Why the US needs to blacklist, censor pirate websites | Hacker News Reader

Why the US needs to blacklist, censor pirate websites

arstechnica.com

20 pointsprofitbaron12 comments

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?

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."

"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.

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.

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?

I got fooled for most of the article, his comments on deep packet inspection give it away.

"But there are other options as well. Content holders could advertise to these people. If you are downloading a certain band's music, that band could contact you to say, “Hey, we're going to be in your town next month, what if you buy these tickets?”"

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...

> 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.

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.

Be sure to look at the date of the article.

This is hilarious.

2 days late.

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