Wikipedia talk:SOPA initiative/Archive 1

Archive 1

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Trigger

I believe that we should act sooner. Currently, this proposing is advising us to wait until the bill passes through both Houses of Congress before acting. I believe that this is too risky. If the bill passes through both Houses, then Wikipedia's fate shall be left in the hand of a single individual. Let's send a strong message to Congress and its constituents first. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Better to be early than late. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 03:01, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative#Mark-Up_Update – Should we have a strike on January 17, 2012, December 21, 2011, when the Committee resumes its markup? The attempt to have the strike on December 16, 2011, shows that some favor having the strike during the markup discussions. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 22:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative&diff=466274242&oldid=466273795 – I agree with this anon's comment about December 21st. @Geoff: Would it be a good idea to have a strike just before or during the December 21st markup? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:22, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Applicability to Wikipedia

While Geoff doesn't quite come out and say this (he says parts of it, but it's rather buried in his text), it appears that this statute as presently proposed has no applicability to Wikipedia. We are not a foreign site, and we are not an internet search engine. We do not in response to a query list sites elsewhere on the internet; we list our own pages. We don't even have a google option. Accordingly, if we were to strike, we would be striking in sympathy with other sites, rather than because of a direct threat. That would be a bad idea, because then we have lowered the bar for action, which will take place whenever someone can pull in off the net sufficient support (say a verdict goes the wrong way in some criminal trial, or that death penalty is really bad isn't it, or let's go with that old chestnut, social justice).--Wehwalt (talk) 08:46, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I agree with you assessment of his analysis and per my original response on Jimbo's page would not support any PAClike action on our part if the law does not directly challenge our ability to function. (I'm still personally against the bill, but that's a different matter, I agree that wasting any capital we may have fighting a fight that isn't ours is a BAD idea). Crazynas ^t 11:49, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Geoff is a smart cookie. However, I read a legal document (or similar) in lawyer mode, so it was "Disregard-meaningless", until I came to the nuggets buried in the text. Near the bottom, but not quite there. Rather like the "Yes Minister" method of getting a document past the minister by placing it deep in his second-to-last red box ...--Wehwalt (talk) 11:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

• "We do not in response to a query list sites elsewhere on the internet" - Really? We don't show external links relevant to the query? We routinely have an External Links section, and we almost always present sources as links for verification purposes. un☯mi 15:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

That's not in response to the search query. Read the bill.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I am responding to what you said just above - if you wish to qualify your statement further then please feel free. un☯mi 16:25, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Very well: As Section 103 is inapplicable to WMF sites by Geoff's statements, only Section 102 is at issue. Suit lies against a non-US site, once the plaintiff has gotten a court order, then he can go to one of three places and serve them with a copy:

Internet search engine: "a service made available via the Internet whose primary function is gathering and reporting, in response to a user query, indexed information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet and does not include a service that retains a third party that is subject to service in the U.S. to gather, index or report information available elsewhere on the Internet." Although we may give a external link, that is not our primary function.:

Service Provider: Per Geoff, least burdensome, technically feasible and reasonable to prevent resolving to the foreign infringing site domain name’s IP address, taken as expeditiously as possible, rather than within 5 days. This does not sound unreasonable. We maintain a spam blacklist anyway, and we have internal search engines.

Internet advertising service: We aren't.

So this is inapplicable to Wikipedia.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:39, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

btw, I must've been re-reading "and does not include a service that retains a third party that is subject to service in the U.S." about 20 times over the past 24 hours. wtf does that mean? can some smart person enlighten me? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:03, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I read it to say, that if they have an agent in the US who can be served with legal papers, they are exempt.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

ooooooooo-aahsee. (hey, there's a job-opportunity! I'm gonna be a "third party that is subject to service in the U.S." for a couple of random websites :P) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi all. Glad to be known as a "smart cookie," and when I have more time I will try not to write too much like a lawyer.  :) I remember when my mother saw me as a human being and not a lawyer ... those days are long past.

Plain english interpretation (as much as I'm capable of): I don't believe Section 103 applies to us since U.S.-based companies were exempted in the last round of amendments. I do think that Section 102 could be construed as covering us. When I parse the words, there is an argument that the definition of internet search engine technically applies to us. (See footnote 3 of my blog which sets out the definition of "internet search engine.") If that is so, we are subject to court orders as an internet search engine that could require us to take down links to prohibited sites. (The second part of that definition referring to a "service that retains a third party ..." refers to sites that incorporate search functions on their sites that are furnished by U.S.-based third parties, I think; the language is not clear though, which is an overall problem with SOPA.) So, if section 102 applies to us as an internet search engine, as I believe it might as presently written, it is possible that we link in a Wikipedia article to non-infringing information on an international site but are forced to take down that link to the international site because of a rights owner's complaint resulting in a court order about infringing material found elsewhere on that international site. Of course, not only do we have to take down the link to the non-infringing material, but we need to fix the text in the article, and may be required to delete valid information from the article because we no longer have a reliable source. Hope this helps. Geoffbrigham (talk) 17:52, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Right — my first vague guess was that the "third party"-snippet is for people who incorporate a small google searchbox into their blog or whatever (but that guess was vague, and I got confused, and then I gave up I guess). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, thank you Geoff. Perhaps there is a term of art that I'm not quite getting (and I think I quoted the definition of Internet search engine). As I'm reading it, our primary function is not to send readers elsewhere on the Web, but rather to refer people, in response to a search, to one of our articles, or to a selection of possibilities (on our own site, though). I must be missing some essential point.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

