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Government Piracy The Internet News Politics

New Legislation Would Crack Down On Online Piracy 350

GovTechGuy writes "Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee unveiled new legislation to combat online piracy on Monday that gives the Department of Justice more power to shut down websites trafficking in pirated movies, films or counterfeit goods. The new bill would give the government the authority to shut down the sites with a court order; the site owner would have to petition the court to have it lifted. The judge would have final say over whether a site should be shut down or not. Business groups including the US Chamber of Commerce hailed the legislation as a huge step forward."
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New Legislation Would Crack Down On Online Piracy

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  • by vlm ( 69642 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:41PM (#33642150)

    shut down websites trafficking in ... counterfeit goods

    Bye Bye EBAY, and good riddance

    • Re:Bye Bye EBAY (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:46PM (#33642204)

      The government isnt going to shut down sites backed by the almighty $$$

      But your movie blog is gone the first time you give a bad review.

      Your political forum is shut down the first time some kid quotes 1984.

      Etc, etc..

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by sarx ( 1905268 )

        But your movie blog is gone the first time you give a bad review.

        Your political forum is shut down the first time some kid quotes 1984.

        Etc, etc..

        Do you have any evidence of this? I don't see how it follows from the article, so it sounds like paranoia, and I'll regard it as such until I have any evidence at all to back it up.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Since it's not even a law, obviously, there is no evidence to support any of the GP's claims. And yes, it's just paranoia. You can trust the government. It has never let you down, right? Any dissenters should be put in jail anyways.

          • by h00manist ( 800926 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @07:57AM (#33648256) Journal
            We should start in government and business. All government and business should have their accounting books openly verifiable, online, live, for immediate inspections of transactions with indicted groups with involvement in money laundering, terrorism, tax evasion, drug and people trafficking, and child porn. "Business trade and accounting secrets and privacy" cannot remain an excuse for covering up endangering all of society. If only the police could track the money, they can track down all crime. What, you object? Do you have something to hide?
        • Re:Bye Bye EBAY (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2010 @06:00PM (#33643082)

          Different AC here...

          Are you saying you can't envision a scenario where a law is used as carte blanche for censoring speech, shutting down competitors, and generally being a nuisance?

          Become familiar with DMCA takedown notices, for starters.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by c6gunner ( 950153 )

          Do you have any evidence of this?

          You must be new here ....

      • Re:Bye Bye EBAY (Score:5, Interesting)

        by EdIII ( 1114411 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:25PM (#33642602)

        Yes.......... but how?

        When a website is "taken down" on a U.S based server that does not mean it is dead. Far from it. What happened was the hosting company shut it down due the court order. There are some hosting companies that will refuse based on principles.

        Now let's say that the site owner is risking contempt of court if they move the website out of the U.S jurisdiction. Maybe they will get the site started up under somebody else? Sell all the corporate assets to a foreign company for $1.

        I guess what I am getting at, is that shutting down a website has not been incredibly effective when the principles involved and hosting is not inside the U.S. Just how long will it take before the Justice Department can get a court order to interfere with the DNS records of allegedly infringing websites?

        Manipulation and control over the DNS is what is ultimately required to do anything effective. This law will just drive all the businesses outside of the U.S, just like the DMCA has driven a lot of businesses outside as well.

        It will be DNS too, since the Great Firewall of Freedom will be more expensive then the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined and even less effective.

        Talk about a wonderful day for hosting providers huh?

        • Re:Bye Bye EBAY (Score:5, Interesting)

          by TooMuchToDo ( 882796 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @10:05PM (#33645098)

          I own a small hosting company. We have operations in the US, Europe, and Asia. Each operation is owned by a seperate corporate entity. Chance favors the prepared.

      • A court order only happens if a judge signs off on it. Unless they tell the judge outright lies, what (American) judge on the face of the Earth would shut down a political forum?

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Lumpy ( 12016 )

          There are a large number of outright bought or party line judges. Texas is full of horrible evil judges. There are plenty elsewhere in the country as well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by houstonbofh ( 602064 )
      No, they will just move overseas like everyone else. Get used to changing .com to .se or .es over the next few years...
  • by Sonny Yatsen ( 603655 ) * on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:42PM (#33642170) Journal

    Ever notice the same people who call Net Neutrality a government takeover of the internet are usually pretty quiet whenever somebody in Congress proposes a law that'd allow them to block or shut websites down?

