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Music Industry Asks US Government To Reconsider Website Blocking (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: At the start of this decade, U.S. lawmakers drafted several controversial bills to make it easier for copyright holders to enforce their rights online. These proposals, including SOPA and PIPA, were met with fierce resistance from the public as well as major technology companies. They feared that the plans, which included pirate site-blocking measures, went too far. In the many years that followed, the "site blocking" issue was avoided like the plague. The aversion was mostly limited to the U.S., as website blocking became more and more common abroad, where it's one of the entertainment industries' preferred anti-piracy tools.
Emboldened by these foreign successes, it appears that rightsholders in the U.S. are now confident enough to bring the subject up again, albeit very gently. Most recently the site-blocking option was mentioned in a joint letter (PDF) from the RIAA and the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), which contained recommendations to the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) Vishal Amin. The IPEC requested input from the public on the new version of its Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement. According to the music industry groups, website blocking should be reconsidered an anti-piracy tool. "There are several changes that should be made legislatively to help legal authorities and third parties better protect intellectual property rights," the music groups write. "These include fixing the DMCA, making it a felony to knowingly engage in unauthorized streaming of copyrighted works, and investigating the positive impact that website blocking of foreign sites has in other jurisdictions and whether U.S. law should be revised accordingly."
"As website blocking has had a positive impact in other countries without significant unintended consequences, the U.S. should reconsider adding this to its anti-piracy tool box," the RIAA and NMPA write.
Emboldened by these foreign successes, it appears that rightsholders in the U.S. are now confident enough to bring the subject up again, albeit very gently. Most recently the site-blocking option was mentioned in a joint letter (PDF) from the RIAA and the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), which contained recommendations to the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) Vishal Amin. The IPEC requested input from the public on the new version of its Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement. According to the music industry groups, website blocking should be reconsidered an anti-piracy tool. "There are several changes that should be made legislatively to help legal authorities and third parties better protect intellectual property rights," the music groups write. "These include fixing the DMCA, making it a felony to knowingly engage in unauthorized streaming of copyrighted works, and investigating the positive impact that website blocking of foreign sites has in other jurisdictions and whether U.S. law should be revised accordingly."
"As website blocking has had a positive impact in other countries without significant unintended consequences, the U.S. should reconsider adding this to its anti-piracy tool box," the RIAA and NMPA write.
because they have so much money from decades of ripping everyone off, they can afford expensive lawyers to try an ensure their incomes.
It will *also* open up the door to abuses using the already overworked public defender system, in which everyone who cannot afford a personal law-firm of their own will be told
"uh yeah the evidence is overwhelming so uh your best bet is to plead guilty, anything else your life is basically over lol"
as has been rampant across the US.
It also *further* shifts the burden and costs away from the music industry by having the government - and therefore taxpayers - cover everything; prosecution, defense (in many cases), and the costs of the carceral punishments afterwards. This makes it likely that the music industry is pushing this in conjunction with GEO and/or CoreCivic, backed by quite a few employees/investors of the latter two in the senate.
Those involved should be dismantled and sold for parts.