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Australia May Introduce Site Blocking To Prevent Copyright Infringement

Bismillah writes: The conservative Coalition government in Australia is on the verge of introducing legislation requiring ISPs to block sites alleged of copyright infringement. Details of the bill have not yet been published, but it is expected to be sent to Parliament this week.

20 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. BitTorrent Trackers don't infringe copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't that the entire point? They just help people find other people who are infringing copyright.
     
    The first lawyer with a pair of balls is going to have a field day with this.

    1. Re:BitTorrent Trackers don't infringe copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From TFS... The conservative Coalition government in Australia is on the verge of introducing legislation requiring ISPs to block sites alleged of copyright infringement.

      A mere accusation appears to be enough to get a site blocked.

    2. Re:BitTorrent Trackers don't infringe copyright by chefren · · Score: 2

      Heh, you can block Youtube on exactly the same grounds as you block torrent sites, in fact you have stronger grounds since Google actually hosts the content. I wonder who needs to make the complaint to get a site blocked. Getting Youtube blocked would raise awaresness for sure.

  2. Gubmint considers game of "Whack-A-Mole" by They'reComingToTakeM · · Score: 2

    Film at eleven...

  3. True story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was having breakfast at my local cafe w/ my partner last weekend, next to us a group of 4 normal aussies sit down at the table and after ordering start talking about this situation.

    They clearly weren't in IT, not overly tech literate, and in fact like most typical aussies were pretty "anti-big-brother" by the sounds of it... However while discussing this topic of 3 strikes laws and nation-wide blocking of sites, etc - one of them brought up the concept of VPNs and how they could be used to work around all of this for $5-$10 a month, seemingly a tech literate friend must have told them about it - and now it's spreading to his friends via word of mouth.

    A lot of people here are probably already using VPNs for work or to avoid surveillance, and some of you might think that this is the solution to the problem but "most people" won't know about VPNs or know how to set it up.

    But the fact of the matter, where there's a will there's a way, and word of mouth is very effective at spreading information to all types of people from all walks of life - no matter how hard the government try, every day ordinary australians - be they house wives, kids, grandparents, or the tradie down the road - they're simply going to end up using a VPN to work around this.

    Try as you might Abbott, you can't do shit. I suggest you put our money somewhere worth while, say, into science and education, this thing you don't believe in but manages to thwart everything you've been trying to shove down our throats all this time.

    1. Re:True story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The thing I find truly infuriating about all this is the moment this passes the senate and actually gets through (which it probably will because we're a bunch of ignorant fools) it will destroy what quality we had left for consume grade internet services. Most of already have to put up with poor quality services off low bandwidth RIM nodes and the lies.

      I really wish we as a people had more say that just voting in the next bunch of dictrators and actually had a say in things that are important to us.

      If copyright infringement is such a problem:

      * go after the site operators
      * shutdown the offending sites
      * educate businesses and industries to "lower" their prices

      My last point is really common sense. If you make it cheap enough and easy enough ordinary folk won't be bothered pirating or infringing upon copyright.

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

    They've also tried this in Finland.

    How effective is it? Two words: Mirror and Proxy. It literally has no effect on piracy. It's a waste of resources legislated in by people with no handle on the situation.

  5. Australian here by mjwx · · Score: 5, Informative

    G'day,

    This is the kind of bollocks that the government has been talking about since day one. Mostly driven by the deplorable ACT Attourney General, George Brandis.

    The first thing I should point out is that it's just talk. They're talking about introducing legislation to parliment. They haven't done anything but talk.

    The second thing is, the Libs face a hostile senate. The Liberal party are our conservatives BTW. Whilst they can pass it in the lower house, it will fail in the upper house.

    The third thing is, they will face a revolt from their back bench, many of whom are facing re-election in the next 18 months in an environment where the Liberal party is losing almost every election they're coming up against. So a lot of them are thinking of their own good over the parties.

    Finally, ISP's are a powerful lobby over here and you can bet they dont want to turn customers to smaller ISP's who will skirt the laws.

    So I'm not worried. the LNP (Liberal/National Party) haven't been able to do much of anything and what they have done has earned them a severe backlash.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    1. Re:Australian here by NoMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      The second thing is, the Libs face a hostile senate ... the LNP (Liberal/National Party) haven't been able to do much of anything

      To put this into some perspective for non-Aus people: the LNP government is still trying to get major items from last year's budget passed. And this year's budget is only about 8 weeks away...

      --
      What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
    2. Re:Australian here by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Informative

      What I find most disappointing is that the previous Labor government was planning to push through mandatory internet filtering and the conservative LNP party was up in arms about how evil that was. Now they are pushing a similar thing as well as a potential 3 strikes law. Makes it hard to pick who to vote for.

      That said I agree with mjwx, this legislation will be highly populous and fail in the senate.

    3. Re:Australian here by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The second thing is, the Libs face a hostile senate. The Liberal party are our conservatives BTW. Whilst they can pass it in the lower house, it will fail in the upper house.

      Don't be so sure about that. The only reason Labor didn't introduce a very similar bill last time was they lacked the support of the greens. Fucking over Australia seems to be the only mission that has any kind of bipartisan support by the government.

      The only reason this would get blocked is if Labor stick to their opposition tactic of "block everything to discredit the government". I must say though I do like the situation. I hope we forever stay in a world where the government of the day can't pass bullshit bills.

