[HN Gopher] U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bil...
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block
BEARD"
Author : HieronymusBosch
Score : 226 points
Date : 2025-07-31 14:55 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
| Varelion wrote:
| So sick of this corporatocracy.
| monksy wrote:
| So how much are they getting bribed to do this?
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Only the powerless are bribed, the powerful are "lobbied".
| seanw444 wrote:
| It's just different, otherwise it wouldn't be a different
| word... right?
| pickleglitch wrote:
| It'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 wrote:
| the end of red dead redemption 2 is about the internet, isn't it?
| johnisgood wrote:
| Amazing. These kind of bills / laws are being passed left and
| right "recently".
| mindslight wrote:
| Both 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 wrote:
| I have a feeling the public is going to be willing to accept
| a lot of things.
| tharmas wrote:
| >corpo-authoritarian
|
| "corporate fascist"
| lokar wrote:
| I don't think they care about the policy. They just see a one
| sided debate: companies will to pay and an indifferent
| public.
| mindslight wrote:
| Sure, 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 wrote:
| Without 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.
| keybored wrote:
| That's a false equivalence. Companies can pay people to
| agitate for them full-time. Then they can pay the
| politicians, albeit indirectly. Finally the public have the
| privilege of using their free time to agitate against the
| politicians. Which just starts out as unorganized
| disruptions, "people were mildly inconvenienced on their
| way to work today".
|
| That versus cash.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > And for this round the people have spoken that they want it
| good and hard.
|
| Actually, the people have said "please stop this, this can't
| go on" at every election since 1992, with the possible
| exception of 2012 (unless you admit that 2012 President Obama
| was running against 2008 Candidate Obama.) They again said it
| in 2024.
| mindslight wrote:
| I agree that's what the people have wanted to say and that
| they believe it is what they have said, but they get taken
| in by simplistic populist messages that transmute their
| frustration into support for the next corpo con long into
| when the results have become apparent. But for 2024 the
| usual excuses of "he reneged", "stick with the incumbent",
| or "less bad option" don't even work - it's a clear case of
| people putting their foot on the gas with a known quantity,
| but thinking it must be a good thing because those _other_
| people are really upset about it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _These kind of bills / laws are being passed_
|
| It hasn't been passed!
| leptons wrote:
| I have no doubt that it will pass. If it is overly broad and
| can be used to needlessly hurt someone, Republicans love it,
| and they are the ones with power right now.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Many of them have, but you are right, should have used a
| different term.
| rcpt wrote:
| Our own great firewall
| cvoss wrote:
| The 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.
| dttze wrote:
| Yet it will be. Laws mean nothing to these people.
| ACCount36 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| >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-
| acti...
|
| I'm pretty sure the movie isn't intended to be put on the
| internet or be part of internet content.
| ACCount36 wrote:
| What the fuck does that have to do with anything at all?
|
| The discussion isn't about random movie leaks. It's about
| creating systems that allow for internet censorship.
| supertrope wrote:
| YouTube's copyright strikes create a chilling effect. Google
| takes the easy way out in tuning their system to minimize
| false negatives at the cost of lots of false positives. This
| minimizes their liability under the DMCA and minimizes cost
| but allows lots of abuse by those claiming to hold copyright.
| int_19h wrote:
| When you prevent distribution of information, that is
| censorship by definition. You can argue that censorship in
| this case is socially beneficial, but don't muddy the waters
| as to what it it is.
|
| At the same time, laws like these require creation of
| infrastructure that is goal-agnostic. Once you have ISPs
| implement mandatory blocking of websites for copyright
| reasons, this system can, and eventually will, be used to
| block other things deemed undesirable for the plebs to
| access.
|
| Given the current presidential administration especially, any
| Democrat participating in such a project should be tarred and
| feathered.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| So how long before its used to block sites that say mean
| things about Trump?
| hooverd wrote:
| Ah, I'm so glad we can be bipartisan when it comes to making
| things worse.
| monksy wrote:
| Can we get a list of senators who support this and their party
| affiliation?
| hooverd wrote:
| Thom Tillis - R Chris Coons - D Marsha Blackburn - R Adam
| Schiff - D
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| Schiff 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 wrote:
| He is! Thank you.
| mindslight wrote:
| Same rep that grandstanded with an "Aaron's law" that
| wouldn't have actually changed the laws used to persecute
| aaronsw.
| int_19h wrote:
| The 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.
| jgerrish wrote:
| The name of this bill, "Block BEARD" is what really gets
| me.
|
| It's a simple thing. Just a casual joke that means
| nothing to most people.
|
| I worry because there are millions of young citizens who
| are going to have to work harder either for new political
| parties or to overturn this kind of language and jab.
|
| We can't ever prove it's a higher level system that keeps
| every next generation in perpetual non-paying advocacy
| and grassroots political work. That's deeply unsettling.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| landlines and snail mail. Not that those things can't be
| tracked/tapped either, but it is more work. Pay cash for stuff.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| Oh 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 wrote:
| Remember: you can do almost anything in America so long as a
| retirement fund gets to wet its beak.