@Wehwalt. This is not easy, so I understand your possible frustration about the statutory language. Section 102(15) defines "internet search engine." When parsed out to relevant parts, that definition states that the term "internet search engine" means "a service made available via the Internet whose primary function is gathering and reporting, in response to a user query, indexed information ... [available elsewhere on the Internet] ...." I note that the language in the brackets ("available elsewhere on the Internet") may or may not modify the term "indexed information"; it is left ambiguous. So, that said, rights owners will argue that Wikipedia has the primary function of gathering and reporting indexed information available on the Internet since we furnish a search function which takes you to indexed information (our Articles) which include links to information available on the Internet (all indexed to information in our Articles). The language is admittedly ambiguous, but it could be made to apply to us. Tighter language would be desirable, but, as I noted, the SOPA is hopelessly vague and broad. Geoffbrigham (talk) 21:39, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, thank you Geoff. Appreciate it. --Wehwalt (talk) 21:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think removing a link could ever imply having to remove content. The source can be cited even if an URL link cannot be published, the same way that we cite books instead of linking to pdf copies of them in library.nu, and the same way we cite journal papers that are only available to paying customers. The editors with legal access to those sources (book owners, libraries users, journal suscriptors, and non-US-based editors) will use them as they have always been. I don't think challenging a source "because I personally don't have access to it" would ever cross the mind of an editor.--Euyyn (talk) 22:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Uh, what if the source is online only? As I noted below we might link to an overseas website for news in its backyard that is available nowhere else, a site which might just routinely snarf a lot of photos, videos and text from news organizations in a developed country and not care because it's outside the U.S. to the point that it can be declared to be dedicated to theft of U.S. property under the law. Then the domain could be seized and links blocked to the point that the link would then fail verification. And unless we write an exemption into our own policy for any information removed that way, an exemption that there is no guarantee the community would support even in such a circumstance, the information cited to that info would have to be removed.

Sure, it might be reported in other sources we could trust that wouldn't have this problem, but this would IMO adversely impact Wikipedia's reputation for getting timely capsule coverage of news events as they break. Daniel Case (talk) 20:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

• Question to Geoff Brigham - There has been a lot of back and forth as to whether or not this bill would affect Wikipedia negatively. If I am reading you correctly, I believe you are saying it would impact us negatively. Could you give us a simple this would impact Wikipedia negatively or this would not impact Wikpedia negatively, so that the community can come here and have a clear understanding of your view of the situation? Thanks very much. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 03:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the sign is in dispute. I think the problem is estimating the magnitude. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm gathering it is a if the bill passes as presently phrased, and if the music companies gain an order against a foreign infringing site (not us) and get it in their heads to serve WMF with a copy of the order, and if the courts choose to interpret the statute in the way Geoff posits (something which is, I suppose, possible, but I'd sooner invest in the euro than place a bet that way), THEN we might have to remove links to the offending site. As Geoff points out, we could have to remove text sourced to the site, but in practice, we'd find another source. I do have some difficulty imagining a site which would both be subject to this law and also a WP:RS, however, my imagination is not that lively. Leaving that point entirely aside and turning to a completely unconnected point, I would imagine that WMF would be very reluctant to be seen as abandoning its internet "friends", even if we were no longer to be affected, although many community members have expressed support for a strike conditional on a clear and present danger to us. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Geoff for his patience in answering questions, and for his time spent here.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

@Hydroxonium. Yes, it would impact us negatively. But I agree with Seth and Wehwalt that it is a question of magnitude. If, for example, the federal prosecutor office exercises its lawful discretion and choses to seek orders under Section 102 only rarely, the impact will be smaller. If rights owners successfully push prosecutors throughout the country to seek court orders, the impact will be higher. (I do believe that the statutory definition of "internet search engine" probably does include Wikipedia.) The magnitude will depend also on the drafting of internal agency regulations on how to implement Section 102 and the resources devoted to this effort at the U.S. Department of Justice. Conceivably this program could get a high priority, and, in that case, multiple orders could conceivably be served on us for action. None of that is predictable at this time. And, of course, there are bigger issues than our own survival: it is always in Wikimedia's interest to defend the Internet and fight regimes that sacrifice non-infringing material for a legislative goal. Geoffbrigham (talk) 20:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I haven't read the revised bill, but the older version which Laurence Tribe wrote a letter regarding would clearly apply to wikipedia. We host and delete copyrighted content all the time and we host (without deleting) material which could tendentiously be termed "copyrighted" by a litigious organization. To pick a simple example, our articles on Major League Baseball in the united states contain detailed statistics information which the MLB is not allowed to assert copyright over (because it is "sweat of the brow" information). Nonetheless the MLB claims ownership of the stats. Under the current framework the MLB could request that wikipedia remove statistical information and we (that is, the foundation) could deny the request as baseless. Under SOPA, they could just ask paypal to stop processing donations. The MLB might not do that, but what about the FBI? We didn't comply with that order because it was laughably false but a payment processor or domain name server just might (especially if they have immunity from WP but could face penalties for not complying with the request). I don't think we need to go too far to find examples under the current regime where rightsholders made fraudulent or erroneous claims. The important question here is not "is wikipedia a site like Mega-upload or The Pirate Bay?" but "could SOPA easily be misused to damage or threaten wikipedia and similar sites?" Normally we wouldn't be too concerned about the misuse of law because there are redresses and in many cases the potential damage is limited. But the structure of SOPA totally inverts this. Even patently false requests to payment sites and DNS services will be accepted and we would have almost no power to stop them or even predict them. Protonk (talk) 20:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

While lawyers can always try their wiles, I personally think of Wikipedia very much as a search engine. To me, the main point of a Wikipedia search is to find an article about what you want, find the best inline reference, and go to it, so that you have something you can cite reputably. We definitely have a search box. And let's not kid ourselves - have you ever heard of prosecutors and/or litigants, especially in a censorship type case, going out of their way to narrow the definition given in law? Don't give in to wishful thinking - Wikipedia is absolutely a search engine and it will be served with orders to suppress external links unless a constitutional challenge stops it. The question in my mind is how far will the censorship go - if http://www.doom9.org/ is censored by court order, will "www.doom9.org" in text be subject to it? Doom9.org? Even "the Doom9 organization", because a person can pretty well guess to try doom9.org? How about the article name Doom9? And how stringently is this to be enforced - is it enough for administrators to look in and revdel things once every six hours, or does the occasional offshore account adding links between checks make Wikipedia liable? Does the article have to be semi-protected/full protected forever? Or any article where someone might mention it, like AACS key? How about talk pages? Or pages like this where people discuss it? I foresee nothing but a tidal wave of abuse by private actors accountable to no one, with no intent but to harass. Please tell me I'm wrong. Wnt (talk) 14:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's something to be said about Wikipedia and expansive interpretations of law, since again, I'll note that I believe by any rational standard it's a publisher, but it claims to be a mere "service provider" to get immunity from libel, defamation, etc. And I really don't want to be in the role of writing the anti-SOPA-action FAQ and arguing that position. It makes me very uncomfortable, and I'm not socially well-situated to do that advocacy. However, that all being said, your (good faith) questions are indicators to me of how people are being manipulated into lobbying for Google. If Wikipedia is a "search engine", then any newspaper or topical site is similarly a "search engine", which strikes me as unreasonable. The questions you raise about extent have been going on for many years, back to the cryptography debates and software-as-speech. I remember sitting in a cryptography discussion more than twenty years ago, hearing about how the National Security Agency wanted to suppress mathematics and maybe academics were going to need to have their mathematical papers pre-cleared. There are many court cases and commentary you could read. Several years ago, when it seemed like I could make a policy contribution, I wrote an academic paper myself that took up some of these issues. But the widespread comments I see, implying that just for this, Wikipedia must climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man (not the same as opposition) is what's setting my Google-sense tingling. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Other language wikipedias?

