US Senators Introduce New Pirate Site Blocking Bill: Block BEARD (torrentfreak.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Efforts to introduce pirate site blocking to the United States continue with the introduction of the "Block BEARD" bill (PDF) in the Senate. The bipartisan proposal, backed by Senators Tillis, Coons, Blackburn, and Schiff, aims to create a new legal mechanism to combat foreign piracy websites. Block BEARD is similar to the previously introduced House bill "FADPA", but doesn't directly mention DNS resolvers. [...] 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.
Pirate site designation would be dependent on rightsholders showing that they are harmed by a site's activities, that reasonable efforts had been made to notify the site's operator, and that a reasonable investigation confirms the operator is not located within the United States. Additionally, rightsholders must show that the site is primarily designed for piracy, has limited commercial purpose, or is intentionally marketed by its operator to promote copyright-infringing activities. If the court classifies a website as a foreign pirate site, rightsholders can go back to court to request a blocking order. At this stage, the court will determine whether it is technically and practically feasible for ISPs to block the site, and consider any potential harm to the public interest. 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.
The Block BEARD bill broadly applies to service providers as defined in section 512(k)(1)(A) of the DMCA. This is a broad definition that applies to residential ISPs, but also to search engines, social media platforms, and DNS resolvers. Service providers with fewer than 50,000 subscribers are explicitly excluded, and the same applies to venues such as coffee shops, libraries, and universities that offer internet access to visitors. Unlike the FADPA bill introduced by Representative Lofgren earlier this year, the Senate bill does not specifically mention DNS resolvers. Block BEARD does not mention VPNs, but its broad definition of "service provider" could be interpreted to include them. The proposal states that providers have the option to contest their inclusion in a blocking order. Once an order is issued, they would have the freedom to choose their own blocking techniques. There are no transparency requirements mentioned in the bill, so if and how the public is informed is unclear.
Pirate site designation would be dependent on rightsholders showing that they are harmed by a site's activities, that reasonable efforts had been made to notify the site's operator, and that a reasonable investigation confirms the operator is not located within the United States. Additionally, rightsholders must show that the site is primarily designed for piracy, has limited commercial purpose, or is intentionally marketed by its operator to promote copyright-infringing activities. If the court classifies a website as a foreign pirate site, rightsholders can go back to court to request a blocking order. At this stage, the court will determine whether it is technically and practically feasible for ISPs to block the site, and consider any potential harm to the public interest. 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.
The Block BEARD bill broadly applies to service providers as defined in section 512(k)(1)(A) of the DMCA. This is a broad definition that applies to residential ISPs, but also to search engines, social media platforms, and DNS resolvers. Service providers with fewer than 50,000 subscribers are explicitly excluded, and the same applies to venues such as coffee shops, libraries, and universities that offer internet access to visitors. Unlike the FADPA bill introduced by Representative Lofgren earlier this year, the Senate bill does not specifically mention DNS resolvers. Block BEARD does not mention VPNs, but its broad definition of "service provider" could be interpreted to include them. The proposal states that providers have the option to contest their inclusion in a blocking order. Once an order is issued, they would have the freedom to choose their own blocking techniques. There are no transparency requirements mentioned in the bill, so if and how the public is informed is unclear.
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My mom is a pirate you insensitive sexist clod!
Fussing the easily circumvented details (Score:1)
Re: Fussing the easily circumvented details (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why bother?
Virtue signaling is very important to maintain a steady flow of graft and corruption.
Re:Fussing the easily circumvented details (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end a simple VPN that just about every pirate already has setup is going to circumvent anything that they resolve. Why bother?
Because we have to do something. This is something, so we have to do this.
Seriously, it's because the copyright lobby helps fund their campaigns and/or have a major presence in their districts.
You'd think Schiff, being from a state that also houses big tech, would have more tech savvy than to waste everyone's time and money on frivolous guaranteed failures like this, but history has shown that almost nobody in Congress understands tech. Props to the outliers like Lofgren who seem to at least have a clue more often than not, but they are by far the exception rather than the rule.
Once you recognize that the "follow the money" rule pretty much defines how Congress operates, a lot of things start to make a lot more sense.
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You'd think Schiff, being from a state that also houses big tech, would have more tech savvy than to waste everyone's time and money on frivolous guaranteed failures like this, but history has shown that almost nobody in Congress understands tech.
