Can Internet Blacklists Be Stopped?

[wittgenstein]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-segal/stop-the-internet-blackli_b_739836.html

 

[NeoDevin]

Could we just blacklist huffingtonpost.com?

 

[Proton Soup]

kill the internet kill switch?

 

[fatra2]

Hi there,

I don't know what your point was in giving this link. Being a firm believer in IT freedom, I signed this.

Cheers

 

[Evo]

The point is that the movie industry is wanting a law that could possibly allow the complete shutdown of sites like youtube instead of just having them remove copyrighted links as they are reported.

Here are the supporters

Motion Picture Association of America
US Chamber of Commerce
Screen Actors Guild
Viacom
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3804

 

[mugaliens]

I signed the petition, even though the bill will undoubtedly be challenged on it's Constitutionality. I'd rather see it killed sooner than later.

 

[Evo]

Bump, I can't believe that more people didn't pay attention to this.

 

[Hepth]

Is there anyway of telling when this will actually go to the senate for vote?

 

[Proton Soup]

The point is that the movie industry is wanting a law that could possibly allow the complete shutdown of sites like youtube instead of just having them remove copyrighted links as they are reported.

Here are the supporters

Motion Picture Association of America
US Chamber of Commerce
Screen Actors Guild
Viacom
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3804

curious to know if the whole wikileaks thing has changed your position on this.

 

[russ_watters]

It hasn't changed mine. Why would it? I don't see anything the two situations have in common.

 

[Evo]

curious to know if the whole wikileaks thing has changed your position on this.

No, why would it?

 

[Proton Soup]

No, why would it?

i guess it really depends on whether it can be used to block sites that infinge on what the government might consider its own intellectual property.

the restrictions on advertisers is interesting, too, especially considering that Google is an advertiser.

 

[nismaratwork]

i guess it really depends on whether it can be used to block sites that infinge on what the government might consider its own intellectual property.

the restrictions on advertisers is interesting, too, especially considering that Google is an advertiser.

The government doesn't have a right to IP in the way you're describing. This is a censorship measure that would have one certain impact:

The us is currently a major hub for web traffic, but if this occurs massive changes in WWW infrastructure will have to occur as other nations compensate for US censorship. This bill would be murder for our "information economy", even if it is later repealed.

I imagine for that reason it will never be passed...

 

[Evo]

The government doesn't have a right to IP in the way you're describing. This is a censorship measure that would have one certain impact:

The us is currently a major hub for web traffic, but if this occurs massive changes in WWW infrastructure will have to occur as other nations compensate for US censorship. This bill would be murder for our "information economy", even if it is later repealed.

I imagine for that reason it will never be passed...

Many countries block access to websites. Australia has blocked wikileaks, for example. It's quite easy.

 

[nismaratwork]

Many countries block access to websites. Australia has blocked wikileaks, for example. It's quite easy.

Sure, and China blocks huge amounts of data, as do many middle-eastern states. The result is that an industry in other nations has grown to re-route data through secure tunneling proxies, or other means, all while the sites are not hosted in China.

I'll say it again, the way the internet works... you can shut it off, you can persecute people in a game of cat and mouse and fail or a number of other strategies that all fail... or you can leave it on. There is 'middle ground' here. CoTDC realized that even the most harsh regime that limits bandwidth can't stop a secure proxy in another country from 'dialing' the website.

With an affluent country like the USA, you would have nations lining up to provide secure bandwidth for proxies; it would be an economic windfall for them.

 

[Proton Soup]

Many countries block access to websites. Australia has blocked wikileaks, for example. It's quite easy.

what level of blocking do they use? currently, if i google "wikileaks", i don't a domain name, but i get an IP address.

 

[nismaratwork]

AU couldn't block a rock with a sieve if it was online. The only countries that do are ones that actually hunt you down and arrest or kill you if you get caught, and AU is civilized, as is the US.

