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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).

8 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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."

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.