635 - IATSE Local 8 Philadelphia

a Republican lobbyist who may be of
assistance.
Vice President Lawlor also reviewed
the scheduled political debates
which are a great opportunity
to develop IA work. The 2012 Presidential
debate schedule is: (1) October
3rd at the University of Denver in
Denver, Colorado; (2) October 16th
at Hofstra University in Hempstead,
New York and (3) October 22nd at
Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.
The Vice Presidential Debate is set
for October 11th at Centre College,
Danville, Kentucky.
President Loeb noted that all these
events create a large amount of work
for our members.
DIGITAL THEFT
International Vice Presidents J.
Walter Cahill, Michael F. Miller, Jr. and
Craig Carlson, Assistant to the President
Deborah A. Reid, International
Representative Scott D. Harbinson,
Brothers Scott Roth of Local 800, and
David Behm of Local 600, and Alec
French of Thorsen-French Advocacy,
appeared before the Board to present
an update on the International’s efforts
to combat digital theft.
Representative Harbinson advised
the Board that this report would provide
an update regarding the International’s
efforts to combat digital theft.
A presentation was made by Alec
French summarizing the Senate and
House legislation process regarding
the PROTECT IP Act and Stop Online
Piracy Act, respectively.
Rogue sites legislation - Top Priority
The major IA policy priority since
late 2010 was the enactment of legislation
to provide effective tools for
disrupting the business models of
foreign, commercial Internet sites
that offer unlicensed movies and
TV shows. Such “rogue” sites earn
substantial revenue through advertising
placed by U.S. ad networks, or
through membership subscription
payments processed by U.S. services,
like Visa and PayPal. While accessible
to U.S. consumers, many of these
sites operate from outside the United
States, and current U.S. law provides
few, if any remedies, to disrupt their
businesses.
No Silver Bullet
To be clear, legislation to address
the rogue sites problem would not be
a “silver bullet” to stop digital theft of
movies and TV shows. Many other
sources of such theft exist - online
and off. Legislation alone will not
change the culture in which such theft
is commonplace and accepted. And,
some people are always going to
steal, however, with regard to foreign,
commercial sites engaged in digital
theft, it does seem legislation could at
least create new tools to address the
problem.
Description of the Legislative Goals
To address the rogue sites problem,
the IATSE joined with a broad
coalition, including the MPAA, the
DGA and other guilds and unions, the
AFL-CIO, RIAA, and even the Chamber
of Commerce, to support legislation
to fill the gaps in available remedies
against foreign, commercial sites
engaged in digital theft. Broadly explained,
the coalition agreed to support
legislation that requires U.S. payment
processors and ad networks to
break off business relationships with
such infringing sites. There was also
agreement that U.S. Internet Service
Providers (ISPs) and search engines
should prevent their U.S. subscribers
and users from being able to access
such infringing sites.
Legislative Background
Substantial progress was made in
moving legislation to achieve our objectives.
In the fall of 2010, at the end of
the 111th Congress, Senator Patrick
Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, introduced the first
bill to tackle the rogue sites problem.
That legislation was moved out of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, but no
further action was taken before the
111th Congress adjourned.
In May 2011, a few months after
the 112th Congress got underway,
Chairman Leahy introduced with bipartisan
support the PROTECT IP Act.
The Judiciary Committee held hearings
on the bill and, after adding a
number of amendments, unanimously
voted to send the PROTECT IP Act to
a vote by the full Senate. The bill
garnered over 40 Senate co-sponsors,
and was scheduled but then pulled
from a floor vote on January 24th. It
is still awaiting action by the entire
Senate.
The PROTECT IP Act would largely
achieve our objectives. It enables
prosecutors to seek court orders requiring
ISPs and search engines to
block their subscribers and users from
accessing court-designated “rogue”
sites. The PROTECT IP Act also enables
both prosecutors and U.S. copyright
and trademark rights holders to
seek court orders requiring payment
processors and ad networks to cut off
business relationships with court-designated
rogue sites.
