4 ms·
Uhm, first of all, I don't have anything in particular against fighting piracy, at least not commercial piracy. Unfortunately, the US has used the domain name
by JohnStrange 10y ago
Uhm, first of all, I don't have anything in particular against fighting piracy, at least not commercial piracy.
Unfortunately, the US has used the domain name system to fight piracy without due process in other countries rather than acting within their own jurisdiction and closing illegal servers within their own jurisdiction. That's an (a) abuse of the domain name system, which is (b) technically inefficient -- just use an alternative root server --, and (c) hitting the wrong people such as people who merely put links on their web server rather than those who actually infringe copyright.
Because of this documented and patently stupid abuse of the DNS system the US ought not control the root servers, not because of US laws or anything else related to piracy. I couldn't give a shit about piracy, but I do give a shit when some server that is perfectly legal in Spain suddenly becomes inaccessible and replaced by an FBI logo, just because some technically inept dumbass judge in East Texas thinks so.
Whether other countries would do better than the US is debatable. I'm glad you like the laws of the US so much, but have a hard time sharing your opinion about them and can think of various more worthy candidate countries for the label "best laws".
- wahern 10y agoCan U.S. courts force ICANN to seize domains registered under ccTLDs? My guess is not. gTLDs run by registrars not operating in the U.S. nonetheless probably sign ToS agreements with ICANN that effectively permit seizures by U.S. authorities. But for ccTLDs I doubt this is the case (it's hinted at in this white paper, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/guidance-domain-seizures-07mar12-en.pdf https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/guidance-domain-...). If you want to run a Pirate Bay or something, you're probably safest registering a domain under a ccTLD for a country with a lax policy.