January 2012

President Obama proves he gets it on the online piracy issue

[Commentary] President Barack Obama re-established his credibility on technology issues and scored a victory for Silicon Valley with his statement that he does not support the damaging portions of proposed legislation designed to combat online piracy. But the valley can't rest easy. The President clearly gets the importance of freedom of speech on the Web and the harm the current legislation could do to Internet companies. However, President Obama stopped short of saying he would veto the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, as written. This fight is far from over. It's time to put some of their brightest minds together in a room and find a way to help Congress modify its online piracy legislation.

Perils of an online piracy law

[Commentary] The White House made the right call by opposing key ingredients in congressional proposals to curb Internet piracy. The stance should go a long way to snuff out a misguided effort that undercuts the wide-open qualities of the online world.

This battle is no easy call. It pits Silicon Valley against Hollywood over control, responsibility and the legal abuses of the Internet. At issue is a pair of bills in the House and Senate that go after the online theft of copyright materials such as movies and music peddled on pirate websites. California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are sponsors of the Senate measure, though their support could shift. A possible vote next week would force each to choose between two high-profile home-state industries. Washington should consider other, more carefully targeted ways to combat a serious problem.

Brake the Internet Pirates

[Commentary] Wikipedia and many other websites are shutting down today to oppose a proposal in Congress on foreign Internet piracy, and the White House is seconding the protest. The covert lobbying war between Silicon Valley and most other companies in the business of intellectual property is now in the open, and this fight could define—or reinvent—copyright in the digital era. Everyone agrees, or at least claims to agree, that the illegal sale of copyrighted and trademarked products has become a world-wide, multibillion-dollar industry and a legitimate and growing economic problem. This isn't college kids swapping MP3s, as in the 1990s. Rather, rogue websites set up shop oversees and sell U.S. consumers bootleg movies, TV shows, software, video games, books and music, as well as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fashion, jewelry and more. Often consumers think they're buying copies or streams from legitimate retail enterprises, sometimes not. Either way, the technical term for this is theft.

Amazon Optimistic About Net Sales Tax Bill

Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president for global public policy said that he sees a shift in momentum in favor of legislation his company supports that would authorize states to require online company's such as his own to collect sales taxes from out of-state customers. "I'm optimistic because the political dynamic has changed," Misener said during a discussion on the issue at the annual State of the Net conference. Misener noted a bipartisan Senate bill that Amazon backs would allow the federal government to help cash-strapped states bring in additional revenues without having to provide any federal funds. He added that he is "heartened" that the debate appears to have shifted away from whether to pass legislation to how it should be crafted and how big of an exemption should be included for small businesses.

As States Weigh Online Gambling, Profit May Be Small

It has been more than four decades since states began putting numbers runners out of business by starting their own legal lotteries, which now yield them close to $18 billion a year. Now several states are thinking about trying to plug budget gaps by profiting again from their residents’ optimism — by legalizing, licensing and taxing Internet gambling.

Nevada and the District of Columbia have already taken steps to authorize online poker, and state officials in Iowa have been studying the issue closely. Lawmakers in New Jersey and California are redoubling their efforts to legalize it, bolstered by a recent Department of Justice decision that reversed the federal government’s long-held opposition to many forms of Internet gambling. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey spoke this month of making his state an “epicenter” of the online gambling industry. But as desperate as states are for new revenue, after four years of often painful austerity, there are questions about just how much income they can expect to receive from online gambling. The state of Iowa released a study last month that found that legalizing online poker might net it $3 million to $13 million a year, far less than private companies had estimated. The American Gaming Association, a casino industry trade group, has estimated that legalizing online poker would generate roughly $2 billion a year in new tax revenues, a fraction of what states get from their lotteries.

Young, in Love and Sharing Everything, Including a Password

Young couples have long signaled their devotion to each other by various means — the gift of a letterman jacket, or an exchange of class rings or ID bracelets. Best friends share locker combinations. The digital era has given rise to a more intimate custom. It has become fashionable for young people to express their affection for each other by sharing their passwords to e-mail, Facebook and other accounts. Boyfriends and girlfriends sometimes even create identical passwords, and let each other read their private e-mails and texts. They say they know such digital entanglements are risky, because a souring relationship can lead to people using online secrets against each other. But that, they say, is part of what makes the symbolism of the shared password so powerful.

Anti-piracy bill markup to continue next month

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) vowed to bring the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) to a vote in his committee next month, even as thousands of websites prepared an unprecedented protest of the legislation.

“I am committed to continuing to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House that saves American jobs and protects intellectual property," he said. Chairman Smith scheduled a series of markup sessions late last year, but opponents offered a slew of amendments, forcing him to postpone a committee vote on the legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to bring the Senate version, the Protect IP Act, to a vote in the full Senate next week. Major websites including Wikipedia and Reddit will temporarily shutdown on Jan 18 and display only a message criticizing the legislation. Google, the world's most visited webpage, will not shutdown but will display a banner opposing the bill.

Conservative group urges lawmakers to oppose anti-piracy bills

Influential conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation urged lawmakers to oppose two anti-piracy bills and said it will record their votes for its scorecards. "While the federal government does have a role in protecting intellectual property rights, it should do so in a way that does not weaken internet security, disrupt growth or restrict free speech rights," the Heritage Foundation's advocacy arm wrote. "To date, SOPA and PIPA fail to meet that standard."

Chairman Leahy: Anti-piracy bill critics 'flatly wrong'

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), sponsor of controversial anti-online piracy legislation, pushed back against websites planning to shut down on Jan 18 in protest of his bill.

"Much of what has been claimed about the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act is flatly wrong and seems intended more to stoke fear and concern than to shed light or foster workable solutions. The PROTECT IP Act will not affect Wikipedia, will not affect reddit, and will not affect any website that has any legitimate use," Chairman Leahy said. "Perhaps if these companies would participate constructively, they could point to what in the actual legislation they contend threatens their websites, and then we could dispel their misunderstandings. That is what debate on legislation is intended to do, to fine-tune the bill to confront the problem of stealing while protecting against unintended consequences."

Supreme Court rejects student social media cases

The Supreme Court declined to clarify on what grounds public schools may punish students for their off-campus online speech.

The Justices have not squarely addressed the student-speech issue as it applies to the digital world—one filled with online social-networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and others. The issue before the Justices tests whether public schools may discipline students who, while off campus, use social-networking sites to mock school officials. The lower courts have been all over the map on the First Amendment issue because they maintain they have been saddled with a Vietnam War-era High Court precedent that predates the Internet. In the leading case of the three petitions the justices declined to review, the lower court opinion urged the Supreme Court to end the confusion of whether that older case does indeed still hold in the internet age. The National School Boards Association also urged the High Court to review the issue. The association and others told the Justices that “The ubiquitous use of social networking and other forms of online communication has resulted in a stunning increase in harmful student expression that school administrators are forced to address with no clear guiding jurisprudence.”

Benton

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