

ThePirateBay.Org Is Immune from SOPA - nextparadigms
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120109/04205617341/if-sopas-main-target-is-pirate-bay-its-worth-pointing-out-that-thepiratebayorg-is-immune-sopa.shtml

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hessenwolf
I think the solution to the following is for us in the rest of the world to
just block all US based IP's until you guys get your political act together...
;)

From the Wikipedia article on SOPA:

Art Bordsky of advocacy group Public Knowledge similarly stated that "The
definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US consumer who uses a
website overseas immediately gives the US jurisdiction the power to
potentially take action against it."[44]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act>

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bbrizzi
The mere fact that SOPA uses DNS to identify particular web sites and their
"origin" shows how little these lawmakers know about internet and its
technologies.

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dextorious
Only, they don't have to know shit.

If what they do re: blocking doesn't fit their purposes, they can adjust it so
it does.

If you have the power to pass laws to a specific objective, the technical
details are irrelevant.

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Natsu
But not from ICE.

Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't taken it yet. I never go there, so I
didn't realize that TPB still had any US-based domains left.

~~~
nextparadigms
ICE is illegally taking down those websites. They have no authority to take
them down. This is why they are only doing it to random no-name websites that
people haven't heard of, thinking the vast majority of them will not even
respond. If what they are doing was legal, they would've taken down TPB by
now.

It's just one more case of doing something illegally, and then using the
excuse that "we were doing it before anyway" to convince politicians and pass
it into law later on. I just hope that if SOPA and PIPA are rejected, someone
will try to go after ICE for their abuses.

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Natsu
None of that has stopped them in the past. Apparently, they know a judge who
doesn't mind sealing the docket in such a way as to deny the defendant even
the opportunity to see them in court.

~~~
Joakal
An example Internet Domain Freedom bill (opposite of SOPA) should counter this
in making it illegal to take down the domain without judgement, so it would be
excepted from seizures until after due process.

At the moment, they can initially seize pseudo-legally. Then it's a question
of being illegal since they can't hold it without cause.

~~~
nextparadigms
I'm for Internet Freedom laws, too, but I just worry that once we give the
Government the power to control the Internet, we're only 2 or 3 Congress
cycles away before someone starts tweaking that law in their favor, and start
ripping the "Internet liberties" away from the law.

I would be much more confident if it was a Constitution amendment, but not
done right away, because I don't trust the current generation of politicians
with it, but maybe sometime by the end of the decade.

~~~
Joakal
The government has seen SOPA, DMCA, PROTECT-IP, COICA, CEST, OPENA, ACTA and
more. The anti-Internet groups are already giving government and corporations
the power to control the Internet since 00s. I guess you could say that they
are beyond tweaking the law in their favour, they're introducing laws in their
favour.

If they won't stop demanding control of Internet, then we have to demand
Internet Freedom bills. Those Internet Freedom bills are to replace SOPA in
outlawing the opposite; outlawing attempts to seize domain names without
judgement being passed.

Edit: The general aim of the bill is to make initial seizures illegal. It can
be argued that it's hard to run off with the domain name during court case for
example.

~~~
GHFigs
_The anti-Internet groups_

Which groups are you referring to?

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obtu
In context: Whoever lobbied for this list of laws.

~~~
GHFigs
That's about as fair as calling those who oppose them "pro-piracy" or "pro-
counterfeiting".

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dutchbrit
Reminds me of what is going on in The Netherlands (such a liberal country too,
so kind of weird).

2 ISP's (Ziggo & XS4ALL) have to block TPB within 9 days, or face charges of
10000 euros a day. Kind of unfair, since their competition haven't been
affected by this, yet. Can't find any English news articles so will blog about
it later. Brein, the dutch anti-piracy police will also be able to provide
these 2 providers with other domains that they'll have to block.

~~~
tchvil
In Belgium, a court order forced the ISP's to block TPB. They complied
immediately.

The same day TPB registered a new domain name in Belgium, to prove the
uselessness of such action.

What a waste of public money.

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rmc
.com/.org/.net is in a sort of limbo about whether it's an international or US
based domain. A lot of the control is in the USA, and laws like SOPA seem to
view it as an American possession.

However in many non-USA countries, .com is quite commonly used in the
internet.

I wonder what would happen if courts in the USA ordered a .com removed and the
original .com went to local courts who then ordered ISPs to resolve it? Could
there be a split in the .com namespace then?

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hessenwolf
I've just realised I know less than I thought on this... So SOPA wouldn't be
able to block .ie or .co or .tk names?

~~~
rmc
Block it where? SOPA, being a law from the United States is only valid in the
USA. Different countries have different laws.

As an example, if China bans a site, is it banned in the USA? So if the USA
blocks a site, is it blocked in the EU?

However it gets interesting with domain names. No-one really knows what would
happen if the USA courts tried to delete a .ie domain. They wouldn't have the
authority to do it. USA courts may have to result in ordering all ISPs to
block that site, but people in other countries would still be able to do it.
After all, the USA doesn't own the internet.

But, like I said, who owns .com? What could happen then?

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thebigshane
In response to hessenwolf and rmc:

SOPA does not 'delete' any domains. SOPA says that it can tell ISPs and Domain
servers to not resolve certain domain names (within the US, the rest of the
world doesn't, or shouldn't use US ISPs or domain servers). And it only
affects domain names registered outside of the US. As others have stated here,
the US already has existing measures to address US domains via ICE.

One of the reasons behind the claim: "SOPA will break the internet", is that
many people in the US may start using non US domain servers to circumvent
SOPA, and this would make our current routing and caching mechanisms
inefficient.

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rmc
_SOPA does not 'delete' any domains_

Gotcha. I don't follow the minutiæ that closely.

~~~
thebigshane
I totally understand, but I encourage those that feel strongly about this
subject to learn those kinds of details. There's a lot of Pro- and Anti-SOPA
FUD out there.

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mikelbring
This is going to just force US citizens to start taking their domain and
hosting business outside of the US, until they pass another law stating you
cannot do that.

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mikehuffman
I am beginning to believe that the only thing that will convince the
politicians is to go ahead and pass SOPA, then everyone just have every large
commercial site shut down constantly with SOPA complaints, after all there are
no repercussion for ruining someones livelihood with SOPA.

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snowwrestler
No, it's not. It might be immune from the DNS blocking but that is only part
of the bill. The other part provides a process for content owners to issue
"takedown" orders to ad and payment processors who do business with companies
like TPB.

