Looks like Congress has declared war on the internet (again)

[kyakki]

SOURCE

Many internet users in the United States have watched with horror as countries like France and Britain have proposed or instituted so-called “three strikes” laws, which cut off internet access to those accused of repeated acts of copyright infringement. Now the U.S. has its own version of this kind of law, and it is arguably much worse: the

Comments

[arisma]

UGH. I'm sure it's purely coincidental that they're going after the best tool the populace at large has for communicating and coordinating, right? OF COURSE.

[fog_dancer]

You could use carrier doves? It's a bit slower, but has the added benefit of dropping a shit bomb on certain people every now and then.

*tryingtostaypositive*

[arisma]

We could take bets on how quickly they'd be named a menace to society and exterminated en masse.

[fog_dancer]

I hear pigeons cause autism - load your guns!!

[roseofjuly]

Protecting big business, that's all this is. The encroachment upon individual rights for the sake of profiteering is really scary; our country is supposed to be for the people, but now it's being subdivided for a wealthy few to make money off the rest of our backs.

Instead of forcing companies to find a more viable way to make money in the face of piracy, they simply have turned the onus back on us to make it harder to get the stuff.

And it's not like I'm all gung-ho about copyright infringement - I had my days, but I obtain almost all of my music legally now through iTunes. Partially because my university's network has an agreement with the RIAA (they allow them to crawl your computer and shut down your network access if they find an illegally downloaded file on your computer, even if you downloaded it years ago) and partially because content is just easier to find on Amazon or iTunes.

Shit, pretty soon we WILL be living in the Handmaid's Tale. (I'm reading it now.)

[anolinde]

Partially because my university's network has an agreement with the RIAA (they allow them to crawl your computer and shut down your network access if they find an illegally downloaded file on your computer, even if you downloaded it years ago)

Omg, wtf?!?! What university is this, if you don't mind my asking? Do you know of any other universities that do this?

[rorychan]

My university does this to. @ California State University of Fresno. D: It's a shame really. It's unnecssary.

[anolinde]

That's so scary. D: Now I'm paranoid that they're going to come knocking at my door, considering I may or may not have just downloaded some songs from Mediafire... DDD:

[anolinde]

Ughhhhh. This would be awesome if they were applying it to, say, child pornography sites, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture to guess that they're just planning on targeting music/movie/program sharing sites.

Also, cool story bro time: Half of the CDs on my shelf were bought because I downloaded the album online first and liked it. There are so many artists I would never have even started listening to (and supporting) without the Internet. But downloading is evil, you guys.

[musique_style]

I've read about this. Something like this could effectively shut down Youtube, and Pandora, and Grooveshark, and other sites like that--or, at the minimum, severely limit the content found there. ._.

I want to say that I don't understand why the government is doing this, but you know what? I get it. Ugh.

[evildevil]

the new law would allow the government to target any site that has “only limited purpose or use” other than infringement

so in other words they can shut down any website that either they dont like (politically) or could be considered a financial threat to competition...

[evildevil]

are people this stupid?...

[louisadkins]

Many are, sadly. We also toss in the "I don't get computers, and can't understand anything two steps related" crowd of people, to make it even worse.

[kaisenji]

Bingo.