U.S. government has begun to block the Internet, Department of Homeland Security takes on more than

U.S. government has begun to block the Internet, Department of Homeland Security takes on more than 75 web pages

translate.google. nl

As part of a new extension of the powers of the government to limit freedom of information, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Department of Homeland Security, DHS) began, web pages and whole complexes of web pages, called "domains", without due process or fair trial block and to close. DHS arbitrarily blocked Internet domains, and documented these Web pages with the ominous logo, which covers the entire page and access impossible. An example can be found at torrent-finder.com...

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This is a report from a German News site. Although it concerns illegal sites, the way that they were closed (Without Court Order) is what makes me worry. A website (RapGodFather.com) was locked only because their user comments Posts were there, the websites linked to Internet sites that allow the exchange of data. The site had 150,000 users, but now it belongs to the "Homeland Security' . So if users post copyright material they can block you for that.
That will make it easy to block ATS as well.

translate.google. nl
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is somewhat chilling i wonder what Google response will be, the same company that left china because of internet censorship. Will they stand up for a "free internet" this time as well ? Besides, its totally futile to shut down websites, they will just pop up elsewhere, the US government will make an ass out of themselves playing whac-a-mole. The Piratebay case shows just how resilient the internets can be.

The bit about the rapgodfather website is also what worries me. If they can block a site simply because its users are posting copyrighted material in the comments section then if you think about it, eventually they will really be able to take down any site they want. All it would take is one person posting a copyrighted work of some kind, whether they know it or not (and in most cases, probably not), and bam...site down.

There have to be instances where copyrighted material has been posted in these forums, somewhere, without proper permission. That's all it would take..and even if proper permission was given, I could see the feds taking down the site and making it awfully difficult to actually get that information to them. And what I mean by that is the whole process of contacting them and saying hey, yeah actually I did have permission for that. Then theres the question of whether or not theyre actually going to tell the person who violated copyright..they might not even inform them, so how could they fight back?

I know this is stretching it a lot, this is of course a worst case scenario...but honestly, do you think this could lead to that kind of situation?

reply to post by Xavialune


You can use Google, Yahoo or Bing to search for copyrighted material, perhaps the analogy is a little bit flawed but the same rules should apply imho. The source of copyrighted material is the people making them available, not the Index/trackers sites or the search sites, they are just means to make the vast data searchable. Nothing copyrighted is stored on the actual sites that are now being shut down. Furthermore, what they are doing now is its a slippery slope.

Originally posted by abaddon6
reply to post by Xavialune

 

You can use Google, Yahoo or Bing to search for copyrighted material, perhaps the analogy is a little bit flawed but the same rules should apply imho. The source of copyrighted material is the people making them available, bot the Index/trackers sites or the search sites, they are just means to make the vast data searchable. Nothing copyrighted is stored on the actual sites that are now being shut down.

oh I know nothings being stored..what I meant was, thats the excuse the feds are going to use when people ask why the site was shut down.

copyright laws only protect the companies not the artists or creators

I have read alot of people aren't going to buy there stuff if they keep going with this.