(Inevitable, isn't it?)

OK, so a few days ago I hadn't heard of this. (Why would I?) Wikipedia 
was threatening to shut down for a day, in protest of a law which might 
shut it down. (Isn't that like opposing lower motorway speed limits by 
driving really slowly? Weird...)

So for a day Wikipedia was gone. (Or rather, it appears, and then 
immediately vanishes.) QC had a big banner at the top. And XKCD was a 
petition as well.

So what's this all about then? Well, according to Wikipedia (who, 
remember, are protesting this), these are new laws intended to stop 
online content piracy. (This is comparable to passing a law to try to 
make water not wet any more.) Obviously I haven't read the actual text 
of the bills. (I wouldn't understand a word of it.) But according to the 
sources I've seen, there are a number of problems:

1. If any website contains greater than zero items of illegal content, 
it can be blacklisted.

2. Proof is not required. A media company merely needs to /claim/ that 
illegal content is present, and the site will be blacklisted. There is 
no requirement to notify the site, nor to prove anything in any court of 
law.

3. Once blacklisted, it's DNS records are required to be removed from 
all US servers. All US search engines are required to delist it. All US 
financial institutions are barred from interacting with it (most 
specifically payment processing and advertising services).

4. As far as I can tell, it is not possible to dispute the blacklisting 
or have it removed, ever.

In other words, these laws give media companies the power to arbitrarily 
remove any site from the Internet without any reason whatsoever. Or at 
least, to stop anyone in the USA accessing said website.

You can /kind of/ see where the authors were going with this... If a 
site is operated from outside the USA, you can't sue them. These bills 
make it possible to block them instead. It kinda makes sense.

[This assuming you're not cynical enough to suggest that they actually 
did all this on purpose and the "prevent piracy" thing is just a 
outright lie.]

The problem is that it seems to be laughably easy to blacklist 
something, absurdly hard for an innocent site to get itself off the 
blacklist, and lets not forget the best part: Any half-competent 
computer nerd can trivially circumvent the blacklist. So this is going 
to have *such* a big impact on piracy...



I almost wonder: Maybe they wrote a ridiculously over-the-top bill just 
to get everyone really outraged. And then they will write another, much 
less outrageous bill and everyone will quickly accept that because it's 
much better than the first one. Whereas if they'd produced that in the 
first place, nobody would have swallowed it.

It remains to be seen whether either of these things will pass. It seems 
to me that even if they do not, the likes of the MPAA and the RIAA will 
continue to produce more bills like these until one of them actually 
passes into law. It remains to be seen what effect if any a USA 
blacklist would have on the rest of the world.

While these bills look like very bad news, the way people like Wikipedia 
describe them could also perhaps be regarded as slightly over the top. I 
mean, not to claim that these laws are a good idea, but let's get some 
perspective here: If you don't use the Internet, these laws will have 
*no effect* on you. If they were planning to make it legal to lock 
Americans up without trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing. 
Censoring the Internet is merely worrying.



Perhaps more frightening than the bills is what I was on Failblog. A 
whole bunch of Twitter comments such as

"What the hell? Why is Wikipedia not working?!" (Um, it says why right 
there on the page?)

"OMG, how can we fix it?"

And, most worryingly,

"If Wikipedia is gone for good, there's no way I'll survive college."

Now, OK, this is Failblog. At least 95% of its content is fake anyway. 
Even if that last comment is real, the poster might have been joking.

But seriously. Are there really people so utterly dependent on Wikipedia 
that they cannot hope to complete their studies without it? WTF?! o_O

Post a reply to this message

I have to say I like SOPA (soup) and PIPA (kite).  Funny names for such serious
freedom threats.

BTW, you could easily get away with the wikipedia block by simply hitting ESC
just before it blacked out.

Post a reply to this message

On 19/01/2012 04:33 PM, nemesis wrote:
> I have to say I like SOPA (soup) and PIPA (kite).  Funny names for such serious
> freedom threats.

Depends on your sense of humour. ;-)

> BTW, you could easily get away with the wikipedia block by simply hitting ESC
> just before it blacked out.

...or disable JavaScript, yes.

After all, they're not actually trying to stop you accessing the 
content. They're just trying to make a point.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:56:30 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.

They already have that.  It was part of the most recent defense 
appropriations bill that was signed into law.

Obama issued a 'signing statement' saying that his administration 
wouldn't use indefinite detention on American citizens, but there's 
nothing to stop the next administration from doing that.

> Censoring the Internet is merely worrying

Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech" 
which means that the government cannot pass laws that restrict speech 
here.  But SOPA/PIPA and similar laws (DMCA, anyone?) allow content to be 
removed from the Internet (or would allow, in the case of laws not passed 
yet) merely on the word of someone claiming copyright.  The burden of 
proof is on the alleged infringer, not on the alleged copyright holder.

Pardon me for saying this, but that's fucked up.

