Internet being shut down?

[Mantaray]

remind me not to take my children to albania.

Why should megaupload block child porn via hashes when a user in Swaziland could legitimately backup his collection legally?

it wouldn't be legitimate. megaupload don't have servers in any countries without child porn laws that im aware of.

[Misiok]

By the child porn logic, does that mean, say, if in Sweden, they legalized downloading games/music/movies for free, or at least did not make it illegal if you used it for your own amusement (not spreading piracy), does that mean I can go to Sweden and get all the free stuff, as long as it's hosted on servers in Sweden? And keep it, as long as I stay in Sweden?

[Moe]

See this is the conundrum right there. Let's for the sake of argument use piracy and Sweden as a hypothetical example. For the purpose of this argument we'll assume that piracy is 100% legal in Sweden.

As a Swedish person living in Sweden, I could then happily pirate, upload and download stuff. As someone living in the US, I'm not allowed to do that. I could move to Sweden and pirate my heart out, but as long as I'm in the US I'm subject to the laws of that country. And this is where it becomes problematic. While you may argue that if a file hosting service is based and hosted in Sweden, using it isn't illegal, remember that you're still subject to the laws of your country. It may be legal to buy weed in some countries, but customs will stop you at the US border if you try to bring it into the country, because it's illegal over there.

So now we have laws like SOPA being proposed in an attempt to create a virtual customs service or border. This of course is where the analogy breaks down, and where we run into trouble because the internet by its very nature is not confined to any one single nation or set of laws.

[Mantaray]

assuming your in Sweeden, you downloaded it from Sweedish servers, and left it in Sweeden when you go, then im gonna say... yes.
as far as im aware the legislation applied to websites and servers is that of the country the servers are based. the legality from your perspective is relative to your location.

to lengthen that analogy, if you're in the UK and download from sweeden, you are in the wrong. if you are in england and you download from england. both you AND the server are wrong. if you are in sweeden and the server is in england the server is wrong for hosting illegal content. but you're in the clear because the content isnt illegal where you are.

[EDIT, ninja'd by moe who basically articulated my point better then i can]

[Troubleshooter]

One point of interest, the content isn't illegal if it's just a copy of a legally owned copyrighted material. The activity of downloading copyrighted materials you don't personally own is, technically, theft. But, I have a right as an owner of a particular piece of media to re-aquire it from another source unless I've missed something. So it is important to highlight that my fair use rights as a US citizen under US law (common and statutory) are being whittled down for no apparent reason because an industry wants to preserve a revenue stream.

Now, having said that, I'm going to D/A this for a moment and ask why attempting to prevent piracy by making access to the masses of internet users within the US to, specifically, sites hosting copyrighted material is necessarily wrong? Some people involved in the production of media we all know and love are compensated primarily through a form of back-end cut of the profits on sales numbers. I remember how some actors began taking a cut of the sales of the DVD as part of their compensation package to get them on a project cheaper than their contract minimums would allow, which green lighted more than a few really high quality features. This should mean better content for the universal "US" in theory, which piracy... even limited to US customers that pay a higher price for their goods in many cases... undermines. Knowing that, does the rest of the world care that US citizens (and travelers passing through I suppose) are potentially restricted from some sites that are (air quotes) known (close air quotes) pirate operations, in the hopes that the US dollar spending public will continue to fund AAA titles in the years to come?

Its really the US seeking to squeeze more money out of its own public to feed the **AA's, and the likelihood of it spreading worldwide is pretty slim given the dynamics of international relations, though it was made clear to me that some people are afraid that the USA would seek to export the SOPA law model to trade partners... but even then, the basic argument applies... what's wrong with putting up guard rails on the internet to steer the herd of regular customers to legitimate content and transactions?

[Starfisher]

Define "guard rails".

The devil is in the details. Reasoning metaphorically always blows up in your face when you apply it to a real technical problem. I mean, what's wrong with protecting children from internet pornographers?

[Troubleshooter]

Well, the idea is that by making routine searching for copyrighted material, the typical internet use will be more likely to wind up in a legitimate transaction than opportunistically availing themselves of free copies from pirate outfits.


ARRG!

Edit : More to the point... is the intents of these bills objectionable, or simply this particular implementation of them?

[Starfisher]

For SOPA/PIPA/ACTA, it'ss a thorny issue which our forum ruleset doesn't really allow us to discuss. So that's off the table.

In the case of protecting kids from being exploited for porn... yeah I don't think anyone objects to that goal. They didn't chose that name by accident. They selected an almost universally agreed upon evil. And if they had proposed harsher penalties for child porn than already exist, or really anything related to child porn, that might have been fine.

