Why Can't PROTECT IP Supporters Just Admit That It's About Censorship?
from the they-should dept
I finally got to listen to a recent episode of Jerry Brito's excellent "Surprisingly Free" podcast, in which Brito spoke with law professor Derek Bambauer on how we could have a more intellectually honest discussion about the appropriateness of PROTECT IP, if its supporters would finally just admit that it's a censorship bill. The talk was based on a new paper from Bambauer, Orwell's Armchair, that compares "soft censorship" of the internet -- using indirect methods, such as pressuring companies to stop working with Wikileaks, and "hard censorship," in which the laws clearly censor content.Bambauer isn't arguing that PROTECT IP is bad, necessarily. In fact, he argues that "hard censorship" is preferable to soft censorship, in that at least what's happening is upfront and clear, and that there are times when censorship might make sense. His main argument though, is that for there to be a rational and honest discussion about these things, everyone should first be willing to admit that PROTECT IP is absolutely about censorship, and then we can have a direct discussion on whether or not this form of censorship is appropriate.
He notes that supporters are afraid to admit this, and instead insist that it's got nothing to do with censorship, because it's about "stopping copyright infringement." But, as he also notes, pretty much anywhere you see censorship, those who agree with it always couch it in other terms. Thus, South Korea blocking sites about North Korea is about protecting its own people. Various attempts around the world to censor child pornography are seen as reasonable attempts to stop child porn. And China's political censorship has often been framed by the Chinese as protecting its citizens from dangerous ideas. But they're all forms of censorship.
Bambauer, not surprisingly, is not confident that the debate will ever actually move in this direction. It's just not politically expedient to do so. Of course, there's potentially another reason: supporters of the bill know it's about censorship, and they're just embarrassed to admit that. So, denying that it's censorship (and lashing out angrily at those who state the obvious) is just a way of compensating.
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Filed Under: censorship, derek bambauer, free speech, protect ip
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It's not about censorship
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Re: It's not about censorship
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I really, really hope that you're not arguing AGAINST the censorship of child pornography.
Because that sounds dangerously close to the argument you're trying to make there.
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*NO, I DO NOT CONDONE CHILD PORN*
Censorship of child porn is very, VERY hazardous.
The fact is, we can't help the victims, we can't find the culprits, nor can we find out an actual way to stop some maximalists from using it to further their own agenda.
Further, there's problems of how censoring child porn is used in ways unintended. If a 16 year old sends a text message to a 14 year old, that's child porn. So not only is "child porn" an emotionally charged word, but it can be used in dubious ways to convict the kids it's supposed to protect.
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Re: *NO, I DO NOT CONDONE CHILD PORN*
You should not have to say you don't.
The vast majority don't.
This trick that idiots pull of making people feel forced to preface any argument with those words are part of what prevents rational debate about how to best protect children and keeps the conversation squarely on how manly a response they would give if they ever came into contact with someone who abused children.
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It sort of sucks to be *too aware* in this world--- why can't we be ignorant and happy like the majority? :-P
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I didn't even know you had posted until my post came about. So whatever you had to say was discovered independent of mine.
"This trick that idiots pull of making people feel forced to preface any argument with those words are part of what prevents rational debate about how to best protect children and keeps the conversation squarely on how manly a response they would give if they ever came into contact with someone who abused children"
Your first part seems good. But having read your other words, I'm not entirely sure I follow what in the world you're implying here. Sure, if you hurt a child, you deserve to be beaten within an inch of your life. But as I said, CP is emotionally charged and should be approached with caution. Usually, if someone is talking about this subject, the odds are they're trying to sell an idea of how to censor the internet. That's the point I'm making.
There's very few places that help victims of CP. One that I was made aware of was Mogis. Now think about how many people advocate censorship of CP. Then think about how many organizations are set up to assist victims, run counseling, help children adjust, or get them out of this very bad situation.
Do you see the problem here?
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The production and distribution of CP is at an all time according to every report I see, and worldwide networks exist to distribute the stuff. The free and open distribution of the stuff potentially has the effect to encourage people who were just closet pedos to actually move on to the act. There is plenty of indication that child abuse is on the rise. It is hard to draw a conclusion or a causal effect between the internet and the crimes, but it is clear that these guys can find the CP material much more easily than they could have 20 years ago.
The point is it would be very easy for people to scream "censorship" when CP sites are shut down, except that most people morally dislike CP enough that they can understand the trade off. Groups like NAMBY complain endlessly about their rights being trampled.
What they call censorship, most of the rest of us consider good actions by law enforcement. When you are one side, you tell censorship, on the other side you say "good job".
As for helping the victims of CP, I like to think that shutting down CP sites and breaking up networks of pedos sharing the content is a step towards one or more of them NOT committing an act on an actual child in the future. It is as much about protecting potential victims as it is to protect actual victims.
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" The free and open distribution of the stuff potentially has the effect to encourage people who were just closet pedos to actually move on to the act."
You could certainly argue the opposite as well. Watching child porn satisfies their urge so they don't have to actually perpetrate the act.
"but it is clear that these guys can find the CP material much more easily than they could have 20 years ago."
its the internet, you can find anything more easily then you could 20 years ago.
"As for helping the victims of CP, I like to think that shutting down CP sites and breaking up networks of pedos sharing the content is a step towards one or more of them NOT committing an act on an actual child in the future. It is as much about protecting potential victims as it is to protect actual victims"
People who watch CP don't necessarily partake in it. As I said above some people could use this as an outlet to their urges. I think it would be better for future victims if they monitored the sites and tried to find the originators and provide help the watchers. Rather than focusing efforts on preventing people from sharing existing porn they should be worried about preventing people from making more of it.
Certainly you can not allow these networks to flourish because if it becomes a lucrative business that will lead to more CP being made. But right now I think a lot of the discussion revolves around stopping people from watching CP when the real issue is people making CP
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There are other arguments too, albeit I am prepared to accept that they are problematic.
for example, instead of censoring the sites, that may contain images or video of unknown children being abused by unknown people in unknown locations
it makes you think that perhaps, everyone should be looking at them, with millions of eyeballs, we may actually identify victims, perpetrators or locations far faster than underfunded police forces can manage on their own.
