I have been described in one DOJ document as a Microsoft "Executive", a mistaken title that seriously misunderstands the internal structure of MS.*

The content folks have long fought against copying but it is a very very old fight, and one that software producers decided could never be won. Full scale warfare was counter productive. The joke was that spending huge amounts of money on making software internationally portable (like bidirectional support needed for arabic) was titanically unprofitable. MS would supply the world's arabic speaking public by selling exactly one copy in Egypt.

Was is not recognized is this market is now delivering substantial profits as consumers go legitimate. The essence is that it was part of the hegemonic expansion of MS software as the dominant global platform.

The same thing can go for content producers, except that they have not been very clever at all about platform lock ins. Piracy can work in the content producers favor if it promotes massive penetration that one would not have received.

I'm not saying that the pressure of piracy is completely released. Anyone that has installed Windows recently knows that MS continues to press users to do the right thing. Regardless what you think of MS, it is the right thing.

The reason is that if an economy based on intellectual property is impossible, then we must base economies on physical commodities that consume global resources. Green economies that do not consume any physical resources are possible but only if we figure out to make sure as Hayes said, that people get paid for the intellectual work that they do.

It's about the survival of the planet. But SOPA is the stupidest way possible to do it. The NBC reaction is somewhat quaint in its inability to learn from the software world how to approach their very real challenge.

*Disclaimer: I left Microsoft in 1998 due to personal reasons, and no longer have any influence or relationship with them. I certainly do not speak for them nor should my comments ought not be taken as representative of the opinions of any significant populations of decision makers there today or in its past.

I was disappointed to Jack Abramoff on your show. You should read Thomas Frank's view of Abramoff in the latest Harpers magazine.

Your Saturday tech staff are remarkable in that they have the videos up in an amazingly short time and generally loaded properly for viewing automatically in the right order - your Sunday staff ... well, perhaps the Saturday staff could tutor them.

I think the biggest issue was over-looked. This is censorship plain and simple. What makes it worse, is that it has the effect of putting the job of enforcing the new law onto the backs of the people who help make the internet function and grow. Companies like google, paypal, and GoDaddy. If they are going to be responsible for enforcement, then you've made them agents of the Federal Government. Look for them to sue for financial compensation.

If the United States is going to make companies like these enforce OUR laws, then what about other countries and their laws?

When we hear about how oppressive countries [like China] are blocking their citizens from viewing all the internet has to offer ... we are outraged and look at finding ways to help THEIR citizens get around THEIR government. What is to say the same thing won't happen in reverse to OUR government? Do we like the idea of foreign governments imposing their laws or beliefs on our freedoms?

Mr. Cotton loves to point out that the new law will only work this way, or only works that way. Such a slippery slope because rarely in this country does a law that starts out one way will stay that way. If the government is allowed to take the first step, you can bet there will be more steps to follow in the future.

i'm all for stopping piracy, but not at the expense of the freedom of the internet. This is just the lazy man's way of putting your finger in the dike.

Alexis Ohanian of Redditt: "SOPA will obliterate the internet!" So *who* doesn't know how the internet works?? The crux of the debate is indeed philosophical. If you don't have creative content to garner "stickiness" on any website you're left with trolls and LOLcats. Silicon Valley's philosophy is "I don't care where you get it from as long as it increases our page rank..We're just the fleamarket" There is a reason that poachers, porn and pirates consistently top Alexa's 100. It doesn't take a degree in philosophy to figure it out.

@EyesOpen. Every day tens of thousands of DNS's are spidered and blocked for malware, scammers, spam and child pornography. Blacklists have existed since the beginning of the internet. SOPA and PIPA both have dropped provisions to DNS block. The DOJ already has jurisdiction over copyright disputes. Both bills require judicial review. One requires you go to the ITC (PIPA), the other allows jurisdiction filing (SOPA). As far as unintended consequences...Arpanet reportedly crashed on the letter "g" of login.

I don' know SOPA in details, but for me regarding piracy, if the basic principles are :

1) against piracy centers and not end users (always centers in piracy due to the need for catalogs and search amongst other things, "peer to peer" also a lot of hypocrisy in the terms and everybody knows it)

2) No monitoring at all of end users flow, or collection of their IPs, a formal complaint required from somebody about a user acting as a center

3) All procedures are legal and public

Then it clearly is the right way to do it, not to forget that if piracy doesn't create any revenues for authors and creators, it does create some (and not a little) for some people :

Note : above more developed below (but in French) :

And "zero piracy" doesn't matter in anyway (not more than school kids exchanging files), problem is when it becomes the default and easiest access method for works and publications.

