How SOPA Could Change Magic
SOPA, for those who don’t know, is an American bill and an acronym for “Stop Online Piracy Act.” If passed, it’ll change the entire internet to allow the US government to shut down any website that they believe to contain even the smallest piece of piracy. It’s a big deal and will change everything about the internet. Here’s how I foresee it changing magic:
Online footage from magic TV shows will be gone
We’ve heard of how David Copperfield walked through the Great Wall of China, but how would you see it without having an old VHS copy of his TV special? YouTube, no doubt! How will you watch David Blaine apparently levitate? YouTube, of course.
If SOPA is passed, those videos, and all other magic TV clips will certainly be removed by the TV companies.
We’ll get fewer new magicians
It’s these videos of the great famous magicians that have inspired a whole new generation of magicians. If they can’t see these videos, it’s possible that far less people will start to learn magic.
Performance videos and showreels could be removed
Magicians like to record magic tricks and share them online. Any of those magicians who use music that they haven’t purchased a license for could be removed. Hundreds of thousands of archived magic performances gone for good.
Many magic websites could be blocked or removed
It’s not just these video sharing sites that could be taken down: any website linking to YouTube videos that are infringing on copyright could also be removed. So if I wanted to share a video of a great TV clip on my blog, it’s possible that my site could be blocked within the US because of it.
Finding a magician might be more difficult
SOPA will allow the US government to dictate to search engines, such as Google, what can and can’t be included in their search results. That means that you could miss out on hiring the best magician for your job because they have a piece of unlicensed music, video, photo, image or text on their website.
Magicians might not be able to interact online
Some magicians use magic forums to communicate and share performance videos. But if enough users shared videos that infringed on any copyrights (however small), those forums could get shut down … even though the owner and majority of users are operating within the law.
In the extreme, it’s even possible that a company could have Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other major websites taken down (whether temporary or permanently). According to the bill, if there are enough copyright violations, this is entirely possible and therefore could not only change how magicians interact, but how everyone interacts online.
Magic-based content could be lost
Magicians blog quite a bit. If just one person who uses the small blog company (example: Blogger) puts piracy on their website, the US government would have the power to shut down that entire company without warning. Therefore, magicians (and many other people) will lose their blog posts and other content even though they did nothing wrong.
Magic piracy won’t be affected in the way you might expect
The magicians amongst us might be pleased that piracy of magic books, DVDs and downloads could be stamped out by this act. However, it’s my belief that we won’t see a big reduction as this bill is all about helping the big companies (Sony, Nintendo etc) protect themselves and not small magic producers. I’m pretty confident that this will be such a small change that magic producers won’t notice a difference at all.
And most importantly …
Magicians could go out of business
That sounds like hyperbole. But it’s true. Here’s why: most modern close-up magicians rely on their website as their main source of gaining new customers. If that website links to copyrighted videos, or uses copyrighted music on their websites, their website could be shut down without warning and US companies could be forced to not do business with them.
It’s possible that after reading this, you think that everything will be fine so long as magicians stick to the law. I wish that were true, that very few magicians are copyright thieves (and those that are seem to be more naive than deliberately trying to break the law). But magic websites like this allow user-submitted content that is sometimes out of the owner’s control. Therefore, if someone even just links to a copyrighted video, or uses copyrighted text, this entire website could be taken down.
It feels like there’s not much I can do about SOPA as I’m not American. But I hope that this post at least gives a personal perspective on how I feel it could change magic. I don’t claim to know everything about this act, but this is my interpretation of what I’ve read so far.
9 Comments for How SOPA Could Change Magic
Chris Wood | December 18, 2011 at 12:18 pm
Author comment by Andi Gladwin | December 18, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your response. I expected to get a couple of responses like yours as essentially, it’s the right thing to say (although, as you say, certainly a very negative approach, especially around the not wanting new magicians part). But the one thing that your argument misses is that innocent websites and users will be affected by other users of those services. Likewise, users who link to YouTube/Vimeo videos etc aren’t do know whether the original uploader has permission to do so.
Those are the two biggest flaws of SOPA and are likely the ones that are going to cause the biggest problems.
–Andi
Andy Leviss | December 18, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I wholeheartedly agree that SOLAR is ill-advised, overreaching, and only looking out for big business, not to mention a wholesale trampling of freedom of speech and due process.
That said, I think it’s incredible poor form and a weak argument to say that it’s bad because it will cause problems for those who actually are breaking the law. There are surely countless cases of fair use and false accusations that will be pulled wrongfully if SOPA passes, can’t we focus on those instead of lamenting the impact on those who actually *are* committing copyright violations?
Simon Lee | December 18, 2011 at 4:02 pm
I can see both extremes of the argument, and whilst I wholeheartedly agree that piracy is wrong in any form I think Andi is right with one key point. Taking down an entire service for the actions of a few reckless individuals is a heavy-handed and lazy solution to a more intricate problem.
I think a more measured approach should be taken to tackle these issues, otherwise it’s like amputating someone’s leg to cure an ingrown toenail!!
Chris Wood | December 18, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Yes the new magicians was tongue in cheek… 
However, if youtube and vimeo have to clean up their act, casual users won’t be able to link to them anyway.
David Nelson | December 18, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Chris, your argument “Breaking copyright is breaking copyright” is always an excellent start. It stems from the old “Breaking the law is breaking the law” and as long as you don’t break the law you don’t have anything to worry about no matter how draconian the punishment becomes. Using that argument, let’s cut off people’s hands for shoplifting and hang horse thieves. The point is that the punishment can far outweigh the infraction and, the person being punished doesn’t have to be the one committing the infringement or even aware that it occurred. You see, one of the problems with this law is that a minor piece of infringement on a sight or even a link to an infringing piece of material, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS WILLFULLY DONE BY THE SITE OWNER, can remove the site owner’s source of income and livelihood.