Obviously there are many potential problems with such a scheme, but it's not unthinkable although it would probably be impractical and unworkable.
I also know it wouldn't be a task many of us would be too pleased to do, I'd certainly have grave doubts about whether I could bring myself to deal with that kind of thing and feel sorry for those who have to investigate this dark and frankly terrifying world.
But despite that we certainly need wider and better thinking than the simplistic idea that censorship resolves anything for the better.
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People make CP because people watch it. Those who choose to film and display their acts aren't doing it for themselves, they are doing it to prove to others what they did. When they lose their audience, they lose much of their incentive.
Further, if making it so others don't see the acts somehow can dissuade them from doing the same, then we have accomplished a lot.
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Well, let's think, if you become aware of a site distributing child porn, do you leave it up and monitor it and track everyone who uses it etc or do you tip them off that it is being watched by blocking it so no-one in the US can accidentally stumble across it. Admittedly people who still want to access it could, but probably they and the other relatively anonymous people who had been using it would move somewhere else.
"Further, if making it so others don't see the acts somehow can dissuade them from doing the same, then we have accomplished a lot."
So on the assumption that you don't abuse children are you saying that if you saw images of child abuse you would then be likely to do so?
I suspect not, I suspect if it's the kind of thing that turns a person on, then they might either access it online and/or abuse in real life.
"Protect-IP doesn't stop law enforcement from doing their job fully"
and it has nothing to do with censoring child porn.
The reason child porn was brought up at all is that the censoring of it is something that a great many people agree on and do not view as a bad thing and Mike was asking why PROTECT-IP is disguised as one thing when it is in effect censoring legislation. The argument being that as some censorship is acceptable to the majority that they might well be in favour of PROTECT-IP as censorship, but that if you pretend it isn't censorship then you're simply being dishonest with people.
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as I already stated this is ridiculous but even if you are right they lose incentive to film the act not lose incentive to do the act which is really the problem
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Is is truly censorship to shut down the CP website?
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Perhaps they do, which is why you want to be able to investigate, identify them, rescue any kids that need rescuing and arrest the perpetrator/s none of which is aided by preventing people from accidentally finding the site on the internet.
If you continue to monitor it, you will also quite possibly get people contacting the website to offer to make new content and then you can track them down too, instead of hiding it all away and pretending it isn't there.
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The sad reality is that much of the CP online today has been created in Eastern block countries, where the prosecution of such things is somewhere between rare and non-existent. What western CP does come out is usually chased down and local authorities tend to take swift action.
It should be remarkable to anyone on this site that most of the CP is created in the same places that are havens for other illegal acts, like piracy, viruses, software scams, and the like. So blocking access is often the only way to limit the problem. You can call it censorship, I call it a step in the right direction.
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Blocking CP is the only way to put the dirt under the carpet so people don't see it, we will do nothing to stop and use the old age proven concept of ignoring it because we cannot be bothered to do more.
But we will use CP as a cover story to look good to convince others that they need to surrender their civil rights so we can screw them good.
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Yes it is. Is it good or bad to censor CP is the argument. Certainly the makers of CP should be stopped, as should all people who abuse children, but the focus shouldn't be on the videos or sharing of videos the focus should be on preventing children from being harmed.
"However, when you have an audience encouraging you and begging you for more material, perhaps the producers do more, harm more children, harm them more often, etc."
Because you think its plausible? This isn't like kids who find an audience for their backyard wrestling troupe this is fucked up shit that takes a very disturbed mind to engage in in the first place. Perhaps having an audience causes them to do more perhaps it doesn't but I don't think either of our unfounded, uneducated ideas about how a pedophiles mind works really helps the discussion.
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How is that taking the camera away from the person that is causing the harm?
Better yet, how is that taking the child out of harm's way? You've just tipped off a website that they're transferring acts or, like the links below show, that new people won't get in. Now how are you going to capture them without censoring the site, monitoring the situation, or taking down a domain? The other parts are superfluous to the reason CP was brought up in the first place. That form of censorship does not work and it is a half-assed solution to a difficult problem.
"Further, if making it so others don't see the acts somehow can dissuade them from doing the same, then we have accomplished a lot"
No, it hasn't. Unless you've taken the child and put them through rehab, taken the scumbag down and arrested him, it's not the full job. All you've caused is for these people to scatter like roaches to a new location, change their tactics, and inflict new harms. That's the problem here.
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You may want to cut back on the wacky tabaccky, it's making you delusional.
See my comments posted before: Much of the CP online is produced in eastern block and "third world" level counrties, which have bigger fish to fry (like feeding the masses). You cannot imagine how hard it is to figure out who is in the images, where they were shot, how long ago, etc. It really isn't a simple deal.
Further, let's be clear here. "The full job" is rarely accomplished in any field. The point is to do the most possible at each level and in each step, doing what is possible to stop the spread of illegal materials and to make obtaining them harder and less "open" than it currently is. Will PROTECT-IP "save the children"? Not directly. Then again, a speeding ticket doesn't directly save a life either, does it?
In the real world, most probably are solved piecemeal. Don't bitch if the first piece being looked at isn't the one you wish.
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I think you're still missing the point: blocking a domain doesn't help. Do you really think if you block a web site from being visible in the US, that the CP producers will give up and stop abusing children? Or will they set up shop in some other place and keep doing it? Censorship doesn't solve the problem, it makes it harder to see.
I fear you've fallen into the trap of "something must be done; this is something, therefore it must be done".
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It's just hiding them, that is the point here.
Most if not all people are in favour of the police investigating, arresting people who abuse children and saving children from bad situations, the people objecting to simple censorship are saying all that does is hide the problem from view and does nothing to help so much as a single child.
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Child porn - the one bit of sexual morality (or any other kind) that everyone can agree upon - we've abandoned most of the rest of it.
