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MPAA Shuts Down Town's Municipal WiFi Over 1 Download
nam37 writes with this BoingBoing snippet "The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie. Rather than being embarrassed by this gross example of collective punishment (a practice outlawed in the Geneva conventions) against Coshocton, OH, the MPAA's spokeslizard took the opportunity to cry poor (even though the studios are bringing in record box-office and aftermarket receipts)."
I find it hard to believe that they would have shut down the Wifi simply because of a *possible* lawsuit.... Maybe they didn't really want the WiFi after all?
SR&ED
Wow, talk about misrepresenting the facts. I hate the way the MPAA is using copyright law as much as the next digital rights activist. But, for the record, the MPAA didn't take down the network. They just sent their usual infringement notice to the ISP, who then forwarded it on to Coshocton County. The county then made the decision to shut down the wifi service, they weren't ordered to by any judge or MPAA executive/lawyer/asshat.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117273
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Hate to be pedantic.. but the fourth Geneva Convention (which OP was referring to) sets forth protection for civilians in times of war. Last I checked, there is not a war going on in Coshocton, OH and the MPAA is not a sovereign authority (as much as it might like to be). I always cringe when people reference the Geneva Conventions like this in such an overly dramatic and misrepresentation way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_Harbor
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Another troll by Cory. The WiFi was using a single IP address and NAT. The one connection was shutdown, that's all.
I don't think the existence of an open wifi hotspot was a matter voted into existence by the people of Coshocton, OH, nor do I think it came to be as a result of a lawful mandate. Somebody decided it could be kind of nice, opened it up, smiled broadly at the general sense of doing something good, and was unceremoniously educated into the potential issues connected with what I'm sure somebody thought was a simple idea. "Hey, I turned this on, I can turn this off if there's a problem" sure beats "I think I'll get the city involved in a deep-pockets lawsuit over something which isn't our responsibility".
Now, if the presence of an open wifi hotspot were something the citizens had voted for, or even if there was a city budget entry specifying funds to support an open wifi hotspot, that'd be one thing (and turning it off would be a very difficult proposition at that point). Not the case here. To quote Lieutenant Starbuck, "I can turn you on, I can turn you off". I guess in this case, Cy was left "off".
So the MPAA is clearly then allowed to treat civilians worse than people being occupied in wartime by any country that has signed the Geneva Convention?
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention only applies to "protected persons."
Art. 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. Nationals of a neutral State who find themselves in the territory of a belligerent State, and nationals of a co-belligerent State, shall not be regarded as protected persons while the State of which they are nationals has normal diplomatic representation in the State in whose hands they are.
In short, a state can punish its own citizens collectively, at least as long as there's no actual war -- and all you smarty-pants who think the "War on Drugs" is an actual war are impressing no one, least of all an international criminal court. (It's worth nothing that the US doesn't recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC either.) This is why, no matter how much I still resent her, my 4th grade teacher isn't a war criminal.
It's also worth noting that turning off a service one party provides for free to multiple third parties is not generally recognized as a punitive act towards the third parties in the US. "Punishment" is reserved for actions taken directly against an individual or group. So closing a soup kitchen for health code violations is not "collective punishment" of the homeless nor is imprisoning a father collective punishment of his family.
Lastly, I think you've got a really sad sense of entitlement and pathetic, comfortable ignorance if you think that cutting off free Wi-fi at the park is equivalent to the kind of collective punishments that happen during war. Read up on Stalin's Order 270 or Sherman's March to the Sea.
And then stop your whining about Wi-fi. The MPAA is being a bunch of jerks, but they're not engaging in war crimes. People need to get some goddamned perspective.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Geneva Convention applies to international conflict bud, not private corporations.
Actually IANAL but:
International treaties and conventions ARE the law of the land if your country is a signatory, and said law must be respected by all persons - physical or judicial. Corporations are NOT above the law.
There's a little clause in the US constitution that says:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Most constitutions of other countries do the same - after all, it's the only way a government can make an international treaty binding on all its citizens.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Make Friends and Influence People Now!
Here's how you do it.
You don't like your neighbor's barking dog? No Problem, just War Drive their WAP and then download movies. Next, send
an "anonymous tip" to the MPAA. Next thing you know, it's a takedown letter and a demand for money. Now they'll have to take
that little dog to the pound because they can't afford the dog food anymore.
I've seen the other comments and one more analogy.. The Roads will need to be torn up because somebody sped down them while fleeing the scene of a crime. We don't know who the criminal was, but he was fleeing.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I suspect that you are mistaken, the wireless hotspot was capable of handling more than a hundred users at once and the county is considering purchasing filtering hardware and software so they can bring it back up.
Yet another zealot can't oppose bad behavior without exageration. I have to wonder if the moron who submitted this understands the term "human rights violation". Suffice it to say the Geneva Convention's prohibition on collective punishment was not written out of concern that you might not have the internet connection you want.
It's not that you shouldn't want the **AA's abuses to stop. It's that you shoudln't be trivializing real crimes against humanity by comparing them to weak-ass shit like this.
That is all.
LaVigne has done some homework and found a program that would prevent the illegal downloads from happening in the future; however, it would cost the cash-strapped county about $2,900 to implement, $2,000 for equipment and then $900 annually for the filtering program
There you are then. The MPAA pays for the hardware and the software subscription. The cost to the MPAA and its members is readily offset by the potential millions upon millions of profits that could be lost from illegal downloads from this small town's one-block-radius municipal's WiFi connection. Everybody wins!
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Bank robbers used the local highway to getaway this morning. The highway has been closed until further notice.
You don't build munchipal networks in a centraliced fashion, you make meshed networks which are in the hands of their users. That way there is no way anybody could turn them off. Maybe someone would decide to not offer Internet anymore, but turning of the network as a whole is impossible.
You can get cheap routers, install the Freifunk firmware and off you go.