The text under Wikipedia:SOPA initiative#Action By the Wikipedia Community is somewhat unclear, as regards other projects than the English Wikipedia. Jimbo earlier expressed the opinion that each WP language community would have to decide for itself, if I understood him correctly; see User talk:Jimbo Wales#Blanking all Wikipedias?. However, it is possible to read the suggested alternative

Full Database lock

Lock the entire database to reading and editing for some period of time.

as applying to all wikimedia projects, in all languages. I think this needs to be clarified: Either only en-WP is intended (which should be written explicitly), or blanking all projects is considered as an alternative (and should be explicitly noted as such). Right now, we on the Swedish Wikipedia do not quite understand whether we should continue discussing what actions we could and should take, or whether we just should wait and see if sv-WP gets blanked with all the rest anyhow.

Thanks in advance, JoergenB (talk) 20:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Joergen: When I added that section it was a one sentence summation of the Italian solution as intended to apply to en.wikipedia. I feel, and I'm sure many would agree, that this language edition has no business effecting the other projects and any such coordinated discussion necessarily would take place on meta. I have updated accordingly. Crazynas ^t 11:13, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The Swedish Wikipedia and others are free to consider and implement blackouts on their own once they develop the consensus for it. A Swedish Wikipedia blackout probably should occur during the same time as the English Wikipedia blackout, so once you obtain consensus, you should return to this page, so we may coordinate the strike together. Nevertheless, I don't believe that the US Congress will care for what Wikipedia's in languages other than English do. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I also think that what we do on Swedish Wikipedia will not affect the outcome. I think, though, that it is important that we show our support in some way. At present there is no consensus about whether or how we should act. What other languages do should be coordinated in some way, so yes, it should be discussed on meta, in addition to the individual projects. --LPfi (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications - here and on the project page! JoergenB (talk) 16:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Meta Page laying out pros and cons of on-wiki protesting

This page that lays out some pros and cons for various forms of protests, created following the Italian shutdown, might be useful for this conversation. Sue Gardner (talk) 20:33, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

What are we trying to accomplish?

To keep this brief:

What is our goal?

There are two answers to this:

1. To maintain a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
2. To stop the passage of the SOPA bill.

The latter would impede the former, or at least have great potential to do so. The former does not imply any political goal. But Wikipedia has always stood for freedom.

The US Congress is not going to vote against SOPA just because Wikipedia is protesting. The goal in protesting should be to raise awareness. The way to stop SOPA is to convince elected officials to vote against it. Usually people email, write letters, or call their elected officials to protest against a bill.

Locking down Wikipedia does not advance our first goal of a free encyclopedia. Nor does it stop the passage of SOPA.

Annoying our readers is not going to help. If Wikipedia were shut down, significant disruption to the Internet would occur. As one of the top ten most visited websites, we have a responsibility to continue to provide our services in the interest of our reader base. We just need to take advantage of our huge reader base to protest to Congress. Blanking Wikipedia is not necessary to achieve this.

Protesting doesn't always mean locking something down to send a message. We don't need to inconvenience millions of people to make a point. Instead, we should ask these millions to simply contact their elected officials and argue against the bill.

If Wikipedia is locked to protest SOPA, I won't be returning to a project that betrays its own goals. I have much better ways to protest SOPA, some of which I am already pursuing.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It find it unlikely that a large number of readers are going to be moved to contact their local congressional representatives over an annoying fundraiser-like site banner that could be closed and ignored with a click of a mouse. With all due respect, this is not the right way to motivate our readers to take action. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 22:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Is disservicing them the right way, then? If a reader doesn't want to take action after reading a banner, then how much more likely are they to call their congressperson if Wikipedia is locked down? Calling my local senator or representative wouldn't unblank Wikipedia for me. There's still little incentive for the casual reader to take action if Wikipedia is blanked, and we're just driving them away. If information has the opportunity to be free, let's keep it free for now. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe it's in the best interest of the community to take action, but would only endorse it if there is consensus to do so. I think the goal of (whatever) action would be to raise awareness and educate, then allow the public to make up their own mind on what position to take on the issue. I'm focusing on the big picture rather than specifics as too much time can be lost getting in to specifics. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 03:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Education and awareness certainly does not require a database lock, so we should pursue more reasonable and less pointy options. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 05:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

To raise awareness we probably need the papers to write about it. A banner might result in a note about Wikipedia joining the protests, a lockdown of the database is something few papers could avoid writing about and few people avoid noticing. The question is whether something less is enough.

And about whether this is something for us to fight: if we, as Geoffbrigham writes above, have to remove facts from articles because the source in looked badly upon by US administration or somebody with IP interests, then I wonder whether keeping NPOV is possible anymore (in certain areas). We should at least be able to keep the facts and identifying information for the web page (a {{ref censored}} with a e-mail-on-request feature as in the good ol' days?).

