Could the USA force all porn sites onto .xxx domain? I've been working on various methods to block content from my home network and realizing all the holes in my schemes. But it occurred to me that it would be pretty simple if all the porn was on .xxx because then I could just force all network traffic on my network to use my DNS server never serve out the name for something that resolves to .xxx (I know this doesn't solve the "safe search" problem, but one thing at a time) But I was talking with my wife about it and we were wondering if or why it might be a non-starter to lobby my Congressperson to do that. It doesn't seem to me that the tld is tantamount to free speech, you can't get a .edu or .gov tld if you aren't associated with those orgs, couldn't you be forced to have a .xxx tld if you are associated with certain organizations?
Can you unambiguously, legally, and conclusively determine what is and is not a "porn site"? I'm sure many are easy... but what about that "Swimsuit modeling" site, or the "Artistic Nudes" site featuring classic French Renaissance paintings? There will always be a grey area. What makes a "site" in a legal sense? Consider all the blog sites filled with user generated content: If just a few pages out of tens-of-thousands are hardcore, indisputable porn, would you require the entire domain to be classified XXX, even if 99% of its content is completely innocent? Who would enforce this? Are you proposing an "Internet Police" force to review all new domain names and their content before they get approved? That is called "Prior Restraint on Free Speech", and is established law. Suppose a site does get approved, then immediately changes the content of their pages from Cooking Recipes to hard-core porn. Who is going to review and approve every update to every website, when sites are updated constantly?! Maybe you're proposing that any individual who finds porn on a .ORG site has the right to sue for damages? This would likely clog the courts with endless vigilante lawsuits about what content belongs on which domain. This is a flat out horrible, poorly thought out idea.
It could be. Accessing any web page is subject to whatever the terms of use are for the page, and if those terms state that the page may only be accessed from within the US, then accessing the page from outside the US is a violation of the TOS (hence use is infringing): see 2.4(h) of the Netflix EULA. There are EU rules that override such terms, within the EU. The usual way to circumvent technological location-restrictions (where the web page says "I'm sorry, I can't let you do that") is to use a VPN and pretend to be somewhere else. Use of a VPN is not per se illegal in most countries (there are exceptions), but using it to circumvent geo-blocking may be. Again returning to the point that the TOS may itself say "No you may not", the interesting question is what to conclude if there is no such statement, for example I did not see anything in the PBS TOS that restricts access to the US (I didn't look very deeply). Terms of service can't be secret: you can't be held to following rules that you cannot reasonably know of. If you attempt to access a page that uses un-announced geo-blocking technology and it informs you that you can't use the page because of your location, then you have effectively been put on notice that there is a rule. If you happen to be using a VPN and access an un-announced, (reasonably) undetectable geo-blocked site, that would not be a breach of the terms (because you have not been put on notice that location is a term of use).
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/dk/dk091en.pdf is the Copyright Law in English for Denmark. You should probably try to find a Danish version to ensure the translation is accurate. Chapter 2 lists the exemptions from the general rule that you need the copyright owner's permission to use their IP. Unfortunately, the usage you have made does not meet the requirements for private use (s12): digital copies may only be shared among the members of one household, placing them on the web extends beyond your household. It may meet the requirements of educational use (s13) providing that your school has met the requirements for Extended Collective Use (s50). For photographs, this seems unlikely, such arrangements are usually limited to songs and television works. Under Chapter 6b, you are permitted to use "orphaned works", however, this requires that you have made a diligent search for the owners and have been unable to either identify or locate them. Copyright violation is subject to both penal sanctions (fines and in egregious violations imprisonment) (s76) and damages (s83). TL;DR Yes, you could be sued. Yes, the copyright holder would probably be successful. No, it is extremely unlikely they would bother.