Before you start even condemning it - let alone censoring it - go fix the beam in your own eye.
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Everyone in America and the EU, people in Asia are horrified of what westerners call CP these days.
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Re: *NO, I DO NOT CONDONE CHILD PORN*
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The irony is, it is the kind of hide it away and never analyse your own thoughts or the situation too closely that led to the sexual abuse of children staying hidden and secret for so long.
The people who opposed censorship, the ones who made sex a major topic of public conversation, tiresomely and endlessly perhaps, they are the ones who are responsible for giving society the kick up its backside that it needed to finally pay attention to what was happening to some children and do something about it.
It is difficult but somewhat necessary to be hard on these kinds of people, because their hearts are probably in the right place, just such a pity that their brains are not.
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Not advocating for child pornography, however in several countries this is how they get filters put it. Won't someone think of the children. Their goal is not stopping child porn, but stopping file sharing. Take the amazing filter in Australian where no one in the public could know what was on it, until it ended up on wikileaks. Some of the sites that were "damaging" seemed to be added at random and the sites had no bad content, but someone seemed to want to make them disappear for some reason.
There is no perfect filter that stops child pornography, it can not be done. And filtering most of those sites just forces them to find a new conduit so the authorities can try to play catch up to the new methods they move onto.
Child porn is a horrible thing, but there is no magic bullet.
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But that is not the point of Mike mentioning it in the article.
The point of the article is to call legislation what it is and let people decide on the basis of what it actually is whether they agree with it or not.
A lot of people, like you for example, are in favour of censoring child porn, if it was called something else, despite being aimed at censoring child porn but claimed to actually be legislation for the promotion of trademark protections you might be more or less in favour owing to it being purported to being something else entirely.
For the sake of argument I will assume you are also in favour of actually doing something to protect and rescue children from bad situations and so will refrain from suggesting that you in your rather thoughtless support for censorship are actually in favour of hiding child abuse away and making it more difficult for police to monitor and deal with abusers on active websites for example
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The goal of any such measures should be to protect the children. That seems to simple that it's a tautology, but it needs to be repeated over and over again, because a lot of the supposed anti-child pornography measures completely miss this point.
For example, shutting down child porn websites has zero value in protecting children. They've already been exploited. It's too late..
By contrast, identifying the people who actually did the exploiting and prosecuting them does have value.
But the former is trivially easy and makes for great press, e.g., "108 child porn sites shut down". The latter is complex and requires intelligence, thinking and hard work.
And that's why the former gets done (relatively often) and the latter gets done (quite rarely). Those screaming the loudest really don't care about the kids at all: they care about self-promotion, about maintaining the pretense that they're doing something, about furthering their own agendas using this as cover.
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Too many people seem to shut off their brains as soon as they hear child porn. "Oh he had child porn on his computer? Throw him in jail! He's obviously guilty! He deserves the worst!"
Our system is so incredibly messed up right now because we have outlawed the mere possession of child porn. That is nothing but a thought crime. People want these "criminals" to go to jail because they think it's disgusting, not because of any actual offense to another human being.
The real problem with child porn is the sexual abuse and exploitation of a child. That all happens with the person who produces it in the first place. You can also maybe add culpability to those who distribute it for profit because they can be seen as driving demand for it.
In fact that is the only reason why possession of child porn is illegal in the US. When the law that outlawed possession went to the Supreme Court they said the only reason this form of censorship was OK under the first amendment is because they thought people who payed for it were creating demand for it. Back then before the internet existed that made a certain amount of sense.
Now days with the internet you can find anything and everything for free if you know where to look. The world has changed while the law stayed the same. The reasoning for the law doesn't really hold up anymore. But as was pointed out above, you hear stories all the time of some "perv" being busted for x counts of child porn. Now he/she is going to spend the rest of their life in prison even if the only person they ever abused was themselves.
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Or the law is stretched to the breaking point by targeting those that don't abuse children. Link
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The UK has had serious doubts
And of course, when one goes out to fight monsters... (Google is your friend and there are a lot of sickos out there)
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I really, really hope that you're not arguing AGAINST the censorship of child pornography.
Child pornography is protected speech depending on whether the production is of actual minors, so what's your point?
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Protecting people from "child pornography" is one of the most-used justification for censoring things that are not child pornography. Look at CDT v. Pappert.
Running a close second is the "think of the children" justification. See Ashcroft v. ACLU.
No matter what the justification, censorship is censorship.
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The reason is simple, once you set the precedence that something can be censored it is not far behind the day that everything would be, it keeps growing and growing in scope and to take it down afterwards it is a messy job.
Besides censoring child pornography is like putting things under the rug it doesn't make them go away, for that law enforcement actually has to work and go after the people doing the bad things that actually don't necessitate new laws since raping is criminal whether you are a child or an adult, which brings me to the fact that the definition to child pornography today got expanded to the point where even consensual or beneficial sexual relationships and experiences are being considered hazardous and against the law criminalizing an 18 year old for having sex with his 15 year girlfriend should never happen but here we are sending boys and girls to jail that will have a permanent record and be trashed socially because of those laws.
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You'[REDACTED] welcome.
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Everyone agrees
PROTECT IP works for ME...
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How about: "because it isn't".
Mr Bambauer is expressing his opinion, but that doesn't really change the intent of the law or it's targets. The implication of censorship is his, not anyone working to pass the law.
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I guess everything looks like an attack when your position has clear gaping holes in it.
"and some of the pages out of that 50k were apparently illegal."
Right, we better arrest everyone at Universal Music and seize all their property and censor their sites then. After all, some of it was apparently illegal
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The people who made the 50k pages could have protected their rights by not putting them up on a single domain that apparently allowed any and all content,legal or not.
The offending pages were removed, the domain turned back on, and everyones 'rights' were respected, including my right not to have to see illegal material online.
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what is this naight club, and why do insist it has a basis in non-Newtonian physics?
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Good job censoring them 'though.