--LPfi (talk) 08:52, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

We could do that indeed, although I suspect in practice we would simply replace the ref with one from a non-infringing site. Really, I suspect all that needs to be done is for WMF to notify the projects of any site found by a United States District Court to have infringed, and add it to the spam blacklist on meta. The community would take care of the rest. In practice, I think there will be little to do. So if you want to strike, you can choose one of two options: strike against minor and rare inconvenience to WMF staff and editors who choose to do the work, or strike for the benefit of someone else. I would also note that the case has yet to be established that there are goals of such a strike, and that there is a reasonable chance of accomplishing those goals through a strike.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:30, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

LPfi, the media reports on fundraising and we don't need to lock the database for that. Banners are plenty, given that they'll be seen by some 400 million people each day. And I don't mind if Wikipedia has to shut down due to SOPA's passage. But until that happens, we have a responsibility to educate readers, both about SOPA and about every other topic that is included in Wikipedia. Blanking the site now is not helpful by any means. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it's better to have Wikipedia blanked for a day than for good. We seem to be focusing here on everything but the biggest threat from SOPA-weakening of the DMCA safe harbor provision and a possible requirement for active pre-moderation for user generated content sites. That's a direct and existential threat to Wikipedia. Also, it seems the discussion is rather starting from a hijack and inappropriate "round 2". It's already been decided to strike, and that was overwhelmingly evident from the RfC. Now we need to get all the RfC participants together to decide what form that will take—not to try and relitigate if it will or will not happen, that question's already settled. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Not at all, that was a straw poll. The only RfC started was defeated.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

No it wasn't, it was closed for being too short (a decision with which, incidentally, I agree), and most opposition was on that basis, not opposition to the principle of the thing. We certainly need more time to discuss what to do, but unlike most issues here, we do not have an unlimited amount of time to decide what to do—There is no deadline does not apply, there is one. At a widely publicized, high-participation (straw poll, RfC, don't care what you call it), a clear and unambiguous consensus emerged that action was necessary. What form that will take is fine to discuss, and indeed must be discussed. But what I don't want to see happen is stalling until action becomes moot. If we really must, I suppose we could hold a "formal" RfC on "We should take action/we shouldn't take action", but I think the straw poll had wide enough participation and notification to be a very clear "yes" on that already. Now, what is it we should do? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, there is plenty of time to hold an RfC. The straw poll had a number of issues; it was not publicized across the site. Ironically, it was well publicized outside the site, leading to a flood of IPs, however not all editors read the news every day. Until the IPs started, there was no consensus; people with IP addresses voted overwhelmingly in favor. Many of the non-IP supports, in any case, were conditioned on there being shown an existential threat to Wikipedia. If you do not have a process that allows wide participation, you will not have wide buy in, and there will be a lot of lasting ill feelings.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is, and we're in agreement that we should. I don't know how much more "widely publicized" you get than a note on AN and wherever else it got posted, not to mention getting covered in actual news organizations. And here, as stated on Jimbo's talk page, those are not web forum canvassed arguments in an AfD, those are readers who are reacting to the news media coverage. This decision would have a major impact on our readers (as would this legislation), so you betcha their opinion counts on that one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

If you think having Wikipedia blanked for a day will help changing the mind of the US Representatives advocating SOPA, then I should think you would agree that having Wikipedia blanked for good (due to SOPA) would definitely change the mind of Congress, and the law would be changed to fix that. I definitely believe both things to be true, and that's a reason against the blackout, not for it.--Euyyn (talk) 21:48, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I have two basic replies to this. The first is strong, but difficult to prove and very much probalistic. The second is limp but a little more believable.

• SOPA represents an existential threat to wikimedia projects. Advocacy against SOPA is still advocacy, but it is self defense. Obviouslt there is a lot of room for argument here, but I believe it.
• Wikipedia (and Wikimedia in general) does all sorts of things which aren't writing an encyclopedia. We advocate for open content both by example and by our willingness to link or integrate certain types of content over others. The WMF advocates for open access and open source at its very core by open sourcing mediawiki (and other tools) and releasing user content to the public. Arguably there are functional reasons for open sourcing content (mainly it cuts the gordian knot of redistribution and editing), but it would be a factual error to claim that functional motivations drove the bus at the start of the project.

I don't think these will convince you. But the points are out there. Protonk (talk) 21:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm very much in favour of the WMF and Jimbo advocating for SOPA not to pass. Making Wikipedia, the encyclopedia, have an official opinion on it is a very bad idea to me. Now let me bear with you on the first point (I'm not sure about it; as you say, it's probabilistic): Let's assume SOPA is indeed an existencial threat to Wikipedia. If a Wikipedia blackout is able to prevent SOPA from passing (and I believe that's the case), then the future case of Wikipedia shutting down due to the effects of SOPA will be able to revert the law. Or at least make Congress change it so that Wikipedia can be on again.--Euyyn (talk) 22:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The best argument for why Wikipedia would black out the main page is to remind readers that SOPA threatens legitimate, useful sites like Wikipedia and Reddit--not just sites like the Pirate Bay or streaming sites for movies (which arguably don't have a strong copyright policy already and are the intended targets of SOPA). The fear is that we will pass, somnolescent into a word where SOPA is good law because we feel it won't apply to resources which mark the central elements of the internet. And once it is passed repeal, judicial review or amendment could take years and we can't undo the damage and chilling effect from the law even through repeal. Protonk (talk) 22:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not think Wikipedia will shut down if the law passes. WMF will continue the best it can and so will a large part of the editing community. There will not be a blackout, but a Wikipedia that is severely compromised. That will probably not make the needed headlines and awareness. And shutting down instead of trying to do the best out of the situation will more or less mean shutting down for good: the editor community will have disappeared before the law is amended. Hopefully the project will find a new host abroad and continue there instead. --LPfi (talk) 15:09, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If we move overseas, and use that to circumvent the censorship of SOPA, I imagine that might put us at risk of some of the scarier bits, such as having our own servers blocked. I don't think anyone is thinking we should shut down permanently. I would agree with others who suggest a short less-than-a-week blackout. capitocapito - Talk 16:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Summarizing office hour on SOPA

A not so short summary (I also left out the jokes) of the 2011-12-15 IRC office hour on SOPA with Sue Gardner and Geoff Brigham:

TIMELINE?

[18:55:58] <aude> mindspillage: geoffreybrigham: i know today's vote is important, but what (and when) is the next step?
[18:57:16] <geoffreybrigham> aude ... guessing now ... but probably the next big step is Senate committee hearings (next year) or a House vote (next year). We are assessing after today's hearing

OLD/NEW SOPA VERSION?

[18:47:20] <geoffreybrigham> In the old version, rights owners could harass us by calling us an infringing site. they could serve notice on our payment processors for fundraising to stop revenues. we would respond, take them to court, but it would consume time and resources. and we would have to do it every time a rights owner came after us. In the new version .... U.S. based companies were exempted ... including us. so it was an improvement. that said, our international friends are still subject to such potential harassment.

