Slashdot Mirror
New Legislation Would Crack Down On Online Piracy
GovTechGuy writes "Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee unveiled new legislation to combat online piracy on Monday that gives the Department of Justice more power to shut down websites trafficking in pirated movies, films or counterfeit goods. The new bill would give the government the authority to shut down the sites with a court order; the site owner would have to petition the court to have it lifted. The judge would have final say over whether a site should be shut down or not. Business groups including the US Chamber of Commerce hailed the legislation as a huge step forward."
The new bill would give the government the authority to shut down the sites with a court order; the site owner would have to petition the court to have it lifted.
-- Adam McCormick
Yes...
Some legislators don't really care about Constitutionality. Such as Nancy Pelosi, who when asked where the Constitution gave Congress the power, simply asked if the reporter was serious, and moved on. It's on youtube, etc.
What ever happened to being innocent before guilty? In a free society, courts have to prove -you- guilty, not you have to prove your innocence.
Ah, you haven't heard of the glories of civil law. It is, for example, how most drug law forfeitures are done - you have to prove your innocence to get the seized assets back. (I am not a lawyer, and if you have assets seized, you had better get one and not rely on /. for legal advice.)
Why the US Court system bought into this theory is beyond me; I think that they should be ashamed of themselves (but, then, they don't ask for my opinion).
Quite right, here's another word for Corporatist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism Have a look at the first couple of lines.
All the more reason to move over to I2P, or other general darknets, which can provide application-agnostic anonymous networking with end-to-end encryption. Why wait for the inevitable when we can build a secure internet on top of the old one?
With I2P, there are no central DNS servers and, the ISP / IP-address of a specific service is ideally not knowable, neither are the ISP / IP-addresses of visitors to e.g. a political website. I2P being p2p, no authority has the power to shut down a site, prevent visitors using services in the I2P "darkcloud" or even snoop on the network activities (without using leaking honeypots, assimilating keys somehow or perform (D)DOS attacks). I2P uses random ports, so it's not as simple to block as blocking a portrange either. Being based on p2p coupled with encrypted tunnels, I2P resists most common attacks, even by formidable adversaries such as governments. You can run any website, any type of application, over I2P, however care must of course be taken to eliminate "identity leaks" in the application layer, even though the network-layer takes care of most anonymity, encryption and p2p.
So if you are to host "objectionable" content, whatever that may mean across the globe, I'd suggest taking a peek at I2P, as the "normal" internuts seems to be screwed in the short/mid-term. Heck, we should probably start using I2P for any and all purposes, so that I2P content is "legitimate" and equally protected from being censored and snooped upon in the first place.
I2P main site as a start. It's java and open source, so easily cross-platform and performs well (for a Java app anyway):
http://www.i2p2.de/
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Try these... some are companies, some are blogs... but you get the idea
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/microsoft-cryptome/
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/first-amendment-under-attack-feds-shut/
http://boingboing.net/2010/07/23/dmca.html
http://vigilant.tv/article/3328/blackboxvotingorg-shut-down-under-dmca-for-linking
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/09/intellectual-property-laws-abused-in-quest-to-shutdown-lowes-sucks-com.ars
There are hundreds... I simply googled: "companies shut down by DMCA"
This one is plain weird:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/_improper_use_of_copyright.php
If you look closely at the bill, it's actually usefull to shutdown sites that contain classified documents too, such as ooh Wikileaks... That, I think, is the real target. http://ktetch.blogspot.com/2010/09/us-senators-in-big-copyrights-pocket.html
I think the point is that the Internet shouldn't necessarily get any more regulation simply for being the Internet. The sorts of things you're talking about wouldn't be allowed by law in meatspace. This new law is equivalent to pulling the business license and evicting a seller from a brick-and-mortar store for these offenses without a trial. why should they be doing this to web sites specifically when they wouldn't dream of passing a law to do it on Fifth Avenue if Saks was accused of it.
There are a large number of outright bought or party line judges. Texas is full of horrible evil judges. There are plenty elsewhere in the country as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction.
Copyright infringement can be prosecuted as a federal felony charge.
The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
In addition, it added a threshold for criminal liability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement. In response to the NET Act, the US Sentencing Commission stiffened sanctions for intellectual property theft offenses. NET Act
The federal government has the constitutional right to criminally prosecute violations of federally granted property rights.
Prosecuting economic crimes with an interstate or international dimension is primarily a federal responsibility.
In a service-based economy, the entertainment industry generates a lot of jobs and a lot of domestic and export dollars. Many of those jobs and many of those dollars going directly into the pockets of the American geek - and not to the Russian or the Swede in Pirate Bay.
Two Individuals Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Traffic in Counterfeit Slot Machines and Computer Programs [casino gambling software] [August 20]
Thibodaux Man Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Digital Millennium Copyright Act [XBox 360 mods and pirated games] [maximum exposure, 5 years and $500,000, sentencing in 2011] [August 11]
Manhattan Federal Court Orders Seizures Of Seven Websites For Criminal Copyright Infringement In Connection With Distribution Of Pirated Movies Over The Internet [June 30]
Texas Man Admits Involvement In Software Piracy Conspiracy [Warez] [August 10]
What's wrong with getting a court order?
Every time we drop court orders out of the mix, we wind up with abusive crap (see FBI and National Security Letters).
It should also be pointed out that according to everything TFA said, this is aimed at sites that "traffic in" pirated goods. "Trafficking" = selling. This is not just about downloading files. Further, although it has been misused a lot lately, the actual definition of copyright "piracy" is distribution and sale of copyrighted goods, not just making personal copies.
Safe Harbor protects large corporates. Only.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer