1900 Hours, you're listening to WBAI New York.
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to WBAI News at Noon.
But then we thought that on radio it doesn't work quite as well as on a website.
You know, when you have a webpage that goes black, there's a statement there and sometimes
you can put words there as well, but if you just have a radio station and you turn that
off, people don't really know what you're trying to say.
In fact, coincidentally enough, most of the day we were off the air here at PAI.
Not on the web.
We were on the air, but the transmitter was only working for a few blocks apparently,
but it's fixed now.
Actually, you know, we don't know if it's fixed.
We think it's fixed.
You can't really tell inside the station and it's kind of hard to find out sometimes, but
I believe we're on the air and we're able to talk about this and we will talk about
this for the whole hour.
Well, if you can't hear us, then it's intentional.
Yeah, exactly.
If you can't hear us, let us know.
Well, it was an interesting day.
See, there's the risk, Emanuel, that if we stay silent for 4 minutes 33 seconds, we'll
be sued for a copyright violation and the whole world of copyright violations would
just explode.
That is true.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well, all kinds of things we have to be wary of and careful of not doing by accident, but
we're going to be discussing the whole SOPA and PIPA day of outrage, I guess, is the best
way to describe it.
Let's take a quick look at what actually happened.
In the first strike of its kind, according to the LA Times, thousands of popular sites
such as Wikipedia, Reddit, and Boing Boing shut down for up to 24 hours on Wednesday
to protest a pair of federal anti-piracy bills that they said amounted to censorship of the
internet.
I heard up to 10,000.
I actually heard it was more than 10,000.
I'm sure it's well over 10,000 if you count people's personal sites and all the people
that have latched onto this as well.
I'd be very surprised if it was below that, but certainly thousands of popular sites have
taken part in this.
Well, it's hard to get exact numbers.
As we know, some really big sites such as Wikipedia went black, and that kind of helped
push this even more into the popular mind.
What a pain in the ass it was not having Wikipedia today.
I got to tell you, that was ... Although, Bernie, I understand you found a way around
it.
Yeah.
I wasn't even trying.
I was watching at the strike of midnight for it to go black, and it didn't.
I went several minutes past midnight, and it still was there, Wikipedia.
Then I realized, after consulting with you, and you said that 2600.com and Hope.net were
a few minutes late in going black, and Wikipedia was still on.
I'm like, hmm.
I realized I'm using a program called NoScript on my computer, which blocks JavaScript.
I re-enabled JavaScript, and there was a black screen.
All these people that were complaining that Wikipedia was down, it was really just a script
running on the page that if you just disabled JavaScript ...
Yeah.
There are ways around these things.
If you know the exact address of a 2600 page, you can go there and even listen to our show
that way.
The point, the message, was to simply get people's attention, and I think that's what
was achieved today.
What I did think was funny was one of the people at Wikipedia, I think it was Jimmy
Wales, tweeted a couple days ago saying that all high school students should finish their
reports before Wednesday.
Good advice.
Very good advice, because so many people depend on this.
In fact, one person, the creator of the popular television show, How I Met Your Mother, Carter
Bays, he sent out this tweet earlier.
I love how tweets are being quoted everywhere.
If the, and this is how he said it, pound H-I-M-Y-M, which means How I Met Your Mother,
the episode I'm writing is full of glaring factual errors that a quick peek at Wikipedia
could have corrected.
Blame SOPA.
Yes.
It's incredible how the effect of this is simply being felt all throughout the world.
At least as a content producer, he's blaming SOPA and not blaming the protestors of SOPA.
He could have blamed Wikipedia, but no, he's blaming the right people.
I think that's very grown up of him.
There's this brilliant thing called the Herpterpedia, which is retweeting all kinds of people who
are saying on Twitter, wondering why Wikipedia is broken.
A lot of it I can't read on the air, but there's people saying, F you SOPA, I need Wikipedia
to help me write this essay.
Then another one is, why isn't Wikipedia working?
It just goes on and on, hundreds of people who are suddenly discovered this issue because
Wikipedia is broken.
The extraordinarily brilliant thing about that is the fact that if you look at the screen
that comes up when you try to get to Wikipedia and you read it, you will then learn why Wikipedia
is down, but who reads anymore?
According to this story, many Wikipedia users were caught unaware today, leading to reams
of frantic rants, many filled with profanity on micro-blogging sites like Twitter.
By the way, Twitter, the CEO of Twitter calling the whole thing silly, I thought that was
kind of an interesting remark.
If I remember correctly, what he was calling silly was shutting down his international
website, as he put it, for a single national issue.
I personally think that so many people being caught by surprise is exactly the point of
this.
People have been trying to raise awareness, and yet there are many, many people that actually
don't know anything about this, so what's the best way to let people know that they
might actually lose access to this information?
Make these websites go dark for a day, and then people maybe will actually realize.
As a result of this, and maybe of the protest that people have been following with their
senators, some of the sponsors of the bills have actually backed out now.
Oh yeah.
We're going to get to that in a second.
What this goes to show that when you raise your voice, as we've seen an increasing number
of people do over the last few months and years, it does have an effect.
It really does.
I saw the tide turning as soon as people started really getting angry about the prospect of
SOPA passing.
It's like the net is growing up.
