Web piracy battle is tough call; losing Wikipedia made big impact

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Updated: February 21, 2012 8:37AM

Wow. It’s hard to remember a single protest event touching as many lives as Wednesday’s cyberspace howl against legislation in Congress to stop online piracy of U.S. movies, TV, music and books.

No research could be done on the English language version of Wikipedia as it was blacked out for a time. Google placed a black placard over its own name. Other major websites had their own form of protest messages, often blacking out content. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party made a lot of noise with their demonstrations but they never got in the face of so many people as did the Wednesday show of solidarity against the anti-piracy legislation.

And it worked. From Twitter to Facebook, Americans registered objections, in the millions in online petitions, to what they see as a threat of censorship of the Internet. Legislation that once enjoyed broad bipartisan support suddenly saw lawmakers from across the spectrum shouting: Slow down.

The measure — actually two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA, in the Senate — is aimed at foreign sites that steal, and that’s the only word for it, the copyright-protected intellectual property of writers, movie and TV producers, and composers.

The Founders recognized the importance of protecting creativity by writing into the Constitution a provision “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Much of the piracy originates in Russia, China and other places that hold in contempt our protections of liberty.

On one side of this controversy are the stars of motion pictures, television and popular music — the 1 percent of the arts — and on the other side the captains of the burgeoning Web industry — the 1 percent of the Internet. The rest of us in the 99 percent have a big stake in the issue because we all enjoy the work of artists and profit from cyber-freedom.

I can’t think of a recent issue where I’ve been more conflicted. I’ve spent my life in the news business — at newspapers, a wire service and a newsmagazine. They are content providers and, before the Internet age, they were the big platforms for the dissemination of information and the arts.

Our business shot itself in the foot when it decided the Web was the tail on the dog and started giving away articles and images for free. Actually, the bullet landed closer to the heart when it became obvious we had a huge case of the tail wagging the dog. The public’s reaction was that if you can get news free, why pay for it?

The loss of revenue devastated newsroom staffs and even killed publications. Our public life is poorer as newspapers and broadcast stations have fewer resources to produce the news stories and investigations so vital to an informed public in a democracy.

Yet, I also understand the critical necessity of keeping government interference out of the Internet, how innocent websites could land in tub of trouble for, in someone’s view, inadequately policing the Internet for piracy.

Still, there’s no denying a serious problem exists. Mechanisms were found to stamp out domestic piracy, so there’s no reason Washington — better yet, the content providers and the Web industry — can’t find a compromise to protect artists and writers — and we the beneficiaries of their work — from offshore pirates while preserving Internet freedoms.