    • I don't really notice anyone calling net neutrality a government takeover. Maybe because I don't watch cable news.

    • by Steeltoe ( 98226 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:39PM (#33642818) Homepage

      All the more reason to move over to I2P, or other general darknets, which can provide application-agnostic anonymous networking with end-to-end encryption. Why wait for the inevitable when we can build a secure internet on top of the old one?

      With I2P, there are no central DNS servers and, the ISP / IP-address of a specific service is ideally not knowable, neither are the ISP / IP-addresses of visitors to e.g. a political website. I2P being p2p, no authority has the power to shut down a site, prevent visitors using services in the I2P "darkcloud" or even snoop on the network activities (without using leaking honeypots, assimilating keys somehow or perform (D)DOS attacks). I2P uses random ports, so it's not as simple to block as blocking a portrange either. Being based on p2p coupled with encrypted tunnels, I2P resists most common attacks, even by formidable adversaries such as governments. You can run any website, any type of application, over I2P, however care must of course be taken to eliminate "identity leaks" in the application layer, even though the network-layer takes care of most anonymity, encryption and p2p.

      So if you are to host "objectionable" content, whatever that may mean across the globe, I'd suggest taking a peek at I2P, as the "normal" internuts seems to be screwed in the short/mid-term. Heck, we should probably start using I2P for any and all purposes, so that I2P content is "legitimate" and equally protected from being censored and snooped upon in the first place.

      I2P main site as a start. It's java and open source, so easily cross-platform and performs well (for a Java app anyway):
      http://www.i2p2.de/ [i2p2.de]

  • by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:44PM (#33642184) Homepage Journal

    What's wrong with getting a court order?

    Every time we drop court orders out of the mix, we wind up with abusive crap (see FBI and National Security Letters).

    Just suck it up, deal with the paper work, and live in a nation governed by three equal branches of government that each work to ensure the other branches are not overstepping their bounds.

    -Rrick

    • by nebaz ( 453974 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:49PM (#33642240)

      The Justice department would still have to get a court order, as they do now. The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction. Why the government is involved at all in civil justice is beyond me? Isn't that the job of the plaintiff?

      • by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:01PM (#33642364) Homepage

        The MPAA, RIAA, and DMA have bought laws.

        Don't you think that they have a right to expect a fair value for the legislators that they buy?

        What good is buying a congressperson if you can't get the laws you want written the way you want?

        • by siddesu ( 698447 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:11PM (#33642460)

          Your question is rhetorical, but let me bite.

          This is happening because enforcing civil law on behalf of the Hungry Artists is a costly and difficult exercise in the US.

          Especially so since you have evil commies like our resident slashdotter lawyer, who is destroying business value by promoting socialist ideas like fair use, copyright limits and the like on his blog.

          Dumping the enforcement on the government has benefits for all involved.

          It is good for the companies -- they get to save some extra buck on prosecution and enforcement, and face significantly lower legal risks while protecting their valuable business model (which benefits the shareholders, and our great capitalist society).

          It is good for the government -- with little cooperation from the interested parties, they get a nice tool for shooting things on the web they don't like.

          It is good for the consumer -- for access to unapproved, and potentially dangerous and unlawful content is restricted.

          Finally, since this will obviously help combat child porn and drug abuse, it is good for the future of this great nation. Why don't you think of the children?

          No matter how I look at it, this is a beneficial measure for everyone except the few Communist slashdotters who abuse the internet to steal from our creative industry.

      • by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:51PM (#33642974) Homepage Journal

        So the plaintiff doesn't have to pony up the cash to do it, and can now accuse at will, without any regard to potential returns. However, keeping it in civil court keeps the accused at a disadvantage as they have to effectively prove their innocence, at their expense.

        Buying laws is fun.

      • by westlake ( 615356 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @06:53PM (#33643588)

        The issue is that they could do so for a civil infraction, as opposed to a criminal infraction.

        Copyright infringement can be prosecuted as a federal felony charge.

        The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.
        In addition, it added a threshold for criminal liability where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement. In response to the NET Act, the US Sentencing Commission stiffened sanctions for intellectual property theft offenses.
        NET Act [wikipedia.org]

        The federal government has the constitutional right to criminally prosecute violations of federally granted property rights.