Instead they decided to keep a copy of your internet usage for 18 months just in case you someday committed a crime, and set it up so that the government doesn't even need a warrant to take a peek. We had a discussion about this at the lunch table at work and it's incredible to me how willing people are to say, "well, you shouldn't have anything to worry about, what's the problem?" all in the name of "protecting kids from child porn". Getting a bit scary here.

[Langy]

In my opinion, the intent (that is, attempting to put a stop to internet piracy) is commendable, but the specific implementation sucks. Some may say they were intended for something completely different, or more specific, but their announced intention, at the very vaguest of levels, is good.

[TDATL]

I'm of the opinion that the bill is great for what they want it for. But what they want it for is not what they say it is for. What they want it for is to let them kill legitimate competition.

The big media companies like having a near monopoly on production and advertisement of media (music, movies, TV.) The internet allows people to self publish because it removes the highest two burdens of starting a business which are advertising and getting your product to your customers.

The internet allows a person to make a product (say music they made) in their house, advertise it to millions, and sell it to millions for months and not spend more than $1000 as an investment.

Before the internet you still had home made CD's, cassettes, and videos (which these same media groups tried to get rid of) but the shipping and advertising still made getting into the business harder. Before that you had little to no chance to start up such a business without going through an established publisher. That is how they want it.

The internet has made the "middle man" largely obsolete. While they could adapt and still make plenty of money they know they would never have the strangle hold on the market like they had until just now. They don't like that. They don't want to compete with other businesses. That makes them actually have to work for their money.

SOPA/PIPA and so on are perfectly setup to effectively destroy internet businesses. The big media corporations are perfectly happy to lose their web access if it means everyone else does. They own the radio, they own the TV, they own the newspapers, they own the movie studios. The one thing they don't own (the internet) allows people the functionality all the previous things grant.

A brief video below explains what I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJsyx...ffFUAAAAAAABAA

[Mac_Bug]

I heard this before TDATL but I never understood it - what the hell are you talking about? Are you telling me it is impossible to advertise and host files, or that the big media companies are capable of preventing you from uploading your own music and sharing it with whoever you want, or prevent you from buying ads on relicnews? If not, then explain to me how they want to kill web access given the existence of itunes, hulu, spotify, grooveshark, pandora, and so on and so forth.

[TDATL]

@Mac_Bug: They file a copyright claim against your site. You lose. The end. The SOPA laws and such close you down before a judge even decides if their claim has any validity. It also makes it basically impossible to counter-sue.

The big media conglomerates have armies of lawyers on retainer. They are paying for them anyway. You however have to pay for yours out of your own pocket. Small starting businesses are also not going to have millions to throw away on a trial with no hope of counter-suing for losses.

All they have to do is wait you out. Even a frivolous trial can easily be stalled for a couple months by a semi-competent lawyer. This is a couple months in which you can't operate your business while they can. It is a couple months where you are paying a lawyer you normally wouldn't while they are paying the same as they always do.

Do you know who owns Hulu? The big media companies NBC, Fox, and Disney. Rupert Murdoch owns Fox. The CEO of Disney is on the Apple Board and so on.

Big media is owned and operated by a VERY small selection of people. You can count on one hand how many of them actually compete against one another because most of them are all under the same chain of owners.

They put those things up as stopgaps. They would much rather go back to you only being able to go through them. Those are there to slow their decay as the only people you can go to. Just because they don't want to compete doesn't mean they won't compete if they have to.

@comments about "why racketeering?:" The racketeering charge is used on pretty much any group that has massive reserves of money. The legal logic is that you shouldn't be able to use illegally gained funds to protect yourself. The law was made to with the mafia in mind. It basically allows the government to strip you of your access to your various assets. It is a whole lot harder to defend yourself when you can't pay your bills (lawyer or no.)

[Mac_Bug]

what stops me from filing a copyright claim against their site?

[TDATL]

@Mac_Bug: You mean besides their legion of lawyers? Not much, but that really doesn't irritate them. They are not based around the internet. They control everything outside the internet. They want the internet to go away entirely (at least so far as other people selling products.) The loss of Hulu, Itunes, and such wouldn't hurt them at all so long as they stop other competitors on the net. They already own everything else. If they can remove the net from being a place people can host a business (even their own) then they go back to being the only option to get anything made (movies, games, music, whatever.)

But really their lawyers are all they need. They don't loose much by loosing their web distribution for awhile. They are primarily funded through more traditional businesses. Closing down Itunes or Hulu would mildly irritate them at best. Closing down a starting businesses webpage with a protracted legal battle would kill that starting business. That is what they want to more easily be able to do.