Well, because the thing is that in Congress, you know, the congressmen don't know a lot
about all of the things, all the legislation they're passing, and they get that information
from the lobbyists.
For this kind of issue, there's plenty of lobbying power on the sides of the copyright
holders, but not so much on the side of, you know, internet users and such like that.
So really, you know, the congressional people pass laws based on what they're told by whatever
lobbies.
So in this case now, there's such a vocal opposition to it from their constituents and
from all of these, you know, big internet names that I guess they're reconsidering their
position and realizing that ignorance about it isn't necessarily an excuse.
Well, I love how it's being portrayed as Hollywood versus the tech community.
Maybe that's what it is.
Maybe that's what it has to be because there are different values at stake here.
And honestly, which would you prefer, having movies or having the internet?
I don't know.
I'll have to think about that.
But Bernie, go ahead.
The actual full title of the Stop Online Piracy Act, and I'm reading this on Wikipedia, by
the way, is, and I'm going to quote here, the people who...
You're reading it on Wikipedia when you're not supposed to.
Well, I'm sorry.
But here it is, Stop Online Piracy Act, to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship
and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property and for other purposes.
House Resolution 3261.
That's...
You know, it was just a couple of weeks ago when all the bill sponsors and co-sponsors
were so cocksure of themselves that this was just going to go through without any modifications
or amendments whatsoever.
Remember that?
Just a couple of weeks ago?
How things change.
Bernie, one of the things about the Stop Online Piracy Act page on Wikipedia is it's not subject
to the blackout.
Even if you didn't have no script, you'd still be able to view it, which makes sense.
On Wikipedia, you can go to that page?
You can go to that page.
That one page?
Yes.
Interesting.
Is there a way to link to other pages from that page?
I don't know.
Yeah, you press escape.
Oh, okay.
I think they actually have a feature like press escape.
And so basically, people who actually really, really, really do need the articles are given
a way around it rather than just pulling the website.
Well, I mean, my way of doing it was to simply go to the Chinese version and then go to Google
Translate, translate that back to English.
And well, that's the way you're supposed to do it.
Okay.
Well, that's an interesting story because we're going to fill a few hours if we keep
this up.
We have a special guest we're going to be adding in just a couple of minutes.
Anyway, these web companies, they've broadened the debate on SOPA and PIPA, recasting it
from one about piracy and digital copyright protection to one about internet freedom,
calling the bills well-intentioned but seriously flawed.
And I don't know if they all said well-intentioned.
They said SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate are threats to free speech that could
stifle the internet economy, drive up legal cost, and lead to censorship or the shutdown
of some websites.
The proposed legislation creates a punishing internet censorship regime and exports it
to the rest of the world, said Boing Boing.
And I can't believe I just quoted Boing Boing as if it was a person.
Boing Boing could never coexist with a SOPA world.
We could never ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything
that infringes copyright appeared on that site, the company said.
Reminds me of back in the MPAA lawsuits that we fought back in 2000, how links became a
major issue.
Eric Martin, the general manager at Reddit, said the bills were an existential threat
to our company and the industry that we work in.
We try to be pretty agnostic when it comes to content, news, and politics.
This is the first time we've really stepped out and made a strong statement as a company.
We feel we don't have a choice.
Calling the move unprecedented, Wikipedia said it believed the bills, if passed, would
be devastating to the free and open web.
In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality
to take a political position, and that's a real legitimate issue.
This is according to Sue Gardner, the executive director of Wikimedia.
We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.
But although Wikipedia's articles are neutral, its existence is not.
And that's a very good point.
It's a very good point that everybody who says this is being politicized and that people
shouldn't take a stand if they're running these companies, that's what they need to
hear.
Now, Google was operating, but its logo was completely blacked out on its homepage.
It linked to a separate site, highlighting its opposition to the bills.
Craigslist blacked out its main page.
This is great.
I saw this one.
The message beseeching users to contact Congress members, though visitors could still access
the site's regional pages.
The addendum said, tell corporate paymasters to keep those clammy hands off the internet.
It's awesome that we're seeing this kind of language now.
My favorite blackout was theoatmeal.com, which is a humor, it's usually comics and humorous
articles written by this one guy.
But it was, for anyone who's at home, look it up.
It was pretty good.
Well, continuing here, the backlash against SOPA and PIPA and the companies that support
them has been mounting for months, and we've been pretty much following that since last
year.
The users boycotted GoDaddy last year because GoDaddy was seen as supporting SOPA, and they
subsequently changed their mind.
When you say last year, you mean like three weeks ago, right?
Well, it was last year, yes, but I think starting in November, right?
November, December.
All right, six weeks ago?
But back then, if you listen to the tone of our voice, it seemed like a foregone conclusion
that this was going to pass and we weren't going to be able to stop it.
And I think it's just because a lot of people really got angry and really rose up and did
something that we're even having this conversation now.
And that's a major factor in using sites like Google and Wikipedia to get the message out
because we've always really needed to get the message out to the general public, not
just the tech people who already know what's up, not just the political people, whatever,
but we needed to get the average Joe who needs the internet, who uses the internet, who benefits
from the internet to realize this threat to it.
Now, in times like this, it's always fun to turn to Twitter to see some of the things
that are going on.
By the way, I had something really weird happen yesterday.
