[Infowarrior] - Hollywood Studios Tried To Add File Sharing Sites To New Zealand's Child Porn Blacklist

[Richard Forno]

Hollywood Studios Tried To Add File Sharing Sites To New Zealand's Child Porn Blacklist

from the the-audacity-of-egotistical-self-interest dept

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140704/16300627788/hollywood-studios-tried-to-add-file-sharing-sites-to-new-zealands-child-porn-blacklist.shtml

We just wrote about the UK's filtering systems blocking access to 20% of the world's top 100,000 sites, even though only about 4% of those host the porn Prime Minister David Cameron seems so obsessed with blocking. Also noted in that story was the fact that many "pirate sites" are being blocked at ISP level via secret court orders. 

MPAA head Chris Dodd absolutely loves web filters, proclaiming them to be the best tool the industry can (ab)use to thwart piracy.

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So, in hopes of protecting their business model, studios tried to add file sharing sites to a list of child pornography sites. Not one of them seemed to realize how wrong it was to equate their companies' profitability with the sexual abuse of children. Whatever level of entitlement these companies have risen to in the past, they've vastly exceeded it with this maneuver. Studios may secretly believe copyright infringement is (very subjectively) as damaging as child pornography, but they've never made it this explicitly clear. 

Fortunately, ISPs and the Kiwi government pushed back, unwilling to be complicit in the studios' most insensitive act of self-preservation yet. Unfortunately for Dodd and his charges, the studios will have to make do with secret court orders and default web filters that still allow end users to flip the "hide file sharing sites" switch to "off." 

The studios believe they should have root access to government-ordained web blocking. In the interest of not making the situation worse than it already is, this should never be granted. Various governments have already included protection for the copyright industries in some of their web-targeted "for the children" legislation. Giving studios the go-ahead to tamper with child porn blacklists would just stretch the definition of "children" to include major Hollywood studios -- entities full of full-grown adults with enough power and money to protect them from anything.


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