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."

Comments

Governmental Takeover?

[Sonny Yatsen]

Ever notice the same people who call Net Neutrality a government takeover of the internet are usually pretty quiet whenever somebody in Congress proposes a law that'd allow them to block or shut websites down?

Re:Governmental Takeover?

[Freddybear]

No, I hadn't noticed that at all. I think any sort of government regulation of the Internet is a bad thing.

Re:Governmental Takeover?

[spun]

Cool, so I can break into your website and deface it? Start a smear campaign against you claiming you are an ex Nazi who likes having sex with dead relatives? Break into your online bank account and steal your money? Admit it, you want at least some government regulation of the Internet. Unless, I don't know, maybe you want a lawless old west where groups like Anonymous can wreak havoc unmolested by evil government types.

Re:Governmental Takeover?

[causality]

Cool, so I can break into your website and deface it?

That's what securing your systems is for. The toughest possible law in the USA against unauthorized entry/access won't stop someone outside your jurisdiction doing this as the Internet is a global network. You take resonable steps to secure your systems or you're an irresponsible admin, it really is that simple. For better or for worse, no law is going to change that.

Start a smear campaign against you claiming you are an ex Nazi who likes having sex with dead relatives?

Supposing the person is within jurisdiction, existing libel laws would already cover this. The medium (newspaper, TV, Web site) should be irrelevant. If they are out of your jurisdiction, what were you going to do about that anyway?

Break into your online bank account and steal your money?

That's fraud and/or theft. The medium should be irrelevant.

Admit it, you want at least some government regulation of the Internet.

No discrimination on the basis of destination or origin sounds good to me. For the reactionary types out there who like to knee-jerk, traffic shaping that prioritizes traffic type such as VOIP does not need to consider the destination or origin.

Unless, I don't know, maybe you want a lawless old west where groups like Anonymous can wreak havoc unmolested by evil government types.

I like that better than excessive government control. I'm not going to say that such things are perfectly fine. They aren't. They just aren't as bad as the immense distrust the federal government has soundly earned.

Incidentally, if you refer to an attack Anonymous made against a certain "church" then it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people. While I don't agree with the methods used, some groups seem to think they're untouchable and an occasional reminder that they aren't isn't a completely bad thing.

Re:Governmental Takeover?

[causality]

We may cheer when mob violence is turned against targets we think deserve it (and I certainly think Scientology deserves some sort of consequences for their actions), but there is a reason mob violence has been replaced by the rule of law in most parts of the world.

Sorry for the second reply but I think a good point can be made here.

First of all, I clearly stated I didn't agree with the actions of Anonymous. That hardly qualifies as "cheering". I merely find it predictable cause-and-effect and the only surprise I see in the whole situation is that such things haven't happened more frequently. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Anonymous performed a bunch of very irritating, costly, and time-wasting activities but did not use actual violence. So I will use the term "mob action".

The best way to cause mob action is to either do nothing at all or perform only slap-on-the-wrist sanctions against an entity with (in my opinion) a long track record of repeated abuses of one kind or another. That's what allows for the possibility of a mob to form that thinks the job was left undone and that they should do something about it since no one else is going to.

The whole point of a justice system is so that the people can see that justice was done by the proper officials, that the matter has been settled and needs no further response. Fail to achieve that and what you will find is that the difference between decent people and bad people is that decent people will wait longer before taking matters into their own hands. Right or wrong, this is quite predictable.

Re:Governmental Takeover?

[causality]

I think that the big problem is that, in democracies of any sort, the mob makes the laws. Force of law is a very big stick to be wielding when so many disagree with the policies being enforced. In other words, people who champion the "law" nowadays are often just applauding their mob.

In this case, it's the "mob" that doesn't want these new laws. They were not the result of popular public pressure. It's a small minority of powerful special interests that have a lot of political clout. This is neither democracy nor a functioning representative republic.

While most people who call themselves libertarians are just selfish asshats, they do have a good point that we can't regulate everything. If something isn't covered by a basic law such as "don't steal", we have to look more closely to decide whether it's something we should be regulating, or something we should allow to self-regulate.

The idea of libertarian (small 'l') thought is simplicity itself. Consenting adults should be free to do whatever they please with their property and their own body and should be free to believe whatever they want. They should be able to exercise those freedoms whether or not someone else doesn't like it; anyone who doesn't like their actions is free to provide a counter-example in the form of how they deal with their own body, property, and beliefs.

