The internet had thought it won a great victory with the black out of some seriously major websites, however it was a short lived victory as the Fed and its allies the vicious RIAA and MPAA have regrouped and launched a stunning counter attack destroying a rebel outpost on Hoth... errr Actually, The US government has shut down MegaUpload.com and arrested several employees for copyright infringement. You may remember MegaUpload for recently being involved in a dispute with Universal over a YouTube video. Where Universal issued false DMCA take down notices which required YouTube to take down the video. However, this video wasn't infringing and MegaUpload sued Universal for the false claims. The interesting thing about this video is that it's about all the legal ways you can use MegaUpload. The video is essentially an attempt by the company to show that there are legitimate uses for their services which, I'm assuming, was an attempt to get them into the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA.
To me, this action really shows that the US government doesn't need SOPA to pass for it to censor the internet. It already has the ability to do so. SOPA would just put a rubber stamp approval on the actions that the government is already taking. This should be a wake up call. Yes, we had one with the joke of hearings for SOPA previously, however this is a slap in the face of the internet. It's basically saying, sure we heard you, but you know what? you don't matter.
Sure it might not be as easy as it would have been with SOPA passing and it's not breaking the internet the way that SOPA would, but it's still happening. As much as I hate Maddox, he's right in his post about SOPA. We really have been pretty complacent, myself included. Yes, I've written a bunch, signed petitions and emailed my senators and congressmen multiple times, but big deal. Right now this is a hot button topic, but this isn't going to go away. No one spoke up about the NDAA because it didn't impact your ability to read Reddit or surf wikipedia. That law is as bad or worse than SOPA depending on what you think of freedom and civil liberties.
When I got home last night and saw that MegaUpload had been shut down, I was miserable. It made me feel completely impotent. That I was unable to impact the way the US government acts in any meaningful way. At this point, I'm not really sure what to do about this. If any other government would be doing this the US would be up in arms (perhaps literally) and would put a stop to it. Our government is doing this in our name and it's horribly depressing that I can't do anything to stop it.
Maddox is right. SOPA only failed because we were paying attention and we were able to get the tech giants behind us on it. SOPA will rear its ugly head again and we might be sleeping. The empire has struck back and we need to decide what we are going to do about it. Are we going to get some ewoks and take it down or are we going to keep signing petitions?
Anonymous has decided to fight back and has launched a large number of attacks on internet websites. As citizens that are deeply concerned with the MegaUpload action we need to ask ourselves, is this an appropriate response? Is this a way of protesting and assembling in an online space? Should anonymous be locked up for doing this? I think that this is a type of protest. Anonymous is as frustrated as I am and have decided to do something in response. It's obvious that they felt like this is a direct attack on the internet in response to the SOPA protests and the "abuse of power" the internet displayed in taking down websites to protest SOPA.
It also begs the question, what will these website attacks actually accomplish?
What are some of your thoughts on this?
Update 1: I just saw that some 9,000 Hackers have joined Anonymous
Update 2: Apparently Anonymous is using a link that directs users to a Low Orbit Ion Canon DDoS tool that uses the users computer to attack a website. This is an interesting tactic as it will make it very difficult for agents to determine who was malicious and those that were ignorant of what they were doing. Thus making the tool a more effective protest tool. It will be interesting to see what the ramifications of this new tactic are. I think it will be used again in the future and will make it as "easy" as signing a petition to join a DDoS without having to do the hard work of setting up the LOIC on your computer. Interesting.
I liked your post Ryan, specially the "perhaps literally" part haha, I do have a question for you.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the governments around the world doing to create a global framework for sharing legally all these types of files? I mean, why is spotify not running outside Europe? Or why is netflix not in this part of the world? It makes it so much more difficult for the end users.
I mean, I would be happy to pay for a GOOD and non expensive service, but i find that it doesn't exists in my region. What's happening there?
I actually talked about this a little bit in my post yesterday: http://scitechkapsar.blogspot.com/2012/01/did-yesterdays-internet-black-out-save.html
ReplyDeleteHowever, governments shouldn't be creating a global framework for sharing of information. I think that these services should be provided by innovative companies. Spotify is available in the US now, but I'm not sure about elsewhere. The problem actually lies in the cost to license the rights to play the movies or music. I believe that is why Pandora.com is not outside of the US. They can't afford to pay the royalties per song.
The root of the problem is that these actions are supporting an out of date business model. We should be pushing our government to force easier access to content like this. Governments have done so with patented technology when it's better for the public good (like with vaccines). So if piracy is a problem why not push companies to reduce piracy through easing access to the content and then allow companies to create products around that content?
That's what I want to happen. It won't happen unless we force it to happen in some way.