All I did was I made a mention on Twitter that there was some crazy trending topic.
I think it was called replace song titles with tampon.
And that was a trending topic, but SOPA was not.
And I just pointed that out and that got retweeted thousands of times all throughout the place.
And I think I became a trending topic.
And now today, SOPA is a trending topic.
So that's...
I'll never understand how it works.
I don't know what that whole tampon thing was all about, but that's part of the Twitterverse.
I can explain how it works.
So you take a song title and one of the words, you replace it with...
No, no, no.
That's not what I mean.
I mean, how did it...
Oh, never mind.
But anyway, in the Twitterverse, let's take a look at what MPAA has been saying.
Our good old friends at the Motion Picture Association of America, yes, they're still
there.
It's amazing, isn't it, that we have the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
We've got 2600 versus the MPAA, just like in 2000, it's like a reunion of sorts.
Internet blackout against US law fails to enlist big sites.
That's their tweet for today.
Yes, they consider the whole thing to be a failure.
How about this?
Twitter shutting down for SOPA?
That's just foolish, CEO says.
So they got a big kick out of the Twitter CEO calling the blackout foolish.
Another tweet, piracy profiteers, time to walk the plank.
Oh boy, piracy references there.
Here's another one.
Misinformation can't replace honest debate and derail critically important fight to protect
American jobs.
And this final one, American businesses victimized on a daily basis by global internet thieves
are among the most innovative industries in this nation.
Okay, this just...
I really have to call attention to this statement that the Motion Picture Association of America
made on its own website entitled MPAA Response to White House Position on Anti-Piracy Legislation.
Listen to this.
It's like somebody got drunk and wrote this in the middle of the night.
We welcome the administration's clear statement that legislation is needed to stop foreign-based
thieves from stealing the hard work and creativity of millions of American workers.
For too long in this debate, those that seek to preserve and profit from the status quo
have moved to obstruct reasonable legislation.
While many of the elements mentioned in the White House statement are critically important,
we believe, as do others in our coalition, that protecting American jobs is important
too, particularly in these difficult economic times for our nation.
We are pleased that Chairman Leahy and Chairman Smith reiterated yesterday that they too support
action.
So now it is time to stop the obstruction and move forward on legislation.
Our industry not only fully supports free expression, our livelihood is built upon a
vibrant First Amendment.
It is the foundation of our industry, and we would never support any legislation that
would limit this fundamental American right.
As has been made clear throughout the legislative consideration of SOPA and the Protect IP Act
known as PIPA, neither of these bills implicate free expression but focus solely on illegal
conduct, which is not free speech.
We agree with Secretary Clinton's recent statement that there is no contradiction between
intellectual property rights protection and enforcement and ensuring freedom of expression
on the Internet.
We also share the administration's desire to encourage innovation.
The American businesses that are victimized on a daily basis by global Internet thieves
are among the most innovative industries in this nation, and we welcome the administration's
support of these American businesses.
Every day, American jobs are threatened by thieves from foreign-based rogue websites.
This deplorable situation persists because U.S. law enforcement does not have the tools
to fight back.
While we agree with the White House that protection against online piracy is vital, that protection
must be meaningful to protect the people who have been and will continue to be victimized
if legislation is not enacted.
Reasonable legislation must include measured and reasonable remedies that include ad brokers,
payment processors, and search engines.
They must be part of a solution that stops theft and protects American consumers.
We applaud the continued leadership in the House and Senate for working to enact common-sense
legislation to stop foreign websites from stealing American creativity and jobs.
Misinformation simply can't be allowed to replace honest debate and derail the critically
important fight to protect American jobs.
We hope the administration's role in this debate now will help steer the attention now
to what can be accomplished and passed into law to protect American jobs.
On behalf of the 2.2 million Americans whose jobs depend on the film and television industries,
we look forward to the administration playing a constructive role in this process and working
with us to pass legislation that will offer real protection for American jobs.
The failure to pass meaningful legislation will result in overseas websites continuing
to be a safe haven for criminals stealing and profiting from America.
Oh my God, this is unbelievable.
I counted no less than 19 references to American jobs or foreign evil people that are stealing
American jobs in this one statement on the NPAA's website.
My God, it's like someone really went on a bender and just was lashing out left and right.
It's like they think if they say it enough that it'll become true, but they're totally
ignoring the fact that if these bills were to pass, it would actually destroy many American
jobs in the more vibrant technical industry.
Well, we're joined now by Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Eva is an activist over there.
Are you with us?
Yes, I am.
This has been quite a day, hasn't it?
Oh, yes, it has.
Well, a lot of fun.
Now, did you read that statement from the NPAA and did somebody hack their website or
something and this is really their way of expressing themselves?
No, this is fairly typical of the sort of statement that you see from the NPAA, including
again many references to the death of American jobs, a lot of unsupported statistics about
the cost to the American economy of internet piracy, and a lot of allegations that somehow
these proposed legislation is not going to affect American companies in any way, and
especially not, say, internet intermediaries that host content from all over the world,
including foreign websites.
It's incredible to me because it really seems to be trying to galvanize support and making
us nationalistic in opposition to these foreign pirates that are stealing everything from
us here in America, and we create all the good things and they take it all for nothing.
