Slashdot Mirror
PayPal, Visa, MasterCard Prepare To Block Payments To Pirate Sites In France
An anonymous reader writes: The French government is deciding whether to allow PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and other payments processors the right to refrain from executing transactions to pirate sites if copyright holders (MPAA, RIAA, PSR for Music) file a complaint. All pirate sites will be added to a blacklist, controlled by copyright holders, and not by a French court. A similar unofficial agreement between copyright holders and payment processors is actively being enforced in countries like the U.S. and the U.K.
To unblock the accounts...
It is after all fair game to have private relationships between companies.
However, that also formalizes a cartel of payment systems, which has other legal consequences.
It's funny that legal entertainment distribution websites are still so crusty that people are actually willing to pay to pirate. The sad part is that the money goes to criminal organizations instead of the original creators.
"In other words, the lists will be made by educated professionals" woof, now I'm relaxed. I'm still looking for a job, and I believe I'm educated, I wonder what are the other pre-requisites to be one of these experts...
Payment providers should be forced to operate like common carriers in Telecom. Either you process all payments, or you process none. Barring specific court orders of course.
If the Payment providers do not like this, they can opt for the alternative, where they take full responsibility for all payment activities, in which case they will be considered accomplishes for all crimes that involve money transfers via their services.
It is not that difficult.
Their consumer unfriendly privacy policy both ebay and paypal adopted this year were the last straws from me. Just like the XboxOne debacle, even when ebay and paypal backtracked on a few of those bad policies I was still willing to walk away from decade old accounts just to make a point and wash my hands of them.
The EU has already ruled on this matter.
https://torrentfreak.com/hyperlinking-is-not-copyright-infringement-eu-court-rules-140213/
With respect to Torrent sites, most modern sites make use of magnetic links, rather than Torrent files. The links themselves do not constitute distribution of a copyrighted work, only the supply of the copyrighted material is considered distribution. The supply happens via the Bittorrent protocol which is entirely separate.
Thus, the UK is clearly acting illegally in blocking payments, or even access to such sites.
Pirate sites that actually distribute copyrighted content are an entirely different matter.
Democrats.
And more Democrats.
After all, you can't spell DMCA (signed by Bill Clinton-D) without the D.
This is why it will survive and grow.
Fuck these dirty scum cunts and their anal passages the cunts of all cunts and cunt fucked arsehole cunts of cunts. the cunts
Why don't you let us know how you really feel?
They blocked payment to legal sources like wikileaks. The pirate site were in existence for several years before.
I don't like it but from where I see this issue it's selective justice.
Welcome, Bitcoin.
If it wasn't already invented, now would be the time.
When the US wanted Wikileaks not to publish embarrassing leaks, it got the credit card companies to refuse payment for Wikileaks donations. This mechanism is abused before and will be again:
http://www.cnet.com/news/credit-card-companies-wikileaks-block-just-fine-eu-says/
Copyright lobby has a long history of abusing the legal process, Anton Vickerman trial being probably the most appalling legal fiasco I've ever seen, with some head scratching behavior.
http://transgallaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/index.php?topic=7595.msg17486#msg17486
If you let them block credit card payments without a judicial process that would be a breach of the right to face your accusers and the right to due process. That might be small comfort when judges like Judge Evans are supposed to uphold the legal process, but not all judges are that bad, and the process doesn't always fail so badly.
It's a tricky situation. The problem with paid pirated sites is that some users (read: my father-in-law for example) assume that since they pay - it must be legit. So they pay ~3$ and get infinite number of movies streamed. Because they look legit, and accept payments people fall for it, and then they are often blackmailed to pay more with threat of litigation.
So yes. I think if something is illegal it should get payments blocked.
Apologies my good man, typed in the wrong window - you know how it is.
I should say that I'm most dismayed by this situation and have deep concerns for the state of the future world.
If there is something illegal going on, a web site accepting money for pirated software and media, police finds and takes the servers. The fact that they still operate makes them legal.
We've already seen the kind of harm that is caused by abuse of the DMCA via automated take down requests.
Blocking payment should at a minimum require a judge to sign off on it.
The key word being illegal. The copyright holders could get an injunction via the legal processes, with all their checks and balances and testimony under oath, and expert judiciary. Instead the proposal is to remove all the of legal process to determine if its 'illegal' and simply skip to the injunction on the word of the copyright lobby.
There are pretty strict laws for money transmitters and big, established players are like big banks: they're going to be incredible conservative and never risk having their business hurt by government regulators.
I do understand there are principles at stake when payment processors are dictated to over who they can do business with (like Wikileaks), but there is at least an upside in this case. Nobody need pay for pirated content, it is all out there available for free. Forcing people to learn that will be a valuable lesson that will save them money in the end.