|
| Murder-for-hire? That's not only a first-degree murder charge,
| it's RICO. You're looking at the gurney in Terre Haute as a
| real possibility.
|
| Operating a company that takes money from people on the promise
| that they'll be able to use it to cover medical expenses, then
| denying the payout because you already promised that money to
| shareholders who want to move to Florida to swing on and off
| the golf course at the retirement community they like, all
| while letting the person die a miserable death from a treatable
| illness? Perfectly legal. Encouraged. You have Congress' ear.
|
| Same here.
|
| Reading a book that no one wants to sell without paying for it?
| Intellectual property theft. Having a LLM model do the same and
| then charging for access to said model's output? Here's a seat
| behind the President at the inauguration.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| That'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 wrote:
| "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 wrote:
| Yes, there is. The corporation is worse even because they
| do it on a mass scale.
|
| The response to that UHC ceo is entirely his and the
| corporation's fault. Actions have consequences.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Wonder 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 wrote:
| Won'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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| So 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.
| benreesman wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| "If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing."
| mystraline wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| This should be pushed into the public consciousness as far
| as possible
| bombcar wrote:
| I see no strong moral argument against ripping DVDs (from the
| library or similar) of content you paid for on Apple or Amazon.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| There'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.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > arguably copyright/intellectual property make for
| stronger societies that produce better stuff for everybody.
|
| They really, really don't. The _tradeoff_ of offering
| _temporary_ legal privileges in exchange for a future
| richer public domain resulted in better stuff for
| everybody. Those legal privileges have become effectively
| permanent, so the trade is broken.
| beanjuice wrote:
| citation?
| MangoToupe wrote:
| The main moral argument _for_ intellectual property rights
| seems to be "because that's how the world already works and
| we don't want to disrupt that less it be artists or inventors
| that get the shaft", and yet we don't have strong cases of
| intellectual property _protecting_ artists or inventors in
| the first place. Not as a _primary_ effect of IP, anyway.
| xtracto wrote:
| In my country it is not illegal to download or share
| copyright content for non-profit and personal use. It's the
| IPTVs, torrent and streaming pirate sites with Ads or asking
| for money the ones that should die (that's why I don't agree
| with Anna's Archive profiting from sharing copyrighted
| content).
|
| As I said before: it's 2025, we shouldn't need an ad infested
| "website" to share, discover and download content in a p2p
| fashion. Kademilla and similar DHT truly decentralized tech
| has existed for more than 15 years...
|
| The problem is that new generations want to profit from
| everything and have stopped "sharing is caring"
| int_19h wrote:
| There are ways to get your content out of DRM walled gardens,
| e.g. Streamfab.
| msgodel wrote:
| It's easier to just make a list and torrent.
| puppycodes wrote:
| ah great I was worried for a second for our struggling monopolies
| this should help them back on their feet
| thedevilslawyer wrote:
| No one would steal a car. More importantly, everyone would clone
| a car. Of course we should support this fully.
|
| Oppose this bill.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Oppose 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.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Isn'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 wrote:
| For 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 wrote:
| Can 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 wrote:
| Even 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 wrote:
| Why do the ripping myself when the torrents are mostly
| all rips other people already did?
| int_19h wrote:
| I still subscribe to some of the services, but the experience
| has deteriorated sufficiently that at this point I rip all
| videos I care about and then watch them in Plex.
| dsissitka wrote:
| In my circles the modern alternative seems to be using Yandex
| to search for "$show stream".
|
| I don't know about BitTorrent but Usenet is way up:
|
| https://www.newsdemon.com/usenet-newsgroup-feed-size
| namrog84 wrote:
| Daily volume could just be more bluray high quality downloads
| with people with better internet. And not neccesarily larger
| number of people right?
| kimbernator wrote:
| I would be pretty surprised if the quality of rips since
| 2017 would account for a 20x increase in traffic.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Most of the rips are probably the same-ish size. But
| there are definitely now a lot of incredibly huge rips. A
| 13-episode season of television that's like 80 gigs. It's
| an additive load, and while it's not that regular, it
| could have a massively outsided impact.
| SSLy wrote:
| dunno about public sites, but the private ones are healthier
| than ever
| e40 wrote:
| I torrent content I'm legally allowed to watch because the UX
| is far better with Plex than with the plethora of crappy apps.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I rip stuff from YouTube for the same reason. Currently
| watching Taskmaster which has all or most episodes freely
| available on YouTube, but no way am I interested in using
| that dumpster fire of a UX.
| dml2135 wrote:
| It's down from it's heyday for the mainstream, but for the
| dedicated few, it's better than ever before. Gone are the days
| of manually searching for a movie on tracker sites, downloading
| them, organizing your library and watching stuff on your
| laptop.
|
| There are now open-source, self-hosted applications that
| automate that entire process, so it's as simple as requesting a
| movie on your phone and having it show up on your own personal
| streaming service on your TV a few minutes later.
| IshKebab wrote:
| What are the names of these immoral piracy applications, so
| that I can know to avoid them if I happen to stumble upon
| one?
