Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee - DHS seizing domain names

[ManaByte]

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/coica-web-censorship-bill/

Web Censorship Bill Sails Through Senate Committee

Who says Congress never gets anything done?

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.”

COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and the big media companies to stem the tidal wave of internet file sharing that has upended those industries and, they claim, cost them tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.

The content companies have tried suing college students. They’ve tried suing internet startups. Now they want the federal government to act as their private security agents, policing the internet for suspected pirates before making them walk the digital plank.

Many people opposed to the bill agree in principle with its aims: Illegal music piracy is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. Musicians, artists and content creators should be compensated for their work. But the law’s critics do not believe that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites at will based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is a particularly good idea. COICA must still be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. A vote is unlikely before the new year.

Among the sites that could go dark if the law passes: Dropbox, RapidShare, SoundCloud, Hype Machine and any other site for which the Attorney General deems copyright infringement to be “central to the activity” of the site, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that opposes the bill. There need not even be illegal content on a site — links alone will qualify a site for digital death. Websites at risk could also theoretically include p2pnet and pirate-party.us or any other website that advocates for peer-to-peer file sharing or rejects copyright law, according to the group.

In short, COICA would allow the federal government to censor the internet without due process.

The mechanism by which the government would do this, according to the bill, is the internet’s Domain Name System (DNS), which translates web addresses into IP addresses. The bill would give the Attorney General the power to simply obtain a court order requiring internet service providers to pull the plug on suspected websites.

Scholars, lawyers, technologists, human rights groups and public interest groups have denounced the bill. Forty-nine prominent law professors called it “dangerous.” (pdf.) The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch warned the bill could have “grave repercussions for global human rights.” (pdf.) Several dozen of the most prominent internet engineers in the country — many of whom were instrumental in the creation of the internet — said the bill will “create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation.” (pdf.) Several prominent conservative bloggers, including representatives from RedState.com, HotAir.com, The Next Right and Publius Forum, issued a call to help stop this “serious threat to the Internet.”

And Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, said, “Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims.” He added: “In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that no person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty.”

Critics of the bill object to it on a number of grounds, starting with this one: “The Act is an unconstitutional abridgment of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,” the 49 law professors wrote. “The Act permits the issuance of speech suppressing injunctions without any meaningful opportunity for any party to contest the Attorney General’s allegations of unlawful content.” (original emphasis.)

Because it is so ill-conceived and poorly written, the law professors wrote, “the Act, if enacted into law, will not survive judicial scrutiny, and will, therefore, never be used to address the problem (online copyright and trademark infringement) that it is designed to address. Its significance, therefore, is entirely symbolic — and the symbolism it presents is ugly and insidious. For the first time, the United States would be requiring Internet Service Providers to block speech because of its content.”

The law professors noted that the bill would actually undermine United States policy, enunciated forcefully by Secretary of State Clinton, which calls for global internet freedom and opposes web censorship. “Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere,” Clinton said in her landmark speech on global internet freedom earlier this year. She was referring to China. Apparently some of Mrs. Clinton’s former colleagues in the U.S. Senate approve of internet censorship in the United States.

To be fair, COICA does have some supporters in addition to sponsor Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) and his 17 co-sponsors including Schumer, Specter, Grassley, Gillibrand, Hatch, Klobuchar, Coburn, Durbin, Feinstein, Menendez and Whitehouse. Mark Corallo, who served as chief spokesperson for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and as spokesman for Karl Rove during the Valerie Plame affair, wrote Thursday on The Daily Caller: “The Internet is not at risk of being censored.  But without robust protections that match technological advances making online theft easy, the creators of American products will continue to suffer.”

“Counterfeiting and online theft of intellectual property is having devastating effects on industries where millions of Americans make a living,” wrote Corallo, who now runs a Virginia-based public relations firm and freely admits that he has “represented copyright and patent-based businesses for years.” “Their futures are at risk due to Internet-based theft.”

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels, praised Leahy for his work, “to insure [sic] that the Internet is a civilized medium instead of a lawless one where foreign sites that put Americans at risk are allowed to flourish.”