Because here in the US we *also* have something called "due process", 
which ensures that we have a right to legal representation, a fair trial, 
etc.

Except with these laws, due process is entirely circumvented.

The point of the protest yesterday was to raise awareness and get these 
bills shelved.

And it was successful.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 19/01/2012 5:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech"
> which means that the government cannot pass laws that restrict speech
> here.

Is that 100 percent true?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:47:55 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 19/01/2012 5:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech"
>> which means that the government cannot pass laws that restrict speech
>> here.
> 
> Is that 100 percent true?

Obviously not, since there are laws that restrict free speech.

But those laws violate the US Constitution (specifically, the bill of 
rights).  But to be removed, they have to be challenged.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/19/2012 8:56 AM, Invisible wrote:
> All US
> financial institutions are barred from interacting with it (most
> specifically payment processing and advertising services).

This part I didn't know, and is even more fucked up. The rest... isn't 
enforceable, and is absurd anyway. Most truly illegal shit is being done 
on "darknets" now, networks that either operate only indirectly through 
the regular network, or any completely independent of it. Second, as 
long as some DNS, some place, provides the IP data to get to a site, all 
you need to do is have your machine look at *that* DNS site for the 
data, instead of the closest one. So, that is out. Its trivial to set up 
a DNS, so, everyone with a damn computer could be running a sort of peer 
to peer like background task, kind of like folding at home, which does 
nothing but feed DNS data to every machine connected to it, so that 
*any* machine with that installed on it could be polled to get the 
correct IP to connect to the site. The level of complete stupidity in 
the bill is astounding, even if you ignore the fact that the morons in 
Congress and the Senate that originally backed it, where claiming, 
probably due to not knowing any better, that it was, "bringing online 
law into parity with the regular laws", despite the fact that I have 
*never* heard of a law that basically requires that all access, 
information on how to find, GPS, road signs, etc., a business must be 
"removed", until innocence is proven, because some asshole renting space 
in the building was selling fake Pokemon cards, or printing T-Shirt with 
Lucas Art copyright material on it, or even bootlegging entire DVD 
collections.

Last I checked, the non-online laws requires the people, once they find 
out about it, to a) inform the cops, and/or b) kick the bastards out of 
their building, not serve jail time for having accidentally allowed them 
on their property, or, even stupider, allowing them to post the address 
of their illegal business on the public advertisement board, in the 
hallway. Parity my ass...

And its only funnier that one of the idiots supporting this thing was 
found to have illegally used a copyrighted image on his own government 
web page over the last 24 hours.

Post a reply to this message

>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>
> They already have that.

OK. In that case, if I had the misfortune to live in America, I'd be 
*way* more worried about that...

>> Censoring the Internet is merely worrying
>
> Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech"

More like "had", by the looks of things...

> The burden of
> proof is on the alleged infringer, not on the alleged copyright holder.
>
> Pardon me for saying this, but that's fucked up.

Yeah, whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? That's just 
*wrong*. You shouldn't be able to punish people without one shred of 
evidence of any crime.

> Because here in the US we *also* have something called "due process",
> which ensures that we have a right to legal representation, a fair trial,
> etc.
>
> Except with these laws, due process is entirely circumvented.

That's just wrong.

> The point of the protest yesterday was to raise awareness and get these
> bills shelved.
>
> And it was successful.

I'm not so sure about that... While I grant that many more people have 
now heard about this (e.g., me), I'm not hearing anything about that 
stopping this stuff actually becoming law. And even if these bills never 
become law, surely the lobbyists will just keep bills like this coming 
year after year until one of them /does/ make it into law...

Post a reply to this message

On 20/01/2012 04:44 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/19/2012 8:56 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> All US
>> financial institutions are barred from interacting with it (most
>> specifically payment processing and advertising services).
>
> This part I didn't know, and is even more fucked up.

Yeah, the idea is that if some illegal site operates off-shore, you 
can't sue them, but you can still financially strangle them into 
shutting down. I mean, assuming they make any significant money from the 
US market in the first place...

> Second, as
> long as some DNS, some place, provides the IP data to get to a site, all
> you need to do is have your machine look at *that* DNS site for the
> data, instead of the closest one.

I don't care whether you delete the DNS record or block that IP address. 
Sophisticated pirates can trivially circumvent such restrictions. If a 
"web site" is hosting illegal stuff, you might plausibly be able to 
block access to it. (Until somebody connects to a proxy outside America 
- oops!) But if illegal stuff is on a peer to peer network, and all you 
need is the IP address of any peer in the network in order to access all 
the stuff... So, what, you're going to blacklist every peer in the 
swarm? Good luck with that.

This isn't going to stop technical experts from pirating stuff. It /is/ 
going to stop the average, non-technical American from looking at stuff 
that industry and government don't want them to look at. All that 
scientific evidence about global warming... wouldn't it be convenient if 
all that just quietly "disappeared"? Wouldn't that be nice?

