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U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"
- prairieroadent 1y ago[flagged]
- Varelion 1y agoSo sick of this corporatocracy.
- monksy 1y agoSo how much are they getting bribed to do this?
- whynotmaybe 1y agoOnly the powerless are bribed, the powerful are "lobbied".
- seanw444 1y agoIt's just different, otherwise it wouldn't be a different word... right?
- pickleglitch 1y agoIt's nice to see the US Congress finally trying to address the real issues that have serious impact on the daily lives of the average citizen. Oh wait, this matters to almost no one except big business interests. Never mind.
- ratelimitsteve 1y agothe end of red dead redemption 2 is about the internet, isn't it?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- johnisgood 1y agoAmazing. These kind of bills / laws are being passed left and right "recently".
- mindslight 1y agoBoth major parties are corpo-authoritarian, with the main dynamics of elections being to gauge how much the public is willing to accept and to make half the people think they actually wanted the resulting policies. And for this round the people have spoken that they want it good and hard.
- johnisgood 1y agoI have a feeling the public is going to be willing to accept a lot of things.
- tharmas 1y ago>corpo-authoritarian "corporate fascist"
- lokar 1y agoI don’t think they care about the policy. They just see a one sided debate: companies will to pay and an indifferent public.
- mindslight 1y agoSure, you're up against "the purpose of a system is what it does". I'm sure many mainstream politicians actually earnestly care about individual liberty and reigning in corpos - it helps them sell themselves to the public. But the net effect is that when the dollars come calling, enough set aside those ideals to make the corpo agenda happen.
- lokar 1y agoWithout making some compromises and taking the money they would be replaced by someone who would. They (well, all of us whatever we do, but some more then others) operate in an imperfect system.
- rcpt 1y agoOur own great firewall
- cvoss 1y agoThe Great Firewall of China is a censorship program. This proposed US legislation puts the power of blocking under the authority of its court system and only in the domain of copyright law. The courts are historically very concerned with upholding 1st Amendment rights to a degree that often (but not always) surpasses analogous rights in many sister liberal democracies. Anything that remotely smells of censorship would come under intense scrutiny. And in this case, since we are talking about copyright law, the only parties with standing to sue for a block are the IP owners in the first place. So, by definition, this legislation cannot be used for censorship.
- ImpassionataVox 1y ago[flagged]
- dttze 1y agoYet it will be. Laws mean nothing to these people.
- ACCount36 1y agoThis is a censorship program. Every time a system that allows for internet content to be blocked is created, it's extended, misused and abused shortly thereafter. "The tools already exist, why don't we use them to fight terrorists/pirates/cybercriminals/gays/undesirables too". The slope isn't just slippery - it's made of Teflon and coated with baby oil.
- MangoCoffee 1y ago>Every time a system that allows for internet content to be blocked is created, it's extended, misused and abused shortly thereafter. Does that included movie leak? like this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/07/28/legal-action-over-demon-slayer-infinity-castle-leaks-begins-soon/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/07/28/legal-acti... I'm pretty sure the movie isn't intended to be put on the internet or be part of internet content.
- hooverd 1y agoAh, I'm so glad we can be bipartisan when it comes to making things worse.
- monksy 1y agoCan we get a list of senators who support this and their party affiliation?
- hooverd 1y agoThom Tillis - R Chris Coons - D Marsha Blackburn - R Adam Schiff - D
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- myvoiceismypass 1y agoSchiff is (D) Worth noting that this was introduced by Zoe Lofgren (D) the 77 year old that represents a big chunk of Silicon Valley. Disappointing.
- hooverd 1y agoHe is! Thank you.
- mindslight 1y agoSame rep that grandstanded with an "Aaron's law" that wouldn't have actually changed the laws used to persecute aaronsw.
- int_19h 1y agoThe fact that some Democrats are introducing bills that mandate creation of infrastructure that can be easily repurposed to censor political viewpoints, during this administration no less, tells you all you need to know about how much disdain they really have for their electorate.
- andrewmcwatters 1y agoI wonder if with all of these attacks on international Internet freedoms we'll eventually have a resurgence of usage of technology like Tor, etc.
- Finnucane 1y agolandlines and snail mail. Not that those things can't be tracked/tapped either, but it is more work. Pay cash for stuff.
- jsbisviewtiful 1y agoOh so all these AI companies get to steal whatever they want but in order to stop the 99% from stealing we need to lock down the internet?
- lenerdenator 1y ago[flagged]
- FridayoLeary 1y agoThat's just silly. There is no moral comparison between the two. I wouldn't bother to respond, except that it's this sort of attitude that was behind the gleeful response and support of a cold blooded murder.
