http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=35588
Last Thursday, Law Minister K
Shanmugam dropped
a bombshell during the launch of “The Mortal Enemy”, the
winning trailer for The Originals Get Reel Contest organised by the
Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS). He
revealed that the government is in discussion with the Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA) over the issue of piracy and
measures discussed include blocking websites that host pirated
materials and setting up a voluntary regime involving Internet
Service Providers.
Remarkably, these measures are similar to a pair of
controversial draft American legislations known as the Stop Online
Privacy Act (SOPA) and Protect the IP Act (PIPA).
Given MPAA is one of the key
proponents behind SOPA/PIPA in the United States, it appears that
MPAA is promoting SOPA/PIPA-like legislation in Singapore. In the
US, SOPA/PIPA has attracted widespread objection from key
technology players which include Google, Yahoo and Facebook. A
number of websites, including Wikipedia and Reddit, are expected to
“black out” later today as a protest manoeuvre.
As a state party to the United States Free Trade Agreement (USFTA)
and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Singapore is
obligated to enact similar laws should SOPA/PIPA become law. As
such, Singapore cannot be isolated from legal developments in the
United States. It would be naive and foolhardy to ignore such legal
developments or to sit on the fence because one should not
interfere with domestic politics of another country.
The perils of SOPA/PIPA are well-documented. On the economic front,
it would stifle internet innovation. This is achieved through
re-assignment of liability regarding copyright infringement. Under
existing arrangement, companies are protected from charges of
“contributory infringement” on content uploaded by users as long as
the company follows up with the process of removing the content
which infringes copyright when an alert process is signalled.
However, under SOPA/PIPA, companies and the internet service
providers (ISP) have to monitor users and pro-actively remove
infringed content or they may face charges of “contributory
infringement”. It would raise the cost of participation on these
sites for all users worldwide, and could force many social media
projects to shut down, especially smaller websites and
businesses.
Content creation certainly does not occur in a vacuum. The
situation is further compounded by what can be construed as
copyright infringement. Hundreds of thousands of fan videos and
artworks, video mash-ups, mixes, re-arrangement and other
derivative works are all at risk. Online content creators who
flourished outside content cartels due to the reach of the internet
(e.g.Jayesslee) would
be under threat now. The lobbying effort by American corporate
interest groups such as MPAA is a clear example of rent-seeking
behaviour by content cartels.
To make matters worse, SOPA/PIPA grants the the US Attorney-General
power to order ISPs to block access to the offending website,
impose search engines to de-list the offending website from their
indices, compel advertisement providers to halt services to the
offending sites and force payment providers to terminate services
with the offending website. These means enable the US
Attorney-General to cut the lifeline of a website. By virtue of the
USFTA, Singapore would have to recognise the jurisdiction of the US
Attorney-General.
On the technology front, the only way to block specific section of
a website is to use a technology known as deep packet inspection.
Deep packet inspection requires an ISP to intercept and analyse
customers’ web traffic. Effectively, SOPA/PIPA requires ISP to
monitor every data packet of the user’s web traffic. This is a
severe intrusion of privacy and it would bring an end to internet
anonymity among other things – a huge price consumers have to pay
in order to placate the anxiety of a small group of content
creators.
Last but not least, SOPA/PIPA may risk breaking the global internet
architecture by meddling with the domain name service (DNS). By
requiring ISPs and other operators of “non-authoritative DNS
servers” to take steps to filter and redirect requests for domains
found by courts to point to sites that are dedicated to
infringement, it will encourage more users to circumvent the DNS
and in the process undermine internet security at a global level.
Circumventing DNS is a key hacking technique for extracting
confidential information and the use of illegitimate DNS servers
will exacerbate the user’s vulnerability to hacks and exploits.
Summing up, SOPA/PIPA is a clear cut case of bad technology policy.
Sure, SOPA/PIPA aims to alleviate the problems of intellectual
property today. However, the institution and markets for
information are rapidly changing and the current institutions and
markets are evidently going to fail and go away. Instead of
promoting intellectual property, SOPA/PIPA actually stifles
internet innovation and threatens the security infrastructure of
the internet. Singapore should oppose the introduction of SOPA/PIPA
in the United States.
What is ACTA?
Why say No to
ACTA
Why are we too late....