[nabs-l] Beneblog: Technology Meets Society: Why I’m Scared of the SOPA bill

[Mark J. Cadigan]

Perhaps, the NFB should use its collective power to modify, or hopefully 
squash the SOPA bill. I agree, that the SOPA bill could pose problems with 
the legal sharing of accessible content, as well as ensnare lots of 
unsuspecting people. Most people don’t go around intentionally braking 
copywriter law, however, sometimes, people do unintentionally.



I for one have photocopied out a page from a textbook for a friend, or 
accidentally recorded part of a radio or television show as part of the 
background in a home video. Hypothetically, if this video happened to be 
hilarious, and I posted it on line, would I get prosecuted under this new 
bill?



Maybe, someone with a lot more knowledge of the current laws, and knowledge 
of the SOPA bill could draft a letter to send to the committee making this 
bill expressing our concerns of how this bill could unintentionally affect 
blind people’s acksess to important resources like Book Share, Web Braille, 
NLS, RFBD and anything else I didn’t think of.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hai Nguyen Ly" <gymnastdave at sbcglobal.net>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>; "Illinois Association of Blind Students List" 
<iabs-talk at nfbnet.org>; "NFB of Illinois Mailing List" <il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 1:36 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] Beneblog: Technology Meets Society: Why I’m Scared of the 
SOPA bill



http://benetech.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-im-scared-of-sopa-bill.html

Why I’m Scared of the SOPA bill

Benetech, is a leading nonprofit organization based in Silicon Valley. We 
write software for people with disabilities as well as human rights and 
environmental groups. We’re against piracy, and have made commitments to 
authors and publishers to encourage compliance with copyright law.

So, we shouldn’t have anything to fear from a bill entitled “Stop Online 
Piracy Act,” right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

We’re getting very worried that our organization and the people we serve: 
people with print disabilities (i.e., people who are blind or severely 
dyslexic), and human rights groups will be collateral damage in Hollywood’s 
attempt to break the Internet in their latest effort to squash “piracy.” 
And, if we’re worried, a lot of other good organizations should start 
getting worried! Let me give two specific examples that came up in my first 
conversation with a lawyer about the proposed bill:
1. Stopping fund raising and subscription revenue for Bookshare, the largest 
online library for people who have print disabilities.

Bookshare is an online library for people who can’t read standard print 
books. We provide accessible ebooks that can be spoken aloud, turned into 
Braille or large print. We serve over 150,000 students with disabilities 
alone with free online services funded by the Department of Education 
(however, nothing contained in this post has anything to do with our 
funders). We also have thousands of adults with disabilities that pay a $50 
a year subscription to be able to download all the books and newspapers they 
can read. Ironically, many of these users might buy commercial ebooks, but 
the anti-piracy technology built into many ebook systems are not compatible 
with the technology these users employ to get the books in Braille or 
synthetic speech.

Bookshare is legal in the United States because our copyright law includes 
an exception that allows nonprofit organizations like Benetech to make 
accessible versions of books for people with print disabilities without 
requesting permission or paying a royalty.

We frequently get emails or letters from authors, agents or publishers who 
don’t know much about people with disabilities or about Section 121 of the 
copyright law, calling us pirates and asking us to cease and desist from 
making their books available on the Internet. Often, these communications 
come in the form of what’s called a DMCA or take-down notice. Now, we have a 
nice little letter thanking them, explaining that we only help people with 
bona fide disabilities, that it’s legal, that we’ve worked with the big 
publishing associations and with authors groups, and wouldn’t they like to 
help us in the future by adding more of their books voluntarily to our 
collection. Most of the time, that works great, and we end up making a new 
friend after they dig a little and find out that we are closer to Florence 
Nightingale than the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Sometimes, we have to spend time talking a newbie lawyer down from high 
dudgeon and explaining that there really are such things as exceptions and 
limitations in copyright, and do they really want to have their client be 
the first author to attack the rights of blind people to be able to get 
Braille? And then they go away. Because that’s a lawsuit they are unlikely 
to win, and it would be a professional error to waste their client’s money 
attacking a library doing legal things.

