MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's Tech Tuesday. 'Fess up, have you ever watched an episode of your favorite TV show on YouTube or bought a knockoff designer handbag online? If so, you're part of a growing problem on the Internet: piracy of intellectual property and the sale of counterfeit goods.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIToday, as we speak, the White House is launching a public awareness campaign on the spread of intellectual property theft online, a day after shutting down 100 websites dealing in counterfeit merchandise. But the main spotlight is focused on Capitol Hill, where a bill to halt Internet piracy is pitting Hollywood against Silicon Valley, jobs against innovation. The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act would allow the government to crack down on websites distributing pirated movies or selling fake products, but critics say the law is too broad and would undermine Internet openness.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining me to talk about the debate over online policy is Markham Erickson. He is Internet and telecommunications lawyer at Holch & Erickson LLP and executive director of NetCoalition.com. He joins us in studio. Markham Erickson, thank you for joining us.

MR. MARKHAM ERICKSONThank you, Kojo, for having me.

NNAMDIJoining us by phone is Timothy Lee, technology writer for Ars Technica and an adjunct scholar with the CATO Institute. He joins us by phone from Philadelphia. Timothy Lee, thank you for joining us.

MR. TIMOTHY LEEThanks for having me on.

NNAMDIAnd Steve Tepp is chief intellectual property counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He joins us by phone from his office. Steve Tepp, thank you very much for joining us.

MR. STEVE TEPPMy pleasure, Kojo. Thank you.

NNAMDIYou too can join this conversation, call us at 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org, send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org, join the conversation there. Have you had any experience with piracy or counterfeiting online? 800-433-8850. Steve Tepp, websites that offer pirated digital content or counterfeit goods, everything from bootleg software to knockoff handbags to television shows get billions of hits a year. What effect does that have on the companies that create and sell the original content of products?

TEPPIt has a tremendously negative effect on our whole economy. There are 19 million American jobs in IT-intensive industries, and every single one of them is threatened by this type of theft of intellectual property, our most creative and innovative products. As you've just mentioned, rouge sites, those sites that are dedicated to the theft of creative and innovative products, counterfeiting and copyright piracy get over 53 billion visits every year.

TEPPThat's about nine visits for every human being on the planet, and it costs legitimate businesses over $135 billion every year. That's jobs. That's tax revenue. That's innovation. That's competitiveness.

NNAMDISteve, what are the industries hardest hit by the copyright infringement, software, pharmaceuticals, entertainment?

TEPPIt goes across the board. You mentioned handbags and digital products, and certainly, those are part of the problem, counterfeits and pirates of those versions. But things that, I think, most Americans would be shocked to learn are counterfeit in fact are readily available in fraudulent form on the Internet. Pharmaceuticals, automobile parts, cosmetics, clothing, green technology, the list goes on and on and on. If there's a popular product, it's probably being counterfeited.

NNAMDITim Lee, piracy and counterfeiting takes place largely on so-called rogue websites that are operated outside the U.S. Who runs those websites, and what laws govern our ability to police them?

LEEWell, there's a wide variety of different websites, and we don't always know who is running any particular website. But any given website would be under the jurisdiction of the particular country that hosts the website. And if the website is registered a domain in the United States, like a dot-com address, the U.S. government currently has the power to seize those sites. But if it's registered in a domain like, say, dot-R-U, which is a Russian domain name, under current laws, the options for trying to shut down those sites is fairly limited.

NNAMDIWell, you know, Steve Tepp, a lot of people would say, well, what are the dangers to consumers from shopping at rouge sites?

TEPPThe dangers are myriad, from the most extreme, which is death, and, for example, we know that Marcia Bergeron who purchased, unknowingly purchased counterfeit muscle relaxants over the Internet died because not only didn't those medicines treat the problem she was trying to treat, they contain high levels of arsenic and heavy metals, and it killed her. And her friend, Glenda Billerbeck, has come to Washington to tell lawmakers about that.

TEPPBut it's also a very everyday problem. Visiting sites that purport to offer free downloads of some of your favorite entertainment can easily subject you to malicious viruses, to identity theft, and many counterfeit products even if they don't necessarily kill or harm consumers, though many do, unfortunately, they're shoddy products. They're not made under any sort of supervised standards, industry standards, government standards.

