The Protect IP Act has stirred up a lot of controversy over digital rights and the methods used to enforce laws and regulations regarding copyrighted content on the web.  It brings in discussion around the existing DCMA laws, their flaws and where to go from here.  Canvassing this topic is a panel at the CREATE 2011 event, which looks at content creators, distributors and the processes around content distribution in the internet era.

With Arts + Labs Co-Chair Mike McCurry moderating the panel, a group of congressmen, attorneys and musicians shared their opinions on the Protect IP Act, looking at a few issues from various angles.  Marsha Blackburn, US Congresswoman (R-TN) kicked things off by saying she’s “a little bit country, and a little bit rock & roll.”  Coming from Tennessee, Blackburn represents more songwriters in her district alone than any other.

“In a period of time in our nation’s history when we’re talking about jobs, look at what theft cost us,” Blackburn goes on, noting that Congress needs to get away from legislating the technology so it can focus on the creators and the end users.  Jobs, subsequently, are an important aspect of her argument.  Protecting digital content isn’t only a matter for the entertainment sector, “but look at what’s happening as you look at the theft of ideas in the manufacturing sector.  The healthcare informatics sector.  It gets into the consumer mainstream and the prospects for dealing with online privacy touches more Americans every single day.”

Talking of the viruses and data theft (identify theft) that takes place on a regular basis, it’s a massive undertaking to consider the whole of the internet, its many working parts, and its billions of end users.  McCurry goes on to ask Colorado Congressman Jared Pollis (D) if we’re still being met with skepticism around how to deal with this issues.  Pollis goes on to make an interesting analogy on how ineffective the Protect IP Act would be, likening this sort of regulation to ridding a neighborhood of a crack house.

“You can call the cops, arrest everyone inside and tear down the house, and it’s gone.  But this bill would be the equivalent of taking down all the signs in the neighborhood.  The house is still there.”

Pollis is speaking specifically to the bill’s proposed regulations of the domain system registry, which he says is something that’s above the laws of any particular country.  “It’s not the right mechanism…but just as piracy has a cost, a weakening of the internet with overarching regulation also has a cost.

“You take down DNS and you’re not doing anything to the site,”  Pollis goes on.  “Do we need better intelligence?  Absolutely.  The answer is not to look at our domain name system or one that would encourage sites with infringing content to be taken down.  The internet has been valuable culturally and economically.  Destroying that isn’t in the best interest of digital rights owners either.”

Steve Tepp, the Senior Director of Internet Piracy and Counterfeiting with the US Chamber of Commerce, brings the discussion back to US jobs.  “The internet is a fundamental aspect of our economy and if we’re going to double exports and get out of this funk, we need to address intellectual property theft,” he says.

“Those that are dedicated to copyright infringement–they’ve created rogue site after rogue site, and attracted 53 billion visits every year.  It’s a huge problem and we need to do something about it.  To the extent that rogue sites exist in the US, DCMA works well.  The reality is, most [rogue sites] exist outside the states.”

Tepp’s really talking about those large sites that are dedicated to counterfeit products, services, and even software.  And as it pertains to US legislation, he feels it’s a matter that affects our global economy, though it needs to be addressed despite what other countries’ positions are on the matter.  “There’s no reason why the US should have to continue to suffer and be ripped off by foreign thieves while we wait for other countries to get their act together,” Tepp goes on.  “We want to block rogue sites from being accessed in the US.”

How to address site-blocking is another segue to DNS regulation, with Larry Downes, author of The Laws of Disruption: Harnessing the New Forces that Govern Business and Life in the Digital Age, noting that the bill doesn’t sufficiently address DNS matters anyway.  In the current version, Downes notes, “there’s only one reference to DNS and it’s very vague.  It’s not entirely clear who’s being targeted in that provision.  It’s impossible to implement that in an engineering sense without greatly undermining the existing DNS system.”

Downes goes on to provide a projection of how regulation under the proposed bill would likely take place, with legislation passing it, and in turn pressuring the major search engines to do much of the enforcement.  That would essentially lead to two internets, with the big guys following the rules, leaving smaller engines to still find ways to drive traffic to rogue sites.  “That’s a principle concern in Silicon Valley,” Downes notes.  “The way search works is very denctralized and for a very good reason.”

It’s copyright attorney Chris Castle that delves into some of the grittier details about search engines’ involvement in the matter, saying it’s important to understand how the process works for rogue sites.  “Search engines make a lot of money with their ad structures.  We need to get past these issues and find a way to still address the problem.  Jobs could be saved if these laws were enforced.  We have to ask ourselves what the government is for.”

Many would say the government is there to enforce the laws that protect its citizens, and Castle says that “ultimately this about protecting those that can’t protect themselves.  Some say DMCA is working great.  Well it’s not.  There’s a cost to sending out DCMA notices, and one of the reasons we have this bill is because DCMA is not working.”

The panel finally turns to a representative of the music industry, songwriter Rick Carnes.  He’s witnessed first hand what the music industry has become in the past 13 years, calling out Napster as the onset of when his rights to his content began to diminish.  “I understand all these arguments and these are the same I’ve been hearing for the past 13 years,” Carnes laments.  “What I don’t hear is that they’ll balance my rights with someone else’s rights in a fair way…Copyright is always the balance of the rights of the creator and the rights of the consumer.  We’ve completely flipped the value chain.  Everyone else makes money off the content but me.”

Is it the culture we’ve created that’s the problem, with free music little more than an afterthought for teens that have grown up in the digital age?  Working together to find a solution to the problem is still the first goal towards returning a balance to the rights of content creators, as well as consumers.  With so many players, from the pirates to the music labels, being vilified in one way or another, there’s still a lot more that needs to be done before we reach that balance.