I know it may seem that way on the surface, but the proponents of this bill are larger than you think.
The MPAA represents companies with a combined market cap of $250 billion dollars. That's small enough for us to beat, but Pfizer ($150bn market cap) and Microsoft ($220bn market cap) are also major proponents. All together, there's a LOT of muscle behind this act, lobbyists alone aren't going to cut it.
Microsoft makes the vast majority of their money selling licenses. So does the entertainment industry.
For years these industries (software, music, and video) grew to massive size by exploiting cheap duplication of digital goods and control over distribution channels. Now that further advancing technology has brought duplication and distribution to the masses they are franticly trying to regain control.
The opposing tech companies sell services and advertising. Copyright infringement largely doesn't affect their bottom-line and these proposed measures will be costly for them to implement and legally difficult for them to follow.
Its members are made up of mainly non-web technology companies that sell expensive products and are worried about piracy or counterfeiting of those products: Oracle, Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, Symantec, etc. Conversely, they don't run user-generated-content sites like YouTube or Facebook, so aren't worried about the problems with weakening safe harbors.
Allow me to be cynical but, if SOPA passes and breaks the Internet, these software companies would gain a lot. Especially Microsoft. Remember the "good old days" of Microsoft Everything? I hope you're as fond of them as these software companies seem to be.
The paranoid security geek in me says "You know those Microsoft contributions to SAMBA lately? Could they go for a takedown order of the open source project on the allegation of copyright infringement now and make the SAMBA project fight to get their domain back?"
The cynic in me says that Microsoft's contributions are a subtle sabotage. Back in the day, Samba was incredibly easy to configure as a domain controller with full UNIX account sync. The latest Samba now requires the creation and maintenance of an actual Windows registry, a separate account system, etc.
Microsoft contributed the code under "GPLv2 or later", despite samba being under GPLv3.
GPLv2 does not contain the explicit patent grant that are part of why GPLv3 was created. And I very much doubt the courts will consider "or later" to include the patent grant.
The code in question seems very peripheral (something about using Firefox for configuration), and have received zero comments on the developers list. I would be very surprised if Microsoft had any other motivation for the release, than to make the engineer who worked on it happy.
However, it is probably not an accident that they choose the version of the GPL without a patent grant.
It would be interesting to see the implicit patent grant in v2 (remember - you can't grant all the liberties required in the license without granting use - and the right to grant it further down the chain - of any patents embodied in the code) tested in court.
Also, unless I'm very wrong, the terms "GPLv2 or later" means you can use the software under v3 if you prefer to use it that way. The only way to block the explicit patent grant (but stay will the implicit one) would be to license it under plain v2.
My guess is this approach will work well for the tech industry in the short term. The real change needs to happen in the system and with those who represent us. I'm looking forward to a (hopefully) more computer-literate generation of representatives being elected in the coming years.