The selfish asshats are the ones who would use the force of law to tell you what you may not do with your own body or your own property. They typically do this out of some kind of Puritannical desire to enforce their morality on others. The people who want to be left alone by them so long as they don't violate anyone else's freedoms are not selfish in the slightest. They are reasonable.

This is so easy to understand that I must conclude the numerous attempts to portray libertarian thought as some kind of anarcho-capitalism are simple demagoguery conducted by people who either have an agenda or have been propagandized by those who do. You do need a government to enforce notions like private property and civil rights and I know of no libertarian who would argue otherwise.

And even if we decide that it would be nice to regulate that thing, we also need to ask if it's feasible, cost-effective, or paid for in a fair manner. When it comes to almost anything, and the perfect example here is copyright, if people aren't generally ashamed to be caught doing something, there's no way a law is going to be effective without huge costs both in money and unintended consequences.

Copyright has become out of control. If it returned to a 12-year term after which time the work became public domain, it would regain respectability. It would then fulfill its intended purpose of granting a temporary monopoly to creators in exchange for an enriched public domain.

Think about it; the original 12-year term was during a time when the printing press and paper was the most technologically advanced means of distribution. We can now distribute many more works in far less time yet copyright lasts much longer. People don't respect copyright today for the simple reason that it is not respectable. It is no wonder they feel no shame for violating it. This is also easy to understand unless you subscribe to such a strict "law-and-order" mentality that you have abandoned all concept of understanding human nature and wish to replace that understanding with harsher threats of penalty.

Checks and Balances are soooo 1900's

[RingDev]

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).

Just suck it up, deal with the paper work, and live in a nation governed by three equal branches of government that each work to ensure the other branches are not overstepping their bounds.

-Rrick

Re:Checks and Balances are soooo 1900's

[nebaz]

The Justice department would still have to get a court order, as they do now. The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction. Why the government is involved at all in civil justice is beyond me? Isn't that the job of the plaintiff?

Re:Checks and Balances are soooo 1900's

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's wrong with getting a court order?"

When the person requesting it is a government official acting on behalf of a 3rd party's interest when really it should be between the 1st and 3rd parties, not the government. Basically this is just another way that the **AA and member companies are going to foot taxpayers with the bill for propping up their outdated and inflexible business models. If their business model can't survive change, it should die. Isn't that the entire fucking point of capitalism? Compete or die.

Re:Checks and Balances are soooo 1900's

[mr_mischief]

Ask Steve Jackson how much protection that is. You don't want a court order standing between you and losing your livelihood. You want a trial.

No kidding

[Hatta]

Leahy said in a statement. "Protecting intellectual property is not uniquely a Democratic or Republican priority -- it is a bipartisan priority."

In other words, if you believe in Copyright reform, you have no choices at the polls.

Re:No kidding

[h4rr4r]

Of course, both US parties are Corporatist. Any differences are just to make it look like you have a choice.

Re:No kidding

[Darkness404]

Which is why it is important to either have a very limited government that wouldn't let these abuses happen or allow for party-list based proportional representation in order to get people involved in politics and generate good government. Our current electoral system is great with very limited government and an even more limited federal government, but it isn't the 1830s anymore, the federal government is huge and this duopoly of parties only encourages political apathy. Party-list proportional representation means that everyone at least has -someone- representing their beliefs in congress, rather than people simply voting for the "lesser evil".

Re:No kidding

[Luckyo]

Just because German version of fascist nazi government came with concentration camps, doesn't mean that every version does. This is very much the same for democracy, which was very different back in ancient Greece where it was born, or in revolutionary France where core beliefs of modern Western society were defined.

Nontheless it is beyond any shadow of doubt that elements of fascism in Western world have been on significant increase ever seen the end of Cold War, as power shifted from people-run government to corporation-run government.

Which is by definition, fascism. Your scare of concentration camps came from nazism and nazi ideals. WW2 Germany had both. Fascist part wasn't much prettier then nazi part mind you, just like our democratic fascism isn't pretty.

One step forward, two steps back

[Anonymous Coward]

Business groups including the US Chamber of Commerce hailed the legislation as a huge step forward.

Yeah, a step forward for keeping their business models from dying off, thus preventing them from having to actually work to come up with new ones.

Meanwhile, this COULD be used to stamp out any site the US Government or the MAFIAA dislike. WikiLeaks? "Piracy." BAM, blocked. YouTube? "Piracy." BAM, blocked.

A step forward for government protectionism of failing business models, two steps back for free speech on the Internet.

