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DOJ Ramping Up Crackdown On Copyright-Infringing Sites
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration is just getting started in its mission to shut down rogue websites that illegally share copyrighted content such as movies and music. The White House's intellectual property czar, Victoria Espinel, said Monday that the Internet community should 'expect more of that' pre-emptive action as the administration ramps up its efforts to combat online copyright infringement — especially the illegal copying and sale of pharmaceutical drugs."
Christ what next declaring another stupid war, like 'the war on drugs'. How long before they start to censor sites with political views not approved by the government, or blocking sites deemed 'risks to national security'. I really get tired of my country trying to police and control everything. What ever happened to wanting more freedom.
So I won't be able to order Pfizer terramycin from Greece anymore and will be required to spend 10x the amount and purchase it locally?
I'm struck with CD... As an artist, a musician, I don't want my work to be copied and people to 'take advantage' of me. But on the other hand, I feel like copyright is an artificial device that only hurts the economy and, on a higher level, human progress as a whole. We can't have 'copied' drugs for much cheaper, thus some people who might have been able to afford said drugs are no longer able to... just to secure the profits of some corporation? I must be missing something here. Someone cure my CD?
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Freedom costs a buck-o-five dude
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
"DoJ's announcement immediately won the praise of the entertainment industry and renewed interest on Capitol Hill for legislation that would grant the administration additional power to shutter malicious and rogue websites."
The entertainment industry. Yup, of the people, by the people, and for the people. More like the oligarchy.
This is the first crack in the US's losing control of the internet. Not that the US or any one entity "controls" it per se, but we did have a big influence in the technical direction of it.
You're talking out your ass, fuzzy. Freedom isn't free - you have that much right. However - your conservative minded friends are busy taking freedoms away from the common man. I'll remind you: copyright was NEVER MEANT to ensure that the owner could make a dollar. It was only intended to ensure that IF ANYONE made a coin or two from his work, then he should get part of it. Every bone head moron who thinks that beating the kid down the street to the copyright and/or patent office with something new should guarantee an income for life needs to pull their bone-heads out of their asses. Hey - Microsoft came to market first, with an easy operating system that any moron could use. That means what, exactly? That everyone in the world should pay Microsoft forever? What utter fucking BULLSHIT! Back in the day when patents and copyrights were limited to reasonable periods of time, everything that made Win 3.1 and the W32 crap work would be public today. That's right. The added bits and pieces that made the small jump from W32 up to Win98 would be coming up for expiration in about two or three years. (Fact is, Digital Research beat Microsoft to the W32 thing, which is exactly why Microsoft turned their big guns on DRDos) No - freedom isn't free. And, you'll remember that when the commoners are spilling your royal blood on Wall Street. Our laws are totally borked right now because your heros are crooked SOB's who buy the laws they want.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Wikileaks have shown in very clear detail how the U.S., often at the request of U.S. business (and isn't this exactly how imperialism works?), meddles in the affairs of other nations... sometimes with guns and explosives. The U.S. seems to be expanding or otherwise pushing its weight around a lot lately where pushing its agenda around. Now it is using its ICANN control to mess with DNS and it won't be long before IP routing is also a tool in its belt as well.
All of this is going to (and already is) make people very angry with the U.S. and eventually stop doing business with U.S. companies out of principle. That will pretty much spell the end of the U.S. as we know it.
The U.S. exists in a world among MANY nations. Once we turn the majority of them against us, we're in trouble... I think we already are.
It's time for the U.S. to behave. The next round of Wikileaks will turn up the truth further by exposing the REAL causes of the problems -- world banks.
Isn't it ironic that for all of the screaming about Republicans ignoring rules and laws and that its the Democrats that are the worst offenders?
Its not ironic. Its not even true.
All you've observed is that the rules get broken by the group in power, while group without power doesn't. Big revelation. Had McCain/Palin been handed power, they would have been the ones breaking the rules.
The only question is which group will be worse. Personally, given the options, I think we got the right one. (And all you 3rd party advocates out there, your right ... there are more than 2 options but I'm glad none of those other nutters got elected too.)
Also, this lays to rest the myth that Republicans are bought and sold by big business.
How so?
