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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.
"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.
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.
Hugh Howey has numbers that you are wrong and that if you write good quality books you will make more money under the new model
The problem with idiots like you is that you're too stupid to realize that the party on pretends to be a member of is irrelevant and that all politicians are effectively the same, ESPECIALLY the ones who tell you they aren't.
Once you get a fucking clue and stop thinking that your party is better (whatever your party is) then maybe, just MAYBE your vote won't be a detriment to our country. Until then, your vote is actually worse than not voting at all because you're too stupid to know who you're voting for.
Look at actions, not words, thats your clupon for the day.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Welcome, Bitcoin.
If it wasn't already invented, now would be the time.
No true Scotsman would make such an assertion.
Requiem for the American Dream
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 never gonna end. The army of n00bs will always be larger so as long as the system requires consensus to make progress, we are screwed.
Requiem for the American Dream
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.
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.
"How many schools require classes in actual formal logic or classical debating? You know, where you actually have to EXPLAIN and SUPPORT your beliefs?
Yeah, none."
As a middle school math teacher, I apologize for my colleagues who failed you and invite you to follow my class.
Math is formal logic and/or classical debate where you have to defend your beliefs?
And you're a fucking TEACHER?!?!?
What.
The.
Fuck.
Thank you FOR MAKING MY POINT about crappy government-controlled education.
You're so clueless you don't even realize you're clueless.
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.
Mathematical arguments are pretty much the purest form of logic, bro.
-- Counting backwards since 1984!
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.
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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.
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.
This will teach the hard way the differences between centralized and p2p currencies