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US, UK Targeting Piracy Websites Outside Their Borders
nk497 writes "The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency is going after piracy websites even if they aren't hosted in the U.S., by targeting those with .net and .com domain names, which are managed by U.S. company Verisign. Meanwhile, a lawyer suggests even that [kind of connection] isn't needed to take a site to court in the UK, saying as long as the content is directed at UK users, that's connection enough to ensure jurisdiction."
I suggest that other countries start doing it too. Break any French law, face extradition. Break any Chinese law, face extradition. Break any North Korean law, face extradition. It doesn't matter that you have nothing to do with them. If US is doing it, why not others?
It really is sad to see US and UK companies playing this territorial-creep card ... oh well, maybe when their citizens start getting called for extradition to other countries they'll either explicitly acknowledge the double standard, or live with it and start making their citizens subject to laws from random places.
Mostly, I find it sad that copyright is the thing that these countries are most interested in protecting ... who needs liberty and democracy when we need to be sure nobody is ripping off some lame boy band that Sony has decided needs to be protected by the full brunt of the us DoJ.
And, I guess the UK only require that they "feel" they have jurisdiction ... that's a brilliant legal standard. Nice to know you can be extradited with a lower standard of proof for doing something which is entirely legal within your own country. The kid in question linked to stuff, and didn't even host it from what I read.
This is truly sad, and it means American laws have been totally taken over by corporate interests.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Why in the world is the The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency going after piracy websites, how in the world does something on the internet fall into their jurisdiction? I'd like to know in who's mind their job has anything to do with Piracy websites located outside the USA. Anyone?
Then anyone can. So do you want your internet held to the same free speech standards that you'd find in China or, let's say, Libya? Do you want some Muslim cleric sentencing US or UK site-owners to death by stoning because of their depictions of women? Do you want China issuing arrest warrants on some guy in Minnesota because he was talking about Tibet? Do you want some totalitarian United States regime arresting Soviets and... Oh wait we already did that. Well anyway, that's where this is leading us.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Let's get this idea out so that it gets implemented and leads to the decentralization of the DNS process...
How about the U.S. starts seizing domains everywhere at the request of a U.S.-led cabal that has, as a condition of entry, the requirement that members agree to a U.S.-centric policy on copyright infringement?
After the inevitable collapse of the current centralized DNS process, a couple of browser plugins and people will go on doing what they were already doing.
If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
It depends upon how you interpret copyright, mostly depending on whether you see copyright as a pragmatic tool or as an author's natural right. In the US, it's an agreement in which the public cedes a bit of liberty regarding copying to authors in hopes that giving authors this power results in more works being authored, putting the US deep within the 'pragmatic tool' group. Absent a voluntary international agreement for recognizing copyright of other countries, the citizens of another country have not taken part of that deal, so they have no obligations to not copy works of US authors.
Where a lot of the concern lies IMO is that much of the agreements that have been signed regarding copyright have strings attached, which makes calling them 'voluntary' questionable. If we see free trade as the norm, and restricted trade as a punishment, then Western nations are implicitly and sometimes explicitly threatening punishment for not doing something they have no obligation to do. That is imperialism/bullying/etc., and cannot be just.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
First page of piracy site: are you a citizen of the UK? Yes/No. If you click "yes", you will not get access. Wink wink...