But on this, in order to have a real "user experience" added value in buying instead of pirating, and this in a non quasi monopolistic environment (or with just 2 or three "monsters"), clearly something like below would be needed :

And a little cartoon :

If these companies are aware of specific acts of piracy, why are they asking the US taxpayers to pick up their legal costs for taking the pirates to court?

Are they asking for an international law against intellectual theft? And if so, is the US the only country which is asking for such a law? Why would the Congress pass any law which applies only to foreigners? I'm confused.

I should say Thank You, Up! for broadening this discussion!

One of the things I like so much about your show is that people don't interrupt or speak over each other. I think that is a function of the intelligence (and general youth) of the people you have on. Please explain this as a ground rule to your guests. The NBC executive you had on was clearly not used to being disagreed with. He just kept spitting out his talking points, not developing the conversation, and often interrupting others. Not acceptable behavior on your format.

I've read the actual language of the bills and I don't quite understand how SOPA would apply to US sites, when the specific language of the bill stated that it cannot be applied to US sites, and can only apply after judicial review. This means that if a foreign site is actually owned by a US company, it still would be outside the provisions of SOPA. The specific language of the bill requires that such a site be foreign, devoted strictly to piracy, and be reviewed by a court.

Contrary to the assertions of NBC/Universal Legal VP Richard Cotton, this article details 3 ways that US companies are affected by SOPA. This was tweeted by @WLLegal - Trevor Timm, a legal analyst of Electronic Freedom Foundation.

This segment left me confused because allot of assertions from all sides were thrown about but no evidence was provided. All three arguers said they read the bill, implying we should trust them because the read it, but they all had disagreements. However, no one quoted the bill which, I believe, would have been much more informative to us viewers. I am automatically turned off any time free market solutions are put forth over the competency of government. The Reddit guy essentially did that when he claimed "innovation" was the answer while touting his entrepreneurial expertise. I was also turned off, and frankly made suspicious, of Cotton's arrogance. Specifically, he brings up the burglary analogy and then accused the other guy of sloganeering for using the same analogy from another perspective. One last disappointing coverage on this issue was the snippet of what President Obama had said which, out of context, left me uninformed about his actually position on this subject. This topic needs and deserves a redo, Chris. I hope it won't be too late for the public to decide which side they favor before its voted on by our elected officials. If you redo it, leave out the emotionalism, for the benefit of your viewers. Not criticizing. Nobody's perfect. I still love your show.

Two comments on the discussion with the VP from NBC Universal:

1. Anyone notice the mindless Rudy Giuliani like (noun verb 9-1-1) talking points from the VP: Noun Verb Wholesale Thievery/Wholesale Devoted To Illegal Activity. Please, isn't there anyone in favor of this that can actually think?

2. I have to laugh when corporate execs piously argue that the thing they are concerned about is bad for American Jobs when they spend every waking hour trying to find ways (including rewriting our laws) to move American jobs overseas to take advantage of $0.35/hr labor. And then, to add insult to injury, they arbitrage between those locations and the U.S. by creating separate versions of product for the poorer areas and charging a fraction of the cost in those locations that they charge to the American consumers that they supposedly are so concerned about.

Bottom line, this issue has nothing to do with concern for the U.S. and everything about maximizing their profits (the vast majority of which they claim are created overseas in order to pay no taxes on them. Corporate fraud -- no more no less.

Cotton is lying. Supporters are promising selective enforcement though the legislation itself is not written as such and will allow the scenarios described by Ohanian.

Cotton cannot promise how the law will be enforced once it becomes legal for rights holders to abuse it.

Companies need to re-evaluate their stance on noncommercial infringement. Such acts do not cause damages, misrepresent the company, create inferior products - this is the biggest boon from the digital revolution. Stop acting like we're in the Middle Ages.

Chris, Thank you for covering this important topic. It is, however a bit of an embarrassment when someone like Jack Abramoff can respond directly to opinions he disagrees with and an executive from NBC cannot. This topic deserves much more coverage. Please consider having some respected tech journalists who understand the issue and understand how the internet actually works on your show as well. They should be able to speak in a language that a general audience can understand without all the PR spin.

‎1. In which way the current movie industry is creative?

2. Hulu.com, Itune.com are not available in a lot of countries. at least Hulu is blocked by Chinese gov.

3. Who lost jobs because of piracy? It created jobs.

4. Innovation, innovation, and innovation. Stop killing young growing field, but think innovative solutions to solve your industry problems, movie industry.

5. NBC universal, your voice is louder doesn't mean you are right.

SOPA will make people LOSE jobs.

And you should be the person to read the legislation details.