TEPPThese are people who are out only to make a buck, and they're going to make the cheapest thing possible. With the result that, for example, cosmetics have been found to -- that are counterfeited have animal waste in them, not because the counterfeiter intentionally put animal waste in these products, but because the factory where they're made is so disgustingly filthy (unintelligible) products.

NNAMDIAnd completely unregulated. The entertainment industry insists on something that I'm not sure I understand that not only does it lose money when content is pirated, but there's a ripple effect throughout the businesses associated with entertainment. How so?

TEPPAbsolutely. A movie, for example, a major motion picture, you're talking about employing quite a few people, thousands of people, set designers, script writers, clothing manufacturers, the people who supply the food to the people on the set, the people who distribute that, the theater owners, all of the people who are employed and making those productions, and that's the same for software and music and so on.

TEPPThe programmers for our favorite videogames or a business software, all those folks lose out when their creative products are suddenly made virtually valueless in the marketplace by theft.

NNAMDITim Lee, you have called the Online Piracy Act the latest front in the movie and recording industry's never ending war on file sharing. Why?

LEEYeah. So I mean, I think it's important to keep in mind the sort of bigger picture here, which is that this is the latest proposal in a long line of legal offensives against these kinds of websites. And over time, as the earlier ones haven't worked, the -- I mean, they've worked some, but not as well as the industry likes. They push for more and more draconian efforts to try to combat these sites.

LEEAnd the problem is that that as they try for more stronger and stronger enforcement measures, the collateral damage, in terms of the internet infrastructure and freedom of speech and so forth becomes more and more harmed by these kinds of proposals.

NNAMDIMarkham Erickson, allow me to turn to you. Let's look at the laws that protect intellectual property on the Internet. What does the 13-year-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, do?

ERICKSONSo the reason that the Internet in the United States, the U.S. Internet industry has succeeded as well as it has and really dominates the world in terms of its breadth of innovation and reach, companies like Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and Google, Amazon and eBay, are because Congress has over the years intentionally crafted laws, like the DMCA, that strike a fine balance. And the balance is to ensure that we protect intellectual property, and Internet companies and tech organizations that have been involved in this issue have some of the most valuable intellectual property in the world and some of the strongest brand names in the world, while also ensuring that we don't hamper lawful innovation, and we don't impose technology mandates where essentially judges and Congress get to design technology.

ERICKSONSo the DMCA, the Digital Millennium Copyright, was an enacted soon after the commercial Internet began, and it was an enacted in response to the very real concern that people could easily share copyrighted works over the Internet in quick fashion, and that there needed to be some sort of mechanism to account for that. The balance that Congress struck was to say that Internet platforms where third-parties, users are posting content, posting hyperlinks, user-generated content posting videos, those platforms aren't required to police all of that activity, the millions of tweets a day, the hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos that are posted a day.

ERICKSONThere's no requirement that the Internet companies have to monitor and police all of that activity. On the other hand, in order to be safe from being sued for damages when someone does post something unlawful, a video that is infringing on somebody's copyright, the DMCA requires that Internet companies have a designated agent who Hollywood or a copyright owner, a rights owner can send a notice to, to say, hey, there's an infringing video on your platform.

ERICKSONWe'd like you to take it down. And the law requires that the company, the Internet company where that content is hosted, has to expeditiously remove that content. YouTube, I believe, removes the content within 24 hours. There's also due process protections in the DMCA, so that the Internet company that gets that notice will send a notice to the user who posted that video to say if you believe that the rights holder is mistaken, whether you have -- this is your content or you've lawfully licensed it or you get to post it because it's fair use, political commentary or news reporting, let us know, and we'll repost the content.

ERICKSONAnd then, the rights holder and the user can settle the dispute over the -- whether the content is lawful. So it also removes the Internet platform from having to make difficult legal decisions about whether content is lawful or not. It's put the rights holder in contact with the user to make that -- to have that dispute. That law has worked incredibly well. And, in fact, the DMCA is really the Magna Carta for the Internet and technology industry because it strikes that right balance between allowing for innovation and not having to worry that having a platform that's open, that allows users to post whatever they want to post without you prescreening that.

ERICKSONSites like Tweeter and Facebook can be developed and -- without having to worry that they'll be liable for damages if someone posts something unlawful as long as they expeditiously remove that content when notified by the rights holder.

