Australia passes a "controversial" law for blocking pirate sites

[Bouzoo]

The fight against piracy continues, and this time the fight has come to Australia.

 

Australian Senate has passed a legislation into law that allows for websites hosted overseas to be blocked at the ISP level. But here is the "controversial" part. It's not up to ISP to decide which sites it will block, oh no, it's far worse, any right holder, be it music, movie, game or some other studio can go to the federal court and demand websites that have the main purpose of sharing illegal content to be blocked by the ISP.

 

A few moments ago and following just three months of consideration by parliament, the Australian Senate passed the legislation into law. The net result is that in the months and years to come, sites like The Pirate Bay will become inaccessible by regular direct means to most local Internet users.

While there will be celebrations in Hollywood, not everyone in the process is happy with the outcome. The Australian Greens outright rejected the legislation, a position shared by several independents. ISPs and technology companies also complained about elements of the legislation, alongside consumer groups such as Choice who expressed concern that the scope of the law could be expanded in future.

Despite an effort by the government to calm nerves last week by ensuring consumers that VPNs won’t be targeted by the legislation, a specific exemption for VPN providers was rejected.

The legislation does not detail who will pay the ISPs’ costs associated with blocking websites. Earlier this month it was noted by a parliamentary committee that costs should “primarily be borne by those parties who are seeking the remedy” but nothing firm has been agreed thus far.

Even the ISPs are not happy, and VPNs are not excluded from this.

 

And you can see where the problem is. There are sites that "don't host" illegal content as it's main purpose but can be put there, like clouding services. I'm sure this can also be used to remove competition of some sort.

One of the biggest problems cited by critics of the bill is a lack of clear definitions and measures to prevent abuse. What constitutes "primary purpose" is not established in clear terms by the law (which you can read here) nor does it spell out what acts or services qualify as "facilitating" copyright infringement.

Many are concerned that studios and the government will use the law to block sites that happen to host illegal content, like Dropbox, even if that isn't their "primary purpose." 

I know that Dropbox for instance has been fighting piracy by looking at your content and then warning you, but you can't control everything.

 

I know Australia has very slow internet and that people on this forum are complaining a lot, ant this is just another hit at consumers and other studios if used for wrong purposes. Doesn't matter if you supporting pirating content or not, you can see that this is a bad kind of law that gives corporations/studios too much power. Do you agree? 

Also it might sound like a loophole, but what about domestic pirating sites hosted in Australia? I'm sure they've got that covered but what if...? I don't plan on reading the whole damn thing. If you want, you can read it here.

 

Sources: 1, 2, 3

[Briggsy]

give it 6 months and this will be the only website left for australians to visit http://hmpg.net/

[UltraNeonGaming]

I'm against pirating but this is getting pretty bad, some ISP's have blocked P2P (Peer to Peer transfer) just because it can be used for pirating.

P2P has many legit uses, it wasn't made to be used for pirating.

It's widely used to distribute software, updates and it gives the servers that would be hosting that content a break.

[Arty]

The only Sites that should be blocked are Child p*rn 

and maybe ways of obtaining unliget firearms. drugs etc.

[Kodiack]

Yikes! Australian government has been making all kinds of strange decisions as of late. That is an absolutely horrible piece of legislation. It's bad enough that rights holders of all people are the ones with the power here, and it's even worse that there don't seem to be many deterrents in place to prevent abuse.

This sounds like their way of taking the DMCA and pumping it with steroids. The DMCA is scary enough as it is! You didn't need to make even more of a monster out of it!

[Bouzoo]

The only Sites that should be blocked are Child p*rn 

And animal porn then for that matter. 

[Norman_the_Owl]

The only Sites that should be blocked are Child p*rn 

and maybe ways of obtaining unliget firearms. drugs etc.

Why would you censor the word porn?

[JAKEBAB]

This is bs seriously i don't understand why people vote Liberal or Labour the Greens deserve a shot i feel like there the only ones with half a brain

[Arty]

Why would you censor the word porn?

i would assume "child porn" would be caught be some filters  work/school/public places

[POCOLOCO]

This is bs seriously i don't understand why people vote Liberal or Labour the Greens deserve a shot i feel like there the only ones with half a brain

 

The problem is that Australia has an aging population who are more traditional and as a result you continue to see more conservative and well established parties in power.

[soaringchicken]

Oh my Fing God, I am so sick of this country. The Government is just a corrupt group of old people who only think for themselves and have no idea how modern society and technology works. Australia is constantly taking one step forward, and then two steps back. 

 

I live in Australia btw

[Salty]

This is bs seriously i don't understand why people vote Liberal or Labour the Greens deserve a shot i feel like there the only ones with half a brain

Haven't you seen the Green's stance on gun laws or basically anything that they find scary?