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The DOJ and ICE screwed up badly in that case. They could have easily shutdown the suspect subdomains, but instead decided to label a whole bunch of innocents as child pornographers to the whole world for several days while censoring all their content. You say it's OK that they were all blocked while the few were removed, but that wasn't necessary and flies in the face of prior restraint.
But no, go on, continue to claim that it was OK. After all, if you don't want to be associated with child porn, you shouldn't go to places that child porn distributors go, like grocery stores, stadiums, or shared domains.
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No, they cannot. They don't have control over the subdomains, only the domain holder does. The method used to disable these sites is to disable the domain, mooo.com. Third level domains are not controlled in the same manner.
So nice argument, but you lose on the purely technical.
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http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Prior+Restraint
It does not matter what is easy, only what is just. If we follow your example of taking the easy route there will be many unintended consequences and I am quite sure a great many of even your rights broken.
You can indeed control subdomains through existing law. If you were to present the writ from the judge to the mooo.com orders to stop sites dedicated to CP I am quite sure those domains would be down.
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That is not clear. The site owners could claim they have no control over content (innocent hosts) and they could point to the overseas operators of the subdomains in question. Can they truly be ordered to take down a customer website in this fashion? Would doing so make them responsible for all of the other content on their domain?
See how it works?
Prior restraint doesn't excuse illegal conduct. There was apparently CP available on mooo.com domain. They domain was turned off until it was fixed. End.
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Well we could ask them, naw fuck it lets accuse 84,000 people of being pedos
"Prior restraint doesn't excuse illegal conduct."
Your right what the government did was inexcusable.
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Innocent hosts stop being innocent when they refuse to help stop their users from breaking the law once the act pointed out to them. That is what keeping your safe harbors is all about.
"Can they truly be ordered to take down a customer website in this fashion?"
Yes
"Would doing so make them responsible for all of the other content on their domain?"
No
"See how it works?"
I see your wild unfounded hypothesis, is that how it works the uninformed just make shit up. I didn't realize the DOJ was run just like a internet comment board.
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ICE and the DOJ could have come to them (instead of VeriSign) and told them to change the DNS entry for whatever subdomains the wanted to affect, but instead they were stupid, and just took out all of mooo.com. In doing so, they took down a huge amount of legitimate speech, and that's where prior restraint comes in.
Whatever subdomains they were actually targetting could also have valid claims to prior restraint or not, but regardless, they shut down tons of innocent sites because they were ignorant of how the DNS works.
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So understand something: The only thing that can be turned off at the top level is the domain. The subs are not registered, you cannot do a whois on them. ICANN can only kill moooo.com, they cannot kill childpr0n.mooo.com without taking it all down.
Perhaps you want to apologize now.
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Due process is a very important part of our rights. If they had actually followed the laws we currently have on the books a more just and correct result would have happened. The infringing/rogue/disagreeable/illegal sites not online and no trampling of anyone's free speech rights.
Prior restraint is not as you characterize..... the many thousands of sites taken down wrongly were the problem. You must always consider what your actions create. If your logic were taken to a logical extreme then if a person was murdered in a ball park it would ok to hold everyone with no trial, time before a judge, and no defenses allowed for as long as the authorities felt necessary. This is the opposite of what our laws dictate.
I know it was an extreme example but no more out of touch than saying that it is ok to seize the property and prevent the speech of 84,000+ people for the sake of censoring less than one one thousandth of that population.
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Remember, there really isn't much caselaw that suggests that a subdomain is anything significant. It is not clear that there is a legal separation for the domain holder. Can anyone point to caselaw in this area?
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It is not upload by Facebook and when they are notified they try to remove it, but with your reasoning notification is not necessary police can just go there and seize everything, stop people from conducting business because of an accusation, that seems just ridiculous of course that won't be used against giants it will be used against the little people who you don't care about.
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It can and will be abused without safeguards what are the dispositives safeguarding the First Amendment or is that not important anymore?
Where are the tough penalties for abusing such a law that has the power to violate the constitution?
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But that is not the only instance, why are websites like archive.org in the list of rogue sites?
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Oh. Well. Okay then, so only 49,980 were unjustly censored - so that must mean it's ok.
tee-hee back at ya - did you see what you wrote there?
...were apparently illegal.
"apparently" does not (by any stretch of the imagination) equate to "found guilty in a court of law" does it?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name
First off, a fully qualified domain name has many parts. The first part, to the far right, is the top level domain. .org, .com, .edu etc.
Second, anything to the left of that UP TO THE NEXT PERIOD is a subdomain. This continues through each iteration of name and period. Each word/name between periods is a subdomain, and there can be many.
This is very important. Each and every SUBDOMAIN on mooo.com pointed to a different SERVER. It was not "50,000 pages" hosted on the same server, or 84,000 as the case was. it was 84,000 SUBDOMAINS, which can point anywhere, and in this case, they did not all point to "pages" on a mooo.com server.
You have it confused with geocities or something like that. Anything to the RIGHT of a fully qualified domain name (and the "/") is a resource located on the fully qualified domain name, which you have to read from RIGHT TO LEFT. If you simply stopped parsing the domain name at the example.org part instead of this.is.an.example.org, you would get a page returned from the server that "example.org" points to, and not the server that "this.is.an.example.org" points to. "is.an.example.org" could point to yet another server, and "an.example.org" could point to yet again another server.
How do I know this? I used a similar service from dyn.org. My server (and my server alone) was pointed to by groovenet.merseine.nu. Other servers, of which I had no association to or knowledge of, were also under the "merseine.nu" domain. Here is one such example: "bandicoot.mersaine.nu" That site is not hosted by me, or has any association to me outside of the fact that we both have/had subdomains under the merseine.nu domain.
Read up on "Second-level and lower level domains" on the link I provided.
Also, prior restraint. But someone else already mentioned that.
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A subdomain is only a creation of the domain holder. It isn't registered in any central location, the "subdomain" doesn't have a registered owner, you cannot do a whois to find out the owner of a subdomain. There is only a domain. There is only one party that controls it.