- lenerdenator 1y ago"That's just silly." ... how? I can point at myriad examples in which someone's life was ended because expending the monetary resources necessary to extend it was not in the best interests of shareholder returns.
- dttze 1y ago[flagged]
- jimmydoe 1y agoThat’s necessary because US&A needs to beat China!
- tracker1 1y agoWonder if having your own DNS resolver will work around the issue... I mean, the caching from cloudflare/google-dns is nice, but I'm fine if 1/8 of my dns lookups has to make the full cycle through domain resolvers.
- hellojesus 1y agoWon't they just instruct isps to block the ip addresses of the sites and bully cloudflare into dropping them so they can't hide behind their proxies? It'll be a cat and mouse game, and tor could easily mitigate blocking efforts. But this seems like a 1A violation to me.
- sybercecurity 1y agoI haven't seen the text of the bill, so don't know for sure. If it says "resolvers must block site" then yes, running your own resolver would still work. If it says "domain registries must remove delegation" then it won't, but that could only be enforced for registries that are based in the US. Unless your ISP blocks well-known DNS ports, which none due as far as I've found. The article says one of the requirements for the complaint needs to be that the site to be blocked must be found to be foreign based, so I guess the assumption is that the current set of laws to take down the site or sue are unavailable.
- Henchman21 1y agoSo is this an opening move with an end goal of “private national internets”? Fracturing the international nature of the ‘net seems like every power worldwide would like and benefit from this.
- _boffin_ 1y agoIf that is need the end goal, which would make sense, disgusting.
- benreesman 1y agoI've recently switched to privacy respecting computing options, so of course lost access to everything I've bought from Apple and Amazon for the last 20 years. If I never paid for content again they'd still be in my debt. You wouldn't steal a car would you? No, but I'd repossess one from some delinquent son of a bitch in a suit.
- CamperBob2 1y ago"If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing."
- mystraline 1y agoI've argued that if 'buy' is DRM encrusted shit (hardware or software), then the sale should be considered fraudulent conversion to a rental. And since its a rental, and the company still retains control, that's a lot of capex they failed to declare with the IRS. And yeah, tax fraud.
- Henchman21 1y agoThis should be pushed into the public consciousness as far as possible
- bombcar 1y agoI see no strong moral argument against ripping DVDs (from the library or similar) of content you paid for on Apple or Amazon.
- unsupp0rted 1y agoThere's no moral argument against ripping DVDs one way or the other. There's a civil/economic argument: arguably copyright/intellectual property make for stronger societies that produce better stuff for everybody. But there's nothing immoral about copying or watching something you came across. The author isn't injured by it- nobody is. Except, like I said, perhaps society in general.
- puppycodes 1y agoah great I was worried for a second for our struggling monopolies this should help them back on their feet
- thedevilslawyer 1y agoNo one would steal a car. More importantly, everyone would clone a car. Of course we should support this fully. Oppose this bill.
- dfxm12 1y agoOppose the bill based on freedom, as in speech. This comes above all else. Arguing over what is or isn't piracy is a non-sequitor when it comes to government censorship of the Internet.
- thedevilslawyer 1y agoI'd argue freedom of access to knowledge is atleast as important, if not more, than speech. Down with copyright - restriction on this freedom.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 1y agoIsn't torrenting way down from its heyday? Streaming companies are not perfect, but I always thought they were at least moderately successful such that in 2025, average, casual, non-techies no longer bother to jump through the VPN and private tracker hoops just to download a movie.
- shkkmo 1y agoFor a while, streaming was better than any alternative. However over the last several year prices have a spike while the collections available for streaming have shrunk and splintered. Then a bunch of the streaming sites started adding ads for their paying customers. At this point streaming servcies have been enshitified enough to make piracy again the better experience.
- seanw444 1y agoCan confirm. The only streaming service I use anymore is Disney+, and I only have it because I like to watch the new Star Wars stuff when it releases at good quality. Everything else I care to watch, which isn't much besides older stuff, I'll just torrent now. Greedy companies really need to heed Gabe Newell's words.
- bombcar 1y agoEven Disney+ is crappier than Netflix in the streaming heyday - there are Disney Junior shows that Disney+ didn’t have (maybe still doesn’t). Buying DVDs and ripping to Jellyfin is much easier.
- seanw444 1y agoWhy do the ripping myself when the torrents are mostly all rips other people already did?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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- blackjack_ 1y agoI've been trying to watch old 80s-90s movies recently. I'm happy to pay $5 or whatever, and they just aren't available anywhere. Rental stores are dead, so I can't go rent them from blockbuster or whatever, and streaming sites have splintered to the point I'm not even sure what is a scam and what is a legitimate business anymore. Trying to even find availability of what films exist on which streaming sites has been an absolute pain. There are theoretical catalogue sites, but they are all randomly out of date to the point that its not very useful. I'm literally at the point where its looking like pirating the movies is the only way to watch them...