They may well be,
Wait, even you acknowledge the "myth" might be true? What was that nonsense of laying it to rest then?
but its now clear Democrats have been bought and sold by the same people.
Well duh. But I like socialized health care, believe its cheaper in the long run, and feel it aligns with my morals better than the "pay up or we let you die in a ditch free market alternative". I'm confident people making 200k+ a year can afford a few hundred more dollars in taxes. And I don't really see any need for the state to inspect the genitals of two consenting adults before letting them get married and granting them spousal benefits.
Why are you even making a "conservatism is bad" argument here? It's the left that has been the side more firmly in favor of vigorous copyright controls and enforcement, and it's the more leftist administration that is making this more of a priority. Liberal vs Conservative is not necessarily drawn in "non-moneyed interests versus moneyed interest" lines, nor does it mean that the left is not cozy to some big business interests. They are very interested in vigorous government pre-emptive intervention on the part of the media conglomerates.
It's the left that has been the side more firmly in favor of vigorous copyright controls and enforcement, and it's the more leftist administration that is making this more of a priority.
Which left? Where? Oh, you mean the Democratic party. Yeah, those guys who kept ripping on the "professional left" for being "too far to the left" all this past election cycle. Man, those guys are real leftists, I tell ya.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
I support copyright. You need to be able to make money from creative works if we want people who work on that kind of thing full time. So there has to be some kind of protection, exclusivity, otherwise you can't make money in a capitalist society. Now if you want to replace capitalism with something else, that's another issue so let's not discuss that here. However in the framework we have, we need something like copyright.
Fine, however we need to recognize that it IS an artificial construct, and the only reason we have it is to, as the Constitution says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Well to best do that it needs to be a reasonably limited period. That ensures a few things:
1) You can't just make money forever by doing one thing. If you wish to continue to make money, you'll have to continue to make new works.
2) It ensures works get distributed, not locked away. When they are under copyright you want to distribute it so you can make money for the short period permitted, and after that anyone can distribute it.
3) It allows for others to build on existing works. Creativity does not exist in a vacuum, we build on idea from the past. When idea enter the public domain it allows them to be used as the foundations of new ones.
So I agree, we need a shorter copyright term. Personally I'd do it something like thus:
Upon the creation of a work you get an automatic 10 year copyright, no work required. This means that even if you create something you don't think has value, but realize later it does you aren't screwed. During this time you have unlimited control and rights over the work. You do as you please with it. At the end of 10 years you have three choices:
1) Do nothing, the work then falls in to the public domain.
2) Register for an exclusive extension. You then receive another 10 years of exclusive, unlimited control. After that the work will be public domain.
3) Register for a non-exclusive extension. You then receive another 30 years of rights, however you are required to license derivative works for a standardized fee to all that want it. You can profit from your work, and from the derivatives, but you MUST license it for derivatives and the fee you get is fixed.
My objection now is this forever copyright thing we've got going.
While the Obama administration may be "liberal" when it comes to social service programs (and he's a centrist by global standards), that is really the extent of it. He is FAR to the right of most world leaders on "law and order", war, business regulations, government structures, etc.
The fact that the republicans are even further right doesn't decry "liberalism" but rather just points out the fact that our "democrats" are further right of most countries "conservatives" on most topics, and far from being "communists" (which is just inane, when that is trotted out).
The "liberal" viewpoint is to support communal goods and individual liberty over corporate good and profit EVERY TIME. This is a conservative ideology, even if our democrat centrist (again, by global standards) government is in favor of it.
The only problem with that assertion is that between insurance and out of pocket expenses the US is already paying more per capita in health care than all those socialist countries for services that for the average consumer are worse.
never mind the debate about whether it's right to aggressively 'protect' the rights of pharma companies, did anyone actually see any pharmaceutical sites at all in the initial list of seized domains? I only remember file sharing sites and counterfeit fashion stuff.
Sounds like the classic PR tactic to me: cite the most horrible possible thing your new law could be used to prevent, when it's actually going to be used for something entirely different. 'We need these CCTV cameras to protect us from child-molesting terrorists! (oh, but we're also going to use them to have you sent to Guantanamo Bay for parking illegally. But don't think about that too hard.)'