Your example is perfect. If merseine.nu decides tomorrow to cut your service, you have absolutely no comeback. Why? Because you don't control your domain, you are only on a subdomain that has no real legal standing.
The differences are huge. If you can't grasp it, well, you fail at the interwebthingie.
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Uh. Yes, it is. That central location is on the main domain.
the "subdomain" doesn't have a registered owner, you cannot do a whois to find out the owner of a subdomain.
But you can ask the domain holder.
There is only one party that controls it.
And then there are all the people who control the subdomains.
We had this conversation before and you were totally wrong last time too. You pretend as if the difference between "registrar:domain" and "domain:subdomain" is some huge thing. It's not. The relationship is identical.
The differences are huge. If you can't grasp it, well, you fail at the interwebthingie.
Hilarious.
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It is a folder the subdomain is also a folder, you can also assign any owner to any folder.
How is that so difficult to understand?
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The common connotation for censorship is that it's negative, but there is potentially good censorship, like censoring someone's speech after finding them guilty of defamation through due process.
It's like the word 'attitude.' If someone says, "you have an attitude," the connotation is that you have a bad attitude, but everyone has an attitude and the usage of the term to imply the negative connotation has simply become the dominant usage.
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Contrary to what many thing, the legal system isn't entirely "innocent until proven guilty". You can be locked up (or released on bail) just when you are charged with something. Material goods (such as cars) can be seized and held pending judgement.
It's also a situation where websites that sell, market, or offer their services into the US are often not in the US and act like they are not subject to US law when they deal with US consumers. There is nothing in current law that directly addresses this in a fashion that allows for action to be taken to protect US consumers and US interests from this sort of thing.
The internet is fast, and the laws have to adjusted to address that speed, and to address the international nature of the net.
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Are you serious? Then in that case, lets close all courts around the world, they way to slow for the modern fast past society that we live in. Why waste money on them right? From now on its guilty until proven innocent. No objections allowed!
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LoL
You can't be serious, everybody have shown that PROTECT IP is useless that purpose.
Doubt?
Here is a screenshot of one of many programs that can create forums that reside in other computers and don't depend on DNS or IP's(Internet Protocol) numbers to work, they reside inside somebody else computers and can be searched by anyone who has the program, PROTECT IP can't seize those, it can't censor it.
http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/pics/retroshareforums.png
Now explain again how an already law that is already obsolete but could serve the only purpose of censoring legal content be of any help?
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Just like to point out that censoring illegal speech is still censorship. It's just not illegal censorship.
The debate should be around whether this kind of censorship is necessary or beneficial. For example, censoring kiddie porn is certainly legal, necessary, and beneficial; censoring speech that's not kiddie porn, even in order to censor kiddie porn, is not.
In this case, the speech that is censored would include non-commercial speech that is infringing on copyright. The public may benefit from this censorship (very slightly), but the harm that follows from allowing other speech to be censored, especially without notification or a hearing, far outweighs the harm done to the public by infringement in the first place. The solution is far more damaging than the problem.
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In case you didn't see it yet, there's a huge debate on that topic up above. Censoring child porn is not certainly necessary nor beneficial.
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Where are the list of rogue sites going to be listed in public?
What are the mechanism to complain about errors?
What happens to those who abuse it? The DMCA is a very good example of that law, it has zero accountability provisions and it is widely abused by every business out there to try and censor their competitors.
How can you say it will not happen with a straight face is being me.
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God have mercy on our souls.
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Child Porn
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So yes, there is actually CP censorship which unjustly infringes on free speech.
If the act is legal to perform, there can be no justification for censoring the speech describing it.
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Honest discussion would backfire on them
Ok, we know the answer; it is greed and power. But the question for the rest of us is; why do we let people get away with obfuscating the reasoning?
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Re: Honest discussion would backfire on them
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Neo-con turning debate to what /degree/ of censorship.
Common tactic of political operatives, to boldly state own real goals and limit possble debate to make it either win big or win small. I can't easily unscramble whether this guy is actually for "hard censorship", but Mike writes the above, so I guess so.
Mike also, to "prove" /his/ supposed points, couches PROTECT IP as other than copyright protection or censorship:
"Paul Vixie Explains How PROTECT IP Will Break The Internet"
Why aren't you "willing to admit that PROTECT IP is absolutely about censorship", Mike? Instead of promoting that "break the Internet" bit?
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Re: Neo-con turning debate to what /degree/ of censorship.
Umm...he has, Ootb. Many times. Go on, go to the search box at the top of the screen, and search for Protect IP and censorship.
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Re: Neo-con turning debate to what /degree/ of censorship.
"Common tactic of political operatives, to boldly state own real goals and limit possble debate to make it either win big or win small. I can't easily unscramble whether this guy is actually for "hard censorship", but Mike writes the above, so I guess so."
Saying that hard censorship is preferential to soft censorship does not mean he supports either. Just that of the two versions of evil one is better then the other.
Saying "if you are going to fuck me I would prefer if you use the lube" does not mean I am ok with you fucking me.
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Re: Re: Neo-con turning debate to what /degree/ of censorship.
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Hiding information does not make it go away, nor does it make the information you hide false. Hiding the information only makes it easier for the side that's hiding it to 'win' and maintain political power over others.
Censorship also stifles innovation when it's used to censor findings that aren't desired by the censor. For example Galileo discovered and published that the earth orbits the Sun. Rather than try to disprove him the Church put him on trial for being a heretic. What kind of a chilling effect do you think that had on other scientists who may have confirmed and expanded Galileo's work?
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Hiding the names of covert agents in the field.
Hiding the locations of sensitive military installations.
Hiding the names and locations of eye witnesses to violent crimes.
Shall we go on?
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But that's probably just me.
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Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Can it be used for censorship? Perhaps, but it depends upon what your definition of censorship is. This web site seems to enjoy arguing that simply helping someone get content without paying should be protected speech. Somehow the scum running the USENET sites are in the same boat as Martin Luther King or Peter Zenger. Stopping you from distributing someone else's work is not censorship. Stopping you from distributing your own creation is. This site can't make a distinction.
