Stop the ‘Guantanamo Law’ on the Internet!

In the campaign against piracy the USA is planning massive changes for the Internet. With all due respect for the protection of intellectual property — this is going too far.

For weeks we have seen the buildup to the huge Internet strike. Google, Facebook and others advertised it and Wikipedia was the first to start on Wednesday. In protest against the planned U.S. anti-piracy laws, the online encyclopedia took down the English portion of the website for 24 hours.

Behind it all is outrage at the serious changes which would be introduced by the U.S. bill in copyright infringement cases. Critics are calling it a direct attack on human rights, and on Internet forums it has become known as “Guantanamo Law” for the Internet.

It all revolves around the manipulation of a central part of the Internet — the Domain Name System (DNS). For the critics of this bill, the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA), basic rights such as freedom of speech are being threatened.

The ‘Internet Phone Book’ May be Changed

Like a phone book, the DNS provides the link between IP addresses and human-friendly domain names. So, for example, the correlation between www.welt.de and the IP address readable by the computer is what makes the connection to the website technically possible. If just anyone was able to access the DNS on suspicion of copyright infringement, without a warrant, the floodgates to insanity would open.

It would be as though anyone could gain access to a central telephone exchange and manipulate the worldwide telephone system by pulling some cables out and replacing them with others in whatever way occurred to them.

It Has Already Been Done by Cyber-Criminals

Only very recently has it been conceivable that such an immense and far-reaching change in the Internet address system could be harnessed into a worldwide hacker network, or botnet, of zombie computers. With a simple trick of DNS manipulation, millions of Internet users worldwide could be misdirected and billions of dollars collected in unlawful earnings from Internet advertising.

How can it be that in the USA, where freedom of speech is so cherished — not to mention rooted in the US constitution — such an invasion of Internet privacy could be possible?

The US Film Industry Sees Their Rights Being Threatened

Clearly this bill stems from an imaginary threat posed by the widespread Internet piracy as seen by the media — in particular the film industry. Above all, film rights holders, producers and other stakeholders put forward the example of the music industry, painting a picture of horror. Within a few years the very foundations of the music business have been shaken due to the unfettered exchange of music online, practically ruining great swaths of the business.

It was a long time, many believe (correctly) that it was too long, until the music industry woke up and adapted their business model to the Internet marketplace. Today music is widely available to download legally on the Internet. Despite this, the industry still needs to recuperate from the Internet revolution and its widespread expropriation.

The Demise of the Music Industry is a Cautionary Tale

So the U.S. film industry wants to protect itself above all and spawned a huge lobbying pressure on lawmakers. The result is the legislation now before us, which in turn, brought together a remarkable opposition to the plan.

For also on the side of human rights and liberal Internet activists stands the so-called ‘big money’ of the Internet, including Google and Facebook. The new masters of Internet business have earned big bucks for a long time and so can certainly afford to splurge on protecting intellectual property rights and data privacy. The industry also functions very well in the newly formed and unregulated realm of the Internet. How far the shared interests of Google and Co. on the one hand, and the Internet freedom fighters on the other, will go, remains to be seen.

Consumer Freedom Versus Intellectual Property Rights

The issue is not purely about unlimited consumer freedom against intellectual property rights. It also deals with the “old” media economics versus the “new” Internet economics. Anyone who instinctively positions themselves against the rights holders must know the legitimate concerns of their economic returns, not to mention their workplaces.

In any case, the answer to this deceptively complicated question cannot be the “Stop Online Piracy Act” a la Congress. Happily, in the last few days the Obama Administration has condemned the bill.

The Spirit of Freedom Cannot be Stifled

The Internet has unleashed the ghost of freedom on the world in a way which no one could have predicted. From China to the Maghreb, and from Belarus to Myanmar. From here there is no going back. The codification and regulation of the Internet must be possible without breaching the established freedoms of speech and information.

The Internet’s technical systems must be protected against arbitrary invasions and individual cases should be treated with understanding. Likewise, it is also not to be taken for granted that invasions by the U.S. into the Internet address book of other countries automatically prevail. There is a superior, international interest in constitutional avenues of approach. The U.S. Piracy Act in its current form must be stopped.