[18:49:12] <RoanKattouw> geoffreybrigham: To clarify, do the amendments mean that we would not be exposed to nasty or new avenues of harrassment?
[18:49:30] <RoanKattouw> (I know that's a selfish POV and international sites are still screwed -- but focusing on the impact on us now)
[18:49:51] <geoffreybrigham> rights owners from abroad can seek action under SOPA @RoanKattouw. Under Section 103, yes. But under Section 102, we can still be obliged to take down so-called "foreign infringing sites"
[18:51:03] <RoanKattouw> Oh, we'd have to remove links to foreign sites?
[18:51:06] <apergos> do we get handed a list of those (so'called infringing sites) or how does that work anyways?
[18:51:19] <geoffreybrigham> Right RoanKattouw ... and here is the catch. we could be linking to non-infringing material. But we could still be forced to take down the link because a rights owner had complaints about other infringing material on the site or i should say "claimed" infringing material. the solution of SOPA is to take down the whole site ... not address more surgically the infringing material.

WEBLINKS/anti-circumvention provisions?

[18:39:47] <gmaxwell> geoffreybrigham: I was surprised to not see the anti-circumvention provisions get more attention in your analyis. En Wikipedia has hunreds (if not thousands?) of citations to wikileaks documents. If WLs got SOPAed, we'd surely fix the URLs to new IPs/domains thereby perhaps making us afoul of the anti-circumvention.
[18:40:31] <geoffreybrigham> I did link to articles that addressed the anti-circumvention provision, namely the EFF piece. it was one of my bullet points that talked about human rights groups. But you are right it deserves empahsis.

[18:59:53] <apergos> can we have an article about The Pirate Bay? can we include a link to it (as we would for any notable site)?
[19:01:05] <geoffreybrigham> So under SOPA, probably not. Exactly my point. We can link to Pirate Bay today as long as the link is not to infringing material. But SOPA targets Pirate Bay. If we get a court order, we have to take down that totally legitimate link.

SOPA ENFORCEMENT?

[18:52:37] <apergos> do we get notified about every claim via court order? is there some master list? how does any of it work?
[18:53:22] <Philippe> apergos: Enforcement is still undetermined at this point, I understand, because the bill isn't through with markup.
[18:53:48] <sgardner> apergos: Part of the problem is that nobody knows how it would work. It'd be a new law, and it would need to be interpreted and fought over and so forth. A major concern for me is that the Wikimedia Foundation is tiny: we do not have an army of lawyers and administrators to handle something like SOPA, the way richer for-profit sites do.
[18:53:56] <geoffreybrigham> So we would be served from a court order. multiple right owners in multiple districts in the U.s. would seek to get orders
[18:54:45] <Nemo_bis> oh, court order; so it's still some orders of magnitude better than the DDL Intercettazioni
[18:55:40] <geoffreybrigham> Yeah ... Nemo_bis ... there is this whole other part of SOPA that could technically "break" the Internet.
[18:55:41] <apergos> have people been digging up all the bizarre things people have done with dmca claims to point out just how the new law will certainly be abused?
[18:55:54] <geoffreybrigham> I linked to some articles on that, and I think we will be posting other articles.

MOVING TO ICELAND?

[18:41:00] <Sargoth> is there a "plan b" for the foundation, for instance to move to canada, if wikipedia is shut down under sopa?
[18:41:50] <sgardner> Hi Sargoth. Unfortunately, the conditions that allow Wikipedia to operate really don't exist outside the United States. Canada has for example hate speech laws that would probably constrain us.
[18:41:51] <Theo10011> sgardner, the law in its current incarnation is still a US legislation.
[18:42:54] <RoanKattouw> Theo10011: Yup, but .com, .org and .net are all under US jurisdiction
[18:43:10] <Seddon> Sargoth: In all likelihood the WMF would have to move to places like Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland etc.
[18:43:27] <StevenW> Seriously though, even if we moved, SOPA would still maybe kill the free Web.
[18:43:50] <Theo10011> Let's just move to Iceland. :P
[18:43:51] <sgardner> Yeah. But I think it's important for people to understand that the reason this issue matters is because our servers are in the United States. So it's not US-centric to care about this bill. This bill would affect all the projects, all the language versions.
[18:43:52] <geoffreybrigham> Ironically, we would become a foreign site
[18:43:56] <RoanKattouw> Right. And be even more screwed under SOPA
[18:44:15] <gmaxwell> FWIW, absent SOPA US laws are very well suited to what we do, perhaps uniquely well suited, and we have a lot of powerful allies in the US. Those are not easy alternatives.
[18:44:16] <geoffreybrigham> People could harass us under both Section 102 and 103.
[18:44:48] <Theo10011> Is it legally smart to have operational redundancies in 2 or more countries?
[18:45:17] <sgardner> Theo, do you mean: would it be good to have operations in two or more countries?
[18:45:23] <sgardner> Not really: it creates more exposure for us, not less.
[18:45:35] <Theo10011> sgardner, or only servers?
[18:45:41] <geoffreybrigham> Right ... U.S. law is extremely positive on free expression and liability protection against hosting companies.
[18:45:46] <sgardner> Same thing -- more exposure.
[18:46:13] <geoffreybrigham> Right ... we would have to subject ourselves to different legal regimes.

WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? WIKIPEDIANS? WMF?

[18:58:30] <sgardner> So, there was some kind of proposal to do a shutdown last night, right? But I think it was felt that there wasn't time to have a proper discussion. I am assuming that given consensus wasn't achieved in time to do something today, to synch up with the mark-up, that people will start talking about i) what is the right form of protest to stage and ii) when is the right time to stage it. So I am wondering -- is there anything we can tell you here, or find out for you outside of this chat, that would help people make informed decisions? (I am assuming you're wanting to form a position, influence the discussions when they happen on-wiki, etc.)
** Transcriber's note: The propose that sgardner is referring to may be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29&oldid=465937488#Turn_Wikipedia_off_RfC **
[19:03:54] <bodnotbod> @sgardner The only thing I can think of as helpful to me at the moment is that we have a solid place we can stay updated (because as Geoff says, this is a moving target). I will monitor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative unless informed there's a better place to stay in touch with all this.
[19:05:32] <sgardner> Bodnotbod: yeah. I think the Wikimedia Foundation can use that page as a place to put information for people. I am assuming it won't be the place where community discussion happens -- because there is no RfC there. But we will use it to put updates, whatever information we get about other sites' plans, and so forth. Pete: I don't think the Board has plans to do anything. I think it's up to the community how to handle this. If the community wants something from the Wikimedia Foundation, it should just ask.
[19:06:34] <peteforsyth> There are cases where carefully timed action is very hard to accomplish by broad consensus
[19:06:40] <sgardner> Yeah, but I don't think people should wait for the Board. I think they should make their own decisions through normal community process. I hear you though, on slowness.