        Prosecuting economic crimes with an interstate or international dimension is primarily a federal responsibility.

        In a service-based economy, the entertainment industry generates a lot of jobs and a lot of domestic and export dollars. Many of those jobs and many of those dollars going directly into the pockets of the American geek - and not to the Russian or the Swede in Pirate Bay.

        Two Individuals Sentenced to Prison for Conspiring to Traffic in Counterfeit Slot Machines and Computer Programs [cybercrime.gov] [casino gambling software] [August 20]

        Thibodaux Man Pleads Guilty To Violation Of Digital Millennium Copyright Act [cybercrime.gov] [XBox 360 mods and pirated games] [maximum exposure, 5 years and $500,000, sentencing in 2011] [August 11]

        Manhattan Federal Court Orders Seizures Of Seven Websites For Criminal Copyright Infringement In Connection With Distribution Of Pirated Movies Over The Internet [cybercrime.gov] [June 30]

        Texas Man Admits Involvement In Software Piracy Conspiracy [cybercrime.gov] [Warez] [August 10]

         

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Alanbly ( 1433229 )
      The legislation still requires a court order...

      The new bill would give the government the authority to shut down the sites with a court order; the site owner would have to petition the court to have it lifted.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mr_mischief ( 456295 )

        Ask Steve Jackson how much protection that is. You don't want a court order standing between you and losing your livelihood. You want a trial.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:56PM (#33642320)

      "What's wrong with getting a court order?"

      When the person requesting it is a government official acting on behalf of a 3rd party's interest when really it should be between the 1st and 3rd parties, not the government. Basically this is just another way that the **AA and member companies are going to foot taxpayers with the bill for propping up their outdated and inflexible business models. If their business model can't survive change, it should die. Isn't that the entire fucking point of capitalism? Compete or die.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      I tend to agree....

      But I think people feel that since the government and corporations are one, and considering how corrupt our government is.... that its a bit of the old kettle and tea pot. In most situations concerning the people, corporations, and wealth are favored over what the people want. I think the little guy likes to know that he too deserves to fuck over the corporations and government who use law to fuck over the little guy constantly.

      So here you have what probably makes sense and is fair in ter

    • by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      I disagree, in reality the supreme court holds more power, since they can pick and choose what cases/issues they take.

      I agree the founders never meant for it to be that way however.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      What's wrong with getting a court order?

      Every time we drop court orders out of the mix, we wind up with abusive crap (see FBI and National Security Letters).

      It should also be pointed out that according to everything TFA said, this is aimed at sites that "traffic in" pirated goods. "Trafficking" = selling. This is not just about downloading files. Further, although it has been misused a lot lately, the actual definition of copyright "piracy" is distribution and sale of copyrighted goods, not just making personal copies.

  • No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:45PM (#33642192) Journal

    Leahy said in a statement. "Protecting intellectual property is not uniquely a Democratic or Republican priority -- it is a bipartisan priority."

    In other words, if you believe in Copyright reform, you have no choices at the polls.

    • Re:No kidding (Score:5, Insightful)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:48PM (#33642228)

      Of course, both US parties are Corporatist. Any differences are just to make it look like you have a choice.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by youngone ( 975102 )
        Quite right, here's another word for Corporatist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism [wikipedia.org] Have a look at the first couple of lines.
      • by hitmark ( 640295 )

        big oil and big media, take your pick because either way your getting shafted...

    • Re:No kidding (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:54PM (#33642304)
      Which is why it is important to either have a very limited government that wouldn't let these abuses happen or allow for party-list based proportional representation in order to get people involved in politics and generate good government. Our current electoral system is great with very limited government and an even more limited federal government, but it isn't the 1830s anymore, the federal government is huge and this duopoly of parties only encourages political apathy. Party-list proportional representation means that everyone at least has -someone- representing their beliefs in congress, rather than people simply voting for the "lesser evil".
      • by kindbud ( 90044 )

        Which is why it is important to either have a very limited government that wouldn't let these abuses happen...

        Let's think for a second about what a very limited, practically powerless government will be able to do to prevent any abuse the corporate world wants to impose. Will it be empowered to at least write a sternly-worded letter? Because a sternly-worded letter will at least make them think twice before doing what they were going to do anyway, won't it?

