From PCmag.com
New Bill Would Require U.S. ISPs to Block Pirate Sites:
Full article here:A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators were scheduled Monday to introduce an act that would crack down on sites that traffic in pirated intellectual property, whether or not those sites are housed in the United States.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act is sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and senior Republican member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and co-sponsored by a number of Senate Democrats, including Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), plus others.
The bill takes the novel step of not only cracking down on domestic sites that illegally distribute copyrighted material, but also authorizes the Department of Justice to choke off access to foreign sites, including ordering domestic ISPs and payment providers to either block or stop doing business with the infringing sites.
I don't know what anyone else may think, but it looks like the US is about to get our own version of the Great Firewall Of China.
I don't really have a problem with these measures. In my opinion, it's better if the people simply cannot get to things rather than go after the people after they already got something and they claim that they didn't know any better. And I don't make use of any of these types of sites, so it will have 0 impact on me at present.
Will they block sites like Piratebay?? Oh well I guess if they really cared about legal software, they should have done this long ago. Piracy has been going on for many years. But this won't stop people from trying to get illegal software anyway. Some of them may even see this as a challenge.
This won't stop hackers, there are always other ways to access pirate sites
And this just after our president made a big speech to the U.N. condemning Internet censorship, vowing it will never be implemented in the U.S., and pledging to support efforts to end it overseas?! You've got to be kidding me...
The simple fact is any site could host or have a link to another site that hosts illegal or pirated material at any given time. What people should be worried about is the huge potential for abuse this bill would provide. The judge would be given complete discretion in determining which sites can be blocked, with no firm criteria to protect legitimate sites from being censored.
You are correct...this won't stop hackers. Nothing will stop those determined enough. But some efforts could have an impact on the casual person who can almost accidentally stumble upon this stuff today.
I mean aside from getting pirated software, copyrighted movie downloads and such....what else do sites like The Pirate Bay really offer which would be a bummer if we lost? Or is it simply the access to stuff that "they" say, you "aren't supposed to download".
The problem with setting this type of precedent is that once it is established, then it becomes easy to censor other "suspect" content.. say websites that offer political dissent... and it all started out with the best of intentions... to curb piracy ... but the road to he*l is paved with good intentions...
Well said.The problem with setting this type of precedent is that once it is established, then it becomes easy to censor other "suspect" content.. say websites that offer political dissent... and it all started out with the best of intentions... to curb piracy ... but the road to he*l is paved with good intentions...
