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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."
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.
Nope. But the US has shown willingness to use the guns it has. Now explain to me again how this makes the US the "good guys" again.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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?
The US having the most guns. Nope. The US might have the biggest military budget. It might have expensive toys. However it does not have "the most guns". Russia has 21 million conscripts under arms at any time. North Korea has 9 million troops. South Korea has 8 million. India and China each have about 5 million troops. The US has about 3 million. While you might argue that the US soldier is better equipped, yada yada yada, but what it comes down to is that an American soldier costs much, much more than any other soldier. Actual effectiveness against a real, similar sized army has yet to be tested, and honestly I wouldn't want to live long enough to see that. Be assured that Russia or China aren't pushovers like Iraq and Afghanistan, even if you consider their troops to be "inferior". Lots of little ants can kill and carry surprisingly big critters.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Perhaps you should make a better parallel? In this case, the offenders have US domain names.
.com is not a US domain name. .us is a US domain name.
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...
The villain you see in Bond films stroking a white cat and saying "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" doesn't really exist in real life.
Of course not. it was Goldfinger who said that, and it was Blofeld who stroked the white cat. Two completely different people.
Geez.