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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
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.
There do exist forms of justice more subtle than the lynch mob.
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.