Internet is changing forever....soon.

Read this in my travels yesterday, The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act will be introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow. In effect it grants sweeping powers to the government regulators to "Blacklist" and "Remove" any sites that are found to possess material they deem either counterfeit or a copywrite infringement among other things.

This will allow the government to shut down access to any site they want without any due process, they will simply tell the ISP to disallow access to those sites and you will not be able to log in to them at all.

I am all for some kind of control over certain aspects of online activity, but this goes way too far for my liking, government agencies given sweeping powers like this with no oversight are dangerous.

What has this got to do with a music Forum you ask?

Any site like Youtube or a Streaming site can be shut down because of all the applications that allow you to download music from them, I have never done that on Youtube but many others do. It could have a huge impact on how forums go about just talking about bands and new songs etc., while government is never really fast this kind of legislation has been on the drawing boards for a long time. And the US is prepared to use all it's muscle to get compliance from friendly nations all over the world as well. That is what makes it so serious.

This sort of legislation, once it's made public, is a political suicide bomb. Proposing stricter regulations to Australia's access to the Internet was a major reason for the sacking of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. I'd be sceptical that it would get through once the media get their mitts on it.

It's my view, that if politicians spent more time attempting to solve conflict in the world and less time trying to find who's the legal owner of Mickey Mouse and other copyright issues, then the world will be a better place.

^^I agree with you Feldy many more pressing matters to attend to than this, but it's all about the Media Giants buying their politicians and getting their way as much as anything else.

Things will never be the same no matter what governments/companies want to do, that is part of the problem they refuse to come to terms with the new age of technology and their place in it.

I think I may be visiting Feldy and Sal soon.. This gives the government far too much power IMO..

I don't understand why they think that can fight it?.. It's goign to happen no matter what they do, all they're going to wind up doing is cause an inconvenience for themselves and everyone else..

I have already encountered sensorship on internet sites. Every once in a while I get a youtube video or some other site that gives me the message:


Not Viewable in your country.

I wonder what they would do with an "OOP" record that the original company is no longer around to claim copywrite issues?

There are so many of them out there now, I think the authorities are in for a lot of headaches if they steamroll everything using their new legislative powers. Some great records were never converted to digital, and hard core fans have made high quality digital files of them to share the music. I see nothing wrong with that myself.

I think the copywrites go on to the heirs.

^^It depends, J.S. Bach for instance sold his stuff to a publishing company so they have rites in perpetuity, but if an old record company like "Attic" goes under years ago, and the artists don't care then I think it's fair game.

We should join up with China

One merely has to look at how China's government handles censorship and the internet to see what happens.