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Plex/Jellyfin for streaming, the *arr suite for
| cataloging/downloading [0]
|
| [0] https://wiki.servarr.com/
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| :D I'm glad you're protected from these terrible services
| now
| xtracto wrote:
| Do not under any circumstance download Stremio (available
| in Firestick as well). Also don't try to install the
| Torrentio extension for Stremio. That would allow you to
| play pirated content with one click I your TV, similarly to
| PopcornTime.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| I know a guy who knows a guy that says that you don't even
| need that, you just browse the movies and press "play" as
| there is direct torrent streaming now. But I don't know
| anything about all this i just use my VCR with the clock
| flashing 12:00.
| aegypti wrote:
| Yes, for $30 a year you can instantly stream any torrent
| with no real setup or install. The most used client is a
| PWA that calls out to VLC or whatever.
|
| Bluray 4K 100+GB copy of Dune Part 2 at >70Mbps with maybe
| 5 seconds of buffering at the start. Literally can't
| replicate it with legal streaming.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I think it was down when the answer to streaming was "get
| netflix, it has most stuff", but now it's "pay for netflix,
| Disney+, Amazon prime, apple tv, ...".
| blackjack_ wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| How's your local library system?
| HanClinto wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Ask about interlibrary loans; our rural library can get
| almost anything, given time.
| csnover wrote:
| Where 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.
| standardUser wrote:
| I wonder what the material difference is between borrowing a
| film from the library (is this DVD? Blu-ray? Streaming?) and
| downloading it from a peer-to-peer network.
|
| I suppose it's an act of support for your public library. But
| no one with a financial stake in that particular media is
| impacted in any way by using either method to obtain the
| film.
| endemic wrote:
| Came here to recommend this. A viable option, at least until
| Republicans completely defund public libraries.
| elijaht wrote:
| I watch a decent amount of movies, I can count on one hand the
| number of times I couldn't rent it for <$5 on Prime or YouTube.
| I've never been unable to identify where I could find a
| particular movie to stream, and it's certainly less effort than
| going to a physical storefront.
|
| I think there are plenty of problems with the streaming model,
| but I think it's borderline bad faith to try and make the claim
| that piracy is needed because it's hard to navigate streaming
| sites. It's certainly easier than finding obscure movies was
| pre-streaming
| MichaelBosworth wrote:
| It happens to me often enough. Might be a matter of taste in
| movies?
| elijaht wrote:
| I'm sure it's related. I'm curious for any examples
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I regularly run into shows and movies no one will carry.
|
| A recent example is Hot l Baltimore. It's an early Norman
| Lear production and stared James Cromwell and Charlotte
| Rae.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_l_Baltimore
|
| I planned to add Turn On (1969), Tim Conway. It was
| canceled while the 1st episode was airing.
|
| But since the last time I looked for it, some ethical
| soul uploaded it to wikipedia.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-On
| ziml77 wrote:
| Not a movie, but Police Squad is missing from streaming
| services. It's strange given it spawned 3 movies and now
| we even have an upcoming sequel to those.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| BBC: This Was the Week That Was. TV, aired 1962-1963
|
| NBC: This Was the Week That Was. TV, aired 1963-1965.
| Someone found acetate audio recordings of two episodes
| and ripped them to YT. An act of culture, done in spite
| of rights holders.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtVRJ2qdYw4
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pprBfg6OSRM
| Spastche wrote:
| >I watch a decent amount of movies, I can count on one hand
| the number of times I couldn't rent it for <$5 on Prime or
| YouTube.
|
| delve deep into most directors filmography from the
| 60s/70s/80s and you'll find plenty missing. Ken Russell,
| Robert Altman, etc
| freedomben wrote:
| Yep. I watch a lot of movies and TV shows from the 60s and
| below, and they are often not available to stream
| legitimately anywhere, and the only option is the
| occasional DVD release on Amazon which is hit or miss.
| LeonardoTolstoy wrote:
| You have to go pretty deep though for the record. At least,
| using one of your examples, for Altman if you look at his
| top 25 films on Letterboxd, 20 of them are available to
| rent or stream online. And for me at least the other five I
| can get at the library. There are none that are totally
| unavailable of those 25.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Even when Amazon Prime has it, the rental terms are dogshit.
| I used to rent VHS and DVDs from the store and got to watch
| them as many times as I wanted for a week. With Amazon Prime,
| once I start watching it I only have 48 hours and then I have
| to rent it again. Friends coming over in 3 days and you think
| they'll like the movie you just rented? Too bad, have to pay
| them again.
|
| It's flagrant bullshit that physical media, with _real_
| scarcity, had better rental terms than digital.
|
| So why the hell shouldn't I pirate it? I get a better
| product, it's free, _and all the people who made it are dead
| now anyway so spare me any bullshit moralizing._
| sib wrote:
| You may know this, but these rental terms are typically
| driven by the studio that published the film, not the TVOD
| service provider (Amazon in this case).
|
| I know that it doesn't change the customer experience, but
| it's worth being angry at the right people...
| pwthornton wrote:
| You can't find them to rent on iTunes and similar platforms?
