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Japan Communications Electronic Frontier Foundation Network Piracy The Internet Your Rights Online

EFF To Japan: Reject Website Blocking (eff.org) 41

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: The latest country to consider a website blocking proposal is Japan, and EFF has responded to the call for comment by sharing all the reasons that cutting off websites is a terrible solution for copyright violations. In response to infringement of copyrighted material, specifically citing a concern for manga, the government of Japan began work on a proposal that would make certain websites inaccessible in Japan. In response to Japan's proposal, EFF explained that website blocking is not effective at the stated goal of protecting artists and their work. First, it can be easily circumvented. Second, it ends up capturing a lot of lawful expression. Blocking an entire website does not distinguish between legal and illegal content, punishing both equally. According to numerous studies, the best answer to the problem of online infringement is providing easy, lawful alternatives. Doing this also has the benefit of not penalizing legitimate expression the way blocking does. According to The Japan Times, the "emergency measure" would "encourage [ISPs] to restrict access to such 'malicious' websites 'on a voluntary basis' in order to protect the nation's famed manga and anime industries from free-riders."
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EFF To Japan: Reject Website Blocking

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    The EFF seems to have spent way more time ensuring that we can get access to pirated materials over the last 20 years than it has constraining the behavior of the five big tech companies. If they hadn't been so interested in ensuring that I was able to download Game of Thrones, maybe they could have done something more about Google and Facebook's rampant siphoning of personal data. Of course lets face it, the EFF doesn't want to bite that the hand that feeds them and while we concentrate on the distracting
    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      EFF's goal is not to constraint the big five, at least not directly. In fact, they goal is to make sure constraints are kept to a minimum.

      The big five are powerful, they can negotiate with governments to be included in their white list (even though they sometimes serve pirated content...). Smaller sites, not so much. By making sure access is unrestricted, it gives competitors to the big five a better chance. Same idea for DRM. DRM is an anti-piracy measure but it can also be used for vendor lock in. For exa

  • Seriously. Has there ever been a more contrived or self-absorbed organization than the EFF? They lost their way when they moved out of D.C....
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Who the hell are you.

      • Ask me that when I issue a press release about my recommended website blocking guidelines.
      • someone with more posts on slashdot than the EFF

        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          Since you [iggymanz] were joking in response to an AC I think you should have quoted the original to get the funny mods you deserved. Too bad Slashdot doesn't have a capacity to express "witty". Perhaps as a two- or three-dimension combination? (And of course moot to me, as one of the record-holders for no mod points to give.)

    • Um... This is kind of the raison d'être of the organization. What exactly did you think they did?

      Note: I disagree with them fairly often, but on balance, I think the world is better off with them around to tackle the digital issues that most lay-people don't understand or may not even hear about.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The internet genies is being put back in the bottle by big corporations, and it is computer nerd's fault.

    We've had two decades to build a truly free, decentralized, uncorporatized, uncontrollable network. Instead we have spent the best part of two decades wasting time on technologies like CA backed encryption which have actually become tools of central control(see SciHub), and of course, apps, apps, apps, and more walled garden, restricted device apps, that are eroding the concept of a generally browsable w

    • We have built a free, decentralized and uncontrollable network. But we won't make the mistake twice to let the masses in and destroy it again. You were threatened by the free internet we gave you and you let the government in to control it. So be it. But now you get to live in it. You wanted a nanny instead of learning to fend for yourself, now live with it.

      • We have built a free, decentralized and uncontrollable network. But we won't make the mistake twice to let the masses in and destroy it again. You were threatened by the free internet we gave you and you let the government in to control it. So be it. But now you get to live in it. You wanted a nanny instead of learning to fend for yourself, now live with it.

        And I gave y'all the paper clip!

  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday July 15, 2018 @12:08PM (#56951962)
    1. The same rules apply to everyone. Media companies don't get a free pass [splc.org]don't get a free pass just because they own a lot of copyrighted content.

    2. The company(ies) requesting the block have to financially compensate the blocked website if it's later discovered that their claim of copyright violation was in error. Unlike is currently done under the DMCA where media companies regularly claim copyright violation on YouTube videos and get them defended. And when the person who posts the video is finally able to prove that there was no copyright violation, the media companies only have to say "oopsies, sorry."

    If you follow these common-sense guidelines, you'll quickly find that the problem with blocking websites for repeated copyright violations is that the websites which feature large amounts of media (e.g. news sites, art/photo sharing sites, etc) are the ones which get accused of copyright violation the most. And you'll conclude that an outright ban based on a handful of accusations ends up hurting some of the most useful sites disproportionately.
  • Gee, I wish I could say something substantive on this topic without revealing my sources. It's not just the censorship, but the self-censorship related to the fear of being punished and the loathing of divergent opinion. Yeah, I'm averse to conflict, but I got nothing on the the Japanese at the systemic level. Or perhaps I should describe it as the level of the mob?

    The evidence I wish I could tell you about involves the internal workings of certain Japanese universities as manifested in their computer-syste

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