Dammit, sorry about the link fail.

Here’s just the ones that begin with “A”:

Really? You count trade organizations as “non-profit organizations that are not funded by supporters of those acts?”

That’s really ridiculous. The RIAA is technically “non-profit” too, but nobody would believe that they’re not funded in their entirety by supporters of SOPA and PROTECT IP.

Wikipedia and the EFF represent the interests of the general public – unlike trade unions or industry organizations, whose sole purpose is to represent the interests of their membership. They are funded in their entirety by people who have a vested interest in support the acts.

Claiming that these groups are grass-roots organizations is the very definition of astroturfing.

I simply refuted his claim. Those organizations are, in fact, non-profits.

It was my claim, actually. And, I didn’t just say “non-profits,” I said a non-profit that wasn’t funded in its entirety by supporters of those acts.

But, perhaps I wasn’t being technical enough for you. When people say “non-profit,” usually what they are talking about are non-profit organizations that are geared towards the social welfare. They don’t mean the RIAA, or the BSA, the AFL-CIO, or other trade organizations, whose sole function is to look out for the welfare of their own membership at all costs.

If any of those organizations claimed to be “grassroots,” they’d be lying. If any organization was set up by those groups alone, and claimed to be grassroots, that would be “astroturfing.”

This is the accusation Bob was throwing at the EFF and Wikipedia: that they were astroturf organizations, and that all of the protests by all 1,500+ sites worldwide were somehow coordinated from within Google’s offices.

But there are a large number of organizations that are not trade groups for you both to choke on.

Can you name one? I looked through the list the A.C. above posted, and all I saw were trade organizations (like the BSA, RIAA, AFL-CIO and its affiliates, etc).

None of them are non-profits who are not funded entirely by people with a strong economic interest in passing those laws.

Not a single one of them was a 501(c)(3) non-profit, which is what both the EFF and the Wikipedia Foundation are.

Mike went over this. Two years ago, Google provided space for a Techdirt event. They did not have anything to do with the event’s agenda, and did not pay Techdirt.

Techdirt also has AdWords, as does most of the web.

That’s it. They have not, for example, done a case study with Techdirt, unlike, say, UPS, AmEx, or Oracle.

The idea that Google has anything to do with the blog is hogwash.

As for “Americans for Tax Reform,”

It’s also worth mentioning that ATR is associated with the Property Rights Alliance, “an advocacy organization dedicated to the protection of physical and intellectual property rights.”

Of course they’re astro-turfs!

Of course, you have absolutely zero evidence to back this up, other than that some of the organizations that opposed SOPA and PROTECT IP were founded by tech guys.

Even a cursory glance at their annual statements, which are public, show you’re wrong. In the EFF’s case, for example, a good number of donors are not in the tech industry at all.

Yes, the Brin Wojcicki Foundation (which is not run by Google, but by one of its founders and his wife) did give money to the EFF and Wikipedia. You know who else they gave money to? The Michael J. Fox Foundation. In fact, they’re giving 1000 times more to the Fox Foundation than they did to the EFF. By your logic, this means that the Fox Foundation is also “astroturfing” for Google.

Furthermore, Wikipedia’s discussion page – where their membership (not Wales) decided to black out the site – is still up, and right out in the open.

Does Google have an interest in keeping the Internet open and largely unregulated? Yes. But so does everyone else who uses the Internet. This wasn’t “orchestrated” by Google, or any other tech company. It was a popular reaction to unpopular bills.

This should be obvious, as the Sunlight Foundation’s own site shows the approval rating of both bills to be around 1%. That means 99 out of 100 people don’t want them.

Hell, even Peter Gabriel took his site down to protest them.

Nor could Google or Facebook’s “influence” explain the hundreds of thousands of people who protested in person against ACTA in Europe.

And the idea that they have “paid networks”? Don’t make me laugh. The only people who have “paid networks” are the traditional media industries, because traditional media is not open to the public, like the Internet is. And those media companies have consistently ignored the story.

Now, perhaps you should retire to the ghetto of your own rapidly pro-IP blog, play some more Second Life, and only come here when you actually have a single shred of evidence to back up anything you say. Until you do, nobody here is buying what you’re selling.

