BRATTLEBORO — After failing to get the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) passed in 2010, Senator Patrick Leahy is back again this year with Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and the Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA, or PROTECT IP).
Do not forget that PIPA is the son of COICA. These guys really love their acronyms.
Back then, while the Vermont American Civil Liberties Union was nominating Leahy as Civil Libertarian of the Year, the national ACLU office was writing him a letter in opposition to COICA legislation. Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon subsequently tabled it.
This ridiculous name for PIPA should have been our first clue that this is yet another attempt to disguise the truth and put more profits into the coffers of multibillion-dollar conglomerates while eliminating infringing sites.
As Homeland Security is enhancing the profits of the military-industrial complex under the guise of security, PIPA is enhancing the profits of these corporations in the music, film and pharmaceutical industries in the name of copyright infringement.
Guess what industry primarily benefits from this legislation, and then guess which industry has been a principal contributor to Leahy's re-election efforts.
Surprise, surprise.
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But the public has begun to catch on. The efforts of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the numbers of people communicating on the Internet are raising the consciousness of voters.
The public is becoming painfully aware about how politics is run in Washington, and PIPA illustrates this process perfectly.
It is entirely about the control of the politicians through legal bribery and the control of the public through a corporate-owned and -operated mainstream media.
So what if PIPA supports no real due process?
So what if thousands of innocent and tiny websites get victimized and shut down without their owners' opportunity to address their accuser before action is taken?
So what if all accusers are held harmless for any false accusations that they may make?
So what if legitimate users of copyrighted materials are victimized by this legislation?
So what if the door is now opened to more aggressive censorship and the compromise of free speech?
It is the price we must pay to get billions more into the hands of these billion-dollar industries and to silence sites attempting to inform the public through the works of others.
Does the PATRIOT Act ring a bell?
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Without a doubt, PROTECT-IP represents the most fundamental attack on our Constitution ever waged. It was first launched by a Republican, then reauthorized without change by a Democrat.
Money, greed, and legal bribery control both sides of the aisle, and PIPA is just another manifestation of business-as-usual in Washington. Money pulls the strings, and the political puppets then dance.
Senator Leahy is no different from any other politician; currently, this scenario is the only way to get reelected. Those in office (the incumbents) have all the money, and if they play ball with their primary contributors, they are allowed to stay in office and become very rich.
Maybe Leahy can pull off a Chris Dodd special. By anyone's measure, this former senator was one of the most legally corrupt politicians in Washington, and now he presides over the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to the tune of over $1 million a year.
Perhaps Senator Leahy can do several dances before he leaves office and secure a similarly fat private-sector job when he retires.
This bill is about big money going to big business - not to the people, who are always second-class citizens. Rather than point out this relationship to the public, mainstream media perpetuates it.
Part of copyright law, and conspicuously absent from all copyright infringement legislation and almost every news outlet, is a section defining “fair use.”
The doctrine of fair use generally says for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archives, scholarship, and the manifestation of new information, it is perfectly legal to use the works of copyright holders without their permission.
What invention was not created by standing on the shoulders of previous inventors? What documentarian can describe the past without using the past to illustrate his works? What political satirist can criticize the hypocrisy of Washington without exposing previous statements and previous actions in film as recorded by others?
When it was established, copyright law embraced this key concept, one that has been absent for quite some time: a balance between the protection of intellectual property and the public's right to know.
Do not be fooled. Fair use is not mentioned in any of these pieces of legislation for a reason.
Go after the bad guys, yes. Prosecute the criminals who copy and sell unaltered and fully intact music, film, and drugs. (Incidentally, new copyright infringement laws are not absolutely needed to prosecute the bad boys. Megaupload.com was recently shut down under current statute.)
But do not trample the rights of legitimate infringers who want to do nothing more than use copyrighted material legally to inform an uninformed public.
Want to put this matter to bed? See how many senators will sponsor a facsimile of the words below into copyright-infringement legislation like PIPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), and now the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act.
“This legislation is directed at all websites engaged in the sale and distribution of unaltered music, movies, and drugs and as protected by U.S. trademark and copyright law.
“This legislation is not about copyright infringement as it applies to thousands of bloggers, documentarians, political satirists, remixers, librarians, scholars, and teachers who in the course of their work often use segments from another for archival purposes, to illustrate a point, to initiate a discussion or a criticism, or bring new issues to light. This constitutes a fair use of copyright law and is fundamental to free speech and the Constitution and will be protected at all costs.”
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Unfortunately, these bills and these efforts are far from dead. A brief pause has been taken with PIPA and SOPA, and now a new one, OPEN, has recently been introduced.
Free speech on the Internet is just too significant a Congressional indictment to leave alone. The more we know, the more obvious those responsible will become.
Fair use allows little guys to attempt to do for almost nothing what a corporately owned and controlled mainstream media has failed to do with billions. My words, my film, and my website are a mosaic of other people's work. Under these bills, mine would qualify as an infringing site.
Will my work someday be under attack? Will my little squeak be silenced?
I do not possess the resources to battle the Department of Justice and its corporate sponsors, and there are thousands more much more qualified than I trying to point out the rampant injustices that are sweeping this country.
Be extremely leery of any legislation that attempts to regulate the Internet. It is the last bastion of free speech on the planet, and it is definitely under attack, especially by those very forces who proclaim their innocence the loudest.