Hey, remember COICA? That heavily-restrictive American law that basically lets big businesses do whatever the fuck they please with the internet in regards to censorship and the like, through the use of the Justice System? Apparently, it got shut down.

So naturally, those who proposed it have come up with something "new" to replace it. Behold! The "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act."

Yes, you read that right. The "PROTECT IP Act." Apparently, this thing isn't actually less restrictive than its failed predecessor--in fact, it's actually more restrictive. Instead of giving such businesses the ability to tell the justice system to shut down or censor something on the internet, this would allow these businesses to do it directly, without the need of going through a legal system.

Son of COICA: PROTECT IP Act Will Allow For Broad Censorship Powers, Even Granted To Copyright Holders
Full Text Of The PROTECT IP Act Released: The Good, The Bad And The Horribly Ugly

GG, America. G fucking G.

Edited by RisingDragon on May 12, 2011 at 16:03:22

I, for one, welcome the official announcement of our corporate overlords reign with open arms!

But in all seriousness, this is everything wrong with what we've been doing to fix our tanking economy by handing businesses broad powers and hoping for the best. IP protection isn't going to help anyone other than the one company who copyrights first, so this is just going to stall development if anything.

Then there's the censorship aspect. It will just amaze me if the Supreme Court lets this slide considering it pretty clearly outlines the establishment of prior restraint, so there isn't really much of an argument I can spot for the constitutionality of the law; but, that said, the Court also just effectively killed the ability to file class-action lawsuits, so what the hell do I know.

Not having read the law itself yet, while I tend to agree I still draw the line at the point where the company can bypass the legal system.

That said, if it turns out that this is just scare phrasing then I retract my statement.

The US has one of the weirdest sets of laws that are to be LOL-ed at, especially by our non-American friends.

Remember the Prohibition? But I guess no one here is old enough to remember it. :hehe:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111026/12130616523/protect-ip-renamed-e-parasites-act-would-create-great-fi rewall-america.shtml

They're at it again. And the latest revision to PROTECT IP only makes it even more restrictive than before.