NNAMDISteve Tepp, why is the DMCA not enough?

TEPPThe DMCA is great law. It's also 13 years old, which is several lifetimes in the marketplace and, particularly, the Internet marketplace. What we’re talking about with rogue sites legislation is a new problem, and it needs a new solution. These are sites dedicated to online theft. That's what they exist to do. They're not interested in cooperating with notices and takedowns and that sort of thing, and many of them are located outside the United States, beyond the ability of our courts to enforce their judgments.

TEPPSo what we need is a tool to cut these sites off from the U.S. marketplace, to disrupt the piracy and counterfeiting business model. That's what rogue sites legislation is about.

NNAMDIWe gotta take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue this Tech Tuesday conversation on the move to stop Internet piracy. You can keep up with this conversation on Twitter by using the Tech Tuesday hashtag, or by calling us at 800-433-8850, or sending email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. It's a Tech Tuesday conversation on stopping Internet piracy with Markham Erickson, Internet and telecommunications lawyer at Holch & Erickson LLP and executive director of netcoalition.com. Steve Tepp is chief intellectual property counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And Timothy Lee is a technology writer for Ars Technica and an adjunct scholar with the CATO Institute.

NNAMDIYou can call us at 800-433-8850. Let us know what you're thinking on Twitter. Just use the Tech Tuesday hashtag. How do you feel about giving the government new tools to crack down on Internet piracy and counterfeiting? You can also go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. Tim Lee, a bipartisan bill in the House of Representative attempts to crack down on illegal Internet commerce by holding website responsible in broad terms.

NNAMDIHow would the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and the companion bill in the Senate allow the U.S. government to choke off websites that deal in pirated or counterfeit goods?

LEEWell, so there's several intermediaries that the legislation will target. Advertising networks, it would target the payment processors, so companies like MasterCard and Visa, you'll be able to get an order, cutting them off from access to funds. It would target search engines like Google and it would target what’s known as DNS providers, which is kind of a directory service for Internet, to help your computer find the website you're looking for. I think the problem really -- well, there's sort of two problems.

LEEOne is that nobody disagrees with the idea of going after, say, websites that sell counterfeit pharmaceuticals. But the issue is just as when we have -- when we’re going after regular criminals, we afford them due process, we require police to get warrants before they can tap people's phones, et cetera. So when we're going after these rogue sites, we need to have -- make sure we have the appropriate procedures in place to ensure that websites that the government accuses of being website -- being rogue sites are, in fact, rogue sites.

LEEAnd especially when you're going after intermediaries like this, the intermediaries may not know anything about the website. And so if the government asks, say, Google to remove a particular website from its search engine, Google may have no idea what that website is. And so if the request is mistaken, Google may do that without doing any sort of checking that it's legitimate.

LEEAnd so -- and you have, you know, you have a real risk of free speech that content protected by the First Amendment, it’s taken off the Internet, and you also have damage -- that you'll do damage to the Internet's infrastructure because some content that the users want to reach that's legitimate, they are unable to get to.

NNAMDII see. We have Tom Phinney on line one. He's calling from Orlando, Fla. From what I remember, Tom Phinney is a former member of Congress, a Republican who served from maybe 2003 to 2009. Tom Phinney, thank you for joining us.

MR. TOM PHINNEYYeah. Well, thank you for having me, and I appreciate all of your guests today. As a member of Congress, I took -- and a member of the Judiciary Committee and a member of the Intellectual Property Sub-Committee, I took particular interest in the history of intellectual property protection. And what a lot of listeners may not know is that in the body of the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Congress has given specific powers to update protections of intellectual property in order them, quoting the Constitution, "to promote the progress of science and useful arts."

MR. TOM PHINNEYAnd one of the challenges is, is technology changes. There are different mechanisms, the thieves and, in this case, rouge websites use that really weren't addressed by laws that were passed when technology a decade or three decades ago is effectively ancient. The reason the Founding Fathers protected intellectual property, and remember almost no honest American would think it's okay to steal real estate from your neighbor or steal a food or material...

NNAMDIOr intellectual property for that matter.

PHINNEYWell, that's exactly right, but, you know, the due process clause protecting real property or hard assets wasn't even mentioned in the body of the Constitution. It's sort of an afterthought as part of the Bill of Rights. But the Founding Fathers thought it was so important in order to protect the prosperity and growth and economy and job creation in America that in the very first article in the Constitution, Congress has given the power, in a plenary way, to protect, on an updated basis, the promotion of useful arts and sciences.

