MPAA Praises Government Censorship And Lack Of Due Process
from the that-might-come-back-to-haunt-them... dept
You would think, of all industries, the movie industry would be particularly careful about praising US government censorship of content, since it's not that far down the slippery slope until the government justifies censoring movie content as well. But, apparently, as long as it's on the "internet," it's fine to censor. The MPAA has come out, once again, with praise for Homeland Security's blatant censorship of websites without due process or any concern for prior restraint. Not only that, but the MPAA is delusional. It claims that seizing the URLs has "put illegal sites out of business" and also "raised public awareness."First of all, nearly all of the sites seized for copyright infringement claims reappeared on other domains pretty quickly. So, claiming that these seizures put them out of business is simply incorrect. And if it's "raised public awareness" of anything, it's how the MPAA and the US government are censoring websites and eschewing the basic principles of due process. It's really amazing how many people have been following this story and realizing just how far the US government is going, and how ridiculous it is. There's simply no way to make that look good. This is making the MPAA and the US government look like bad third world dictators, seeking to censor websites that they don't like.
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Filed Under: censorship, coica, domain seizures, due process
Companies: mpaa
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Yet...
To most people, piracy comes in a Disney movie starting Johnny Depp.
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If you start with "They are destroying us..." that is bad.
Most people I know get aware of the situation when they see me downloading music and videos without fear, then they ask if I'm not afraid, I say no because all I consume is GPL, CC Commons products and explain to them that they are free to distribute and share and in the case of the GPL you can even sell it without having to ask permission to no one, they then get excited and want to be able to do the same and ask me how it is done and I show them how to recognized free culture and pay attention to the licenses, after that I show them where to find music, movie and videos and how to use filters to find the licenses that are free.
Works every time.
The cherry on the top is asking "I don't want some big company to tell me what I can and cannot do, do you want that?"
LoL
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So true. Sometimes they even try to look under my wizard's hat to see if it's tinfoil lined.
I usually respond with something like this:
Which is worse?
Going through life with blinders on thinking that the government and big business ALWAYS has my best interest in mind.
or
Keeping yourself educated and aware that abuses of power do happen and realizing that the only person who really cares about my best interest is me.
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As we know, the largest crowd that loves those movies are the teens and young adult crowds. I don't know if it has to do with Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp or what, but they love it. These movies make pirates out to be great people. The cool ones and the good guys.
On the other hand you have all these groups saying if you download music you are a pirate. I actually don't know anybody these days who thinks pirates (ship sailing) are bad. Everybody thinks they are neat and cool.
One would think that with the public opinion of pirates being as high as it is, maybe the lobbying groups should have chosen a different name for music downloaders.
The only time piracy is actually looked down upon is when talking about Somalia. .. And that's about it.
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no due process.
fourth amendment.
first amendment.
protected speech.
court hearing.
BEEP. Now rewinding to replay again.
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Wake up people!!!! The Internet should not be subject to the rule of any country's laws!!!!!
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Also, copyright infringement by and large isn't a crime, it's a civil matter.
So, "Due Process" before stopping copyright infringement seems like a damn good idea. Either you're for "Due Process", or you're a Royalist, you monarchical scum, you.
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Criminal act? What criminal act? The police do not have the authority to decide if someone is or is not a criminal. That is something only the courts can do.
The police do have the authority to stop a criminal act if they see it happening. Being told about it by a third party is not seeing it happen.
the police also have the authority to seize evidence to prevent it from being destroyed. A domain name is not evidence of anything, nor can it be destroyed.
ICE, the arm of the government that did the seizing, has neither of those police powers. ICE has the authority to detain people illegally in the country, and seize illegally imported contraband. A domain name is not a person, and neither imported, nor contraband. ICE simply does not have anything even remotely resembling the authority to do what it did.
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Moron.
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that is what needs to change first.
of course, it doesn't help at all when the most powerful man in the world puts those former, industry players in such high-level positions. conflict of interest much?
US doesn't really produce much these days except IP. i can understand why they're doing it, but it is still ALL wrong. morally, ethically
This is the USA; we are supposed to be better than this.
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While there are a *few* good people in the US, it has become largely a nation of hypocrites.
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Building and maintaining a good society is kind of like farming. You need a place to plant good seeds and then you need to take care the crop. Part of taking care of the crop is a process called "weeding". That's what the U.S. needs, otherwise the weeds will start trying to take over and choke out the good plants. Weeds should be taken out where ever they are found.