[19:08:23] <sgardner> I want to talk for one minute about Wikimedia Foundation support for any action. I was kicking around some ideas yesterday with Zack, Jay, Geoff and Kat, about what might happen here. And what kind of support the community might need or want. So as you know, Zack used to work for MoveOn.org, so he has lots of experience with this kind of thing. He is on holiday. But he said that if people are discussing an action somewhere, he would be happy to join in, and advise from the perspective of someone who used to do that kind of thing for a living. Not steering or deciding anything, but just advising. Also, the Wikimedia Foundation has a fundraising infrastructure. Those folks are working crazy hours right now on the fundraising. But if the community wanted help with banner design or text, or anything like that, I am sure we would be able to free up some resources for that. And there are also lots of volunteers who've been involved with the fundraising, and presumably some of them might also be willing to help. I am saying this because I want people to know that the Wikimedia Foundation is willing to give counsel, advice, support of various kinds, if we are asked for it. Taht's all :-)
[19:12:27] <bodnotbod> @sgardner I'm certainly in favour of Foundation staff being fully involved in the community discussion. I feel a presence is needed that is familiar with non-profit law and to let community know of implications of certain decisions they may be leaning towards.
[19:13:37] <sgardner> Yeah, Bodnotbod, and we are happy to participate there. I do really want people to understand that we are in a support tole, not leading anything. I think that if community members feel like the Wikimedia Foundation is trying to control what happens, that could cause backlash and upset. We really do just want to support you.
[19:13:39] <kim__> sgardner, do you have contacts with google, MS, internet archive, reddit, other tech organizations (commercial or non?) ... for the purposes of organizing this protest?
[19:14:08] <sgardner> Kim, yes. We're talking to all those folks on a daily basis, and we'll post what we're hearing about their plans (to the extent they're comfortable with it) on the SOPA page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative

You can read the whole conversation here, I selected and rearranged the most important points IMHO. --Atlasowa (talk) 15:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the key was [18:47:20] <geoffreybrigham> In the old version, rights owners could harass us by calling us an infringing site. they could serve notice on our payment processors for fundraising to stop revenues. we would respond, take them to court, but it would consume time and resources. and we would have to do it every time a rights owner came after us. In the new version .... U.S. based companies were exempted ... including us. so it was an improvement. that said, our international friends are still subject to such potential harassment.

JMO.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Here's what I find most critical: "<geoffreybrigham> Right RoanKattouw ... and here is the catch. we could be linking to non-infringing material. But we could still be forced to take down the link because a rights owner had complaints about other infringing material on the site or i should say "claimed" infringing material. the solution of SOPA is to take down the whole site ... not address more surgically the infringing material." That's still forced censorship of non-infringing material, and that is not at all acceptable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Tremendous task??

"Wikimedia would be tasked to review millions upon millions of sourced links, locate the links of the so-called “foreign infringing sites,” and block them from our articles or other projects. It costs donors’ money and staff resources to undertake such a tremendous task."

So the harm the new version of SOPA can inflict on Wikipedia is that we will have a new bot cleaning links? That's tremendous.--Euyyn (talk) 22:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A bot won't be able to discern what chunks of text will have to be taken out (the law applies not only to external links, but any links, including references). Unless you'd like to see a bot that replaces the footnote number with ^{[ref removed/SOPA compliance]}... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 22:28, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It's impossible to think that SOPA would require a non-linked reference to The Pirate Bay, such as the one I've just written, to be removed. euyyn (talk) 07:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I am having trouble imagining this comment as anything but deliberately obtuse. The tremendous task is that wikipedia would have to patrol content and links for any potential complaints and should they miss a single link or piece of content, the spigot for funding would be shut off. The fact that wikipedia already has active bots and editors monitoring links and articles for copyrighted material (which matters under current law) would be immaterial under SOPA. There is not judicial review of takedown notices and the law explicitly disallows active copyright monitoring as an exemption to the cutoff requests. I don't see how people keep misunderstanding this issue. Protonk (talk) 22:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the justification for "should they miss a single link or piece of content". I suspect you're mixing up compliance with a court order, and what would get a court order against a site in the first place. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A few things. First, SOPA allows plaintiffs to invoke consequences (DNS rerouting, search engine delisting and payment processing interruption) without ever seeing a court. Second, read pages 12 and 13 of this letter from Laurence Tribe stating that yes, SOPA explicitly allows takedown notices to be sent against sites which "take actions to “avoid confirming a high probability of … use” for infringement." Protonk (talk) 23:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Imperfect compliance with a court order isn't "avoid confirming". While textually that provision is indeed problematic overall, it's also historically clear it's aimed at notorious dubious nudge-nudge-wink-wink behavior, not mistakes. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:01, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

given the history of DMCA requests in the united states (a process which nominally contains serious penalties for fraudulent requests) I can't bring myself to believe that content companies (or any company who sees offending material) will limit their actions to sites which make only a perfunctory effort at removing copyrighted material. Further, the whole process of takedown happens between third parties and those third parties are immunized from suits by Wikipedia (or any other target), offering severely one sided incentives for compliance. what I mean to say is I understand who the bill is intended for (and even that intent is unpleasant) but it could easily be applied to more innocuous sites like wikipedia even if we spend time and effort tracking down and eliminating copyright problems. Protonk (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the assertion that harassment by malicious content owners is a legitimate risk to Wikipedia, and the history with DMCA shows that even penalties for malicious attacks are no deterrent.

