Author: Anoop Dhanvijay
The new Stop Online Piracy Act – Why Google is unhappy with it?
Online piracy is a very big menace. Up till now all laws have failed miserably to stop the rampant online piracy, with the notable exception of Napster. However, it only sprung up many clones such as Kaaza, Gnutella and Limewire. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was an attempt in that direction. It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. The EU passed a similar act in 2001, addressing the same issues as the DMCA.
However, the revenue loss due to online piracy has only been increasing. If the entertainment and publishing are to be believed, the damages are annually $ 135 billion. There are numerous websites like the Pirate Bay, where users can share copyrighted material. These websites are based in countries which do not have a strong antipiracy law like Sweden. There has also been a boom in the number of secure online file-sharing websites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and Hotfile.
Recently, Congress is considering introducing the Stop Online Piracy Act. This law would let copyright holders initiate action against intermediaries – such as ISPs search engines, payment gateways and advertisers – which allow access to these websites and generate revenue for them. These could be held liable if they do not restrict access to websites which allow illegal downloading of copyrighted material.
At the outset of the laws seem sensible and the only way to stop rampant online piracy, but it is also rife with problems such as censorship, culpability and monitoring issues. In the current format, the law includes comments posted by users on websites that link to pirated material as copyright infringement. This is a huge potential for abuse and goes against the spirit of net 2.0, the copyright owner can also ask an ISP to block the domain names which were involved in copyright infringement. This smacks of a new way of Internet censorship, and can also have a negative impact on competitiveness.
Expectedly, the big industries which hold many copyrights, such as the Hollywood film studios recording industry music bands, et cetera have been strongly supporting the bill. Proponents of the legislation say current law leaves few options for copyright holders whose products end up on foreign websites.
“It’s a choice between protecting American creativity and jobs or protecting thieves,” Michael O’Leary, in charge of global policy and external affairs for the Motion Picture Association of America, told the hearing.
This law is likely to prevent smaller businesses which do not have the resources to fight many court lawsuits, Google Inc. Executive vice-chairman Eric Schmidt criticized the bill, saying that its provisions were Draconian and would depress investment.
“There’s a bill that would require (Internet service providers) to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked.”
He hinted that tracing the payment made on such websites would be a better way to target those people who indulge in copyright infringement. While that may be true, Google is trying to play down its role as a search engine, which generally generates its revenue by selling certain words to the owner of websites to display their websites on top of search results. . Thus, in a way, it leads users to websites that provide illegal content.
Also there is the question of enforceability. Given that many of the websites are based out of US, it may still not bring the desired result,. According to the social science research Council,”there is little evidence that enforcement efforts to date have had any impact whatsoever on the overall supply of pirated media”. Technology also evolves very fast and dedicated users will always find ways to bypass any restriction and so will suppliers of pirated material. Google policy counsel Katherine Oyama said “As long as there is money to be made pushing pirated and counterfeit products, tech-savvy criminals around the world will find ways to sell these products online,”. “Ordering ISPs and search engines to ‘disappear’ websites will not change this fundamental reality,”
With the ever increasing speeds of Internet connections, HD streaming has been made possible and users can actually pay as little as $ 2 to watch a movie. The impact of faster Internet speed, more user generated content or cheap availability of music ($ .99 for a song on iTunes ) on online piracy is yet to be ascertained.
The bill in its current form suffers from multiple flaws which need to be corrected to address issues raised by both the factions. The graduated response approach as is adopted in some European countries-when user is given a warning if he or she tries download copyrighted material from websites- might serve as an intermediate step before holding Internet service providers liable for allowing access to copyright infringing websites.
The debate regarding piracy, Internet freedom, net neutrality and copyright infringement is not going to rest soon. The solution that pleases all parties is highly unlikely.
References:
- The Economist, November 26th 2011
- http://tech2.in.com/news/web-services/googles-eric-schmidt-blasts-internet-copyright-bills/257802
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca
- http://tech2.in.com/news/web-services/google-still-argues-against-us-online-piracy-bill/258222
Innovation and Intellectual Property 