China Seizes Websites, Clamps Down On Speech... Uses Copyright Infringement As The Excuse
from the but-of-course dept
We noted recently that China had promised the US it would ramp up efforts to "stop online piracy" in China, though at about the same time, we also had noted that it had ramped up its online censorship apparatus. Once again, the two things go hand in hand, as China has shut down hundreds of sites, and put greater restrictions on the web, increasing the overall censorship via The Great Firewall of China. And... it's using copyright law as the excuse. Apparently some of the websites seized were distributing infringing files, so now China can claim that it's just doing the same thing the US is doing, when it puts massive restrictions on the internet and seizes websites.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: censorship, china, copyright
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http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/218976725/fishing_reel.html
That picture clearly shows a reel stamped as "Penn
International"
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Finally!
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Re: Finally!
To funny. The CIA fact book says the per capita salary in china is $7,600. With a US style 5% entertainment budget, thats about $380 USD a year.
Or if you do the numbers thats 780 million people times $380 USD per person a year or $296,400,000,000 US Dollars. Oh my god they are stealing almost a third of a trillion dollars from the US entertainment industry!!!!
Oh wait ... world wide the entertainment industry only makes about a tenth of that.
Thank you for your patience in reading my industry math lesson. ;)
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Re: Finally!
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Re:
If you're the type that considers this:
www.mediafire.com
to be possible infringement, then I suppose you might have a point, however badly made.
There were also a lot of porn sites taken down for reasons I assume had nothing to do with infringement.
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Re:
As a thought experiment: prove to us that you are not in possession of a fairy princess with a wardrobe full of sparkly mushroom dresses. That seems quite outlandish to me, so it should be easy to prove, right?
But how could you truly prove that you do not possess something? What could you show us that we could not then say "perhaps the princess is in another castle?"
Perhaps I misunderstood your comment, and I certainly don't know the full story beyond the snippet above, but I find the recent trend of "prove you are innocent" to be quite disturbing. If these sites truly were "infringing" in some way, wouldn't it be a simple matter of proving that they were with evidence?
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Evidence
Of course, if you are good friends with the local Party boss, and -- you know -- there is a continuing flow of "donations" and "gifts", well we can all be friends. No charges would ever have been brought. Isn't that a lovely system? Wouldn't you like to have one just like it in America? You are working on it? Good for you!
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Re: Evidence
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Well, China's notions are more differenter.
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They accuse Google of being an "enabler and facilitator". If Google is a "rogue" website for merely linking (and automatically at that) to sites that actually host infringing material, then anyone can be considered a "rogue" site that is an "enabler and facilitator".
But go after the actual site that is actually hosting infringing material? Heavens No! That would undermine the ability to continue to sue other "rogue" "enablers and facilitators" like Yahoo and Bing. Gee, this starts to sound very RightHaven like.
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lol the worst part it that this is actually most moron's way of thinking, along with the justice system.
The burden of proof lies with the state.
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Just so...
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totalitarian government
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i do admire things from china and thier culture but they need to end their evil communist regime
and cheating at the 2008 summer olympics in beijing is also low!
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Sounds all too familiar
Or else we're copying them. Whatever.
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Did they use the ICE seizure page?
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Re: Did they use the ICE seizure page?
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Re: Re: Did they use the ICE seizure page?
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Re: Re: Re: Did they use the ICE seizure page?
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Constitution
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Re: Constitution
To neutralize those (or to be "balanced") we have the PATRIOT act, and soon the PROTECT-IP act.
Also government agencies can obtain secret letters to do just about anything they want; under rules that make due process more "flexible"; that secretly "expedite" prosecution; and that make it a crime to even reveal that you have been targeted / prosecuted / persecuted. To make matters {better|worse} secret evidence can be used against you at a show trial, the proceedings of which are of course also secret.
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Got it. Can we get an amen from the choir?
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