I'm heating up my popcorn kernels in a large pot of oil as we speak, things are about to get very entertaining. If Antigua start a piracy website selling US copyrighted material, won't the US just ban access to the site and other countries (definitely the UK and Australia) will follow suit? Potentially resulting in free-speech and Internet rights advocacy groups (and the likes of anonymous) kicking up a massive storm of trouble?
It's obvious the bans on Internet gambling is due to the fact it's hard to regulate and it's even harder to tax and when it comes down to it, it's all about money. The US only has themselves to blame, this isn't about protecting people from addictions because lets face it if you want to gamble legally you can go to a casino and if you want drugs you can walk down to the corner and if you want booze you can go to a bottle shop or bar. What's the difference between Internet gambling and going to a casino? The government can tax non-Internet based casinos...
If it gets that far and something isn't worked out prior, this will be an interesting test of Obama's merits as a president and where he stands on things like unrestricted and free Internet access. Given the US's harsh words against China's censorship over the years, it would be pretty ironic if the US were to block such a site.
Currently, the US has no ability to do this, they have no country-wide firewall like China.
At best, they can revoke/hijack the domain name, since ICANN is pretty much under US influence, but the site would remain accessible by IP address, and it is likely that tens/hundreds of alternative domain names would be set up by the site supporters.
Or, the US could hijack the IP space with BGP black holing/null routing, but this would be seen as an extremely offensive act. It would be the first time a western country does this AFAIK.
Or simply ask the major ISPs to block it. They are already opting into 6 strikes and throttling certain types of traffic (e.g. torrents). It wouldn't surprise me at all if they "voluntarily" (or really, voluntarily) blocked such sites.
This is the exact kind of blocking I was thinking of. Merely blocking the domain would be enough to prevent access from basic users but maybe not knowledgeable pirates, similar to what has happened with The Pirate Bay in the UK and ISP's blocking access to it.
Yeah, it was circumvented Pretty quickly. You can't outsmart a pirate. It's a good example of a government trying to restrict what it's citizens can do however, even if it failed the government tried to block access in the first place.
You can't generally bludgeon them with force, you can't outsmart them forever, but sure. People can and do outsmart pirates, it's just rare and those "combatting" usually aren't creative or empowered enough to make the right (er, effective?) decisions.
I can't think of a situation where they've ever needed too. With exception of Antigua and perhaps a few other obscure countries there doesn't appear to be a distance the IFPI's arms don't reach as shown in the Pirate Bay situation and what has happened to its founders and is continually ongoing.
This situation is very much different. They don't have the government in their pockets this time around like all other major copyright cases before them which is why this situation is super interesting.
What about accessing it from outside of US? Can the USA block access to Antigua for Poland? Technically? And politically? I would guess they would rather come to our government and ask it to block Antigua - but even that would generate insane drama.
The US blocks sites by seizing their domain names and drying up their revenue streams. For example, they could make it illegal for advertising networks to do business with the Antiguan pirate site, enact an embargo of Antigua banning all business with the country, or simply "exert pressure" on payment processors and ad networks to comply.
This is how the WTO is able to enforce its regulations. Because the WTO can't actually forced a country to pay another for unfair trade practices (the WTO doesn't have an army), the WTO is allowed to permit winning plaintiffs to break agreements or enact retaliatory tarrifs to recoup losses[1]
It comes down to comparative advantage[2]: Countries are better off by opening up free trade and thus have an incentive to keep things relatively open. The WTO acts as intermediary to prevent an arms race of tariffs and retaliatory actions that end up hurting countries in the long run. It seems ironic because the WTO is letting another country enact a retaliatory tariff but for the most part the WTO is one of the more effective global institutions at enforcing its principal.
There is a lot more nuance but I hope this helps explain this a little more.
While it's true a few misguided Family First types have proposed mandatory filtering laws for Australia such laws are not in place and have repeatedly suffered setbacks. The other side of that coin is Australia has had one of its major ISPs defend all the way to the Supreme Court the right not to monitor the torrenting behaviour of its users.
It's a robust and engaged debate here in Australia and the country hasn't followed the American industry lead on tracking piracy.
I live in Australia and get to see first hand everyday just how backwards our country is (I'm guessing you do as well). We are regarded as one of the United States closest allies and friends, as well as trade partners. Do you think Australia would say no if the US said, "This country is illegally infringing on our copyrights and selling pirated material, we ask if you would please kindly block this site" I am only assuming, but something tells me we wouldn't say no and there's no way to dispel that until push came to shove.
The ISP case you speak of (is different to what I am proposing could happen. That case was in regards to whether or not an ISP should be held liable for its users actions and whether or not ISP's should be monitoring traffic to ensure it's customers aren't infringing. Filtering on the other hand is an already partially implemented thing, it's for filtering sites related to child abuse and other banned and obscene content (at the moment), but that's not to say it couldn't be used to block "other" URL's as well.
