Congress Declares War on Internet

[Andrew Bitcoiner]

Many internet users in the United States have watched with horror as countries like France and Britain have proposed or instituted so-called “three strikes” laws, which cut off internet access to those accused of repeated acts of copyright infringement. Now the U.S. has its own version of this kind of law, and it is arguably much worse: the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced in the House this week, would give governments and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet on the flimsiest of grounds, and would force internet service providers to play the role of copyright police.

http://gigaom.com/2011/10/27/looks-like-congress-has-declared-war-on-the-internet/

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[Serge]

DMCA has provided safe harbor for pirates for a long time. All of them knew from day one it will come to an end at some point in future. Their time is running out.

i don't think piracy act could be successively used for censorship of free speech tho.

[elggawf]

DMCA has provided safe harbor for pirates for a long time. All of them knew from day one it will come to an end at some point in future. Their time is running out.

DMCA doesn't really provide "safe harbor" to pirates, it provides it to ISPs that do their part to remove copyrighted material. If you don't think this new bill would be disastrous for freedom of speech, obviously you've never heard of the gross abuses of the DMCA - which at least lets ISPs off the hook if they comply with the letter of the law (ie, they mandate that the person making the DMCA takedown request must sign a statement under penalty of perjury, which cuts out a good number of the false reports that bad ISPs still erroneously act upon.

The DMCA is hideously draconian, and it still hasn't fixed the problem. That's a pretty good indicator that if one of these new bills will pass, it'll fuck things up even more for ISPs and the pirates will still do what they do.

[ElectricMucus]

Most warez traffic goes to sites within the datacenters these days. (Actually since almost a decade) For the hypocrisy of these legislation this means out of sight out of mind.
But that doesn't change the fact that quite a bit of the sysadmins working on any internet exchange are in fact collaborating with the release groups.

[phillipsjk]

i don't think piracy act could be successively used for censorship of free speech tho.

By suppressing "piracy", you are suppressing free speach. The same ISP measures meant to restrict my ability to .torrent a copy of "The Hurt Locker" also inhibits my ability to .torrent the latest freebsd DVD. Pirated content can always be disguised as free speech simply by employing encryption. Encryption that is employed by "legitimate" games to hide how the server communication protocol works.

I am not even sure Piracy is distinct from free speech from  a social point of view. Since copyright was invented about 400 years ago, copyright terms have been extended from 14 years (renewable) to life of the author + 70 years in some jurisdictions. Now, the average person does not have a reasonable expectation that they will be able to (legally) freely copy a fixation they purchased within their lifetime, or even before the fixation degrades. Copyright was originally designed to give the original authors a chance to sell cheap plentiful copies before everybody else does. Nowdays, producing a cheap copy of a Public Domain work is copyrightable since copyright now lasts so long that the original has degraded to the point of requiring restoration.

Rogers violating internet rules, CRTC says
Games being degraded by bittorrent throttling.

European Parliament Legalized Censorship in Europe Today; Pirate Rep Voted Against
European Parliament agrees to Internet Censorship in principle in order to stop child porn. Since child porn is so evil, nobody can reveiw the back-list for correctness.

[Serge]

DMCA has provided safe harbor for pirates for a long time. All of them knew from day one it will come to an end at some point in future. Their time is running out.

DMCA doesn't really provide "safe harbor" to pirates, it provides it to ISPs that do their part to remove copyrighted material. If you don't think this new bill would be disastrous for freedom of speech, obviously you've never heard of the gross abuses of the DMCA - which at least lets ISPs off the hook if they comply with the letter of the law (ie, they mandate that the person making the DMCA takedown request must sign a statement under penalty of perjury, which cuts out a good number of the false reports that bad ISPs still erroneously act upon.

The DMCA is hideously draconian, and it still hasn't fixed the problem. That's a pretty good indicator that if one of these new bills will pass, it'll fuck things up even more for ISPs and the pirates will still do what they do.

it is exactly what DMCA does presently, it is more useful for pirates than copyright owners. while it makes copyright holders to continually police same  and ever expanding resources every single day for the same material that keeps re-appearing all the time, it lets pirates - the owners of sites with user generated content and users who "generate" aka infringe on copyrights go without any repercussion.  

if DMCA would work as it was intended to protect copyright holders, then there wouldn't be any Piracy Act created.

