Norway To Get Its Own SOPA

The latest in the global merry-go-round of the legacy entertainment industry seeking to put in place draconian legislation is apparently Norway, the website Techdirt.com has made me aware of. I did, however, report that the Norwegian government was working on a new set of laws who would make certain online activities illegal some time ago, but I did not think that the lawmakers would stretch it as far as to allow IP identification, and give the IPS companies the power to block access to sites they believe to be infringing copyrights.

“When every copyright holder can seek to completely shut down a site, the likelihood of trouble is immense.”

Techdirt.com

There’s not much focus on this matter in Norway. In fact, I have not seen a single Norwegian media representative write a single word on the rather controversial side of the story – just a few notes  vaguely mentioning  something about not being able to publish whatever you want on your blog anymore. Another reminder of how rational ignorance (and plain ignorance) allows the most ridiculous laws and regulations to pass without as much as an attempt to make a counter argument.  

This is what Techdirt writes:

“A couple years ago, I went to Norway for Nordic Music Week, and had a great time talking to musicians, managers and labels, about all of the opportunity for new music business models. It was a fun and optimistic event, seeing everyone looking at all of the opportunities out there. But, of course, these were mostly independent artists. The major labels stayed away. And that’s because the only “opportunity” they seem to see is in drafting the latest version of draconian laws that will do little to stop infringement, but which will have tremendous unintended consequences, including the potential to stifle widespread legitimate forms of expression.”

TorrentFreak reports on the latest anti-piracy bill being put forth in Norway, which includes site-blocking provisions:

In May 2011 the Ministry of Culture announced that it had put forward proposals for amendments to the Copyright Act which would “..give licensees the tools they need to follow-up on copyright infringement on the Internet, while protecting privacy.”

The key proposals included making it easier for rightsholders to identify infringers from their IP addresses and amendments to the law to allow ISP-level blocking of sites deemed to be infringing copyright.

“The article quotes people who are quite worried about what this will mean in practice. When every copyright holder can seek to completely shut down a site, the likelihood of trouble is immense,” techdirt points out.

“Already, here in the US, we see regular abuse of the DMCA to take down specific content that people deem infringing, but which is often just content they don’t like. Imagine the ability to do that on a larger scale, such that it doesn’t just take down the content, but entire sites.”

Personally, I can imagine many, more or less, unintended consequences of this policy…

Related by econoTwist’s:

• Online Activities To Be Criminalized in Norway
• Protecting Panties: Victoria’s Secret Uses DMCA To Suppress Public Criticism
• Bank of America Blocks Certain Websites
• Google Removes More Than 350.000 Websites Every Day
• Furious Ferrari Crash Car Enthusiasts Website
• Secret Plan Exposed: UN to Take Control Over the World’s Internet
• You Can’t Always Think What You Want
• Russian MP Proposes to Jail Journalist for Making “Negative Content” on TV

Other related articles:

• After a year in the grave, can SOPA and Protect IP return? (news.cnet.com)
• Irish SOPA is now law (nextlevelofnews.com)
• Mozilla Helped To Stop SOPA In January, Now It’s Worried About WCIT (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)
• Brito: What’s Wrong With a Copyright Alert System? (c4sif.org)
• SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and the battle for freedom on the internet (siliconrepublic.com)

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