It seems like an act of desperation almost.
It's fantastically jingoistic, yes.
One thing that struck me about the American jobs argument is I was at today the rally
in front of Senator Schumer and Gillibrand's offices to try and persuade them to vote against
this bill, and one of the speakers asked the audience, raise your hand if your company
is hiring, and the audience full of people who work in technology, most of us raised
our hands.
So the American jobs argument just falls flat on its face.
If you look at who's hiring right now, it's the tech companies and not the Hollywood companies.
So even if you want to accept their argument as the only thing to consider, even that fails.
Venture capitalists have specifically said that they will not invest in internet startups
if PIPA and SOPA pass because of the potential for litigation.
Both of these pieces of proposed legislation threaten to smother the user-generated content
revolution, which all social media and cloud-based services are based off of.
Well, Mike, I want to talk more about the demonstration in just a moment, but first
I just want to throw a few more barbs out at the MPAA just to settle things.
And by the way, Eva, it's great to be standing with the EFF again against our old friends,
the MPAA, just like we did in 2000.
It's incredible how things don't seem to change, but I believe the whole NET community is kind
of growing up and becoming a lot more involved and educated.
Well, I think that this is not the first time we've been through this.
We understand that if we just sit idly by and let Washington make the rules that suddenly
we will not be free to innovate anymore.
And also, it's not going to be the last time, too.
A lot of people, when we announced that we were going to be blacking out the 2600 website
and the Hope website today, a lot of people said, but I thought the battle was won.
I thought that SOPA was going down in flames.
And first of all, it's not.
But even if it did, and it eventually will in all likelihood, next year something else
will come up with another clever acronym.
The year after that, they're always going to keep trying.
And if they don't succeed here, they'll do it in other countries, and the battle is always
going to be continuing.
Well, what you say is very valid.
Like Redhack pointed out, a lot of these legislators get their information about the things they're
passing or voting for laws on based on who's lobbying them.
So unless we continually keep an eye on these people that we've elected to be our representatives
and continue to tell them what it is we want and let them know in no uncertain terms when
we don't like something, they'll pass laws that just hurt us.
And I want to focus on the people that we elected in a moment, too, because that's a
very important part of all this.
But back to the MPAA.
Now, I've always heard, I've never really investigated this.
And you'd think being sued by this organization, I would have looked into it a little bit more
carefully.
But I've always been sort of curious.
You know, we talk about the MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America, but their parent company
is the MPAA, Motion Picture Association.
That's the global organization.
And I just kind of figured their take on this might be a little bit different, because after
all, they're global.
Well, listen to the first paragraph from their website, which, by the way, by the way, it
was a real pain to find their website without Wikipedia.
I could track it down, but I eventually found something that came from that site about the
MPAA.
Listen to the first paragraph to see how global they are.
Today, U.S. films are shown in more than 150 countries worldwide, and American television
programs are broadcast in over 125 international markets.
The U.S. film industry provides the majority of home entertainment products seen in millions
of homes throughout the world.
The MPAA was formed in 1945 in the aftermath of World War II to reestablish American films
in the world market and to respond to the rising tide of protectionism resulting in
barriers aimed at restricting the importation of American films.
The MPAA's name was changed from the Motion Picture Export Association of America.
Well, I think I've read enough to show where their loyalties are.
It's nothing international as far as I'm concerned.
Eva, I'm wondering if you could maybe take us back a moment and explain for any of our
audience who's been like living under some rock where they never look at Wikipedia even,
what are these bills?
All right.
Well, we are talking about two bills here, PIPA and SOPA.
PIPA is the Senate version of the blacklist legislation, which will go to the Senate floor
on January 24th, and SOPA is the House version, which will go back before the House Judiciary
Committee sometime in early February.
Both of these bills contain language that will unconstitutionally silence legitimate
speech, allowing the entertainment industry to shut down sites with accusations of infringement
and without any real due process, and would give corporations and other private parties
new powers to censor foreign websites with court orders that would cut off payment processors
and advertisers, things like PayPal and Visa and MasterCard.
They also contain language that threatens innovation.
Service providers will be forced to monitor and police their users' activities, which
threatens the DMCA safe harbors, which have been really vital to online innovation over
the last decade, so that you don't have to worry about every single person who posts
to, say, your blog or your Flickr page or who has an account on Twitter, if you're Twitter.
Other capitalists have said that they won't invest in online startups if PIPA and SOPA
pass, and there are some interesting DNS filtering provisions, which were, I think, recently
taken out of SOPA, but which would have required the ISPs to keep a blacklist at the DNS levels
in order to prevent you from being able to get to sites which had been accused of hosting
infringing material.
And finally, there's some language which threatens the user-generated content revolution.
All the social media and cloud-based services are going to be at risk of being cut out at
the knees by the payment processing provisions, which say that you can't do business with
a site that hosts copyrighted content outside of the United States.
Well, I'd actually like to bring up a counterpoint by somebody out there in the internet world.
His name is Rupert Murdoch, and what he says, he says it's a nonsense argument about danger
to internet.
How about Google and others blocking porn and hate speech?
The internet isn't hurt by that, so what's the difference?
Anyone?
Eva?
Well, a couple of things.