PHINNEYAnd so I've taken a quick look at the Act. I'm not on the committee, don't have the staff I used to, but I think it's a pretty balanced and measured approach to a very real, new and developing problem. I do have a great deal of respect for Tim Lee and the CATO Institute. He did suggest that he's concerned about the due process protections, and it's a very legitimate concern.

PHINNEYBut I would point out this, that as we consider what those due process protections ought to be, in this case, you often have a crime in progress. It's not a question of dealing with a crime after the fact. Once the material is distributed, maybe worldwide, whether it's video or movies or other intellectual property that ought to be protected, the harm is irreparable. You can't put the genie back in the box, and the damage to future job creation, creativity and prosperity to America, I think, will be enormous if we don't find a way to address this new threat.

NNAMDIYou know, Markham Erickson, I said that Americans don't want to steal intellectual property either on the one hand. On the other hand, innovation never takes place without the work -- without building on the work of others. And your group, NetCoalition, opposes this legislation. First, tell us who your members are.

ERICKSONNetCoalition is made up of some of the largest Internet brands: eBay, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, IEC, Wikipedia. We're a public policy voice that engage before the Federal Courts and the administration as well as Congress to ensure and promote laws that will ensure for a -- an open and innovative Internet.

NNAMDIAnd you have said this bill is too far reaching and would be disruptive to Web platforms. How might it affect the company like eBay?

ERICKSONRight. So we don't object to the notion that we need to find a way to address the problem of offshore sites that are engaging in blatant illegal activity. No one quibbles with that. And in fact, when the sponsors of the legislation first indicated that they were going to work on a bill to do that, we were supportive of that. Unfortunately, the bills that have been introduced have very little to do with that at all.

ERICKSONAnd they really are more about making irrelevant, the DMCA, and putting Internet companies, intermediaries, in the position of having to monitor user activity or face consequences being liable for the postings of third parties. And that really will shut down innovation.

NNAMDILet's put that in practical terms. If one is selling counterfeit handbags and you're selling them on eBay, which has millions and millions of retailers, could this legislation result in a determination that eBay is dedicated to unlawful activity and the whole eBay platform taken down?

ERICKSONThis is what's inexplicable about the proposed legislation. The sponsors of the legislation have said that they want to go after foreign websites that are outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Your question shows that the legislation actually would impose new penalties on both foreign and domestic websites. No one is arguing that domestic websites that are violating the law can't be reached by our current law enforcement...

NNAMDIDMCA.

ERICKSON...and DMCA or other criminal laws that would apply. So, yes, U.S. Internet companies would be covered by this law, and your example is a good example. Under the proposal, a definition for a site dedicated to infringing activities -- and, you know, Congress has a way of defining terms that don't mirror what their everyday usage means.

ERICKSONSo even though the bill talks about a site dedicated to infringing activities or a site dedicated to the theft of U.S. property, the definition in the proposed bill of a site dedicated to the theft of U.S. property is extremely broad and wouldn't include a platform where, potentially, one Web page of a platform that has millions and millions of pages, so one seller on a larger platform that's selling counterfeit goods, counterfeit handbags could result in the entire platform, the entire platform being declared to be a site dedicated to unlawful activity. And I also wanted to say...

NNAMDIA lot of callers want to weigh in on this, so I'd like to hear Steve Tepp and Tim Lee and maybe Tom Phinney on this. Before we go to our callers, Steve Tepp, how would the Stop Online Piracy Act determine whether a website is dedicated to fraud and therefore subject to the measures in the Act. Listening to Markham Erickson, it sounds like a pretty narrow interpretation.

TEPPWell...

NNAMDIOr pretty broad interpretation, I should say.

TEPPYeah. We have some differences there. I think the point is, rouge site legislation is aimed at foreign based-websites, and we agree with that, where even though they're violating U.S. law, indeed, they're violating international law, the remedies under U.S. laws simply can't be enforced against them because they're beyond the reach of our enforcement agencies. So we need a tool to cut them off from the U.S. marketplace and protect the 19 million American jobs that are at stake here.