- LeonardoTolstoy 1y agoHow's your local library system?
- HanClinto 1y agoI live in a small country town. It's decent for its size, but it's very small. In contrast, Archive.org is an absolutely fantastic library, and we're happy to support them. Way better than my public library -- especially for hard-to-find media.
- bombcar 1y agoAsk about interlibrary loans; our rural library can get almost anything, given time.
- csnover 1y agoWhere I live, ILLs do not work for video games because the format identification for video games is “Electronic”, and their software is programmed to suppress the request button for these items because it is interpreted as “no physical media”. I emailed the people who run the system, they said it is a known issue, and as far as I can tell that just means they aren’t going to fix it, since it has been this way for at least three years.
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- antonf 1y ago> The granted orders would stay in place for a year with the option to extend if necessary. If blocked sites switch to new locations, the court can also amend blocking orders to include new IP addresses and domain names. What if the "pirate site" uses foreign cloud provider, and regularly changes IP addresses? Will I lose access to all websites hosted by the foreign cloud provider once their whole ASN will be blocked? > Block BEARD does not mention VPNs, but its broad definition of “service provider” could be interpreted to include them. This seems easy to circumvent - you can just use foreign VPN provider, who don't advertise themselves for piracy use, for... piracy. IP/DNS blocking proven to be a good censorship tool though.
- quesera 1y ago> "Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act of 2025” (Block BEARD) I really wish destitutely uncreative people would stop pretending to be clever.
- RankingMember 1y agoAgreed, these backronym bill names are obnoxious at best.
- rkomorn 1y agoI used to think so, but now I think they're just intended to make it easy to refer to the bill in a context people can recall quickly.
- RankingMember 1y agoThe ones that really stick in my craw are the 1984-esque ones like the PATRIOT act.
- rkomorn 1y agoCAN-SPAM was arguably well named but it unfortunately did not can spam. To me it always read like "oh so we CAN spam people".
- JoshTriplett 1y agoWhich is an entirely accurate interpretation.
- int_19h 1y agoThey're intended to be propaganda soundbites. The point is that people use them to refer to the bill because it's much easier than using the full title or describing what the bill actually does, and in doing so, they inadvertently propagate a specific perspective on the nature of the bill. "PATRIOT" act etc are good examples.
- jamesgasek 1y agoTL;DR, "Let's block every single piracy site". Sounds foolproof to me
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- iooi 1y ago> courts can subsequently order U.S. service providers to block access to these sites. So looks like this will be at the ISP level, so should be able to be circumvented easily with VPNs. The scary part is it's likely to lead to a lockdown on VPNs in the future.
- medler 1y ago> Block BEARD does not mention VPNs, but its broad definition of “service provider” could be interpreted to include them. The prospect of all VPN providers being required to block pirate sites, or being unable to operate in the US, is very scary indeed
- mystraline 1y agoPiracy, eh? So copied without approval. Like archive.is or other news aggregator and paywall-bypass sites. Or, just needs 1 falsely filed DMCA to ban. And whoops, made a mistake, and no process to unban. By sneaking in with 'piracy', they're setting the stage to block any content they don't like.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y agoIntellectual property has been a cover story for censorship for hundreds of years. Nothing new here.
- Simulacra 1y agoMeanwhile, VPN use is skyrocketing as is use of Tor and the dark web.
- Ylpertnodi 1y agoBan vpn use. It's on the cards.
- int_19h 1y agoGood luck enforcing that. VPN protocols have already been honed in the process of evading Chinese, Russian, and Iranian blocks. V2Ray, Trojan etc.
- _lvbh 1y agoI can envision whitelist-only ISPs that block any traffic to unvetted domains and IPs. Hopefully we still have some time left before total dictatorship
- int_19h 1y agoAs far as I know, what you describe exists today only in North Korea. Which is to say, this is not very likely. Thing is, a "great firewall" with some packet inspection thrown in to cut off the common VPN protocols deters 90% of the population, and that is generally "good enough" for authoritarians.
- crinkly 1y agoGood luck! I've stolen everything I want to steal already!
- metadat 1y agoIs it really possible to effectively mass-block a website? Lib-z seems to keep popping back up like the head of Medusa.
- bobajeff 1y agoIt obvious that the purpose of this is really just to censor and lock down the Internet more. I saddens me to watch us go down this path.
- keernan 1y agoI am more concerned about "big brother" - the increasing use of the internet by the government to "watch" its citizens. The recent efforts by England's demand that Apple provide the English government with a "back door" into Apple OS. And more and more governments demanding ID under the guise of protecting children. How is that going to work? Are we all going to need a government issued digital identity in order to use the internet?