> The level of complete stupidity in
> the bill is astounding, even if you ignore the fact that the morons in
> Congress and the Senate that originally backed it, where claiming,
> probably due to not knowing any better, that it was, "bringing online
> law into parity with the regular laws"

I do not know much about how US law works. (Hell, I don't know much 
about how UK law works!) But I do wonder if the people behind this 
*actually* believe it will work, or whether they know damned will this 
will have no effect on piracy, and that's just a smokescreen in the 
first place... Perhaps I have become too cynical?

> Last I checked, the non-online laws requires the people, once they find
> out about it, to a) inform the cops, and/or b) kick the bastards out of
> their building, not serve jail time for having accidentally allowed them
> on their property, or, even stupider, allowing them to post the address
> of their illegal business on the public advertisement board, in the
> hallway. Parity my ass...

Yeah, well, to some extent it comes from people's frustration that 
foreign servers are helping piracy, and Americans can't sue them out of 
existence. If you can't shut them down, censor them. There aren't too 
many equivalents of that in the physical world.

> And its only funnier that one of the idiots supporting this thing was
> found to have illegally used a copyrighted image on his own government
> web page over the last 24 hours.

I can't comment on that...

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:14:37 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>>
>> They already have that.
> 
> OK. In that case, if I had the misfortune to live in America, I'd be
> *way* more worried about that...

Indeed, there has been some noise about that addition to the 
appropriations bill.

>>> Censoring the Internet is merely worrying
>>
>> Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech"
> 
> More like "had", by the looks of things...

What do you base that statement on?  SOPA and PIPA are not actually laws 
that are being enforced - they are just bills that are currently dead.

>> The point of the protest yesterday was to raise awareness and get these
>> bills shelved.
>>
>> And it was successful.
> 
> I'm not so sure about that... While I grant that many more people have
> now heard about this (e.g., me), I'm not hearing anything about that
> stopping this stuff actually becoming law. And even if these bills never
> become law, surely the lobbyists will just keep bills like this coming
> year after year until one of them /does/ make it into law...

The BBC had a story about it on their website.

And sure, RIAA and MPAA are not done yet.  They're currently engaged in a 
smear campaign against companies like Google who pushed on this.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech" 
> which means that the government cannot pass laws that restrict speech 
> here.  But SOPA/PIPA and similar laws (DMCA, anyone?) allow content to be 
> removed from the Internet (or would allow, in the case of laws not passed 
> yet) merely on the word of someone claiming copyright.  The burden of 
> proof is on the alleged infringer, not on the alleged copyright holder.

  In principle if a company sends a DMCA takedown notice eg. to YouTube,
if the alleged infringer makes a counter-claim then YouTube is obliged
to restore the material without question. It is then up to the copyright
holder to pursue the situation further via legal means. (YouTube cannot
start judging if something is or isn't copyright infringement because
else they'll lose their "safe harbor" status that protects them from
being sued for distributing copyrighted material.)

  One of the main drawbacks with this system is that it's a breach of
confidentiality rights. That's because if you want to issue a counter-claim,
you have to include your full personal details (name, address...) for the
claimant to see. This could, in principle, be misused by nefarious parties.
(And in fact, it has been misused. There are concrete examples.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:16:21 -0500, Warp wrote:

>   In principle if a company sends a DMCA takedown notice eg. to YouTube,
> if the alleged infringer makes a counter-claim then YouTube is obliged
> to restore the material without question.

That's not consistent with what I've heard - the alleged infringer can 
take legal action, but many users of YouTube are individuals who don't 
have the resources to go up against a big media company's lawyers.

Of course, I may not have heard the way it actually works, too.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:16:21 -0500, Warp wrote:

> >   In principle if a company sends a DMCA takedown notice eg. to YouTube,
> > if the alleged infringer makes a counter-claim then YouTube is obliged
> > to restore the material without question.

> That's not consistent with what I've heard - the alleged infringer can 
> take legal action, but many users of YouTube are individuals who don't 
> have the resources to go up against a big media company's lawyers.

  No, the counter-claim can be made by the alleged infringer online (YouTube
even offers you directly instructions on how to do so) and YouTube has to
automatically restore the video, no questions asked.

  Of course the copyright holder can then pursue it further if it wants,
but the role of YouTube ends there. (Naturally if you made a spurious
counter-claim and the copyright holder pursues, I'm assuming you'll get
a harsher sentence if found guilty.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:21:48 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:16:21 -0500, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   In principle if a company sends a DMCA takedown notice eg. to
>> >   YouTube,
>> > if the alleged infringer makes a counter-claim then YouTube is
>> > obliged to restore the material without question.
> 
>> That's not consistent with what I've heard - the alleged infringer can
>> take legal action, but many users of YouTube are individuals who don't
>> have the resources to go up against a big media company's lawyers.
> 
>   No, the counter-claim can be made by the alleged infringer online
>   (YouTube
> even offers you directly instructions on how to do so) and YouTube has
> to automatically restore the video, no questions asked.