        ... or allow for party-list based proportional re

        • Re:No kidding (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @06:39PM (#33643444)
          Corporate power is, by nature, less powerful than a tyrannical, omnipotent state. Without a powerful state to back it up, a corporation -has- no power not given to it by its citizens, and citizens can reduce the power of a corporation in a blink of an eye compared to power of a government.

          A corporation requires money and resources, without that it dies. In a free market, no one is forced to pay for anything they don't want, this is in sharp contrast with a government where you -have- to pay for things, even if you don't want them. For example, if you disagree with Wal-Mart's hiring practices, you don't have to shop there, they don't get any of your money or support. On the other hand, if you oppose the war in Iraq, you still have to pay for the bullets or else go to prison.

          Given a free enough market, corporations won't become tyrannical because of the fact that the market balances itself out. Even the "worst" monopoly was broken up in essence by market forces (the government breakup of Standard Oil was not needed because it no longer was even close to a monopoly at the time of its breakup). Anytime you see a monopoly, it either A) Is government imposed (postal service, utilities, etc), B) No need for competition (as in, if no one thought hamburgers would be profitable and therefore McDonalds was the only store selling hamburgers) or C) Is very temporary.

          The problem is, our government is not free enough, when boiled down to a government whos only job is to protect against fraud and force both corporations and consumers win. Consumers win because they are free to screw the corporations, for example, no DMCA and most likely no (or very, very limited) copyright. Corporations win because they are free to innovate and expand beyond government constraints artificially limiting them. Consumers also have more choice, imagine if all the oil in the world was monopolized and there was incredibly high prices, a few things would have happened, either A) we'd find new sources of oil or more likely B) We'd develop things that didn't need oil thus pushing oil prices down further leading to a loss of that monopoly. Corporations also can provide infrastructure, if Company X needs to have an airport near Nowheresville, they will build an airport, because they can't utilize all of it 24/7, they rent it out to private airlines, therefore, suddenly Nowheresville has an airport and gets more trade without government waste.

          I guarantee making voting more complicated is not the answer. You need an educated, informed electorate first. But if you have that, playing silly games with the ballot won't be necessary.

          Look at countries with high voter turnout, almost all of them use the solution I'm proposing, for example, the US only has a 54% voter turnout, on the other hand, look at Sweden with 86% voter turnout because they use proportional voting.

          Proportional representation is the easiest way to make sure that people's vote counts. Just because you don't agree with 50% of people, doesn't mean your voice shouldn't be heard. The idea that people vote politically based on the surrounding area is outdated, it worked before the civil war, where industries were tied to certain geographical areas. But they aren't.

    • That's not the only part of that quote I would want to question. Why is this a priority?

      We have all kinds of problems in this country, so why is it a big priority for the government to help a handful of industries deal with petty civil disputes? I bet golf courses all over this country have problems with trespassing, but we don't make it a "bipartisan priority" in Congress to have law enforcement respond to trespassing complaints more quickly.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:46PM (#33642196)

    Business groups including the US Chamber of Commerce hailed the legislation as a huge step forward.

    Yeah, a step forward for keeping their business models from dying off, thus preventing them from having to actually work to come up with new ones.

    Meanwhile, this COULD be used to stamp out any site the US Government or the MAFIAA dislike. WikiLeaks? "Piracy." BAM, blocked. YouTube? "Piracy." BAM, blocked.

    A step forward for government protectionism of failing business models, two steps back for free speech on the Internet.

    • Yeah, a step forward for keeping their business models from dying off, thus preventing them from having to actually work to come up with new ones.

      I keep reading about "failed business models" and "finding new ones" but nobody ever suggests what such a new business model might actually be and how it would work.

  • by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:47PM (#33642212)

    The new bill would give the government the authority to shut down the sites with a court order; the site owner would have to petition the court to have it lifted

    What ever happened to being innocent before guilty? In a free society, courts have to prove -you- guilty, not you have to prove your innocence.

    Isn't it time that we realized that property is not property unless it is limited and move on?

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:06PM (#33642422) Journal

      "Assumed innocent until found guilty" is criminal law. Civil issues are different.

      But what I worry about the most is its use for political censorship. Look what the church that rhymes with Pie Ontology has done using copyright laws. I hope there are added protections against that kind of abuse. The little guy can't afford boatloads of lawyers.

    • by mbone ( 558574 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:11PM (#33642466)

      What ever happened to being innocent before guilty? In a free society, courts have to prove -you- guilty, not you have to prove your innocence.