TEPPAnd what the beauty of rouge sites legislation is, is that it targets the bad actors, the worst of the worst on the Internet, and that really is the standard. To the extent that there are details and definitions that need to be tweaked and worked out through the legislative process, that's -- I'm sure that will happen that -- that's a productive part of a legislative process.

TEPPBut what this bill is about is getting the worst of the worst off the Internet or at least cutting off their access to the U.S. marketplace so that America's jobs, America's consumers, and the Internet of the American people have come to love is a better place and are protected.

NNAMDITim Lee, what do you say?

LEESo I think that one of the reasons that people should be concerned about is so that the question is, is it just focus on foreign websites or would domestic sites also be concerned? And I think it's worth really taking note of the fact that such broad coalition of tech -- of domestic U.S. technology companies, they're clearly not dedicated to infringement or so concerned about this.

LEEOne of the examples that I found really striking is the organization called the Business Software Alliance, which is a group of software companies, including, I think, Microsoft is probably the most prominent member that was -- issued a statement of support of the Stop Online Piracy Act when it was introduced a couple of months ago. And then, more recently, they've issued a new statement saying that they had some concerns about it, and they thought that Congress should really reconsider it.

LEEIf it were the case that we are really just going after the worst of the worst, I don't see why you'd have such a broad, you know, so much concern from such a broad coalition of technology companies here in the United States.

NNAMDIHere is what -- an email we got from an American University law student. "Internet piracy is the direct response of consumers telling the suppliers of media entertainment exactly how they wish to receive this particular product. At this moment, the consumer has already forced the entertainment industry to make media accessible on demand. However, the industry and the advertisers are fighting hard to hold onto an antiquated distribution system.

NNAMDIThe more the industry meets the demands of consumers, the less piracy there will be." Moving on to the telephones -- first you, Tom Phinney. You've heard the discussion we've been having. What say you?

PHINNEYWell, I think definitional problems are critical in terms of defining, for example, who is targeted under this website. I do believe that the bill makes a very good attempt, and if it's -- the language is imperfect, I'm sure there are ways to address it. But what it does is to only subject websites, whether they're foreign or domestic, is to -- injunctions under the bill, A, at the discretion of the justice department, so they will not be acting will he know.

PHINNEYThey will not be going after a very popular well-known sites that are legitimate and may have some rare instances of improper third-party content on their site. The sites have to be dedicated essentially to distributing rogue material and, in some cases, actually incentivizing third-party illegal providers to provide them on site. But secondly, I would say there are due process protections in this bill. The court is gonna have an issue order.

PHINNEYThe courts gonna have to be convinced based on prima facie case made by the attorney general before any injunction or activity takes place. The website host is gonna be able to make its case. If there is not either illegal content or if there is the illegal content, the harm done to the owner of the intellectual property will not be irreparable, in which case an injunction wouldn't be issued.

PHINNEYAnd in the worst case scenario, as I view this legislation, there may be times when what turns out to be legitimate third-party material that's posted on a website may be delayed in its mass distribution. But I think that that risk is worth the reward protecting the 19 million Americans that are engaged in jobs that are -- in often cases, high paying jobs that are in the creative world. And sometimes you have to balance those issues in a short run. In a long term, everybody's gonna have due process and be able to protect and preserve their natural rights under the law.

NNAMDII have to move on. Tom Phinney, thank you very much for your call. You, too, can join the conversation. Are you an artist, a writer, a filmmaker? Has your work been distributed online without your approval? Let us know what you're thinking on Twitter. Just use the Tech Tuesday hashtag, or call us at 800-433-8850. Here is Andrew in Washington, D.C. Andrew, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ANDREWYes, hello. You just recently read an email that summed up part of what I was gonna say, but I wanted to take it a little step further, and that is we have reached a point in time -- and this is the biggest problem actually with piracy and copyright infringement nowadays. But we've reached a point in time where the economic model has not caught up with the current multimedia paradigm. We -- and we see abuses of this throughout the media at this particular moment in time. Can I ask you a question? Do you own a Kindle?

NNAMDIYes, I do.

ANDREWCan you tell me about, you know, how much you think a new best-seller, the John Grisham novel or a Dan Brown novel would costs? Nine times out of 10, it's around 14.99.

NNAMDIYes.

ANDREWNow, if you are to go and try to find a copy of "Atlas Shrugged," do you realize that that costs 3.99 on the Kindle store, on Amazon?