While we as a country haven't followed the United States lead on piracy (most likely due to stark differences between how our Governments and legal system works) that's not to say it couldn't happen. I mean our country only just passed an 18+ rating for computer games...
As you live in Australia you are, assuming citizenship, as much "Australia" as anybody else can claim to be.
Currently the only blocking happening all across Australia at the country level is that of Interpol listed actual child porn sites and that debate about whether or not that is the right approach is still ongoing - take part in it.
Should the US request the blocking of a non US site that is trading US copyrighted material but not breaking International law I wouldn't assume that Australia would comply with that request. iiNet has already declined to comply with US industry requests to rat out the free trade of US copyright material and various russian sites that charge for access to massive databases of US copyrighted music and movies haven't yet been blocked either.
I live in Australia, yes, I've also travelled the world extensively and I've first hand knowledge of just how backwards many countries are; I'd urge you to maintain your rage and nuture it to maturity and become engaged in Australian policy as that's all that prevents us from being as backwards as you think. Australia has problems, yes, but they are, with various exceptions such as Aboriginal health and community relations, pretty much first world problems.
Defeost, I like you. That was a really good reply, I completely agree with all of your points. I would love to be able to play a more important part in shaping the direction of this country's morals especially on topics such as copyright infringement. It's a very complex and definitely hard thing to debate, there are pros and cons no matter what side you choose to stand on. Definitely agree on the problems front. Indigenous health is something that definitely has a long way to go and is very much a serious problem worth more time and consideration as opposed to a first world problem which at this stage hasn't even happened yet.
>While it's true a few misguided Family First types have proposed mandatory filtering laws for Australia such laws are not in place
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but http://delimiter.com.au/2012/11/14/iinet-internode-implement...
This is for obscene content but it appears that there is at present no legal barrier to the government just issuing further Section 313 orders that would block websites that breach other laws.
It's a robust debate and a complicated one, to be sure.
That's the state of play as a few months back, iiNet has agreed to filter the interpol list of serious child porn sites and that's:
- not the same as the initial black hole, black list initially proposed
- something I have far less of an issue with, particularly if a significant proportion and cross section of the population has access to the list (still being ironed out)
- the story's still not played out (and hopefully remains in play, forever, as a point of active debate for Australian society).
Thanks for posting the link, I was aware of that and deliberately simplifying above.
Coming back to the banning of Antigua from within Australia should the US do so, I can see that being proposed and raised up the mast here, I don't see it being pushed out and actually floated quite so easily.
If they are so serious why are they allowed to operate? Are there really jurisdictions that allow them to operate with impunity? Or are these sites really in legal grey zones[1]?
[1] e.g. Country A says that you must be 21+ to appear in porn, but Country B says that you only need to be 18+.
The last time I had the, ahh, privilege, of checking sites on a current Interpol watch list was nearly a decade ago.
The content I viewed was more along the lines of Country Z that effectively allowed trade in human beings and the hosting of images of interesting things you could do with pool cues and 10 year olds. The material wasn't really subject to the kinds of ambiguity that, say, /r/jailbait on reddit skated. If not image sites then forum sites more or less dedicated active discussion of an unambiguous nature.
Not all the world is policed effectively and the debate about what should and shouldn't be policed within your own local neighbourhood, your state, your country, and in other countries is ongoing.
Globally we also have the wholesale manufacture, marketing, and distribution of weapons; the indiscriminate asset stripping of regions in turmoil to further the manufacture of mobile phones et al; and the offshoring of hazardous wastes to become somebody elses problem. These are things that arguably do more damage than actual child exploitation but tend to trip the moral compass less.
Hopefully one of the benefits of the Internet is greater global communication about and engagement with all of these issues.
I don't really expect it to happen either; sounds more like a power play to get the US to finally cough up some restitution for the claimed billions in losses that Antiguan economy has suffered. If it does play out though, things will get very interesting.
It's obvious the bans on Internet gambling is due to the fact it's hard to regulate and it's even harder to tax and when it comes down to it, it's all about money. The US only has themselves to blame, this isn't about protecting people from addictions because lets face it if you want to gamble legally you can go to a casino and if you want drugs you can walk down to the corner and if you want booze you can go to a bottle shop or bar. What's the difference between Internet gambling and going to a casino? The government can tax non-Internet based casinos...
If it gets that far and something isn't worked out prior, this will be an interesting test of Obama's merits as a president and where he stands on things like unrestricted and free Internet access. Given the US's harsh words against China's censorship over the years, it would be pretty ironic if the US were to block such a site.