      Ah, you haven't heard of the glories of civil law. It is, for example, how most drug law forfeitures are done [fear.org] - you have to prove your innocence to get the seized assets back. (I am not a lawyer, and if you have assets seized, you had better get one and not rely on /. for legal advice.)

      Why the US Court system bought into this theory is beyond me; I think that they should be ashamed of themselves (but, then, they don't ask for my opinion).

      • The US Courts don't buy, so much as get bought.

      • What ever happened to being innocent before guilty? In a free society, courts have to prove -you- guilty, not you have to prove your innocence.

        Ah, you haven't heard of the glories of civil law. It is, for example, how most drug law forfeitures are done [fear.org] - you have to prove your innocence to get the seized assets back. (I am not a lawyer, and if you have assets seized, you had better get one and not rely on /. for legal advice.)

        Why the US Court system bought into this theory is beyond me; I think t

    • I'm afraid you're going to have to define 'limited'. While you're at it, can you think of any kind of property that isn't limited in some way? (the very nature of property itself has limits).
      • Property by nature, and property law is filled with the assumption that property is limited. For example, if I have a plow and give it to you, I no longer have a plow. But lets say I have the plans to make a plow, that no longer is limited. If I tell you how to build a plow, I can still make a plow and you can make a plow. Those plans, provided they weren't written on anything and were simply verbal plans, were not property.

        Property law would be needless if everything was like those plans, food would be
    • In patent infringement cases a judge can order an injunction to force the accused infringer to stop making the product in question early on in the case*. Given the similarity of patent and copyright infringement, it makes sense that a similar policy would be used here. Of course, I doubt the requirements to get a site shut down are as high as the equivalent in patent cases, so in practice this won't be the same.

      *IANAL so I apologize for poor wording.
    • by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      Presumed innocence only works in criminal court and they are trying very hard to keep these cases in the the 'civil' arena.

  • Is there any 'politically correct' way to tell the government to screw off?
    If not, let me be the first to just say, "Screw off."
  • by Anonymous Coward

    The only point to having a new law for this, is to make it hard to access web servers that aren't in the U.S. by messing with DNS, regardless of whether the material was legally hosted where the servers were located. (If the problem was with U.S. hosted servers, existing law would be plenty good enough.)

  • Will this actually have an impact though? what piracy sites are run from the US? I assume this court order will only be effective for servers hosted in the states...
    • Somehow I doubt they thought it through that much. They probably pictured going downtown and busting the perps in their den of inequity. Perhaps someone tried to explain how the Internets worked to them but I doubt that as well. Anyone who tried would probably just frighten them into thinking they were a hacker/pirate.
  • The new bill would give the government the authority to shut down the sites with a court order; the site owner would have to petition the court to have it lifted.

    Did I read that right, that they can get the site yanked, and then you have to get to work to prove your innocence before you can have your site back up?

    • by vux984 ( 928602 )

      Did I read that right, that they can get the site yanked,

      They do have to actually convince a judge there is a legitimate reason first. Its not a rubber stamp process... or at least it shouldn't be. In any case would you be happier if they could yank your site without a court order?

      and then you have to get to work to prove your innocence before you can have your site back up?

      That is how all injunctions work.

      There is nothing inherently wrong with the "idea" of this legislation. How abuseable / abused it will

    • by horatio ( 127595 )
      yes, yes you did. which was exactly my reaction. The government, at the behest of a private party, shuts down a legitimately operated business, whom the RIAA bots have decided are infringers. It turns out, the guy is selling his own music. Or, he has obtained the rights to use the music. But his business is closed until he can prove he didn't do anything wrong. By the time he convinces a judge the slick $500/hr RIAA/MPAA lawyers are wrong, his small operation which he sunk his life savings into, and wh
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      Yes...

      Some legislators don't really care about Constitutionality. Such as Nancy Pelosi, who when asked where the Constitution gave Congress the power, simply asked if the reporter was serious, and moved on. It's on youtube, etc.

  • by mkawick ( 190367 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @04:58PM (#33642336)

    The DCMA notoriously was touted as solving the online piracy problem. The cold reality is that almost ten thousand small companies have shuttered their doors in the last almost 15 years. New startups are forced to prove that they are not infringing and while waiting they must cease all development. This can take months and cost upwards of 100K meaning that most tech startups must simply shutter their doors. Microsoft alone has filed DCMA takedown notices almost 500 times and is successful at shuttering the company nearly every time.

