Since National Review’s founding, conservatives have turned to it for informed, insightful, thoughtful, and accurate reporting and commentary. Unfortunately a recent NRO article, “Congress Censors the Internet,” wrongly attacks legislation intended to protect America’s innovators from criminals who steal and sell America’s intellectual property and keep the profits for themselves. Claims that the Stop Online Piracy Act will censor legal activity on the Internet are blatantly false. Enforcing the law against criminals is not censorship.
The Stop Online Piracy Act specifically targets websites dedicated to illegal and infringing activity. Often based overseas, these websites are called “rogue sites” because they flout U.S. law and face zero legal consequences for their criminal activity. Rogue sites not only steal America’s products and profits; they steal jobs that rightly belong here at home. This bill cuts off the flow of revenue to rogue sites by preventing criminals from selling and distributing counterfeit products to U.S. consumers.
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The bill defines rogue sites as websites that are dedicated to the facilitation of the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit or pirated goods. Websites like Facebook and YouTube that host user content are not “dedicated to” illegal activity and they certainly do not make a business out of “facilitating” the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit or pirated goods. But if a user posts illegal content on a website like Facebook or YouTube, current law allows rights holders to notify the website to remove the illegal content.
The Stop Online Piracy Act is a constitutional bill that protects free speech and America’s intellectual property. The First Amendment is not an excuse for illegal activity. Simply because the illegal activity occurs online does not mean that it is protected speech. Like online piracy, child pornography is a billion-dollar business operated online. It is also illegal. That’s why law enforcement officials are authorized to block access to child-porn sites.
Similarly, this bill authorizes the attorney general to seek an injunction against a foreign website that is dedicated to illegal and infringing activity. The attorney general must go to a federal judge and lay out the case against the site. If the judge agrees, a court order will be issued that authorizes the Justice Department to request that the site be blocked.
This bill does not allow anyone to seek an order to block any website. It affords the same due-process protections provided in all civil litigation in federal courts. If a federal judge agrees that the website in question is dedicated to illegal and infringing activity, then a court order can be issued directing companies to sever ties with the illegal website. Third-party intermediaries, such as credit-card companies and online-ad providers, are only required to stop working with the site. They cannot be held liable for the illegal or infringing actions taken by the rogue website.
The problem of rogue sites is real, immediate, and widespread. According to estimates, IP theft costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while some of America’s most profitable and productive industries are under attack.
The House Judiciary Committee has and will continue to work with groups to improve this bill and ensure that it targets the problem of rogue websites. Unfortunately, there are some critics of this legislation who are not serious about helping to protect America’s intellectual property. That’s because they’ve made large profits by working with and promoting rogue sites to U.S. consumers. Google recently paid a half billion dollars to settle a criminal case because of the search-engine giant’s active promotion of rogue foreign pharmacies that sold counterfeit and illegal drugs to U.S. patients. Their opposition to this legislation is self-serving since they profit from doing business with rogue sites.
This bill does not “threaten online freedoms.” But it does threaten the profits generated by those who willfully steal intellectual property by trafficking in counterfeit or pirated goods.
— Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) chairs the House Judiciary Committee and is a sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act.
There is far too little protection for individual freedom in this bill. How hard will it be for a large corporation or law firm to convince a prosecutor and judge? This is not nearly enough protection from the restraint of trade which will ensue if this bill is passed. The bill could be more accurately called the "Expand the Power of Large Corporation to Quash Competition and Expand Government Control of the Internet Act."
Yea because it makes sense to equate the effects of child pornography on children and the lack of SOPA on the Micheal Jackson estate. (Tito gon' be devastated!)
No worries on abortion or fundamental attacks on religion Rep. Smith, the flight of manufacturing, record joblessness or the myriad other problems we face! You're about P Diddy Combs making a million dollars more a year on some soul degrading horrible song!
If any of these "artists" are truly artists then why don't they focus a little more on beauty and a little less on their own pocketbooks?
Mr. Smith admits the charges against SOPA in his defense by pointing out that Google has already been called a facilitator for merely doing what search engines are supposed to do: presenting the web sites that exist on the web.
Foreign web sites don't flout American law, they aren't subject to it's jurisdiction as they aren't in American territory.
This law, which frankly appears to have been directly lifted from the People's Republic of China, is censorship and it attacks not the criminals, but people who have nothing to do with actual criminal activity.
I would like to take issue with Rep. Smith where he states:
"The problem of rogue sites is real, immediate, and widespread. According to estimates, IP theft costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs."
