
Why the US needs to blacklist, censor pirate websites - profitbaron
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/why-the-us-needs-to-censor-pirate-websites.ars
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cliveholloway
I think for the people in general to respect copyright, they need to have
something to respect. 100 years is ridiculous. And it's unrealistic. Basically
it gives certain companies a right to print money. It's particularly egregious
that Disney built up a huge pile of their "intellectual property" by stealing
stories that, in this day and age, would cost them a fortune to license.

Copyright used to be for 25 years. In this day and age, that is an eternity.
Back when it was implemented, it was probably a little more relevant - with
the distribution of media being a lot slower and organic.

If copyright was for 7 years, with the option to renew for another 7 years
(for a period of time - say up to 21 years total), that would protect the
rights of content creators, whilst letting work that is deemed worthless to
fall back into the public domain. And NO ONE could hijack our culture in
perpetuity.

What is this COICA going to do for the consumer? For society?

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beej71
I'm vaguely reminded of the bartender's exchange with Ford Prefect.

"I always through we were supposed to lie down or put a paper bag over our
heads or something."

"Yes, if you'd like."

"Oh, will that help?"

"No."

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Maascamp
_"Castro: If you accept the fact that piracy is a problem, government needs to
do something. You have to start from that premise."_

Castro immediately sets up a false dichotomy and proceeds to argue from that
perspective. I'm not convinced that the government needs to be involved any
more than it currently is at this point.

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shrikant
I'd extend that line of thought a little to say that the government likely
needs to be _less_ involved than it is right now.

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shrikant
I don't get the comments here saying this is an April Fool's joke. What are
you folks basing that on?

Daniel Castro (who's giving the interview to Ars Tech) is:

 _[..] a senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation (ITIF). He is also a co-author of a 2009 paper on Internet piracy,
which was influential on the development and adoption of the U.S. government's
Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) legislation._

Just because the article was posted on April 1st, is it automatically an April
Fool's joke? Or are these comments an elaborate ploy to laugh off and
discredit the article and the contents of the interview?

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Estragon
The comments start at around 6am April Fool's. I assume it was posted that
day... Generally, ridiculous things posted on April Fool's start with "Not an
April Fool's joke" if they're not...

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Ruudjah
> Castro: If you accept the fact that piracy is a problem, government needs to
> do something.

Piracy is not a problem. There are numerous studies proving piracy increases
popularity of games, artists and software. If you can't monetize piracy, don't
go to the government asking for help. Update your businessmodels so piracy has
a positive effect on your business.

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bugsy
This will be a good thing to set up anyway since the government has needed for
some time an efficient way to eliminate web sites from the internet that have
any forbidden, threatening, inappropriate or questionable material, without
having to resort to long drawn judicial processes requiring probable cause.

I also like his advocacy of deep packet inspection, meaning corporations
searching 3rd party internet traffic that happens to pass through their
routers, without needing warrants or being liable to wiretapping laws. That
will definitely come in handy.

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adestefan
Be sure to look at the date of the article.

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bigwally
This is hilarious.

2 days late.

