

Mastercard will act as enforcer for RIAA, MPAA - ubasu
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20025879-261.html

======
slapshot
This is not new. Visa and MC have, for many years, decided what times of
content they will and will not fund. By the same logic, they are also the
enforcers for the anti-online-gambling lobby, the anti-hate-crime lobby, etc.

Saying that Visa and MC should be required to accept all transactions would be
a very strong statement. It's not impossible, but it's very strong.

~~~
Natsu
> Saying that Visa and MC should be required to accept all transactions would
> be a very strong statement. It's not impossible, but it's very strong.

I'm pretty sure that pedophile guide they were selling on Amazon a while back
had Visa/MC as a payment option, because Amazon took my Visa a while ago when
I bought something there.

As such, given that they won't process payments for just anyone, I'm going to
assume that Visa/MasterCard explicitly endorses each and every group for which
they accept payments.

------
Helianthus16
Well, that will shut down all those pirate sites that charge for their warez.

...

------
waterlesscloud
I'm not crazy about all the copyright enforcement hijinx, but I'm having a
hard time seeing anything wrong with this particular plan.

~~~
shub
Should a neo-Nazi have phone service? Would it be acceptable for Verizon to
cut off someone's FiOS based on the Anti-Defamation League's say-so? For
Internet-based businesses, the ability to display ads and process credit card
payments is nothing more or less than the ability to _exist_. It scares me
that these decisions will be made by trade groups and multinational
corporations, largely or entirely free of judicial review.

We're talking about people having their work destroyed and possibly seeing
their livelihoods ruined because they harmed a company's profits. I'm not
comfortable with that, and I'm sure as hell not comfortable with it being done
as easily as the article suggests.

~~~
raganwald
_Should a _____ have phone service?_

Here in Canada, telecommunications is a regulated industry and payment
processing is an unregulated industry. That makes all the difference. In
Canadian terms, you are asking whether payment processing should become a
regulated industry with formal rules about who providers must serve and under
what circumstances they can decline to provide service.

As a footnote, we Canadians have laws about the particular example you gave
that don't translate well in the USA.

