14 ms·
Senators want to mandate anti-piracy technology across the web
- kloch 5y agoThis would be a disaster for startups and hobby sites hosting user-submitted content without a significant minimum size or revenue threshold. It would definitely be the end for one of the sites I run (which received only one DMCA request in 22 years of operation).
- pmontra 5y agoIncumbents will love it and will look at the cost of the mandated software as an insurance fee against future competitors. Any other user submitted web site will die or never be. Sorry about that. BTW, are mobile apps not backed by a web site in the scope of that legislation?
- antifa 5y agoOr all your successful competitors will be European, African, Russian, Chinese, Indian, etc..
- dane-pgp 5y ago> Every three years, the public could submit petitions proposing new mandates for anti-piracy technology. Why stop at websites, when OSes and browsers could do the filtering for you? And why stop at piracy, when there are all sorts of other illegal files (and "legal but harmful" content) out there? (For the avoidance of doubt, I think that these are all terrible ideas, and I fear that once the government starts mandating blackboxes for one purpose, it will become harder to prevent laws mandating blackboxes for other purposes).
- usrn 5y ago
- pc86 5y agoWhat is misinformation? Does just being wrong count, or do you have to prove malicious intent? How do you prove intent? What about things that were correct at one point in time but aren't anymore? What about things discussing or analyzing the misinformation, that by definition requires showing/spreading it? How about you just let people be free? Some people are stupid. You're never going to stop that. But the paternalistic "just filter it out" nonsense isn't the panacea those in favor of it think it is.
- hallway_monitor 5y agoIt's censorship, plain and simple. And it leads to totalitarian control of all information. How is this hard for people to understand?
- pc86 5y agoRather than acting like everyone else is an idiot, perhaps explain your points rationally. You might even convince some fence-sitters or make folks who disagree with you less sure of their positions. But the tone of your comment is very much "it's obvious, you dumbasses" which only entrenches those whose minds you'd presumably like to change.
- hallway_monitor 4y agoThank you, sincerely. It was a lazy comment and a missed opportunity.
- RajT88 5y ago> "this proposal would also put an agency with no engineering or other relevant expertise in charge of how digital products are designed." That's how they roll. See: Ted Stevens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes > The metaphor has been widely ridiculed, particularly because Stevens displayed an extremely limited understanding of the Internet, even though he was in charge of the Senate committee with the responsibility for regulating it.
- xioren00 5y agoYeah it's a depressing reality that a lot of government is uninformed people making uninformed decisions that affect the entire country.
- candiddevmike 5y agoLet's just cut the bullshit and use sortition for governance.
- imtringued 5y agoIt works pretty well in practice, so well, that citizens assemblies are often better informed than the politicians in government. Yet politicians routinely ignore their non-binding decisions/conclusions, as if there is a group of people that deserves more attention.
- azinman2 5y agoI encourage folks from the HN community to run! We have no (?) technologists in the senate and probably not the house either? Yet plenty from medicine and other professions…
- yeetsfromhellL2 5y agoOnce again, politicians are trying to fix something that isn't broken and are going to make a bigger mess than whatever it is they're trying to change. This whole thing reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.
- mirceal 5y agotrying to fix something that ain’t broken and more importantly they have 0 clue how it works.
- marssaxman 5y agoFrom their perspective, it's broken if they don't control it and/or major corporations can't extract rent from it. Systems which work fine for the rest of us without their interference are broken as far as they see it.
- mirceal 5y agoi think they don’t have the tools and understanding to figure our what works and what does not work in tech. clueless. that’s the word i’m looking for
- hi_im_miles 5y agoThe "broken" thing is (and always has been) the existence of low cost, low barrier-to-entry competitors to monopoly power.
- mattgreenrocks 5y agoYes. Makes me wonder who is putting money into the pockets of the legislators, because they have everything to gain by building deeper moats.
- jonstaab 5y agoThis is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard, from a competition standpoint, from a censorship standpoint, from an innovation standpoint, just... oof.
- car_analogy 5y agoWhy does this automatic enforcement of law only ever cut one way? If we're mandating that technology should enforce laws automatically, how about anti-monopoly-power technology? All mergers and acquisitions of companies above some size are automatically blocked, and they have to make a compelling case in a court of law to have the block lifted. It has to be renewed every three years, or the company is automatically broken up again. Oh, and a simple similarity search versus the entire web, to mark patents as invalid due to prior art or obviousness. DRM could be presumed to infringe upon fair use and other legal rights of ownership, and be automatically declared illegal (no, I don't mean that breaking it would become legal, though it would. I mean the DRM itself would be illegal, and the manufacturer would be by law forced to remove it), unless the manufacturer convincingly argues it is necessary (and re-argues it every three years). And naturally, use of copyrighted material would be presumed fair-use, and just like wrongful takedowns don't get punished currently, if some material were proven to be infringing in a very non-automatic legal proceeding, the only consequence would be taking the material down - no other fines or punishment of any kind.