NNAMDIYeah. Yes.

ANDREWIf both of the supplies are infinite -- you have to remember that's the big thing here.

NNAMDIInfinite.

ANDREWBoth of the supplies are infinite. They can make as many copies as they'd like. Why is there disparity in prices?

NNAMDISteve Tepp?

TEPPLook, theft is a not a new business model, and that's what we're talking about here. The fact is that the products we're talking about, whether they are consumer products, technology products, entertainment products, are among the most popular in the United States and around the world. And that's why foreign thieves want to steal them because they know there's money to be made.

NNAMDIOkay.

TEPPI think the American public is supportive of intellectual property, and that view was reinforced dramatically in a study that was released -- a survey that was released just today by the American Consumers Institute. They asked people. Do you support or oppose legislation that would cut off from the U.S. these rogue sites? Overwhelmingly, by more than five to one margin, they support it, 79 percent to 14 percent.

TEPPI think that is a very telling thing when all the hyperbole and scare tactics are stripped away. And they're just asked a question. Should these criminals have free access or not? They responded overwhelmingly they should not.

NNAMDIWell, let me ask another question, and that is the question that Andrew raises about the business model. If indeed they don't have to print hard cover books, if indeed they don't have to print paper pages, if indeed they don't have to cut trees down to provide the book, why is it 14.99 when it is apparent that it can be provided at 2.99? Why is it not the argument that they're simply trying to preserve an old business model because the old business model is simply more profitable?

TEPPWell, if you assume that copyrighted creative works just spring from the ether, then that's a great idea. Give it all away for free. If you recognize that it took someone years to write those books, to create those movies, to perform those songs so on and so forth, then it makes sense that if you want them to keep doing that, you have to let them make a living doing it. I was just, a couple of weeks ago, talking with best-selling author Lisa Scottoline. And she quit her profession as a lawyer because she loved writing, and that's what she wanted to do.

TEPPAnd she's a single mom. And 20 years ago, she started writing. And it took 10 years before she could actually start to make a profit on it. She run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt while she was trying to get her writing career started.

NNAMDIWell, I suspect that nobody wants to keep starving artists starving, especially if they're producing good work. But my time is running short. Markham Erickson, same question to you.

ERICKSONWell, you know, unfortunately, a lot of what happens here in Washington isn't about promoting, as what the congressman mentioned, our Constitution's requirement to promote the useful -- promote science in the useful arts but does become more about protecting a business model's distribution method. And the MPA famously tried to get Congress in the 1980s to outlaw the VCR. They thought the VCR would destroy their industry.

ERICKSONThe technology that made the VCR what it is today has enabled the DVD player to be introduced to the marketplace. And the DVD player has become the MPA's, the Motion Picture Association's single largest revenue source. So it does take a while for old established businesses sometimes to jump on to new distribution models because there's -- there is some uncertainty in that, and the Internet is a disruptive medium by its very nature.

ERICKSONSo the key really here, Kojo, is to make sure that we -- no one is quibbling with the talking points that the other side says about the need to protect against piracy. The question that policy makers need to ask is is this a targeted approach that does that? Or is this more about trying to protect the distribution models of existing players and make U.S. Internet companies essentially take on a police function for the copyright and trademark owners?

NNAMDIRemember that our side has useful economics, too, that venture capitalists expended $43 billion into the Internet last year. It represents 15 percent of the growth of the GDP. And a study came out last week from the -- from one of the major think tanks that was a survey of the 200 leading venture capitalists in the United States. And they said that the provisions that are in this bill would reduce their investment in Internet technologies by 80 percent. So reduce the $40 billion by 80 percent, and that's what these bills represent to innovation and technology. And I think we have to (unintelligible)

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. Tim Lee, I'm not leaving you out of the conversation. We'll bring you back when we come back. But we also have a lot of calls to get to. You can keep up with the conversation on Twitter by using the Tech Tuesday hashtag. All of the phone lines are busy. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIIt's a Tech Tuesday conversation about the move to stop Internet piracy in a new bill in Congress. We're talking with Steve Tepp, chief intellectual property counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Markham Erickson is Internet and telecommunications lawyer at Holch & Erickson LLP and executive director, netcoalition.com. And Timothy Lee is a technology writer for Ars Technica and adjunct scholar with the CATO Institute.

