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hi everyone welcome to reporters roundtable it's episode number 107 in our normal spot on Friday at ten a.m. hey what a week it has been it was such a week we had to do a special emergency show a couple of days ago on what was happening with Sokka and all the site blackouts but you know what that story just will not die it is so interesting what's happening in a the effects of the SOPA and the PIPA backlash have been epic and that's what we're talking about today the house delayed the vote on these bill's sponsors are ditching it megaupload got taken offline a non has gone nuclear and attacked government sites and if you think these episodes these news events are unrelated you're wrong they're all tied together that's what we're talking about today and I am so excited about the show because this is why we do the roundtable all the experts who know this stuff are here working with us at cnet and I've got them all on the line with me right now first in the studio Eleanor Mills security reporter thanks Eleanor for joining us via Skype again Declan McCulloch our political correspondent Thank You Declan for dialing in again Declan you're muted apologize I'm back now and now you wish I were no never thank you for joining us and then we have Greg Sandoval from a secret undisclosed location somewhere deep in the heart of New York City who covers Hollywood in the media for us Greg thank you for dialing in say that my girlfriend's gonna stay where were you anyway thank you guys in here Greg by the way we achieved a an epic win here at seen it he had three stories on the front door of cnet com CNN news com this morning which is unheard of congratulations Greg thank you thank you very much he he works I don't we work him too hard anyway listen we have to get into the news here first of all in update on what's happening with the protect IP act and SOPA and the site takedowns the effect that those takedowns are the self blockings have happened so wiki wikipedia craigslist other sites went dark Declan what has the in brief if possible the effect of those takedowns bin well I've been saying all along that some version of SOPA and how some version of protect ipmi Senate is going to go forward even if it's a modified watered-down version and looks like I was wrong it's too early to say the situation is still really fluid but the protest is the Wikipedia black out the google amazon homepage statements that this this has changed the political dynamic in Washington has become much more a Democrat back to Bill the Republicans are vanishing in terms of their support for it and this is this is stall what is going to resume I don't know but for right now the internet is one a temporary victory now Greg what's so interesting about this is that these bills have been pushed by the content industry by Hollywood by the folks that you cover what has been the reaction in your industry to this backlash against these bills well they're like everybody else everybody in DC everybody that's ever watched politics or any length of time they're stunned I was told from September of 2010 that this bill in some form was going to get past that's why far bipartisan support the president was behind it the vice president was behind it they were going out thing online piracy file-sharing we're comparing it to smash and grab that all these guys were telling me this is a slam dunk in some form it was going and I mean we have to realize what happened to yours they were wrapped I mean am i over Oh am I giving them too much credit here the technology sector and what happened will we saw this week they were killed this grassroots effort came from nowhere and push back all of the support and we saw people dropping off left or right lawmakers dropping off a lot left to right so i think the mood in hollywood is one of shock and absolutely i think it says dismay they didn't know what they were running into and they don't know how they're going to react going forward all right we'll come back to that in a second we still gotta covers a little bit more of the news here on on this then megaupload was that yesterday or the day before when that was yesterday yesterday so megaupload was shut down by the US government and arrest warrants have been served and around the around the world in New Zealand I think to get the people who run megaupload brought to justice their jailed now tell us briefly fill us in on that news and let's talk about how that's related to this in a nutshell so what happened with megaupload what is megaupload and who took it down and why megaupload is a cyber Walker very popular cyber Walker were people millions of people all over the world the site was attracting nearly as much traffic is comparable to you too so people go there and they would store it there video files mostly video files TV shows movies and they would store them in their cyber Walker's but twist here is that they would also allow other people to go in and view these movies and these are unauthorized or pirated copies the movie industry and the FBI alleged so the man who runs it is one most colorful characters we've seen a long time namma the name of Kim calm he's also used born kimmy schmitt the German he wants it he says it's legitimate he said he takes down pirated materials when he notified by the copyright owner which is what the DMCA says the feds were buying at the brewing industry has long complained to them this guy's just you know it's a sham and they've been asking the government to come in there and do something about it yes sir they did do you bring this home but is the timing cannot be coincidental yes no and I don't believe that either tell me more really the President and I was like here with declan things about this to the president turn is back on SOPA and PIPA after making all kinds of support estate about loss anti-piracy and he upset a lot of people my sources in Hollywood say they're going to be they're