That's interesting, I wasn't aware of that.  Thakns.

>   Of course the copyright holder can then pursue it further if it wants,
> but the role of YouTube ends there. (Naturally if you made a spurious
> counter-claim and the copyright holder pursues, I'm assuming you'll get
> a harsher sentence if found guilty.)

Perhaps, though I suppose if the rights are actually in question, then 
you probably wouldn't get a harsher sentence.  It would make a difference 
if you made a counter-claim in the hopes the rights-holder wouldn't 
bother pursuing it vs. there being an actual question of ownership.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >   No, the counter-claim can be made by the alleged infringer online
> >   (YouTube
> > even offers you directly instructions on how to do so) and YouTube has
> > to automatically restore the video, no questions asked.

> That's interesting, I wasn't aware of that.  Thakns.

  There have been actual cases, though, where YouTube *has* seemingly
taken the role of a judge and determined *not* to restore some videos
even after several counter-claims. In at least one example when the
alleged infringer threatened to pursue legal against YouTube (well,
Google) because they were breaching their own "safe harbor" status by
taking an active stance, YouTube finally silently agreed to restore the
videos in question.

  The moral of the story is that if you are certain that you have not
infringed any copyright and some bully is shutting your video down by
making spurious DMCA claims, don't give up even if YouTube refuses to
restore the video at first. They just have to.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:24:42 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >   No, the counter-claim can be made by the alleged infringer online
>> >   (YouTube
>> > even offers you directly instructions on how to do so) and YouTube
>> > has to automatically restore the video, no questions asked.
> 
>> That's interesting, I wasn't aware of that.  Thakns.
> 
>   There have been actual cases, though, where YouTube *has* seemingly
> taken the role of a judge and determined *not* to restore some videos
> even after several counter-claims. In at least one example when the
> alleged infringer threatened to pursue legal against YouTube (well,
> Google) because they were breaching their own "safe harbor" status by
> taking an active stance, YouTube finally silently agreed to restore the
> videos in question.
> 
>   The moral of the story is that if you are certain that you have not
> infringed any copyright and some bully is shutting your video down by
> making spurious DMCA claims, don't give up even if YouTube refuses to
> restore the video at first. They just have to.

I think they count on individuals not being willing to pay court costs to 
get a single video reinstated.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/20/2012 10:00 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:14:37 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>
>>>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>>>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>>>
>>> They already have that.
>>
>> OK. In that case, if I had the misfortune to live in America, I'd be
>> *way* more worried about that...
>
> Indeed, there has been some noise about that addition to the
> appropriations bill.
>
>>>> Censoring the Internet is merely worrying
>>>
>>> Maybe for you.  We have this thing here in the US called "free speech"
>>
>> More like "had", by the looks of things...
>
> What do you base that statement on?  SOPA and PIPA are not actually laws
> that are being enforced - they are just bills that are currently dead.
>
Or, so we think. Seems the Fed already "used" part of this law, even 
before it was officially presented *as* one:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17444/p2p_dns_to_take_on_icann_after_us_domain_seizures

The interesting result is that someone else already thought of the 
easiest bloody stupid way to pretty much hose there whole law. P2P DNS. 
There goes my multimillion dollar idea... lol

Seriously though, the biggest thing is the, "deny you the ability to 
even pay your bills, by cutting off the ability to transact in the US.", 
part of the damn thing. And you know damn well that is going on too, for 
legitimate crimes. What makes the bills bloody stupid isn't any of that, 
its the fact that you don't have to have any damn evidence, other than 
basically an anonymous tip, to do any of it, as they are written. Right 
now, the Fed at least has to have *some* cause to do it.

Post a reply to this message

On 1/20/2012 3:45 AM, Invisible wrote:
> I do not know much about how US law works. (Hell, I don't know much
> about how UK law works!) But I do wonder if the people behind this
> *actually* believe it will work, or whether they know damned will this
> will have no effect on piracy, and that's just a smokescreen in the
> first place... Perhaps I have become too cynical?
>
All I can say is, see my other last post. They have already "used" this 
tactic of killing ICANN DNS data, to close sites. It a) failed, since 
they where back up less than 24 hours later, under a new name, and b) 
didn't matter in terms of the "US funds" clause they tried to put in 
these things, since they where not in the US, and therefor either didn't 
need that, or where providing the content free, so where not selling to 
anyone in the US in the first place, where a transaction might happen. 
The super dumb comes from the presumption that they shouldn't have to 
have just cause, or evidence, or a court order, or anything else, 
presumably, other than some moron's "anonymous tip".

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:04:46 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Seriously though, the biggest thing is the, "deny you the ability to
> even pay your bills, by cutting off the ability to transact in the US."