You cannot block a site simply by accusing it of being porn or accusing it of being hate
speech, which is absolutely true of the sort of language which is in both PIPA and SOPA
regarding copyright infringement.
Furthermore, there's a thing called fair use.
Not all uses of copyrighted material are necessarily infringing, and there are a number
of factors which weigh into deciding whether or not a use is fair use.
You cannot necessarily automate that sort of process, literally, like a judge or a lawyer
needs to sit down and look at it and see whether or not your use of copyrighted material is
a fair use.
It is not nearly as straightforward as something like, is that child porn?
The other thing about it is that that's comparing one company voluntarily filtering things versus
making it a law that all companies across the internet and all websites and all that
have to abide by.
It's kind of a little different.
You may consider Google to be the internet if you're Rupert Murdoch, but that's not actually
the case.
Yeah.
I just love how they're so indignant about these websites being taken down.
They say that they're punishing their users.
How dare they do this, except it's their websites to do that with, and what they apparently
want to do is be able to be the people that take down their websites, but when the people
who own and run the websites do it themselves, that's abuse.
It's really kind of weird.
Yeah.
I saw some brilliant summary of this argument.
You can't shut down your website.
Only we can do that.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Okay.
Let's get back to the demonstration which took place.
First of all, now Gillibrand and Schumer are two senators.
They stand in support of this from my understanding?
Yes.
I believe they're both co-sponsors of the bill.
They've both definitely both stated their support for the bill.
Wow.
Go New York.
Yeah.
When's the most recent time they stated their support for the bill or the bills?
I don't know.
Not recently, I'll bet.
Well, look, I'll tell you what didn't happen today.
What did not happen today is someone coming down from these offices and saying, you know,
you're right.
We've changed our mind.
But I bet they were looking out the window.
It's a very tall building.
I'm sure they were very concerned about this.
I've heard people say we have to hold elected officials responsible and not reelect anybody
who supports this kind of thing because even if this bill goes down in flames, they're
just going to do it again.
So people have to come out and make a statement against this and we have to know where they
stand.
Freedom of expression on the internet is a very important thing.
And Eva, I'd just like to ask you, can you give us a hypothetical situation that maybe
somebody listening who's, you know, not running a website themselves, is maybe just a consumer,
something that could happen that would affect them, that they could see, wow, this really
is a threat?
Well, I can actually point you to a bunch of stories which stem from my experiences
with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is the existing legislation which allows
people to try to take down content which is allegedly infringing online.
And when the MPAA and other supporters of SOPA and PIPA say, oh no, there's absolutely
no way that this legislation will be abused to curtail free speech, the first thing that
I do is I point to EFF's Takedown Hall of Shame, in which we describe ways in which
people have abused the DMCA for exactly this purpose.
And Google's Chilling Effects, which is a website which chronicles all the different
ways in which people have used the DMCA to take down content off of Google.
Now, some of the more interesting stories that I have seen have included perfectly fair
uses and reinterpretations of copyrighted content, satirical content, satirical and
political content, which was removed just before an election, which I thought was particularly
touchy.
But generally what I would say is if you are in the habit of putting things up online and
you want people to be able to reach those things and you don't want to, say, be sued
or possibly found criminally liable, then you need to care about SOPA and PIPA, because
if SOPA and PIPA passes, then it is possible for someone to simply make an accusation that
your content is infringing.
Eva?
Yes?
Eva, I just had a question.
This is Bernie S. in Philadelphia.
You just touched on the political speech angle, and I had a question about that that I was
asking some of my colleagues here and off the hook the other day.
SOPA and PIPA were enacted into law, and a political candidate started copywriting
their campaign speeches.
Those sound clips from which are commonly used by their political opponents in their
campaign ads, which are typically posted online, wouldn't under these laws, if they were enacted,
allow political candidates who are attacked in political ads using their own words, which
they'd copyrighted, couldn't your political opponents have those websites or domain names
or IP addresses where those ads are posted from shut down?
And couldn't political speech literally be censored under the authority of government
law?
They could, and it would not necessarily even have to be a violation of copyright.
All that they have to do is simply request that it be taken down and allege that it was
a copyright violation.
There was a DMCA case, or a copyright case, that EFF got involved in a couple of years
ago in which I think it was Michael Savage had part of his radio show devoted to an organization
called CARE, the Council on Arab-American Relations?
American Islamic Relations.
American Islamic Relations, and he alleged that they were a terrorist organization.
CARE took this clip and used it as part of their fundraising.
Basically, hey, this hate monger hates us so much, give us money.
And Michael Savage accused them of copyright infringement for having used this clip.
Well, hate speech is protected, isn't it?
And sued them.
And EFF helped to defend CARE.
Under SOPA or PIPA, they could have simply gone to the ISP, filed a complaint, and had
the videos taken down.
They could have had the entire website taken down.
They could have taken down all of CARE's website.
One point, Eva, I don't think you got to finish this, but the DMCA, if someone made a request,
say for a YouTube video, say that that was infringing, they could get YouTube to take
that down under the DMCA.
But under SOPA and PIPA, what is the difference?
What could happen then?
Well, under the DMCA, Matt, under the DMCA, they could file a DMCA takedown request, which
would just take down the video as opposed to the entire website or the entire domain.
And furthermore, the person who is alleged to have violated copyright may get the video
put back up by filing a counter-notice.
