A Communications Lesson Courtesy of the Anti-SOPA Movement
This week seemed like a good opportunity to take some pause and look at the brouhaha over SOPA. Not since the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (a battle won by the entertainment industry) have I noticed an outpouring of concern over freedom of the web (domestically, anyway) as over the past few weeks with the SOPA/PIPA legislation. From a communications perspective, the SOPA/PIPA debate has been hugely interesting, and points to new vs. old approaches to PR, the importance of audience connection, and how essential it is to find the right message.
At the crux of it all on the entertainment side, as the Wall Street Journal recently described, was the messaging problem on behalf of the entertainment industry – something admitted to even by the lobbyists themselves. Why? Maybe in part because the RIAA and MPAA relied on a message of American jobs; and how this put American innovation at risk – a message that, as it turns out, didn’t pull the public heartstrings or extend so far as to draw sympathy to those with a reputation for squeezing profits from artists and suing single moms millions for filesharing.
The original SOPA ad:
Over the last two years, the RIAA and MPAA have had their sights on something like this, putting millions into traditional beltway PR: lobbyists, press releases, status quo, looking to Internet control as a jobs issue, some wedge to give better copyright control.
The entertainment industry put $279.5 million into beltway lobbying- piddly compared with the Silicon Valley crowd, who put in $29.3m over the same period. For all that effort they may have courted their D.C. influencers, but that support didn’t help against a surging public outcry.
What took them years to build up, the web-based grassroots movement fought against in a matter of days with an outpouring of information and opinion on the same medium that they defended – through YouTube videos, Net celebrities, and email campaigns. Instead of “jobs”, the opposition spoke of liberty, freedom of expression, and even a concern for the security of the Internet itself. These messages are both universal and extremely personal – ones in which nearly everyone has some stake.
As a result, 13 million people participated in the protest on the 18th. 50,000 websites went dark. Congress received 3 million emails concerning SOPA and the loss of Internet freedoms. A tremendous outpouring of support that ultimately helped break the momentum behind the bill.
Rather than an acknowledgement of their miscalculation, the industry complained that that they lacked a big enough mouthpiece and couldn’t control the communications cycle (a spooky complaint coming from the incumbent owners of broadcast media and distribution, one that sounds an awful lot like a push for censorship).
The next battle is already heating up, and I’ll be watching to see whether ACTA supporters recalculate, or pursue PR as usual.