However, a broader point is that forcing Wikipedia to remove links to sites that are allegedly pirate-friendly is inherently damaging to Wikipedia, because it removes references. For example, if the most comprehensive biography of Rufus T Firefly was published in Fredonia Magazine, and the magazine happens to occasionally serve advertisements for pirated DVDs of Duck Soup, Wikipedia would be required to break that link, which could introduce a bunch of {{Citation needed}} tags to the article. Even if Wikipedia is not required to break such links, if the sites go dark due to a US blacklist, a permanent {{Dead link}} tag degrades the quality of an article's references.

As far as I'm aware, no bot can find alternative citations for links broken by SOPA complaints; fixing them would be a serious burden on Wikipedia volunteers. I know how hard it can be to replace links that are broken when sources disappear from the net. That is a real threat to Wikipedia. —Steve98052 (talk) 03:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It *doesn't* remove references. There are many citations in the encyclopedia that aren't links (e.g. book sections), and there are many citations that are links that cannot be accessed by everybody (e.g. non-free journal articles). Nobody requests further citations on them based on the fact they don't have personal access to those resources. And they work great. Same would happen with citations (not links) to web pages that Americans couldn't legally see. euyyn (talk) 07:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

So are you saying you'd want the bot to place <nowiki></nowiki> around every illegal external link? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

More importantly—are you saying the fact there's a possibility we can comply with a censorship law (and at this point, I don't see an after-the-fact bot being enough) as reason not to oppose it? We could have a bot remove every sentence that contains "Tiananmen Square", too, but that doesn't mean we should accept such laws. That being said, I don't think your suggestion works anyway. In order to cease hosting the links, we would at least have to have an admin revdelete every history revision that contained the link—otherwise, we're still hosting the link, right there a few revisions back. But even at that, the "infringing" link is visible to over a thousand admins. To truly "cease hosting" the link, we'd have to have every revision containing the link either oversighted or hard-deleted from our database. That's a tremendous amount of work, it is not something that can or should be done by a bot, and in fact can be done only by a few people (oversighters or developers). That's quite aside from the fact that it would wreck and make utterly useless the history of the articles in question, and possibly cause other article improvements to lose the required attribution under CC-BY-SA. Then those are copyright violations, and if any ex-user troll wanted to come after us for that...starting to see the scope of the problem here now? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Having the reader cut and paste the link instead of clicking will hardly satisfy the courts. Perhaps domain, title and citation could be retained, enough for somebody with a non-crippled search engine to find the site. If we get the needed infrastructure somewhere outside USA we might e-mail web pages on demand, for verification purposes. Cumbersome but possible. But we might need an archive.org outside USA also, as the domain may be shot down by its ISP. Without a possibility to check a source, contested facts can hardly stay. --LPfi (talk) 15:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

