from the music industry lobbyists, they screw everything up
From a thorough legal point of view, yes downloading movies, music and intellectual properties are a crime punishable by law. But, there are instances, when the law begins to make little impact or make little sense and the Internet piracy is one such issue. I don' t think it is possible to architect a strong legal framework against Internet piracy without compromising on far more serious issues such as freedom of information, speech, privacy and net neutrality. This problem really requires a technological and innovative solutions more than additional legislation.
In a coarse way, this is similar to the immigration problem. Though it is punishable by law for immigrants to illegally enter or remain in the U.S.-- there are millions of undocumented people in the country. Any plausible and sane solution to illegal immigration essentially will have to disregard the harsh interpretations of law against undocumented workers and residents. Different industries should come together to find innovative solutions rather than trying to come up with a far-reaching legislation with a naive ambition to sweep out online piracy with a single stroke,. I have a feeling any new laws will make little impact on the piracy levels and probably will more likely damage the existing democratic framework of the Internet.
Half of this whole problem could have been avoided if the industry didn't cram through ridiculous copyright extensions. Half of the stuff out there that's being "pirated" would have already been in the public domain had the greedheads in the entertainment and publishing industries not pushed through laws that basically gave artists a perpetual copyright on their work. It used to be 7 years. What is it now? 21 years or more? You can expect whatever it is to be ratcheted up and up to perpetuity.
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RT terrinakamura "Obama Administration Comes Out Against SOPA, PIPA http://t.co/2tTDAa5A" RT joshtpm timparmee cinnamon_carter
Roxy_Townsend either way, Obama still has WAY too much government involvement in his policies
TheKenyanTank but remember they can just repropouse it once obama is out office, so you gotta be progressive about it #AntiSOPA
Khyri_K_Music true but Im just sayin people need to stop cussin out Obama and actually do something about it
lboyle05 kelseypriscilla I stand corrected. "Our government is killibg is quietly"*
eowynlotr tpm
kayc521 WHite House on Saturday and laid out its conditions for supporting #SOPA #PIPA anti-piracy legislation http://t.co/Rh7dW83X
snkscoyote tpm what is that
Flawed anti-piracy legislation smart_brenda tpm
Yarrrrrrrghhh.....online piracy be a joke matey! Let's take to the high seas and set a course of destruction and mayhem!
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