[Mac_Bug]

but they only have one site (say, cbs.com), you can make a new one tomorrow, or are you saying the internet cannot survive a tit for tat? And their legion of lawyers are useless if SOPA enables the website to be shutdown before it even gets to a judge, and even if they come back the next day all you have to do is keep filing claims.

[TDATL]

but they only have one site (say, cbs.com), you can make a new one tomorrow, or are you saying the internet cannot survive a tit for tat?

That logic works only so long as you aren't a business (hence another reason it doesn't help against digital piracy.) The key thing to running a business is you need your customers to be able find you. If you keep moving your website then you won't do much business (at least not enough to compete with them.)

The internet may survive a tit for tat but it won't be a place where starting businesses could flourish like it is now.

The reason your lawsuits won't matters to them is twofold. Firstly they always have their lawyers hired. They aren't paying more when you file the lawsuit. While that may not allow them to keep the website up it does mean they aren't paying any more money during the legal battle than they normally would.

Secondly the issue is they won't overly care if their site goes away. Their sites are a side business meant to prevent them from being completely sidelined on the net. They have gotten to where they are not by coming up with new ideas or by making new products. They have gotten to where they are by being the only groups that can finance people starting said projects. They got the original start-up money for that from "pirating" British films and books back when movies were first invented.

Today they make their massive profits by finding talented individuals, effectively steal their products through shady contracts, and owning most of the alternates you could go for. That won't work nearly as well when the talented individuals start realizing (as they are) they don't need Big Media to help them sell their product at all. The internet is all they need and that absolutely terrifies the big media conglomerates.

The internet is cutting into how much money they make but it isn't because people are seeing their movies without paying like they want you to think. It is because the Internet is raising the amount of competition they face. No longer are you restricted to only watching what is at the movie theater, the entertainer that was at the local nightclub, or on the three or four channels that radio and TV used to have. Now you can watch entertainment made by anyone on the planet. They HATE that.

[Danustar]

Starfisher, thanks for sharing the HR 1981 info. That is a seriously abhorrent proposal wrapped in sweet moral candy. How ironic.
There are obviously some very determined people or entities punching this stuff out. I can't see how Joe Public is going to have the stamina to keep up.

[Mac_Bug]

I think there's a different explanation to this whole thing. I think they want to be part of the internet, but they hesitate because they weren't sure if that's just handing themselves over on a silver platter because they can sell one track today and tomorrow everyone will have it for free. They want assurances that such activities will forever be kept in check as much as possible in order to answer the question of 'why should I pay when I can get it for free?' and they do not feel your right to seeing entertainment made by anyone on the planet includes seeing entertainment that its owners do not want you to see. They crafted a bill that is intended to address their concerns but it has some nasty side effects that made it impossible to pass - our political process is working, there is no grand conspiracy to rule the internet.

Ok, maybe Rupert Murdoch does plan to do so.

[Aron_DeTomado]

To make matters worse, repressive child porn legislation isn't just a case of unintentional slippery slope, but a battering ram used as part of a concious strategy by copyright maximalists.

“My friends,” Schlüter said. “We must filter the Internet to win over online file sharing. But politicians don’t understand that file sharing is bad, and this is a problem for us. Therefore, we must associate file sharing with child pornography. Because that’s something the politicians understand, and something they want to filter off the Internet.”

Yeah.

[TDATL]

@Mac_Bug: I wouldn't so much call it a grand conspiracy to rule the internet as I would the logical extension of their extreme capitalism.

Monopoly's are what most businesses generally want to be. The key to securing a monopoly is removing competition and making it hard for new competition to grow. This bill would do both for a substantiation amount of their competition.

They don't care about IP beyond their own. Hollywood was entirely built on IP theft. Everything from the devices to make the movies to the stories themselves. All of it was stolen from others. Even now they steal peoples works with so called "Hollywood accounting" where they can make even the most successful movies look like absolute failures to get out of paying royalties to the ACTUAL creators of the content. Just like the RIAA sueing people for downloading music under the pretense of protecting the artists and meanwhile not paying royalties to artists whose music they sell online as MP3's because of a technicality in the writing.

Furthermore you should know that these big media conglomerates have actively supported piracy of their own works for a number of years. Look up the stuff about CNET and CBS. I think it was linked to in this thread or the MegaUpload one so you shouldn't have to look far.

They actively worked to create this situation. There is no chance IP theft is really what they care about. This is about controlling the market. Dismiss it as a conspiracy but it is simple business logic.

[Moe]

One point of interest, the content isn't illegal if it's just a copy of a legally owned copyrighted material.

It is in Germany. Or at least it was four years ago, I haven't kept up with the debate. The law there got ridiculous to the point where you could no longer legally circumvent DRM on a CD that you bought if you wanted to back it up, or to create a mix CD or something. This is kind of the point, "legal" and "illegal" vary quite a bit by jurisdiction.

