You would think, of all industries, the movie industry would be particularly careful about praising US government censorship of content, since it’s not that far down the slippery slope until the government justifies censoring movie content as well. But, apparently, as long as it’s on the “internet,” it’s fine to censor. The MPAA has come out, once again, with praise for Homeland Security’s blatant censorship of websites without due process or any concern for prior restraint. Not only that, but the MPAA is delusional. It claims that seizing the URLs has “put illegal sites out of business” and also “raised public awareness.”

First of all, nearly all of the sites seized for copyright infringement claims reappeared on other domains pretty quickly. So, claiming that these seizures put them out of business is simply incorrect. And if it’s “raised public awareness” of anything, it’s how the MPAA and the US government are censoring websites and eschewing the basic principles of due process. It’s really amazing how many people have been following this story and realizing just how far the US government is going, and how ridiculous it is. There’s simply no way to make that look good. This is making the MPAA and the US government look like bad third world dictators, seeking to censor websites that they don’t like.

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