Following the link provided to the "estimates" reveals a white paper from the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, hardly a neutral source. In addition, no where in this paper does it state that IP theft costs the US economy $100 billion annually. Perhaps the representative (or the staff member who wrote the piece), misread the following, "Exports of American copyrighted products alone total over $100 billion annually." The source cited for this figure in the white paper: Representative Lamar Smith in a House subcommittee meeting in 2003. We'll just have to take the representative at his word on that one.
To be fair the paper does state that the in 1996 damage to the U.S. economy from all counterfeiting was $200 billion. Of course, how this figure was reached is not explained, and how to reconcile it with Rep. Smith's statement in 2003 that all exports of copyrighted products by the U.S. were worth $100 billion is unclear.There are several other estimates of losses to firms and states in the paper that read together make both of the above numbers seem wildly unlikely to be close to accurate.
Not that the representative numbers are necessarily wrong, he could have guessed right I suppose.
Instead of focusing on something that costs the economy $100 billion a year, how about pushing legislation to control spending? We have plenty of laws, and don't need this one. If creating IP is not cost-effective, we can stop doing it and the pirates will have nothing to steal from us.
I admit that we are unlikely to stop creating IP such as movies, etc. But there are plenty of people making millions in the entertainment industry even with pirating. Are we really concerned about making them richer? Do we honestly believe they are going to quit making movies, music, etc.? If they continue to create this kind of IP, then no jobs are lost. Just profits. And as much as I like making a profit, I would rather see government work full time at controlling itself, instead of being distracted by this relative trivia.
I also think a technological solution is possible.
Having solved all the other pressing issues of the day, like the deficit crisis, the immigration issue, etc., our faithful Congress leaped in to save us from ourselves by making it far, far easier to shut down the internet if someone even hints at a claim that protected content was being discussed on a site somewhere. Golly, how come Congress gets such low approval ratings?
Sorry, Rep. Smith, but this is ridiculous, unnecessary legislation that duplicates existing law and restricts freedoms in the name of security, all so representatives can go back to their constituents and say "see what wonderful things we've done to protect you? Vote for me again!" I hate to break this to you, Congressman, but really, it's perfectly acceptable and often times preferable that those of you in Congress *not* create new legislation. Just sit on your hands and stop screwing up that which isn't broken, please. We'll gladly pay you each term to just leave us alone and stop overreaching just to attempt to justify your position.
Even by the base standards of a political hack as low on the Washington food chain as Lamar Smith, this is a contemptible tissue of lies. For Smith (or the staffer who wrote this garbage) to wrap himself in the flag of conservative principle and then call for a vast expansion of federal authority to regulate the only sliver of American economic life that is as yet lightly regulated is an act of intellectual piracy that the editorial staff of NR should have refused to publish. Smith hasn’t made a single argument that should persuade any right thinking person who possesses even a grade school understanding of the principle of liberty to support enlarging the federal government’s police power. And that is all this legislation will do. It hands the Justice Department another prosecutorial arrow that it can direct at Americans at any time of its choosing. Smith would have you believe that we shouldn’t fear this power as it will be carefully constrained by the almighty federal courts and of course Congressional oversight. What swill. That would be the same congressional oversight that failed to notice the FED spending $7 trillion of the people’s money to bail out banks in Paris, London and Frankfurt. And you might ask Gibson guitars or Boeing about how the courts and Congress protect American businesses from political attacks made under the guise of enforcing laws that were written by the hackocracy in Washington and deformed beyond recognition by a politicized Justice Department or some other Washington entity. If Smith doesn’t have a primary opponent, I’m forming a PAC to find one.
"Enforcing the law against criminals is not censorship." Well, it is if you pass a censorship law and then enforce it against the "criminals" who breach it.
The essential problem with SOPA and DMCA is the hijacking of third parties for enforcement purposes, which is contrary to the longstanding principle of Anglo-American common law that there is no duty report or prevent someone else's crime. Rep. Smith is the kind of big-government, in-the-pocket-of-lobbyists Republican that needs to be primaried out of office.
I'd like to add to other comments here that I'm also highly skeptical of the $100B drain on the US economy claim.
That probably represents the value of all internet based transfers of pirated US intellectual capital and assuming sales would happen if it weren't for the piracy. While I'm not endorsing piracy, a very large portion of that would not convert to sales if the price were market rate and not 0.
I'm surprised that the content industry is still around to argue this case. Didn't they get killed by the player piano? Didn't they get killed by the VCR? Didn't they get killed by Blockbuster? Didn't they get killed by people recording songs off the radio and listening on their walkmans? Didn't they get killed by CD burners? Didn't they get killed by NetFlix? Didn't they get killed by the iPod?
