Transcript for Cory Doctorow on the Three Strikes Death Penalty

David Weinberger: You folks are coming up with a plan

that has been submitted to the Congress

It is the 21st century - what does the 21st century Broadband Plan look like?

Cory Doctorow: Well, I don't know what it should look like overall.

It's probably not within the scope of a short interview. But I'll tell you what I'd like

people to take into consideration

And that's that the internet is not just a way of

downloading movies, or downloading music, or downloading [games]

for that matter. The Internet is a lifeline to every aspect of our digital lives.

So, most of us probably couldn't do our jobs without the internet.

So cutting off your internet is cutting off your livelihood,

Most of us probably couldn't get health care

or get the most out of the health care without the internet.

Most of us, probably, if we've got kids, our kids couldn't do their homework without the internet

or for doing continuing education, we couldn't continue to be educated without the internet

Most civic participation involves the internet

both in the gross scale like donating money to a candidate

you know, like the equivalent of knocking on doors in the 21st century

But also, you know, increasingly you can't get a permit to,

like, build a shed out back without the internet

Every aspect of our digital lives moves through the internet

And all the research bears this out. You know in the UK we have this digital inclusion research

that takes and controls two groups of people who are the most disadvantaged.

One has the internet and the other one doesn't.

The ones that have internet access have lower overheads,

they have more disposable income to spend on their kids' education,

their kids have better chances of being socially mobile

and so on. So all that stuff is part of what we get out of the internet.

But we routinely treat the internet as though it's just a kind of

glorified cable television. And so we have things like

the "three strikes" proposal that's now moving through the Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement

thanks to the US trade representative, thanks to America's own trade policy

that says, among other things, that if you are

accused without conviction of violating copyright three times

- no judge, no jury, no trial, no evidence -

we take away your internet for a period of time

and we add you to a list of people for whom it's illegal to

provide internet access. So this is, like, so grossly disproportionate

first of all to the crime, such as it is

but second of all to notions of justice. I mean imagine if - as Ed Felten has pointed out -

imagine if we said: "Oh, you've been up to some nasty things with the photocopier

Publishing gets to come over your house and take away everything printed.

You can't read for a year,

because you've done something wrong with the photocopier."

That's the right scale to be thinking about here.

One way to understand just what a death penalty this is

for participation in the electronic society

is to think about the corollaries

So imagine if Universal Music stood accused of

three acts of erroneous copyright accusation

You know, Universal Music has in fact committed more than 3 acts of erroneous copyright

accusations. They routinely erroneously accuse people

of violating copyright

DW: They systematically do this, I mean seriously.

I mean, the take down notices letters sent to YouTube, for example are -

they know that there is ton of stuff that's going to be...

that is not a violation but it's, you know...

CD: "Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, comrade."

So, what if, when Universal did that,

what if we accused Universal of three bad accusations

We needn't even have to prove it, right? What if we accused the of three bad accusations

and for one year, Universal wasn't allowed to use the internet?

We'd go round with a set of bolt-cutters to every Universal office

all over the world, and we'd go to their wiring closet

we'd cut their DSL line and fiber

They could do all their business for a year by fax

provided they weren't using Voice over IP lines

to transmit those faxes, right? They could use paper memos

for a year. Universal would collapse in an instant.

It would be the end of generations long media empire

and the collapse of one of the great, you know, entertainment industry giants

It would just pop like a soap bubble.

DW: And I would like to find a single hard drive of the purest-hearted individual,

the most law-abiding... that does not contain three copyright violations

Just three arguable copyright violations.

CD: Right, but let's leave aside that: assume that they are as pure as the driven snow.

We're not talking about copyright violations

We're talking about accusations of copyright violations. Now

this comes to the next point, which is, what if you ARE guilty of three copyright violations

is this proportional? And as you say, I don't think it is

because first of all, we all stand in violation of copyright

and I see this everywhere I go. One of my routine questions is

"Who in this room isn't a pirate?" right? So I went and spoke to Disney in Burbank

And I said: "Who in this room isn't a pirate?"

Mostly, they were engineers, but there were a couple of lawyers there

None of the lawyers put their hands up, right? because they know that they are pirates

A couple of the engineers went [slowly rises his hand]

And the lawyers looked over and went [shakes his head]

And they put their hands down. Because you have to be, right? It's impossible not to be

a pirate in this day and age. Everyone is violating something

There is a very memorable moment in Kirby Dick's movie, "This Film is not yet Rated"

which is a movie about the MPAA's rating system

and specifically about the fact that it is done in secret

And Kirby hired a private eye to figure out who are the people on the secret ratings board

and then submitted the movie to the ratings board

So, he gets a call from the head MPAA

lobbyist who is in DC - he used to be a congressman

He says: "Kirby, I've seen your movie

and I want to talk to you about it." And Kirby says: "Wait a second. You saw my movie. Are you in L.A:?"

He says: "No, no, I am in DC" and Kirby says: "Well, how did you see my movie inDC?

The copy that I gave the ratings agency is here in LA."

He says: "No, no, they made a copy for me." And Kirby says: "What do you mean,

they made a copy for you?" And he says: "Well, it's OK, though,

because I put it in my vault." Right? We're all copyists.

So, is it proportional? Does it make sense

as a punishment to say: "We think you committed a civil offense against a media giant

Therefore you can't be educated, you can't get health care, you can't vote

you can't participate in civic life.

All of these things are now off-limits to you" and again, that's not proportional,

that's not a good broadband strategy for the nation

So, if you're crafting a broadband strategy, whose objective it is to see

that your society successfully transitions to a digital one

and becomes one of the winners in the digital era, the way it was the winner in the hard goods era

There is no way to do that that starts by saying: "We will arbitrarily suspend or withdraw

network access from people on the basis of accusation or even conviction for copyright infringement.

The idea of enacting the death penalty against someone

should - if it even exists in law -

should be reserved for the most heinous of crimes

and not for mere civil offense.

DW: Thank you

CD: You're welcome