    Now, media sites can be shut down for being "copyright infringing" with very little evidence to the contrary. A small company cannot fight the likes of MS, IBM, Apple, Sun, or the host of other awful DCMA bastards and now they'll need to worry about Bartlesman, Dreamworks, Pixar, and the like. This simply makes it impossible to start a new media company because all that the media conglomerates have to do is claim that someone is stealing and without your company being informed, you can be shut down. The DCMA shuts down software and this new rule will shutdown new media.

    The DCMA is one of the main reasons that more and more companies are successfully competing in software development overseas and why more and more software is coming from Russia, China, Norway, and so on. It is becoming impossible to create a new software startup. And now in the land of unintended consequences, we just shipped all of our movie, music, and game production overseas.

    There have been no new Googles for over a decade and we wonder where all of the jobs are going.

    • Exactly. The US has gotten really good at making sure that people don't want to work here. News flash, its not 1950 anymore, Europe is just as developed if not more developed than the US, most of Asia has lots of cheap labor and good talent. If I was starting up a business I'd start it almost anywhere other than the US.
    • by theNAM666 ( 179776 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:18PM (#33642542)

      I personally think this is more idiocy, but do you mind citing one or two actual companies "shut down" by DMCA? Just to show you're not making this up *entirely* ?

      • by mkawick ( 190367 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @06:02PM (#33643106)

        Try these... some are companies, some are blogs... but you get the idea

        http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/microsoft-cryptome/
        http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/first-amendment-under-attack-feds-shut/
        http://boingboing.net/2010/07/23/dmca.html
        http://vigilant.tv/article/3328/blackboxvotingorg-shut-down-under-dmca-for-linking
        http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/09/intellectual-property-laws-abused-in-quest-to-shutdown-lowes-sucks-com.ars

        There are hundreds... I simply googled: "companies shut down by DMCA"

        This one is plain weird:
        http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/_improper_use_of_copyright.php

      • but do you mind citing one or two actual companies "shut down" by DMCA?

        321 Studios [wired.com] for one.

    • by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) * on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:25PM (#33642598)

      There have been no new Googles for over a decade and we wonder where all of the jobs are going.

      Every empire throughout history (whether military or economic) has eventually failed. It's inevitable. Now, sometimes another empire with more on the ball rolls over them. That happens. In most cases, though, it's because they shot themselves in the foot. In other words, their own governments failed to perform their duties under the law, became corrupt, sold out their own citizens and caused the entire house of cards to collapse. Fact is, Uncle Sam's feet are stumps at this point. Yeah, it will suck to be an American when the lights finally go out, but that's the way it's going. I'm trying to decide if I should get out before it's too late. Where to, that's the question. I want good food and fast broadband. Cool smartphones would be a plus.

      See, this is why the media cartels are so evil. It's not just because they want to protect their movies and music ... it's that they're willing to throw the entire country, all of us in fact, to the wolves, under the train, under the bus, into the fire, in order to get what they want. Worse, it's the naked corruption and malfeasance in office (if not outright treason) of Federal officials that is allowing to happen.

      I hate them all.

    • There are a few Chinese companies that are outsourcing manufacturing to the US... why? Better infrastructure. Things like electricity are more reliable and cheaper in the US. http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/06/news/international/china_america_full.fortune/index.htm [cnn.com]
  • if, youre stupid enough to believe !!
  • by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:10PM (#33642450) Homepage

    This is completely circumventing the notion of due process and the ideal of innocent until proven guilty. So if this is okay, then let's just have the judges hand down an order for execution of suspected murderers and then make the defendant file a motion for a stay of execution pending a trial.

  • DAMN ANNOYING (Score:3, Insightful)

    by airfoobar ( 1853132 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:12PM (#33642468)
    The internet is such an amazing, useful and indispensable tool... yet I keep seeing a bunch of retards from a bygone age trying to subdue and control it using petty excuses such as copyright. This is seriously over "entertainment", like movies and music? Are we seriously expected to stand aside and let them take the the internet with such a lame excuse? Fuck the entertainment industries, they should either figure out a more consumer-friendly way to operate, or POAD because they are completely useless and their products are pure shite. Fuck the pirates who are giving those asshats an excuse to screw everyone over, and then don't have the balls to vote for the Pirate Parties to mitigate some of the damage. And most of all, fuck the douchebag politicians who are colluding with the "entertainers" to introduce anti-consumer, anti-democratic, anti-civil-rights laws like this, and who have no business being in office.
  • Lump much? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:15PM (#33642500) Homepage

    "online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods costs American businesses billions of dollars, and result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs"

    Much the way national defense and senators' salaries cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars each year.

