TorrentFreak

As the war of words over PROTECT IP and SOPA ignites the Internet, the MPAA has issued a reminder that “opponents” of past copyright laws have been wrong before. But while some fears over 1998′s DMCA and 2005′s Grokster ruling didn’t come to pass, some things are absolutely guaranteed. If the entertainment industries don’t get their way – or even if they do – they’ll be back for more. Again and again.

The current fight between the old and the new — characterized by file sharing, the Arabian Spring, the Occupy swarm, the success of the Pirate Parties, etc — goes way beyond a few laws on the surface. It goes right down to the heart of our views on what kind of society we desire.

The potential effects of both PROTECT IP and the E-PARASITES legislations have been the subject of intense speculation in recent times. One side insists they will damage piracy and little else, opponents say they will only succeed in killing the Internet. But there are other potential casualties in all this – the poor anti-piracy companies and their copyright troll allies.

PROTECT-IP, the Digital Economy Act, site blocking, domain seizures and 3 strikes regimes. The list of techniques used to thwart online file-sharing seems to grow every month. But how effective are they really? The overuse of these anti-piracy medications is breeding new strains of powerful file-sharers, resistant to even the most powerful of digital antibiotics.

With the European Greens’ adoption of the Pirate perspective on the copyright monopoly, I have received a few questions from entrepreneurs, the copyright industry lobby, and libertarians why we want to ban Digital Restrictions Management. It’s a good question that deserves a good answer.

Today, UK media regulators launched ParentPort, a website which will allow parents to complain more easily about TV shows, adverts, products and Internet sites which they believe are inappropriate for their children. As part of the deal four leading ISPs will offer a porn-filtering service when new customers sign-up. But will file-sharing sites be censored too?

This year alone more than 50 small restaurants, pubs and bars have been sued by the U.S. royalty collectors agency BMI for playing (live) music without a license. Many more received friendly visits from BMI lawyers urging them to pay their copyright dues, or else. This backward situation does not only affect the owners of these establishments, artists are losing gigs as well because of these public performance license shakedowns.