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  • Views From Ohanian, Sahakian On Congressional Bills Addressing Digit

    VIEWS FROM OHANIAN, SAHAKIAN ON CONGRESSIONAL BILLS ADDRESSING DIGITAL PIRACY
    Elise Kalfayan

    asbarez
    Thursday, January 19th, 2012

    "SOPA/PIPA" have been major topics online, but I didn't read up
    on them until a message appeared on my blog's upload screen last
    week from the project leaders of WordPress. The nonpolitical lead
    programmers of open source software which runs millions of websites
    including mine were encouraging their entire WordPress community to
    contact Congress and urge defeat of the proposed bills.

    A quick Google search on the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect
    Intellectual Property Act sent me to a video link of Alexis Ohanian's
    January 5 interview on Bloomberg TV.

    Ohanian, the young founder of Reddit.com (which gets millions of visits
    each month), stated his conviction that "More government intervention
    is not the answer here." He noted later that Bloomberg was the first
    mainstream outlet to cover the controversy, which had been brewing
    on the internet for weeks. TechCrunchTV and finally CNN interviewed
    Ohanian just this week as a January 18 internet blackout loomed.

    Ohanian and Reddit instigated the blackout in protest against the bills
    before Congress. Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist, and many other major
    sites joined in or put a warning on their front page about the bills.

    Media conglomerates (Craigslist named News Corp, the Recording Industry
    Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America,
    Nike, Sony, Comcast, VISA "and others" on its home page) lobbied for
    these bills, which would give copyright holders the power to ask the US
    Department of Justice to block websites accused of infringement. The
    entertainment industry and creative professionals have suffered
    greatly from pirating: the illegal copying and distribution of films,
    videos, music, and creative content. But the remedy proposed through
    $94 million in lobbying (according to Ohanian) alarms the internet
    business community concerned about censorship, and its determined
    opposition has been "organic, not top-down."

    Shant Sahakian, also a young Armenian-American internet entrepreneur,
    deals with the both sides of this debate in his business.

    Sahakian is founder and president of the full-service marketing
    and design firm Sedna Solutions, started in 1999 and based
    in Glendale. He helps clients build websites, social apps, and
    marketing and print advertising campaigns. He's worked extensively
    with creative professionals, and his clients include Glendale Arts
    and the Alex Theatre.

    "One of the problems with the legislation is that there is a fine line
    between enforcement and going too far," he said. "The drafters have
    good intentions, but it is too broadly written. They might do a good
    job of enforcing it and not abusing its power, but who knows five
    years from now? Especially with how fast the internet is changing,
    it brings up risks for censorship and threats to freedom of speech."

    What about the concerns of content creators, who are losing income as
    people just steal their work off the internet? "It's definitely a major
    issue," says Sahakian. "You see it all the time with something simple
    like stock photography. There are very clear laws, you need to purchase
    photos, and you need to give the photographer credit if that's part of
    the agreement. They created the photos so they have the rights to their
    work. There is quite a bit of abuse, taking the work of musicians,
    artists, and photographers, and I think that something needs to be
    done, but the way SOPA and PIPA have been written is overreaching."

    Sahakian's work with clients includes "a great deal of education
    about copyright." He directs them to resources where they can obtain
    creative works such as photographs with clear terms and conditions
    that are respectful of the artists' rights. "We've had some issues
    ourselves, when some of the ads we've done for clients are 'copied'
    in some form - that's always an interesting topic."

    Sahakian says there are already laws on the books to deal with
    copyright problems that could have a remedy (foreign websites posing
    the greatest threat to Hollywood by pirating movies are outside U.S.

    jurisdiction). "With websites for example, if there's a problem,
    you can contact the hosting company's abuse department, and they can
    decide if they have legal grounds to remove the content or if there's a
    risk. YouTube, for example: if there's a video where there's been some
    copyright infringement, has a process by which they decide whether to
    take it down. Some companies are responsible, some aren't responsible
    at all, and maybe some laws need be on the books that make websites
    responsible for things on their site. But the way the law is written
    it gives Congress and the Department of Justice a lot of power. The
    big danger is Congress picking favorites, as people have said they've
    done in the auto industry or the banking industry. It opens up a risk
    of too much power being given to one side."

    Ohanian, Sahakian, and other internet entrepreneurs have all said the
    solution to this problem needs to be crafted very carefully. Ohanian
    calls for significant input from the "tech community." Sahakian says,
    "You'll have to bring creative people, small businesses, and internet
    experts together to figure out how to protect copyrights and protect
    work from getting copied."

    A January 18 Congressional committee hearing on the House bill's
    provisions, called by Darrell Issa (R-CA), was cancelled after
    constituent outcry got the House bill tabled. Issa had invited Ohanian,
    among others, to testify.

    The January 24 Senate vote on its version of the legislation may
    still go forward so the fight is not over, said Ohanian on CNN. Both
    California senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are listed
    as sponsors of the bill. Original co-sponsor Senator Marco Rubio
    (R-Florida) announced January 18 that he no longer supported the PIPA
    bill and would ask Harry Reid to withdraw it.

    This column's focus on the federal legislative fight pitting Hollywood
    against Silicon Valley ends here: Asbarez readers can follow the news
    online in the coming days.

    I'm glad research on the subject led me to learn more about Alexis
    Ohanian and his successful startup Reddit, which I will start checking
    regularly (it's a fun site!). Also impressive is his volunteer work
    to encourage entrepreneurs and startups in many ways, including the
    time he spent as a 2010 Kiva Fellow in Armenia.

    I'm also glad I learned more about Shant Sahakian and his work in our
    community. In addition to creating top-quality online platforms for
    Glendale Arts and other notable clients through Sedna Solutions, he is
    serving on the boards of the Downtown Glendale Merchants Association,
    the Glendale Parks & Open Space Foundation, and the Glendale Young
    Professionals, and is a very thoughtful business professional himself.

    Finally, I'm grateful national attention is being paid to the huge
    problem all content creators (including writers like me!) are having
    with copyright infringement and digital piracy. There should be a
    way to guarantee the full fruits of our labors that doesn't threaten
    freedom of expression.

    Elise Kalfayan is a Glendale resident, a native Southern Californian,
    and a combined first/second generation Armenian-American. She has
    produced or edited print and online pieces on topics ranging from
    urban development to Armenian Church history. She is the publisher
    of a Glendale community news blog, and works as a contract writer,
    editor, and publishing consultant for clients including businesses,
    entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and memoirists.

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