PIPA and SOPA: Bad for Business

by Jon on January 17, 2012

The United States Senate is about to debate PIPA (the Protect IP Act), which is a terribly-conceived law which would empower the US Attorney General to restrict access to “rogue” websites containing copyright infringements, create legal processes for the owners of IP to order search engines and advertising networks to stop supporting the websites in question, along with the hiring of new federal agents to investigate copyright violations.

United States Capitol Building

Flickr Image of Capitol Building by Kevin Burkett

Intellectual property ownership is the legal foundation that has made the modern technology and entertainment industries possible. If you create something novel, you ought to be able to reap the benefits of your invention. But public policy needs to be thought of holistically: the overall costs and benefits to everyone in society need to be considered. Reasonable, noncommercial use of copyrighted content needs to be protected. When it comes to commercial use (such as on a social network), the law shouldn’t be so onerous that it impairs innovation.

If organizations like the MPAA had its way, we probably wouldn’t have an Internet today. Fortunately, the Internet happened out of their view for too long–and then exploded too quickly–for them to do anything about it. Their history with other digital technology is informative: consider how they tried (and failed) to ban the use of VCRs to record your favorite shows for later watching (the Supreme Court ruled that noncommercial private recording was fair use). Or how they tried (and succeeded) at forcing special licensing fees on Digital Audio Tape (DAT) technology, which effectively killed it off.

It’s no wonder that companies like Google are opposed to PIPA, because it will force the creation of a complex corporate bureaucracy for processing copyright infringement claims that can be linked to technology for de-listing sites from their search engine, or restricting the placement of ads on offending sites. Along with the challenges of supporting and enforcing the system required by PIPA, it’s likely to spur an expensive technological-arms race; consider how hard it is for Google to stop search-engine spam. Certain copyright owners (such as those represented by the MPAA) would prefer that companies like Google incur the costs of policing and competing with pirates.

However, it isn’t just large companies like Google that are harmed. If the cost to Google is an inconvenience–the cost to startups is completely devastating. An entire startup website could be shutdown by the law simply because one copyright-holder decides to pursue the remedies allowed under PIPA. Bloggers and activists could be shut-up by powerful corporations, or by organizations such as the Church of Scientology which hasn’t been shy about silencing poorly-funded activists with legal challenges.

Entrepreneurs and investors will avoid markets where it appears that a large media company might have the power to shut you down, or where hackers could exploit the government’s technology to have the same effect. This is because small companies will lack the resources to content with the legal, technical and bureaucratic hassles that the law will create.

Years ago, the head of the MPAA compared the VCR to the Boston strangler, suggesting that the VCR would kill the film industry. Instead, it expanded it by creating new ways to sell movies, and opening up new markets for indie filmmakers. It seems that little has changed since this time: the backers of this legislation fear any form of innovation. If any strangling is happening, it’s by the backers of this bill and the still-nascent Internet industry.

PIPA will require a technological-industrial integration to police content, along with a centralized government authority that undermines the Internet domain name system (DNS). If Internet freedom, American innovation and fair use of copyrights are important to you, now is the time to let your senator know that PIPA is a horrible idea.

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Thank you for reading this article. Please follow me on Twitter to hear more from me on innovation, games and entrepreneurship. If you'd like to learn how games can transform your business, also check out my book, Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games.

The following is a three-minute excerpt from a presentation I gave the Gamification Summit in NYC. This segment highlights the four motivational categories: immersion, achievement, cooperation and competition–and talks about them in the context of how we’ve evolved to enjoy these experiences.

Elsewhere in my talk I covered:

  • How games are not Skinner Boxes (continuing my critique of behaviorism)
  • How humans evolved in the cognitive-social niche, and how games allow us to play and practice for survival in that niche
  • Cognitive, neuroscience, psychology and social research that help explain why games work
  • The four major categories of fun/motivation that exist in most games

The following is the presentation itself, although you’ll need to use some imagination to to know what I was talking about (hopefully I’ll get permission from Gamification Summit to include my full video on my website at some future point; when I agreed to give the talk, I expected to have access to a freely redistributable version–not a paywall–so hopefully that will be rectified soon).

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Thank you for reading this article. Please follow me on Twitter to hear more from me on innovation, games and entrepreneurship. If you'd like to learn how games can transform your business, also check out my book, Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games.

On the Origin of Stories (Boyd) Book Review

September 13, 2011

Ever since I wrote Game On, I’m frequently asked by people what other books they should read about game design and social media.  My advice has been consistent: yes, there are great titles out there.  Chris Brogan’s books on social media are fantastic, as are Jesse Schell’s book on the art of game design. However, [...]

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Gamification, Behaviorism and Bullshit

August 9, 2011

Ian Bogost’s essay “Gamification is Bullshit” has predictably raised the hackles of a wide range of people, most of who missed his point. Like Ian, I’ve pointed out that much of the “gamification” trend is driven by superficiality. As I wrote in the introduction to Game On:
…points are important. Badges can be helpful. Leaderboards are [...]

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Games and Stories

July 14, 2011

Here’s a neat “visual story” about Game On–it is sort of a visual “review” of the book, illustrating through sketches some of the book’s main concepts.  This was created by @damenleeturks, who speaks about how he made it on his blog.

A poster-sized PDF version can be downloaded here: http://d.pr/ez3x

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Games are the Largest Mobile Application Category

June 21, 2011

Flurry has just released a report on the usage of mobile applications versus Web browsing. The first conclusion is that mobile app usage now exceeds web browsing. What mobile apps were used the most? That’s right–games!
As usual, some people will gasp with surprise that games have become the largest category. People [...]

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Game On Review by Chris Brogan

June 4, 2011

Here is a great video review of Game On, by Chris Brogan. Chris is an expert on how to make your business more human (which is ultimately bigger than simply being “social!”). Chris really got what the book is about–which is to show you how the power and magic of games can be [...]

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Bitcoin Mining: The Free Lottery

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There is a shadow economy that is growing online: bitcoins, an anonymous peer-to-peer currency that was created by Satoshi Nakamoto (a presumed pseudonym; his/her actual identity is not known). Commercial digital currencies have been tried in the past (Facebook Credits being the largest recent example) but the thing that makes bitcoins different is that–like p2p [...]

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When did Microsoft lose its way?

June 1, 2011

Marketwatch just ran an interesting article that quoted Eric Schmidt on the current winners and losers in the technology market. Describing Google as one of a “gang of four” that also includes Apple, Amazon and Facebook, I believe he’s accurately captured the core companies that are the driving force behind consumer technology.
Why isn’t Microsoft in [...]

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Gamification Workshop

May 25, 2011

Interested in learning more about how games and gamification could lead to greater engagement between you and your customers?
I’m teaming up with Gabe Zichermann and the Gamification Company to offer a one-day workshop on June 16 for executives, marketers and product owners who would like to:

Learn about what makes things fun, and how to apply [...]

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