That’s just assuming the law is used the way it’s intended by legal site owners. I look forward to having the power to claim ownership to The Master Push Off material and being able to shut down our friends at Big Blind Media for as long as it takes for them to get their crack legal team together and get a hearing that allows them to prove I’m not the legal owner. Then, I can just say “Whoops, my mistake. It’s all good”. And, they can start the process of getting their site back on the internet. You see, this law says that the site must be expunged from the internet within 5 days of receiving a notice from the alleged copyright owner. There’s no need to go through the nasty process of getting a court order. The courts don’t get to rule on the validity of the alleged copyright owner’s request until after site has been removed. In other words, after the damage has been done.
Andi, I appreciate your stance but you’re really missing the boat on this. Nobody cares about magicians except, possibly, other magicians. The real problem here is the power it gives to, essentially, anyone to censor any part of the internet by claiming infringement. In America’s legal system, you are supposed to prove guilt before punishment occurs but because copyright is a civil issue the laws are not the same. In this case, it seems that the movie and music industry got sick of having to prove willful infringement and they got sick of the safe harbor provision of the DMCA that allows site to host user content without having to specifically check its copyright status. They paid a bunch of money to lobbyists and contributed to the right campaigns to get a law which puts the burden of being a copyright cop on everyone else. If this passes, a site owner, in order to protect his livelihood, will have to validate every single link or file that a user uploads to his site. This law goes way overboard with regards to punishment and gives way too much control over the internet to an industry that, frankly, doesn’t understand the internet.
Derek and the Pirates | s h i f t e r d o t o r g | December 21, 2011 at 7:53 pm
[...] becomes nigh impossible. Of course, that won’t stop governments from crafting laws with unanticipated side effects. After all, long-term thinking isn’t something in which governments [...]
Chris Wood | December 24, 2011 at 12:48 am
Reply for David…
I agree with you for the most part… but ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse for offenders. Often the defence regarding wilful intent for copyright breach online is about ignorance.
As to the measure of punishment, that’s a different story. I was challenging Andi’s position that it’s not fair that we won’t be able to share and link to things we don’t really have a right to in the first place. I know it’s a shame, but you can’t say it’s not fair.
I didn’t know about the site removal if you are just under accusation. That smacks of guilty once accused and I suspect you are quite right that the companies are just being lazy here and I suspect it’s one of the reasons the bill seems to be floundering anyway. It’s not ready or well thought out.
It would seem more sensible to first ask the ISP to instruct the website owner to remove the offending breach and expunge the whole site only once that warning has failed to produce any action or apology.
Naquada | January 17, 2012 at 10:09 am
copy theft is… theft, but sopa doesn’t effect as andi said the root of it.. its a ill advised, badly planned and ultimately badly implemented ‘solution’. Under SOPA if someone complained (rightly or wrongly) about a copyright claim, and that could be an image linked on your website, some text, basically anything that they thought -might- be copyrighted to someone else, SOPA gives the power to basically ‘remove’ that site from the net, and, worse, directly effect the domain name services at point to that site or service.
It also has the ability to bring down other innocent sites, sites that might be on the same IP address, or other sites that are registered to yourself, that aren’t part of the copyright claim.
Lets take an example of a magic news site… SOPA could kill these dead in the water… an image of a performer ? that could be (by someone) claimed as a copyright infringement, a video of a performance of a trick or performer? also potentially a copyright infringement, should any party take offence to you linking or showing it.
the majority of people behind the SOPA bill admit they ‘have no technical knowledge of how the internet works’ which is a bit like going for brain surgery knowing its going to be done by a car mechanic..
SOPA could bring down Facebook, google, youtube, news sites to name a few… its a bad idea.. full stop…
Tomorrow (Jan 18th 2012) is anti soap day, and a number of high profile sites will ‘go dark’, turning off their services for a day to illustrate exactly how badly SOPA could effect the internet as it stands today…
Not sure I agree with you here Andi…
Breaking copyright is breaking copyright. End of story. Let me play Devil’s advocate a bit…
Online footage from magic TV shows will be gone:
Good. Less people casually replaying and working our effects and reposting with the clip and an exposure explanation beneath it.
We’ll get less new magicians:
Good. the less there are, the more work for me. Why should we want to be inundated with magicians? A speciality act should be special… and rare.
Performance videos and showreels could be removed:
If you’re using music illegally… that’s fair enough.
Many magic websites could be blocked or removed:
So don’t link to TV performances unless you have the permission to…
Finding a magician might be more difficult:
I doubt it. Those that are serious would simply not have links to illegal clips.
Magicians might not be able to interact online:
Panic mongering here. The alternative argument is that internet needs to grow up.
Magic piracy won’t be affected in the way you might expect:
Not sure why you think only large companies would be affected. If peer to peer piracy is lessened in any way by this, that’s a good thing. People are simply too used to getting something for nothing and think it is a right.
Magicians could go out of business:
Hyperbole? Yes I’m afraid it does… most magicians will say that far more work comes from referral than cold internet enquiries…
Sorry to pick holes and sound negative, I know that many want to defend the right to the internet’s anarchic form of democracy and I’ve quite a lot of sympathy for that, but that’s not the argument you give here. You’re basically saying that magicians aren’t going to enjoy the benefits of dodging copyright issues any more. Why should they?