Over the course of his career, Leahy has received $885,216 from the TV, movie and music industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

[brawndolicious]

They can randomly access your info on dropbox?

[Vizzys]

it hasnt passed, and it wont pass

[Raban]

Manabyte I hate your thread titles. You're so melodramatic.

[Eel O'Brian]

man i wish i owned some banks of foreign servers right about now

[Eel O'Brian]

Manabyte I hate your thread titles. You're so melodramatic.

this is a pretty big deal, though

[Diunx]

lol tough luck America.

[Mupepe]

I don't think a lot of these people realize that the vast majority of people actually don't know how to pirate music/movies anymore.  This isn't going to fix your sales.  I know only a handful of people that know how to use torrents.  The average person stopped after p2p shit like kazaa went under and now they generally just don't give a shit about buying albums.  Ridiculous.

[Eel O'Brian]

Sponsor:
Patrick Leahy [D-VT]

Cosponsors:
Lamar Alexander [R-TN]
Evan Bayh [D-IN]
Benjamin Cardin [D-MD]
Thomas Coburn [R-OK]
Richard Durbin [D-IL]
Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]
Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Lindsey Graham [R-SC]
Charles Grassley [R-IA]
Orrin Hatch [R-UT]
Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Herbert Kohl [D-WI]
Robert Menéndez [D-NJ]
Charles Schumer [D-NY]
Arlen Specter [D-PA]
George Voinovich [R-OH]
Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI]

[Mupepe]

You wouldn't download a car, would you Billy???

[Eel O'Brian]

it's the link part that bothers me the most, and it's not blowing things out of proportion to say that yeah, they could very well pull the plug on even a dinky forum like evilbore should someone complain enough, just because someone posted a link to one of their flagged sites

if you're hosting files, well, you should already know the score there, certainly

[Van Cruncheon]

this is a bill, folks (not named billy rygar, who will in fact have his internet reduced to nothing more than an endless stream of ads for korean browser games). committees approve more insane bills than this on a daily basis, and most never even pass a trial vote. manabyte is a histrionic tardtron and obama is going to come to his house and personally have his collection of jizzed up pewter disney princess figurines moved under protection of the socialist nanny state.

look at the house and senate committee bills for a given week -- most of them are posted online -- and you'll see the sort of insanity that will dissolve your dungarees with urine. most of them never get out of committee, and the rest fail a trial vote, much less a full floor vote.

you are all still cleared to pirate lil wayne albums!

[Eel O'Brian]

yeah, but most of those other bills don't have multiple companies worth multibillions backing them, either

[Van Cruncheon]

and some do! if it clears a test vote, i will be concerned. until then, i can't afford to be scared by every single distinguished mentally-challenged thing our pathetically elected officials think about inflicting on us in the name of their jagoff corporate sponsors. there are still quite a few lines of defense this has to clear. my only REAL concern is that it has such broad bipartisan support.

[Eel O'Brian]

that's what i'm saying, that money's spread out all over with even more coming along behind the initial truckloads, and i think it has a good chance of going all the way through

as far as i'm concerned, after the patriot act, there is no such thing as overreaction to bills being introduced which give the guv more control over your life

[Van Cruncheon]

fair enough, but i still assert that if manabyte is hysterical about it, it's probably not a real threat -- yet

if there has been one constant in my internet life, it is that kooks magnify the ultimately trivial

[Bocsius]

Seems like a reasonable proposal to me.

*did not read
**but piracy is stupid, so I'm down for whatever.
***whatever does not include bloodshed.
****unless it is certain people that are shedding blood, then I'm once again for it.

[Himu]

it hasnt passed, and it wont pass

It will pass. The president backs it and it's supported d by both dems and gop.

[Himu]

that's what i'm saying, that money's spread out all over with even more coming along behind the initial truckloads, and i think it has a good chance of going all the way through

as far as i'm concerned, after the patriot act, there is no such thing as overreaction to bills being introduced which give the guv more control over your life

i wonder how many of those republicans on that list are tea party drones who complain about big government and can't see the hypocrisy/irony of this at all.

Also, piracy isn't the biggest issue (okay, let's be honest, it is), freedom of speech is. For all we know they could go after wikileaks.

