The dire predictions of a post-SOPA world will undoubtedly remain speculation for years to come. What lessons did SOPA teach us, and what weaknesses does it expose? Is the internet really as "wild and dangerous" as they claimed?
To start with, let's look at who started the problem, the MPAA, and in particular, Chris Dodd. It's obvious that Mr Dodd suffers a bit of technophobia. But is he really the root of the problem? Well, yes. But not for the obvious reasons. Any person of leadership has teams of advisors helping research information and gathering technical details. Mr Dodd did not make up a bunch of numbers and claim they were costing the MPAA some particular dollar amount. He likely assigned teams to investigate and return favorable details for the need to regulate technology.
Regulate? Enter the hypocrisy. Mr Dodd has done well in convincing Republican Senators of the need for strict government regulations of the internet. But isn't government regulation the opposite of what the Republicans stand for? By looking deeper, we see the truth of the Republican agenda. It's about de-regulation of business, not human rights. Corporations aren't people as they like to claim, they're "super people". They deserve rights that normal people are not afforded. At least, that's how the Republican congressman would like to make it.
So why isn't it obvious what Mr Dodd is doing wrong? His mistake is in not firing a large portion of his advisers over the debacle. He doesn't realize it, because he's both technophobic and does not have the right people advising him about technology and how it works. It's not that he's wrong in being weary, piracy does exist. But SOPA was more dangerous for the MPAA than it was for the pirates.
Mr Dodd, if you're somehow reading this, let me put it in very simple terms. The internet is much like the roadway system here in the US. If you look closely at what SOPA was actually capable of doing, it didn't stop any of the traffic. Instead, it gave the MPAA and RIAA the ability to block listings in the phone book. If you look closely at how DNS works, it's really just a simple way to look up someone's address by name. Without a phone book, people will have more trouble finding the businesses in question, but word of mouth and exchanging of addresses will ultimately resolve this. Very small businesses that rely on people flipping through the phone book to find them would die out, but the majority would just be "harder to find" for a short bit. Instead of going directly to a website by name, users will end up on a different site which does nothing but list the address of "blocked" sites. Once you know the address, it's a simple drive over.
So what *really* would have come out of SOPA? The first, and likely the most dangerous, result of SOPA would be the loss of power of ICANN. If we use the phone book example above, it doesn't take much of a leap to realize that someone will quickly create a new "phone book" system. This system won't rely on a central repository (the root DNS servers) and instead will use peer-to-peer and off-shore servers to convey the information. Servers of which you have no control over. Any site which isn't blocked on the root DNS servers can still be located over the new peer-to-peer system, because it can act as a relay. But any site you block by lookup, it can share around without power or ability to control.
And you might be thinking to yourself, "we're smarter than that." Well, you're not. That's why your advisers should be fired. Let's take real evidence instead of your beliefs. Back in the early 2000s, a little service popped up which allows the sharing of music. This service relied on a server that everyone connected to, and would publish the list of songs they had on their system. When you searched the system for a song, the server would tell you everyone connected that had a match, and you could download it from them. You don't need me to tell you which service this was. Your buddies at the RIAA probably still have disdain for the name alone. But what happened when it was shut down? Sharing moved to peer-to-peer systems. And suddenly, the RIAA wasn't going after big fish, but was instead being publicly persecuted for going after individuals, sometimes minors, for sharing music over peer-to-peer networks. The MPAA is already in the age of peer-to-peer sharing, so it's struggling to find a way to stop technology. The RIAA has embraced technology to a point now where nobody that I know still pirates their music, but instead, just buys it from any number of legit online retailers straight from their mobile device. The cost of piracy has exceeded the cost of purchase. Yes, even piracy costs time and money.
So for the rest of us, why was SOPA so dangerous? Because the loss of ICANN's control over name lookup would not be the end of the MPAA. On the contrary, in the struggle to fight a new system and protect their existing business models, they would propose crazier and unprecedented lock downs of the internet infrastructure itself. While still failing to understand how SOPA could have gone wrong, and continuing to look at how the technology could and would evolve around the regulations, they would continue to lash out aimlessly at the internet, hoping to stop the one thing that would survive. Piracy is like a cockroach, it can survive almost anything. But the RIAA has learned a few things. People *want* to give you their money. I cancelled Netflix. Not because it was too expensive, but because none of the movies I wanted to watch are available. I'd pay more than they currently charge a month if a much wider selection of movies were available. I'd be willing to have a cap on the number of movies a month I could watch for a subscription tier. I'm *not* willing to pay $4 to "rent" a movie for 24 hours that often times doesn't even play correctly, thanks to the layers and layers of DRM that prevent the legit viewing of the content while not stopping the pirates in the slightest.
A look at the history of DRM systems would quickly find that most people find DRM causes more headaches for the legit owners than for the pirates. I will publicly admit to having downloaded cracks to software I legitimately purchased just because the DRM was excessive and annoying, sometimes leading to system instability or security vulnerabilities.
So what now? Well, nothing really. I don't expect Mr Dodd to realize the problems he's facing. He's a former senator, not a technology maven. I'm also not advocating the idea of ignoring the problem. It needs to be faced, but he needs to recognize the need to hire people who understand the problem, and more importantly, understand the technology. If the best advice your advisers can give you to prevent people from driving somewhere is to take away listings from their phone book, you've really got some dumb advisers.
And for the Republican Senators? What do you *really* stand for? Stop the lies, stop the hand waving, stop the "it's someone else's fault". Do you believe in deregulation, or do you believe in corporate control of America? We know where Lamar Smith stands on the issue, he's never hidden his distaste for the American people. Between pirating pictures for his own campaign site while trying to pass laws to prohibit others from doing the same?
