New Bill Would Require U.S. ISPs to Block Pirate Sites

BCXtreme said:

And who's going to watchdog everything to make sure only true piracy sites are being blocked?

The type of sites that would be blocked by something like this would be the big, obvious, no doubt about it web sites that specialize in nothing but doing illegal downloads.

You guys crack me up with your fears that it will target small websites or accidentally stop something that shouldn't be blocked....therefore it's an awful or a terrible idea.

Can anybody here really say that they have used the Pirate Bay for anything other than illegal downloading or content? Would outright blocking of this website seem inappropriate to anybody?

Layback Bear said:

Blocking known sites that deal in illegal products doesn't bother me. It's about time. Many people use torrents to get something they don't want to pay for but they should pay for. Now some worry about the poor old server, Bull Droppings. I read it all and I didn't notice anything about blocking sites with opinions given. We protects banks not because everybody is a bank robber but rather because there are bank robbers. Putting locks on banks don't stop all bank robbers, just most of them. The same with blocking known illegal sites. It will stop most from using them but not all.

Putting locks on banks stops most bank robbers?? Huh? They're only called "bank robbers" because they succeeded, not because they tried and failed! The most the locks do is slow them down a little and make it harder. Anyway, the locks on a bank are more akin to DRM.

Again, the problem is that you're putting absolute confidence in an entity that they're not going to misuse power.

The biggest problem here is that the act of visiting a torrent site is not illegal. It's like making a law that says you're not allowed to walk within 100 feet of someone else's car, so that we can be sure you won't steal the car.

pparks1 said:

BCXtreme said:

And who's going to watchdog everything to make sure only true piracy sites are being blocked?

The type of sites that would be blocked by something like this would be the big, obvious, no doubt about it web sites that specialize in nothing but doing illegal downloads.

You guys crack me up with your fears that it will target small websites or accidentally stop something that shouldn't be blocked....therefore it's an awful or a terrible idea.

Can anybody here really say that they have used the Pirate Bay for anything other than illegal downloading or content? Would outright blocking of this website seem inappropriate to anybody?

pparks1, we're not afraid that something will be accidentally blocked that shouldn't be. We're afraid that something will be PURPOSEFULLY blocked that shouldn't be, a la the Great Firewall.

Product FRED said:

Pirating is sharing files. So essentially, one would have to disable copy and paste, click and drag, uploading and downloading.

pirating is not "sharing" files. It's sharing files that are not legal to share...there is a really big difference here.

Product FRED said:

Sidenote, torrenting is much more efficient than traditional downloading since it puts a small load on several clients rather than a large load on a single server.

Yes, torrenting is more efficient. Nobody said, "they are going to block torrents". I torrent Linux distributions all of the time because it's the fastest way for me to do it. And going forward, this torrenting would be allowed without question. However, if you are torrenting something like PhotoShop, Microsoft Office of Illustrator....then this is something altogether different.

BCXtreme said:

Again, the problem is that you're putting absolute confidence in an entity that they're not going to misuse power.

The problem I see is that you are saying because "you" could imagine this spiraling out of control means that it cannot be done at any level.

BCXtreme said:

The biggest problem here is that the act of visiting a torrent site is not illegal. It's like making a law that says you're not allowed to walk within 100 feet of someone else's car, so that we can be sure you won't steal the car.

Again, nobody said "we will block all torrents". But they might say, we will block access to The Pirate Bay where people go to get those torrent downloads in the first place. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If we pull our heads out of the sand for a second, we know why these types of sites are operated offshore? So, it doesn't seem all that odd to me to just outright ban them. If you don't like it..feel free to move out of the United States and go elsewhere where it is allowed.

pparks1 said:

BCXtreme said:

Again, the problem is that you're putting absolute confidence in an entity that they're not going to misuse power.

The problem I see is that you are saying because "you" could imagine this spiraling out of control means that it cannot be done at any level.

And I suppose you'd be fully willing to trust something like this to the government? You honestly can't picture them taking advantage of it?

BCXtreme said:

The biggest problem here is that the act of visiting a torrent site is not illegal. It's like making a law that says you're not allowed to walk within 100 feet of someone else's car, so that we can be sure you won't steal the car.

Again, nobody said "we will block all torrents". But they might say, we will block access to The Pirate Bay where people go to get those torrent downloads in the first place. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.[/QUOTE]

Actually, torrents never contain illegal content. They contain links to illegal content. And websites contain links to those torrents, and hey, Google contains links to those websites, and other websites contain links to Google ... BAM, Great Firewall.

Ho. Hum. Here we go again.
To an Australian this has been done to death, we have been talking about this for a very long time when the Government tried to implement a filter to stop these sights.
Bottom line, it won't work because any ten year old will know how to circumvent it.
Just Google Australian filter and you will find everything that is going to be posted here.

kodi said:

Ho. Hum. Here we go again.
To an Australian this has been done to death, we have been talking about this for a very long time when the Government tried to implement a filter to stop these sights.
Bottom line, it won't work because any ten year old will know how to circumvent it.
Just Google Australian filter and you will find everything that is going to be posted here.

Exactly. Which is why the only real effect of this bill, would be to give government more power.

BCXtreme said:

Exactly. Which is why the only real effect of this bill, would be to give government more power.

Our government already has deemed that download of this type of content is illegal and you can be prosecuted if caught and are responsible to pay fines, fees and royalties. This is simply taking an action to enforce those rules. I don't really see where we are giving up our civil liberties by taking a bit of action.

And I'll be honest, I'm not the type that is terrified of the government, policies and such. I rarely see major things like these really having an impact on my day-to-day life.

Now, the day they try to say that pornography should not be allowed on the internet and block access to something like that is the day that I cry foul. While porn is not for everybody, it's not illegal and much of it is not being traded illegally. This is one area where that Australian filter was over the top because they really were trying to deem which should and shoudn't be allowed based on this type of content. It wasn't as if they only tried to control content previously deemed as illegal.