[OptimoPeach]

lol I doubt anything is going to change even if this does pass. Every p2p site that gets pulled will be replaced by two more that pop up to serve the same purpose, just as it's been for the past decade

[Oblivion]

The internet had a good run.  I guess we'll be moving the 'bore to regular old mail now.

Waiting 3-4 days for cock picks won't be so bad. It's how the founding fathers did it, afterall.

[Mandark]

On one hand

Circumvention of due process


On the other hand

Nerds getting self-righteous when someone threatens their God-given right to free shit

[ToxicAdam]

I got mine when I was 18-25. Sorry about the future generation's luck.

[pilonv1]

Joe Rogan: "You cant stop the internet"

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I hope it does pass.

Pirates with entitlement complexes rank up there with furries and Nintendo fanboys as the most annoying internet characters I've come across.

[Eel O'Brian]

This is too broad and vague a bill for it to be just about piracy.  If it passes, it will be abused, guaranteed.  I honestly can't believe anyone would be behind it as it is currently worded.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

This is too broad and vague a bill for it to be just about piracy.  If it passes, it will be abused, guaranteed.  I honestly can't believe anyone would be behind it as it is currently worded.

Strict corporate or government control of the internet is inevitable, the way I see it.

[Himu]

I like how people keep bringing up piracy and are ignoring wikileaks, or even youtube.

Yeah, let's support the government black listing sites they don't like! Take that dirty pirates!

Meanwhile, you're letting the internet become even more corporate controlled for superficial "haha take that!" complex.

[Groogrux]

I've been following this bill for a few months now.  I've discovered that it is primarily targeted at four big sites: Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Youtube, and Wikileaks.  The big players in this bill are the government officials who want wikileaks to stop airing their dirty laundry, the MPAA, Viacom, and a collection of record companies.  They each have their own targets to take out with this bill.

This actually has a pretty decent chance of passing.  A lot of money has been thrown at it to make it go through with haste.

The big thing that nobody is mentioning is that they won't be shutting down the websites.  This bill just gives the Attorney General the power to "encourage" (with force) the ISP's to block the website's address.  You'll still be able to access the site with their IP address because the site itself cannot be shut down.

Evilbore is 74.208.97.106
Youtube is 74.125.127.93
Demonoid is 62.149.24.66
Wikileaks is 91.194.60.32

[Himu]

BUBUBUBUT FILTHY PIRATES

[Himu]

I truly hope they do pressure isps to block youtube. It would result in a huge fucking clusterfuck. EVERYONE uses youtube. It won't knock the senility out of these old farts but it'd sure as fuck be hilarious watching them burn.

[Brehvolution]

I've been following this bill for a few months now.  I've discovered that it is primarily targeted at four big sites: Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Youtube, and Wikileaks.  The big players in this bill are the government officials who want wikileaks to stop airing their dirty laundry, the MPAA, Viacom, and a collection of record companies.  They each have their own targets to take out with this bill.

This actually has a pretty decent chance of passing.  A lot of money has been thrown at it to make it go through with haste.

The big thing that nobody is mentioning is that they won't be shutting down the websites.  This bill just gives the Attorney General the power to "encourage" (with force) the ISP's to block the website's address.  You'll still be able to access the site with their IP address because the site itself cannot be shut down.

Evilbore is 74.208.97.106
Youtube is 74.125.127.93
Demonoid is 62.149.24.66
Wikileaks is 91.194.60.32

This is how I see it. It hurts the limewire generation(people like my sister, prison guards, fox news watchers)  more than it would any of us.

[Diunx]

I've been following this bill for a few months now.  I've discovered that it is primarily targeted at four big sites: Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Youtube, and Wikileaks.  The big players in this bill are the government officials who want wikileaks to stop airing their dirty laundry, the MPAA, Viacom, and a collection of record companies.  They each have their own targets to take out with this bill.

This actually has a pretty decent chance of passing.  A lot of money has been thrown at it to make it go through with haste.

The big thing that nobody is mentioning is that they won't be shutting down the websites.  This bill just gives the Attorney General the power to "encourage" (with force) the ISP's to block the website's address.  You'll still be able to access the site with their IP address because the site itself cannot be shut down.