Re:Bye Bye EBAY

[Anonymous Coward]

The government isnt going to shut down sites backed by the almighty $$$

But your movie blog is gone the first time you give a bad review.

Your political forum is shut down the first time some kid quotes 1984.

Etc, etc..

What ever happened to...

[Darkness404]

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

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.

Isn't it time that we realized that property is not property unless it is limited and move on?

Re:What ever happened to...

[Tablizer]

"Assumed innocent until found guilty" is criminal law. Civil issues are different.

But what I worry about the most is its use for political censorship. Look what the church that rhymes with Pie Ontology has done using copyright laws. I hope there are added protections against that kind of abuse. The little guy can't afford boatloads of lawyers.

Re:What impact would this actually have?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect just the opposite. It will be used to make the U.S. based DNS registrars break DNS for servers hosted in other countries. If the servers were in the U.S., existing laws could be used to shut them down.

Why not death sentences then?

[erroneus]

This is completely circumventing the notion of due process and the ideal of innocent until proven guilty. So if this is okay, then let's just have the judges hand down an order for execution of suspected murderers and then make the defendant file a motion for a stay of execution pending a trial.

DAMN ANNOYING

[airfoobar]

The internet is such an amazing, useful and indispensable tool... yet I keep seeing a bunch of retards from a bygone age trying to subdue and control it using petty excuses such as copyright. This is seriously over "entertainment", like movies and music? Are we seriously expected to stand aside and let them take the the internet with such a lame excuse? Fuck the entertainment industries, they should either figure out a more consumer-friendly way to operate, or POAD because they are completely useless and their products are pure shite. Fuck the pirates who are giving those asshats an excuse to screw everyone over, and then don't have the balls to vote for the Pirate Parties to mitigate some of the damage. And most of all, fuck the douchebag politicians who are colluding with the "entertainers" to introduce anti-consumer, anti-democratic, anti-civil-rights laws like this, and who have no business being in office.

Lump much?

[StikyPad]

"online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods costs American businesses billions of dollars, and result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs"

Much the way national defense and senators' salaries cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars each year.

Color me surprised...

[JaredOfEuropa]

... that they actually mention piracy as the reason to implement this. Here in the Netherlands, similar legislation is being prepared, which by the way will require no court order whatsoever to have a site shut down, the public prosecutor can decide on a whim. The reason? You guessed it, "saving the children", or shutting down kiddie porn sites. As the minister stated: "Not to worry, but this is just for kiddie porn. Oh, and for other illegal stuff (like online piracy). Oh, and that includes hate speech too. Probably certain elements of a particular party we don't like much as well. But we'll exercise proper care" No checks, balances or even limits placed on this awesome power given to the prosecutors office... already famous for exercising proper care in sending a 10-man police force to do a nighttime raid on the home of an apparently extremely dangerous cartoonist making "hate-instigating" (i.e. subversive) cartoons. Or allowing cities to do door-to-door searches of homes looking for indoor weed plantations... but sending along municipal guys to check you're not claiming unemployment benefits while living it large, or having a dog without paying the tax. Oh and these are proper searches: fail to be home when they drop by a few times, and they will take a crowbar to your door.

Do not ever give in to pleas to relax controls to make life for the prosecutor a little easier "to catch more criminals". It's never about criminals nor child-molesters. We let them do it here, and allowed the government to thoroughly politicise the prosecutors' office, then took away the judiciary branch' power to check and balance. The result is not pretty... All these so called inconvenient controls exist for a reason.

Re:Have we...

[mbone]

Oh, no, we passed that point about a decade ago.

Re:Another law makes the US less competitive

[theNAM666]

I personally think this is more idiocy, but do you mind citing one or two actual companies "shut down" by DMCA? Just to show you're not making this up *entirely* ?

Re:Bye Bye EBAY

[houstonbofh]

No, they will just move overseas like everyone else. Get used to changing .com to .se or .es over the next few years...

Re:Bye Bye EBAY

[sarx]

But your movie blog is gone the first time you give a bad review.

Your political forum is shut down the first time some kid quotes 1984.

Etc, etc..

Do you have any evidence of this? I don't see how it follows from the article, so it sounds like paranoia, and I'll regard it as such until I have any evidence at all to back it up.

Is it just me

[KillaGouge]

Is it just me, or will this do nothing to stop downloading? After reading, it appears they will only go after sites selling things. I thought that downloading was the largest threat to "the industry", or are they just getting to the point they want to bring everything down that they don't make money off of?

Re:Another law makes the US less competitive

[ScrewMaster]

There have been no new Googles for over a decade and we wonder where all of the jobs are going.