However, SOPA apparently has shoot first, ask questions later provisions. If 
any single publisher or author of any one of the more than 130,000 
accessible books in our library gets antsy, they can send a notice to VISA 
and MasterCard and say, stop money from going to Benetech and Bookshare. No 
more donations to our charity. No more subscriptions from individual adults 
with disabilities.

No need to send us a letter. Or file a DMCA notice. Or do any real research. 
Just send out a bunch of notices and get all those pirates! Except, we’re 
not pirates. But, now the burden of proof has shifted to us: we’re presumed 
guilty, and we have to spent time and money defending ourselves. Sounds kind 
of un-American, doesn’t it?

Now, apparently, we can file a counter-notice. But, my guess is that the 
credit card guys are going to play it safe and stay away from turning 
“pirates” back on, and we’d end up in court arguing to be able to get our 
ability to receive funds for our socially beneficial work, not only to help 
people with disabilities but also our work to help environmental and human 
rights groups.

Yet another example of bills written to catch criminals, that do very little 
to stop them, but end up screwing up law-abiding organizations.
2. Endangering Human Rights Activists.

Benetech is one of the largest developers of software for human rights 
activists around the world. We develop free and open source software to help 
groups capture the stories of human rights abuse, and store and back them up 
securely in another country. Wonderful stuff. We work all over the world, 
and our Martus software has been translated into Spanish, French, Russian, 
Arabic, Khmer and other languages.

The U.S. Department of State just funded us to help LGBT groups in Uganda 
securely capture documentation of abuses against those communities (again, 
our funders are not responsible for this post). We work in North Africa 
Latin America, Asia: most of the places where large scale human rights 
abuses are going on. And, in many of these places, we’re helping the 
activists avoid censorship and surveillance by the government. It’s also 
crucially important to be able to assure the confidentiality of witnesses 
and victims both to protect their privacy (i.e., victims of sexual violence) 
and their safety (do you want the police to know that you have testified to 
an illegal killing by the police?).

So, another example of potential collateral damage from SOPA. The problem is 
that we provide technology that allows for security, privacy and 
circumvention. We do it for human rights groups. But, when asked if we know 
whether or not there are “pirated” copyrighted materials, we can’t say. 
Because, if we make software that promises to keep your life or death 
sensitive information secret to the best of our abilities, we won’t build a 
back door in for Syria, or China, or the U.S. government or even (heavens!) 
Hollywood.

Apparently, one of the provisions of SOPA is that technology and servers and 
websites that can be used for evading controls on piracy can be shut down by 
the Attorney General. Unfortunately, safeguarding human rights information 
can’t be distinguished from piracy, if the contents are encrypted. So, our 
software, and the TOR network servers we and others operate, and other 
similar technologies, can get shut down in the name of protecting Hollywood.
Let's Not Do This Stupid Thing, and Avoid Breaking the Internet

In conclusion, I can’t imagine that breaking the Internet, making charities 
waste money fighting thoughtless and careless allegations, and making it 
easier for repressive governments to suppress human rights groups, was what 
was intended when this bill was drafted. Our concerns are just one set out 
of many.  Engineers have described this bill as “breaking the Internet,” 
because complying with it requires major (and not good) changes in how the 
Internet works today. Most tech companies think this is the most 
counter-productive job and innovation killing bill they've seen in years. 
And, tons of human rights groups have protested against the U.S. starting to 
act more like China than the home of the free. The costs and impacts far 
outweigh any (unlikely) benefit Hollywood would receive. Let’s not do this 
as a country.
Background information:

Electronic Frontier Foundation has great information on SOPA and related 
bills, including this one: SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break 
the Internet. If you're so moved, here's where EFF points you to taking 
action by contacting your elected representatives: Take Action | Electronic 
Frontier Foundation.

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