ISOC position on
ACTA, PIPA and SOPA
I.Mkrtumyan, ISOC AM
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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Internet Society of Armenia (ISOC AM)
is an Armenian Chapter of ISOC and in
its activity is following the guidelines
set by ISOC
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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What is ACTA, PIPA and SOPA and
what danger can expect us?
• PIPA – Protect Intellectual Property Act
• SOPA – Stop On-Line Piracy Act
• ACTA - Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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What Happens if PIPA is Passed?
•PIPA contains provisions that will allow the federal
government to have an unconstitutional amount of power in
regards to censoring Americans’ access to the internet.
•All websites on the internet will be liable for content added
by users – comments, status updates, etc.
•Social media networks like Facebook could face prosecution
over content uploaded by users.
•The Federal Government could forcibly require that Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) block websites deemed as “enablers”
of copyright infringement.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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SOPA is nothing more so than the U.S. government and private corporations
black list. Here is a breakdown of the power given to the government and
private corporations.
•The U.S. Attorney General can now seek a court order that would force
search engines, advertisers, DNS providers, servers, and payment
processors from having any contact with allegedly infringing websites.
•It will allow private corporations to create their own personal hit lists
composed of websites they feel are breaking their copyright policies,
ironically this doesn’t have any odd feelings of a legal mafia at all. These
companies will be able to directly contact a website’s payment processors a
notice to cut all off payment involvement with the targeted website. This
payment processors and website of question will then have five days to act
before it is simply taken down.
•Payment processors will have the power to cut off any website they work
with, as long as they can provide a strong reason of why they believe this
site is violating copyrights
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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ACTA is a bad agreement
ACTA was negotiated in extreme secrecy by a small
group of wealthy nations. As leaked documents make
clear, the explicit goal of this approach was to bypass
existing international instituions like WIPO where other
countries might object to even stricter IP enforcement.
Instead, ACTA was a "coalition of the willing" which
"would aim to set a 'gold standard' for IPR [intellectual
property rights] enforcement among a small number of
like-minded countries, and which other countries might
aspire to join."
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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How Does This Affect You
Well by now one probably has gained a good
understanding of what both PIPA and SOPA are, and is
wondering how exactly will these acts will directly affect
how citizens use the internet. Well in all honestly, a lot
of things will change.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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Blog Sites like 1stwebdesigner could be blocked or shut down
As stated prior in what PIPA and SOPA are and what will they enable
U.S. government agencies and private companies to do, the internet
will become a hunt for any little bit of possible copyright violation. Of
course the government loves blogs and bloggers, so it is only natural to
think that they will receive a lot of special attention. These acts make it
the blog owners responsibility for everything that is displayed on their
site, including the comments of visitors.
So say an article is published one day featuring a logo, or trademark,
of corporation and that corporation doesn’t like that it is being put on
display on the site. Now the author of this article could have used it as
a teaching method, critique, praising good design, or anything you can
think of, it doesn’t matter. With these acts being only direct enough to
give an area for attack, and vague enough to manipulate and twist
seemingly any possible way, any type of accusation can be made and
found true.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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Say Goodbye to Innovation
These acts are stopping developers from coming up
with the next big thing in the online market that could
change how we use the internet. Let’s say that these
acts were around back when the internet was started,
how many of the most popular sites would still have
come into fruition. There would be no Facebook,
YouTube, MediaFire, SoundCloud, Twitter, DropBox, or
any other site that can be targeted as a place where
online piracy could take place. Is it even possible to
think about what the internet would be like without
sites like this?
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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The Internet is an extraordinary platform for innovation. It
has benefitted from broad participation in both the
development and use of Internet technology,
services, applications and policy. The Internet’s openness
has been critical to its development and continued success.
Openness is the key to continued innovation and
investment in the Internet and all the associated social,
economic, and cultural benefits it brings. The history of the
Internet’s development demonstrates that technology can
be used for beneficial, and sometimes unforeseen,
purposes. The Internet Society believes, therefore, that
legal frameworks should support the open and
unrestricted development of Internet technologies and
should not limit the development and use of technologies
for legitimate purposes.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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Legal Action Over A Child Singing A Song
It is quite oblivious that none of the people on sites
like YouTube have been given permission from record
label execs to sing their favorite song, and then
proceed to post it on a video sharing site. However
will that be a problem for the record execs?
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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The Internet Society has noted with concern a number
of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS
blocking and filtering by ISPs in order to protect the
interests of copyright holders. We agree with
proponents of the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) and Stop
Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that combating illegal online
activities is a very important public policy
objective. However, policies that are enacted to
achieve this goal must not undermine the viability of
the Internet as a globally reachable platform.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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ISOC is also disappointed that the ACTA
participants did not adopt a truly open,
transparent and
inclusive multistakeholder approach to
the development of the substance of the
proposed agreement at least with
respect to those terms which pertain to
the Internet.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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The Internet Society is deeply concerned about
increased attempts by certain governments in
many regions of the world to control their
citizens’ access and use of the Internet. Often
such actions are taken without regard to the basic
principles of human rights and due process.
Yerevan, July 11, 2012
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