Evilbore is 74.208.97.106
Youtube is 74.125.127.93
Demonoid is 62.149.24.66
Wikileaks is 91.194.60.32

Meh that never works on my school.

[ManaByte]

Shutting down Youtube would be enough for people to take up arms and the Second Revolution to begin.

[ManaByte]

Youtube, or any other service that does a good job policing it's uploads won't be shut down, you filthy mongs.  Jesus Crossfucking Christ.

http://questional.com/blog/110-will-new-coica-legislation-change-the-internet/

While interpretation and enforcement of the COICA, should it pass, remains at judiciary discretion, an example of the potential complexities of Online Copyright enforcement exists in YouTube. YouTube, the most popular video sharing domain, routinely removes videos for copyright infringement and even disavows responsibility for such content in their Terms of Service. While many opponents of the new legislation contend YouTube makes sufficient efforts in compliance, telling documents surfaced during a recent lawsuit between media giant Viacom and Youtube. In a 2005 e-mail, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen estimated that pirated videos account for the majority of YouTube Traffic, “If [we] remove all [obviously infringing] content, we go from 100,000 views a day down to about 20,000.”

In another e-mail that same year Chen remarked on the limitations of current copyright enforcement by suggesting YouTube should not feel compelled to remove pirated videos, “but we should just keep all that stuff on the site. I really don't see what will happen. What? Someone from cnn sees it? He happens to be someone with power? He happens to want to take it down right away. He gets in touch with cnn legal. 2 weeks later, we get a cease & desist letter. We take the video down.” Under COICA provisions the laissaz-faire enforcement allowing Chen's approach would end. Aggregating content alone would now be sufficient infringement subjecting youtube.com to injunction. Even YouTube's expansive Terms of Service wouldn't negate accountability as the COICA is in essence a higher power in regards to Terms of Service for domain managers.

[Mupepe]

Yeah, Manabyte, but Youtube's big parent company and extensive legal team would probably be enough to get something worked out with whoever complains.

[ManaByte]

That's the thing. If they try to go after Youtube it'll be Google vs. the US Government. But based on what happened in China, Google will cave in and allow the shutdown.

[Mupepe]

Except that unlike China, Americans LOVE youtube.  It's a huuuuuuuuge cultural centerpiece of the internet for Americans.  People will throw shitfits.

[ManaByte]

10 seconds after the law goes into effect, Viacom will file a complaint to shut down Youtube. They have a full time staff that does nothing but search Youtube for videos to pull down.

[Van Cruncheon]

this seems to be more of an attack on wikileaks and julian assange than anything else. hm, maybe i AM a wee bit concerned here.

[Bloodwake]

GO USA



Next, let's round up people we don't like and put them in camps!

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Youtube ain't going away with this bill.  There's a good chance, assuming it passes, that Google will do whatever to make sure it complies with the new rules.  I think it will target more of the stuff like WikiLeaks and other political sites.

Again, like I said, the internet was inevitably going to hit a crossroads where it will be under strict corporate control or strict government control.  The internet is too "wild west" for corporations and the government and they hate that.  Especially since internet sites allow people to buy goods without paying a sales tax or people can find out just how safe corn sugar really is.  Too much free speech allowed in a media format.

I'm not too concerned because it was inevitable.  I figured Bush and Co would have enacted stricter internet enforcement.

[ManaByte]

Too much free speech allowed in a media format.

It's scary that people think there is such a thing as too much free speech.

[Mupepe]

It's not that there's too much free speech I think, it's that there's too many people able to see it now.  I don't believe Youtube will go under because of this but the wikileaks shit is definitely worrying.

[Dickie Dee]

I'd though it mostly effected US-based sites and their hosts - how much power does it have to deny access to non-US sites through US ISPs?

[Mupepe]

I'd though it mostly effected US-based sites and their hosts - how much power does it have to deny access to non-US sites through US ISPs?

I'd imagine the same in their eyes.  The government will most likely get shit for it from other nations (like China does) but nothing will come of it.