going to react they've been donating money full decade to Democratic candidates and campaigns and they're going to turn off the spigot and I think the president kind of helped save face and maybe save some of those relationships kind of prodded the FBI and the Justice Department move now they've been working on us from what I was told about this is that there were something happening with megaupload Moscow and I think that they moved in the wake of what was going on with sofa that's my belief okay now we're going to get into more details and all this stuff but first we have to wrap out the week with what happened in response to this so first we have the very powerful people on the internet who are running big sites in protests taking down their sites make them unavailable for 24 hours in reaction to these bills then we have a megaupload being taken offline by the federal government which seems to be a sort of in reaction to what's happening with with the bills and then we have an on getting throwing sending their flying monkeys out over the internet and taking down government sites Eleanor what happened there yeah very swiftly after the megaload megaupload news of the indictments and arrest came out the Twitter accounts of anonymous were just going crazy and they were behind the scenes just you know going into attack mode and they went after you know when after government sites DOJ was one of the first I think to go and mpaa and they had others in their sights and throughout the afternoon and evening they were sites were going offline a music industry a movie industry and in France to vivendi France a couple other sites you know and it was sort of a struggle that they were struggling to keep him back up they'd go back up and they'd go back down again so an on a bunch of activists hackers loosely connected managed to take down the DOJ cited an idle service attack on the DOJ yeah this cannot end well and that's the last that's now we're up to date okay that's what's happened so far as everything he news this morning thats related to this weenie feel about well the only interesting tidbit is that they they were very successful they had a lot of you know a lot of activity and people you know who were participating in the dos attacks but it also turns out that they were using a previously you had to download a tool called the Loic low-orbit ion cannon cannon and that would allow you the you knew you were going to participate in the das attack well now they were distributing links on Twitter that when you click that and you you arrived at the page instead of getting what you'd think would be you know maybe a press release from anonymous talking about what they're doing you'd actually get to a page where if you had JavaScript enabled in your browser you would automatically be participating in the attack without even knowing it so they were probably getting a lot of help from unwitting you know computers people who didn't know that they were participating just by clicking on this link really yeah so if that sounds like a virus that and I know you could or drive by rather exactly yeah I mean basically you're clicking a link and you don't know what's happening but your computer is uh is attacking you know the DOJ okay so an ons attack or reaction to the events of this week both a technical and to some extent a social success because in addition to those bots izing of people's computers there are also a lot of people are obviously very much wanted to participate in this attack so it's both the technical and a social success and it looks like from here that we now have battle lines lining up a huge battle being drawn between the people who are opposed to a Content restriction censorship and on one hand and maybe the government on the other because they're now getting attacked and they've got these bills which are in trouble and of course there's a lot of factions in the government which are moving around and changing sides and then we've got the content industry who I don't know what's who seemed to be the puppet masters is that the way this is going what who are the major contestants in this battle declan then Greg if you look at the amount of enthusiasm that the companies and trade associations have spent on this the top one is the motion picture association of america the major movie studios and then that's followed probably by the recording industry association of america then maybe followed by the US Chamber of Commerce but they've been kind of silent on this they were very active in December but after Republicans started at dropping off or expressing concerns the Heritage Foundation said this week this is the iconic conservative think tank that if you vote for sofa or protect IP they're going to score that negatively against you in their ranking of Congress that a lot of conservatives pay attention to so there's this is this is not entirely being driven by a Hollywood but in terms of who's really out there and saying we really need this yet it's kind of them on the other hand it's it's not just internet companies the one website that major website that went dark took its content more or less offline unless you're blocking JavaScript was wiki pedia which is not a company it's the wikimedia foundation it's a Wikipedia zone users and active contributors voted to say it to say we're going to do this which is unprecedented in the US Greg the the content industry Hollywood as you said they feel they must be rocked back on their on their fat leather chairs or whatever it is or Eames chairs a feeling routed as you said what do you think the reaction is going to be now the content industry of course has blocked or tried to block in the past other media types that enabled individuals to share and distribute content mostly in analog form and now they're taking on digital what do they do next now that apparently the there the the the work they put into getting the government basically to take their what they wanted to do