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Tracking Censorship Through Copyright Proposals Worldwide

Posted by timothy on from the whack-a-mole-is-played-with-real-hammers dept.

jrepin writes "Global Chokepoints is an online resource created to document and monitor global proposals to turn Internet intermediaries into copyright police. These proposals harm Internet users' rights of privacy, due process and freedom of expression, and endanger the future of the free and open Internet. Our goal is to provide accurate empirical information to digital activists and policy makers, and help coordinate international opposition to attempts to cut off free expression through misguided copyright laws, policies, agreements and court cases. Scroll down to see a list of countries currently featured for threatening free expression through copyright censorship."

34 comments

  1. Good Start, Needs Further Support by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is a nice concept, linking the various laws etc that we know bits about.

    However it needs more countries.

    Based on Slashdot entries, France and Australia are notable missing entries.

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    1. Re:Good Start, Needs Further Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Based on globalchokepoints.org entries, France is not a missing entry:

      http://www.globalchokepoints.org/countries/france

  2. DMCA... by TypoNAM · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not sure what Digital Music Copyright Act is under United States of America country section, but I've heard of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If they can't even get that part right then why should I bother with the website at all?

    --
    This space is not for rent.
  3. Change ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    you can believe in. I guess you really don't have to like something to believe in it. I see what he did there. No promise to veto yet.. still waiting.

  4. Re:why should I bother with the website at all? by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 0

    I FP'ed my answer before you posted your question! : )

    See "Nice Concept, Needs Support".

    I saw the DMCA thing too, and I thought like you did, then I changed my mind.

    Now that my FP is in, I am going to look for the ACTA treaty, if I can find it on the site.

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  5. Internet Privacy is Dead by Murdoch5 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    As soon as you plug into the internet you should have very little expectation of privacy. All your files are now available to a hack, your browsing habits are available to the OS and there for to logging and your banking information is now available to anyone sniffing. When the internet because common place privacy became obsolete. If you were concerned with your privacy then you wouldn't go on-line.

    1. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The site has pretty much nothing to do with privacy, regardless of what the quick abstract says. Its more about censorship and how much governmental control there is over the Internet infrastructure in that country.

    2. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      It's dead because of cunts like you who happily declare it so.

    3. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't talk at a grade 1 level, sorry.

      You can't talk at that level because it's too far above your mental capacity, not because it's too far below.

      And the GP is absolutely right. Internet privacy is hard to protect in no small part because snivelling worms like you would rather cross your arms and pretend that things must always be the way they are now than put in any effort into changing them.

    4. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Internet privacy isn't exactly dead, but it's very close to it. Privacy, to a degree, is available for those who do a bit of work to preserve their privacy. Of course, some people think I'm crazy for going to the effort.

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2547796&cid=38194774

      --
      "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
    5. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Murdoch5 · · Score: 1

      I will give you that one! however don't open the net with no protection and think your safe.

    6. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Murdoch5 · · Score: 1

      When you come out with a product that will GUARANTEE everyone's safety on the net then you can talk. I'm not willing to write something to accomplish this so I'm not going to run my mouth about how it should exist. It doesn't and that is the truth.

    7. Re:Internet Privacy is Dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can talk despite not having released such a magical product, because your Nirvana Fallacy, like all false dichotomies, is a lie.

  6. globalchokepoints eh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This would be some website with no apparent traffic nor any viable revenue model...interesting.
    I wonder who's footing the bills for the operating costs? hmmm...?
    But obviously some benefactor with some kind of agenda...interesting...

    1. Re:globalchokepoints eh.... by Aryden · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bottom of the screen, hosted by the EFF. Now as for operating costs... Who knows.

  7. Re: IBM thought of it first.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    IBM has a patent for that...

  8. Twitter instead of RSS feed by Pf0tzenpfritz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For an anti-censorship site this means a massive faux-pas.

    --
    Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
    1. Re:Twitter instead of RSS feed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can follow Twitter feeds via RSS. I guess relying on Twitter allows Twitter to censor them, so I suppose they could use identi.ca or their own microblogging setup instead, but then they can't communicate with Twitter users.