You might be interested in the footnote 7 I wrote years ago in Action Park. Originally it linked to the actual video at YouTube that played the ad discussed in the text. After it was removed since it had not been posted by an authorized party, thus making it technically a DMCA violation, I changed it to the current text. No one has changed it since. Daniel Case (talk) 20:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) It's important to distinguish between the "moral" and the "economic" argument. The economic argument, that reasonable compliance would be too costly, seems to be based on raising the idea of compliance to absurd heights and so then concluding it's impossible. If Wikipedia merely treats the take-down sites as spam sites, that's arguably going to be sufficient - assuming Wikipedia is subjected to these take-down orders as a "Search Engine" at all, another level entirely. For the moral argument applied to Wikipedia, I would be much more sympathetic to the supposed horrors of breaking links if there was not such an extensive history of Wikipedians advocating doing exactly that - for offenses against Wikipedians (those matter, of course). Now, I am very much against SOPA - but many of the claims in favor of extensive Wikipedia protest based on Wikipedia impact itself, do not appear to me to be well-grounded. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Concur. I've seen very little to convince me that this applies to Wikipedia, that even if it did any action would be required of us, and if it was, that it would be burdensome. We have very few links to torrent farms. In the event a link has to be removed in a reference (as opposed to an EL), we will deal with it then. I rather doubt that the content is irreplaceable. Very few foreign sites that exist to illicitly provide copyrighted content also are quality RS. If it does not affect us, we do no wrong by offering simply moral support; let Google's 15 lobbying firms they've hired carry the load. And don't give me that crepe about if there's one offending link, so dieth Wikipedia. --Wehwalt (talk) 21:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I think you are both making an incredibly charitable and narrow reading of the bill, treating targets as akin to those the DHS domain seizure process commonly handles. Every mechanism in this bill pushes away from caution and toward expansive and vague categories for targets. Protonk (talk) 02:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Protonk, I understand where you're coming from. I've "been there", trying to alert people to problems, and told it won't happen. I'm inclined to look for potential abuses, and many times I've seen laws expand their reach dramatically. In fact, arguably, Wikipedia owes its very existence to an expansive reading of ISP immunity that is far, far, in excess of what the original lawmakers intended (talk about irony). But - one needs some sort of assessment algorithm to keep from going off the deep end. We're not all about to be subjected to assassination orders as potential terrorists for criticizing the government. When, for Wikipedia, the best that counsel can come up is that it might have to comply with court orders to remove links (which, by the way, are not unprecedented), that's just not an existential threat. This is not to dismiss all the bad aspects of SOPA which I do think are threatening in general, particularly the anti-circumvention aspects. But Wikipedia simply isn't being killed here. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think a diligent application of the law would hazard wikipedia in the slightest, either in terms of links to content or content hosted on our servers. But the real trouble with SOPA lies with the fact that the entire chain of request and takedowns doesn't need to stem from a diligent application. In fact the structure of the law militates against such an application. You keep mentioning court orders and so forth but one foundational problem with SOPA is that courts don't even enter into the equation until well after the fact. A company could be upset with their treatment in an article and request action from DNS services and payment processors without seeing a court at all. If there was some review at all prior to action I would agree with you completely. In most cases we may rely on the kindness of strangers to not act on blatantly vacuous requests but again the incentives embedded in SOPA work against us. They may bring sense into the discussion but they face 0 liability for complying with an obviously false (or even fraudulent) request and they may face action if they refuse to act upon a valid request. Under that framework they have every incentive to agree to requests without question. And they are our only before the fact protection. Protonk (talk) 00:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I mention court orders because there in fact have been court orders involving imposing liability for links. It's already a contentious area of the law, and has been for many years. Regarding frivolous charges, I agree with you that they are bad in general, but also again at some point you need to calculate reasonable risk - consider "civil forfeiture" - Oh no, some government official who didn't like what Wikipedia said about them could possibly (by alleging obscenity violations) seize all of Wikipedia's servers! Also, some of this has been addressed in recent changes, so the situation is evolving. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that in the past similar "the sky is falling" claims have been made and those have been shown to have been without merit. What I feel is different about SOPA is that the law allows no remedy save cutting off DNS, search engine queries and funding at the source. If a third party sees content they object to they may (all by themselves and with no review from a court or rebuttal from WMF) indicate to google, paypal, etc. that Wikipedia is a site dedicated to infringing on intellectual property. Such an accusation can be laughable on its face and would be laughed out of court but would still raise the possibility of a service interruption. Some providers may automate SOPA requests as they have already automated DMCA requests (though arguably the volume will be much lower). Imagine that the dispute over rorschach images had occurred while SOPA was the law of the land. The International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods felt that Rorschach images were their intellectual propert despite their having lapsed into the public domain. Under current law they could have issued a DMCA takedown request which would have been denied (by the WMF). If they were persistent they could have sued wikipedia, but such a suit would be quickly dismissed without much effort on the WMFs part. Under SOPA they could instead have asked search engines to delist wikipedia (& DNS servers, etc.) and we could only trust in the due diligence of third parties to prevent an outage (due diligence which they have no incentive to perform)). Admittedly, such disputes are relatively rare, but they are nothing near unheard of. Protonk (talk) 07:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Briefly, I suggest a review of the current version of the bill - and it's indeed complicated - and check through the various counter-notices and requirements. A dispute over a single item does not seem to me to qualify. Doing a strike/blackout because this might be abused appears to me as disproportionate, and possibly causing a lot of problems via backlash (admittedly this view is colored by my experiences, actual results may vary) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a copy of the revised text (LOC only has the original bill), so I have to rely on news reports for the changes. If the reports are accurate, then the threat to WP is significantly diminished, mainly because some actions have to meet minimum scrutiny from a court and DNS servicers cannot be forced to suspend service without a court order (though they can be asked and are still immunized from liability). I don't know if those changes will survive a conference reconciliation w/ PIPA or if they are as substantive as the reports claim. If they are, then we can no longer claim an existential threat to the project. However if what eventually passes looks like the original bill submitted to the house, then my comments above still apply. Protonk (talk) 20:26, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Seth has been abusing a reducto ad absurdum position that no one has once taken in this discussion. You can agree that the positions adopted by Seth's fictitious opponents are indeed absurd, without making the equally ridiculous positive claim that Wikipedia would escape the SOPA completely unharmed. Bypassing the court system and removing the DMCA safe harbor is the entire raison d'etre of the SOPA. I'll admit it's not unheard of for bills to be neutered and unable to fulfill their original intended purpose in Congress, even to the point where the result is identical to existing legislation. But given the amount of support SOPA has had, I consider this possibility extremely unlikely. I'm not going to believe that the courts have to be involved before content is taken down by a third party until I've read it with my own eyes, and until then, every argument Seth has made with court order compliance in mind is completely without merit. Even if this were completely true, given that existing legislation is already used on existing wikis (not necessarily wikipedia) to vandalize content, I see no reason why the public would suddenly refuse to use the SOPA as anything but another gun in their arsenal. Even if Wikipedia itself is completely unaffected, if just one city in the U.S. can't view one page for one minute because one cable company does what they normally do when asked to comply by anything resembling an official body and blocked content, then the SOPA has gone too far and done more harm than any potential good that could come of it in my opinion. And that's assuming that Wikipedians don't take it upon themselves to attempt to comply with the law at all, which again, given the altruism and character of wikipedians, is also practically guaranteed not to happen. Wikipedians are good people who are interested in complying with laws as they understand them, and if you'll read the rest of this same talk page, you'll realize that the claim that the SOPA would be a terrible work burden are completely founded. The arguments in favor of complying all involve making Wikipedia less useful. The suggestion that sites be referenced textually without a link that could somehow (how, by the way) be used to verify an original source is the example that epitomizes this. Wikipedians like articles to be stable, they like references that can be independently verified, and they like content being viewable to anyone no matter where they are in the world. That's Wikipedia's raison d'etre, and the simple fact of the matter is that no matter how SOPA was worded, it works in direct opposition to that goal. Meeting Wikipedia's goals, and the goals of the SOPA, is indeed a herculean task, even if you've found a clever way to shrug the weight of the world off your shoulders and picked one goal or the other to comply with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.5.150.234 (talk) 19:33, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

To those of you who still don't see the level of vigilance this would impose on us, consider: Many of our articles about foreign countries and events, organizations and personages thereof often cite online sources in the applicable foreign language, languages that reviewing editors may not be able to read. How do we know that a reliable source, the foreign-language daily newspaper, may not also be hosting pirated content (And I don't mean hosting pirated films or music ... news sites often host enough video or pictures fro that some news organization with a U.S. presence could easily claim that they weren't "dedicated to infringing U.S. property").

We could have one link in our references section that could be there for years, and then a news organization or group of news organizations, having tried to play nice with said foreign site and knowing they'll just use the DMCA takedown letter to wrap fish with, invokes SOPA to play hardball ... and we get caught in the middle. We'd have to remove the source and any information in the article the source site supports, in any language Wikipedia, to comply.

Or maybe we'd not want to do that, and couldn't find anyone willing to review sites we link to to see if they might become problematic for us, so instead we'd allow only links to a predetermined list of sources, which would not only limit the scope of our articles but also our ability to incorporate foreign points of view in them. Daniel Case (talk) 20:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I really dislike the position I seem to be in, but ... you're saying that IF an article cites to source and IF this source is SOPA'ed and IF it's determined that Wikipedia is affected, and IF anyone cares about this citation ... THEN Wikipedia might have to remove it, maybe, possibly ... Considering this "level of vigilance" seems to lead to a different conclusion than you intend. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't say legally we'd have to remove the information, just by our own policies. The larger point is that the statute, in the name of sticking it to Google, is so broadly drawn that it's hard to predict what websites would come under its scrutiny, nor how lawyers for causes not really those intended by the drafters will find ways to use it to further whatever ends they have, much as the DMCA has been used to suppress a lot of research into computer security. Daniel Case (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)