seriously and put these bills out there now that that didn't work what's next what's distinguish between their attempts in the past do you know take out VHS whatever between our from piracy right okay online piracy is just people taking movies that they didn't pay for not compensating the creators this is something different as far as a question about what they do now I don't think anybody has any idea I think the first thing they're going to do is kind of gather up and see take a measure of how much support they have left and then see if they can find some common grounds with the opposition and fifth is anyway as they come out with something that the value I've been told my sources said if they're only offered scraps there's the offer on the table is only gonna be something that's not really going to have stress the problem that they would just forget about it there's a dropping come back again with something when they still like to have more support but they felt like they had support for this they had the the democratic White House behind them and even many Republican supporters am I not correct on that and now though that's why bipartisan support yeah so and that was undone by the people they say Google they were buying their fingers everybody on that side on the supporters according the fingers including Rupert Murdoch at Google now that's interesting amantha them yeah no no there's no question but they say my google house fan the flames they may be pitches to other tech companies they were donating both parties especially the Republicans because they've been soft their their accusations are that Google is the one that's really shoulders you know that's really interesting cuz i remember when google bought youtube and the it was a very it was obvious that the content would be valuable for google but it looked like they were just buying a big bucket of lawsuits because at the time that google acquired youtube youtube was under a massive assault from content industries for pretty much exactly the same thing we're talking about right now is that right yeah yes and they want and they want at least they won the first round now i want to tie that into what's happening a little bit with megaupload right now when youtube was under assault google and youtube and then google-owned youtube under assault those were all civil those were nobody was put in jail for what youtube was alleged to be doing why is megaupload being treated as a criminal that's what megaupload attorney asked me today why are they doing this to our guys when you was able to have a hearing in court s was in one court and in our case he says they're showing up with black jackets on and guns out and knocking down doors that's their question is how come it was such a difference now there was never any charges in the YouTube case of money laundering or racketeering but this is something different we're seeing something that we're seeing the US government test these piracy laws and enforcing them overseas they're saying megaupload was an American company because it had its servers or under American jurisdiction because it had its servers and Virginia that's going to be a test they're saying that these copyright laws are violated as international laws that support them are some international laws I don't know all the arguments yet but there's nothing absolute about this case according to a megaupload attorney this is something they haven't done before and it's new ground obviously declan in DC what is their response been to or what is the take on the megaupload criminal charges it is is this because DOJ or whomever got their nose bloodied with SOPA and protect IP is that is this a tantrum reaction or is this logical I think that Greg is probably right in saying that the timing is no coincidence so when you have the administration wanting to show that they're doing something this is the response now in terms of the criminal charges this is probably this probably could be interpreted as an example of why you have a very a very broad copyright system it has a lot of power given to the Department of Justice and copyright holders and you have to trust them to exercise it responsibly there's a 1997 long called the no electronic theft act that says that sharing movies music whatever even with its with a member of your family can be prosecuted as a federal felony and that's the law that was invoked here there's and one other response to the Google point what what the supporters of protect IP and soap have done I've tried to do is say this is just Google Google's the company behind opposition to it and that that's why Lamar Smith had google only allowed google and only Google to testify at the hearing a few months ago and I'm until google has some baggage it has the YouTube cases google books and so it's easy relatively easy for Republicans Democrats to say Google doesn't really believe in copyright law therefore let's just say then therefore let's ignore what they're saying about the soap and protect IP in reality this is not Google it's pretty much a lot of folks on the internet diverse is a very few number of people in Washington DC now the going back to the nuclear issue here this has been a week of big actions and big bigger reactions and I don't think we're done yet Eleanor the federal government whose sites came under attack cannot sit back and let a non walk all over their sites this way what how is the gov likely to react to this if in any way oh there could be a rest I mean they brought in arrests after other attacks on you know Sony and other companies so they're probably going to add you know this information and try and go after people who who organized or you know coordinated this they can definitely going back to DC here what's the what do you hear from the from the White House not a whole lot there's I wish that they were more forthcoming this is a delicate balancing act for President Obama and the White House in general because what they've been