To start with, let's look at who started the problem, the MPAA, and in particular, Chris Dodd. It's obvious that Mr Dodd suffers a bit of technophobia. But is he really the root of the problem? Well, yes. But not for the obvious reasons. Any person of leadership has teams of advisors helping research information and gathering technical details. Mr Dodd did not make up a bunch of numbers and claim they were costing the MPAA some particular dollar amount. He likely assigned teams to investigate and return favorable details for the need to regulate technology.
Regulate? Enter the hypocrisy. Mr Dodd has done well in convincing Republican Senators of the need for strict government regulations of the internet. But isn't government regulation the opposite of what the Republicans stand for? By looking deeper, we see the truth of the Republican agenda. It's about de-regulation of business, not human rights. Corporations aren't people as they like to claim, they're "super people". They deserve rights that normal people are not afforded. At least, that's how the Republican congressman would like to make it.
So why isn't it obvious what Mr Dodd is doing wrong? His mistake is in not firing a large portion of his advisers over the debacle. He doesn't realize it, because he's both technophobic and does not have the right people advising him about technology and how it works. It's not that he's wrong in being weary, piracy does exist. But SOPA was more dangerous for the MPAA than it was for the pirates.
Mr Dodd, if you're somehow reading this, let me put it in very simple terms. The internet is much like the roadway system here in the US. If you look closely at what SOPA was actually capable of doing, it didn't stop any of the traffic. Instead, it gave the MPAA and RIAA the ability to block listings in the phone book. If you look closely at how DNS works, it's really just a simple way to look up someone's address by name. Without a phone book, people will have more trouble finding the businesses in question, but word of mouth and exchanging of addresses will ultimately resolve this. Very small businesses that rely on people flipping through the phone book to find them would die out, but the majority would just be "harder to find" for a short bit. Instead of going directly to a website by name, users will end up on a different site which does nothing but list the address of "blocked" sites. Once you know the address, it's a simple drive over.
So what *really* would have come out of SOPA? The first, and likely the most dangerous, result of SOPA would be the loss of power of ICANN. If we use the phone book example above, it doesn't take much of a leap to realize that someone will quickly create a new "phone book" system. This system won't rely on a central repository (the root DNS servers) and instead will use peer-to-peer and off-shore servers to convey the information. Servers of which you have no control over. Any site which isn't blocked on the root DNS servers can still be located over the new peer-to-peer system, because it can act as a relay. But any site you block by lookup, it can share around without power or ability to control.
And you might be thinking to yourself, "we're smarter than that." Well, you're not. That's why your advisers should be fired. Let's take real evidence instead of your beliefs. Back in the early 2000s, a little service popped up which allows the sharing of music. This service relied on a server that everyone connected to, and would publish the list of songs they had on their system. When you searched the system for a song, the server would tell you everyone connected that had a match, and you could download it from them. You don't need me to tell you which service this was. Your buddies at the RIAA probably still have disdain for the name alone. But what happened when it was shut down? Sharing moved to peer-to-peer systems. And suddenly, the RIAA wasn't going after big fish, but was instead being publicly persecuted for going after individuals, sometimes minors, for sharing music over peer-to-peer networks. The MPAA is already in the age of peer-to-peer sharing, so it's struggling to find a way to stop technology. The RIAA has embraced technology to a point now where nobody that I know still pirates their music, but instead, just buys it from any number of legit online retailers straight from their mobile device. The cost of piracy has exceeded the cost of purchase. Yes, even piracy costs time and money.
So for the rest of us, why was SOPA so dangerous? Because the loss of ICANN's control over name lookup would not be the end of the MPAA. On the contrary, in the struggle to fight a new system and protect their existing business models, they would propose crazier and unprecedented lock downs of the internet infrastructure itself. While still failing to understand how SOPA could have gone wrong, and continuing to look at how the technology could and would evolve around the regulations, they would continue to lash out aimlessly at the internet, hoping to stop the one thing that would survive. Piracy is like a cockroach, it can survive almost anything. But the RIAA has learned a few things. People *want* to give you their money. I cancelled Netflix. Not because it was too expensive, but because none of the movies I wanted to watch are available. I'd pay more than they currently charge a month if a much wider selection of movies were available. I'd be willing to have a cap on the number of movies a month I could watch for a subscription tier. I'm *not* willing to pay $4 to "rent" a movie for 24 hours that often times doesn't even play correctly, thanks to the layers and layers of DRM that prevent the legit viewing of the content while not stopping the pirates in the slightest.
A look at the history of DRM systems would quickly find that most people find DRM causes more headaches for the legit owners than for the pirates. I will publicly admit to having downloaded cracks to software I legitimately purchased just because the DRM was excessive and annoying, sometimes leading to system instability or security vulnerabilities.
So what now? Well, nothing really. I don't expect Mr Dodd to realize the problems he's facing. He's a former senator, not a technology maven. I'm also not advocating the idea of ignoring the problem. It needs to be faced, but he needs to recognize the need to hire people who understand the problem, and more importantly, understand the technology. If the best advice your advisers can give you to prevent people from driving somewhere is to take away listings from their phone book, you've really got some dumb advisers.
And for the Republican Senators? What do you *really* stand for? Stop the lies, stop the hand waving, stop the "it's someone else's fault". Do you believe in deregulation, or do you believe in corporate control of America? We know where Lamar Smith stands on the issue, he's never hidden his distaste for the American people. Between pirating pictures for his own campaign site while trying to pass laws to prohibit others from doing the same?
