Plain English, Please? SOPA Part 2

Part 2: Savings, Severability, and Definitions

Welcome back to Plain English, Please?. We’re talking SOPA and we’re diving in head first. Let’s get started!

H.R. 3261 Section 2, Savings and Severability Clauses

I talked last time about what those two basically are, so now we can see some prime examples and hopefully talk about whether or not they were actually followed. 

Section 2 (a) Savings Clauses

(1)First amendment

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to impose a prior restraint on free speech or the press protected under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

Plain English: This act is not meant to limit free speech or press in ways not listed in the first amendment.

Now we all know the clauses of the First Amendment, freedoms of religion, speech, press, expression, assembly and the like. Religion and assembly don’t really apply in SOPA and, but speech, press, and expression certainly do. It does clearly say things about free speech and press, but expression is oddly absent. Keep that in mind.

           (2)Title 17 liability

Nothing in title I shall be construed to enlarge or diminish liability, including vicarious or contributory liability, for any cause of action available under title 17, United States Code, including any limitations on liability under such title.

Plain English: Nothing within SOPA will change liability under Title 17 Sanctions for the United States Code.

Title 17 of the United States Code is copyright law, so this section also basically means that everything that is protected from copyright law or outlawed by it is still the same, and no extra punishments can be sanctioned for breaking Title 17. So if you get caught breaking copyright, it’s still the same offence and penalty.

(b)Severability

If any provision of this Act, or the application of the provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the other provisions or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Plain English: If the courts say that parts of the bill are unconstitutional, that part can be cut out without repealing the entire law itself.

That part is pretty self explanatory, and it’s the end of section two. From this point onward, we’re into Title I of this act, and the most tedious section on top of that. We’re in to definitions.

Most of these we can skip over. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what their number 9, “including”, means. A lot of these are basic definitions of servers and domain names, all extended to more words than are really needed. An IP address was extended to “Domestic Internet Protocol Address”. But out of the 24 definitions, here are the difficult ones.

(10)Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator

The term Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator means the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator appointed under section 301 of the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (15 U.S.C. 8111).

Plain English: This one I had to directly look up. Essentially the IPEC is a Congressionally appointed official who coordinates responses to IP theft. The coordinator can’t direct any law enforcement himself though, and is meant to form and lead an advisory committee within the President’s executive committee.

(15)Internet Protocol allocation entity

The term Internet Protocol allocation entity means, with respect to a particular Internet Protocol address, the entity, local internet registry, or regional internet registry to which the smallest applicable block of Internet Protocol addresses containing that address is allocated or assigned by a local internet registry, regional internet registry, or other Internet Protocol address allocation authority, according to the applicable publicly available database of allocations and assignments, if any.

Plain English: The person or thing that assigns IP addresses. Usually determined by dynamic host configuration protocol, which can be better explained by a computer scientist than me.

(18)Lanham Act

The term Lanham Act means the Act entitled An Act to provide for the registration and protection of trademarks used in commerce, to carry out the provisions of certain international conventions, and for other purposes, approved July 5, 1946 (commonly referred to as the Trademark Act of 1946 or the Lanham Act).

Plain English: The Lanham Act is the beginning and basis of trademark law in the United States. It’s supposed to ensure that trademarks are respected internationally.

(19)Nonauthoritative domain name server

The term nonauthoritative domain name server means a server that does not contain complete copies of domains but uses a cache file that is comprised of previous domain name server lookups, for which the server has received an authoritative response in the past.

Plain English: This part is a bit confusing, since I think there are multiple definitions for the term. But for the US government, a nonauthoritative domain name server seems to describe cached versions of a domains that a server has saved from previous searches. It’s sort of like how Google offers to pull up a cached copy if it can’t find your searched site again.

That’s all for this installment! Feel free to comment or discuss below, and if you have any requests for laws or court decisions for this segment don’t hesitate to email your request to activelynerdy@gmail.com.

Next Week:  The Attorney General, the Market, and Immunities.

And remember, it doesn’t matter what you get nerdy about, just as long as you’re active.

Plain English, Please? : SOPA

H.R. 3261: The "Stop Online Piracy Act"

Part 1: Getting Started

SOPA. Just the name of the bill is enough to send a chill down the spine of internet savvy individuals everywhere. It may not have been the first time that a bill like this was brought in front of Congress for a vote, but it was certainly the one we reacted to the loudest. But what does it actually say?

The complications of legal language are a pain to slog through, which means most people don’t actually read the laws that are being passed. Or at least the ones that try to be passed. Luckily, this one didn’t and luckily you have me.  But this one is long, clocking in at 77 pages. I promise not to be nearly as verbose.

Here’s how this segment is going to work. I’ll be as fair and unbiased as possible, but cut down the language to something simpler. Granted almost any language is simpler than legal text, and I admit I am just as human as everyone else so some bias is unavoidable.  I’ll go segment by segment, usually skipping the first section that tends to go something like this:

                Section 1. Short title; table of contents

(a)    Short title.---

This Act may be cited as something that won’t make our interns kill us when we make them type this up.

(b)   Table of contents.---

No really, this is an actual table of contents. Feel free to skip around as needed

There are also some sections that are unavoidable within Legislative bills in particular that we should go through first, or at least the terminology. Section one is always the least important of the entire bill, because it’s the title everyone uses and the table of contents but not much else.  Don’t be surprised if I skip straight to Section 2.

Section 2 gets more to the meat of things. The Savings and Severability Clauses. Savings clauses are meant to protect already engrained laws and sanctions from being restrained, particularly on Constitutional amendments. Never be surprised to see a 1^st, 14^th, or 17^th amendment savings clause in a bill. Whether or not the savings clauses are strictly adhered to is another discussion entirely. Severability clauses basically are admissions that they may not get every section constitutionally kosher the first time, and allow sections to be stricken down without the entire bill getting thrown out all together.

Section 2 is the end of the preliminary sections before it breaks up into Titles. The bulk of the bill and the important parts are in the titles, so that’s where I’ll be focusing the most time on and what will ultimately take the longest. There’s usually a section on definitions in the beginning of Title I, and some of those definitions come from other bills. I’ll do the legwork if they don’t do a direct definition in the text.

Other than that, welcome to the first in the Plain English, Please? Segment! Feel free to comment or discuss below, and if you have any requests for laws or court decisions for this segment don’t hesitate to email your request to activelynerdy@gmail.com.

Next Week:  Savings, Severability, and Definitions

And remember, it doesn’t matter what you get nerdy about, just as long as you’re active.