I was outlining arguments from least persuasive to most persuasive.

You also left out most of the arguments altogether. There is no mention of DRM, region restrictions, laws against “jailbreaking” cell phones, laws making it illegal to view DVD’s in Linux, or other anti-consumer practices that copyright currently allows.

There is no mention of Veoh’s elimination by lawsuit, the near-impossiblility of startups to license music, the bogus lawsuits against Google and YouTube, or other costs to media-related companies that happen when you grant a single industry a monopoly on culture. No mention of the patent quagmire surrounding cell phones, damaging software patents, Intellectual Ventures, or the tremendous costs IP places on the economy in general.

There is no mention whatsoever of the RIAA lawsuits, bogus takedown notices, Righthaven lawsuits, domain seizures, or other ways that copyright allows for the abuse of the court system, and the elimination of due process and free speech rights.

No mention of Monsanto’s lawsuits against farmers, patents on genetically-modified food, drug companies trying to eliminate generics, “grey market” drugs, or any other way IP laws damage public health (especially in third-world countries).

And no mention of how higher-ups from the worst IP industries are being granted government positions at an alarming rate (such as when Monsanto’s VP was made senior adviser at the FDA, or how the Justice Department is staffed with RIAA lawyers in top positions).

These are the major reasons that most people are against IP laws. And you didn’t even mention them. It’s like writing an article on people opposing drug laws, and saying they only want to smoke pot and do crack.

I know IP issues aren’t your major interest. I know that a lot of this was new to you when you wrote the article. But you really should have at least listened to the actual reasons people are against IP laws. As it is, you’re just arguing against a straw man.

I also know they have cut back recently.

Where did you hear this? From what I’ve seen, they’ve increased spending on green energy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-van-diggelen/googles-green-spending-sp_b_1095849.html

But the privacy issues and the lobbying have taken the company down a notch in my mind.

The privacy issues are why the EFF keeps suing Google. Personally, I think they’re overblown, at least in this case. You don’t want your info to be aggregated and used, don’t put it on the web, simple as that.

Suzanne – I’m going to reply to various posts in this one. Hope you don’t mind.

I based it on the most common discussions I had read here and other places. I found many of them not very persuasive. My point was that if you want to over turn IP laws and make a case for the average citizen, you need more firepower. In fact, I think it’s fine if that is your goal. But do a better job at arguing it.

I know for a fact that I personally expressed some of these concerns to you before you wrote the article. You did not even mention them. I’ve also been surfing reading other blogs and sites about this issue, and nearly every criticism of copyright laws has to do with 1.) ridiculous enforcement (suing users, seizing domains); 2.) regional restrictions, DRM, and consumer restrictions generally; 3.) outrageous copyright lenghths. Almost nobody gave any of the arguments you mentioned.

Result? You were arguing against a straw man.

I do not think you are lying or ignorant. I think this is a case of confirmation bias. You are not convinced that IP laws should be scaled back, so you only heard the arguments you wanted to hear.

So, don’t say that any of us need to “do a better job at arguing it” when you won’t listen to the arguments.

And, so far, the 1500+ sites that participated in the blackout seem to be firepower enough. Look at what’s happening with ACTA, especially in Europe.

In fact, the biggest issue facing IP reformers is not that we’re making bad arguments. It’s that we were never allowed a forum to make them. The bills, laws, and treaties were all passed behind closed doors, out of the eyes of the public (and any industry that wasn’t in the RIAA/MPAA). In a sense SOPA/PROTECT IP were the best thing to happen to copyright reformers. It was litigation that was so awful, that it negatively affected even those who don’t care about IP at all.

What I see happening is that Apple, Google, and Facebook are moving into Walmart and McDonald’s territory in terms of image.

Apple? Absolutely. Facebook? Probably. Not so much Google, at least not in the eyes of the public.

If anything the SOPA/PROTECT IP protests made Google look much better than before. People hated these bills, even before the blackout. The blackout only made people aware of the issue, and once they were, they were absolutely livid.

As this article points out, the new system looks a lot like the old one in terms of power dynamics.