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| I'm guessing they can. They just don't want to.
| exe34 wrote:
| No, they explained they don't want to scrub through each
| and every rent-seeker app to find which one has it.
| hahn-kev wrote:
| There's plenty of stuff that isn't listed there
| tarnith wrote:
| Who wants to rent? I have money, give me a file for money.
|
| DRM is laughable anyway, if you give me the data I have the
| file if I really want it.
|
| Let me, the consumer, legally purchase a high res copy of
| media I can own. Why is this so hard?
| sib wrote:
| In most cases, in the world of TVOD (transactional video on
| demand), an item that is rentable is purchasable, but the
| reverse is not always true.
|
| That is, the window for purchasing is much longer than the
| window for renting.
| Me1000 wrote:
| Not OP, but yes believe it or not it's impossible to find
| certain movies anywhere other than pirating them. One example
| is "Pirates of Silicon Valley", I watched it when I was young
| and recently wanted to watch it again. I pay for basically
| all the streaming services, I'm would have been happy to rent
| it from any service at all. I spent several hours trying to
| find a way to pay to watch it and never could.
| chollida1 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure i just watched that via apple+.
|
| But your point generally valid regardless.
| Me1000 wrote:
| This is an old relatively low budget TV movie, it's not
| on TV+ (which I subscribe to). Nor can you rent it on
| iTunes, it doesn't even show up when you search for it.
| Same for Prime Video, etc.
| chollida1 wrote:
| https://tv.apple.com/mx/movie/pirates-of-silicon-
| valley/umc....
|
| ??
| Me1000 wrote:
| That link says "Content Unavailable" for me, possibly
| region locked? I changed the "mx" in your link to "us"
| but same error.
| standardUser wrote:
| Apple TV doesn't allow me to stream in my browser, so I
| happily pirate their content. I pay for all the other
| "big" streaming services that I can use like a normal
| person.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| I'm at the point where I just automatically assume any new
| movie is derivative, uninspired slop. Professional reviewers
| don't really seem trustworthy these days and user reviews are
| constantly being gamed based on fandom, political sentiments or
| just bots boosting or tanking reviews.
|
| I do love movies, particularly ones that are pre-2010 or so.
| I've actually started going to a local indie theater that
| curates excellent older stuff so I just check their calendar
| every once in a while and pick something that sounds
| interesting to go see a couple times a month. Often times it's
| foreign stuff or things I've never heard of but those guys have
| excellent taste and I have yet to see a bad film. For anyone
| curious, here's my spot: metrograph.com
| dev1ycan wrote:
| Because they aren't trustworthy:
|
| 1)Disney-adjacent properties.
|
| Look at the amazing spiderman 1, it was better than anything
| Marvel has released with Spiderman, it got trashed on for a
| very simple reason in my eyes, Disney wanted the rights for
| Spiderman and tried to force them to give them it (it worked)
| via giving it terrible reviews.
|
| Opposite thing happened with Star Wars, another Disney
| "product", the new trilogy getting "amazing" reviews at the
| start was ridiculous, they were very bad movies, like
| terrible, the first one which was the most watchable of the
| three was just bad acting mixed in with nostalgia bait,
| didn't push the universe forward at all which the prequels
| get hate for but they _did_ hugely expand what star wars was,
| in good ways. Even midichlorians which people gave so much
| hate to in episode 1, makes sense if you rewatch the OT,
| Darth Vader suddenly turning good is like "snapping" out of
| the trance state he was in, because as we know now, the
| "force" in star wars is not like morality in the real world,
| while you play a part in you getting taken "over" by a side
| (light/dark side), once it happens you sort of lose control,
| sort of like a hard drug in the real world, it takes a lot
| for someone who has given in to the dark side to go back to
| normal, which I believe makes for a better science fiction
| universe, the concept of only giving in enough to receive the
| power but not enough to become evil was even explored with
| mace windu with Vapaad, anyways.
|
| Lastly, Black Adam, I watched it and the movie was
| objectively not beyond terrible for current day standards, it
| was a watchable popcorn flick and the CGI was very very good
| compared to Marvel movies which made the movie look cool, the
| main villain was uninspiring but so are most first movie
| villains, it's all about the setup. It received beyond
| terrible reviews in my opinion directed from Disney/Marvel in
| an attempt to fully kill competition especially during
| Marvel's weak point post endgame. I would have enjoyed seeing
| a movie of Superman vs Black Adam but it is what it is.
|
| Lastly any anime movie competing with Disney, just look at
| the Oscars, how many anime movies get snubbed? I still
| remember being shocked at how when marnie was there did not
| win vs inside out... or how look back wasn't even nominated,
| lol.
| crysin wrote:
| I think you're making up a narrative in your head to
| support your bias against Disney here.
