I have been extremely busy (with meetings, some coding and a retreat) for the past several days that I have not had time to write a post. I was supposed to take this week off, but an important meeting today required my attendance, so I am working today and most of tomorrow. This will have an effect on what we serve for our Thanksgiving guests (just kidding). I love Thanksgiving and this year, in addition to the usual group of friends, another who has not been able to come will join us. For us, the celebrations extend into Friday and Saturday when groups of friends and extended family who each celebrate Thanksgiving with their own families gather in our house for more celebrations.

Many of us are deeply concerned and frustrated by the bickering taking place in Washington, the most recent one is the lack of compromise on deficit reduction. Rather than concentrating on trying to solve the economic issues which are crippling us, it appears that our esteemed lawmakers seemed to have found time to draft SOPA on the back of PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) passed earlier. The reason for urgency is partly related to fixing the stealing of intellectual property which is indirectly affecting the economy, however, it is so far reaching that we will all be affected severely if passed.

Greg Jackson and his team from EDUCAUSE prepared a three page briefing on SOPA that I strongly encourage everyone to read. I don’t think anyone objects to the notion that we need some stricter copyright infringement policies. The “born-digital” nature of the content these days simply means that the moment content is created, it is open to infringement. Though the spirit of the act may appear to be around music and movies (and therefore driven by powerful RIAA and MPAA lobby), it is abundantly clear that we need to act on this beyond these media. Very important research materials, content waiting for patent approvals are routinely “stolen” by other countries and used to their advantage. Not that they don’t do it using other means such as reverse engineering or through informants.

I know how, back in India, where copyright laws are least understood (many question whether they exist) and simply ignored (to the best of my knowledge), a movie is available on DVD even before it is officially released. The movie industry has been trying (mostly in vain) to stop this through various publicity campaigns.

These are very complex problems and have a cultural component added to the mix. A case study prepared for Harvard Business School examined the possible methods of protecting Hollywood movies produced in India. In India, the cost of taking a family to a movie can possibly cost a couple of months of a farmer’s salary. In that case, he is willing to pay a nominal amount to the local cable operator who screens illegally acquired DVDs through the hodgepodge of cable wires in the village. Similarly, when a millionaire actor wearing an Armani suit makes an appeal to the masses on why it is important not to pirate DVD (financial arguments mostly), it exacerbates the issue because most listeners are severely disadvantaged financially.  One can draw parallels like these in any country through local issues.

It is clear that unless the act of “stealing” intellectual property is defined clearly and punishments are laid out, everyone is likely to interpret this act differently. This is why I like the recommendation of EDUCAUSE which calls for a narrow definition of violations and severe financial penalties against such violations. I also realize that this is a much harder task than it may appear. As we are keenly aware, some content owners feel that many Higher Ed institutions “steal” their content through a more liberal interpretation of the Teach Act and Fair Use. Given that many technologies may die even before the most advanced nations like ours get to pass policies around them, you can see how complex an issue this is.

In case of SOPA, I feel that the proposed law has come out way too strong on the punishment side without clearly articulating what constitutes a violation. DNS redirect when a violation is found? Come On! And by the way, it won’t take too long for bright technologists to find ways around this – may be there will be yet another alphabet soup law to go after that. And give the ISPs the power to decide what to filter so they can avoid potential liability? They have not even figured out how to run the internet connectivity properly yet and you want them to start filtering? Why would they not use this to their advantage and make sure that one does not overburden them with too much bandwidth usage? What makes one think that they won’t increase prices to accomplish this (and do a terrible job of it)? Higher Ed institutions are considered ISPs for students living in the dorms (the last time I checked!) and we are asked to manage all of this? Who pays for all of these even if we are allowed to do this (It will be an interesting College discussion with the ACLTP and the College Government)?

The content owners found an easy and cheaper way to reach far more buyers than ever before. As you can see, entertainers are still making the money that they have always made, record producers are still making money. It is the middlemen who have been cut out because they are no longer needed in this model. The content owners are deeply concerned about the potential revenue loss by the so-called “theft”. One of the answers to this that has been discussed many times over is pricing – price them to be attractive and you will reduce piracy.  And a brilliant man named Steve Jobs, who is no more, believed in this and predicted that the path that the record companies are going to – Digital Rights Management – is bound to fail. iTunes is a great example of no DRM and attractive pricing and we ll know that it works!

In India, where film music is hugely popular and can serve as a source of revenue as well as free ad for new movies, suffered greatly in revenue generation through cassette tapes and DVDs because of online piracy. Now, they can be downloaded trivially to a cell phone for a mere 1 rupee (2 cents roughly) and some of the popular songs are generating serious revenue. I sure hope that the book and journal publishers learn from these mistakes and not continue to price their content so unreasonably high. That model is bound to fail eventually

Getting back specifically to SOPA, EDUCAUSE recommendations (the three of them at the end of the article linked above) seem fine to me and I strongly endorse it.