Posted on 11/19/2010 5:41:04 AM PST by markomalley
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed central to the activity of the site regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the nuclear option, which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites off.
COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and the big media companies to stem the tidal wave of internet file sharing that has upended those industries and, they claim, cost them tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.
My area of expertise is industrial controls...not sure how much help I would be creating an advanced browser plug-in such as this.
I know it is a workable idea though. It would be nice as a running backup plan and would serve well whenever the site goes down. It would be very hard to censor and done properly it would be impossible to discern just who uploaded a post. The archives could be held in encrypted form in a directory on the hard disks of anyone that wanted to contribute space.
Moderators could edit and delete posts of course but I can’t imagine a legal doctrine that would require them to delete material from the computers of dozens of anonymous people.
would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed "central to the activity" of the site -- regardless if the website has actually committed a crimeThis AG in particular will use it not to combat video, audio, and software piracy, but to try to crush dissent -- analogously, instead of using the RICO Act against organized crime, lib judges use it against peaceful pro-life protestors. Thanks markomalley.
I’ve given this problem a lot of thought. Losing our Free Republic news connection and activists activities would be intolerable. I’m thinking e-mail. Can they shut down our e-mail accounts? Every day I receive several e-mails from World Net Daily complete with news of the day headlines linked. Now I can’t converse with them about the news but I do receive it. So, Jim has all of our e-mail addies. If there is a need for activism he could send out a call to action. As Freepers, each one of us should have an address full of e-mail addresses of other Freepers whom we trust so that we can share activist details. If we all have a large number of addresses, we could cover the entire network of Freepers. We should have these things in place already because we need to be able to contact each other in case of emergency. Those of us who have been here a long time know who we are comfortable with sharing our e-mail. We are going to have to go “underground network” anyway before this is all over.
The article mentioned something about the Attorney General needing to use a court order to shut down a website. Wouldn’t that count as judicial review?
(Not that I like this law, anyhow. If CDs were reasonably priced, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.)
PING!
Don't be afraid, frank. Hell, I'm lookin' forward to it!
It's just about time. Stay well .................... FRegards
I know very little about what you are talking about (computer-wise) how easy will it be to use???
The rainy season has arrived. A great time to stock up on sand bags when it looks like simple defense against flooding. It's helpful for slowing down flying lead too.
That historical statement sums up the problem perfectly.
I'm older, the house is paid for, the kids are grown and managing, I have the will to kill, whom and why.
Censorship, plain and simple. In the marketplace of ideas, the liberals are bankrupt (and have always been). The only way for them to profit is to shut down their opposition. That is what this is about. It won’t pass Supreme Court muster, but by the time the court deals with it, we will be past the 2012 elections.
There’s that SOB Lamar Alexander again. WTH is wrong with that useless RINO?
Holy crap. Will you assist in the architecture phase?
Peer to peer networking. It will require that we set things up beforehand. I will initiate some work on this concept this weekend.
Blocked, yet the FCC is planning to institute net-neutrality right before Christmas—story on Drudge.
Blocked, yet the FCC is planning to institute net-neutrality right before Christmas—story on Drudge.
I am reminded of the bill Bush signed into law saying the SCOTUS would surely strike it down.
Why would anyone at any time vote for or sign a bill they didn’t like? It defies logic.
You either agree with the thing or you don’t. Which is it?
Hmmmmmmmmmm
I agree with you about this bill. Committee members have to vote against bad bills so the committee can fix, reject, or replace them.
On the other hand, some on both sides of the spectrum want to have it both ways with SCOTUS nominees. (You can't fix a nominee like a bill -- you gotta approve or reject.) They argue that the Judicial committee should not reject any SCOTUS nominee (and thus deprive the full senate of chance to vote), but when a SCOTUS nominee they don't like comes before the committee, they want the committee to reject.
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