NNAMDITim, some computer security experts are concerned about the provision in the bill that would allow the government to remove websites from the domain name system. You've equated that with removing someone's number from the phonebook. How would that work, and why are you concerned?

LEEThat's right. So when you go to a website like google.com, the DNS is the system that translate that name into a, basically, a 12-digit number that uniquely identifies the server where that website is hosted. And the proposal is that the government would have the power to alter DNS servers to remove entries from the DNS system. And -- so there's a couple of problems with that. One is that it isn't going to work very well because just as taking something out of the phone number, it doesn't make the phone go away.

LEEThere are lots of other ways that people can find out the IP address of a particular website and so if they really want to get to a website, they're going to figure out how to do it. But I think the more serious problem is that the DNS system is extremely distributed. There are some DNS servers in the United States and some DNS servers overseas. And if the law starts using -- if the government starts using this power to block DNS servers in the United States from providing the IP addresses of allegedly websites, a lot of users are likely to react to that by shifting to using DNS servers hosted overseas.

LEEAnd that means that not only will they be using those DNS servers for these websites, they'll be using DNS -- both DNS servers for all sites. What that means is that if, for example, you go to bankofamerica.com, there'll be some foreign website. It'll be telling you which server is bankofamerica.com. And if they are Russian hackers or Chinese intelligence agencies are running that DNS server, there's all sorts of fun and not very good for Americans, things they can do with that power.

LEEThey can redirect you to maybe a fraudulent site that steals your password or spies on you as you are going out to business. So the DNS is really has become a fundamental part of the security of the Internet, and tampering with it, I think, is a really bad idea.

NNAMDIHere is Scott in Washington, D.C. Scott, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

SCOTTThank you, Kojo. I've heard quite a bit in the discussion about the First Amendment and free speech issues, and that by the government taking down a website that includes infringing content as well as legitimate free speech, that, you know, it infringes on the people's rights to speak freely. So my question for the panel is, assuming that that...

NNAMDIWell, I'll direct it to Markham Erickson.

SCOTTWell, I -- but I'm not quite finished, Kojo. My question is, if there's a child pornography site out there that has legitimate non-child pornography content, is it similarly inoculated against action? I'll take my answer offline.

NNAMDIMarkham Erickson?

ERICKSONSure. Well, the reason that DMCA works so well is that it was crafted to account for the constitutional concerns about having a remedy that was overbroad and that trapped legitimate, lawful content with unlawful content. So the DMCA requires the rights holder to specifically identify the content that is infringing on a website, and the website owner then will take that content and remove that content and keep the lawful content in place.

ERICKSONSo we wanted to create a system that mirrors that. And if you're talking about a website that is dedicated to infringing activities, current U.S. copyright law allows for a rights holder or the law enforcement to go after the entire site, as the Department of Homeland Security has done, if there is willful and the site is primarily infringing on people's copyright or trademark. So our laws allow for that, and we're not asking for anything that would weaken our laws. So we think that's important.

ERICKSONThe question about child pornography, of course, is a -- an important one, and our goal as companies is to eliminate and eradicate child pornography from the Internet. Child pornography is never protected by the Constitution. And we do have very vigorous systems that are put in place that allow for companies, when made aware of apparent child pornography, they notify the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, who works with law enforcement and works with the websites to remove that content and remove websites from their existence.

NNAMDIWell, Scott, thank you for your call. Here is Rick in Arlington, Va. Rick, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

RICKThank you, Kojo. I get upset at programs like this when I hear people spout talking points and sort of distorting the facts. I just want to point out a few that I've heard today, and you can have the people and make them comment. One is this bandying about of 19 million jobs. If the situation were as bad as it is, we wouldn't have these jobs 'cause we don't have the law. Nineteen million jobs aren't gonna be lost or unprotected.

NNAMDIWell, allow me to have Steve Tepp respond to that. Where does the 19 million figure come from, Steve Tepp?

TEPPThat was a study by NDP Consulting, which I'm happy to share with you, Kojo, and feel free to put it on your website. It's on our website, on www.fightonlinetheft.com. And I think the point there is that there could be more jobs if we did a better -- if we had better laws and better enforcement against intellectual property theft. And we could, if we failed to do that, lose even more. It's hard to know exactly what we've lost 'cause you never know what's gonna be -- that isn't.