|
| TASM 1 was definitely well received when it was released.
| It was tarnished by the slop that was TASM 2, which lead to
| Sony being able to come to a licensing agreement with
| Marvel Studios, to use Spider-Man in the MCU. I think it's
| an extreme stretch to think Disney had any nefarious doings
| in the public opinion of those movies, Sony did that to
| themselves and has proven time-and-time again they cannot
| make a good quality movie with their Spider-Man IPs.
|
| The Rise of Skywalker is at 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, that
| was universally acknowledged to be terrible, even by the
| "critics". Disney definitely was also not able to silence
| or drown-out the absolute outrage by the cast and fans of
| the treatment of Luke in The Last Jedi.
|
| Why would Marvel / Disney spend any effort sabotaging the
| DCEU when Warner Bros. was good at doing it all themselves?
| If Marvel was worried about DC stealing their audience,
| they would have focused more on movies like The Batman, not
| some c-grade antihero most people have no idea about? The
| Rock fostered a lot of the ill-will towards that movie
| himself.
|
| I say all this but I also think it's accurate still to say
| reviews are trustworthy but I don't think they ever have
| been. I don't think this is some new phenomenon, just
| people are more aware of the corruption embedded in the
| system.
| larrik wrote:
| The Roku app is actually really good at determining where
| everything ever is currently streaming (or purchasable). It's
| not 100% perfect, but it's generally correct. I go there first
| for basically everything.
|
| For example, it tells me Wake Up Ron Burgundy (which isn't even
| a "real" movie) can be purchases on Prime, Fandango, or iTunes.
|
| Actually, iTunes and Prime have mostly everything for rent,
| what movies were you actually looking for?
| buran77 wrote:
| It gets worse when you're looking for a movie only to realize
| it's different from what you remember. Either a change of
| substance (different scenes), or a change of form (adjusted
| color palette). Occasionally the original version is no
| longer officially available anywhere.
| a2tech wrote:
| Just wanted to watch a relatively recent movie yesterday
| (Antichrist) and the only place that has it is a streaming
| service called Mooby. Not signing up for a service to watch
| one movie. Would have gladly paid 4 bucks to watch it, so had
| to find it in the usual places instead.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Plex does this as well.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| IMDB does something similar (it at least lists Wake Up Ron
| Burgandy as available for rent on Prime, doesn't mention
| iTunes or Fandango but I'm not logged in to IMDB so I'm not
| sure what's enabled/disabled as "preferred services" by
| default)
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| My spouse loves watching old direct to home video movies and
| I'd say about 75% of them have no accessible copies outside
| maybe eBay. Most of the remainder are only available via
| piracy. A vanishingly small percentage are available from
| streaming platforms.
|
| One that I wanted to watch recently was Disney's 2000
| animation short _John Henry_. It 's now part of the _American
| Legends_ compilation, which is only available for purchase on
| Amazon, not rent. It 's not even on Disney+.
| mmcclure wrote:
| I recently joined a local independent video rental store and
| it's so, so good. My partner looked at me like I was crazy when
| I told her, but she was a convert after one trip to pick out a
| movie in person.
|
| Something about browsing in person is just so much more
| enjoyable than flipping between 9 services. Having a cinephile
| right there behind the desk that wants to nerd about movies and
| help pick something out is awesome. It's not a big store, but
| they've got thousands of movies in their catalog, which is
| (apparently) way bigger than any of the streaming services.
|
| This doesn't solve your problem, but for the folks that are
| near the few remaining physical rental stores: consider
| supporting them, because they're great.
|
| Edit: Actually, on the "your problem" part...maybe give the
| store a call? Looks like he'll mail discs too:
| https://myvideowave.weebly.com/services.html
| eagerpace wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what formats do they rent?
| mmcclure wrote:
| Most of the collection is DVD and/or Blu-ray, but he's got
| some VHS tapes and video games across a few platforms. When
| he was giving me the spiel about joining he was explicit
| that he doesn't have any Laserdisc or Betamax, though.
| dml2135 wrote:
| I really love that enough movie nerds came in there and
| asked about Laserdisc and Betamax that it became part of
| the spiel.
| anonymars wrote:
| I find justwatch.com useful
| haunter wrote:
| Useful but +95% of the films I watch are not available in my
| country :shrug:
| tarnith wrote:
| Video games too. Try to buy Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005).
| You can't.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Try to buy Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005). You can't._
|
| I searched the biggest used online (flea)marketplace in my
| country and I could find the DVD for sale from several
| people. So I can buy it and play it right now legally if I
| want to, without resorting to piracy.
|
| What point were you trying to make with this? Because I also
| can't buy a brand new 1969 Ford Mustang. Nothing is made
| forever.
| bilekas wrote:
| The point could be made that if it's not available from the
| publisher for sale then piracy is not illegal.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Agree. However I'm willing to cut EA some slack here. NFS
| series (like some other games) has music in it that's
| been licensed by the devs for a limited time.
|
| Selling the game today would mean either ripping out the
| music which is what made the game fun, or paying the
| record labels more money, which will not be offset by the
| few sales to 30+ year old nostalgics.
|
| But at least EA isn't actively preventing you from
| playing that old game if you own a licensed copy by
| requiring always-on DRM.
|
| BTW: today is the last day to sign the Stop killing games
| EU initiative : https://www.stopkillinggames.com/eci
| standardUser wrote:
| > Selling the game today would mean either ripping out
| the music which is what made the game fun, or paying the
| record labels more money, which will not be offset by the
| few sales to 30+ year old nostalgics.
|
| Well if the market can't provide, Pirate Bay can. Maybe
| they should fix "the market".