As far as I can tell, no appeals court has had to decide whether "the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or any predecessor or successor protocols to such protocol" includes UDP for the purposes of 16 CFR §312. I will argue that UDP is included. From King v. Burwell (internal citations removed): when deciding whether the language is plain, we must read the words in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme. 16 CFR §312, in conjunction with 15 USC §6501-6505, implements the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. The FTC is directed in 15 USC §6502(b) to promulgate regulations that (emphasis mine): require the operator of any website or online service directed to children [...] to provide notice of what information is collected [...] and to obtain verifiable parental consent The FTC drafted 16 CFR §312 to that end. To treat UDP as exempt would mean that the FTC has not fulfilled their duty under 15 USC §6502(b). So, given the context of the overall statutory scheme, it is reasonable to conclude that the FTC intended 16 CFR §312 to include UDP. However, even without the above line of reasoning, if the FTC were to attempt enforcement of 16 CFR §312 as if it included UDP, that interpretation would be controlling. The FTC would be afforded Auer deference by the court. They wrote the regulation; they know what it means. From Auer v. Robbins 519 U.S. 452 (1997): Because the salary basis test is a creature of the Secretary's own regulations, his interpretation of it is, under our jurisprudence, controlling unless plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. And from Bowles v. Seminole Rock &amp; Sand Co. 325 U.S. 410 (1945): Since this involves an interpretation of an administrative regulation, a court must necessarily look to the administrative construction of the regulation if the meaning of the words used is in doubt. The intention of Congress or the principles of the Constitution in some situations may be relevant in the first instance in choosing between various constructions. But the ultimate criterion is the administrative interpretation, which becomes of controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation. Again, given the context of the overall statutory scheme, such an interpretation of the regulation by the FTC wouldn't be plainly erroneous.
Under 47 U.S. Code § 230(e)(1), Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of title 18, or any other Federal criminal statute. Section 230 exists to protect site operators from civil lawsuits and overzealous state/local prosecutors (there's now also an exception for prostitution and sex trafficking, but that didn't exist back in 2013). It doesn't protect site operators from federal criminal prosecution. For that, the same rules apply to site operators as apply to everyone else. Ulbricht knew and intended Silk Road to operate as a drug trafficking site, so he was criminally liable for operating it as one.
Due to competition/antitrust laws it can be illegal, more so if the search engine is dominant in the market. This has actually been realized in the EU where they fined Google €2.42 billion for abusing their market dominance and favouring their own Google Shopping service in search results. For further information, that fine has been specifically addressed on this site. In the US, this has not yet come to such a dramatic penalty, but there have been investigations. The FTC has investigated similar search results manipulation among other antitrust issues, but ultimately decided not to file a lawsuit as the changes to the search algorithms "could be plausibly justified as innovations that improved Google’s product." Following this inaction, as of November 2017, the state of Missouri is also investigating Google on the same issue. I'm not certain if manipulating search results on its own is illegal, but with market dominance (like what Google has), it certainly is.
Hacking a website to take it down is not effective; the target can simply regain control of their machine or restart the service somewhere else. The objective of the FBI is to make arrests and obtain convictions, not play whack-a-mole. When the FBI targets a website and its operators there are a number of approaches that it can use, depending on the circumstances. For clear-web sites one simple approach is just to seize the domain name. When you type badsite.com into a web browser a system called DNS looks up the name in a distributed database and from that gets an IP address. The DNS database is managed by a number of national and international authorities, and most national authoritities will cooperate with legal requests from the FBI, possibly routed through INTERPOL or via a Mutual Legal Assistance treaty. Of course there are some countries that won't cooperate, and this on its own doesn't help the FBI to arrest anyone. The FBI can use an IP address to find out where the physical servers are located. If that is in the US then they can simply go and seize those servers as evidence, or use a subpoena. If it is outside the US then its back to INTERPOL or Mutual Legal Assistance. Servers on the "dark net" use TOR to bounce the packets around the Net a few times. This hides the IP addresses of both servers and clients, so the challenge for the FBI is to find out what the IP address of the target machine is. Once they have that they can proceed as normal. Getting the IP address generally means hacking the target machine via TOR, and then finding the IP address once inside. If the DNS and servers are hosted in a country that won't play ball with the FBI, well that is just too bad. The FBI can carry on investigating of course, and if someone running the website ever travels to a country where the FBI can get them arrested then they will do so.
There is no law pertaining to top level domains, defining &quot;appropriateness&quot;. Instead, some organization is an administrator, and there is an understanding as to what the purpose of the domain is, but this is not legally enforceable. The TLDs com, org, net are open to anyone, whereas edu is limited in the US to accredited post-secondary institutions, however some non-educational commercial enterprises were grandfathered in. Insofar as registering a com-domain website does not entail &quot;an intent to make profit&quot; and registering an org-domain website does not entail &quot;an intent to not make a profit&quot;, there is no deception w.r.t. internet users. One would of course have to be truthful in registering the domain. Public Interest Registry, the administrator for org, does not even purport that businesses registered under org should be &quot;nonprofit&quot;.