 

[Evo]

AU couldn't block a rock with a sieve if it was online. The only countries that do are ones that actually hunt you down and arrest or kill you if you get caught, and AU is civilized, as is the US.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/18/aussie_firewall_wikileaks/

 

[chiro]

One of the founders of The Pirate Bay have come out saying that they are working on or considering working on a p2p DNS system.

Personally I'd be ecstatic if that came out: anything centralized like the current DNS system is just waiting to be abused, decentralization especially in the way Sunde is saying is a fantastic idea.

 

[Zryn]

Wikileaks is not blocked in Australia as of right now, whereas that article appears to have been written in March 2009 ...

 

[nismaratwork]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/18/aussie_firewall_wikileaks/

I don't understand... that doesn't mean that given seconds an Australian couldn't view those pages with a proxy. They don't need to be secure or fast for most sites in a country where you won't be jailed, killed, persecuted, or arrested for bypassing censorship. The reason China's firewall works to some extent is that they will shoot you in the head if you're caught bypassing it. With those stakes, it takes youth, balls, or conviction to take a chance on even secure means.

In the AU, and the US... it's not even ILLEGAL, just censored.

chiro: Think private networks that let people bypass Battlenet, with a decentralized system to add capacity, flexibility, and hardiness. Hell, it could even be lightly PGP encrypted, and if the traffic volume was high enough it would be hell to decode.

Again, examples that censorship like this is a fight of a few individuals against a whole populace that, for the first time, doesn't have to pick up a sword or gun to revolt.

 

[Evo]

Australia also doesn't want him back.

Australia warns WikiLeaks' Assange of charges if he returns

http://en.trend.az/regions/world/ocountries/1789035.html

But this is off topic to US blacklists, which is the topic.

 

[Zryn]

Apologies for continuing with an off topic theme, but that article was written on the 29th of November, and these two articles from an Australian news paper (Sydney Morning Herald) dated 17th December and 20th December appear to contradict your generalization.

Australia also doesn't want him back.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/julian-assange-has-committed-no-crime-in-australia-afp-20101217-190eb.html"

Reported as coming from the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/lawyer-savages-us-comments-on-assange-20101220-1938n.html"

Reported as coming from an Australian Human Rights Lawyer.

 

[WhoWee]

Perhaps Wikileaks may have an upside for anyone that wants to control the internet?

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

 

[edward]

The point is that the movie industry is wanting a law that could possibly allow the complete shutdown of sites like youtube instead of just having them remove copyrighted links as they are reported.

Here are the supporters

Motion Picture Association of America
US Chamber of Commerce
Screen Actors Guild
Viacom
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3804

Of those on the list the US Chamber of commerce appears to have the most political clout and are well funded by both known and annonomous donors.

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation's financial regulations.

Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed new rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.

And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has helped wage a national campaign to limit the ability of trial lawyers to sue businesses.

These large donations -- none of which were publicly disclosed by the chamber, a tax-exempt group that keeps its donors secret..

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/10/large_corporate_donations_help.html

 

[Evo]

The list of supporters has increased. Here is the current list of organizations backing the blacklist.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters
International Association of Fire Fighters
Property Rights Alliance
Motion Picture Association of America
Association of American Publishers
NBC Universal
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Entertainment Software Association
Merck
Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse
Johnson and Johnson
Xerox Corporation
Building & Construction Trades Department
US Chamber of Commerce
Screen Actors Guild
Viacom
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States
Warner Music Group
Tiffany & Co
Major League Baseball
Fortune Brands
Nike Inc
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union
Communication Workers of America

 

[nismaratwork]

The list of supporters has increased. Here is the current list of organizations backing the blacklist.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters
International Association of Fire Fighters
Property Rights Alliance
Motion Picture Association of America
Association of American Publishers
NBC Universal
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
Entertainment Software Association
Merck
Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse
Johnson and Johnson
Xerox Corporation
Building & Construction Trades Department
US Chamber of Commerce
Screen Actors Guild
Viacom
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States
Warner Music Group
Tiffany & Co
Major League Baseball
Fortune Brands
Nike Inc
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union
Communication Workers of America

No MS, no Google, No Apple, No Sony = HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[dilletante]

I have mixed feelings on this act, given that I lean towards a Libertarian philosophy. But I also own a record label and piracy is very literally destroying the record business. I was shocked when the last album that I released appeared on several pirate sites for free download on the day of its release, complete with a picture of the album and track listings.

