Google chairman says online piracy bill would 'criminalize' the Internet

The Hill ^ | December 12, 2011 | Gautham Nagesh

[khnyny]

An online piracy bill in the House would "criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself," according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt said the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would punish Web firms, including search engines, that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. He said implementing the bill as written would effectively break the Internet.

"By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet," Schmidt said, calling it a form of censorship.

The search giant has been at the forefront of a tech industry backlash against the legislation from House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

"If Congress writes a bad law, we all suffer," Schmidt said.

He compared the proposal to the Web censorship practiced by repressive foreign governments like China and doubled down on that comparison when speaking with reporters after his remarks at the Economic Club of Washington.

"It's not a good thing. I understand the goal of what SOPA and PIPA are trying to do," Schmidt said of the Senate counterpart bill, the Protect IP Act. "Their goal is reasonable, their mechanism is terrible. They should not criminalize the intermediaries. They should go after the people that are violating the law."

Schmidt also criticized SOPA for targeting the Domain Name System, which experts have warned could undermine the security of the Web.

"What they're essentially doing is whacking away at the DNS system and that's a mistake. It's a bad way to go about solving the problem," Schmidt said.

[af_vet_rr]

I wonder if the Cart & Buggy Manufactures Association lobbied this hard to get the automobile regulated back in the day. Make no bones about it, the old copyright laws are a pre-digital relic.

The automobile makers such as General Motors worked hard back in the first half of the 20th century to replace working street trolleys and electric trains with buses that they were manufacturing. Industries will fight dirty to benefit themselves.

[daniel1212]

I thought that you could make one archive copy. How can one even backup his OS if not?

[John123]

according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt

Anytime "Google" is involved, I'm a little wary...

[Mariner]

Let the RIAA go to a judge, with probable cause, and get a COURT ORDER to take a site off the US DNS registry.

If it keeps coming through on IP addresses ONSHORE, arrest and prosecute the perps. If offshore, make it a diplomatic/international crime issue.

[af_vet_rr]

This is what we can eventually expect:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/12/chinese-men-detained-internet-rumour

Police in central China have detained two men for spreading a rumour online that thousands of police were called out to guard a wedding, state media reported, as the country increases scrutiny of the internet.

Police have detained the two men "for a total of five days in accordance with relevant laws", Xinhua said.

The detention comes after a stream of warnings in state media that has shown Beijing is nervous about the internet, particularly a booming microblogging site called Weibo, and its potential to undermine censorship.

China has repeatedly criticised microblogs for irresponsibility in spreading what it calls unfounded rumours.

[Democrat_media]

I am sure this Schmidt takes orders from the 2 liberals who own Google.

[GeronL]

bump

[Burkean Buckleyite]

Worse, SOPA would prohibit browser companies from incorporating effective anti-fraud measures into their software.

Quick Summation: One criminal technique is to put up fake sites to impersonate banks, etc. In order to direct people to the fake site, they hide the IP address of the real site. Browsers can defeat this trick by continuing to search for another DNS server to find the correct IP address data.

However, under SOPA, it would be illegal to code browsers to do that, because the method could be used to circumvent SOPA's mandated Great Firewall of America.

[Burkean Buckleyite]

[Lamar Smith's] faith is listed as "Christian Scientist"

His actual faith is in the "Almighty State", as evidenced by his introduction of this Orwellian garbage.