- jotm 5y agoWhy would the rulemakers make rules for themselves...
- lazyier 5y ago> Why does this automatic enforcement of law only ever cut one way? Because the people paying for it only want it to go one way. > how about anti-monopoly-power technology? That defeats the purpose of the legislation in the first place. The goal is to establish monopolies. Why would they introduce a provision to undermine everything they are trying to accomplish with the law in the first place? It would be counter productive.
- nimbius 5y agoactually, id argue its much more grandiose than just monopolistic activity. If you want to continue doing capitalism, youll need to switch from physical property to imaginary property as the laws of thermodynamics simply do not permit for endless consumption of scarce physical resources. maximum consumption with minimum production expense has already eclipsed its zenith in the seventies. evermore impoverished consumers seeing longer hours and lower wages were made to establish credit as an extension of their purchasing power. this credit was made mandatory at all levels of capitalist society, including government. to permit even the idea of piracy would be to undercut capitalisms current waxing pivot to continued survival. its less a drive from the MPAA, and more a common understanding amongst leaders.
- bannedbybros 5y ago
- bigbacaloa 5y agoPirate sites like library genesis and schihub are the best thing that happened to academic publishing since the death of libraries.
- aqfamnzc 5y agoWas the alleged death of libraries a good thing for academic publishing?
- pessimizer 5y agoYes, it was terrible when access to information was facilitated by professionals who had a professional belief in providing access to everything for free, and in protecting the identities of people who used them. Better now when what you read can be tracked in realtime. Or changed while you read it. Or deleted, along with all references to it. edit: the biggest inroads against the academic publishing cartel have been when institutions and their libraries refused to pay.
- thomascgalvin 5y agoThe Senate is an anachronism that needs to be disbanded.
- sokoloff 5y agoThere’s a process for that. I think it’s far more likely that on whatever date the US ceases to exist that the Senate is still in place.
- pessimizer 5y agoIt's disgusting. It should either be neutered like the House of Lords, or keep its position but have its members directly elected. Top 100 candidates get in. The citizens of overly influential states with tiny populations would easily be placated by the possibility of electing at least one or two actual neo-nazis to the Senate; you could definitely pass it. We would have to accept that both Kim and Kanye would probably be Senators.
- tastyfreeze 5y agoThe Senate was broken with the 17th amendment. As described originally, senators were meant to represent their state government and take a longer view than the House. The House was meant to represent the people and their whims.
- agentultra 5y agoSenators are also debating whether the US should have a digital currency. I don't have faith that they have the technical literacy to understand the nuances of that conversation much less the effects this would have.
- candiddevmike 5y agoDepending on your definition, the US already has a digital currency.
- walterbell 5y agoAmong other "features", CBDCs can enforce kill switches based on transaction-level filter criteria, e.g. sender, goods, recipient.
- imtringued 5y agoOnline banking does count but it isn't a service provided by the US government, it is a service provided by private banks.
- haunter 5y ago"+70 year old farts debate to keep the status quo" There are 32 senators over 70, they should be all retired
- azinman2 5y agoI’ve seen many of the young people stepping in… they can easily be worse. They’re typically coming up in a WAY more polarized world where identity politics are the only path forward… and they are often just as clueless about the world. New doesn’t mean better.
- mattwad 5y agoThat's easy to fix - young but also with experience. I don't know why we don't have some sane speed bumps for people that have political aspiration. Don't let judges be appointed if the bar deems them "unfit." Don't let politicians run for senator if they've never worked for government a day in their life, or have criminal records.
- DebtDeflation 5y ago>I’ve seen many of the young people stepping in… they can easily be worse. Madison Cawthorn is probably the best example of this. Elected to Congress at 25 years old. Education: One semester at a Bible College where he received "mostly D's" and then dropped out. Work experience: One and a half years as a part time staff assistant to Mark Meadows. He's now in a position of authoring laws that bind all of us while receiving a $174K annual salary plus incredible benefits at taxpayer expense.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago“Senate” literally derives from the Latin word for “old man” (senex)
- _-david-_ 5y agoYoung people aren't really a silver bullet. So many young people have no clue how the internet or computers work.
