

SOPA foe Fred Wilson supports a blacklist on pirate sites - bproper
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57377862-261/post-sopa-influential-tech-investor-favors-blacklisting-pirate-sites/

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kadabra9
While I can appreciate Wilson's intent to find a way to solve the piracy
problem without getting Washington involved, I just don't see the proposal
mentioned in the article (or something similar) being very effective. There's
simply too many variables involved. First, who determines the "independent"
commission which establishes which sites are placed in the blacklist? How can
we prevent the RIAA/MPAA from stacking/influencing this commission? What will
be the criteria used to determine which sites get placed on the blacklist?

Second, and this is purely anecdotal, I just don't see a pop-up / warning
acting as an effective deterrent to piracy. If I'm about to download a new
movie, I doubt a pop up asking me to go somewhere else to pay for it legally
will do much to sway my decision.

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dmethvin
And the blacklist message would go something like this:

> "Warning: The site you are about to open may be guilty of encouraging or
> facilitating copyright infringement or other illegal acts. Your use of this
> site may be used against you in criminal proceedings. Copyright infringement
> is a felony and can result in fines or imprisonment."

Must be fair, since they hedge with _may be_ guilty, right?

This week, several antivirus vendors declared the Google CDN version of jQuery
1.7.1 to be malicious, most likely as innocent bystanders to a major unrelated
Wordpress attack. Thank goodness everyone would put their top guys on the
blacklist job, so those kind of mistakes wouldn't happen.

<https://twitter.com/#!/phphil/status/168991609113948160>

~~~
paulhauggis
"This week, several antivirus vendors declared the Google CDN version of
jQuery 1.7.1 to be malicious, most likely as innocent bystanders to a major
unrelated Wordpress attack."

This is why you should always download jquery and link to it locally.

~~~
chc
You should always download jQuery and link it locally because antivirus
vendors make stupid mistakes? That doesn't make much sense at all. They could
just as well decide "/scripts/jquery-min.js" was a vulnerability if they found
that on a lot of infected sites.

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aremie
Looks promising. Trying to alter the workflow of people wanting specific
content they can both get illegally and legally.

If in the warning there are direct links to the exact same content on the
legal services this could start a wave of more and more people using the legal
sites. Since it's that easy to switch.

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cienrak
I think what Fred is saying is that in the wake of SOPA's failure, the
entertainment industry might be willing to come to the table with tech and
work to ban the worst offenders, rather than pushing for the kind of
overarching, draconian laws that the public rejects.

~~~
shareme
Fred is wrong, they already have that power through the DOJ and ICE..the
SOPA/ACTA etc push was to 'LEGALIZE' DOJ tactics..thing ABOUT IT...

The internet has spoken ..SECRET DEALS only get one response out-RIGHT WAR

~~~
nextparadigms
Exactly. This kind of thinking that "we all know that site is bad" happened to
Dajaz1, too, and yet the Court disagreed. Imagine the potential for abuse for
such "we all know who's a pirate" cases.

Plus, we still haven't figured out how bad piracy really is and what it means
for humanity. I refuse to support anymore copyright enforcement laws, until we
overhaul copyright laws _first_ , and we adapt them to the 21st century. Not a
single new copyright law until we reform what we already have and repeal some
of the abusive ones, like the last few copyright extensions, amend the DMCA
against abusers to pay higher damages, and so on.

~~~
bproper
You don't think its reasonable to pursue cases against sites like MegaUpload,
where clear evidence can be established that they uploaded copyrighted content
with the intent to profit?

Doesn't it protect community sites like Tumblr and Reddit to carve out a clear
definition of who an offender is?

~~~
onemoreact
Not if they can be added to that list without due process.

------
Zirro
"Our children have been taught to steal"

No, they have been taught to share and that anyone can create a movie or a
piece of music and distribute it for free. Those are two wonderful lessons,
which I believe will make the future a better place.

~~~
paulhauggis
"No, they have been taught to share and that anyone can create a movie or a
piece of music and distribute it for free." Those are two wonderful lessons,
which I believe will make the future a better place."

This only works for so long. Eventually, you run out of other people's content
to share and little to no new content is created as a result.

~~~
Zirro
I said create new content, not only share other peoples content. I find it
impossible to believe that people would give up their creative impulses even
if there were no incentive to earn money on it.

Look at the amazing music created by people today which they choose to for
anyone to download, some even without a donate-to-me button. To them, just
having people listening to their creations is enough. I listen only to such
free music, nowadays. Free, not only as in no money charged (I donate to those
I find to be really good, however) but free for everyone to share without
having to worry about the police knocking on your door.

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AndrewDucker
The "independent body" should be the courts, so that the clarity of law and
the long-standing traditions of equality and appeals can be used by all
parties to make sure that a fair and just decision is reached.

Anything less is just wrong.

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jakeonthemove
This would work only if the legal content is easily accessible, as well.
Otherwise, this is going to happen:

"This may be illegal... let's go to the licensed site".

"Oh, I have to register, OK...",

"Fill in personal information...OK,

"password needs to be stronger... well my _mypasswordisthisoneandnooneknows_
seems strong enough, but OK"

"Confirm email... OK"

"Can't pay by Paypal, use credit card... eh, fine, let's get it...done"

" - This movie/single is not available for direct download in your region, but
you can find it in these nearby stores/theaters -"

"....FUUUUUUUUUUK !@$)(&#)&^!!!"

"This site is illegal - FU, I need that song on my PC and I need it now!"

Patience is definitely at its weakest point nowadays, especially online. I've
had a bad experience recently, signing up for OnLive for Android ($10 monthly
for over 100 games - awesome!): you can sign up with your Google account, BUT
you can't PAY if you're outside the country... My only thought was "THA FCK!?"

I used a VPN (if you use a third party one it's a security risk, by the way)
to login and pay... how stupid is that?

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cleverjake
Cydia has done this for some time with Hackulous/Installulous. It would be
interesting if saurik had any metrics on how many people leave after that
message.

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lightyrs
Shame on the elitist Fred Wilson.