[elggawf]

Serge: You're grossly misinformed about what the "safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA actually do. I also speak not from the perspective of a pirate (I literally haven't downloaded a movie since Netflix came about), but from an internet services provider who has to worry about brain-dead legislation written by people who barely comprehend that which they seek to police, and how such braindead legislation effects my legitimate and entirely-not-relevant-to-piracy-in-any-shape-or-form business.

I also note with delicious irony your avatar, which I'm pretty sure violates ARKive.org's exceedingly vague ToS, and is just generally a prickish thing to do considering you hot-linked it. You rascally pirate, you.

[Serge]

Serge: You're grossly misinformed about what the "safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA actually do. I also speak not from the perspective of a pirate (I literally haven't downloaded a movie since Netflix came about), but from an internet services provider who has to worry about brain-dead legislation written by people who barely comprehend that which they seek to police, and how such braindead legislation effects my legitimate and entirely-not-relevant-to-piracy-in-any-shape-or-form business.

I also note with delicious irony your avatar, which I'm pretty sure violates ARKive.org's exceedingly vague ToS, and is just generally a prickish thing to do considering you hot-linked it. You rascally pirate, you.

I don't think i'm misinformed about the safe harbor provisions. I'm well aware that they do protect ISPs as well as all those "user-generated content" upload sites such as filesharers, tubes and torrent trackers

Good catch on avatar - guilty as charged.
i won't be pissed if they disable hotlinking tho and won't cry they censor free speech that way unlike pirates who monetize on others work by free distribution.
when i was adding avatar I was hoping the forum would make and use cropped version and not hotlink whole large image there, not that it makes it right either. btw sometimes i park in no parking zones but never in for disabled folks and sometimes i go slightly over speed limit, sir officer.

[elggawf]

I don't think i'm misinformed about the safe harbor provisions. I'm well aware that they do protect ISPs as well as all those "user generated content" upload sites such as filesharers, tubes and torrent trackers

What infringement-centric torrent trackers are in the USA? Most that I'm aware of are in Canada, Europe, or other jurisdictions that currently don't consider linking to infringing material to be infringing itself. That means they're outside the jurisdictions of the DMCA itself and are irrelevant for this discussion.

Filesharing sites like Rapidshare et al, most of those survive because they have legitimate, non-infringing uses. Same goes with YouTube and it's clones - YouTube itself is amazingly proactive at policing infringing content, and even leans towards monetizing it for the copyright holder rather than removing.

Seems to me your entire understanding of the copyright war on the internet is flawed, completely.

And the snarky comments calling me "officer" is most certainly not warranted and again, it is noted with delicious irony considering you're basically white-knighting corporate copyright holders and acting all police-y on "pirates" yourself.

Also most of these proposed laws only actually have any sanctions at the DNS level. People are going to use browser plugins or .bit domains and continue pirating with impunity. Those who are legitimately exercising freedom of speech will have to defend against a whole new array of idiotic legislation, while the pirates will be business as usual inside of a month. U mad?

[Serge]

Going through some cognitive dissonance huh? If you want to maintain some credibility you should remove your avatar immediately.

JohnDoe, Thank you of reminding me of my shameful act.  Avatar will be removed immediately. I appreciate looking after me!

I don't think i'm misinformed about the safe harbor provisions. I'm well aware that they do protect ISPs as well as all those "user generated content" upload sites such as filesharers, tubes and torrent trackers

What infringement-centric torrent trackers are in the USA? Most that I'm aware of are in Canada, Europe, or other jurisdictions that currently don't consider linking to infringing material to be infringing itself. That means they're outside the jurisdictions of the DMCA itself and are irrelevant for this discussion.

