Kim the Fox!!!
What am I doing here?
Sorry, I cannot donate. Will it affect other countries like Brazil?
The end of the internet could be soon
- Thread starter Bobinator
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Since they'd be seizing domain names, most likely.
SSNTails
What part of 'RETIRED' don't you understand?
Similar laws like this have been overturned due to the precedent of the ruling on VCRs. So I'm not really worried of it going anywhere.
JEV3
There and back again~
There's a difference between not worrying about it and just ignoring the issue. If this is a proposal for a court of law, I don't know how much we'd do about it anyway, but I'm pretty sure that the most helpful opposition is coming from those who aren't panicking out of fear for their internet but are rationally treating it as a bad idea, the way it ought to be.
If you ask me, there's something of a parody between U.S. copyright laws and British libel laws. In both cases, the burden of proof rests too heavily on the defendant, allowing the laws to be used as a tool by large corporations to crush commoners. The plaintiff isn't even required to provide conclusive evidence that the claim in question was harmful and slanderous. Ever hear of the McLibel lawsuit? The McDonalds Corporation exploited British libel laws to effectively ruin the lives of dissenters, because there was simply no way for the defendants to prove that their criticism of the company was not libelous. Eventually, a pair of people who were sued by McDonalds fought so hard and pushed for so many appeals that they actually scored a victory (I don't know the exact nature of the final verdict, or even if it has come yet, but I do know that McDonalds is coming out worse for the experience).
A very similar thing is happening with the entertainment industry. Disney and Viacom don't seem to be under much legal obligation to prove in court that a copyright infringement actually hurts the company's image or finances; they just have to show that some kind of infringement has taken place. For years, this hasn't been as much of a problem as British libel laws because the vast majority of copyright infringements that are targeted (illegal file sharing, primarily), can easily be construed as hurting the companies. However, under this new bill, this would no longer necessarily be the case. Sites like YouTube would be the new version of the British libel victims, unable to defend their practices or offer evidence that the offensive material constitutes only a small portion of the site and is submitted by a third party.
Copyright laws need to place the responsibility of direct evidence on the plaintiff. The corporations should be required to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the offensive web site compromises their image and hurts their sales. If the defendant is found guilty, so be it. Pull the material from the site and slap a fine on them. If not, well then, that corporation will be demonized for wasting everyone's time and money in legal proceedings. The real beauty of this idea is that it would encourage the entertainment industry to back off from petty copyright infringements and only sue for the kind of egregious, inexcusable violations that the whole copyright system was designed to prevent. It would, in short, restore justice and sanity to this whole business.
A very similar thing is happening with the entertainment industry. Disney and Viacom don't seem to be under much legal obligation to prove in court that a copyright infringement actually hurts the company's image or finances; they just have to show that some kind of infringement has taken place. For years, this hasn't been as much of a problem as British libel laws because the vast majority of copyright infringements that are targeted (illegal file sharing, primarily), can easily be construed as hurting the companies. However, under this new bill, this would no longer necessarily be the case. Sites like YouTube would be the new version of the British libel victims, unable to defend their practices or offer evidence that the offensive material constitutes only a small portion of the site and is submitted by a third party.
Copyright laws need to place the responsibility of direct evidence on the plaintiff. The corporations should be required to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the offensive web site compromises their image and hurts their sales. If the defendant is found guilty, so be it. Pull the material from the site and slap a fine on them. If not, well then, that corporation will be demonized for wasting everyone's time and money in legal proceedings. The real beauty of this idea is that it would encourage the entertainment industry to back off from petty copyright infringements and only sue for the kind of egregious, inexcusable violations that the whole copyright system was designed to prevent. It would, in short, restore justice and sanity to this whole business.
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Seriously, though: Australia is one of the worst places to live when it comes to the internet/gaming. The government's filled with Joe Liebermans and Jack Thompsons.
He didn't say anything about you.
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