- sonicggg 5y ago> "For example, in December 2020, Tillis introduced legislation to make it a felony to run a pirate streaming site. Just two weeks later, the proposal was attached to the massive 5,600-page, $900 billion COVID spending bill. As a result, Tillis' bill became law before most lawmakers—to say nothing of the general public—had time to read it." Is it just me, or democracies have been flirting quite often with authoritarianism? Canada, for example, has been taking some worrisome measures recently. Now US is following suit, although in a much smaller scale.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
- tastyfreeze 5y ago
- zdragnar 5y agoDemocracy- straight democracy- is a terrible way to avoid authoritarianism. So long as a majority agrees, anything goes. Un-democratic checks are required in any such system to prevent a tyranny of the majority. Unelected judges, co-equal to but with different powers than a legislative or executive body, are one such example. There's not a perfect system yet, because at the end of the day, it's always just a bunch of imperfect people in a shared imaginary game. I'm not holding my breath for technology to save us either, because I don't imagine any AI will do a better job- it'll have to be trained on human interpretations of that imaginary playground, after all.
- e2le 5y agoIn a way, this has already happened. Microsoft has chosen to classify qBittorrent, Transmission, and Deluge as PUA (potentially unsafe application). As a consequence, Defender will block their installation and remove existing copies. https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues/14489 https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues/14489 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclopedia-description?name=PUA%3AWin32%2FQBitTorrent&threatid=292801 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclo... https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclopedia-description?Name=PUA:Win32/TransmissionTorrent&threatId=292809 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclo... https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclopedia-description?Name=PUA:Win32/Deluge&threatId=292802 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclo...
- kodah 5y agoI do not understand why congresspeople are working on anything but housing right now. Literally zero citizens asked for this.
- bedast 5y agoAs corporations are considered people, there is not, in fact, literally zero citizens asking for this. Very rich citizens capable of padding pockets of congresspeople are asking for this. These same very rich citizens would prefer not to address housing. So yeah, I absolutely understand why congress is tackling this. It's more profitable to do so.
- bluefirebrand 5y agoAllowing corporations to continue to be viewed as people is the worst thing for the USA. That needs to be challenged again and again until it is brought down.
- asdff 5y agoWhat they work on is reflective of their real priorities in office. It's never you and me, its them and their friends. All we are there to do is vote the party line and allow the profitable status quo to continue unquestioned.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bena 5y agoThe problem is that piracy isn't a technology problem, it's a people problem. "Pirate" technology doesn't exist. Somewhere, somehow, you need to show information. At that point, anything you've used to convey that information can also make a copy of that information or allow access to someone who shouldn't have it. Piracy is people using legitimate means to perform actions in a manner deemed unacceptable.
- dane-pgp 5y ago> anything you've used to convey that information can also make a copy of that information That's true of a general purpose computing device, but sadly those are becoming rarer and rarer, at least as a percentage of all devices. (I suppose in some technical sense the device conveying the information is necessarily making a copy of the information at least temporarily, but there is no need for that copy to be persistent or retrievable at the request of the user.)
- walterbell 5y agohttps://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/20/how-smart-is-the-smart-copyright-act/ https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/20/how-smart-is-the-smart... > you can let Congress know that you oppose mandatory censorship filters. Fight for the Future is leading a petition opposing the harmful impacts of the legislation that will be delivered to Congress on 25th April, 2022. You can sign the petition at https://nocensorshipfilter.com https://nocensorshipfilter.com and make sure Congress knows just how many people are concerned about the impacts this bill will have on free speech. The "SMART Copyright Act" would: - Create universal automated censorship chokepoints across the internet by requiring expensive content filters that we already know don’t work and regularly silence lawful speech - Encourage surveillance backdoors in everything from Canva to Google Drive to internet service provider traffic, since it is written to apply at all layers of the internet - Mandate filtering of all content online at all levels, from Big Tech platforms like Twitch and Instagram to ISPs like Verizon and Comcast—and for any other platform that lets people speak or share online - Force these companies to compromise the safety and security of the internet with mandated use of software even if it has massive flaws, or risk being sued https://onezero.medium.com/nonstandard-measures-cf47c67e8f05 https://onezero.medium.com/nonstandard-measures-cf47c67e8f05 > the labels, publishers and other rightsholder groups backing “stay down” filters will all tell you that Content ID routinely allows infringing materials through. That’s because it is such a blunt instrument: The matching heuristics it uses are easy to study and evade…if you are an actual pirate. So pirates study the system, figure out how to evade it, and post with impunity. By definition, then, filters only catch the people who don’t think they’re doing something infringing — while deliberate infringers slip through.