While credit card companies and payment companies like PayPal do have the right to decide who they will and will not do business with, a conspiracy between organizations like the MPAA, RIAA, and credit card companies to arbitrarily black-ball someone else's company smacks of anti-trust in my opinion. Without some sort of regulation, companies blackballed by this cabal of corporate giants would have only prohibitively expensive civil litigation to try to reverse the chilling effects it would have on their livelihood. This cadre of corporations could (and just might) use their combined power to destroy competition by branding them 'pirates'.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
For curiosity.
Since these "pirate" websites are selling unlicensed media for money, do any of them have a policy of funding the original artist or the labels?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
"...the right to refrain from executing transactions to pirate sites if copyright holders (MPAA, RIAA, PSR for Music) file a complaint."
Ha ha, no way this will be abused by the "copyright holders". I can't see anything that could go wrong here, no sir.
Except these "copyright holders" have been known to file utterly bogus complaints, claiming copyright over birds singing, public domain works, anything that has a sound in the background that might (or might not) vaguely resemble some sound in something they own (or claim to own).
But don't worry, Citizen, the uber-mega-international corporations have your best interests at heart, never fear! All hail the glorious mega-corporations! Remember, "corporations are people too"!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
you're forgetting about Chargeback risk. The trouble is I can dispute charges on my credit card (it's a loan after all). It's entirely possible these are very high risk transactions, kinda like "Gentleman's Clubs" are, which most processors won't do business with for just that reason.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Won't that just be money laundering? You'll buy bit coin with your paypal or Credit card then pay the site for the illegal activity (like it or not, what these sites are doing isn't legal). That sounds like money laundering to me, and that's going to get a lot of attention real fast...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Credit is borrowing, pure and simple. It's the bank's money. Just like a loan, they can refuse to provide the loan if they are risk adverse to the transaction for any reason. If they think (they don't need to prove it) you're doing something illegal that may cause you to go to jail, incur fines, etc. or think you're doing anything that may affect your ability to pay off the loan, then they are justified in refusing it.
You get to use bank credit at their discretion. It is not a right, it is a contract privilege. If you don't like that, pay with cash or debit card.
They are altering the deal. Pray they don't alter it any further.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Bitcoin gets crapped on a lot. Mostly it's justified. But it, and a few other fictional number based virtual moneys, are still around.
And this is why!
We already are in a situation where the #1 thing to do to attack user websites that don't have an army of lawyers is to get them banned from getting cash. You simply have a bunch of people spam where they get their money from, and that instantly goes away. This mini-financial crusade is instant, final, and is primarily worked around using bitcoin. Just a few years ago, when financial providers would not act this way, the desire for an uncontrolled way of exchanging cash was a whole lot lower.
Visa, for the most part, is not a bank. if you use their debit card you can still wire transfer and for credit it is only an offer and not really yours. if they wanted to they should be allowed to not make payments to every Walmart or 7-11.
Let's just create a new world police force that does not have to answer to the courts, the public or anyone else. Then put the MPAA and RIAA in charge of it. They are already running things, we might as well give them the actual title to go along with it anyways. And while we are at it make copyright permanent with no rights given to the purchaser, whatever use they may be allowed can be revoked at anytime without cause.
I'm in favor of ending copyright as it's brought about violence against the people for which it was originally suppose to benefit. The original goal of copyright is not what we have today. It was a limited 7-year monopoly for the benefit of the arts and sciences. In any other area one would be brought before a court and charged with a crime for operating a monopoly. However in this space the exact opposite is true. If you attempt to break that monopoly up even by means which should not violate the law (think Aereo) the courts have ruled, not by reason and logic, but by the sniff of there noses, that if it smells like x it is x. This is wrong. Very wrong. The internet has broken the copyright system and the only means futile means of stopping it is a draconian system that *is* enabling the destruction of democratic systems. You might find paedophilia repulsive, which is what got the censorship systems implemented, but do you feel that piracy is just as repulsive? Is it too worth the destruction of our democracies? We've already extended these systems to include copyright censorship, legal adult pornography, and political censorship in many countries. This isn't a slippery slope as at least a few dozens *democratic countries* including Canada, the UK, and other European states have instituted these systems.
End copyright and write your politicians in favor of ending the *entire* censorship systems.
That is for a court to decide, not some company trying to assert their own control over everybody.
It's reasons like this that everybody should be using cash and stick to cash, or silver and gold.
Many people including Anonymous have taken actions against the credit card companies in the past, and I would laugh my ass off if some real damage were done to the credit card business model.
This will teach the hard way the differences between centralized and p2p currencies
Please put OVH.net at the top of this piracy list, as this is where the majority of the piracy sites are living.