People in general seem to rationalize a difference between intellectual property and physical property. Many people who would never consider walking into a store and shoplifting an item, seem to have no such reluctance towards downloading music for free. Developing and marketing an album is an expensive process -- the artist gets a sizeable advance, the label pays for hundreds of hours of studio time, you pay hundreds of thousands in promotional expenses, and then you see your product offered for free before it even hits the stores.

The Act is pretty specific -- it defines sites that are subject to restraint as those which are:

(1) subject to civil forfeiture;
(2) designed primarily to offer goods or services in violation of federal copyright law; or
(3) selling or promoting counterfeit goods or services.

I don't know whether this is a good or bad Act. I suppose like anything else it depends on whether it is intelligently applied. I don't think it is aimed at YouTube or other sites that are not created with a specific intent to pirate goods. I am not sure I am in favor of it, but I do know that counterfeiting costs legitimate businesses billions of dollars per year, and those costs are either passed along to honest consumers as higher prices, or companies that people put a lot of hard work into, fold.

 

[nismaratwork]

I have mixed feelings on this act, given that I lean towards a Libertarian philosophy. But I also own a record label and piracy is very literally destroying the record business. I was shocked when the last album that I released appeared on several pirate sites for free download on the day of its release, complete with a picture of the album and track listings.

People in general seem to rationalize a difference between intellectual property and physical property. Many people who would never consider walking into a store and shoplifting an item, seem to have no such reluctance towards downloading music for free. Developing and marketing an album is an expensive process -- the artist gets a sizeable advance, the label pays for hundreds of hours of studio time, you pay hundreds of thousands in promotional expenses, and then you see your product offered for free before it even hits the stores.

The Act is pretty specific -- it defines sites that are subject to restraint as those which are:

(1) subject to civil forfeiture;
(2) designed primarily to offer goods or services in violation of federal copyright law; or
(3) selling or promoting counterfeit goods or services.

I don't know whether this is a good or bad Act. I suppose like anything else it depends on whether it is intelligently applied. I don't think it is aimed at YouTube or other sites that are not created with a specific intent to pirate goods. I am not sure I am in favor of it, but I do know that counterfeiting costs legitimate businesses billions of dollars per year, and those costs are either passed along to honest consumers as higher prices, or companies that people put a lot of hard work into, fold.

The keyword you have there is, "Rationalize". A significant portion of the populace (according to your experience, and mine as well) steals IP when they can... and they can. People are driven to get that free product for many reasons, the first of which is that when you make a copy of a digitally transmissible product you don't reduce the availability of it in the way a physical commodity is reduced by theft. I think people recognize that and it forms the basis for their comfort level with the theft, rationalizations aside.

It might be worth noting that while I would hate to see what would happen if the Treasury every stopped trying to thwart currency counterfeiters, they have also failed to wipe out the practice even with amazing resources. Those kind of resources will NEVER be brought to bear on what is a crime which doesn't have national security implications. Given that. and given that you need to MAKE physical copies of money... do you think anything that a government does could decrease the number of pirated copies of your products?

The best that can be done is to reduce the rate at which your loss occurs, but it does seem likely to be total eventually. If you could steal cars without actually TAKING anyone's car, leaving your home, or facing significant penalty people would stop buying cars. The very nature of the problem makes it impossible to quench the way industries need. At this point, it's adapt or die...