They already did that to wikileaks.  These bills don't make that 
possible, there are already laws that make that possible.

A big part of the problem here in the US is that we do tend to 
overlegislate everything.  Take driving while talking on a cell phone or 
driving while texting.  Distracted driving laws already cover that, but 
we need to pass more laws to make these specific things illegal?

I guess we also need laws that explicitly make it illegal to drive while:

1.  Eating a cheeseburger (and then one for tacos, and one for [...])
2.  Putting on makeup
3.  Shaving
4.  Brushing your teeth

etc, etc, etc.

I guess we need *something* to keep our legislators busy, it's not as if 
they spend a ton of time doing stuff to actually make things better.  
It's either "let's argue about things and get nothing done" or "let's 
pass laws that no sane person gives a crap about".

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/20/2012 13:24, Warp wrote:
>    There have been actual cases, though, where YouTube *has* seemingly
> taken the role of a judge and determined *not* to restore some videos

I believe there have been cases where youtube (and others) have restored the 
videos promptly even without a counter-claim being filed, because it was 
obviously not infringing. And there have been cases where youtube has kept 
the video down in spite of a counter-claim because it was clearly infringing 
and the counter-claim was clearly perjury. I'm not sure it's completely as 
cut-and-dry as it seems in the law, and of course Google has enough money to 
lawyer up to the gills if someone tries to abuse them legally for doing the 
right thing.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 1/20/2012 13:24, Warp wrote:
> >    There have been actual cases, though, where YouTube *has* seemingly
> > taken the role of a judge and determined *not* to restore some videos

> I believe there have been cases where youtube (and others) have restored the 
> videos promptly even without a counter-claim being filed, because it was 
> obviously not infringing. And there have been cases where youtube has kept 
> the video down in spite of a counter-claim because it was clearly infringing 
> and the counter-claim was clearly perjury. I'm not sure it's completely as 
> cut-and-dry as it seems in the law, and of course Google has enough money to 
> lawyer up to the gills if someone tries to abuse them legally for doing the 
> right thing.

  What I meant is that there have been cases where the situation has been
far from clear, and almost certainly a case of completely fair use (more
concretely: a critique on someone else's videos, with short segments of
said videos), where the DMCA claim has been clearly made for spurious
reasons (just to shut down the critique), and where YouTube seemingly
decided not to restore the video because of political, rather than legal,
reasons.

  IIRC when YouTube was sued by big corporations for distributing copyrighted
material, courts decided that YouTube had so-called "safe harbor" status
(in the exact same way as search engines do): They are not guilty of
distributing copyrighted material, their users are, and YouTube itself
is not to blame, as long as they retain a neutral stance and obey copyright
claims and takedown requests.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

The day after SOPA was rejected in the US congress, the US government
took down megaupload.com. Coincidence?

  The prevailing theory is that they were planning on taking it down for
some time (after all, the bureucracy and paperwork involved in this kind
of operation is not something that's done in one day) and were only
waiting for SOPA to pass in order to shut down the site, so that they
would have a justification. It did not pass, so no justification. However,
rather than let all the hard work go to waste, they took the website down
anyways.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 1/21/2012 23:02, Warp wrote:
>    What I meant is that there have been cases where the situation has been
> far from clear, and almost certainly a case of completely fair use (more

Well, yes. I was just pointing out that when it *is* clear, it's not unusual 
for Google (at least) to do the right thing.  There was actually a pretty 
high-profile case just a couple months ago, with "mega" or "meta" or 
something. I don't remember the details, but the DMCA notice took it down 
immediately, and before the owner could even file the response, the outcry 
was such that someone looked at it manually and put it back up again.

>    IIRC when YouTube was sued by big corporations for distributing copyrighted
> material, courts decided that YouTube had so-called "safe harbor" status
> (in the exact same way as search engines do): They are not guilty of
> distributing copyrighted material, their users are, and YouTube itself
> is not to blame, as long as they retain a neutral stance and obey copyright
> claims and takedown requests.

Yes. That's the point of the DMCA takedown stuff. You get to take it down, 
unless the other side argues against it, and the people in the middle just 
have to follow the rules and leave it up to the courts. YouTube can't be 
deciding on their own what's legal and what isn't.

I think we're mostly in agreement here. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-01-22 02:09, Warp a écrit :
>    The day after SOPA was rejected in the US congress, the US government
> took down megaupload.com. Coincidence?
>
>    The prevailing theory is that they were planning on taking it down for
> some time (after all, the bureucracy and paperwork involved in this kind
> of operation is not something that's done in one day) and were only
> waiting for SOPA to pass in order to shut down the site, so that they
> would have a justification. It did not pass, so no justification. However,
> rather than let all the hard work go to waste, they took the website down
> anyways.
>
Using existing laws, proving that PIPA and SOPA were unnecessary after all.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

On 21/01/2012 02:11 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> The super dumb comes from the presumption that they shouldn't have to
> have just cause, or evidence, or a court order, or anything else,
> presumably, other than some moron's "anonymous tip".