[Yoinkerman]

Inb4 mpaa uploading files to YouTube then filing to have it taken down

[mr moose]

The problem is that Australia has an aging population who are more traditional and as a result you continue to see more conservative and well established parties in power.

 

Without getting complicated or detailed,  if you look at voting maps, the green vote is centralized to the cities.  There is not enough physical spread to correlate with age.

 

It will be interesting to see how these laws pan out and if they will survive a federal court challenge should one arise.

[ClownFace1511]

I live in australia and there are already a few plans in place. 1. VPN's are not blocked by the government and they said they would keep them unblocked. 2. You mentioned hosting one in australia, if im correct thats illegal in australia and it will get shut down straight away, thats where they get you. I dont use pirate sites often o this isnt a huge issue fo me, but for others who like to stream game of thrones and shit ur screwed. Foxtel and neflix dont show all american shows in australia, sometimes there is a massive delay or we dont get it at all. Government fucked up, atleast give us better internet to compensate.

[mr moose]

Oh my Fing God, I am so sick of this country. The Government is just a corrupt group of old people who only think for themselves and have no idea how modern society and technology works. Australia is constantly taking one step forward, and then two steps back. 

 

I live in Australia btw

 

I can guarantee you both Liberal and Labor know more about modern culture and technologies effect on it than you do.

 

Common misconception that old = tech naive.

[BOT Edward]

Well f***, im going to have to ask my american friends to send me the torrent files now :lol:

[Bouzoo]

I live in australia and there are already a few plans in place. 1. VPN's are not blocked by the government and they said they would keep them unblocked. 2. You mentioned hosting one in australia, if im correct thats illegal in australia and it will get shut down straight away, thats where they get you. I dont use pirate sites often o this isnt a huge issue fo me, but for others who like to stream game of thrones and shit ur screwed. Foxtel and neflix dont show all american shows in australia, sometimes there is a massive delay or we dont get it at all. Government fucked up, atleast give us better internet to compensate.

I was sure there was some kind of deal with hosting there but I've no idea how it works, so ty for clarifying that. So these parts about VPNs being blocked are false? You got any sources? Because I can't change that in my post just based on you word if you get what I mean, no matter how much I hope you're right.

[POCOLOCO]

I can guarantee you both Liberal and Labor know more about modern culture and technologies effect on it than you do.

 

Common misconception that old = tech naive.

 

 

are aware of = maybe

are knowledable about = not fucking likely

 

[edit] in terms of politicians

[ClownFace1511]

I was sure there was some kind of deal with hosting there but I've no idea how it works, so ty for clarifying that. So these parts about VPNs being blocked are false? You got any sources? Because I can't change that in my post just based on you word if you get what I mean, no matter how much I hope you're right.

So there are many websites saying that VPN's should be blocked or are being blocked to stop pirating. When they mean stop pirating they mean that by blocking vpns users will be caught pirating using their normal isp, therefore reducing piracy by punishing (eg Fine, jailtime) people.

 

On this source: Here, They say that VPN's will not be blocked. (It has now been changed since last night i looked at it).

 

FOUND IT! Source: Here

The government says VPNs – which enable users to disguise their location – will not be targeted.

Eventually they will be targeted, we all know it. Australia is turning into China. Everything is blocked Time to move countries.

[MageTank]

 After what we've seen companies do to youtube videos that do not even have their specific content, this scares me. Any company like Sony can get a video taken down for having content that barely sounds similar to theirs, or if it involves a review of their content that they do not like. Even after considering Fair Use laws. This is not a good thing. 

[Whoopsie988]

One acronym: TOR

[Snickerzz]

I'm against pirating but this is getting pretty bad, some ISP's have blocked P2P (Peer to Peer transfer) just because it can be used for pirating.

P2P has many legit uses, it wasn't made to be used for pirating.

It's widely used to distribute software, updates and it gives the servers that would be hosting that content a break.

and a lot of games use it for multiplayer, like warframe and GTAV

[Ekpyrosis]

I'm against pirating but this is getting pretty bad, some ISP's have blocked P2P (Peer to Peer transfer) just because it can be used for pirating.

P2P has many legit uses, it wasn't made to be used for pirating.

It's widely used to distribute software, updates and it gives the servers that would be hosting that content a break.

Yikes! That's the main way many Linux distros are distributed.

[Counter-Strike Player]

Lol, and what were they planning to do about ECC/XOR vpn traffic? Just blacklist anything that looks remotely suspicious? Aren't you guys forced to vote down there? Why is it so hard to pick someone from the "sex party" or at least someone who cares about free speech?