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > However I'm willing to cut EA some slack here. NFS
| series (like some other games) has music in it that's
| been licensed by the devs for a limited time.
|
| If that practice gets killed as well, that'd be a bonus.
| brnt wrote:
| Oh boy. That one. And Battle for Middle Earth 2.
|
| Nobody wants my money, so to the bay we go.
| spullara wrote:
| my son gets all the old movies from the local library
| parliament32 wrote:
| This is precisely the problem, and the whole reason why we
| still pirate TV/movies. I would have no problem paying $XX to a
| unified service that has basically everything; I have no
| interest in paying a dozen different streaming platforms for
| effectively "cable packages" that often add/remove/shift
| content around.
|
| The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they have
| 95% of music content I could ever way, the UX is good enough. I
| have no reason to pirate music anymore.
|
| Why is this so hard for the film industry?
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| > The music industry figured this out
|
| > Why is this so hard for the film industry
|
| Music industry runs on barely paying any artist that cant
| fill a stadium. Movie industry runs on constantly re-
| licensing content to min-max their returns from IP. Music
| industry can happily barely pay musicians via the spotify
| model, but the Movie industry can't continually re-license
| their stuff to a higher bidder if it's all on one site.
| hyghjiyhu wrote:
| If you have Indie artists on the music side of the
| comparison, you should have barely paid tiktokers and
| YouTubers on the movie side.
| standardUser wrote:
| I broadly agree with your assessment, but I think the
| important takeaway is that these situations are created
| artificially, usually by dominant market players for their
| own benefit. There is nothing natural or neccesary with the
| way these markets work, and it's certainly not
| unchangeable.
| Wojtkie wrote:
| >but I think the important takeaway is that these
| situations are created artificially
|
| Are they really though? It's easier than ever for an
| indie creative to create and distribute their works
| through the many channels. Problem is, people don't spend
| as much money as a whole on indie works compared to
| focus-grouped blockbusters.
| standardUser wrote:
| > Are they really though?
|
| Yes, in the sense that at one point IP laws didn't exist
| and then we made them up. It stands to reason we could
| make up something better - maybe something that doesn't
| routinely banish media from public access.
| tomwheeler wrote:
| > The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they
| have 95% of music content I could ever way, the UX is good
| enough. I have no reason to pirate music anymore.
|
| > Why is this so hard for the film industry?
|
| My theory is that the United States has compulsory licensing
| for music, but not movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comp
| ulsory_license#United_Stat...
|
| To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming service
| doesn't have to negotiate with the record label to play a
| given song, they just have to pay a small royalty as defined
| by law. However, that doesn't hold true for movies. Each
| video streaming service has to negotiate the right to carry a
| given movie with the film studio that owns it. Those film
| studios play the streaming services against one another,
| often allowing the exclusive right to offer certain content
| for a limited time, after which they then lease the rights to
| a competing service.
| jasode wrote:
| _> To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming
| service doesn't have to negotiate with the record label to
| play a given song, they just have to pay a small royalty as
| defined by law. _
|
| The copyright holders can legally prevent their recordings
| from being streamed by Spotify. Famous examples were Taylor
| Swift and Neil Young withholding their music from Spotify.
|
| For extra nuance, copyright holders can't stop _cover
| songs_ from appearing on Spotify. So the Taylor Swift cover
| songs do have to pay compulsory license fees to her and her
| record label.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Those film studios play the streaming services against
| one another, often allowing the exclusive right to offer
| certain content for a limited time, after which they then
| lease the rights to a competing service.
|
| Even worse, a lot of the big studios have their own
| streaming service (Disney, Paramount, Peacock, Canal+ in
| France, etc) and have no incentive to have lease the rights
| to competing services.
|
| That's ultimately what pushed Netflix to focus so much on
| creating their content, they knew that at some point the
| original content owners will realise streaming can be
| lucrative, and just build their own services.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Why is this so hard for the film industry?_
|
| It boils down to money.
|
| Movies & tv have higher monetary value to the studios than
| songs to the record labels.
|
| So the ip owners of video content get more revenue by
| restricting it as exclusives to their respective platforms
| rather than licensing it out to everybody and get a smaller
| fractional payment from an everything-unlimited-catalog video
| streaming service.