No such notice or counter-notice language is in SOPA or PIPA.
Interesting.
Okay.
Very far-reaching and a lot of power being put into very few hands.
One thing that really kind of baffles me is the involvement of Senator Patrick Leahy,
who I thought was one of the members of Congress who had a clue.
Am I the only one who's kind of surprised by his involvement in this?
Honestly, I'm not really very surprised to hear any of this coming from our Congress.
Well, is there anybody...
They're so clueless most of the time.
Yvonne, let me ask you this.
Is there anybody that we can look to as actually getting it that we can maybe use as somebody,
an example of someone who gets it right that's elected?
I recommend Ron Wyden.
Okay.
I'm a big fan of Ron Wyden.
In fact, he just wrote a letter of thanks to the internet in response to the blackout
and is one of the co-sponsors of an alternative work of legislation, which also addresses
online copyright, called the OPEN Act.
Okay.
And where is he from?
I believe he is a representative from Oregon.
Okay.
Well, that's something.
And if you're a representative from anywhere and you would like to be given a thumbs up
on Off The Hook, well, you just got to do the right thing and support internet freedom
and that kind of thing.
Look at this.
Alta Vista's site doesn't have anything on it.
They just have the search bar.
Did you know Alta Vista even still existed?
Yeah, they do.
I found them today.
I looked them up and here they are and they just have their search.
I don't think anyone has used that search bar in five years.
Does anyone work there to put up a black page?
Maybe they just don't know about it.
It's possible.
But yeah, it wouldn't have taken much, would it?
Here's something else.
And I would like to take some phone calls from our listeners, because I know this is
a big issue for many of you out there.
212-209-2950.
I'm sorry, that's not a pledge line.
No, don't pledge.
Well, do pledge if you want to, but not right now.
212-209-2900 is our phone number to get on the air and voice your opinion.
We're on the phone with Ivar Galperin from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a bastion
of knowledge.
And these are the guys to support.
Go to EFF.org.
Ivar, are you blacked out?
Yes.
Yes, we are.
Okay.
So if people go there, can they make donations or will they have to wait?
They can still make donations.
Our page contains a big censored logo and then a link to our petition and a bunch of
information about PIPA and SOPA.
Okay.
Not to pick on MPAA too much.
No, actually, you know what?
I do want to pick on MPAA a whole lot.
This statement here just goes to show you how scrupulous they really are.
It's entitled, Senator Dodd on Irresponsible Developments of Blackout Day.
Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the
major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively
together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their
users or turn them into their corporate pawns rather than coming to the table to find solutions
to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.
It's great how they're using the corporate pawn, I think, against these people.
It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information
and use their services.
It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.
Yeah, they should know something about abuse of power.
It's pretty funny.
It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways
to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further
their corporate interests.
You know all these catchphrases they're using, corporate interest, corporate pawns, all kinds
of taking advantage of the poor individuals.
That's their territory.
They're the ones doing this, but they're accusing their opponents.
Finally here, a so-called blackout is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed
to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American
jobs from foreign criminals.
Our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this
blackout to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat
piracy.
And again, as mentioned on this website over and over again, this is a statement from Senator
Dodd.
Senator Dodd said this.
Senator Dodd said that.
You know what they don't mention on their website, where these things are?
That Senator Dodd is no longer a senator.
He was a senator.
Now he's the chairman and CEO of the MPAA.
Yes.
Did you know that?
They don't call him that.
They call him Senator Dodd to make it seem as if there is actual support, and there is
support in Congress for this kind of nonsense.
But to make it seem that this strident, really emotional talk is coming from Congress when
it's actually not.
I mean, but the copyright industry is writing the speeches of the current members of Congress.
True.
There's no real reason to.
But the fact that they don't reveal that, I think speaks volumes for how open they actually
are and what they want to hide.
It's also a nice level of consistency.
I think that dialogue is at least as trite as 99% of what Hollywood has put out in the
past year or so.
Absolutely.
So, shall we go to the telephones?
You guys want to take some phone calls?
I would love to.
All right.
212-209-2900.
Let's pick a line over here and let's try to stay on topic.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Yeah.
I was just calling about this whole thing.
There was a couple of points that I'd like to make and then a question.
So the first thing was about if she could say anything more about the DNSSEC-related
implications of SOPA PIPA and then also about maybe how it relates to fashion and handbags
because they talk about this stuff about taking down sites that sell counterfeit handbags.
And then also maybe people might be interested in this TED Talk video from some woman about
fashion and copyright and things like that.
And so if you just like search the web for TED Talk about fashion, you'll probably find
this woman, Joanne Blakely, and then I'll just listen.
Yeah.
Okay.
Listen to the response on the radio.
Thanks for your call.
Go ahead, Eva.
All right.
I can touch on the DNSSEC issue really quick.
There is some language in, I think, both SOPA and PIPA which makes it illegal to try to
circumvent the DNS blocking or any of the other efforts that the bill makes in order
to prevent you from getting to certain websites.
I don't know whether that language survived the dropping of the DNS blacklist language,
but it was definitely in there as of a few weeks ago.
And that would render DNSSEC illegal.
That would also have rendered the use of Tor in order to get around these sorts of blocks
illegal.
Wow.