It’s an interesting article. You left this part out:

The contours of the audience paying attention to a policy usually determine whether that policy ultimately passes. When a broader public gets wind of a crude bill that would transparently benefit a narrow public, that bill is typically rendered toxic and thus politically finished.

It used to be the case that for this to happen, the mainstream media had to be involved in calling attention to the travesty. Those days are disappearing, and this is generally a good thing. By lowering the barriers to entry, the Internet has the potential to make political activism more democratic than ever before, and the SOPA turnaround is proof that it can work politically to engage a broad crowd in short order.

I understand their concern. But, frankly, I think it’s completely overblown. It’s rooted in the fact that prior communications mediums were controlled by gatekeepers. Newspapers, television, and radio are not democratic in any way, shape or form. The Internet is. Google, Wikipedia, and the rest simply cannot be gatekeepers to the internet, even if they wanted to be. If their claims are bogus, there will always be somebody calling them out – and the internet is always willing to go viral with that info.

It’s also not very accurate about the protests themselves. Not once, for example, do they acknowledge that the blackout idea did not come from any of the companies they mentioned. In fact, those companies only jumped on board after a grassroots movement had already started.

Here’s another, and I think better, article about the tech industry’s lobbying efforts:

The stop SOPA campaign is also noteworthy because it was not directed by a grand design launched by the large companies, but came from the bottom up, from small companies and independent Internet activists.

They started a wildfire of opposition with companies such as Google and Facebook adding their voice as the movement reached a crescendo.

– SOPA defeat a victory for tech, but influence will remain muted

And as for the tech industry stepping up its lobbying efforts? According to MapLight, the tech industry was still outspent nine to one on SOPA.

So, you are absolutely right to be concerned about lobbying efforts. You are wrong if you are singling out the tech industry.

You know, the privacy arguments along the lines of “If you don’t want your information shared, don’t use the sites,” isn’t a lot different than, “if you don’t want to pay a fine for illegal downloads, don’t do it.”

Fair point. On the other hand, most sites (Google, Facebook, even Myspace) have tons of options to limit sharing of information that you may or may not want private.

And if those sites have privacy policies you don’t like, you’re not forced to use them – because there is tremendous competition. That’s not true of “illegal downloads” – if you don’t want to support the RIAA, for example, you can’t go elsewhere (legally) for a song on one of their clients’ labels. They have a monopoly. Google (and tech industries in general) do not. This makes them orders of magnitude more invested in keeping good faith relations with the general public.

But you’re right that it is a concern. It was (and is) a concern with Facebook’s behind-the-scenes data gathering. It was certainly a concern with Google Wave (the program, which folded almost immediately, that prompted an EFF lawsuit against Google).

What’s also true is that the privacy issues are often blown out of proportion. The bit last year about Google streetcars gathering data is an example. Also, keep in mind that sometimes these issues are deliberate attacks by competitors – such as when Facebook hired a PR firm to smear Google’s privacy image.

But if you want the largest threats to privacy, you need to look to Washington. For example, the “Internet Snooping Bill” (it actually has the unrepentently dishonest name of “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act”) would require, by law, that all internet providers store records of user data and IP addresses, to be used by law enforcement for whatever purpose it wants.

Its main sponsor? You guessed it – Lamar Smith, the same guy behind SOPA. The same guy who said the only reason anyone was against these bills is because its opponents are “somehow benefiting by directing customers to these foreign websites” or “profit from selling advertising to these foreign websites.”

Such bills are not new. In 1991, there was the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act, a bill that would require law enforcement access to plaintext emails and outlaw encryption. It was the primary reason Phil Zimmerman created PGP. Its author? None other than our current Vice President, Joe Biden. The same Joe Biden who held a closed-door “IP Roundtable” to discuss copyright and the Internet – but only invited media conglomerates and high-level law enforcement officials, and completely left out anyone from the tech industry, public interest groups, or academics. Then had the unmitigated gall to claim “all stakeholders were present.”

I am not suggesting that the RIAA, MPAA, or any other “big content” industries are behind these particular bills. I’m not even sure they support them. I am saying that “big content” hates the Internet and the tech industry, and are funding politicians on that common ground. When that happens, they end up funding invasions of privacy by the government – at far, far worse levels than anything Google, Facebook, and so forth are even capable of.