The Lies Of NBC Universal's Rick Cotton About SOPA/PIPA

Search: TechDirt

The Lies Of NBC Universal's Rick Cotton About SOPA/PIPA

As someone who has helped small artists attempt to prevent copyright infringement of their works, I look at the many detractors of SOPA and the critics posting comments here and think, in what universe are you living? While SOPA may be an overreach and should be modified, listening to Reddit's Ohanian and critics of SOPA, I see that none of these parties have any idea regarding how useless current copyright law is, and no clue as to why copyright holders are frustrated.

In the internet age copyright protections exist solely in the realm of theory. Although copyright protection is indeed a part of very language of the Constitution, laws have not kept up to date with technology. You can point to the many copyright laws and claim that there is always legal recourse, but the reality is that when it comes to the internet, there is no way that a copyright holder can enforce their rights. Simply attempting to do so will often lead to bankruptcy, bad publicity, and a waste of time.

SOPA, although flawed, is a reaction to the reality that copyright laws offer no actual recourse when works are pirated online. As an attorney who has helped many small independent artists, I have seen people give up their works, change jobs, lose substantial amounts of money, and become disillusioned with the legal system. Those who are in the industry directly understand that copyright infringement costs creative talent and jobs, it is ridiculous to hear the claims that piracy somehow creates more good. Those how have never worked with copyright holders or worked in content creating industries have no clue as to the damage piracy does. It is hypocrisy to demand innovation when you yourself and no one else can come up with such innovation, and when the competition is a completely free product.

Let me begin by citing the DMCA, a useful law when there is a small number of infringements, but altogether worthless when those infringements multiply. DMCA is a relic and no longer reflects the way that piracy occurs. Given how the internet works, what begins as one infringement soon exponentially explodes into hundreds to tens of thousands of infringements. The current mode of piracy has shifted towards a model using file-locker sites. These locker-sites are much different from legitimate services such as Dropbox, in that they award the uploader money for the number of downloads they achieve from their uploaded files. These sites also award the uploader a share of the profit when someone subscribes through their pirated links. Links to these pirated files are shared on thousands of pirate websites, devoted exclusively to hosting and sharing copyright infringed works. Such sites work like pyramid schemes, can easily be found through a Google search, and host numerous Google ads. These types of sites are highly popular, outranking even Groupon, all the major news sites, etc, and have given rise to a thriving black market that trades in pirated copyrighted works. They are easy to access and are most often free.

Under the current scheme, it is incumbent upon the copyright holder to somehow find all these infringements in the abyss of the internet, report each of them, wait days to weeks for a reply, then sift through the same sites for what is inevitably a repeat of the cycle, each and every day. Going at the source of the infringement, which is most often illicit foreign sites devoted exclusively to piracy, is impossible. If the pirate uses other services, such as Blogger, after receiving a complaint, Google will respond in a few months to take down one infringing site, yet allow the same account holder to reupload the same identical site once the previous one has been taken down.

Once may ask, well why not sue these infringing parties? Identification is all but impossible on the internet. In order to even begin a suit, there are dozens of hurdles, from the costs of hiring assistance to track the thousands of infringements, court filing fees in multiple states, process serving in multiple jurisdictions, multiple subpoenas on dozens of companies, hiring expert witnesses, etc. This is impossible in terms of finances and time. When the infringing party is foreign, which is most often the case, this is completely impossible. No copyright holder, not even the MPAA and RIAA have the resources to do any of this; for small copyright holders it’s outright impossible.

Most companies such as Google pay only lip service to a copyright infringement complaint. Only three years ago when I began volunteering to help clients with their issues, Google required that every single complaint be faxed, would not respond to email complaints, would only accept multiple infringements in a single complaint, and would take up to half a year to respond. They have since streamlined the process online, but continue to ignore requests to block or cancel account holders found to be creating infringing blogs/sites with a history of being taken down. Indeed while Google claims to have taken down 5 million sites last year, my personal experience tells me this number is extremely duplicative.

Having dealt with sites such as Tumblr, Blogger, and others, and have found the process of reporting infringement confusing, time consuming, frustrating and ultimately fruitless. Pirates make use of foreign internet forums, sites devoted exclusively to infringement, and also make use of services such as blogging sites, to advertise their links. Indeed I found was that sites such as Tumblr do not actually remove infringing material, but rather only removes individual posts, continuing to host the copyright material on their servers for others to link to. This means that other sites have access to the same infringing file.

