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Law Professors vs the PROTECT IP Act
Freddybear writes "Along with 90 (and still counting) other Internet law and IP law professors, David Post of the Volokh Conspiracy law blog has drafted and signed a letter in opposition to Senator Leahy's 'PROTECT IP Act.' Quoting: 'The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system. It requires Internet service providers, and operators of Internet name servers, to refuse to recognize Internet domains that a court considers "dedicated to infringing activities." But rather than wait until a Web site is actually judged infringing before imposing the equivalent of an Internet death penalty, the Act would allow courts to order any Internet service provider to stop recognizing the site even on a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction issued the same day the complaint is filed. Courts could issue such an order even if the owner of that domain name was never given notice that a case against it had been filed at all.'"
Yep. We're as bad as China. Just in different ways. Difference is, here in the US, we're fucking hypocrites about it.
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The law will provide great incentive to develop new technologies to work around it.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
How is it going over the top?
You're totally stripping due process out of the equation.
If someone makes a living from their website, and you kill that website, you are basically killing someone.
The metaphor is fair.
Doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that.
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Who was it that said "where one burns books, one ultimately burns people"? What is the internet but a great giant book that everyone can write a chapter in? The comparison between censorship and murder is older than both of us.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No, you're not as bad as China. You still have free political speech, which is the most basic thing - thanks to it, these professors can publish materials explaining just how bad this law is, and campaign for getting it repealed. Whereas in China, no matter what goes wrong, you can't really complain.
This isn't to say that "PROTECT IP" act is not bad - it is - but limitations on political speech are infinitely worse in comparison.
Once you establish the precedent, you're on a slippery slope. This has been coming for a long time. A black person driving from Florida carrying a lot of cash is assumed to be a drug runner. Their car and cash are confiscated without a trial and they have to fight to get it back.
A Hispanic person in Arizona must show ID to prove s/he is a citizen, otherwise they're assumed to be illegal.
Now your website and your business can be taken away just on the accusation of violating some copyright somewhere.
Ever read any of Niven's sci-fi? We're just about there. Next step, organ banks.
They can still complain, because we can still read it online. But no one will listen to them, and then one day you cannot read of them anymore, because they get silently censored.
So much for free speak in america.
The internet is just too scary for the people in power. They see their control slipping away, so they will slowly turn it into a consume only medium like TV is.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
No, not really. Their contributions to Democrats dwarf their contributions to Republicans. When was the last time LA traffic was stopped because GW Bush went to Hollywood for a fundraiser? Never. It already happened twice in the 2.5 years of Obama's administration.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I think the "Freedom of Speech" became freedom to make noise some time ago. There's a lot more noise going on than speech these days, or at least that's what gets the attention of people. Bread and Circuses and Two Minutes' Hate for everybody!
I believe there is a section of the US constitution that prohibits punishing people without a trial. I realize that's a depreciated api but it's still worth noting that prior versions of us gov allowed such functions.
Sounds great on paper. But now you need to spend thousands of dollars to sue someone for a $5 website that you did in your spare time. And you have to take off from work and the most you'll get out of losing a half-years and getting fired for missing so much work, is your web-site is eventually brought back up after it's no longer useful and can no longer afford the $5/month because you no longer have a job.
yeah... great system. Any other great ideas?