[FriendlyFire]

@Moe: Canada has attempted to introduce the exact same bill at least twice. It will get passed eventually, especially with Harper in control. I'm sure many other countries will follow suit.

[Paladin]

In my opinion, the intent (that is, attempting to put a stop to internet piracy) is commendable, but the specific implementation sucks.

I'll go so far as to say I'm not really sure that that's a commendable intent, even if it is the intent behind the bill, which I tend to doubt.

I say this because IMO it's a futile pursuit and we'd be better off with a serious and wide-reaching overhaul of IP law with an eye to the current technological landscape instead of continuing to go along with outdated industries' attempts to straitjacket consumers into continuing to support their obsolete business models.

[Aron_DeTomado]

Looks like there is a major shit-storm kicking up in Europe over ACTA now. The EU-rapporteur working on it has resigned in protest, denouncing the trade agreement as an undemocratic sham that threatens civil liberties. Looks like we have our own SOPA fight now.

“As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.”

“Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.”

Edit: Meanwhile, in the Polish Sejm...

[Danustar]

Maximum Metal is not a file sharing site (so this thread seemed the more appropriate of the two) but it does use material from potentially unauthorised sources (Youtube duh). They have this to say regarding the the legislation as it may apply to them:

· We post pictures and videos because an all text website would suck.

· What we do probably falls under Fair Use, but regardless, we don't make a penny off of anybody elses' copyrighted material.

· We hope that by posting news, pictures, and videos, the bands we cover and talk about will get more exposure. Metallica might not need it, but 50,000 other bands do and the thousands of metal sites out there doing the same as us help keep the underground thriving.

· SOPA and PIPA are corporate media power grabs under the guise of fighting piracy.

All very honourable but clearly there's not much substance there should someone wish to push the issue on what they do. And, as they rightly point out, there would be innumerable other sites employing the same MO and now vulnerable to falling foul of these laws. Them or their hosts.

[OpelFalcon]

Irish SOPA is LAW

Just thought I'd share that with ya'll...It really does show how much of a backward arse of a country Ireland is. Glad to be out of it tbh.

[Mantaray]

in ireland people walk in the middle of the road. that way cars will be able to see them and they wont get run over.

[OhJohnNo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Engl...and_a_Scotsman

In all seriousness, though, that's a huge shame. I hope it gets repealed.

[General Kong]

OpelFalcon+Mantaray: I really hope your joking here, so im a backward irish person because of some asshole in government deciding without us even knowing it?

[Sentinel]

Opel is Irish too.

We're all aware of how ass-backwards our country is.
If we're not passing blasphemy laws, we're passing SOPA.

[General Kong]

@Sentinel: Opel is Irish? fare enough I apoligise

but yes it is fucking stupid that this law got passed, and yet I only heard about it just now

[OpelFalcon]

Aie, I hail from Tallafornia bud (Yes on my last visit I found out that is an actual TV show...I vomited in my mouth once my brothers showed it to me)

Tis' grand Kong...I did come across as bit of an arse myself, but when I saw the news...eh...it kind of pissed me off. Anyhow, I'm referring more to the backward arseholes in government, not the general populace

There were emails sent to local TDs, petitions signed...Hell I even emailed Pat Rabbitte (My local TD) and I'm still waiting for a reply...bah...I've joined the members of the wild geese...so take from that what ya will...

[Mirage Knight]

And here's the latest in legal actions pertaining to the web...

http://gizmodo.com/5891771/hotfile-i...of-an-mpaa-gun

It looks like Hotfile is going to be in the hot-seat fairly soon.

[Mirage Knight]

If this article is to be believed, Anon is actually going to try to take down, at least temporarily, one important component of the internet very soon: the world's root DNS servers.

http://www.dailytech.com/Anonymous+S...ticle24320.htm

[FriendlyFire]

With all the caching in place, they'd have to disable them for at least a day before worldwide outage actually happens. Plus, local service providers could always stop cache renewal for the duration of the outage.

Just like the claims that they'd try to take down Facebook, I'd take all these threats with a large grain of salt.

[Mirage Knight]

Regardless of whether or not they can pull off a stunt like this, it also serves to underscore the group's "the end justifies the means" mentality and strengthen the arguments being made against them.

[Moe]

It's not even a real thing. I'm so glad that the reporter who wrote that news article didn't go through the immense trouble of checking Anon's twitter feed.

[Shuma]

Thank god, if the internet died i would have to get a social life or something.

[Salamander]

Its not like they would have had a snowball's chance in hell even if it was real.
While there may be 13 IP addresses for the root servers, there is not a 1-1 relationship between an IP address and a physical server.