Internet Censorship Back On Australian Agenda 109
New submitter aberglas writes "The conservative government's George Brandis wants to force ISPs to block sites that might infringe copyright. Brandis said he stood firmly on the side of content creators (a.k.a. Hollywood). Ban gross violators today, obscure ones tomorrow, porn sites, far left sites the day after..." From the article, too, this snippet: "The federal government is also considering implementing a "graduated response scheme" that could lead to consumers' internet accounts being temporarily suspended if they ignore notifications to stop downloading illegal content." Shades of the Copyright Alert System.
All *might* infringe ... (Score:5, Informative)
And since all sites 'might' or 'could' infringe copyright, the demand is only to get to an approved list operated by the media companies for everything, but further entrenching their revenue stream -- because then they'll know all ad content and subscription services belong to them.
These clowns are destroying the internet, and the rights of everyone in order to ensure their rights could never possibly be violated.
And I fear there's no sign of governments pushing back and telling them to piss up a rope.
Follow the money... (Score:5, Informative)
My gut instinct says that very rarely do people in the public eye follow totally altruistic agendas, particularly when it comes to issues like this that have little to do with the common good. If you dig deep enough you can find special interest trails that more often than not uncover these people's true motivators. Just follow the money.
Re:Follow the money... (Score:3, Informative)
My gut instinct says that very rarely do people in the public eye follow totally altruistic agendas, particularly when it comes to issues like this that have little to do with the common good. If you dig deep enough you can find special interest trails that more often than not uncover these people's true motivators. Just follow the money.
Sen. Brandis is a blustering, bullying, buffoon who just parrots what his advisors tell him. He wouldn't have the intellectual capability to realise that blocking websites is an exercise in futility. Even the previous government figured that out - eventually.
Last year the US Ambassador to Australia complained to the government about the amount of Australian piracy of "Games of Thrones". This year's season of Games of Thrones will only be shown on Foxtel (pay/cable TV). So, who owns Foxtel - News Ltd, aka Rupert Murdoch's organ. That would be the same Rupert Murdoch who influenced the Liberal Party to totally screw the National Broadband Network (fibre to the home) when they got into office.
Many Australians are heartily sick of the Liberal Govt already (they were elected last September) on the back of campaign by News Ltd newspapers and the moron part of our society. Oh - and they tried to screw up school funding - presumably to increase the number of morons (Liberal Party voters).