There's a legit reason for nobody in Congress understanding tech. It's because the vast majority of members, including in this case Schiff, are lawyers. I'm an IT guy with a lot of lawyer friends from my college days. How this ended up being the case is a long story I'll skip. But none of them are great at tech at all. One lawyer friend for years had a "cell phone that's just a phone" until he grudgingly had to give it up and got, and can barely use, an iPhone. Another is very tech challenged.
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You'd think Schiff, being from a state that also houses big tech, would have more tech savvy than to waste everyone's time and money on frivolous guaranteed failures like this, but history has shown that almost nobody in Congress understands tech.
There's a legit reason for nobody in Congress understanding tech. It's because the vast majority of members, including in this case Schiff, are lawyers. I'm an IT guy with a lot of lawyer friends from my college days. How this ended up being the case is a long story I'll skip. But none of them are great at tech at all.
And yet Lofgren usually gets tech policy at least half right, while still having a background in immigration law. To be fair, she represents part of Silicon Valley, and thus presumably has great advisors, but the point remains that being a lawyer shouldn't be an excuse, particularly if you're in Congress. I mean, you're right that the lawyer monoculture in Congress is a disaster and leads to policies being frequently irrational from the perspective of common sense when applied to technology, but I think i
Re: Fussing the easily circumvented details (Score:2)
Yes, these laws can be easily circumvented with existing commercial services.
Speed laws are easily circumvented by pushing your right foot to the firewall. Watch them tack on criminal charges for embargo evasion, and use that as a back door to legal action against vpn providers getting similarly blocked if they don't enforce the embargo.
I might be cynical, but you know it will happen.
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Literally no purpose (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone seeking to browse those kinds of sites that has a lick of sense is already using a VPN or Tor browser, and if it's somehow possible to get a VPN service to block sites they will quickly find themselves losing users for doing so; either to find a service that doesn't block web traffic, or simply out of protest for being untrustworthy.
The only use this could have is as a cudgel for rightsholders to harass sites they don't like.
=Smidge=
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A real site will encrypt all traffic anyway
Including the DNS transaction, the public IP address of the server, and the SNI field of ClientHello?
idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem (Perceived) : Music piracy is rampant
Solution (failed): be completely cunty and sue random poors into oblivion to prove a point.
Solution (actual): iTunes/Spotify, i.e easy/cheap access to what people actually wanted to listen to
I'd wager casual piracy by consumers (i.e. downloading some random shitty movie) was significantly less common when netflix was virtually the only game in town. Then like absolute cunts the rights holders decided to be greedy and carve out their own crappy streaming services. Now it's once again stupidly expensive to have access to everything you'd care to watch, and piracy is the answer.
It's like (((rights holders))) cannot fathom the idea that their perceived value of $media is far, far higher than that of consumer's valuation. They'll pay a buck to watch some hollywood slop perhaps, but a monthly bill north of $60 to subscribe to a bunch of shitty, cunty streaming services that shove unskippable advertisements down your throat is a totally different situation.
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It's like (((rights holders))) cannot fathom the idea that their perceived value of $media is far, far higher than that of consumer's valuation.
Not at all. It really doesn't take much to buy off a few lawmakers. If the law can convince even 5% of pirates to start paying, it'll be worth the cost.
Whether a few lawmakers can actually get this bill through is an entirely separate question though.
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I think that part of the problem is that value of entertainment has dropped.
Value has dropped, because everyone can nowadays make entertainment and some even use AI to make it. All these people compete against each others in the same markets, even if the products are different type (music, game, video, book, ...). Even if you are an amateur, you can get lucky and create something worth watching, for example just by getting hit by a lightning.
I don't think that piracy is their problem. I think it is all the
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It's like (((rights holders)))
Echoes? seriously slashdot?
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Problem (Perceived) : Music piracy is rampant
Solution (failed): be completely cunty and sue random poors into oblivion to prove a point.
Solution (actual): iTunes/Spotify, i.e easy/cheap access to what people actually wanted to listen to
I'd wager casual piracy by consumers (i.e. downloading some random shitty movie) was significantly less common when netflix was virtually the only game in town. Then like absolute cunts the rights holders decided to be greedy and carve out their own crappy streaming services. Now it's once again stupidly expensive to have access to everything you'd care to watch, and piracy is the answer.
