Mass Communication Law – Page 4 – Thinking Out Loud, aka The Broad Gaze

Bill would give Justice Department power to shutter piracy sites worldwide

Ars Technica reports about a bill that was introduced today:

If passed, the Justice Department could ask a federal court to for an injunction that would order a domain registrar or registry to stop resolving an infringing site’s domain name, so that visitors to PirateBay.org, for example, would get a 404 error.

The idea of an “infringing site” may be a legally tricky one. While it may host some material that infringes someone’s copyright, it also likely hosts a great deal of original information. This original stuff counts as speech, and as such receives a high deal of protection under the First Amendment. I don’t think this kind of “prior restraint” would ever withstand judicial review.

From the bill:

an Internet site is ‘dedicated to infringing activities’ if such site:
primarily designed, has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than, or is marketed by its operator, or by a person acting in concert with the operator, to offer—
‘‘(i) goods or services in violation of title 17, United States Code [a.k.a. copyright], or enable or facilitate a violation of title 17, United States Code, including by offering or providing access to, without the authorization of the copyright owner or otherwise by operation of law, copies of, or public performance or display of, works protected by title 17

As suspected, the “primarily designed” language is potentially difficult to nail down. The infamous Pirate Bay even includes links and information about copyright which I believe may legitimately be considered political speech (especially given that they have a party, as well as the Bay).

Grassroots organizing against Facebook TOS?

Facebook is running into some trouble over their handling of post settings for some anti-corporate leaning grassroots groups.

As the number of Facebook members signed up for the “Boycott Target Until They Cease Funding Anti-Gay Politics” page neared 78,000 in recent days, Facebook personnel locked down portions of the page — banning new discussion threads, preventing members from posting videos and standard Web links to other sites and barring the page’s administrator from sending updates to those who signed up for the boycott. (via Activists upset with Facebook – Josh Gerstein – POLITICO.com)

As Facebook has built up their network, they’ve become the defacto place for sharing information and informally organizing into groups of similar interests. I wonder, if the telephone company could get away with taking similar advantage of their network-effect-built userbase, and censored political speech. The answer, of course, is that they could not, due to the regulations governing the industry.

While actions like this bring critical folks like me ever closer to quitting Facebook, the thought of so many lost connections is what keeps us from doing it. It’s as though one must choose between their principals and their social network — and that’s a position I believe no one should be placed in.

As face-to-face meeting places have become privatized (think public square vs. malls and coffee shops), being able to connect freely online is becoming increasingly vital to social life. We shouldn’t let these spaces similarly fall into private hands, where we are subject to one entity’s terms of service.

This is why projects like Diaspora and StatusNet are so important.

I didn’t quit Facebook over this, but I did donate to the EFF. It was far, far overdue.

Edit: Here is a good post from Ars about a similar issue with ISP TOS agreements.

They will discriminate

Ars Technica posts an excellent examples of network discrimination, and claims these are one of many (RCN P2P settlement: ISP can throttle away starting November 1).

Many of those involved in the debate over network neutrality appear to believe that ISPs simply don’t engage in widespread traffic discrimination, and that the only possible example net neutrality supporters can dredge up involve Comcast and Madison River. …

In fact, numerous class action lawsuits over traffic management have been filed against American ISPs over the last several years.

Class action suits fly a bit more under the radar than debates in the FCC, so it’s important that this piece of the story get some recognition.

The Economist’s guide to Net Neutrality

The future of the internet: A virtual counter-revolution | The Economist.

This issue of The Economist contains an excellent overview of the Net Neutrality issue. It would be a great resource for anyone who wants to get up to speed on the issue (or to pass along to friends). They address it primarily from the standpoint of the fragmentation of the Internet, and give current examples like international domain names and closed applications to support their point. They back it up with an oft-forgotten historical point:

Devotees of a unified cyberspace are worried that the online world will soon start looking as it did before the internet took over: a collection of more or less connected proprietary islands reminiscent of AOL and CompuServe.

International examples also show how we approach the issue much differently than the rest of the world.

It is telling that net neutrality has become far more politically controversial in America than it has elsewhere. This is a reflection of the relative lack of competition in America’s broadband market. In Europe and Japan, “open access” rules require network operators to lease parts of their networks to other firms on a wholesale basis, thus boosting competition.

Things close with Zittrain’s argument that a more closed internet might harm innovation.

Should the network become a collection of proprietary islands accessed by devices controlled remotely by their vendors, the internet would lose much of its “generativity”, warns Harvard’s Mr Zittrain.

Props to the Economist for such a clearly written, accessible piece on this important issue.