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Yes
You think transparency of your government is your right.
Yes
What government in the history of the world was transparent?
What person in the history of the world lived without doing anything bad? None. Does that justify doing bad things? No.
Grow up - it is you that is making the childish arguemnt.
You are saying " Please Miss - he did it TOOOOO..."
What country do you truly believe will ever be transparent?
None (as no- one ill ever be a morally perfect human. Unlike you however I don't think that that is an excuse not to try.
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If you've got nothing to hide ... back at ya dude.
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Yes because without it democracy is meaningless. How do we know who to vote for if we do not know what they are actually doing?
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Censorship is when the government stop you from expressing your own opinions
These sites are all largely automatic and there's little or no expression going on here at all. Certainly the directory of files doesn't rise to the level of expression as defined in the Feist decision.
If anything, the group that's doing the most from shutting down expression are the pirate sites that are destroying the marketplace for the artists. But you continue to show any hostility toward anyone who takes the sides of the artists.
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So you believe that ever bad analogy in an argument belongs to a person who has been through a logic class and awarded a good grade?
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Re: Censorship is when the government stop you from expressing your own opinions
Just because a site is largely automatic doesn't mean government can freely take it down. If I have a billboard that I allow anyone to stick a piece of paper on it with their opinion on something, say a local government. Would it be OK under any circumstance for government to seize that billboard without first going through due process?
Physical billboard, electronic bulletinboard, same concept, should have same treatment.
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Re: Censorship is when the government stop you from expressing your own opinions
The censorship being talked about is that of the speech on the websites, not the supposedly infringed content.
As I've said many times, lumping this together with the First amendment battles that were fought by Martin Luther King and many others is a terrible mistake.
I disagree. The reduction of a right is a reduction of a right regardless of the reasons behind it and shouldn't be tolerated.
These sites are all largely automatic and there's little or no expression going on here at all. Certainly the directory of files doesn't rise to the level of expression as defined in the Feist decision.
More than a few of the sites were blog sites, the very definition of expression.
If anything, the group that's doing the most from shutting down expression are the pirate sites that are destroying the marketplace for the artists.
What about the rap blogs that were shutdown where the labels themselves were using them to create interest (ie: marketplace) for their products.
But you continue to show any hostility toward anyone who takes the sides of the artists.
Not sure what you are talking about here, I have seen very few hostile comments directed at the artists themselves, I have however seen a lot directed at the legacy gatekeepers.
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Re: Censorship is when the government stop you from expressing your own opinions
We've already highlighted a bunch of *blogs* that had plenty of noninfringing speech that was in fact censored.
If anything, the group that's doing the most from shutting down expression are the pirate sites that are destroying the marketplace for the artists. But you continue to show any hostility toward anyone who takes the sides of the artists.
The sites I'm talking about were *promoting* the artists, and the artists LOVED them, and promoted them back.
I am taking the side of artists. You're just not paying attention.
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Wait. Why wouldn't all of the speech on the site be protected? Unless it's libelous or something like that of course.
And wouldn't the alleged infringing video usually be links to completely different sites that are actually hosting the material?
So really it's not a "process of eliminating illegal or unprotected speech", it's removing ALL of the speech because there links to *possibly* infringing material.
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Yeah, especially is some middle eastern countries, and look what's happening to some of those governments now. Maybe that's what needs to happen i the US.
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The marketplace for selling music has been disrupted by a fundamental technological change and a corresponding change in societal attitudes, not by "pirate" sites. Boo hoo for you, adapt or die.
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The sides of the what, now?
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Where the arguments here seem to go awry is the belief that due process can only be satisfied if there is an adversarial hearing prior to a seizure. Good, bad, or indifferent, this is not a requirement of law under all circumstances.
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But the circumstances do matter. I don't know why you ignore that. It's really intellectually dishonest of you.
As you well know the *purpose* of pre-hearing seizures is get evidence that might otherwise disappear. That's not the case here.
Here, the purpose was censorship.
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Still doesn't answer why an adversarial hearing couldn't take place before the seizures. These obliviously aren't about preserving evidence. The domain name can't flee the country.
The domain name would be seized after the hearing when the judge signs off on it, just like without a hearing - no difference.
It seems that ICE/DoJ are doing these seizures without an adversarial hearing because they are afraid that their legal theory and flimsy evidence wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.
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Curse you spellcheck!
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Due process demands no less, it demands more.
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Evil...
Which are you?
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