[etiolate]

The net was once even of a more wild west than it is now, and has continually become more sanitized, but that has been countered by higher speeds and greater access giving people more than just access to information but access to media. It is unfortunate that most people treat it as a meaningless fuckaround and will be accepting of a great thing being taken away from them.

[Raban]

The net was once even of a more wild west than it is now, and has continually become more sanitized, but that has been countered by higher speeds and greater access giving people more than just access to information but access to media. It is unfortunate that most people treat it as a meaningless fuckaround and will be accepting of a great thing being taken away from them.

I think the maturation of the internet was an interesting thing to witness, I'm glad that I got to live that, at least. If this bill really does pass, it's not very surprising. Nothing good ever lasts.

[Bloodwake]

I hate that stupid people in our country will let this happen out of sheer stupidity and laziness.

Sort of like how people voted for Republicans or refused to vote for Democrats this past election for BULLSHIT reasons.

People in the United States are fucking stupid.

[Raban]

I hate that stupid people in our country will let this happen out of sheer stupidity and laziness.

Sort of like how people voted for Republicans or refused to vote for Democrats this past election for BULLSHIT reasons.

People in the United States are fucking stupid.

[Groogrux]

GO USA

(Image removed from quote.)

Next, let's round up people we don't like and put them in camps!

Fixed.  I wanted it to look more Amurican.   

[Groogrux]

I really have to agree with Manabyte on most of the comments made so far.

[Eel O'Brian]

I hate that stupid people in our country will let this happen out of sheer stupidity and laziness.

Sort of like how people voted for Republicans or refused to vote for Democrats this past election for BULLSHIT reasons.

People in the United States are fucking stupid.

i think you can see by the list of co-sponsors i posted earlier that these two parties are bound by a money clip

[TakingBackSunday]

The RIAA is going too far with this.  Even my copyright law professor, who by all accounts is one of the most conservative lawyers I've ever met, thinks COICA is tarnishing the very basis of the Internet.  It's maddening how far this bill will go.

[Mandark]

this seems to be more of an attack on wikileaks and julian assange than anything else. hm, maybe i AM a wee bit concerned here.

I don't think so, if only because the lobbies pushing for this bill would care way more about piracy (and the billions of dollars they imagine they'll get when it's stopped) than they do about leaked secret documents.

Plus, if the government goes after Wikileaks, dollars to donuts it's predicated on some specious national secrets doctrine.

Anyways, considering the bill 1) was passed out of committee in a lame duck session, and 2) is apparently constructed to crumble at the first legal challenge, I'd guess the legislators are more trying to curry favor with rich donor bases than actually get a law passed.  Plenty of DOA bills get introduced, passed out of committee, or even passed in one chamber as a way of symbolically rewarding constituencies.

[EmCeeGrammar]

I'm moving to fucking Norway, jesus christ.  Its incredible how having free speech has done NOTHING for awareness of the mechanisms of our government. Its so fucking obvious that lobbyists buy votes, no one tries to hide it, and people still want to pretend any politician at the national level gives a fuck about you.

Fuck.

[Mandark]

Which isn't to say that some future mutation of this bill won't eventually get passed.  The awful Biden bankruptcy bill went through several iterations over the years before finally becoming a law and that had the same basic political dynamic.

A rich interest group which lobbies furiously over several years is probably going to get what it wants unless that thing would be massively unpopular or there's a political counterweight.  What's the counterweight going to be here?

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Until then I will keep fighting for my right to download copyrighted shit for free.  I'm entitled to it, damn it.

[EmCeeGrammar]

My issue isn't with how this might prevent piracy. I rarely do it and usually only when I can't get something by an other means, not to mention pirates undo their own hobbies and the things they 'love'. However,, I can see this legislation being abused easily, as a lot of what happens on the internet can be broadly defined as 'copyright infringement'.  Its a giant can of worms and shit.

[Himu]

I'm moving to fucking Norway, jesus christ.  Its incredible how having free speech has done NOTHING for awareness of the mechanisms of our government. Its so fucking obvious that lobbyists buy votes, no one tries to hide it, and people still want to pretend any politician at the national level gives a fuck about you.

Fuck.

Haha, like I said on the first page, it's funny how many republicans are in support of this while probably waving the "small government" banner.