All of your concerns are valid. They are, however, misdirected. At least right now.

This post is about why Google is getting attention for lobbying against PIPA/SOPA when other companies and other organizations were also against it.

Google is not getting attention for it. The pro-SOPA forces are trying to throw attention onto them. It is designed to discredit anyone who was against SOPA and PROTECT IP, by painting them as “pawns” of Google.

These are the same people who call Ron Wyden “Google’s pet senator,” despite the fact that his #1 campaign contributor is Nike, a supporter of both bills.

You’re right about the reason they chose Google: they are big – meaning they are successful. In their eyes, any company that is successful on the Internet is stealing from them. More importantly, Google is a threat. They keep winning court cases (e.g. against Viacom and Perfect 10), and they have enough money to actually fight back.

Witness Lamar Smith’s comments about SOPA opposition. You think it wasn’t a subtle threat against Google?

But this “attention” isn’t coming from the public. It is, and always was, a political ploy, pure spin and propaganda. At least as far as SOPA is concerned.

No, it’s that I don’t really give a damn.

So, you didn’t give a damn enough to listen to IP critics, yet gave a damn enough to write a blog post criticising them?

As for Google starting to get negative press, yes, I am seeing it from pro-tech people.

Okay, now I’m confused about what you’re trying to say. Are we still talking about SOPA/PIPA, or are you just trying to dredge up dirt against Google?

Here’s what you said: “The PIPA/SOPA lobbying did bring into clearer focus the business decisions driving these actions.”

Yet, most of the links you provided had nothing whatsoever to do with SOPA/PIPA.

For example, Google acquired Motorola Mobility in August – two months before SOPA was introduced. (And, in fact, the criticism was not of Google per se, but their possible decision to continue in Motorola’s footsteps.) The majority of complaints about Google’s privacy concerns happened because Google recently integrated their TOS and privacy policies across their entire family of services. This had absolutely nothing to do with SOPA, or Google’s lobbying in general.

In fact, in the entire Wikipedia article about Google criticisms, their increased lobbying due to SOPA/PIPA was not even mentioned.

I’d also like to point something out. This discussion has now turned away from the bills themselves, and the focus is now almost entirely on Google in general.

This is exactly what the supporters of SOPA and PROTECT IP want to happen. They want to turn the narrative of the protests from one of a grassroots movement that spanned thousands of websites and dozens of organizations (most of them non-profits), and into a story of one company controlling minions. It is simply incorrect, but they believe if they repeat it loudly enough, people will listen – especially people in the Beltway.

This highlights the reason why:

the existence of that open Internet is not a direct concern of, say, the Entertainment Software Association (representing video game publishers, $4.6 million) or ITI (enterprise computing, $2.6 million). Even worse, one of the few major associations on the tech list, the Business Software Alliance ($2.1 million), actually supported SOPA, until outcry from the rest of the tech sector led them to back off.

The BSA is actually an IP maximalist, representing as it does software companies who don’t like piracy – such as Microsoft. (The BSA is known for publish bogus reports about losses due to piracy.) And, is Comcast a member of the “tech industry” for being an ISP, or a member of the “content industry” for owning NBC Universal?

Because of this confusion, the IP maximalists can’t paint it as entirely a picture of “tech” vs. “content.” Nor can they afford to paint it as it really is: “content” vs. “everyone on the Internet.” They need a scapegoat: someone powerful enough to be a threat, and for whom the existence of an open Internet is a direct concern. Someone whose business model you can discredit, especially if you can claim they have a financial motive for defending piracy.

In their eyes, Google fits that narrative. This accomplishes two things. First, it allows them to portray the anti-SOPA/PIPA forces as being “misled” by a single, monolithic, self-interested entity. Of course, most of the voices against SOPA and PIPA were 501(3)(c) nonprofit organizations: the EFF, Public Knowledge, the FSF, Wikipedia, Demand Progress, and so forth. To make their narrative work, they need to spin public opinion (or, more importantly, D.C. opinion) to make it sound like these are all merely “astroturf” organizations, with Google in charge. Hence Bob’s rantings, matching nearly word-for-word with Chris Dodd’s, and repeated uncritically by Lamar Smith.

