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Piracy The Almighty Buck

PayPal, Visa, MasterCard Prepare To Block Payments To Pirate Sites In France 82

Posted by Soulskill from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.
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.
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PayPal, Visa, MasterCard Prepare To Block Payments To Pirate Sites In France More

PayPal, Visa, MasterCard Prepare To Block Payments To Pirate Sites In France

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  • As long as they accept court orders (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

    • However, that also formalizes a cartel of payment systems...

      Well, I would hope this is a place where Bitcion can fill in, and other alternatives can emerge.

  • "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...

    • You've got to be able to show that your decisions can change the lives of millions and that you are smart enough to avoid oversight on appropriate use of such power.

      • ... oversight from some higher moral authority that isn't merely a sock puppet to those with golden hands.

  • Common carriers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12, 2015 @07:07AM (#50509051)

    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.

    • So MasterCard should allow drug dealers and mob bosses to use their services?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Alleged drug dealers and mob bosses, but not convicted drug dealers and mob bosses. The rule of law is what separates a civil society from despotism.

        • 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.

          • hahaha the last worldwide recession begs to differ. and now they know, if they didn't already, that the penalty for crashing the financial system is...being given more money.

        • Alleged drug dealers and mob bosses, but not convicted drug dealers and mob bosses. The rule of law is what separates a civil society from despotism.

          ^ This... it is perfectly reasonable to say that PayPal, Visa, etc. can't process payments for convicted criminals who were involved in illegal actives using such payment services...

          But it is NOT reasonable to say they can't process payments for "alleged criminals" who haven't been convicted.

      • Re:Common carriers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Saturday September 12, 2015 @09:22AM (#50509473) Homepage

        So MasterCard should allow drug dealers and mob bosses to use their services?

        Assuming the courts haven't seen any reason to seize the money, MasterCard shouldn't be able to decide who you're permitted to give money to or not. I should not have to justify my spending habits to the bank any more than I need to justify my food habits at the grocery store.

        • Re: Common carriers (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12, 2015 @09:44AM (#50509541)

          This right here is why attempts to go to a cashless society have to be fought with extreme vigor. We cannot allow the government or, even worse, private companies, to decide who can give money to who.

        • 'Common carrier' is the modern disguised version of nationalization. Forcing private individuals and companies to deal with people they don't want to deal with by a global cabbal of violent governments is stealing peoples right to freedom, nothing less than that. Of course everything that governments do is destruction of individual rights, theft, nationalization, monopoly creation. The correct approach is to remove all legal barriers to entry into banking, financing, payment processing, lending, borrowi

        • Assuming the courts haven't seen any reason to seize the money, MasterCard shouldn't be able to decide who you're permitted to give money to or not. I should not have to justify my spending habits to the bank any more than I need to justify my food habits at the grocery store.

          You're assuming a credit card transaction is between you and the merchant. It's not. It's actually two separate transactions - the first is between the credit card company and the merchant, the second between you and the credit card

      • Kind of a silly question, since that is exactly what they do [zerohedge.com]. This is purely cosmetic bullshit to cover up the serious stuff.

    • 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.

  • Not Legal In The EU (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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 pa

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by iTrawl ( 4142459 )

      Oh... "accessory to infringement" is a term that comes to mind... No idea if it's a real legal term, but I'm sure it's not just in my head, but in the heads of the copyright holders' lawyers' heads too. If only they could get a law passed to that effect...

  • Goodbye Via and Paypal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday September 12, 2015 @08:30AM (#50509301)

    Welcome, Bitcoin.

    If it wasn't already invented, now would be the time.

    • 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...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cfalcon ( 779563 )

        No, that is nothing like money laundering.

        The equivalent of this is if the government could just wave a wand and suddenly you were incapable of gaining wealth- you couldn't pick something up if it had value, be it off the ground or in an exchange of goods. It's a wholly new risk generated by previously politically neutral organizations.

  • Wikileaks block springs to mind (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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=759

  • It's a bit tricky (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Swistak ( 899225 )
    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.

    • " if something is illegal " (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 12, 2015 @08:54AM (#50509379)

      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.

    • The problem is that mr. Joe User cannot (and shouldn't need to) verify whether a website is legal or not. How am I supposed to tell? "Hey, mr. Apple iTunes, could you please provide me a signed notarized copy of your agreement with Katy Perry to prove that you are selling her music legally?"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 )

      And what's illegal will be determined by a non-law enforcement process arbitrarily and quickly. Sounds just, ever so solid.

    • So yes. I think if something is illegal it should get payments blocked.

      Oh I agree. Now next question, who determines if something is illegal?

      Before you answer reread the second sentence in the summary.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      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.

      Pardon me, but that's just silly and doesn't pass the giggle test - you do think that if you pay a drug dealer the drugs are legal? Or because he pays for Internet that everything on it is free for the taking? I think you're creating a ridiculous and unenforceable standard if the payment companies should decide for each and every customer if what you're paying for may or may not be in violation of some law, code or regulation.

  • Complaint isn't enough (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AnotherBlackHat ( 265897 ) on Saturday September 12, 2015 @08:51AM (#50509371) Homepage

    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.

  • 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.

  • Arbitrary decisions and ruining people's lives (Score:3)

    by kheldan ( 1460303 ) on Saturday September 12, 2015 @10:20AM (#50509679) Journal
    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'.

  • 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?

  • Oh boy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Saturday September 12, 2015 @10:40AM (#50509757) Journal

    "...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 [techdirt.com], public domain works, anything that has a sound in the background [techdirt.com] 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"! [washingtonpost.com]

  • 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 privil

  • 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

  • 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

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