If approved, FADPA would allow copyright holders to obtain court orders requiring large Internet service providers (ISPs) and DNS resolvers to block access to pirate sites. The bill would amend existing copyright law to focus specifically on ‘foreign websites’ that are ‘primarily designed’ for copyright infringement.
The inclusion of DNS resolvers is significant. Major tech companies such as Google and Cloudflare offer DNS services internationally, raising the possibility of blocking orders having an effect worldwide. DNS providers with less than $100 million in annual revenue are excluded.
While site blocking is claimed to exist in more than 60 countries, DNS resolvers are typically not included in site blocking laws and regulations. These services have been targeted with blocking requests before but it’s certainly not standard.
It’s aimed at DNS resolvers, so folks better start busting out them Pi-Holes and setting up unbound.
The focus on piracy is a smoke screen. It’s about capacity.
Build the capacity, and then just start growing that list of reasons things are blocked.
This is out of scope for this community, but the U.S. is amidst a coup.
I mean, literally, it’s being raided by a corporate stooge that is breaking all manner of laws to just reshape it in whatever image they see fit.
In a geopolitical sense, they’re trying to break relationships with close allies, and trying to isolate the country. We see that with the tariff threats, the withdrawal from WHO, the Paris Climate accords, and now with threats to withdraw/pull back from NATO. Domestically, it’s clear that businesses are bowing to Trump or facing government punishment. That much is evidenced by social media companies filtering search results, by media companies tepid criticism of Trump and by the lack of national coverage over anti-trump sentiment. We also see it in terms of the investigations that Trump and his cronies are trying to bring against NPR, of all things.
This is a play in the move to control information access in the U.S. After the media, and social media, which are now yolked, the open web is the next biggest threat to their coup.
And now this is the legislation they’re pushing.