Two bills introduced in congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — attempt to stop the illegal copying of movies, music and other forms of digital intellectual property.

Fighting online piracy is important. The Senate and the House have good intentions by going after pirates, but these two pieces of legislation are simply the wrong way to do it. 

Instead of targeting the funding sources of online piracy sites, the bill’s broad language targets all kinds of websites: blogs, social networks and more by forcing them to monitor everything users link to or upload. This is bad practice—attacking and burdening those who have websites with user-contributed content.

The proposed legislation does not effectively distinguish between pirates and any website they might use to link to pirated content. Any site with user-contributed content could be targeted, and site owners would likely react by making it harder for users to contribute content. This creates the “chilling effect” that would be devastating to the free exchange of ideas and conversation online.  

Another really problematic part of the proposed legislation is its regulation of DNS. This would ultimately drive users to use third-party, unregulated, possibly offshore DNS services and undermine DNSSEC and many other key  building blocks to the security of the internet. 

In plain english, DNS is the part of the internet which maps domain names—like digitaldeployment.com—to the correct server so you could see our site. If DNS no longer connected you to your favorite sites, you might have to setup your internet connection to use another DNS server, which, while allowing you to visit the blocked site, might also take you to a rogue copycat site with slightly altered information or a phishing website. (Assuming you weren’t connecting via https.)

And the worst part: SOPA and PIPA won’t effectively stop the real pirates. 

The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs. —Google

Alternatives to the bill, such as the OPEN Act, would utilize an international body to cut funding for pirate websites. Naturally, these alternatives are being fought vigorously by our “friends” at the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), who attempted to sue a dead grandmother and thousands of other people in what turned out to be a broad, expensive, inaccurate, and ultimately ineffective campaign against illegal file sharing. Other attempts to “get tough” or “shock and awe” the American public have also failed miserably.

There are many lessons in the history of a related topic, Digital Rights Management, where the more moderate and permissive policies and technologies prevailed. Did you know the that original iPods had no encryption or DRM whatsoever? They just “hid” regular MP3 files from the operating systems, which is a piece of cake to bypass. But it worked. iTunes succeeded by being convenient, fair, and because it was easier and safer to use, not because it was “tough” or because Apple went on a frenzy suing P2P file sharers. Alas, history repeats itself. 

I agree with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on this one. It’s a massive piece of job-killing Internet regulation. This bill cannot be fixed; it must be killed.

Join me, and petition to stop SOPA and PIPA.