[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Showdown Looms Over New Controversial Anti-piracy Bill here

[deepsand]

As usual, we have legislators presuming to regulate that which they do not understand.

[GeneBurch]

What is needed is an anti-corruption/bribe/payoff/graft/lobbying/etc. Bill with life sentences, pension forfeiture for these corrupt politicians. Probably ninety-nine percent of these POS's would be in jail.

[LordInsidious]

So does this mean I'll be able to shutdown PCWORLD access by posting a link to so random file on the piratebay in the forums?

[Evildave]

Nah. The site you linked to would be 'blocked' by your ISP. Or some people's ISPs. And naturally, mainstream search engine results, too.

The underground browsers to underground internets will get quite a mainstream boost, as the 'mainstream' internet becomes Big Brother's abode.

They probably wouldn't shut down PC World for posting a link to a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode in the MLB playoffs topic, like I did.

They would 'block' the sites that I linked to, so you'd get a 'No such server' error. You you'd need to have subscribed to an alternate DNS to get at the content. Similar to the Google Public DNS, and how T-Mobile blocks the XBOX and PS3 sites, but with Google's DNS, I can download patches and connect to the back-end services, even though the ISP has blocked the content.

[Evildave]

Something that shouldn't even be needed in a country like the U.S.
http://freenetproject.org/

But what the heck, big brother owns you.

[TheOldTopkick]

Something does need to be done to protect the inventer or writer and such from stealing. I don't believe this law does anything of the sort. It does make possible punishment of the innocent. Unless I am very much mistaken this is in violation of our Constitution. Guilty until proven innocent is not our way of doing things.

[deepsand]

TheOldTopkick, on 29 October 2011 - 09:07 AM, said:

Something does need to be done to protect the inventer or writer and such from stealing. I don't believe this law does anything of the sort. It does make possible punishment of the innocent. Unless I am very much mistaken this is in violation of our Constitution. Guilty until proven innocent is not our way of doing things.

The problem here is not that it's a punishment, but that it's a preemptive action that violates the principle of Due Process, such that legal activities may be unjustly curtailed.

The established procedure for halting an allegedly illegal activity prior to the matter being settled in a Court of Law is to first lay the charges, and then gain a preliminary injunction barring the continuation of the activity in question by way of convincing the Court that the plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm if such activity is allowed to continue.

[Evildave]

And of course, blocking and taking down web sites ... which might be more than just a 'pirate' site. But there would be no due process behind that at all.

A copyright squatter just picks up the phone, says 'take it down', and it is gone.

Sadly, hate sites like westboro baptists, skinheads, nazis, etc. would remain up, while even sites that used a snippet of the wrong sample or piece of imagery would go down in a flash.

[TheOldTopkick]

deepsand, on 29 October 2011 - 11:09 AM, said:

TheOldTopkick, on 29 October 2011 - 09:07 AM, said:

Something does need to be done to protect the inventer or writer and such from stealing. I don't believe this law does anything of the sort. It does make possible punishment of the innocent. Unless I am very much mistaken this is in violation of our Constitution. Guilty until proven innocent is not our way of doing things.

The problem here is not that it's a punishment, but that it's a preemptive action that violates the principle of Due Process, such that legal activities may be unjustly curtailed.

The established procedure for halting an allegedly illegal activity prior to the matter being settled in a Court of Law is to first lay the charges, and then gain a preliminary injunction barring the continuation of the activity in question by way of convincing the Court that the plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm if such activity is allowed to continue.

I think we are talking about the same thing. To misquote the Bard, "The rose by any other name smells the same."

[deepsand]

TheOldTopkick, on 01 November 2011 - 11:23 AM, said:

deepsand, on 29 October 2011 - 11:09 AM, said:

TheOldTopkick, on 29 October 2011 - 09:07 AM, said:

Something does need to be done to protect the inventer or writer and such from stealing. I don't believe this law does anything of the sort. It does make possible punishment of the innocent. Unless I am very much mistaken this is in violation of our Constitution. Guilty until proven innocent is not our way of doing things.

The problem here is not that it's a punishment, but that it's a preemptive action that violates the principle of Due Process, such that legal activities may be unjustly curtailed.

The established procedure for halting an allegedly illegal activity prior to the matter being settled in a Court of Law is to first lay the charges, and then gain a preliminary injunction barring the continuation of the activity in question by way of convincing the Court that the plaintiff will suffer irreparable harm if such activity is allowed to continue.

I think we are talking about the same thing. To misquote the Bard, "The rose by any other name smells the same."

A punishment here would be a penalty levied separately from and independent of the cessation of the allegedly illegal act.

[Evildave]

Here's another interesting wrinkle...

Microsoft doesn't like >Open Source Project< (Doesn't matter, they HATE THEM ALL, and join projects and standards committees only to sabotage them.)

Microsoft claims it 'infringes'. On what? Doesn't matter. They've got patents on page up/page down, etc., all kinds of stupid B.S., all awarded quite recently, without regard to page up/page down being a decades-old feature on keyboards.

ANY pretense will do. ANY stupid copyright or patent that gets awarded through our indifferent 'patent' or 'copyright' process. After all, you have to take THAT to court and prove 'prior art'. You wouldn't have to prove ANYTHING in court to kill web sites. Just get a judge to sign a bit of paper. Someone will probably be signing bits of paper 24/7 in many convenient court offices. So copyright, trademark or patent some innocuous tidbit, and take down or block everyone else for 'infringement'.

Web site has something 'bad' to say about Microsoft? Hey, they said 'Microsoft'. We have a trademark! Take the site down!

So Microsoft gets the project web site and version control server taken down just by having their lawyers file some paperwork. Again and again and again.

So it's a declaration of war against not only open source, but any 'new' software company or web service that isn't big enough to fight ETERNAL legal battles with a large corporation with many salaried attorneys mechanically waging war in the courts to kill all competition.

[deepsand]

Non sequitur

[Evildave]

Yes, 'non sequitur' certainly is.