Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australia Pushes Ahead With Website Blocking In Piracy Fight

Posted by samzenpus on from the shut-it-down dept.

angry tapir writes As part of its crackdown on unauthorized downloading of copyright material, the Australian government will push ahead with the introduction of a scheme that will allow rights holders to apply for court orders to force ISPs to block websites. (Previously Slashdot noted that the Australian government had raised such a scheme as a possibility).

17 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Fucking Morons by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    Look up "proxy", you simpering halfwits.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    1. Re:Fucking Morons by Mr0bvious · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They were considering punishing users (three strikes and you're out type shenanigans) but their popularity is sinking fast and I see this as an alternative that they're thinking "We know it won't work, and the public know this so they won't care, but we can say we're doing something to the interested industry lobby groups."

      --
      Never happened. True story.
    2. Re:Fucking Morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't worry, this is Australia... They'll just make it illegal to pay for an encrypted anonymous proxy or vpn service ;)

    3. Re:Fucking Morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No one. Murdoch's control of the media is what got the current government in power. So they just do what he wants. Doesn't have to buy off anything.

  2. This is a good thing. by GloomE · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This way they will end up with actual evidence of how useless these schemes are.

    1. Re:This is a good thing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I for one am looking forward to .gov.au sites being blocked by court order because they contain copyright images being used without permission. [Rights holders, start your inspections now!]

    2. Re:This is a good thing. by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Never underestimate a government's ability to keep doggedly charge forward with a policy even in the face of obvious failure. After all, we've been conducting a "war on poverty", "war on drugs", and more recently, a "war on terror" for many years without effective results. No, they'll just claim that they're not getting enough funding to do a proper job, or that new laws are needed to close loopholes.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:This is a good thing. by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

      I can tell you the current Australian government has a "make more poverty" policy rather than a "war on poverty" policy.

      Yes, blocking pirate movies is among the least offensive things this government has done since coming to power.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  3. pirate bay un|blocked by bigtreeman · · Score: 2

    took a few minutes to circumvent the block yesterday
    justfuckingoogleit

    https://proxybay.info/

    take your choice

    --
    Go well
    1. Re:pirate bay un|blocked by Khyber · · Score: 2

      "Update: Just to be clear, thepiratebay.ee, thepiratebay.cr, thepiratebay.mobi and others are mirrors not affiliated with the original site. They serve old content (no new uploads)"

      Except that is wrong. .cr has ALL the latest shit.

      Quit listening to sensationalist TorrentFreak, whom knows nothing about TPB. I run one of those mirrors. It's showing all new content down to fucking Windows 10 build leaks, and has been as of ONE HOUR after the primary site went down.

      You do understand that the only thing TPB lost was the front-facing server, which we had mirrored CONSTANTLY, right? Like, every two hours.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  4. As an Australian resident by LaZZaR · · Score: 2

    I don't think this is half bad. Copyright holders need to go to court, rather than allowed to go straight to the ISP under previously proposed schemes.
    Of course this is ignoring other possible agendas... and we know the block is useless anyway, but that isn't the point.

    --
    I lost me sig.
    1. Re:As an Australian resident by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Australian federal government has already proven their departments can't be trusted when it comes to blocking sites e.g. they incorrectly blocked an IP address responsible for hosting multiple sites. They can't be trusted when it comes to limiting the scope of blocking. I don't see any information giving the web-site holder the option to contest the charges; defend their ability to stay online; or protect innocent sites caught up in a block whose scope is too wide

      The government is also proposing graduated response and the ISPs will be required to facilitate discovery of the identity of IP address's account holder. Once the rights holder has this information, it would then likely be used by to threaten the account holder to either pay a 'fine' (way in excess of the value of the copied material) or be sued in court.

      The rights holders also expect the ISPs to foot all or part of the bill, even though the ISPs aren't responsible for the actions of their users.

    2. Re:As an Australian resident by TropicalCoder · · Score: 2

      "The rights holders also expect the ISPs to foot all or part of the bill". From the FA "Cost of the scheme should be divided "fairly" between ISPs and rights holders." WTF - "fairly"??? Why is this the ISP's problem? What does it have to do with them? Why should they foot any part of the bill?

  5. Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Australian here.

    This is all pretty hilarious, since Australian's are already being encouraged en masse to take up VPNs to get around geoblocking etc.

    http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/computers-and-online/networking-and-internet/shopping-online/navigating-online-geoblocks/page/how-to-circumvent-geoblocks.aspx

    (Choice being one of the leading consumer advocate groups in Australia).

    We've been shafted by geoblocking / staggered releases (or non releases) and exclusive licensing locking up shows/movies for so long, that 'pirating' is basically a cultural norm here. People from all walks of life, from every cultural background do it. Louise CK explains it fairly well:

    http://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/louis-ck-explains-why-all-australians-pirate-things/

    We've already got 'mum and dad' users who know about VPNs (they don't know exactly what they are or how they work, but they know that they are a good idea).

    In other words, Australia as a nation is much better equipped to circumvent such trivial 'blocking' than your average nation.

    Also funny is the government's mandate to ISPs and content providers- they've got 120 days (over a holiday period too) to agree on something that has been argued about for the last...5 years.

    Expect this to fail spectacularly at every level.

    1. Re:Good luck with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here's some of the Louis CK transcript for those interested:

      "Like when I was in, ah, Australia, everybody told me that they watch my show. And uh... I figured that they must be getting old versions of it 'cause it doesn't air there - but they were watchin' the show like, the week before because the whole country... pirates, there."
      *interviewer laughs*
      "Here, weirdos pirate... there's not that many pirate here,"
      "Yeah..."
      "...but in Australia, Moms and Dads pirate video. Because we're not... letting them buy it. Because we're keeping it from them."
      "Oh yeah, really? Yeah?"
      "We have shows that have been on the air here for like, three years? And we won't even give them-- if they're given the option? Like... everybody in the world is like, "Take my fucking credit card and just let me have the thing and I'll pay, but if you're gonna be a pain in the ass... FUCK YOU, I can steal ALL of it! So the whole country of Australia rips TV. So when I learned this, so when I put my beacon special, one of the big important things to me was that it was globally available, right away... and they're happy to buy it. Right? So I told FX they should sell my show on my website. And they said that we can't do that because we can't let other countries see it before..."
      "Oh boy..."
      "And I'm, but the-- what they're doin', all those companies and this... piece of shit fuckin' company,"
      *interviewer laughter*
      "--that we're talkin' on right now? Is they're keepin' money out, it's a cage it's keepin' money out, it's not keepin' it in, right? They think they're keepin' money in, but they're keepin' it out."

  6. This will not end with blocking piracy websites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blocking piracy websites isn't the endgame here. The bigger picture here is using the guise of piracy and the clout of media rights holders to force all ISP's to implement a system capable of blocking the whole of Australia from accessing specified content. Pair this with enforcing all records to be held for a minimum of two years and the Australian government has just staged a coup on the online community. With these two moves they can block and track anything in the future as they introduce ever restrictive laws. This isn't a move to prevent piracy, it's a thinly veiled step towards government enforced censorship of the entire internet within the country, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership will only hasten this.

  7. Follow the money by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

    It all leads back to Rupert and his Foxtel service.