In the House of Representatives,
Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith and
several bipartisan co-sponsors introduced
the Stop Online Piracy Act (or
SOPA) in October of last year. With
regard to rogue sites, SOPA followed
the same general framework as the
PROTECT IP Act, but in a number of
regards, adopted a more aggressive
and comprehensive approach.
The House Judiciary Committee
held a hearing on SOPA in November
and in December, spent two full
days marking up the bill but had to
suspend when the House went into
recess. Resumption of the markup is
not currently scheduled.
Initially, the PROTECT IP Act and
SOPA moved through the legislative
process in a conventional fashion.
At each stage of the process the bill
sponsors solicited and received input
from concerned parties, and made a
number of significant amendments to
address concerns.
While the legislative process
moved forward with the regular giveand-take,
opposition began swelling
online starting in November of last
year and reached a crescendo in late
January. Opponents kept up a steady
drumbeat of misinformation and disinformation
designed to scare Internet
users and businesses.
Primary Criticisms of the Bills
1) Claims were made that the bills
would undermine Internet innovation
by enabling rightsholders to
harass and undermine innovative
U.S. Internet services, like You-
Tube and Facebook, and strangle
development of the next generation
of U.S. companies. The language
of the bills does not support
this claim. The bills do not cover
sites that have only incidental links
to theft, and no reasonable judge
would interpret them that way.
Regardless, both House and Senate
bills were extensively amended
to address such concerns. For
example, both bills were amended
to make clear they only applied to
foreign websites, so that no U.S.
site like Twitter could even argue
the bills applied to them.
2) The bills were widely demonized
as “Internet censorship.” These
“censorship” claims were pure
fiction. Along with the entertainment
guilds, IATSE hired preeminent
American First Amendment
scholar Floyd Abrams to provide
three opinions about the constitutionality
of the bills. Mr. Abrams
gave the bills a First Amendment
seal of approval each time.
3) Opponents also argued that repressive
regimes around the world
would use the legislation as an excuse
to stifle Internet freedom. At
the urging of the IATSE, U.S. Representative
Howard Berman of Los
Angeles wrote to Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to get her opinion.
In a written response, Secretary
Clinton directly countered this
argument and made abundantly
clear that the U.S. can both press
foreign governments to protect intellectual
property on the Internet
and insist they meet their international
obligations to protect Internet
freedom.
4) Another common charge was that
the “domain name blocking” provisions
of the bills would “break
the Internet.” Fifteen countries
around the world already require
such domain name blocking, and
the Internet has not broken. Nevertheless,
in an abundance of
caution, bill sponsors agreed to
remove the offending provision
from the bill.
Bills subject to unprecedented Internet
opposition campaign
Unfortunately, while these fear
tactics were based on bogus information,
they worked. The bill sponsors
at each stage in the process amended
the bills to address legitimate and even
illegitimate concerns, but these efforts
did nothing to quell opposition. In
fact, rather than dissipate, opposition
to the bills grew and spread throughout
the fall and winter of 2011.
Internet companies like Google,
Facebook, Twitter; consumer electronics
and computer manufacturers;
online advocacy groups like
demandProgress.org and Fight4the-
Future; and blogs like TechDirt and
ArsTechnica coordinated the opposition
campaign. They ran ads on
their websites, in newspapers, and
on TV. They blanketed mainstream
press with Op-Eds and letters to the
editor. They effectively used their
tremendous echo chamber online.
As a result, the press largely turned
against the bills, including opposition
from the New York Times and
Los Angeles Times editorial pages.
Things started to go sour on Capitol
Hill, exemplified by Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tweeting her
opposition.
The opposition reached a crescendo
in the weeks leading up to a
scheduled January 24th vote on the
Senate floor. Inundated by emails
and calls in opposition to the bills, a
steady trickle of members of Congress
felt compelled to publicly come out in
opposition to the bills. A number of
Senate sponsors (mostly Republican)
withdrew their names and support.
In addition, the President’s Administration
issued a blog expressing concern
about the bills.
28 Official Bulletin First Quarter 2012 29