When companies such as Google, Yahoo, and many others attack SOPA, the skeptic in my asks, what is their financial stake? For those like Google which rely heavily on ad revenue, taking down pirate sites means a decrease in their revenue and net searches, which ultimately hurts their bottom line. It means a decrease in the use of their services such as Blogger. That is why they prefer to shift the burden onto other parties. This is precisely what Google CEO Eric Schmidt suggests when he states that the government should instead go after the money. Money is highly fungible, flowing from party to party with a click, through multiple financial accounts and through multiple countries. Tracing and stopping illicit funds, especially those operating in a black market, is next to impossible and requires a lot of resources. Pursuing this strategy simply shifts the burden onto the complaining plaintiff, who realistically has no means to investigate this, and onto financial institutions. It is simply passing the buck without providing any actual remedy.

What exists currently online is a black market where pirated works are traded for profit, with nearly all the pirated content being hosted on foreign sites. Individual, small copyright holders have no actual way to exercise their rights. Giant copyright holders, from Hollywood to the music industry, despite their vast resources cannot do so. As it is, such piracy operates with complete impunity, with infringers knowing there is no actual way to stop their activities because they are hosted outside the US. For the copyright holder, any attempt to hold these sites accountable is impossible. Antiquated laws such as the DMCA provide no relief because they become impossible to use and re less effective as the number of infringements increases. There thus exists an enormous disconnect between their rights on paper, and their rights in reality.

Detractors also equate the requirement of greater scrutiny over their services as an attack on free speech and further government stifling of their creative energies. The reality is that ALL producers of consumer

The reality is that ALL producers of consumer products and services are required to self-regulate. Makers of consumer products have a duty to insure quality standards. Drug manufacturers have a certain level of responsibility to prevent illegal use, for example making it more difficult to use their products in illicit ways (such as with Oxycodone). There are regulations which prevent unfair product pricing, dumping, unlicensed use, etc. Requirements that internet companies exercise greater supervision of their services are no more burdensome than the duties of producers of physical products and services.

It is a historical irony that the same arguments used against SOPA were leveled decades ago when regulations for drug and product safety, advertising, antitrust, etc , were first proposed. For example, arguments against imposing regulations on false product claims, counterfeiting and such, led to sensationalized doomsday scenarios regarding curtailment of freedom of speech, stifling of innovation, lack of consumer choice, unbearable costs, government tyranny, etc. These doomsday scenarios have never been borne out, and yet we are hearing the same charges leveled against SOPA. When Wikipedia and Google say that they could be shut down by SOPA, even though the language of SOPA states that they would have to be devoted exclusively to infringement, be foreign sites, and be reviewed by a court, this tells me they are less interested in discussion and more interested in hyperbole.

From my personal experience volunteering with small artists and groups, whatever legislation that does eventually arise, must not be too so expensive to use so as to be out of reach, and must not be too cumbersome so as to be rendered useless, as the DMCA and other copyright laws currently are.

I have lost all respect for MSNBC, they are nothing but a mouthpiece for the Democratic party. They are not legit, not a progressive voice, just a pathetic joke. The only one I can stomach is Dylan Ratigan.

What was not asked here and should have been is "How Much is this going to cost?" and "How much is it going to accomplish?"

The war on drugs have actually increased drug use (if you don't believe that ask yourself how many drug peddlers out there would their be if this was not a highly profitable illegal business), and cost us and our society a huge amount of money. If that money had been spent on treatment and education our problem would be gone.

Hulu is unavailable where I'm from (Bulgaria) and so are many other similar services. I'm lucky to be able to afford genuine software and I do, but, as a recent example - EA's Origin software distribution platform won't allow me to order on-line. Many of the show's I follow at the moment (illegally) would simply be commercially unavailable to me in Bulgaria (which is a EU member, by the way).

Moreover, many companies (incl. MS) refuse to adapt their prices to our market. The average monthly salary in the country in 2011 was BGN 689. In many areas people makes even less. A retail copy of MS Windows 7 Home Premium today costs BGN 379 (!).

How I view this subject straight forward The interent is an information highway at our fingertips. We cannot use the term free interent, I pay for mine everymonth along with a billion other people. Some of the issue is about schools and students, the schools teach our kids now on the interent from grade school on... But we are not teaching them is how to pick up a book anymore and look for answers and putting them into their own words. Another big issue is that places like Wikipedia answer may not even be correct anyone at anytime anywhere can change what they are looking at on Wikipedia which to me make this source to somewhat fictional. So how can anyone use that as piracy when it is not fact.

How.com, Ask.com, Google.com all basically do the same thing Wikipedia does most are almost open forums of discussion and not fact. If you want fact go to a book.

If our children, young adults are so nieve to believe everything they read on these sights as fact then we as a nation have done something wrong in the teaching of our own children. Books have fact. Internet has facts but not most of the sights like Wikipedia that was blacked out. I think it should be blacked out more often so the students learn to depend on other avenues besides the interent. Librarys would be a new and healthy start. We are loosing our children to false answers, and many don't even know how to study correctly anymore. All of our faults