    4. Re:Australian here by Harlequin80 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They have moved a long way from where they started. Originally they were a liberal party. Really they shifted to being a truly conservative party under John Howard. I think the title of his auto-biography sums it up "Lazarus Rising"

      From their own site.

      In 1944, the Liberal Party of Australia was founded after a three-day meeting held in a small hall not far from Parliament House in Canberra. The meeting was called by the then Leader of the Opposition (United Australia Party) Robert Menzies. Robert Menzies had already served as Prime Minister of Australia (1939-41), but he believed that the non-Labor parties should unite to present a strong alternative government to the Australian people. Eighty men and women from 18 non-Labor political parties and organisations attended the first Canberra conference. They shared a common belief that Australians should have greater personal freedom and choice than that offered under Labor’s post-war socialist plans. Robert Menzies believed the time was right for a new political force in Australia - one which fought for the freedom of the individual and produced enlightened liberal policies.

      In his opening address at that meeting, he said: ...what we must look for, and it is a matter of desperate importance to our society, is a true revival of liberal thought which will work for social justice and security, for national power and national progress, and for the full development of the individual citizen, though not through the dull and deadening process of socialism.
      It is often said that Robert Menzies stood for the ‘forgotten people’ of Australia; those mainstream Australians whose goals, needs and aspirations had been ignored by Government.

      On October 16, 1944, the name The Liberal Party of Australia was adopted, uniting the many different political organisations. Two months later, at the Albury Conference, the Party’s organisational and constitutional framework was drawn up.

      The name Liberal was chosen deliberately for its associations with progressive nineteenth century free enterprise and social equality. By May 1945 membership of the Liberal Party had swelled to 40,000.

    5. Re:Australian here by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Neither side actually wants to implement this stuff, the only reason either party bring up these ideas and have long running inquiries is to buy the votes of independent senators on other matters, particularly those senators from the far right minority parties such as "family first". Even if Brandis pushed a bill thru the lower house the senate will drag out voting on it until the next election and then start all over again, with a new set of nutjob independents. The same pattern has repeated itself every election cycle for the last 20yrs, longer if you count video recorders and photocopiers. No matter who is in power the govt always plays bad cop on this issue, the opposition always play good cop because they cannot push legislation thru the lower house and therefore have little to offer in exchange for said senator(s) votes on other matters.

      I made the same prediction about Conroy's filter and most of slashdot laughed - this proposal will go nowhere and be will forgotten before the next election, especially now that we have a communications minister with a functioning brain and his eye on the top job.

      Makes it hard to pick who to vote for.

      Yes, but now you know who to vote against in the senate. :)

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    6. Re:Australian here by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

      It's not just talk; it's conditioning.

      This opens the discussion for a plan to fight crime. This plan is in definite, actionable terms: block copyright-infringing sites. The more you hear things like that, the more normalized they sound.

      Blocking Web sites alleged of a crime is about evading due process. Rather than convict someone of a crime, find them guilty in a court of law, and then take action, you just claim they have committed a crime and pass sentence. In this case, sentence is effectively removing their Web site through state action.

  6. Re:mmm, tor. .onion for trackers anyone? by gweihir · · Score: 2

    You do not need a .onion address to circumvent blocking on the client side, an exit-node somewhere else is quite enough. Besides offering anonymity, TOR can be thought as a VPN to whatever exit-node you chose.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  7. Salami Slicing by enter+to+exit · · Score: 3, Informative

    Again, this imbecile government bungles another one of their policies. They have no subtlety. If you want to implement an unpopular law, blame it on the terrorists.

    Tell the people the laws are necessary to prevent The Children radicalizing. Then once you've created the regulating mechanism, increase it's scope outside Parliament. (preferably through carefully vague mandates). Salami slicing.

    They've stuffed it in their collective haste to please Rupert Murdoch. It's a good thing our government is incompetent.

  8. GPL violations as well ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 2

    So if someone makes a complaint about corporate GPL violation - will the violating company's web site be blocked as well ? If so it could be useful. However I suspect that this law is aimed at protecting corporate profits and not controlling corporate robbers.

  9. Re:Expect TOR traffic to increase... by redback · · Score: 2

    halfway sensible? not even close.

  10. Re:Remember NASA vs News website by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

    Yep. The other side were so busy fighting amongst themselves they gave Abbot a free ride. Now he is PM we can all see that he didn't actually do any work on his own policies when in opposition, he's still stuck in opposition mode, ie: simply making shit up on the fly and hoping nobody spots the absurdity of his rhetoric.

    BTW the mining unions were the force behind the demise of Rudd in round one of the leadership brawl, they are just as anti-AGW as the mine owners themselves, and for the same reason. Getting rid of rudd turned the ETS into a "revenue neutral" tax and diluted the Mineral Resource Tax to the point where it had no effect and raised nothing in revenue. Abbot was on a winner fighting these tax because, aside from the voters natural aversion to new taxes, the miners (Labor), mining unions(LNP), and Rupert's newspapers(ordinary punters), all desperately wanted those taxes dumped or neutered.

    The end result is that Australia is now an international piranha when it comes to climate change, it even has a multi-billion dollar "direct action" scheme that in effect rewards companies for polluting the atmosphere.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  11. Re:conservative Coalition government in Australia by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

    lol - The croc bait is criticising Aussie beer and intelligence.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.