...besides, how many of those sites you notes were hosted in the USA? How many COULD be tracked, and not just shut down until they mirror elsewhere? I know you're feeling the squeeze, but does this actually help you in any way, or does it just make it harder for you to see who is screwing you.

 

[dilletante]

I would have to disagree with some of your points. I doubt that the fact that physical availability is not reduced plays much of a part in the thinking of intellectual property thieves. Most do not consider themselves to be thieves -- it is just something offered to them, and they take advantage of that because everyone else does. And you don't need to make physical copies of money. Most money is digital, just 1's and 0's on a computer like a lot of music. And digital money gets stolen, also.

But everyone is aware that counterfeiting money is a crime. I would argue that most people sharing their music, or downloading for free, don't consider it to be a crime. People don't like to think of themselves as criminals. So I think that educating people on that aspect is helpful, and while laws won't necessarily stop the practice, they do make it clear to some people that they are performing illegal acts.

I hope you are wrong that everyone would steal a car if it was easy to do and somewhat punishment-free. And I am not sure what your point is. You seem to make the argument that since we cannot stop all theft, it is pointless to try to stop any of it. You are correct however that the industry will have to find ways to adapt.

 

[nismaratwork]

I would have to disagree with some of your points. I doubt that the fact that physical availability is not reduced plays much of a part in the thinking of intellectual property thieves. Most do not consider themselves to be thieves -- it is just something offered to them, and they take advantage of that because everyone else does. And you don't need to make physical copies of money. Most money is digital, just 1's and 0's on a computer like a lot of music. And digital money gets stolen, also.

But everyone is aware that counterfeiting money is a crime. I would argue that most people sharing their music, or downloading for free, don't consider it to be a crime. People don't like to think of themselves as criminals. So I think that educating people on that aspect is helpful, and while laws won't necessarily stop the practice, they do make it clear to some people that they are performing illegal acts.

I hope you are wrong that everyone would steal a car if it was easy to do and somewhat punishment-free. And I am not sure what your point is. You seem to make the argument that since we cannot stop all theft, it is pointless to try to stop any of it. You are correct however that the industry will have to find ways to adapt.

Oh hell, I had a long and really good response to this, which I then lost thanks to my browser. Let me boil it down to this:

Steal a car and it's gone... you can move them around, but you can't magically create more cars.
If you could however... then I think many people when given the choice to:
1.) Buy a car the way we do now
2.) Press a button and a car appears in your driveway that is indistinguishable from the one in example #1. In doing this, you also haven't reduced the number of cars the dealership has.

To understand why that was theft requires that the pirate understand and care enough that he's essentially counterfeiting, as you say. The thing is, a car is a big piece of SOMETHING, which we can watch being made with materials and techniques that cost money. Software, Books, Music, Movies... they're not so easy. There's time put in, and personal effort which is harder for (especially young) people to grasp. In the case of cars, you'd eventually kill BMW's primary motivation for making cars, and in the case of music, they should realize, the same is true.

The thing is that throughout history art and music, performance and such were often patronized or sponsored, but not a source of great wealth. How much profit should be made per song?... I don't know, and I think stealing is wrong! It's a tough question. I'm getting deluged right now so I'll try and remember some of what I typed later.

 

[Proton Soup]

No MS, no Google, No Apple, No Sony = HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

but Teamsters and Firefighters. something goofy is going on.

 

[Evo]

but Teamsters and Firefighters. something goofy is going on.

Unions cover each other, whether it makes sense or not. That's what is so scary.

 

[nismaratwork]

but Teamsters and Firefighters. something goofy is going on.

Yeah, Evo is right on this one. It is... incredibly odd though. The mentality of unions today is so divorced from the reality of their original purpose that it's just pathetic.

 

[WhoWee]

Yeah, Evo is right on this one. It is... incredibly odd though. The mentality of unions today is so divorced from the reality of their original purpose that it's just pathetic.

That sounds like a good thread topic - the evolution of unions...