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Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
umm, yes it is censorship. You're preventing communication, the communication is neutral to artificial factors. Hence, you are censoring it.
"This site can't make a distinction."
Finally you admit it. Yes, the site allowing communication can't make a distinction.
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Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Furthermore, communication is often prosecuted when it's part of a crime. If a mob boss tells an underling to kill someone, the mob boss doesn't cry about his first amendment right to communicate. If a drug dealer tells his underlings how and where to deliver drugs, the dealer doesn't avoid prosecution because he's just communicating.
Face it. Outside of the weird echo chamber of this blog, communication is prosecuted as an accessory to a crime.
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Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Legal Blackmail is often attempted.
The industries want and get sanctions imposed on individuals on the basis of assertion.
The whole thrust of the multiple new versions of IP legislation is in the main to get certain people paid, or to punish individuals without any kind of adversarial hearing on the basis of claims that may or may not be baseless assertion.
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http://www.dailypaul.com/162011/15-year-old-boy-sentenced-and-convicted-as-adult-for-vid eotaping-a-fight
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Everyone else is talking about the censorship issues raised by supposed attempts to stop copyright infringement as in "PROTECT-IP" and you bring up as an example an issue that has nothing to do with copyright infringement or IP in any way, nothing to do with blocking websites, nothing to do with anything that is under discussion here.
So, tell me, did you know that and have such a low opinion of everyone else that you thought they'd be too stupid to notice or were you the one who did not notice how irrelevant your example was?
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So you need to accept that censorship too even if for very good reasons also have its limitations.
Where are the safeguards in the PROTECT IP law?
Where are the accountability in the PROTECT IP law?
How PROTECT IP will deal with forums that don't depend on any ISP to be created or distributed?
Where are the punishment provisions of the law for abusing the law?
You surely are not preaching we give authorities all the powers to censor something without any consequences are you?
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Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
From Wikipedia
"Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication"
If you disagree - go edit the article and see how far you get!
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Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
umm, yes it is censorship. You're preventing communication, the communication is neutral to artificial factors. Hence, you are censoring it.
"This site can't make a distinction."
Finally you admit it. Yes, the site allowing communication can't make a distinction.
Infringing on copyrighted content isn't protected by the1st Amendment, jerkoff.
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that he actually can ignore that. ;-)
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Well gosh bob, don't stop there. People use email, snail mail, Fedex, thumb drives, cell phones, CD's, Xerox machines and a thousand other ways to swap things (which may or may not be copyright infringement). Keep that approach going and we will back in the 1800's in no time.
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/s
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Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
The real target are the large hubs that facilitate infringement while claiming that they know nothing about what's going on. A few people emailing each other is not a critical problem for the information ecosystem. Big hubs that distribute material for free are.
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Most of the new proposed law is there to plug loopholes abused by infringers. The so-called copyright maximalists aren't just trying to get more laws passed to cover what's already covered.
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The court said that, this blog covered it before it did. I understand how you would get confused.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Yeah, they pretty much are.
It is true that they are trying to extend culpability to secondary, tertiary or further removed groups, because while they have nothing to do with the infringement they can be easier targets and definitely richer ones.
But if your issue is with an individual or company infringing copyright, the laws are already there, the new laws are mainly to avoid having to go to court and/or prove anything at all, while ensuring that get paid extra by as many different people as possible whether it's blogs, isps, server providers, link sites, search engines who or whatever.
And the worst of it is, there is no evidence that infringement actually causes any problems for the industries at all.
Most pirated movie of all time, last I checked was Avatar, it was also the movie with one of the largest box office figures of all time and dvd and bluray sales broke all records. If piracy caused a loss of profit, Avatar should have lost money.
What little evidence there is, suggests that piracy is about neutral in terms of effects on sales with some individual cases where it has unquestionably boosted sales - see
Go the F**k to sleep as one small example.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110621/03371114785/author-go-fk-to-sleep-says-piracy- helped-him-he-doesnt-support-it.shtml
So, most people looking at this situation, lots of infringement totaling appx zero effect on sales and wonder why so much legislation needs to be passed in an unworkable effort with massive collateral damage on individual rights, rule of law, government costs etc, for something that is in no way obviously a meaningful problem to anyone.
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As for the "pirate domains", Mike has never said they can't be shut down. What he, and I think most of the Tech Dirt community, wants is due process and fair proceedings applied to these cases. If the government can prove in a court of law that what a particular website is doing is breaking a law, then and only then should that website be taken down or its URL "seized"(redirected by DNS really). What ICE has done over the past few months has shown that what they (RIAA, MPAA, ICE, etc.) think is a "rogue site" varies wildly and in a lot of cases is outright wrong.
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No, what they want is the internet to go full light speed, and for the consequences to be settled at the snails pace of the legal system.
Look at the Rojo case. Where are we now, 6+ months and they are still arguing about the basics of the pre-trial about the pre-trial, and not the actual meat and potatoes. The actual case (if it goes all the way) could take a decade to play out.
What Mike (and many others here) seem to want is for the courts to be handed a fait accomplis at the end of the trial, basically saying "the site was hot, it was popular, and then it was shut down 3 years ago and replaced with something else", so that by the time justice is served, it is no longer relevant.
PROTECT IP is (like the ICE actions) a step towards bringing the legal system up to the speed of the internet. It's why they hate it so much, and why there is so much FUD being pushed about it here.
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If the choice is between the first amendment and the protection of some industry that don't really need it, that is not a choice at all.
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Show me one artist banckrupted because of piracy?
There are no known cases of it, what we have is record box offices despite piracy, what we get is record earnings by musicians despite piracy.
You can't even explain why McDonald's rose to the top without "protections" or how "Coca Cola" did it or how Google did it, so why artists need that again?
And why that protection is so damn long?
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Have a nice day asshole
Love, the internet
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Bullshit.