TEPPBut the bottom line is that there is a huge part of our economy that relies on intellectual property protection to employ Americans. And, yes, 19 million Americans is the number. And that's why there's such a broad coalition of over 350 companies, trade associations and professional organizations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hand in hand with the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations who support action against rogue sites legislation.

TEPPAnd let me just clarify because some of the earlier comments may have misled some of the listeners. The government would be authorized, as Congressman Feeney said, only to go to court and ask a court to determine whether or not a particular site is dedicated to IP theft. And if the court said yes, then and only then would the court issue an order that would ask our -- the strategic partners like the payment providers, the ad networks, the Internet companies to help us fight what is a common problem. The Internet is worse off for all of us with these criminals online.

NNAMDIOkay. I do have to move on. Rick, thank you for your call. Here is Chris in Fairfax, Va. Chris, your turn.

CHRISHi. I'd like to ask -- so much of this pirated content and content that is sort of under threat by SOPA is open source content provided by third-party providers distributed all over the world. How -- what protections exist for businesses or websites that do rely on distributing third-party content, copyrighted or not, from SOPA being not maybe necessarily in its original implementation, but through interpretation by the courts, through presidents, through -- et cetera? How are businesses and webmasters supposed to feel protected?

NNAMDIMarkham Erickson?

ERICKSONWell, what Steve is not mentioning is that two-thirds of the bill allow for rights holders to bypass the courts altogether and merely allege that a piece of website is promoting unlawful activity. And payment -- ad -- payment networks and Internet advertisers are required within five days to do what they say, which is to stop providing money to those websites. And so it could be a mistaken assumption that an open source software is protected.

ERICKSONAnd the webmaster has no idea that allegations have been made against the website, never has to be notified, and he'll wake up one day and his payment system is shut down and his advertising systems are shut down. And we think that's really wrong. We do think that these allegations do need to go before a judge, and we think that law enforcement is the proper entity to bring those before a judge because we should have due process for these websites.

ERICKSONThose are people's property, too. Websites are increasingly how people make a living, and they shouldn't be able to have their livelihood disrupted without any notice.

NNAMDIChris, thank you very much for your call. Tim Lee, here's a post we got on our website from Jonathan. "There's been a lot of talk in the videogame journalism community about how much videogame footage of anything copyrighted could be rendered illegal by the Stop Online Piracy Act. What really troubles me is the possibility that streaming footage from a legitimately purchased copy of a game through services like JustinTV could be considered a felony should the publisher of the game wish to pursue charges.

NNAMDIWhat I'm worried about are the massive free speech implications of giving those broad legal powers to corporations. Let's not forget that, a decade ago, individual teenagers were being sued by record companies for using Napster." What say you, Tim Lee?

LEEI think that's an excellent point. So this is referring to another provision of the bill that we haven't even talked about...

NNAMDIOop, and we're -- you only have about a minute left.

LEEYeah. So I want to -- I think one of the broader issues here is that there's so many pieces of this legislation that -- many of which go too far. But this particular one, as the writer said, criminalizes the streaming of unauthorized content. And there are many cases where it's not clear exactly what constitutes an unauthorized content stream. For example, if you're playing a videogame, you make a recording of that videogame and you want to share it with a friend, is that unauthorized streaming?

LEEAnd so the question here is not are, you know, are websites good or bad? The question is how much power do we want to give the government and private rights holders to go after these sites? And I think the current law strikes a pretty good balance and that the proposal that's now before Congress really go too far.

NNAMDIWell, I'm afraid we're just about out of time, but I'd like to end on a more cordial note. One provision of the proposed law that all sites seem to support is directing payment companies like PayPal or the credit card companies to stop doing business with illegal websites. Is that correct, Markham Erickson?

ERICKSONThat's absolutely true. If there's due process and a court has determined that a site is illegal, our companies -- and we -- we're not trying to make sure that our Internet companies are not part of the solution. We want to be. We think the solution is to shut off the payments to a site that's been determined to be illegal.

NNAMDIMarkham Erickson is an Internet and telecommunications lawyer at Holch & Erickson LLP and executive director of netcoalition.com. Steve Tepp is chief intellectual property counsel for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And Timothy Lee is a technology writer for Ars Technica and an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute. Thank you all for joining us. We will continue to follow the progress or lack thereof of this bill. And thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.