    2. Re:Twitter instead of RSS feed by Pf0tzenpfritz · · Score: 1

      Yes. But that means that another entity is between them and the public. And there already were demands for social networks to censor user generated content even from the "free" world. Any third party that might tamper with your content -and collect your subscribers' data- should be avoided.

      --
      Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
  9. Another inaccuracy by geezer+nerd · · Score: 4, Informative

    After complaints of sloppy inaccuracy over the DMCA meaning, I took a look at NZ. The writers seem to have it backwards about the "notice fee". As I remember the arguments at the time the law was passed, the rightsholders are charged BY the ISP a fee to help compensate for their work in determining the offender and the delivery of the notice. The text on the website says the rightsholders charge the ISP, which makes no sense at all.

    I was quite perturbed when the act was passed "under urgency", which means debate and committee consideration of the bill are curtailed somewhat. There was really no "urgency" for the matter that I could detect.

    1. Re:Another inaccuracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      The writers seem to have it backwards about the "notice fee".

      It's because they're upside down.

    2. Re:Another inaccuracy by Ihmhi · · Score: 1

      I really think we need a lot of political reform to keep this stuff from happening.

      Firstly, we'd need to make sure legislators aren't too far away from the office (so to speak). If you had a job where you had to show up in person every day, would they hire you if you lived several hundred miles away? Therefore legislators should live within a reasonable distance of wherever it is that they have to meet during their term.

      Secondly, we need to slow things down. I know Congress can often be cumbersome, but more often than not we have issues where laws get passed really quickly with little to no review. There should be some sort of metric that has a delay on a bill based on its length and scope, and that a bill cannot be amended once it is in this grace period.

      As an example, a bill is three pages long. The bill is amended, debated, etc. per usual. Once this process is complete, it's "locked in" - completely unalterable - for a set period of time based on pages, word count, or both. The longer the bill, the more days there has to be a delay. This gives legislators the opportunity to actually read the bill and consider the consequences.

      While I'm dreaming, I'd also like to see hard term limits for congressmen and senators, none of that "holding multiple jobs while you're doing federal public service" nonsense, and a cap of how many bills can be running through Congress at one time.

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
    3. Re:Another inaccuracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was quite perturbed when the act was passed "under urgency", which means debate and committee consideration of the bill are curtailed somewhat. There was really no "urgency" for the matter that I could detect.

      If I remember rightly they were sitting "under urgency" for the Christchurch earthquake when this act went through Parliament

  10. At the core of this "censorship"... by dpilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At the core of "censorship" efforts like PROTECT-IP and the like is a world-view that considers the internet to be a content distribution means.

    Thinking in those terms they're trying to solve content distribution problems without even considering side-effects. Sometimes I wonder if they even realize that content distribution is only a tiny portion of what the internet is capable of, or how much their ham-fisted efforts are causing trouble for those other uses.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    1. Re:At the core of this "censorship"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Newsflash.

      They don't care.

      Those "other uses" do nothing for their bottom line, and therefore are not on their radar for consideration in the slightest.

  11. DMCA by RecycledElectrons · · Score: 1

    Every political web site I have ever set up was shut down through fony DMCA complaints.

    1. Re:DMCA by Burz · · Score: 1

      These web sites sound like they would be interesting.

      Try setting them up within I2P. Then they won't be able to shut you down.

  12. Hardly censorship by Alimony+Pakhdan · · Score: 0

    Pawn shops in many countries are regulated businesses, they are supposed to engage in good faith efforts not to trade in stolen or counterfeit goods. Same goes for many places which specialize in the buying and selling of many types of used goods. Is that "censorship"?

    1. Re:Hardly censorship by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      How in hell do you equate real, physical, real world goods with bits and bytes? I can author a story, or anything else on my computer, and it sits there forever. When someone "steals" it from my computer, I've really lost nothing, except maybe a little privacy. Now, if they steal my computer, that is a real world asset, which can only be replace by purchasing another computer.

      Physical assets and imaginary property are not equal.

      --
      "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
    2. Re:Hardly censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if the story you authored is the first draft to a potentially several thousand dollar book, or a lucrative movie script? If it was my story and someone else got a copy and sells the book or gets the movie made, I wouldn't be happy simply because I still had my original copy on my pc. It would be almost like someone's making money off all my hard work, or at the very least getting it for free...

  13. Re:What a crock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Strawman arguments are lies.