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.
> 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.
No one would steal a car. More importantly, everyone would clone a car. Of course we should support this fully.
Oppose this bill.
> The site-blocking proposal seeks to amend U.S. copyright law, enabling rightsholders to request federal courts to designate online locations as a “foreign digital piracy site”. If that succeeds, courts can subsequently order U.S. service providers to block access to these sites.
Of course, because what we need is the govt deciding which sites can be banned. I'm hoping this dies in committee, however for Bay Area folks, Rep Zoe Lofgren is the house sponsor for the companion bill and Adam Schiff is the Senate co sponsor. They can be reached at
https://lofgren.house.gov/contact/offices and https://www.schiff.senate.gov/contact/
If you oppose this bill, take 5 min and let your congressperson know. They might seem to be bought and paid for by lobbyists, but they care deeply about being reelected and even a small number of constituents showing up can be effective. In order of impact personal visit > letter > call > email. The higher effort channels(visit, letter) tend to get treated more seriously. Emails are largely ignored unless they are absolutely deluged.
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.
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.
> 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
> 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.
Amazing. These kind of bills / laws are being passed left and right "recently".
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.
So how much are they getting bribed to do this?
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.
Between this, new requirements to verify age and locking down of mobile devices it feels like digital freedom is really under attack. For all the decades of the west mocking the great firewall of china, it's sad to see them turn about and enact it themselves.
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.
ah great I was worried for a second for our struggling monopolies this should help them back on their feet
Our own great firewall
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.
the end of red dead redemption 2 is about the internet, isn't it?
> "Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act of 2025” (Block BEARD)
I really wish destitutely uncreative people would stop pretending to be clever.
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.
The motion picture industry’s problem isn’t piracy, it’s just that they keep targeting movies at 0.02% of the population. If they want to sell more movies they ought to target a bigger demographic.
Ah, I'm so glad we can be bipartisan when it comes to making things worse.
Every one of those jackoffs probably has a VCR at home flashing "12:00."
Is it really possible to effectively mass-block a website? Lib-z seems to keep popping back up like the head of Medusa.
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?
Gotta say that's a pretty great name at least!
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.
Without piracy no llm
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?
Any time a law has a contrived name to fit some cutesy pre-determined name, it's a bullshit law, and will almost never achieve the goals that the cutesy name brings to mind.
Wow they haven't even finished the porn blocking stuff and they're already starting with the web-wide corporate censorship.
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.
So sick of this corporatocracy.
Meanwhile, VPN use is skyrocketing as is use of Tor and the dark web.
lol bring it senators
TL;DR, "Let's block every single piracy site". Sounds foolproof to me
[flagged]
Good luck! I've stolen everything I want to steal already!
When have these blocks ever succeeded?
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...