DOJ Ramping Up Crackdown On Copyright-Infringing Sites

An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration is just getting started in its mission to shut down rogue websites that illegally share copyrighted content such as movies and music. The White House's intellectual property czar, Victoria Espinel, said Monday that the Internet community should 'expect more of that' pre-emptive action as the administration ramps up its efforts to combat online copyright infringement — especially the illegal copying and sale of pharmaceutical drugs."

Cognitive Dissonance

[The Living Fractal]

I'm struck with CD... As an artist, a musician, I don't want my work to be copied and people to 'take advantage' of me. But on the other hand, I feel like copyright is an artificial device that only hurts the economy and, on a higher level, human progress as a whole. We can't have 'copied' drugs for much cheaper, thus some people who might have been able to afford said drugs are no longer able to... just to secure the profits of some corporation? I must be missing something here. Someone cure my CD?

Re:Next up

[chemicaldave]

How long before they start to censor sites with political views not approved by the government, or blocking sites deemed 'risks to national security'. I really get tired of my country trying to police and control everything. What ever happened to wanting more freedom.

That's quite a leap you're making. I'f you're really upset then why not write a letter to your congressman and/or donate to the EFF?

The new face of the US Government

[noobermin]

"DoJ's announcement immediately won the praise of the entertainment industry and renewed interest on Capitol Hill for legislation that would grant the administration additional power to shutter malicious and rogue websites."

The entertainment industry. Yup, of the people, by the people, and for the people. More like the oligarchy.

Re:Next up

[retech]

Too late Joe Lieberman has already proposed legislation to say that:

All gov't communications are classified. Leaking a classified document is an act of terrorism. Default to Patriot Act.

Give them a few years and we'll not be able to object to anything.

Re:Next up

[Stregano]

Oh no, it is still a war on drugs since they are going after people that clone prescription drugs. See, our government gets no piece of the pie when people do that, so this is just a nice way for them to go after those places and say they are going after all copyright infringement. Remember, we now live in CSA (Corporate States of America). If it is not about money that is thrown to CSA, they won't bother

If they keep this up..

[Mysteray]

So if they keep this up, jacking with .com, .org, .net, etc. the only thing that's going to happen is that those top-level names will fall into disuse. Even if you could make .com have all the safety and law-abiding-ness of .museum, do you really want to?

This is the first crack in the US's losing control of the internet. Not that the US or any one entity "controls" it per se, but we did have a big influence in the technical direction of it.

Ya this is my problem

[Sycraft-fu]

I support copyright. You need to be able to make money from creative works if we want people who work on that kind of thing full time. So there has to be some kind of protection, exclusivity, otherwise you can't make money in a capitalist society. Now if you want to replace capitalism with something else, that's another issue so let's not discuss that here. However in the framework we have, we need something like copyright.

Fine, however we need to recognize that it IS an artificial construct, and the only reason we have it is to, as the Constitution says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." Well to best do that it needs to be a reasonably limited period. That ensures a few things:

1) You can't just make money forever by doing one thing. If you wish to continue to make money, you'll have to continue to make new works.

2) It ensures works get distributed, not locked away. When they are under copyright you want to distribute it so you can make money for the short period permitted, and after that anyone can distribute it.

3) It allows for others to build on existing works. Creativity does not exist in a vacuum, we build on idea from the past. When idea enter the public domain it allows them to be used as the foundations of new ones.

So I agree, we need a shorter copyright term. Personally I'd do it something like thus:

Upon the creation of a work you get an automatic 10 year copyright, no work required. This means that even if you create something you don't think has value, but realize later it does you aren't screwed. During this time you have unlimited control and rights over the work. You do as you please with it. At the end of 10 years you have three choices:

1) Do nothing, the work then falls in to the public domain.

2) Register for an exclusive extension. You then receive another 10 years of exclusive, unlimited control. After that the work will be public domain.

3) Register for a non-exclusive extension. You then receive another 30 years of rights, however you are required to license derivative works for a standardized fee to all that want it. You can profit from your work, and from the derivatives, but you MUST license it for derivatives and the fee you get is fixed.

My objection now is this forever copyright thing we've got going.