Well, it /does/ make it very much easier to quietly censor things you 
don't want people to see, right?

Post a reply to this message

On 1/19/2012 10:56 AM, Invisible wrote:
> (Inevitable, isn't it?)
>
> OK, so a few days ago I hadn't heard of this. (Why would I?) Wikipedia
> was threatening to shut down for a day, in protest of a law which might
> shut it down. (Isn't that like opposing lower motorway speed limits by
> driving really slowly? Weird...)
>
> So for a day Wikipedia was gone. (Or rather, it appears, and then
> immediately vanishes.) QC had a big banner at the top. And XKCD was a
> petition as well.
>
> So what's this all about then? Well, according to Wikipedia (who,
> remember, are protesting this), these are new laws intended to stop
> online content piracy. (This is comparable to passing a law to try to
> make water not wet any more.) Obviously I haven't read the actual text
> of the bills. (I wouldn't understand a word of it.) But according to the
> sources I've seen, there are a number of problems:
>
> 1. If any website contains greater than zero items of illegal content,
> it can be blacklisted.
>
> 2. Proof is not required. A media company merely needs to /claim/ that
> illegal content is present, and the site will be blacklisted. There is
> no requirement to notify the site, nor to prove anything in any court of
> law.

Which is where I man the barricades.  The Spanish Inquisition ended 
centuries ago, and should not be brought back.

> The problem is that it seems to be laughably easy to blacklist
> something, absurdly hard for an innocent site to get itself off the
> blacklist, and lets not forget the best part: Any half-competent
> computer nerd can trivially circumvent the blacklist. So this is going
> to have *such* a big impact on piracy...

Actually, the laughably easy part is for a pirate site to register a new 
domain, spam out their new address to heaven and earth, and be back in 
business in, what, a day?

It is the stereotype of government solutions:  Give authorities an 
easily-abused power that will do little if anything about the problem 
that the law is supposed to combat.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

On 1/19/2012 12:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:56:30 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>
>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>
> They already have that.  It was part of the most recent defense
> appropriations bill that was signed into law.
>
> Obama issued a 'signing statement' saying that his administration
> wouldn't use indefinite detention on American citizens, but there's
> nothing to stop the next administration from doing that.

So the next President could round up the Congressmen who wrote that 
provision, toss them in prison, and tell them that they can go free when 
they repeal it.

I hereby announce my candidacy...

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?

I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.

Post a reply to this message

Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:
> Le 2012-01-22 02:09, Warp a écrit :
> >    The day after SOPA was rejected in the US congress, the US government
> > took down megaupload.com. Coincidence?
> >
> >    The prevailing theory is that they were planning on taking it down for
> > some time (after all, the bureucracy and paperwork involved in this kind
> > of operation is not something that's done in one day) and were only
> > waiting for SOPA to pass in order to shut down the site, so that they
> > would have a justification. It did not pass, so no justification. However,
> > rather than let all the hard work go to waste, they took the website down
> > anyways.
> >
> Using existing laws, proving that PIPA and SOPA were unnecessary after all.

  And now the US government has the IP addresses if millions of people who
have uploaded and downloaded illegal material to megaupload.com. What do
you think they will do with those addresses?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Francois Labreque <fla### [at] videotronca> wrote:
> > Le 2012-01-22 02:09, Warp a écrit :
> > >    The day after SOPA was rejected in the US congress, the US government
> > > took down megaupload.com. Coincidence?
> > >
> > >    The prevailing theory is that they were planning on taking it down for
> > > some time (after all, the bureucracy and paperwork involved in this kind
> > > of operation is not something that's done in one day) and were only
> > > waiting for SOPA to pass in order to shut down the site, so that they
> > > would have a justification. It did not pass, so no justification. However,
> > > rather than let all the hard work go to waste, they took the website down
> > > anyways.
> > >
> > Using existing laws, proving that PIPA and SOPA were unnecessary after all.
>
>   And now the US government has the IP addresses if millions of people who
> have uploaded and downloaded illegal material to megaupload.com. What do
> you think they will do with those addresses?

they'll put the whole of society in jail, aside from those running jailbreakers.

Post a reply to this message

Le 23/01/2012 15:27, Warp a écrit :
>   And now the US government has the IP addresses if millions of people who
> have uploaded and downloaded illegal material to megaupload.com. What do
> you think they will do with those addresses?
> 
They willsold them in auction to a texas based lawyers agency,
specialised in IP prosecution.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:25:43 -0500, John VanSickle wrote:

> On 1/19/2012 12:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:56:30 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> If they were planning to make it legal to lock Americans up without
>>> trial, *that* would be seriously disturbing.
>>
>> They already have that.  It was part of the most recent defense
>> appropriations bill that was signed into law.
>>
>> Obama issued a 'signing statement' saying that his administration
>> wouldn't use indefinite detention on American citizens, but there's
>> nothing to stop the next administration from doing that.
> 
> So the next President could round up the Congressmen who wrote that
> provision, toss them in prison, and tell them that they can go free when
> they repeal it.
> 
> I hereby announce my candidacy...