- pbuzbee 5y agoSadly, the first 3 of those 4 bullet points seem like something that Congress would be happy to have. The 4th doesn't seem like something that they are concerned about.
- ______-_-______ 5y agoI can't wait to wake up one morning and find out my mandatory censorship chokepoint is preventing me from viewing the number "1" https://www.androidpolice.com/numbers-violate-google-drives-terms-of-service/ https://www.androidpolice.com/numbers-violate-google-drives-...
- irrational 5y agoCorporations want to mandate anti-piracy technology across the web and have purchased Senators who are willing to shill for them.
- kornhole 5y agoThe cost of deploying or not deploying such anti-piracy screening systems further entrenches megatech and makes their smaller competitors illegal.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agoHow much bribes were paid to these two senators to push this bill?
- stuckinhell 5y agoWe need to bust monopolies asap.
- qwerty456127 5y ago> For example, in December 2020, Tillis introduced legislation to make it a felony to run a pirate streaming site. Just two weeks later, the proposal was attached to the massive 5,600-page, $900 billion COVID spending bill. As a result, Tillis' bill became law before most lawmakers—to say nothing of the general public—had time to read it. This kind of doing it, as an intentionally deceptive practice, should itself be declared felony (or whatever a felony against the whole country and the whole legislative system as a victim is called).
- Asooka 5y agoI believe the term for that is treason.
- asdff 5y agoThat would require the people benefiting from pork barrel politics actually voting to eliminate their graft. That has never happened in history.
- nikonyrh 5y agoHow is pirate streaming related to a COVID handout? Why wasn't this "merge" disapproved and publicly shamed? Ha, a new kind of a merge request.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rolph 5y agothere is a meta-problem that leads to this situation: " It's not clear when—or even if—this legislation will come up for a vote. Traditionally, a bill like this would be considered by a Senate committee before making its way to the Senate floor. But as Congress has become more dysfunctional" "it has become increasingly common for bills like this to get attached at the last minute to gargantuan "must-pass" spending bills." This has to come to an end, no more dealing from the bottom of the deck.
- ARandomerDude 5y agoNetflix on Apr 19: We lost money because too many people are sharing accounts. [1] Senate on Apr 21: We need more anti-piracy laws! The connection between BigCo and politicians is so obvious, but we'll keep putting up with it because we're idiots. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/19/23032643/netflix-password-sharing-subscribers-100-million https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/19/23032643/netflix-password...
- rubyist5eva 5y agooh lovely, more regulatory capture and lobbying avenues for elected gangsters f*ck right off
- michaelmrose 5y agoAs I type this my other monitor is displaying pirated content in glorious 4K resolution downloaded via sites that have been in blatant contravention of the existing laws for 19 years. Simultaneously I pay for a subscription entitles me to watch the same content in the same resolution on a TV I don't own and don't have room to install if I wanted one. My other choices include watching it in glorious 720p that somehow manages to look worse than SD from 1995 or paying $150 to buy optical disks of a series I'd like to watch once to see it in 1080p and buy an optical disk drive for the privilege. While not everyone's quality is quite as bad as Amazon they all work worse on computers than TVs and in addition to dealing with mediocre hardware and limiting platforms one is now expected to deal subscribe to 7 platforms to have access to most content. Meanwhile jellyfin is basically netflix for content on your own hard drive or network which is trivial to acquire from sites that have been distributing torrent and magnet links for 19 years. If its worthwhile to pirate even while actually paying for the same content and such pirated content is readily available from lawbreakers you can't shut down despite obviously breaking existing laws maybe making random websites implement expensive screening isn't a useful thing. Now bob's forum has to buy tens of thousands of dollars of tech to keep people from theoretically sharing links to <insert series> while every Tom Dick and Harry are torrenting from the usual suspects. To end most piracy make it like radio where services pay for a standard license for content and every streaming service has every piece of content while competing on interface. Then I can subscribe to a service that works well on Firefox on Linux and you can use a service that only works on your shitty ad laden tv if you please.