  • For those who like getting their news from the source, here [wired.com] is the current (PDF) draft of the bill.

  • by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:16PM (#33642514) Journal
    ... that they actually mention piracy as the reason to implement this. Here in the Netherlands, similar legislation is being prepared, which by the way will require no court order whatsoever to have a site shut down, the public prosecutor can decide on a whim. The reason? You guessed it, "saving the children", or shutting down kiddie porn sites. As the minister stated: "Not to worry, but this is just for kiddie porn. Oh, and for other illegal stuff (like online piracy). Oh, and that includes hate speech too. Probably certain elements of a particular party we don't like much as well. But we'll exercise proper care" No checks, balances or even limits placed on this awesome power given to the prosecutors office... already famous for exercising proper care in sending a 10-man police force to do a nighttime raid on the home of an apparently extremely dangerous cartoonist making "hate-instigating" (i.e. subversive) cartoons. Or allowing cities to do door-to-door searches of homes looking for indoor weed plantations... but sending along municipal guys to check you're not claiming unemployment benefits while living it large, or having a dog without paying the tax. Oh and these are proper searches: fail to be home when they drop by a few times, and they will take a crowbar to your door.

    Do not ever give in to pleas to relax controls to make life for the prosecutor a little easier "to catch more criminals". It's never about criminals nor child-molesters. We let them do it here, and allowed the government to thoroughly politicise the prosecutors' office, then took away the judiciary branch' power to check and balance. The result is not pretty... All these so called inconvenient controls exist for a reason.
  • by purpleraison ( 1042004 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:18PM (#33642544) Homepage Journal

    Seriously. The US government is 100% committed to spending a fortune regulating and enforcing use of the internet due to 'online piracy'. As a result the US government is directly providing law enforcement, judicial, and legislative staff to protect the video and music industry..... and yet they openly claim REGULATING BANKS and stock market (NOTE: the Republican party is almost 100% against regulating the banking industry) is bad???

    Am I the only one who is concerned with this criminally insane paradox?

  • Is it just me (Score:2, Insightful)

    by KillaGouge ( 973562 )
    Is it just me, or will this do nothing to stop downloading? After reading, it appears they will only go after sites selling things. I thought that downloading was the largest threat to "the industry", or are they just getting to the point they want to bring everything down that they don't make money off of?
  • Because every pirate site is within US jurisdiction, of course!

  • Hooray! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Teun ( 17872 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:35PM (#33642752)
    Finally we'll again get good movies and music, just like it used to be before the market collapsed due to piracy.
  • by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @05:41PM (#33642848) Homepage Journal
    Newspapers? Saying that there is a torrent from a movie is not so different from saying that i.e. John Doe robbed that bank.
    Search engines? Directly or indirectly search engines links to movies and pirated material
    Web 2.0? Everything with user participation have potential to be used to "exchange links"
    Mail? Mailing lists?
    At most they should be going against the people that put them online at the first place

    Wonder how fast will be censored all post that names the Great Firewall of America, but probably that is what they really should do if they don't want that americans download so easily pirated movies.
  • To a totalitarian country as private speech is squelched under the guise of 'anti piracy' ( or 'hate speech' or several other forms of free speech that is under attack ).

  • a way to shut down ebay.

  • Nothing can unite a governmental body like monetary payoffs in exchange for broader control of the population.
  • Wikilleaks (Score:5, Informative)

    by ktetch-pirate ( 1850548 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @06:13PM (#33643200)
    If you look closely at the bill, it's actually usefull to shutdown sites that contain classified documents too, such as ooh Wikileaks... That, I think, is the real target. http://ktetch.blogspot.com/2010/09/us-senators-in-big-copyrights-pocket.html [blogspot.com]
  • To quote JFK (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fnord666 ( 889225 ) on Monday September 20, 2010 @08:10PM (#33644318) Journal

    Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
    - John F. Kennedy

Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.

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