LOL, I have to admit, I like that. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:14:24 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> On 21/01/2012 02:11 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 
>> The super dumb comes from the presumption that they shouldn't have to
>> have just cause, or evidence, or a court order, or anything else,
>> presumably, other than some moron's "anonymous tip".
> 
> Well, it /does/ make it very much easier to quietly censor things you
> don't want people to see, right?

Not so much, no.  The Internet does an amazing job "routing around 
damage".

Look at the number of times and ways various organisations have tried to 
shut down The Pirate Bay.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>>> The super dumb comes from the presumption that they shouldn't have to
>>> have just cause, or evidence, or a court order, or anything else,
>>> presumably, other than some moron's "anonymous tip".
>>
>> Well, it /does/ make it very much easier to quietly censor things you
>> don't want people to see, right?
>
> Not so much, no.  The Internet does an amazing job "routing around
> damage".

Sure. Any technically sophisticated Internet user won't have too much 
trouble getting around the blacklist. The clueless newbies? Not so much.

> Look at the number of times and ways various organisations have tried to
> shut down The Pirate Bay.

I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even 
*heard* of The Pirate Bay.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:39:32 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> The super dumb comes from the presumption that they shouldn't have to
>>>> have just cause, or evidence, or a court order, or anything else,
>>>> presumably, other than some moron's "anonymous tip".
>>>
>>> Well, it /does/ make it very much easier to quietly censor things you
>>> don't want people to see, right?
>>
>> Not so much, no.  The Internet does an amazing job "routing around
>> damage".
> 
> Sure. Any technically sophisticated Internet user won't have too much
> trouble getting around the blacklist. The clueless newbies? Not so much.

Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more 
than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route around 
the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.

>> Look at the number of times and ways various organisations have tried
>> to shut down The Pirate Bay.
> 
> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even
> *heard* of The Pirate Bay.

<boggle>

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>>>> Well, it /does/ make it very much easier to quietly censor things you
>>>> don't want people to see, right?
>>>
>>> Not so much, no.  The Internet does an amazing job "routing around
>>> damage".
>>
>> Sure. Any technically sophisticated Internet user won't have too much
>> trouble getting around the blacklist. The clueless newbies? Not so much.
>
> Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more
> than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route around
> the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.

Am I missing something?

>>> Look at the number of times and ways various organisations have tried
>>> to shut down The Pirate Bay.
>>
>> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even
>> *heard* of The Pirate Bay.
>
> <boggle>

What? Like it's famous or something?

Post a reply to this message

On 23/01/2012 3:44 PM, Invisible wrote:
>> Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more
>> than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route around
>> the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.
>
> Am I missing something?

<boggle>

>
>>>> Look at the number of times and ways various organisations have tried
>>>> to shut down The Pirate Bay.
>>>
>>> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even
>>> *heard* of The Pirate Bay.
>>
>> <boggle>
>
> What? Like it's famous or something?

<boggle> <boggle>

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:44:47 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>>> Well, it /does/ make it very much easier to quietly censor things
>>>>> you don't want people to see, right?
>>>>
>>>> Not so much, no.  The Internet does an amazing job "routing around
>>>> damage".
>>>
>>> Sure. Any technically sophisticated Internet user won't have too much
>>> trouble getting around the blacklist. The clueless newbies? Not so
>>> much.
>>
>> Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more
>> than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route
>> around the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.
> 
> Am I missing something?

You were aware that Hosni Mubarak is no longer in charge in Egypt and 
that they had a "small" revolution last year, weren't you?

>>>> Look at the number of times and ways various organisations have tried
>>>> to shut down The Pirate Bay.
>>>
>>> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even
>>> *heard* of The Pirate Bay.
>>
>> <boggle>
> 
> What? Like it's famous or something?

Arguably the most famous torrent site in the world.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>>> Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more
>>> than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route
>>> around the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>
> You were aware that Hosni Mubarak is no longer in charge in Egypt and
> that they had a "small" revolution last year, weren't you?

Nope. The politics of remote countries isn't something I generally keep 
up with. (Heck, the politics of *this* country isn't something I avidly 
follow...)

>>>> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even
>>>> *heard* of The Pirate Bay.
>>>
>>> <boggle>
>>
>> What? Like it's famous or something?
>
> Arguably the most famous torrent site in the world.

And Edgar Froese is arguably the most famous band member ever to be in 
Tangerine Dream... Have *you* ever heard of him?

Fame is a relative thing.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
>>>>> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd even
>>>>> *heard* of The Pirate Bay.
>>>>
>>>> <boggle>
>>>
>>> What? Like it's famous or something?
>>
>> Arguably the most famous torrent site in the world.
> 
> And Edgar Froese is arguably the most famous band member ever to be in 
> Tangerine Dream... Have *you* ever heard of him?
> 
> Fame is a relative thing.

