COICA

September 29, 2010 2:32 PM

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) has started to be fast-tracked through the legislative process. This bill would create two blacklists (without due process) of domains which ISPs would be forced to block, based on alleged copyright infringement. The RIAA claims that such websites put Americans at risk (but doesn't state exactly what the risk is). Wired Magazine calls it the "Holy Grail of intellectual-property enforcement." The EFF has started an online petition against it and is encouraging internet engineers to speak out against it.

Longer analysis from American University's Washington College Of Law.

TechDirt examines historic tech which would have been banned under similar legislation had it existed.

posted by hippybear (33 comments total)

So this something the Bush administration nixed for being too extreme, but now it's being quick marched through the Democratic Congress? And it would give the US Department of Justice the ability to decide which sites anyone in the world can access? Really?
posted by Kevin Street at 2:47 PM on September 29, 2010

I'm suddenly glad that after November we'll have a deadlocked congress.
posted by msbutah at 2:52 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

So this something the Bush administration nixed for being too extreme, but now it's being quick marched through the Democratic Congress?

From the Wired link:

The Bush administration in 2008 threatened to veto the legislation that created the nation’s first copyright czar until similar, less expansive Justice Department powers were removed. At the time, the White House complained that directing the attorney general to sue copyright infringers “could result in Department of Justice prosecutors serving as pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders regardless of their resources. In effect, taxpayer-supported department lawyers would pursue lawsuits for copyright holders, with monetary recovery going to industry.”

Things may be different under President Barack Obama. The president has tapped five former Recording Industry Association of America lawyers to key Justice Department positions. And the government, under the code name Operation in Our Sites, has recently seized the domains of at least two first-run movie sites under a process similar to the one outlined in Monday’s proposed legislation.

Due process, people. It's important.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:53 PM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

I wonder how long it would take wikileaks.org to end up on that list once the bill was passed.
posted by burnmp3s at 2:55 PM on September 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

So this something the Bush administration nixed for being too extreme, but now it's being quick marched through the Democratic Congress?

I think the GOP has fewer "Senators from Hollywood/Disneyland"

And it would give the US Department of Justice the ability to decide which sites anyone in the world can access? Really?

It's interesting to note that Patrick Leahy, one of the bill's sponsor, has gone on record opposing internet censorship in places like China and Iran.

AND!

This is an FPP??? I've been reading about this since last week.

I could have made an FPP? I've been wracking my brains trying to think of something to post!

I coulda been a contendah!
posted by mmrtnt at 3:02 PM on September 29, 2010

Fuck the RIAA!
posted by stringbean at 3:06 PM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Things may be different under President Barack Obama. The president has tapped five former Recording Industry Association of America lawyers to key Justice Department positions.

I think I've heard about this before, but it makes me sad, again. Maybe with a different boss, things will be different, or maybe it was an act to remove some of the fury behind the RIAA. Maybe? Probably not.

And the government, under the code name Operation in Our Sites, has recently seized the domains of at least two first-run movie sites under a process similar to the one outlined in Monday’s proposed legislation.

First run movies? Oh, actual online distributors of pirated movies.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:09 PM on September 29, 2010

Another infuriating thing about this whole mess is that the internet, Limewire, BitTorrent are really just tools, sort of like... guns or cars.

For some reason, the US government has shown very little interest in censoring or prosecuting weapons or auto manufacturers based on the misuse of their products.
posted by mmrtnt at 3:22 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

This horse shit has fuckall to do with IP and everything to do with leaks. They're thinking, "hey, if we can't shut Assange down because of state secrets acts that no one but us cares about, maybe we can shut him down because he's violating our copyright and everyone knows that's bad and we can get all the RIAA and MPAA up on our side on this", so -- smoke screen diversion, fast-track pass and motherfucking boom anything they don't want you to see they just say copyright violation and away it goes forever.

Of course they aren't thinking it through to the inevitable repercussions, but when do they ever when they just can't conceive of a rational response that isn't aligned with their own thought process.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:26 PM on September 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

"It's interesting to note that Patrick Leahy, one of the bill's sponsor, has gone on record opposing internet censorship in places like China and Iran."

I guess the problem for him isn't so much Internet censorship but is more about who gets to be the censor. Because the US is a democracy it would never do anything bad, so they deserve to have total control over what we do and see online.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:28 PM on September 29, 2010

If only people hadn't voted for Nader, we wouldn't have ended up with a president who... um, wait, who's doing this now? My reactionary meter is having a hard time figuring out who the bad guys are.
posted by bionic.junkie at 3:31 PM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Blocking the domain huh? So is this one of those complicated forms of DOS that will be horrifically difficult to overcome by something as painfully complicated as just using the sites IP address?

Or if they are able to cleverly thwart those hacks, can I use a proxy server to get the torrent file?

Seriously, haven't they learned that shit like this is always overcome? Usually within minutes.
posted by quin at 3:37 PM on September 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA)

Well, this is just the logical extension into the Internet age of the Combating Lan-based Office Counterfeits Act (CLOACA).
posted by gurple at 3:42 PM on September 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

...so -- smoke screen diversion, fast-track pass and motherfucking boom...

I like your anger!
posted by mmrtnt at 3:44 PM on September 29, 2010

Kevin Street writes "And it would give the US Department of Justice the ability to decide which sites anyone in the world can access? Really?"