Filesharing sites like Rapidshare et al, most of those survive because they have legitimate, non-infringing uses. Same goes with YouTube and it's clones - YouTube itself is amazingly proactive at policing infringing content, and even leans towards monetizing it for the copyright holder rather than removing.

Seems to me your entire understanding of the copyright war on the internet is flawed, completely.

And the snarky comments calling me "officer" is most certainly not warranted and again, it is noted with delicious irony considering you're basically white-knighting corporate copyright holders and acting all police-y on "pirates" yourself.

Also most of these proposed laws only actually have any sanctions at the DNS level. People are going to use browser plugins or .bit domains and continue pirating with impunity. Those who are legitimately exercising freedom of speech will have to defend against a whole new array of idiotic legislation, while the pirates will be business as usual inside of a month. U mad?

elggawf, "officer" was as jokingly as yours "you pirate, you", thought you'd catch it.

Youtube takes proactive approach in preventing copyright infringement especially recurring cases, it is fully compliant with DMCA, some other sites use DMCA save harbor to shield piracy, it is a loophole, they remove content on DMCA notices but then it re-appears later and copyright holder needs to send new DMCA letter, new content appears, new sites which need to be monitor appear. freely distributing copyrighted material goes against creators and producers, it economically degrades investment into creativity.

This has nothing to do with free speech, you are free to express yourself however you like, without using other copyrighted material - it hurts most through massive distribution networks where anyone can d/l or watch anything for free at anytime - it is nice idea, but someone has to pay for it.

> U mad?
Sort of, i don't agree how laws work at times like in case with DMCA, ask any producer and they will tell you it's BS. I recognize there is an issue with sheer amount of piracy on the web. Many people involved with production, their associates and their families are affected by it. people do it because it seems they can without any repercussion.

[Serge]

USA has a say in it.  you speak of darknets - how much copyrighted content there from USA alone?

[MoonShadow]

USA has a say in it.  you speak of darknets - how much copyrighted content there from USA alone?

No way to know.  It's pretty dark in there.

[pointbiz]

US Congress doesn't have worldwide jurisdiction.

[phillipsjk]

Youtube takes proactive approach in preventing copyright infringement especially recurring cases, it is fully compliant with DMCA, some other sites use DMCA save harbor to shield piracy, it is a loophole, they remove content on DMCA notices but then it re-appears later and copyright holder needs to send new DMCA letter, new content appears, new sites which need to be monitor appear. freely distributing copyrighted material goes against creators and producers, it economically degrades investment into creativity.

This has nothing to do with free speech, you are free to express yourself however you like, without using other copyrighted material - it hurts most through massive distribution networks where anyone can d/l or watch anything for free at anytime - it is nice idea, but someone has to pay for it.

Bold mine.

I think you are confusing copyright with physical property rights. IMO, it makes more sense to see published works as being in the public domain first; with copyright being self-imposed restrictions by society to help benefit the author.

Every published work builds on what came before it. We are all informed by our experiences. If our experiences are locked down by copyright law, we lose our ability to express ourselves and society ceases to function.

Copyright needs reform in response to new technology, but legislating away General-Purpose computers is not the answer. Computers are built around the concept of reproducing information at a fundamental level. A computer implementing DRM is no longer a general-purpose machine. People relying of crippled machines will be quickly surpassed by those that see the General-purpose computer as revolutionary. The revolution has not happened yet, and I doubt any restrictive copyright laws will slow it.

The impending phase-out of the general-purpose computer has implications for Bitcoin as well. If bitcoin is barred by decree from the machines in the hands of the average consumer, it will never gain wide-spread adoption. The way things are going, you may need a license to use a general-purpose computer in the near future, much like you would need for being a locksmith of money-service business.

Tangentially related:
"What Is End to End Trust?" Scott Charney, Microsoft Vice President of trustworthy computing

I have made a transcript of that video, but have not yet secured permission to publish the transcript. My take on that video is that it is trageted at people in positions of power who don't really understand how computers work. The implications of the presentation are that computers not trusted by Microsoft should be excluded from the Internet.

Scott Charney elaborates on this idea in his talk: Collective Defense: Applying Public Health Models to the Internet