"PROTECT IP is (like the ICE actions) a step towards bringing the legal system up to the speed of the internet. It's why they hate it so much, and why there is so much FUD being pushed about it here."
You keep saying that but the concerns of PIPA are ignored for your own FUD. How about before a site is taken, there's a court date set, the FBI says we're eyeing this domain and the person speaks up about why their domain is legal? Is that so hard?
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Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
If that is what you want, then I don't think PROTECT IP is what you are looking for, since it's about punishing sites prior to actually finding them guilty of anything.
And actually I have no problem with enforcing copyright laws. I have huge problems when enforcement of such laws starts stepping on free speech and due process.
The Constitution trumps copyright every time in my book.
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Your point about whether the punishment is given before people are "found guilty". There are plenty of laws that are enforced without endless Lance Ito-grade trials. Parking tickets and speeding tickets only go to trial when there's a question about guilt. Most crimes are plea bargained. Very few people are actually "found guilty" by a jury.
That's just what would happen here. I'm sure that 99% of the people inconvenienced by this law would be making copies without the appropriate licenses.
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Well yeah bob, what you said is true except for the part about plea bargains. You realize that plea bargains involve pleading guilty in front of a judge or in other words being found guilty in a court of law.
PROTECT IP isn't really about bringing anyone to court, it's more about seizing domain names and cutting off monetary transaction avenues prior to an adversarial hearing where both sides could be heard.
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Well played FUDster. Protect IP targets foreign websites. Being foreign, they are beyond the reach of US law enforcement so seizure isn't on the menu.
And the targeted website owner DOES have an opportunity to defend himself before any action is taken. Try reading the fucking Act. The problem is that those site owners (unlike the freeloaders here) realize what they're doing is against the law and don't avail themselves of the opportunity to argue their case in court. So a site owner dodges a court hearing- he gets a pass?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Are you saying that PROTECT IP isn't about seizing domain names or cutting off monetary transaction avenues?
The problem is that those site owners (unlike the freeloaders here) realize what they're doing is against the law and don't avail themselves of the opportunity to argue their case in court. So a site owner dodges a court hearing- he gets a pass?
How exactly do you know that? Magic 8-ball?
Rojadirecta certainly believed what it was doing was completely legal in it's home country. (and yes, I know that was under existing laws, not PROTECT IP, but there are a lot of similarities here)
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Further there are no consequences for abusing that law, where are the safeguards, I have been asking this and you never answer why?
You don't have a good answer for it?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
If you're going to accuse others of FUD, the LEAST you could do is explain, in detail, how the legislation you support won't cause added liability for sites that Monster and the RIAA deem illegal.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
In 1787
The ratified U.S. Constitution allows a male slave to count as three-fifths of a man in determining representation in the House of Representatives. The Constitution sets 1808 as the earliest date for the national government to ban the slave trade.
That was also in before the First amendment and the emancipation proclamation took a lot longer to arrive too.
The reason for the amendments were that really important things had been left out of the constitution and had to be put in, having been in earlier than other parts does not give more validity to a part of the US constitution.
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So to put it simply, first is not the trump card some people want it to be.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
People keep repeating this. It's a half-truth. The ability to enact copyright was granted to Congress in the Constitution, but Copyright itself is NOT granted in the Constitution. It's a fine distinction, but an important one. It means that copyright is not a Constitutional right.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
No - there is no requirement for copyright in your constitution. What the constitution does is to assign responsibility for such matters to Congress (as opposed to individual states or the executive). Congress has the power to abolish copyright - without changing the consitution.
and it was put there long before the First Amendment.
You do know that later additions trump earlier ones don't you?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Later additions to the Constitution trump earlier ones? Depends upon the subject matter involved.
Merely FYI, at the time the Constitution was ratified there were two "camps", those who supported the addition of the Bill of Rights to make it more clear that Congress was vested with only the specified enumerated powers, and those who hewed to the line that the limited enumerated powers made the Bill of Rights unnecessary. Some in the latter camp even went so far as to suggest that a consequence of the Bill of Rights would imply that the government was vested with some residum of power over the subject matter addressed in the Bill of Rights. While the former camp won the day, clearly the latter camp had a very good argument as well.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
That is it, copyright is what came out of it, but it can be totally redone, lets make copyright last 2 days.
Congress can do it, and it will be constitutional, because limited time was never specified, we could just say copyright should last 30 seconds.
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Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Neither can a search engine. Reality is that it is not illegal to tell somebody how to break the law...it is only illegal to break the law? Pointing somebody to a place to get infringing material is not breaking the law and is actually free speech. Would I get thrown in jail for telling an undercover agent that he could go buy drugs from that white house down the street?
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Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Look at this link. The guy is facing the same jail term as the thief merely for driving a car. By your logic, driving a car isn't a crime so the driver should avoid jail. But that's not how judges, prosecutors and juries think. It's not simple.
http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/what-is-the-prison-term-for-an-accessory-to-1-robb-204368.html
Here's a jail term for an accessory who just helped clean up. Certainly cleaning up is a crime, right?
http://video.tbo.com/v/42386905/woman-receives-prison-term-for-accessory-to-murder.htm
There's a reason Google paid a half billion dollar fine for directing traffic to Canadian pharmacies. I think it's highly likely that someone will successfully prosecute them for aiding and abetting infringement just like the got caught aiding and abetting drug trafficking.
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Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Did the mob boss and drug boss and whatever boss you keep mentioning get accused and sentenced from a private entity?
Face it 'bob', none of what you're writing has anything to do with how ProtectIP is made to work.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
People receive criminal complaints sworn out by citizens all the time. Do you ever read a newspaper? And the "sentences" you refer to are statutory. Disney can't decide that TVshack should forfeit $10 million and its owners should serve 4 year 3 months in prison. This isn't even FUD, it's pure drivel.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
And where is the fraking safeguards against abuse?