- Ylpertnodi 1y agoYes. And I believe you mean the 'Great/ British' [.gov].
- Mountain_Skies 1y agoMost accepted needing a government document to access most aspects of public life just a couple of years ago. The governments saw the public blink and now it knows the sky is the limit.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gscott 1y agoWithout piracy no llm
- dartharva 1y agoWhen have these blocks ever succeeded?
- pmarreck 1y agoOnce the market moves on, only the people that love the media will be the best caretakers of it and that often ends up looking like piracy. They don't rob media sales; they secure media legacies. They're hoarders, not consumers.
- rsynnott 1y agoProcess of drafting a bill in the US: - Actually drafting the bill: 10 minutes - Coming up with the perfect stupid acronym pun name: 6 months. As far as I know, this is a uniquely American thing.
- jjk166 1y agoWell given that the acronym is the only part of the legislation anyone will read, it makes sense it should get the lion's share of the effort.
- IshKebab 1y agoGotta say that's a pretty great name at least!
- msgodel 1y agoWow they haven't even finished the porn blocking stuff and they're already starting with the web-wide corporate censorship.
- RiverCrochet 1y agoThis bill is different than the domain seizures of the past; it seems to be the start of a framework where the government is using its power to tell ISPs to block access to IP addresses - in this case, those identified as foreign piracy sites. Honestly I don't know what's already happening in this space, though. I haven't heard of many instances where U.S. judges are ordering ISPs to block traffic to sites like in other countries, but maybe I haven't been paying attention. There's a number of precautions and exceptions in the bill, and they're good ones, but I don't think we've seen anything like this before. I feel like this bill is the beginning of a type of thinking that could grow past piracy by riding the current isolationist wave in U.S. politics. I think once this passes, it's probably going to be easier to justify ordering ISP blocks of non-U.S. IPs/ASNs on other criteria. It will also further cement social media as the primary thing that is "Internet," instead of websites or other applications based on network protocols. After all that's probably what most people think of as the Internet - social media, a few apps, and streaming. Big social media will always have an international reach as its owners are very rich, they cooperate with governments, their users are individually accountable, and those users will likely become more so over time. I bet soon, that's all that will be left to the masses - social media and streaming.
- Mountain_Skies 1y agoGovernments saw how much they got away with during the pandemic, most of it to thunderous applause. This has emboldened them to grasp even more power.
- McAlpine5892 1y agoThis kind of crap will only grow the MAGA base. Everyone knows our politicians work to serve the corporations and are sick of it. Democrats won’t allow a real candidate that will be anti-corporate. So we end up with Trump who pays lip service to it. For reasons beyond me, people seem to believe him. Meanwhile Altman & Co. continue to steal data at large scale. Trump himself encourages it by removing any potential for regulation the LLM industry. I guess his followers can’t be bothered to read the actual news and get angry about it. Most politicians that stand up against this stuff aren’t allowed to succeed. Unless someone does, this pro-corporate downward spiral will continue.
- LocalH 1y agoAny time a law has a contrived name to fit some cutesy pre-determined name, it's a bullshit law, and will almost never achieve the goals that the cutesy name brings to mind.
- animitronix 1y agolol bring it senators
- theturtle 1y agoEvery one of those jackoffs probably has a VCR at home flashing "12:00."
- arunabha 1y ago> The site-blocking proposal seeks to amend U.S. copyright law, enabling rightsholders to request federal courts to designate online locations as a “foreign digital piracy site”. If that succeeds, courts can subsequently order U.S. service providers to block access to these sites. Of course, because what we need is the govt deciding which sites can be banned. I'm hoping this dies in committee, however for Bay Area folks, Rep Zoe Lofgren is the house sponsor for the companion bill and Adam Schiff is the Senate co sponsor. They can be reached at https://lofgren.house.gov/contact/offices https://lofgren.house.gov/contact/offices and https://www.schiff.senate.gov/contact/ https://www.schiff.senate.gov/contact/ If you oppose this bill, take 5 min and let your congressperson know. They might seem to be bought and paid for by lobbyists, but they care deeply about being reelected and even a small number of constituents showing up can be effective. In order of impact personal visit > letter > call > email. The higher effort channels(visit, letter) tend to get treated more seriously. Emails are largely ignored unless they are absolutely deluged.
- zxcvbn4038 1y agoThe motion picture industry’s problem isn’t piracy, it’s just that they keep targeting movies at 0.02% of the population. If they want to sell more movies they ought to target a bigger demographic.
- jajuuka 1y agoBetween this, new requirements to verify age and locking down of mobile devices it feels like digital freedom is really under attack. For all the decades of the west mocking the great firewall of china, it's sad to see them turn about and enact it themselves.