The United States is taking piracy seriously: it will begin blocking websites

Depending on the country you live in, piracy can be a dangerous thing for you or not. For example, in Europe each nation has specific policies regarding this practice. In Spain, there is a lot of permissiveness, and in Germany, it is relentlessly pursued.

At this year’s CinemaCon, the President and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, Charles Rivkin, has revealed a plan that would make it a little more difficult to download and consume illegal content. It doesn’t matter how much you enjoy visiting pirate bay every Friday.

Rivkin has stated that the association will work with Congress to establish and implement legislation for blocking piracy websites in the United States. He added that nearly 60 countries use website blocking as a tool against piracy, “including major democracies and many of the closest allies of the United States.”

The Motion Picture Association will work with Congress to start blocking piracy sites in the US https://t.co/YzypvdK6j3 pic.twitter.com/xKneIZidnh

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United States wants to block illegal audiovisual content sites

The only reason why the United States is not one of them, he continued, is the “lack of political will, combined with an outdated understanding of what blocking sites really entails, how it works, and who it affects.”

With the current law, “film and television producers, music and book publishers, sports leagues, and broadcasters” can request the court to order Internet service providers to block websites that share stolen content.

Rivkin, arguing in favor of site blocking, explained that the practice does not affect legitimate businesses. And he said that legislation regarding this practice would require detailed evidence demonstrating that a specific entity engages in illegal activities and that alleged perpetrators can appear in court to defend themselves.

Rivkin cited FMovies, an illegal movie streamer, as an example of how site blocking in the US would minimize traffic to piracy websites. Apparently, FMovies receives 160 million visits per month, one third of which come from the United States. If the regulation also existed in the country, the website’s traffic would theoretically decrease quite drastically.