KEITH OLBERMANN: Freedom to use the Internet, as you currently do so, may be a thing of the past if some in Washington have their way. In our number-one story on the "Countdown" — both houses of Congress have now introduced bills aimed at fighting online piracy, which are actually much more likely to end up killing commerce and freedom of speech.
The Senate's PROTECT IP Act was intended to target foreign-based websites that deal in counterfeit goods and copyrighted material. The House then took it a step further with its bill — the Stop Online Piracy Act — targeting U.S.-based sites as well. Online piracy obviously should be controlled. The music industry alone saw 40 billion files shared illegally in 2008. The way the legislation is written, a copyright holder — meaning a major movie or recording studio — could use the Department of Justice to effectively take down websites which unknowingly host pirated material.
Technically, a large corporation should — could shut down an upstart competitor, or someone saying negative things about its product, without ever having to go to court. While the Motion Picture Association and Recording Industry Association are both big supporters of both bills, many in Silicon Valley are leading the charge against the legislation. A representative from Google testified to the House Judiciary Committee:
(Excerpt from video clip) KATHERINE OYAMA: We are as motivated as anyone to get this right. But the Stop Online Piracy Act is not the right approach. SOPA would undermine the legal, commercial and cultural architecture that has propelled the extraordinary growth of Internet commerce over the past decade — a sector that has grown to $2 trillion annual U.S. GDP, including $300 billion from online advertising. Virtually every major Internet company — from Twitter to Facebook, Yahoo! and eBay — as well as a diverse array of other groups — from venture capitalists to librarians to musicians — have expressed serious concerns about this bill.
OLBERMANN: The House bill is still in committee. The Senate version has already passed unanimously through the Judiciary Committee, which is headed by Democrat Pat Leahy — the same Senator who introduced the bill. It's expected to reach a full chamber vote in the next few months. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon — threatening to filibuster if it reaches the Senate floor in its current form — and he's been good enough to join to us tonight. Senator, good to talk to you again.
RON WYDEN: Thanks for having me back, Keith.
OLBERMANN: All right, hit me on this — why is the legislation so dangerous and what do we lose if it passes?
WYDEN: What the problem here is — is this bill essentially uses a bunker-buster bomb when you ought to go in there with a laser beam. I mean, the fact of the matter is — if you're talking about bad actors, you oughtta handcuff them. If they're selling tainted Viagra or fake Rolexes or movies they don't own, come after them. But these bills that you've just described go much, much further.
And they would, in my view, do a lot of damage to what we believe makes the Internet so special. The Internet is a place that's open to all. It's a place where, if you've got a good idea, you can take it worldwide. The Internet is a shipping lane of the 21st century and, as you noted, I think this would do a lot damage to the part of our economy that's growing.
OLBERMANN: What's the worst case scenario, Senator? Why would — why would websites that rely on user-generated material be vulnerable and — I guess as a corollary to that — why is every political website, from Daily Kos to Free Republic, opposed to this?
WYDEN: Because this does so much damage to — to innovation. Again, the strongest part of the American economy today. There's a old saying that the American economy is about two guys in a garage. You pass these bills, it's not gonna be two guys in a garage. They're gonna have to have a whole floor upstairs, just full of — of lawyers.
I mean, this is really a lawyers' full-employment program. All of the — all of the mandates and particularly, what is this does is it changes a law — The Digital Millennium Copyright Act — that, it's not perfect but it does a decent job, in terms of striking a balance. It provides for what's called "Notice and Take Down," if you have, for example, infringing content. What you're talking about here is essentially a blacklisting program, a censorship program. It'd do an awful lot of damage to the 'Net.
OLBERMANN: The — the bipartisan alternative to this — that you're working on with Senators and members of the House — how do you — how do you secure the actual piracy issue that does remain out there, beyond those takedown measures?
WYDEN: Our focus is to try to narrow the scope. I mean, the big problem with these bills is they essentially turn websites into web cops. I mean, you know, YouTube is getting something like 24 hours of video a minute. Nobody can monitor all of that stuff. The only people that probably try are the Iranians and the Chinese. Thank goodness they haven't succeeded, but that's not a model we want to follow.
So, let's narrow the scope, let's go after the bad actors. We're looking on a bipartisan basis at some ways, for example, to work with the payment processors — we could cut them off. But the focus ought to be to narrow the scope and — particularly with the Internet — do no harm.
OLBERMANN: Speaking of "Do no harm," do you think this is flawed legislation or somebody sneaking — trying to sneak — the Trojan Horse in, under a transom? And I know I mixed a couple of analogies there.
WYDEN: I think this is an example of a very powerful industry — the content sector — essentially trying to use a government as a club over the innovation sector, particularly folks who focus on the Internet.
And we're up against some of the most powerful, most moneyed interests in Washington. They've always been resistant to innovation. It wasn't very long ago when they were comparing the VCR to the Boston Strangler. The VCR was a huge bonus for the movie industries, so we're up against some very powerful interests but, boy, we're coming on. In the last few days, hundreds of — of thousands of folks have gotten involved in supporting our site.
OLBERMANN: Good. Remember, television was supposed to kill sports, too.
WYDEN: There you are.
OLBERMANN: Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon — as usual, on the side of the angels — here. Great thanks for some of your time tonight, sir.
WYDEN: Thank you.