|
| E.g. HBO would rather get 100% of their own $16.99/month
| subscription -- vs -- licensing entire HBO catalog to Netflix
| and getting a fraction% of $17.99/month.
|
| How much extra would Netflix conceivably have to charge per
| month such that the fractional amounts to each movie studio
| (HBO, Disney, etc) would be enough $$ that the studios
| wouldn't bother with their own exclusive streaming platforms?
| $99/month? $149/month? Right now, there isn't a number that
| Netflix + all studios + subscribers can converge on so
| instead, we get the current fragmented streaming platforms of
| video content.
|
| For more evidence of how video content is more valuable than
| music (in terms of digital streaming platforms), consider
| that tech giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple -- all
| created their own movie & tv studio business to produce even
| more exclusives for their streaming platforms. But none of
| them have started their own record labels to sign musicians
| to get exclusive songs or albums.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| Games make way more money than movies but it also seems to
| be solved for games in the form of steam
| jasode wrote:
| _> seems to be solved for games in the form of steam_
|
| Steam didn't solve it the way movie & tv subscribers
| would want the video streaming to work. Steam only
| consolidated the games into a dominant _sellers
| marketplace_. E.g. game X costs $20 and to play game Y
| costs $60. Yes, it 's all on the same platform but it's
| pay-per-title and not pay-per-month.
|
| What Steam did not do is create a _flat monthly
| subscription price_ that allows all customers to play all
| games.
|
| When people wonder why there isn't a video streaming
| service with all the movie&tv studios content on it the
| same way Spotify has all the record labels' catalogs,
| they're talking about accessing all movies and tv shows
| for one flat price.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Why is this so hard for the film industry?_
|
| The logic is pretty simple:
|
| * It has been widely demonstrated that, in the US, many
| consumers are willing to pay more than $100/month for cable
| TV, with ads.
|
| * Netflix costs $8/month with ads.
|
| * Why leave that money on the table?
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Old media competes with new media.
|
| If you, as the rightsholder can just eliminate that
| competition without any further effort, it makes logical
| sense to do so.
|
| Excessivly long copyright is what enables this.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| I only understand the frustration with finding any legal
| avenue _at all_ to see certain films. I don 't really
| understand why disparate services are a big deal. You don't
| need to subscribe to multiple things all at once, and it's
| all done in a few clicks in the convenience of your own home.
|
| I'm concerned and curious about one thing, which is that tech
| giants have a monopoly on renting. If you want to rent a
| digital movie that isn't otherwise available from
| subscription, you might be able to get it from MSFT, Google
| or Amazon. Meanwhile the telecoms only seem to offer this
| through cable machines, just new releases at that.
|
| I'm interested in seeing a few Korean films, the kind that
| aren't on criterion or mubi. Basically no legal way to see
| them.
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| Why not have some platform that lets users to actually buy
| the movie and download/stream it as a file at full quality
| on their device?
|
| Renting is sucky compared to just buying things, you could
| watch any movie you want and have unlimited access to it
| instead of juggling 5 subscriptions and get frustrated with
| shitty products. And publishers that make actual good
| movies that people want to watch would be rewarded
| haunter wrote:
| Not just 80s-90s but try everything non-vanilla Hollywood
| stuff. Asian cinema, MENA, Eastern Europe etc. Piracy is just
| superior because I can actually watch what I want.
| philips wrote:
| An archival incentive is the reason I am pro 25 year copyright.
| This current situation is causing our cultural heritage to rot.
| criddell wrote:
| Seems like a fair solution might be limiting damages on
| pirating movies that aren't widely available. For example, if
| a movie isn't available for streaming cap damages at $2.99 or
| whatever the going rental rate is.
| gchamonlive wrote:
| And good luck trying to find anything marginally erotic, like
| "Bliss (1997)".
|
| Not only you don't own anything anymore, you can't purchase
| anything anymore and you can't view content that the overseers
| deem imoral. At this point pirating is just civil disobedience
| against the stronghold that corporations have on the American
| society that ripples across the globalized world.
| EliRivers wrote:
| Unhelpful but related; back in the day (15 or so years ago),
| Netflix had a truly excellent back catalogue of old movies.
| Over a hundred thousand titles. A DVD collection that we just
| didn't realise was going to vanish as quickly as it arose.
|
| The current offering is just... less. I don't know if I mean in
| terms of sheer number of titles, but a million episodes of slop
| is just more slop. Netflix peaked 15 years ago and we didn't
| even notice.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| This is why I started getting into physical media. I was
| subbed to so many services, but I felt like only 15% of the
| time would any service I want have the movie (and almost
| never Netflix as they prefer their own content slop).
| imglorp wrote:
| They've ended/sold/traded away many of their licensing
| agreements. Many things they used to have are gone.
|
| It stinks because some of the things they tossed are mundane,
| but they add to the depth of the catalog if you're looking
| for something and improve the experience.
| Reason077 wrote:
| In fairness to Netflix, in the old days they only had to own
| a copy of the DVD in order to rent it out.