It's like (((rights holders))) cannot fathom the idea that their perceived value of $media is far, far higher than that of consumer's valuation. They'll pay a buck to watch some hollywood slop perhaps, but a monthly bill north of $60 to subscribe to a bunch of shitty, cunty streaming services that shove unskippable advertisements down your throat is a totally different situation.
Piracy is mostly a customer service problem and is largely caused by trying to create artificial scarcity by locking up the product. People will buy if you make it easy, affordable and palatable. Forcing them into overpaying or using a strict DRM system that fails more often than it works only serves to drive customers to easier means of consumption.
McDonalds, people like McDonalds (I don't care if you've not eaten there since 1982 because cold/soggy/blah blah, bul-ah, no one likes you), would they sell
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Yeah but Solution (actual) caveats are: "You don't really own the content. We can erase it from our service, and thus your computer or device at some point in the future with no recourse available to you because copying it is illegal or technically infeasible." And guess how many of the assholes are lining up to make sure that stops.
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Once streaming became as expensive as cable I was not surprised that piracy became thing again.
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Simplistic solution fail.
If Netflix remained the only solution, Netflix will BE the only solution. Netflix will raise pri
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It's like (((rights holders))) cannot fathom the idea that their perceived value of $media is far, far higher than that of consumer's valuation.
In their mind, each person that views a piece of media should be paying for the entire production cost, plus a "little" extra for profit. Multiply that by millions, and the rights holders own the entire planet for one show. Until they get to that level of profit, there are no arguments against their greed in their mind.
Meanwhile AI is Stealing Everything (Score:2, Insightful)
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American "\justice" favors the rich.
Exactly, the best justice system money can buy.
VPNs won't work forever (Score:2)
Re no VPNs? (Score:3)
Re: Re no VPNs? (Score:2)
They won't make VPNs illegal, because that would be absolute lunacy that would be mocked along the lines of Senator Ted "series of tubes" Stevens.
What they will do is have the Department of Justice sue the large VPN providers into oblivion for conspiring to enable mass copyright violation or some shit, highlighting their refusal to block these sites that a federal judge has determined should be blocked under this law. This is the first domino that allows them to have a legal crack at the VPN providers, whi
They cannot even enforce CSAM blocks on VPNs (Score:2)
Nym mixnet like tor but for streaming/torrent (Score:2)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Nym mixnet like tor but for streaming/torrent (Score:2)
You don't really need anything like that. Simply hosting the tracker on Tor should do -- it doesn't need much bandwidth, nor is it sensitive to latency. The actual BitTorrent traffic can just flow over the open internet, over a VPN, etc.
Re: Nym mixnet like tor but for streaming/torrent (Score:2)
They want to eliminate the anonymous internet (Score:4, Interesting)
https://x.com/visegrad24/statu... [x.com]
The UK Minister for Technology has urged citizens to stop using VPNs, to help them circumvent the new Online Safety Act.
Peter Kyle said that providing personal data to the state would keep save children in the UK.
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License (Score:5, Insightful)
If buying isn't owning, then copying isn't stealing
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Stealing is taking something from someone else. While that phrase is pithy, I have mixed feelings about acknowledging digital piracy being stealing as anything other than a joke.
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Just doing their masters' bidding (Score:3)
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Yes, it's quite rare that a Congressman's constituents are his voters.
Maybe a dozen, max.
Yet incumbents win reelection 92 % of the time.
We also have the government we deserve.
another BBB? (Score:2)
"Rights holders" can't be trusted (Score:3)
If the DMCA has taught us anything, it's that so-called "rights holders" can and will abuse systems designed to operate based on their complaints. This entire bill seems to permit DMCA-style takedowns on entire domains.
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Now all the rights holders groups have to do is use this new law to declare the alleged violator to be a pirate site to force American ISPs to block them.
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anyone can claim a site is guilty of piracy (Score:2)
And have it shut down/removed from dns with no transparency or due process?
No risk of abuse here, nope not at all.
I have an idea (Score:1)
Copyright is like taxes, for the little people (Score:2)
Hmm, Facebook and Google get to violate copyright on a massive scale. but you little folk have to pay through the nose.
As it should be /s