So that is deeply concerning to me.
Tor being the onion router, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
Go ahead, Mike.
Eva, what are some of the other countries in which these sorts of things are illegal?
In which getting to certain types of websites?
Well, like circumventing this sort of government mandated blocking.
Oh, well, that's really quite simple.
Pretty much every country in which government mandated blocking exists also makes it illegal
to try to get around it.
But most notably, China.
One thing about this also is that this legislation, if it hurts anyone, it's going to be Americans
only.
The internet is a global network, and this is going to block things for Americans mostly.
American jobs?
Will American jobs be...
Well...
I've heard that's the issue here.
There's a lot of us versus them rhetoric in there.
There's actually been talk that a lot of tech companies would actually have to go dark as
a result of this.
So a lot of tech companies would actually start sending people out to look for work
elsewhere and that they might start relocating to places like Canada or other countries.
Not Canada.
Where...
Leave the United States, basically, because the United States wouldn't be as fertile of
a ground for cyber business.
All right.
Let's take some more phone calls.
212-209-2900.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Greetings from Charlie.
How are you doing?
I'm doing all right.
First of all, I really got upset when you said you were going to be off the air for
an hour.
I was sitting in my car because I don't have a way to listen to you in the house.
Yeah.
We heard a collective roar from the streets below and we decided to second-guess ourselves.
Yes, sir.
That was a good idea.
Second of all, I thought of going the old school way and writing a letter, but I don't
think the 24th is when they're going to be looking at the bill.
Next Tuesday.
I don't even...
Do you even think a letter can get through on that time, given our current postal system?
All right.
Eva, I'll let you take that one.
Actually, if you're willing to wait until Monday, EFF is staging a call-in day, asking
people to call their senators ahead of the debate, which will be happening on the 24th.
We're asking people to call on Monday and talk to their senators and let them know that
they want them to oppose PIPA.
Okay.
So how does that work as far as call-in day?
You supply the phone numbers and people just basically, I guess, line up in a queue and
try and reach people in their elected offices, elected officials' offices?
We have the phone numbers online.
All you have to do is call.
We have a Facebook event on the EFF's Facebook page, if you use Facebook, and if not, it
is on the EFF calendar on our website, www.eff.org.
Now for someone who's never called an elected official before, what can they expect?
I mean, they're probably not going to speak to Senator Schumer or something like that,
but what will they get?
You will talk to a staffer or an aide, and they are mostly interested in the numbers
of people who call about a specific issue.
I was told that if you tried to call the New York senators in particular today, you couldn't
get through.
Their phones were off the hook.
Off the hook?
Or just busy?
Is it legal to take their phones off the hook if you're an elected official?
I don't know that there's a law against it.
I was told they were off the hook.
I didn't try myself to distinguish exactly why people couldn't get through, but people
were trying and failing.
All right.
We're the only off the hook in town.
No one else gets to do that.
I would also just like to mention that a supplementary measure people can do is you can go to their
websites and use the web interface to send them an email instead of snail mail if you're
worried it won't get to them in time.
So in addition to calling them on Monday, you can try to get you and your address associated
instead of just by email.
Eva, you must know which is the most effective way.
Which is the best thing to do?
Well, the best thing to do is both, especially if you're concerned that your phone calls
might not get through.
EFF has an online petition, and I'm proud to say that about half an hour ago, we reached
one million emails that we had sent to U.S. congressmen just today in the blackout.
One million in one day?
Yes.
That's unbelievable.
Eva?
Mm-hmm?
A question.
When you call a representative, a legislator, a congressman, or a senator, do they grade
or classify the calls as to whether how strong the opposition is, or is it just for or against?
They're primarily interested in whether you're for or against.
Okay.
How would they do that, by the tone of your voice?
Well, one presumes that if you are calling about a specific issue, you're going to mention
whether you're for or against it.
Right.
All right, let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You are on Off The Hook.
Go ahead.
Hi, guys.
I apologize.
This is a little off topic, but I'm completely struck.
This is directed to Eva.
Eva, are you there?
Yes.
Eva, your speaking voice is almost identical to Mary Kissel from The Wall Street Journal.
So just for your own amusement, go to YouTube or whatever, find an interview with Mary Kissel
from The Wall Street Journal.
Your speaking voice is remarkably similar to hers.
Okay.
So you've uncovered the plot there.
Thank you very much for that.
Please don't tell my boss I've been moonlighting at The Wall Street Journal.
I'm so sorry we blew your cover there.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Oh, hello.
What is the, in words, this thing, TIPA, PIPA, whatever that is, what is it in words?
And also, what is the Senate bill number?
Okay, let's say it in words, not in Morse code.
Go ahead, Eva, you want to take this?
All right.
I don't have the Senate bill number in front of me.
I'm very sorry about that.
It's easy to look up, though, once everything starts working again.
Yeah.
We're looking it up now in our smartphone.
Wait, do you have something?
Yeah.
I actually downloaded the bills to my phone.
Just tell us the number.
S968.
And the acronym PROTECT IP actually stands for To Prevent Online Threats to Economic
Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property.
It's an acronym within an acronym, too.
It's an acronym of an acronym.
That's really something.
Yes.
Eva, do you have anything else to say to that caller?
Yes.