Every empire throughout history (whether military or economic) has eventually failed. It's inevitable. Now, sometimes another empire with more on the ball rolls over them. That happens. In most cases, though, it's because they shot themselves in the foot. In other words, their own governments failed to perform their duties under the law, became corrupt, sold out their own citizens and caused the entire house of cards to collapse. Fact is, Uncle Sam's feet are stumps at this point. Yeah, it will suck to be an American when the lights finally go out, but that's the way it's going. I'm trying to decide if I should get out before it's too late. Where to, that's the question. I want good food and fast broadband. Cool smartphones would be a plus.

See, this is why the media cartels are so evil. It's not just because they want to protect their movies and music ... it's that they're willing to throw the entire country, all of us in fact, to the wolves, under the train, under the bus, into the fire, in order to get what they want. Worse, it's the naked corruption and malfeasance in office (if not outright treason) of Federal officials that is allowing to happen.

I hate them all.

Re:You don't understand a thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

The MPAA, RIAA, and DMA have bought laws.

Don't you think that they have a right to expect a fair value for the legislators that they buy?

What good is buying a congressperson if you can't get the laws you want written the way you want?

Ever notice with party the MAFIAA goes to in order to purchase their laws?

Look here and here

What are trying to shutdown?

[gmuslera]

Newspapers? Saying that there is a torrent from a movie is not so different from saying that i.e. John Doe robbed that bank.
Search engines? Directly or indirectly search engines links to movies and pirated material
Web 2.0? Everything with user participation have potential to be used to "exchange links"
Mail? Mailing lists?
At most they should be going against the people that put them online at the first place

Wonder how fast will be censored all post that names the Great Firewall of America, but probably that is what they really should do if they don't want that americans download so easily pirated movies.

three equal branches

[nurb432]

I disagree, in reality the supreme court holds more power, since they can pick and choose what cases/issues they take.

I agree the founders never meant for it to be that way however.

Re:Bye Bye EBAY

[Anonymous Coward]

Different AC here...

Are you saying you can't envision a scenario where a law is used as carte blanche for censoring speech, shutting down competitors, and generally being a nuisance?

Become familiar with DMCA takedown notices, for starters.

Re:The Fools Never Learn

[Haeleth]

All this legislation would do is drive piracy more underground and more distributed and more encrypted.

That wouldn't necessarily be counter-productive.

Hard-core pirates are always going to find a way to pirate. But it's not the hard-core pirates that the media industry is scared of; it's casual pirates, pirates who might actually represent lost sales. It's Joe Average, who has just discovered this wonderful website with torrents of all his favorite TV shows on it, so he doesn't need to buy the DVDs any more.

If piracy is driven deeper underground, the hard-core pirates will still pirate stuff -- but Joe won't be able to simply stumble across a major distribution site any more, and even if he figures out where to look, he still probably manage to get that distributed encrypted download software to work. So maybe he'll decide it's more trouble than it's worth and just buy the damn DVDs after all, because he'd rather pay $14.99 than spend the entire weekend swearing at his computer.

That's what the media industry is hoping, anyway.

Re:Bye Bye EBAY

[Lumpy]

sorry, you did not read the bill. It has a special section that exempts rich people and corporations that fund reelection campaigns.

If you make less than $250,000.00 a year you are one of the dirty disgusting thieves that needs a good water-boarding at gitmo to teach you your place. Everyone else is the holy ones that only make innocent mistakes.

Ebay will never be shut down even if they start trafficking stolen organs. They have enough money to pay the police to look the other way.

DONT host DNS in the usa

[Anonymous Coward]

then they can cost the hosting company money ...who cares
the usa is lost to innovation and is now akin to only greed cant wait for them to just cut off themselves form the rest of the world

no one wants or needs any americans

and i guess all the gun violence, murder rape and missing children the fbi aren't looking for are all solved and no more of that is happening.....GUESS if you can't solve the other stuff pick on kids sitting at home nice and safe...yup give them more reasons to wander off not the world and have the rest you can't solve get them....

GO OBAMA

Yes, everyone should obey all laws

[h00manist]

We should start in government and business. All government and business should have their accounting books openly verifiable, online, live, for immediate inspections of transactions with indicted groups with involvement in money laundering, terrorism, tax evasion, drug and people trafficking, and child porn. "Business trade and accounting secrets and privacy" cannot remain an excuse for covering up endangering all of society. If only the police could track the money, they can track down all crime. What, you object? Do you have something to hide?