Tony Abbott's communications minister: Malcolm Turnbull, and the attorney-general: George Brandis, are parsing a range of options to essentially 'block' access to 'Torrent-based' websites (or any other website that provides 'pirated' content)
I suspect intense lobbying by the likes of: *Time-Warner, and the other studios are behind the enactment of this bill (which the Abbott government will endeavour to pass prior to Christmas 2014)
*Time-Warner were in negotiations to purchase the Australian Channel-10 network.
In many respects the 'digital horse' has already bolted, as people can (as I believe) also bypass these proposed restrictions via a 'VPN' (although, Malcolm Turnbull, and attorney-general Brandis are eyeing this avenue with a 'malicious intent')
Click-on the link below to view the Sydney Morning Herald article:
I think if Abbott, Turnbull, and Brandis, were alive in the 1400's (15th century) they would have tried to ban Johannes Guttenberg's 'printing-press' lol.
Turnbull, and Brandis, haven't banned VPN's yet. At this stage it is only 'pirated' / copyrighted digital material (and the vendors). Malcolm Turnbull signalled that he is well aware of VPN usage to bypass any 'blocks', but the article insinuates (reading between the lines) he is being strongly lobbied to take action against VPN providers.
*Time-Warner (Comcast) et al, will have their lobbyists infiltrating Turnbull's inner-sanctum in Canberra.
An influential factor that drives 'piracy', which the politicians are loathe to discuss: is the fact that Australians pay a lot more for digital content (not only TV programmes, but software as well)
I've perused an article, where it is around 400% extra that Aussies pay to access US-based shows (contemptuous of Aussie digital-users, you bet it is)
I still don't understand how they're going to go about "blocking" websites. If they force ISPs to redirect you through the DNS... then just switch to a different DNS.
The previous Labor government introduced 'blocking', and was well versed in 'blocking' websites, and now we have a Liberal National incumbent, they are continuing the work.
Much of what transpires in the Australian government (and it's policies) is always 'driven' by vested business interests (lobbyists) eg Rupert Murdoch in particular.
*Sigh* SOPA MK II but in Antipodean form, and I'm with TPG so I recently received an infringement notice for The Walking Dead, it wasn't me but my dipshit housemate who torrents like a fiend AND seeds torrents for MONTHS with no VPN, it's like a little breadcrumb trail for the Feds to come and kick down my door and shove me into a Gulag.
Yes people in ANZ pay way more than they should for stuff, more than people in america do. It is called the australia tax. Here is a video about it:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9QlKKl7Qcw
I am convinced that the politicians need to pass an act to outlaw this and require that these digital goods be sold for no more than their american prices, and that alot of these physical goods like electronics and cars and whatnot have a RRP no more than their american prices. It is pretty ridiculous that you should have to pay anymore in ANZ for this stuff than USA.
I think it was Sir Tim Berners-Lee that stated 'the internet should readily, and freely accessible to all'. But not if you live in Australia it seems, where an internet-user is at the mercy of mega-corporations.
FYI accountants use a VPN to connect to the Australian Taxation Office to lodge tax returns so the ban on VPN's is unlikely. Not to mention all the other businesses in Australia that rely on VPN's. Even if they ban just the public VPN services you could still buy servers in countries where it is legal to use torrents and set up your own VPN service.
in which case you can state that due to unknown persons using your connection in an unauthorised manner you can not prove who did this nor can you forward the infringement notice on, i.e. I've got unsecured WIFI cause TPG sends a modem that uses the same password as the TPG account Password which was shared with another site that was vulnerable to heartbleed as such I have only just resecured my WiFi, not that it always will work but sometimes there is a "onus of proof" which can not be achieved if your network is potentially vulnerable.
Or if things get to tough get an overseas server that you use to download data to an SSD and then ship the SSD to yourself (this also works if you have crappy internet and need large game updates or other software updates that are legal to download) some companies even specialise in "off site data retention and recovery" if your worried about interception use encryption with a ridiculously long password and a high encryption level.
not that piracy is good but there is always a way around things if its needed