If the content industry had their way, none of the above innovations would be available for purchase.
Existing laws are sufficient to address this "problem". If anything, existing laws are overkill.
This bill is a giveaway to special-interest friends of hack congresscritters like you Lamar. The bill was WRITTEN by the industry.
You know you're a big liar when you need to include a phrase like this: "The Stop Online Piracy Act is a constitutional bill..."
Most legislation doesn't need to be qualified like that. "Vote for my bill! It's totally, no-foolin' 100% constitutional!"
This is like Herman Cain's campaign coming out with a press release - after Cain made 2 statements that were glaringly inconsistent - where the first sentence of the release began "Herman Cain was consistent..."
You say "Enforcing the law against criminals is not censorship." There are already copyright laws and other laws protecting intellectual property and licensing. Why not enforce the existing laws on the books, sir? We do not need more laws in our already overly BLOATED law book.
Lamar Smith is a fool; he should let the MPAA/RIAA carry their own water. . Lamar Smith defends the indefensible would be a better title for this cronyism trash. The name itself "Stop Online Piracy Act" is absolutely ridiculous, as if it were even possible. Giving it some feel good name like "Save The Children Act" or some other such spin doctor labeling tripe, to make it innocuous and marketable to the voting public which it effects. Writing draconian laws for bought and paid for politicians to prop up their unproductive business models at taxpayer expense has gone on too long already. This is nothing more than a new revenue farming scheme via further litigation extortion as well as another tool to quash business model innovations to protect well established monopolies in the name of protection of I.P. The DMCA has been a disaster in this respect, frequently abused (read the horror stories on the eff.org websites) and needs to be overhauled itself, so doubling down on its worst aspects (SOPA) is a dangerous and foolish policy. The fact that a frequent victim of piracy such as Micro$oft, (among many others) opposes it speaks volumes. These politicians who rubber stamped their names on this special interest crafted turd should tread carefully, Nov 2012 is coming all too soon.
Mr. Smith, I must agree with the previous comments. This bill is another unneeded intrusion into the online lives of American. There are plenty of laws already in place to address piracy, as you are well aware. You should be ashamed, and so should the residents of your district.
The EFF and many other outlets for online freedom have already refuted each argument you presented here, and you have not addressed the serious concerns that they have raised.
You disappoint.
Lamar Smith is a fool; he should let the MPAA/RIAA carry their own water. . Lamar Smith defends the indefensible would be a better title for this cronyism trash. The name itself "Stop Online Piracy Act" is absolutely ridiculous, as if it were even possible. Giving it some feel good name like "Save The Children Act" or some other such spin doctor labeling tripe, to make it innocuous and marketable to the voting public which it effects. Writing draconian laws for bought and paid for politicians to prop up their unproductive business models at taxpayer expense has gone on too long already. This is nothing more than a new revenue farming scheme via further litigation extortion as well as another tool to quash business model innovations to protect well established monopolies in the name of protection of I.P. The DMCA has been a disaster in this respect, frequently abused (read the horror stories on the eff.org websites) and needs to be overhauled itself, so doubling down on its worst aspects (SOPA) is a dangerous and foolish policy. The fact that a frequent victim of piracy such as Micro$oft, (among many others) opposes it speaks volumes. These politicians who rubber stamped their names on this special interest crafted turd should tread carefully, Nov 2012 is coming all too soon.
This article is completely false and NRO should be ashamed of running it. Copyright infringement is a TORT, not a crime. To turn it into a crime is a complete mismanagement of justice. Under this law, an 18 year old who downloads an episode of South Park can be convicted of a FELONY and spend five years in prison, plus lose all of his voting rights, gun rights, and other civil liberties for LIFE! The law also empowers the government to use PRIOR RESTRAINT, something that is always unconstitutional. The government can shut down web sites on simple suspicion, then wait until the web site sues the government and proves its own innocence, a complete reversal of usual procedures. This bill empowers the government to essentially take over the entire infrastructure of the internet to benefit a few well-connected corporations, who have never proven they have lost any revenue due to internet piracy. This entire issue would completely go away if media companies would offer products their customers want (hi-def unencrypted videos that can play on multiple devices) for a reasonable price. Who in their right mind wants the hassle of pirating music when you can buy a song from iTunes or Amazon for $0.99?? The same would happen with videos, if the media companies would adopt rational policies. This bill would only prop up these media dinosaurs for a couple more years before their inevitable collapse (due to their fundamental flaw of not actually adding any value to the products produced by the creators), but at the cost of giving the government complete control of the internet. This bill must BE STOPPED at all costs.
