PROTECT IP – Boon or Bane?

By Eric Larson
All San Diego Computer Repair

There is a controversial bill working its way through the US Senate. The PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) is aimed at blocking the pirating, stealing, “sharing,” [enter your term of choice here] of Intellectual Property. The idea is to give courts the power to compel ISPs to block requests to domains “deemed to be infringing” against intellectual property laws.

The bill was introduced by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), backed by Hollywood and the entertainment industry and has attracted the attention of several groups of experts in the fields of technology, security and law professors. These experts are raising warning flags indicating the bill would have a problem constitutionally “read here” , it could break the DNS system “read here” and could in fact backfire by actually aiding the very hackers it is designed to thwart  “read here“!

First of all, the phrase “deemed to be infringing” is extremely broad. Cease and Desist letters have been issued for websites hosting music files on servers and websites that people owned entirely. Under this law, they wouldn’t even need to serve a C&D. The only requirement would be to file with the court that your domain is “infringing” and traffic to your website suddenly disappears.

And remember, a site which contains no pirated material but merely contains links to it, is considered “infringing” under US copyright laws (see DMCA ). And what other websites “link to” infringing content? Oh say, maybe… Google? (Recall – the RIAA has an ongoing complaint with Google because Google displays search results to “piracy” websites “read here” , which was rumored to be an issue when Google was negotiating with the music industry before it launched Google Music Beta “read here“.

The proposed law could give the MPAA/RIAA the legal right to block even mighty Google until Google removes all “offending” links.
All the RIAA/MPAA has to do is prove one instance of offending material and they will be able to shut a site down. “Safe Harbor“  doesn’t apply here because they’re not actually filing a DMCA takedown.

And then of course there is the argument that the measures ISPs will take to comply with any court order can be easily circumvented by anyone with the skills of those who have an even casual interest in computers. Changing DNS settings is trivial such as using this.

In the finaly analysis, even someone who generally agrees with this bill should be concerned with its breadth.

The NYTimes stated it well… “The bill before the Senate is an important step toward making piracy less profitable. But it shouldn’t pass as is. If protecting intellectual property is important, so is protecting the Internet from overzealous enforcement.”

Article By
Eric Larson
All San Diego Computer Repair
Eric Larson is the owner of All San Diego Computer Repair located in San Diego California. All San Diego Computer Repair provides basic services such as virus removal, computer repair, smartphone support and small business support to include server maintenance, backup systems and more.