- ipnon 5y agoIs there any other law that requires installing specific software, especially mandated by the government?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y agoPardon the ignorance, but why is Ars Technica using a Moldova-based proxy for page 2. Is anyone else seeing "netblogpro.com" in the URL for page 2. Instead of https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-youtubes-copyright-takedown-process-youll-love-this-bill/2/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-yout... I was able to get https://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-youtubes-copyright-takedown-process-youll-love-this-bill/2/ https://arstechnica.netblogpro.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-yo... Some other examples, Russia-based proxies: https://buzzfeed.netblogpro.com https://buzzfeed.netblogpro.com (buzzfeed.com) https://politico.trem.media https://politico.trem.media (politico.com) https://appleinsider.top1tv.net https://appleinsider.top1tv.net (appleinsider.com) https://nymag.top1tv.net https://nymag.top1tv.net (nymag.com) https://bleepingcomputer.top1tv.net https://bleepingcomputer.top1tv.net (bleepingcomputer.com)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- koprulusector 5y ago> Pardon the ignorance, but why is Ars Technica using a Moldova-based proxy for page 2. Is anyone else seeing "netblogpro.com" in the URL for page 2. Hi. Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean by “Page 2”? The article is a single, continuous page in my browser (Firefox mobile for iOS).
- getcrunk 5y agoI saw the netblog pro thing but it was through Google news. I think it's a fake site.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y agoPage 1: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-youtubes-copyright-takedown-process-youll-love-this-bill https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-yout... Page 2: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-youtubes-copyright-takedown-process-youll-love-this-bill/2/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-yout... See the URL for page 2 in the HTML of page 1: x=$(printf '\r\n'); sed "s/$/$x/" << eof|openssl s_client -connect 18.118.201.119:443 -ign_eof|sed -n '/Page:/p' GET /tech-policy/2022/04/if-you-like-youtubes-copyright-takedown-process-youll-love-this-bill/ HTTP/1.1 Host: arstechnica.com Connection: close eof
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zeruch 5y agoDisclosure: I worked in the "anti-piracy" industry for 6 years at one point. It should be renamed the Big Content Fluffing Contingent, but that position is itself revealing on my part. It's all just anti-competitive and bullying trash-baggery from an industry stuck in the 1940s for business practices (read: Mafia accountancy) with a 1980s business mandate (read: "greed is good" when its us, but for anyone else is bad). They dedicate huge sums to lobby whomever will do their bidding (e.g. over history, folks like Sonny Bono, Claire McCaskill, etc) and demand total, stupid fealty, because the execs in Big Content really are like d-list extras from an episode of Entourage (or the Tom Cruise character from Tropic Thunder). They have no understanding of tech, and don't care, because they feel all of reality can be warped to their vision via contractual enforcement and litigation threats. It's a human centipede of stupid.
- ElFitz 5y agoThat’s exactly how it seems from the outside. I can’t tell if it’s funny or worrying.
- zeruch 5y ago"I can’t tell if it’s funny or worrying." Honestly, both. In most industries, you have a lot of decent, normal folks and a handful of lunatic ball-dents flailing about. Big Content is the opposite, almost all leadership is nuttier than a freight train full of trail mix, and conduct themselves like goddamn sociopaths from an episode of CSI. Things I recall being asked for in meetings with these firms: 1. was it possible to DDos Google (because they were the course of all piracy)? They didn't ask in so many words, but it was effectively what they asked for. Whether the realized the legality of it at the beginning of the meeting, they were disabused of that as an option, promptly. 2. How could we take down the company hat "hosted all the bittorrent"? etc 3. Screaming fits on the phone I wouldn't expect from a teething infant let a lone a grown-ass adult. 4. Execs claiming they hired someone on staff for their cup size (into roles they had no qualification for) 5. Regular meltdowns over actual fair use content (reviews, critiques, etc), when after being told it would likely be overturned after we sent a DMCA, demanded it anyway, then screamed when it was in fact overturned on appeal, and blamed us for not somehow making subverting IP law a feature of our business. It's a cretinous turd parade. ...all...bloody...nuts.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- scotuswroteus 5y agoSenators are mostly bad people
- ElFitz 5y agoI’m tired of US Senators. Also tired of the seemingly ever-increasing cost (and legal complexity) faced when creating anything. But I suppose restaurants would say the same, and most of us are happy not to fall sick most of the times we eat outside.
- richardfey 5y agoIf we look at Russia for reference, this is exactly the type of technology and legal apparatus that could be used to implement censorship.
- exabrial 5y agoHow about we block senators from making inside trades first, and also subject them to the same healthcare plans we have access to, and they have to pay the maximal tax rate they put on anyone? Seems like a bit higher impact.
- silexia 4y agoIf laws like this get passed and Right to Repair is blocked, we need a revolution.