Movie studios' court order request looks disturbingly like SOPA

[Dirk Libbey]

In 2012, a bill moved through the US House infamously called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). It was a draconian piece of legislation that aimed to give copyright holders the ability to order that search engines, payment processors, and ISPs cut all ties with any website that was deemed to be violating that copyright. With no judicial review of any kind, copyright holders could simply take entire sites down if they felt their claim was justified. The bill was killed before it was ever voted on, in large part due to public outcry regarding its vast overreach.

Fast forward to the present, the same movie studios that would have benefited from SOPA are now trying to use the powers of the bill as if it was law. Every major studio has joined into a request for a court order to block a site called Movietube from existing on the internet. If granted, the order would require everything, from domain name registrars to hosting companies and social media sites to filter out Movietube entirely.

Movietube looks to be an attractive proof of concept for the studios to set a (bad) precedent. It's a foreign website with unknown owners, who are likely not in a position to defend themselves in a US court. However, if successful, there's no reason this order could not be used against any other website in the world. Someone who posts copyrighted material to their personal Facebook page could theoretically take down all of Facebook.

The order was filed July 29th in the Southern District Court of New York, and the studios are looking for fast action so we may not have long to wait to see whether SOPA's powers will exist even though the law does not.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/61631-movie-studios-court-order-request-looks-disturbingly-like.html

 

[mrjgriffin]

All of these laws are flawed. all anyone has to do is move their domain to a country outside of the united states where such laws will have no effect.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

I am stupid about this stuff.

Article says "With no judicial review of any kind, copyright holders could simply take entire sites down if they felt their claim was justified. " is the key issue. Yet here we have a situation that the various MPAA right holders are going to the court for a court order ('judicial review' in my poor addled thoughts).

Is it because the sanctions are very strong and should be meted out in a criminal court? Some civil actions can be pretty nasty. Is it because the defendant really has no physical existence in many large markets where the rights holders are being harmed? The harm is real. Maybe that is enough for the court to grant sanctions.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

 

[hahahanoobs]

All of these laws are flawed. all anyone has to do is move their domain to a country outside of the united states where such laws will have no effect.

Movietube looks to be an attractive proof of concept for the studios to set a (bad) precedent. It's a foreign website with unknown owners, who are likely not in a position to defend themselves in a US court. However, if successful, there's no reason this order could not be used against any other website in the world.

...we may not have long to wait to see whether SOPA's powers will exist even though the law does not.

 

[davislane1]

Within 20 years any web site owner/operator will be forced to move their operations to the deep web (which poses its own problems) or worry about content compliance. It was fun while it lasted, but the day is coming where the common internet will be just as strongly policed and restrictive as television.

 

[mrjgriffin]

All of these laws are flawed. all anyone has to do is move their domain to a country outside of the united states where such laws will have no effect.

Movietube looks to be an attractive proof of concept for the studios to set a (bad) precedent. It's a foreign website with unknown owners, who are likely not in a position to defend themselves in a US court. However, if successful, there's no reason this order could not be used against any other website in the world.

...we may not have long to wait to see whether SOPA's powers will exist even though the law does not.

well movietube is @ a .ws location which is a samoan location and samoa is a territory of the united states if I am correct therefore the U.S could do something about this site. sites like thepiratebay kickass torrents are untouchable by sopa as they are completely outside of any U.S doman. also hence why demonoid is back