Are you really willing to compare the fame of a pretty obscure band to 
the fame of a website that serves every kind of content to pretty much 
everyone in the net?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
> 
> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.

he didn't say comic books, he tablets, you know, like iPad?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
> > Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?

> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.

  I don't know if that was just a jab at tabloids, or if you a honestly have
a confusion of terminology... Either way it's slightly amusing.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 1/23/2012 9:33 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more
>>>> than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route
>>>> around the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.
>>>
>>> Am I missing something?
>>
>> You were aware that Hosni Mubarak is no longer in charge in Egypt and
>> that they had a "small" revolution last year, weren't you?
>
> Nope. The politics of remote countries isn't something I generally keep
> up with. (Heck, the politics of *this* country isn't something I avidly
> follow...)
>
There was a poll done a while back which showed that Fox News viewers 
where like 80%, or something, less likely to know *anything* that was 
going on in their own country, or the rest of the world, including that 
Egypt, and several other countries, had recently had a revolution.

Apparently its possible to not watch Fox, and still have this problem. ;)

Post a reply to this message

On 1/23/2012 8:17 AM, nemesis wrote:
> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:
>> Francois Labreque<fla### [at] videotronca>  wrote:
>>> Le 2012-01-22 02:09, Warp a écrit :
>>>>     The day after SOPA was rejected in the US congress, the US government
>>>> took down megaupload.com. Coincidence?
>>>>
>>>>     The prevailing theory is that they were planning on taking it down for
>>>> some time (after all, the bureucracy and paperwork involved in this kind
>>>> of operation is not something that's done in one day) and were only
>>>> waiting for SOPA to pass in order to shut down the site, so that they
>>>> would have a justification. It did not pass, so no justification. However,
>>>> rather than let all the hard work go to waste, they took the website down
>>>> anyways.
>>>>
>>> Using existing laws, proving that PIPA and SOPA were unnecessary after all.
>>
>>    And now the US government has the IP addresses if millions of people who
>> have uploaded and downloaded illegal material to megaupload.com. What do
>> you think they will do with those addresses?
>
> they'll put the whole of society in jail, aside from those running jailbreakers.
>
>
So much easier than just hoping they will all buy a few ounces of pot, 
and get thrown in jail for that...

Post a reply to this message

On 23/01/2012 9:39 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Fox News

??? :-P

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 23/01/2012 9:41 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> a few ounces of pot

Rich man. :-P

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 23/01/2012 6:13 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> On 23/01/2012 10:29 AM, John VanSickle wrote:
>>> Wait, isn't Pipa some gal who's in the tabloids a lot?
>
>> I wouldn't know; I don't read comic books.
>
>    I don't know if that was just a jab at tabloids, or if you a honestly have
> a confusion of terminology... Either way it's slightly amusing.
>

It was not a joke. He spoke the truth. ;-)
Also called "Red Tops" in the UK.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:33:42 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>> Actually, I don't think many of the users in Egypt were anything more
>>>> than normal users, but the techies made it easy for them to route
>>>> around the government-imposed outage during the uprising there.
>>>
>>> Am I missing something?
>>
>> You were aware that Hosni Mubarak is no longer in charge in Egypt and
>> that they had a "small" revolution last year, weren't you?
> 
> Nope. The politics of remote countries isn't something I generally keep
> up with. (Heck, the politics of *this* country isn't something I avidly
> follow...)

So you didn't hear about any of the so-called "Arab Spring" events?

You do know that the US pulled out of Iraq, yes?  Or were you unaware 
that the US (and the UK) were at war in Iraq?  You know there's a war in 
Afghanistan too, yes?  And that's still going on?

And that Osama Bin Laden is dead?

>>>>> I have to admit, Wikipedia's blackout is the very first time I'd
>>>>> even *heard* of The Pirate Bay.
>>>>
>>>> <boggle>
>>>
>>> What? Like it's famous or something?
>>
>> Arguably the most famous torrent site in the world.
> 
> And Edgar Froese is arguably the most famous band member ever to be in
> Tangerine Dream... Have *you* ever heard of him?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I have - because I have a fair collection of 
Tangerine Dream albums here. :)

> Fame is a relative thing.

It is relative, but there's been a *lot* of news about illegal downloads 
and torrents in the past 5 years or so.  TPB has figured into a lot of 
that news, because the providers keep blocking access, and they keep 
getting unblocked.

I've found it kinda hard to avoid news about that.  I'm wondering how you 
managed it without even trying.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:10:36 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 23/01/2012 9:39 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Fox News
> 
> ??? :-P

Some over here refer to them as "Faux News" - because a fair bit of the 
opinion side is "manufactured rage".

Jim

Post a reply to this message