SOPA

[egosheep]

My congressman(Jim Langevin) informed me of Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act. This is an excerpt from his letter I'm using it because I feel he can explain better than I. I can say that I'm glad the process is being worked on and I hope that a reasonable solution can be found.

"For that reason, I was proud to join my colleague Rep. Darrell Issa in introducing the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act. Unlike SOPA and PIPA, the OPEN Act uses a constrained definition of "infringing site," to ensure that only those who willfully engage in counterfeiting or other intellectual property theft will be targeted. The OPEN Act confines its reach to payment processing companies and advertisers, making it a powerful tool for law enforcement without censoring the open web. Finally, the OPEN Act relies on the International Trade Commission (ITC), a well-respected panel of copyright experts, to determine whether a site is a violator rather than relying on general courts. I am confident that the swift passage of the OPEN Act will protect intellectual property owners and maintain the open nature of the internet."

Since Google is a great way to search for illegal content, does that mean anyone who advertises on Google is fair game for prosecution? It doesn't seem like a good solution. Also seems weird and Orwellian to put the job of imposing fines and censoring advertising in the hands of a "well-respected panel", instead of courts which have a regular appeal process.

On the other hand, the MPAA and RIAA think it's a horrible idea... so maybe I should call my congressman and get him to support it.

[T.A.R.]

I want to read more about it before I throw my support behind it. I honestly don't know enough about the subject, is it that the existing laws don't provide protection? enough protection? It would appear to me that if they make it PITA enough no one will offer unless for a price. Which I feel is more the aim to create or justify paying for information.

[Rick]

I've lived in China for over a decade. For most of that, I was a Finance Professor in a joint degree program. Hence, I got to know a lot of young Chinese students. China has, shall we say, a fair amount of copied material, readily available on every street corner. It also has a very large internet community.

A few observations I made during my experiences with teenaged & twenty-something university students:

1) Pirated music CDs would be sold from a street cart outside a music shop for about $0.50, whereas the genuine CD would be inside the shop for about $15. There is no "loss of face" for owning a pirated CD, but there is a distinctly elevated social status for owning the genuine product. The CD shops do a fantastic amount of business - several of my students would show off their genuine CDs to their friends.

2) Google has worked out some deal that very few people outside of China are aware of. I can search for, and download, all kinds of music/movies/etc. in a perfectly LEGAL manner ... as long as I am accessing the google-entertainment-site from an IP address inside Mainland China. It is free for the end-user. The library is huge, with millions of songs from all labels. I have only heard rumors about how google manages royalties. My students used it all the time to "test drive" and/or discover new material and, when they found something they really like, they'd end up buying the genuine product. Yup, it is true ... increased exposure by offering it for free DOES result in increased sales ... and that surprised the h3ll out of me. Not sure why I was surprised, as I used to teach a few marketing courses and discuss the "free sample" strategy.

3) In a guitar vein (I retired from academia/banking & now run the only vintage guitar shop in China), everyone knows about the fake $100 Gibson Les Pauls in China. And many know that the factories are actually punching out near perfect copies these days (unlike the garbage of a few years ago). What people don't know is that the typical Chinese guitar player seriously WANTS the genuine Les Paul, despite its starting price of $3,500 (average monthly income is still only a few hundred dollars). The reason? Because they were playing the cheap copies to begin with. It reminds me of my younger days, in the 1960s, playing a cheap Sears guitar that sorta looked like a Strat ... dreaming to myself that one day I would own "the real thing." In a strange twist, Gibson's sales in China are healthy because the fakes "educated" the masses. Yeah, strange but true.

[T.A.R.]

I want to read more about it before I throw my support behind it. I honestly don't know enough about the subject, is it that the existing laws don't provide protection? enough protection? It would appear to me that if they make it PITA enough no one will offer unless for a price. Which I feel is more the aim to create or justify paying for information.

Editing this, I did mean paying for information already in the public domain.