US rushes through bill to protect movie and music industries

froggyboy604

froggyboy604

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FACED WITH WARS, economic crisis and unemployment, the US Senate Judiciary Committee rushed into action to pass a law that will give the US Attorney General the right to shut down websites even if they are doing nothing illegal.
The move appears to have been rushed through at the behest of Washington's chums in the music and film industries, so it is fairly likely that it is going to be over the top.
In this case an ISP will have to comply with a court order bought by a music or film company and shut down a website if copyright infringement is deemed "central to the activity" of the site.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) allows the Attorney General to turn suspected websites off if he is asked and this will effectively turn the entire US judiciary into a free police force for two US industries.
The music and film industries, which came up with the idea, are fed up with wasting money with expensive court cases that rarely go anywhere. Now the law means that all they have to do is pop down to their local police station, name a website where they claim peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing is taking place and the forces of law and order will take over.
According to Cato at Liberty, legal experts in the US are concerned that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites essentially based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is not a good idea.
While you might think that it will only be Pirate Bay and the like that will fall afoul of the law, it is predicted that other P2P sites such as Dropbox, Rapidshare, Soundcloud and Hype Machine will all be switched off.
All the proof required for them to have their plugs pulled will be if the Attorney General deems copyright infringement to be "central to the activity" of the website.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which opposes the bill, claimed that there would not have to be any illegal content on the website as links alone could be seen as making the site's main focus as being copyright infringement.
Websites at risk could also include those that talk about P2P or object to copyright law. This includes p2pnet and pirate-party.us. If the EFF is correct, then it would mean that the US is suspending its much touted free speech clauses in the constitution to protect the music and film industries.
With the cornerstones of American civilisation so freely given away, we wonder how far the US is prepared to go to defend these industries. µ

TheInquirer

This bill might kill the internet for the US since now the US has the right to shut down any website if they suspect file sharing. If this bill becomes law or is strictly enforce a lot of online website base companies will host with non-US web hosts or move to non-US countries like how the online gambling industry are located mostly outside the US. This can mean the movie industry can also shutdown blogs, forums video sharing sites like YouTube, Social networking sites, e-mail services which offer GBs of storage space for their users, and any other site that you can upload to.
 
so this bill could shut down either GF or GF's hosting?


times like these I wish I could use a death note.
 
Indeed, according to the article if the movie or music industry "suspects" copyright infringement they can go to the police station and shut websites down, and they don't have to give evidence.

I see this just as a way of censoring the internet since the movie industry might also take down websites which are supporters of file sharing or have links to pirated websites. This could mean if website embed YouTube videos which are pirated then the MPAA or RIAA can shut down a website.
 
The bill may just cripple the continuous innovation of the Net, and turn it into a police state. It seems to be targeting file sharing sites and the like.

It's saying, if you cannot buy the media content or attempt to modify it, you cannot download or make use of it.

Just wish there is an alternative to confront piraters without taking out an entire website.
 
Understandable. If I'm reading it right, I agree that illegal downloading should be eliminated. I did it once to get an album that is very rare to find, and if you do, it's freaking expensive.
 
I wonder could this affect music sites like Last.FM which is a social networking website dedicated to music, and streaming music.
 
I think that this is ridiculous and will end up going too far not only affecting streaming music sites but also radio as well.

They'll shut down the sites thinking that it prevents people from recording it on their computers, and then they will go after the radio stations thinking that it prevents people from recording from the radio.

Eventually we will end up paying for broadcast TV like those overseas, like we already do for cable, and it won't be long before radio follows suit.

I think that the fact that they wouldn't need to have evidence, and can shut a website down on suspicion alone leaves it wide open for abuse.. and can even affect free speech as well.

Let's say that a record label representing Lady Gaga stumbles upon a massive blog or forum where, the overwhelming majority of its users dislike her and her music. and even criticize the label representing her and the RIAA and MPAA themselves.

The record label doesn't like the criticism and what they've seen and decide get revenge on them by filing a complaint with the appropriate authorities and because evidence isn't needed, they decide to shut it down without thinking twice about it. The website gets shut down and so too any other websites like it causing a domino effect.

If people rallied together and boycotted the entire entertainment industry, then perhaps things would change, but I doubt that this will happen in our lifetime. Unfortunately, it will have to get worse before it gets better.
 
I think this will cause people to set up other ways to share files since people can just use MSN, AIM, YIM, and other instant messengers to share files.

I see a lot of music and entertainment forums being targeted by the RIAA and MPAA since they can claim people use private messaging to send files to each other, or use hidden password protected sections to share files.

This bill can be used to censor blogger who criticize celebs. A screen shot, small sound recording, and a few lines from a song or movie on a blog can be consider copyright infringement.

I think more singers and actors choose to be independent instead of being affiliated with the RIAA and MPAA then things would change.
 
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