able to do historically at least nobody has been able to do this in a Republican side since bush in two thousand what what they've been able to do on the Democratic side is say is get money from both Northern California Silicon Valley in Southern California Hollywood and now Obama's being put in a position that he's going to have to choose one or the other and there's going to be some political consequences no matter what he does that's not a position he probably wants to be and it'll be a lot better for him if this bill just went a way and so I think that's probably what led to some pressure being put on senator Reed to say okay let's not go ahead of this floor vote maybe we can find something else to do have a more health care reform just kidding because that's such a unifying issue all right guys let's wrap it up here with what's going to happen next week I mean this week we had sites going offline we had arrests in New Zealand we've had an ongoing nuclear what do we have to look forward to Eleanor I predict another day to breach next week yeah okay I don't know who or what and we may not it may not surface to the news but there will be actually more than one and a non based data breach oh no ness I don't think so necessarily I mean I think they're doing a lot of political political activity and protests but the data breaches in general especially the ones that stay under the radar are the real criminals who are just trying to siphon off your money mm-hmm so you won't hear about it you won't know who they are and eventually hopefully they'd get arrest but that's not related to this or that is related to this no okay related to this cuz yeah we're going to have another bright now that all the everybody's busy looking at this story it's a great time to be a criminal all the cops are over here go to this 71 I'll go they'll go after a key supporters they went after Christopher Dodds website and could attack attack sites of other people or even leak their information by the way just as a site on here before we do wrap up by Senator Dodd the mpaa chairman sent out a statement saying we applaud those leaders in Washington have chosen to stand with the millions of hardworking Americans all across this nation whose livelihoods are threatened by foreign criminal workers the designed to steal uh declan I take it you've seen this statement it seems a little tone deaf to me or my am I miss reading it did he hit the right and tone on his note in reaction to what's happened with the product IP and so politely I think that that you're probably right that it is a bit tone-deaf talking about this is just criminal operations that phrase appeared in a statement it's not just criminal operations I mean you saw how the department homeland security sees in New York music blog event said whoopsie a year later after domains been offline for a year and returned to jazz to its rightful owners and what's really happening here is in the last ten years or so a Hollywood has pretty much gotten its way when it comes to copyright law with with one exception when they propose something they Lobby it well they do the right briefings maybe some members of Congress will be invited to gala dinners with Richard Gere that was the mpaa gala dinner with Richard Gere maybe Lamar Smith author of SOPA will show up on stage at a RI a double-a or similar event that happened to and they just have done this really really well and they expected to succeed here just because that's their history and so they were just taken by surprise that they were rolled by the internet and they just don't want to do rolled by the internet Greg what do you expect to hear from New York and Southern California in the next week in reaction to all this well I think the big story coming next week will be whether the United States government can bring Kim calm and his alleged associates and mega close to the United States and it's just listening to I was watching museum TV shows last night it sounds like abilities there are very much cooperating with less official so expect to see I mean a fight but you could end up here and we will see some kind of trial with calm I got was in the United States all right one last question for anybody who wants it what does this mean for the average online human being for you and me people who watch TV shows do a little bit you know Sam you get it you get it nice mp3 track you like it you send it to a friend you know you subscribe to netflix mostly legit every now and then by mistake a little bit of it illegitimate content sharing going on what does this mean to you and me the status quo continues you think huh for now a poet ah nothing changes nothing changes nothing changes if I okay whatever talking about the citizen you're nothing changes but everybody i talked to most videos is pointing towards you sales decline in their home video market business isn't very good and a lot of the opposition says that's their own in this management whatever but everything this shows important as far as they're concerned sort of decline in the business and you're going to see Hollywood TV networks music labels starts to tighten the belt and starts to make a point that they can't afford to absorb piracy forever it's also interesting to me it's a big bear being backed slowly and ever more slowly into a tighter and tighter corner it's very interesting how this is all playing out I think it's going to take the next couple at a couple years and we'll see and then there'll be a new technology to worry about Eleanor Mills thank you so much for joining us declan mccullagh greg sandoval thanks guys were a really interesting reporters roundtable i'm rafe needleman in San Francisco thanks Stephen for producing will be back on Friday unless something else big happens before then with another another reporters roundtable you have comments on the show please email me Rafe at cnet com or follow me on Twitter that's our AFE thanks everyone will see you all next week you