The second thing it accomplishes is a plan of action. “If we can handle Google,” they think, “the rest of the Internet will line up like good little soldiers.” Hence, the public statements by the bills sponsors that they are willing to “work with Google” (yes, they mention Google by name) to work out problems with the bill. In this way, they can go back to business as usual – backroom deals, made outside the public eye, where Google represents the only one in the room who does not benefit directly from stronger IP laws.

But Google had almost nothing to do with the blackout or the SOPA/PIPA protests. If Google had actually supported the bills, the protests and blackouts would still have happened, exactly as they did (and are). Consider the letter to Congress asking to completely halt work on IP-related legislation. Of the 70 groups that signed it, about half are nonprofits, and Google is notably absent.

This revisionist narrative is a grave misstep, a huge miscalculation. It has already started to come back and bite them in the ass. If you actually believe it, I’d advise you to rethink your opinion.

Okay, one more reply, then I think we should let this drop.

Karl, you’re the one being dodgy.

For the record, I never called you “dodgy.” I think the conversation is getting off track, and you’re muddling the issues a bit, but I don’t think you’re being dodgy.

1. You cite a blog post I wrote quite awhile ago. I was giving reasons why the anti-IP folks haven’t explained why IP reform should be a big issue for those of us who care more about other things.

Here’s the thing. IP reformers have been giving plenty of reasons. You barely touched on any of them. The only reasons you gave for IP reform were variations on “we want stuff for free.” That’s not even a small part of IP reform.

Picture this: It’s 1973. Someone writes an op-ed about feminism. Their argument: “I don’t care much, but I know that if the anti-men folks want feminism to be a big issue for those of us who care about other things, they’d better do something other than burn their bras, leave their husbands, and grow their leg hair. I mean, c’mon, ladies! There’s a war goin’ on!”

Would that be more reflective of feminism, or about the person who wrote the article?

Obviously, your article is not that bad, and you did touch on some good points. But here are some places where you were obviously, staggeringly wrong:

“Why, I think to myself, should lawmakers change current laws if a strong case hasn’t been made to do so?” (Since the article was written, there have been four attempts by lawmakers to change current laws, all at the request of IP maximalists, none of whom have made a strong case to do so.)

“Chances are that if they [concepts] are currently in the public domain, they will remain so.” (Golan v. Holder took material out of the public domain.)

“For example, poor nutrition and inadequate health care in Africa are not IP issues.” (As I said in the comments, absolutely they are – and not just for Africans. IP is the only reason drugs are cheaper in Canada. That’s why people like RxRights are against SOPA/PIPA.)

“Rarely has the case for lessening IP protection been made so that it is relevant to the average person. When we go to vote, IP issues tend not to be a priority.If anything, the emphasis on copyright and music lessens the perceived relevance because most voters don’t see that as a major issue in their lives.” (Thousands of blacked-out websites, millions of signatures and phone calls to Washington, hudreds of thousands of protesters marching in the streets, and “most voters don’t see that as a major issue in their lives”?)

And, though it’s in your comments (not the article), here’s the real kick in the pants:

“What I’d like to do is to get the anti-IP folks more involved in the political process. To get the laws changed, you can either lobby legislators or you can make it an issue with voters.” (So, why exactly are you criticizing Google again?)

Speaking of:

I said that the PIPA/SOPA battle brought into focus the amount of money Google has spent on lobbying.

You said that the PIPA/SOPA battle, and specifically Google’s increase in lobbying spending to fight it, had negatively affected Google’s public image, and brought the company under increased scrutiny.

There is no evidence of any of that. Google has been under tremendous scrutiny for years now, and none of the complaints about them have anything to do with SOPA/PIPA. (Unless they’re from Chris Dodd.)

However, people like me do not necessarily therefore support the companies that were anti-PIPA/SOPA.

That’s OK. As long as you recognize that the companies that were anti-PIPA/SOPA did not drive the protests, then we’re all fine and dandy.