Nope, just Americans. If it is just domain name resolution blocking then anyone smart enough to point their DNS at a server outside the US will be able to circumvent the law. If it's actual IP blocking then anyone outside the US won't be affected and sites able to shift their IP addresses (say maybe with a DDNS service) won't be affected.
posted by Mitheral at 4:08 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Blocking the domain huh? So is this one of those complicated forms of DOS that will be horrifically difficult to overcome by something as painfully complicated as just using the sites IP address?

I was under the impression they wanted to blacklist the IP itself.
posted by delmoi at 4:13 PM on September 29, 2010

Yes, anyway Americans will now have their own "great firewall" that they'll need to jump over to access certain sites, just like the Chinese, etc need to as well. So, we could use proxies. But the government could IP ban the proxies.

And combine that with making strong crypto illegal if the government can't crack it the government could still stop you from accessing the sites by decrypting your VPN/proxy connection in real time and checking to see what you're trying to access (In theory, you could get proxy software from somewhere else that didn't have bugging installed)

The other thing: lets not forget that this is happening in other countries. In france they have HADOPI, and other countries are moving in the same direction, which means that most of the world may be covered by censorship networks, as opposed to a few.
posted by delmoi at 4:21 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was under the impression they wanted to blacklist the IP itself.

I was under the impression that they wanted to blacklist the entire internet. Or at least put it under a central authority who would let us know which sites are best for us.
posted by bionic.junkie at 4:22 PM on September 29, 2010

i think they should have called it the "War Against Copyright Kleptomania And Malfeasance On Line Edict"
posted by pyramid termite at 4:32 PM on September 29, 2010 [9 favorites]

This is an FPP??? I've been reading about this since last week.

My poor iMac needed surgery and I've been offline since Sunday. It was one of the first things I read about when I got back online, and I immediately hopped to the Blue to see what the discussion about it was like here, since open internet issues are often FPP material. There was nothing about it other than a couple of comments buried in another thread. Seemed like it needed to be done, so I did it.

Next time, in the words of Nike, JUST DO IT! :P
posted by hippybear at 4:48 PM on September 29, 2010

Great! Lets bring it! Because I'm sure that the protection will be the same for all of us, and therefore what I the out of square rock creates will be as protected and enforced with the same vigor as, say, Avatar or Hurt Locker.

And the children and grandchildern of congressmen will be as vigorously as any other violator, right?

So this something the Bush administration nixed for being too extreme, but now it's being quick marched through the Democratic Congress?

More of that Change you can Hope for!!!! (hows that change hoping out for you all?)
posted by rough ashlar at 4:49 PM on September 29, 2010

Damn it. I was really hoping to have some political party that I could vote for, but with all the news coming out about how the current administration hates internet freedom...
posted by fuq at 5:25 PM on September 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

As an Australian, I feel for you all.
posted by jasmus at 5:54 PM on September 29, 2010

More of that Change you can Hope for!!!! (hows that change hoping out for you all?)

With IP stuff? Not well.
With other stuff? Well.
Thanks for asking.
posted by inigo2 at 7:09 PM on September 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

This was due to be discussed at the Executive Business Meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning (Sept 30, 10 A.M. Eastern time), but it's been postponed.

They normally webcast the meetings from the committee's page and from CapitolHearings, part of C-SPAN.

Too bad AlterNIC is gone. Good thing it won't be hard to build another one, though getting people to adopt it will likely be as hard as getting people to send you encrypted email when you send them your public key.
posted by morganw at 7:14 PM on September 29, 2010

Yeah, we're definitely on it.
posted by effugas at 1:46 AM on September 30, 2010

With other stuff? Well.

Guess you don't feel the 1099 issue tied to the insurance industry bailout is an issue.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/21/smallbusiness/1099_deluge/index.htm
Or the 'state secret' status of the assassination program.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/25/secrecy

Plenty of the things done by the last fellow is being done by this gent. I hope to have the hypocrisy to electrical power converter working the next time the gent (or lass) at the top changes party with all the X sucks for Z reason on the Blue.

I should become rich via selling power back to the electric company - hypocrisy when it comes to politics is a renewable resource, right?
posted by rough ashlar at 6:46 AM on September 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Can we PLEASE not have this whole thing devolve into talking about How Obama's Let Us Down again? If that's really a discussion that rough ashlar feels needs to be had, he should make a full FPP about it. But that whole "how's that change working out for you?" trope is getting as hold as "google ron paul sheeple".

It seems there are other odd Internet legislations being talked about, too. U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet. It's all starting to feel a bit surreal to me.
posted by hippybear at 7:43 AM on September 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

.
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.
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Goddamnit.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 7:54 AM on September 30, 2010

"how's that change working out for you?" trope is getting as hold as "google ron paul sheeple".

You're right, it's really starting to take hold.
posted by telstar at 11:58 AM on September 30, 2010

Yes, my typo... thanks for pointing that out. I needed a proofreader, and I'm glad you volunteered.
posted by hippybear at 1:08 PM on September 30, 2010

Isn't the "how's that change working out for you?" thing from Palin? She also popularized "Death Panels"
posted by delmoi at 1:46 PM on September 30, 2010

FWIW, the EFF has an optimistic update:

Victory! Internet Censorship Bill Delayed, For Now

[…] the Senate Judiciary Committee won't consider
the dangerously flawed "Combating Online Infringement and
Counterfeits Act" (COICA) bill until after the midterm
elections, at least. This is a real victory […]

posted by hattifattener at 1:08 AM on October 2, 2010