|
| Now they have to secure rights for every title they want to
| stream. That's a lot of work (and cost) for a hundred
| thousand titles, especially when your competitors own some of
| the studios that license those titles.
|
| Disney, for example, owns the Disney / Marvel / Fox /
| Searchlight / Lucasfilm back catalogues and wants to hoard
| much of it for its own streaming service.
| thefourthchime wrote:
| This is actually a larger problem that has to do with lost
| licensing negotiations and residuals. For a place to offer up
| streaming, they have to know they can license the content.
|
| But oftentimes, that production company is closed shop. They've
| sold the licenses off to someone else, who split it into
| something else. And then there's the music rights. The whole
| thing becomes extremely complicated.
|
| There's a whole set of movies that were somewhat popular that
| you just cannot find streaming. 100 cigarettes and Woody
| Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors are good examples.
|
| I'd say if they can't figure out the rights, just put it on
| YouTube.
| Pfhortune wrote:
| The length of time it takes for media to enter the public
| domain is absolutely absurd. It if didn't take over a century
| for works to enter the PD, we could say, "Eh, just wait a few
| years." But instead we hold these works of art captive for no
| reason, other than a few multi-billion-dollar conglomerates
| want to keep milking art for money again and again.
|
| If we had a more reasonable period like a decade, it would be
| a driver for creating new art, and prevent works from being
| locked away arbitrarily until our great-grandchildren can
| enjoy them (unless the art was just... lost to time).
| ryandrake wrote:
| > But instead we hold these works of art captive for no
| reason, other than a few multi-billion-dollar conglomerates
| want to keep milking art for money again and again.
|
| In many cases, the conglomerates aren't even making money
| from them. How much do you think the movie company (and all
| the various middlemen) are making from some obscure movie
| from the 80s _that they don 't even make available on DVD
| or streaming anywhere_? They're just griefing the public by
| withholding it and not even making any money.
| janstice wrote:
| I think the reason that the big guys don't make money out
| of old films is that if they did they'd be on the hook to
| pay the cast & crew('s retirement plans).
| beej71 wrote:
| > I can't go rent them from blockbuster
|
| I can. :) But for those not so lucky, second hand stores have
| tons of DVDs usually for peanuts. Also your library might lend
| them out.
|
| I'm still in the process of ripping our collection, but we can
| watch stuff on TV with Jellyfin.
|
| But to your point, Louis Rossman suggests that when piracy
| provides the best experience, providers might want to rethink
| their strategy...
| Cytobit wrote:
| Pirates always pull this out as justification. Like they are
| starving people who are forced to steal bread just to survive.
| Maybe just because a piece of media has been published in the
| past, we don't all have some God-given right to access it in
| perpetuity for a nominal fee. Lost media is not a sin.
| firefax wrote:
| > Rental stores are dead, so I can't go rent them from
| blockbuster or whatever
|
| Try the library, I've found lots of things not on streaming in
| mine's DVD collection.
| akaitea wrote:
| try local second hand sites and physical copies, although the
| quality will most likely not be as good if its only been
| released on DVD
| antonf wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > _" 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 wrote:
| Agreed, these backronym bill names are obnoxious at best.
| rkomorn wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| The ones that really stick in my craw are the 1984-esque
| ones like the PATRIOT act.
| rkomorn wrote:
| CAN-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 wrote:
| Which is an entirely accurate interpretation.
| int_19h wrote:
| They'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.
| quesera wrote:
| > _they inadvertently propagate a specific perspective_
|
| I think it's often, maybe always, _quite_ advertent. :)
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > pretending to be clever
|
| > Electronic Art
|
| I actually think it's pretty clever that the lawyers who wrote
| the bill managed to (almost) put their employer's name in it.
| jamesgasek wrote:
| TL;DR, "Let's block every single piracy site". Sounds foolproof
| to me
| iooi wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Piracy, 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__ wrote:
| Intellectual property has been a cover story for censorship
| for hundreds of years. Nothing new here.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Meanwhile, VPN use is skyrocketing as is use of Tor and the dark
| web.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Ban vpn use. It's on the cards.
| int_19h wrote:
| Good luck enforcing that. VPN protocols have already been
| honed in the process of evading Chinese, Russian, and Iranian
| blocks. V2Ray, Trojan etc.
| crinkly wrote:
| Good luck! I've stolen everything I want to steal already!
| metadat wrote:
| Is it really possible to effectively mass-block a website? Lib-z
| seems to keep popping back up like the head of Medusa.
| bobajeff wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Yes. And I believe you mean the 'Great/ British' [.gov].
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Most 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.
| gscott wrote:
| Without piracy no llm
| dartharva wrote:
| When have these blocks ever succeeded?
| pmarreck wrote:
| Once 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 wrote:
| Process 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 wrote:
| Well 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 wrote:
| Gotta say that's a pretty great name at least!
| msgodel wrote:
| Wow they haven't even finished the porn blocking stuff and
| they're already starting with the web-wide corporate censorship.
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| Governments 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 wrote:
| This 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.
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