US mistakenly seizes a music domain – and holds it for 18 months

Unsealed Court Records Confirm that RIAA Delays Were Behind Year-Long Seizure of Hip Hop Music Blog | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A common statement is that the US does not censor web sites, but rather polices “crime.” The definition of crime, however, depends on the government doing the defining. In this case, a site was shut down based on linking to news stories about piracy.
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Berners-Lee: Don’t let record labels upset web openness

“Record labels have a very strong voice when it comes to arguing for their particular business model, which is in fact out of date,” he said. “The result is that laws have been created which make out as if the only problem on the internet is teenagers stealing music. The world is bigger than that. The internet is bigger than the music industry. The economic impact of the internet is bigger than the music industry.”

via Berners-Lee: Don't let record labels upset web openness.

Web site “Chilling Effects” for info on US content removal

Chilling Effects aims to help you understand the protections that the First Amendment and intellectual property laws give to your online activities. We are excited about the new opportunities the Internet offers individuals to express their views, parody politicians, celebrate their favorite movie stars, or criticize businesses. But we’ve noticed that not everyone feels the same way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some individuals and corporations are using intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to “chill” legitimate activity.

via Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.

Twitter implements country-specific censorship

As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.

Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

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via Twitter Blog: Tweets still must flow.

UK Supreme Court: ISPs must block The Pirate Bay – The Tech Report

UK Supreme Court: ISPs must block The Pirate Bay

by Cyril Kowaliski — 5:54 PM on April 30, 2012

Well, this is interesting. As the debate over CISPA rages on here at home, content providers seem to be getting their way in Europe. BBC News reports that the UK Supreme Court has ordered major British ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay.

The

via UK Supreme Court: ISPs must block The Pirate Bay – The Tech Report.

An example of “censorship via search engines.” In this case it should be technically quite feasible since a clear URL is being blocked.