House Takes On Online Piracy

By Andrea Salazar

Silicon Valley tech giants butted heads with Congress Wednesday as the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a bill designed to curb online copyright infringement.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would give the government tools to protect the works of American authors, artists and filmmakers from so called “rogue” websites that steal intellectual property. Under SOPA, the federal government would be able to seek injunction against foreign websites that use pirated or counterfeit products from the U.S.

Proponents of the bipartisan measure, including the Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress Maria Pallante, argue that there is a need for SOPA because search engines do not remove infringing websites from their search results.

“If we do nothing, the film industry and those young directors who are starting out aren’t going to be able to do their craft,” Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) said. “We’re not going to have the next Adele, the next Drake because they’re not going to be compensated for their work.”

Senior Executive Vice President of Global Policy and External Affairs at the Motion Picture Association of America Michael O’Leary, along with representatives from MasterCard and Pfizer, testified in support of the bill, arguing that it would protect many jobs across the country.

“Hard work, innovation and creativity are not solely the province of people who live in Northern California,” O’Leary said. “There are people all over this country who contribute to the economy every day, who contribute to our culture…and their jobs are just as important and just as worth protecting as everyone else’s.”

However, opponents of the bill, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, are calling it an Internet killer because under the new bill, websites could too easily be shut down for the actions of one user.

“SOPA wold undermine the legal, commercial and cultural architecture that has propelled the extraordinary growth of Internet commerce over the past decade,” said Katherine Oyama, copyright counsel for Google.

Google’s current policy toward pirate sites is not to removed sites such as Pirate Bay from its search results. Instead, in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it takes down specific page links when rights holders notify the search engine of infringement.

Acknowledging the problem of online piracy, Google said it has concerns with the unclear language of SOPA, not the goal of curbing copyright infringement.

“The bill sweeps in innocent websites that have violated no law and imposes harsh and arbitrary sanctions without due process,” Oyama said, adding that it could threaten new entrepreneurship.

Instead, Oyama suggested that the solutions to online piracy are cutting revenue to those sites and making legal sites, like iTunes and Netflix, more available to the public.

“As long as a rogue site exists, people are still going to talk about it,” Oyama said. “They’re still going to blog about. They’re still going to post about it.”

Iranians' Use of Social Media Shows New Political Power Of The Web, Says Expert

By Laura Woodhead - Talk Radio News Service

The Iranian protester's that are using social networking sites such as Twitter are demonstrating "the empowerment of e-democracy for the first time" according to Ravi Singh, CEO and founder of ElectionMall Inc.

Singh, whose technology company provides, as he describes it, a "one stop shop for political campaigns to generate awareness over the web", feels that the use of social networking as a tool for political change is a "historic development" that shows the "merger of technology, social media and politics."

"What we are seeing right now is a phenomenal behavior where people have become educated with these new tools, " said Singh. He added that this new form of media is "in essence the new weapon for democracy, literally causing an e-revoloution on the ground."

"A true internet revolution can only happen when we actually see a grassroots participation in those countries, and what we are seeing is a new kind of grassroots which is basically being empowered by the internet."

Responding to a question regarding the authenticity of some social networking media, Singh acknowledged that this is a concern.

"Content is being questioned because we have no kind of validation...there has to be some kind of third party validation and I think what we will have to do is not 'best practices' but some kind of ethical standards on what we will take as true and right in real time"

"I would encourage the founders of Twitter to think of authenticating some of the content that is going on as well as the validity of the profiles. Unfortunately technology companies do not really think about how there applications will change the world" he said.

You can listen to an clip from Talk Radio News Service's interview with Ravi Singh by clicking the audio link. (0:34)

Online safety discussion raises new challenges, questions

The National Press Club hosted a discussion about online safety, with a focus on protecting kids on the Internet. The discussion outlined the challenges of trying to protect children from inappropriate content, yet, at the same time, respect free speech.

Internet service providers (ISP) need to take a proactive role in reducing offensive content on the Internet since they do not have the same constraints that the government has, said Christopher Wolf, an attorney. He suggested that ISPs expand their terms of use to allow them to remove or restrict offensive and inappropriate content that their users post.

"The best way to deal with hate speech on the Internet is through counter speech," said Wolf. We need to explain to children "why the lies that are on hate sites are in fact lies, and explaining why tolerance and diversity and respect for human beings should be the model both online and offline."

Stephen Balkham, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, said that the new challenge in online safety is to also prevent kids from creating objectionable content. He named instances in which kids would take pictures of themselves in the nude, then post them on the Internet. He emphasized a "Three C's" approach to deal with these issues: Content, Contact, and Conduct. Parents and lawmakers needed to take a cool, calm analysis when trying to come up with solutions, and there needs to be a high level of government leadership.

"While the issue is daunting and constantly changing, I remain optimistic" said Balkham, "I think our kids can be safe at any speed provided we continue to provide them with the tools, the rules, and the public policies to keep them that way."

Ramsey says "human capital" will increase universal service

Ray Ramsey, CEO of One Economy Corporation, highlights his three main points about the supply and demand side of universal service. Ramsey says that connectivity, public purpose content, digital literacy, and human capital are the key tools for achieving this goal. (2:14)