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Studios' Oz Power-Grab Revealed
Xiroth writes "More details are beginning to come out about the lawsuit launched by film studios in Australia. According to law experts familiar with the case, the studios seek to force the ISPs to become 'police, judge, and executioner,' effectively giving the studios the legal clout to switch off ISP customers' internet connection at will. Apparently the ISP iiNet is the unlucky victim for the test case as, unlike other ISPs, they refused to pass on infringement notices to their customers."
Is that if they have enough evidence to make you get shut off the net, they have enough evidence to sue you. Stop passing the buck and file a lawsuit, jackasses.
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They are probably testing the waters with one ISP to get precedent that they can use against other ISP's. It looks from the article that they are the third largest ISP in the region. They probably don't want to go after the bigger ones first but they don't want to tackle a small ISP as well. I would guess this is just the first step in setting up a system for their benifit.
So I guess this means that the Jews (and the Catholic Church and the Masons) really were responsible for 9/11 - after all, they failed to prevent it.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm not an Aussie, but I think it's unproductive (and often counter-productive) to try to label companies or people as "good" or "bad." This particular action appears to be good. Nuff said.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
So an eyewitness is as guilty as the perpetrator?
So General Motors and their dealerships are responsible for thousands of instances of vehicular manslaughter?
I'm sorry, I don't think I like "authorized by failing to prevent" as a legal precedence.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
for a select few major players in the rarefied business of media distribution, circa 1988
now, any pimply faced teenager with a net connection has more distribution power than time warner and bertelsmann in 1988. but the law hasn't changed to reflect that technological change in last 20 years
now, those dying business powers wish to use the laws meant for their private little club to impose their will on a billion teenagers. a billion poor meda hungry teenagers with obfuscation, encryption, spoofing, etc., at their disposal
good luck with that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You don't think 'good' and 'bad' are helpful adjectives to describe a company to a friend who might be interesting in purchasing services from said company and who will eventually need to deal with said company?
Two examples, Comcast and Netlix. I've read quite a bit actions that both companies have taken, and have been on the phone with both companies several times. If I were referring a friend for a high-speed internet service, I probably wouldn't recommend Comcast because I think that they are a 'bad' company. They do things like throttle your internet connection if you're using bit-torrent, regardless if it's for completely legal purposes or not. They are lobbying for a tiered internet. They are rarely pleasant or on time to service calls, and calling their customer service center is an exercise in futility.
Netflix, on the other hand, I would recommend as a 'good' company, because they are constantly doing things that bennefit their customers. For example, they have been working very hard to bring streaming movies to people. I just got that ability with the latest xbox update, and it's awesome (really good quality too). They are also very good on the phone. The CSRs will really try to help you, and if you have some sort of technical question, they put you on the phone with somebody who understands and can answer your question!
So, in short, I think that labeling companies as 'good' and 'bad' is helpful. If a company is falling into the 'bad' category, and they don't want to be there, then they need to get off their ass and figure out what put them there.
Can we please stop using the term "Oz" to refer to Australia, particularly in the context of film studios? There is an "Oz" series, which could lead to confusion, and someone searching for stories about Australia is unlikely to include "Oz" in their search.
It's kind of like the Borg:
The individuals who joined the collective weren't really evil people. The Borg will assimilate anyone. But once they become part of the collective mindset, they have one goal, and that goal can really only be achieved in an evil way.
Corporations tend to work the same way. Most of the individuals are not evil, but they contribute toward a whole that is going in an evil direction. Some time it is tough to take a step back and go "if I do this, they could use it for something else..." I always wonder who was the jerk who wrote the "virus" that went on the Sony BMG music CD's that disabled the ability to burn CDs as a form of copy protection. Surely that person knew what he/she was doing was wrong. But in other cases it is more gray. The same tools can be used for good or evil. And if evil makes you more profit, well.. that is what happens.
"Think of the CHILDREN! Won't somebody pleeeeease think of the CHILDREN?!?"
Australia itself is not at fault, neither is the majority of the population who would be quite content to continue being a bastion of open-minded free thinking (much like most of Canada, which I'm proud to live in). No, if there's any blame to assign here, it should be directed squarely at the two groups at fault: Greedy, amoral media executives who would be all too happy to set up a global dictature where their content, flawed and awful as it might get, would be rewarded with mountains of ill-gotten cash as well as power-hungry politicians who take advantage of the aforementionned corporate suits to create a FUD campaign directed at the latest target of "threats against The Children", the Interwebs.
It's not like they have many targets left, now that dancing, rock and roll and comic books have gained wide mainstream acceptance in not being tools of corruption forged in Lucifer's workshop.
There do exist forms of justice more subtle than the lynch mob.
Well, if by "like Canada" he means it is a sovereign nation, has a large land area, is resource-rich, and sells a lot of its stuff to the US, then he's only being deceptive and can't be caught in an outright falsehood. China's not very much like Canada in most ways, though. Even a superficial glance at the news coverage from each country could tell you that.
This is an ages old trick of the trade for con artists and fraudsters. A con tells his mark something that's worded very ambiguously. He makes sure what the mark understands is patently false, but covers his ass with some fanciful alternate meaning. That way the con can blame the mark for moving forward with the deal without a clear understanding of the terms.
I know the con and fraudster labels get bandied about for politicians and bureaucrats all the time. In this case, it seems they might be especially fitting. He's either lying through his teeth, severely deranged, or counting on one of Wikipedia's favorite tricks to catch: weasel words.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a FREE country..."
I call bullshit.
As I recently heard Lessig point out, the US government is less popular with its constituents these days than it was preceding the American revolution. Your economy is circling the drain. You have massive and growing separation of the rich and poor. You've had almost a decade of politicians shitting on your rights and your founding principles.
The time for you to mobilise your well-regulated militia was long ago. And you know what happened? Nothing.
It's about time you stopped being so naïve. It's clear the governments of developed and developing nations have no greater fear of a population of gun nuts than of flower-wielding hippies. Neither community will sacrifice their bread and circuses so long as they can vote for a new guy in the next election. Fair and transparent democracy is the best and most natural defence of a free nation, not the possibility of slaughtering a stack of your fellow countrymen in the name of revolution. All that gets you is the sort of political stability we see in Niger and Darfur.
Sorry sir, As a native Australian, i must inform you that you are off your rocker.
While both of our cultures have European roots, they've both been equally influenced by the US. Saying that NZ is more "European" just shows that you hold it (and Europe) in higher regard than the US and Australia. Your comparisons, from what i can see, aren't even remotely accurate..
Please note that I actually think New Zealand is a lovely place, i just think you're romanticising a bit.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/