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Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Would I be an accessory to theft if I yelled out in a crowded bar that I just hid $10k under my mattress and I usually don't lock the door. A thief is also sitting in the bar and goes to my house and steals my money. Does that make me an accessory? Don't be silly. Your examples do not represent the case I was making.
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Re: Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Nope. Google is protected by the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions. As long as they play by the rules, there is no 3rd party liability for copyright infringement for service providers.
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Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
Do you have any idea what USENET is and what it has meant to the information industry?
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Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
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Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
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Re: Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
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Re: Because it's not-- it's about stopping piracy
[...] are providing some of the Internet's most useful services, often at their own expense and on their own time.
There, I fixed it for you -- and for the rest of the ignorant newbies who do not comprehend what Usenet actually is, how it works, or anything else about it. No, don't bother: I'm sure it's far beyond your pitifully feeble comprehension, and it gives me a headache just trying to talk down to your level.
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If it censorship, or is it just the consequences of applying the law?
Let me use a real world example. A guy on a street corner selling drugs, yelling "crack, crack, blow, weed" is in some ways using his first amendment rights to free speech. None of the words are in themselves illegal. He has every right to say whatever he wants on a street corner, if you look at the situation without context.
He gets arrested by the police, and taken away. He no longer stands on the street corner yelling "crack, crack, blow, weed". Now, if you want to narrowly look at only his speech, you could say that drugs laws are about censorship.
Now, before you go off and suggest that I am on crack, think about it. If you shut down a website that is selling illegal material (brand name knock offs, dangerous substances, etc), you could very narrowly say that they have been censored if you ignore the bad acts there were going on.
My opinion is that Mr Bambauer (and many here) are fear mongering. There is no real world examples to show how this law actually works, no test cases, nothing in front of the courts. We don't know the implications, in the same manner that we couldn't foresee all of the implication of DMCA.
On the other side, to be fair, we didn't realize all of the implications of the RICO act, and there are some good and bad to that as well.
We have a whole bunch of speculation, but most of it seems pretty far fetched.
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Re:
Actually in this case, they took down the corner to the "dealer" stopping many others who are also there from yelling or talking.
Regardless however, you can't apply a real world example.
So both my point and yours are null and void
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Re:
Also, considering these lists come from the media companies (and others) that still act like its 1985, and we have seen those lists, there are plenty of reasons to not want this law to pass. This is not 1985, and they need to pull their collective heads out of their asses. Not everything is a pirate site just because they don't like it (the internet archive, 50 cent's own official website, etc).
Funny thing is, there are already laws in place that they can follow to get infringing material taken down. They are just the world's largest crybabies because it actually takes effort to enforce the laws. Instead they want to use MY taxpayer dollars to use MY government to work for their corporations. Well to that sir, I say they need to PISS OFF.
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Would you care to correct me?
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Also, look up just about any story on this site regarding Rojadirecta. There are some pretty good explanations in those.
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Re: Re: Re:
Here's a question, why was no information about the first raids put out? We have no affidavit, no warrants, and yet 15 places were ransacked at the same time.
We have a magistrate judge who allowed this, but there was no adversarial hearing for the first 9 sites. You basically have a one sided fight against piracy where the other sites don't even know they have to play the game.
And just because there's a warrant, it doesn't automatically make the act legal.
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Re:
He gets arrested by the police, and taken away. He no longer stands on the street corner yelling "crack, crack, blow, weed". Now, if you want to narrowly look at only his speech, you could say that drugs laws are about censorship.
A fine way to use one bad law in an attempt to justify another.
The fact that drug laws lead to censorship ought to give you doubts about drug laws.
If you discuss drug prohibition with those who are charged with enforcing it you will discover that many of them now realise that the drug laws are futile.
(Having said that, I do admit that I support laws against the promotion and advertising of drugs - which might be seen as censorship - however in that case the information being censored is misleading or false - so there is a difference.)
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Copyright is no human right
This web site seems to enjoy arguing that simply helping
someone get content without paying should be protected speech.
Copyright is no moral right.
There is hno inherent right to be paid or to sstate it in a libertarian way - there is no right to have the state enforcing your monopoly.
What's copyright? Only positive law giving one stakeholder the power to use the machinery of the state against another.
Pass a law granting me an exclusive right to be paid every time some other mentions my name, and every site mentioning my name without paying me is guilty of theft.
That can't be right.
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Re: Copyright is no human right
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Re: Re: Copyright is no human right
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Re: Re: Re: Copyright is no human right
bear arms, dolt.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Copyright is no human right
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Re: Re: Copyright is no human right
Copyright protections are not in the constitution.
Congress' authority to legislate copyright is in the constitution.
Current copyright protections are not constitutional law, but congressional law.
A lot of people think Congress is getting it wrong. A lot of people think publishers (not artists) have too much influence in Congress.
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Re: Re: Copyright is no human right
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Re: Re: Copyright is no human right
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CENSORSHIP IS NEVER RIGHT!
NEVER!
THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE THAT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF TYRANNY!
MORE KNOWLEDGE IS THE ANSWER NOT LESS!
/rant
forgive my caps lock, for I know not what I do.
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was this supposed to be wikileaks or was someone pressuring wikipedia?
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Yes. Wikileaks. Sorry.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita_fashion#Gothic_Lollita
This probably will never be allowed in America.
I wonder why in America is still legal to photograph children, with all the paranoia going on it is surprising that people are still allowed to take any photograph from a children LoL
In the age of visual diaries many probably will go to jail.
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Thieving
The truth is "file sharing" is thieving if you don't own the content or it is not public domain. When they yell that it is time shifting....then, the content should not be available to the public at large.
If it is, it is just thieving and the thieves need to go to jail. Stopping thieves is not censorship: it is protecting your intellectual property from abuse.
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Re: Thieving
Or the censors yell "theft" and try to change the argument.
The truth is "file sharing" is thieving if you don't own the content or it is not public domain.
No, the truth is it's copyright infringement.
If it is, it is just thieving and the thieves need to go to jail.
You're actually saying people should serve jail time for noncommercial copyright infringement? Wow.
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