Both STOPA and PIPA are legislation which is currently being proposed, which has currently
been proposed and is being debated, which is aimed at curbing online piracy on the internet,
but in fact goes about it in such a way that it curtails free speech and is very threatening
to innovation online.
Okay.
Let's see if we can fit in one more phone call because we only have a couple of minutes
left.
Good evening.
You're on Off The Hook.
Hey.
I just want to say thanks for having such a great show.
You really changed my perspective on a lot of things with technology.
And I recently dropped that Comcast is my ISP.
I read a Google News article that they were in support of STOPA and PIPA, and I wanted
to know where I could find out where more corporations are supporting this.
I can listen.
Good question.
Eva, do you know this?
I'm trying to remember who has a list of all of the STOPA supporters.
Are you interested in companies or are you interested in legislators?
I think he was asking about companies, but certainly legislators.
I think a lot of people are following elected officials.
I know GoDaddy was one company and look what happened to them.
And certainly the MPAA is an organization very strongly in support of this.
So I imagine lists are being generated.
And also-
I guess Gizmodo actually put up a list of a bunch of companies that are supporting STOPA.
And also if you're interested, it's a relatively simple matter to call the people who you do
business with, your web host or domain host or whatever, and get in touch with them and
ask them what they think and do your business accordingly.
Yeah.
Make it an issue.
One of the really awesome things about the way this has been unfolding is a lot of companies
who were sort of in favor of the general idea.
And so they ended up on some list of people who are sort of vaguely in favor of the general
idea.
They actually read the legislation that was being proposed and they said, no, we got to
get our names off this.
This is terrible.
And I think that's really exciting in a way.
It's inspirational to me to just see how quickly this came about.
And I think it's so related to the things that have been going on over the past year
or two with Anonymous and Occupy Wall Street and people like that, that have really galvanized
public support and raised their voices and pointed the cameras literally opposite them
to focus right on them.
Because the media, you really have to sort of guide them into a story lots of times.
Eva, just as a final question to you, do you think that the media is finally, even though
the media is very often owned by the very people that are pushing this kind of thing,
do you think they're starting to get the story?
Well, I think that the story is starting to see a lot of pickup in the mainstream media
right now.
I know it's very fashionable to blame the mainstream media for not having covered SOPA
and PIPA earlier, but if you are working in a medium like television, SOPA and PIPA are
very, very difficult to explain to a television audience, whereas a story like Wikipedia blacks
out in response to SOPA or PIPA is, in fact, a very easy story to sell to the mainstream
media.
And that's why it was done.
That's why Wikipedia had to do this.
That's why everybody had to do this, because that's how you get the story out there in
the first place.
Eva Galperin, I want to thank you so much for being a part of the show tonight.
Is there any contact information for the EFF you'd like to give out to our listeners?
Absolutely.
If people want to know more about SOPA and PIPA and what they can do, I recommend that
they go to blacklists.eff.org, B-L-A-C-K-L-I-S-T-S dot E-F-F dot O-R-G, and that is where we
have our petitions, and also where we will have a link to our call-in day on Monday.
Okay, and we'll certainly be updating people on this story.
Now, as the outro tonight, Rob T. Firefly, you found a particularly apropos piece of
music.
You want to tell us about it?
Yeah, this is a great song.
I was pointed toward it by Juice Media, who does Rap News, and it's called The Internet
Fight Song, and it's by someone called Funk Vigilante.
And we had to censor a little bit for the radio, but to find the original, you can find
this on YouTube, and it's got a great video to go along with it.
Okay.
O-T-H at 2600.com.
That's our email address.
We'll see you next week.
the internet.
Oh, my God!
What the hell?
I'm tripping out!
I need your help, so could you please settle down?
Okay.
Long have I brawled, uncensored and free, but there are those that would try to silence
me.
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God!
Freedom of speech is under attack, all jokes aside, this could be the most significant battle
of our time.
Because today they say they just want to stop the piracy.
But sooner or later just watch, they'll censor all the things.
That's the real reason that they went after wickedness.
Because oppressive governments, man, they hate free speech.
Because it's tough to run in a pile when the public is in for.
They'll hold your feet to the fire, now more than ever before.
Because we can mobilize faster than ever, who would have thought?
From the Occupy Movement to the Go Daddy Boycott, we can organize protests all across the world.
I even saw them raise 20 G's for a sick little girl.
The good deeds of our community, far too many to name.
To put a freeze on this technology would be foolish and insane.
And if they did lock down the net, where would the people be then?
You're sure as f**k you're getting any news out of CNN.
Because the internet connects us all to one another.
The human race is a family, we are sisters and brothers.
United in the battle for a better way to find a future by the history we write today.
And yeah, we'll fight them, but they're going to keep coming back around.
So we can never give up and never back down.
Let's stand our ground so this won't actually be the end of the internet as we know it.
Because that's GG.
Fight! Fight!
F**k Trump and protect your P.
Fight! Fight!
Keep the web open and free.
Fight! Fight!
And as a lesson, don't you ever forget.
Fight! Fight!
Don't f**k with the internet.
Woo! That was powerful, that was powerful.
Ah, the internet, that's right.
Oh boy, they're looking to take away all your rights.
To stop you from getting all of those secrets that are on the internet.
Shutting it down.