Slashdot Mirror
Tracking Censorship Through Copyright Proposals Worldwide
jrepin writes "Global Chokepoints is an online resource created to document and monitor global proposals to turn Internet intermediaries into copyright police. These proposals harm Internet users' rights of privacy, due process and freedom of expression, and endanger the future of the free and open Internet. Our goal is to provide accurate empirical information to digital activists and policy makers, and help coordinate international opposition to attempts to cut off free expression through misguided copyright laws, policies, agreements and court cases. Scroll down to see a list of countries currently featured for threatening free expression through copyright censorship."
It is a nice concept, linking the various laws etc that we know bits about.
However it needs more countries.
Based on Slashdot entries, France and Australia are notable missing entries.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm not sure what Digital Music Copyright Act is under United States of America country section, but I've heard of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If they can't even get that part right then why should I bother with the website at all?
This space is not for rent.
For an anti-censorship site this means a massive faux-pas.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
After complaints of sloppy inaccuracy over the DMCA meaning, I took a look at NZ. The writers seem to have it backwards about the "notice fee". As I remember the arguments at the time the law was passed, the rightsholders are charged BY the ISP a fee to help compensate for their work in determining the offender and the delivery of the notice. The text on the website says the rightsholders charge the ISP, which makes no sense at all.
I was quite perturbed when the act was passed "under urgency", which means debate and committee consideration of the bill are curtailed somewhat. There was really no "urgency" for the matter that I could detect.
Bottom of the screen, hosted by the EFF. Now as for operating costs... Who knows.
At the core of "censorship" efforts like PROTECT-IP and the like is a world-view that considers the internet to be a content distribution means.
Thinking in those terms they're trying to solve content distribution problems without even considering side-effects. Sometimes I wonder if they even realize that content distribution is only a tiny portion of what the internet is capable of, or how much their ham-fisted efforts are causing trouble for those other uses.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
How in hell do you equate real, physical, real world goods with bits and bytes? I can author a story, or anything else on my computer, and it sits there forever. When someone "steals" it from my computer, I've really lost nothing, except maybe a little privacy. Now, if they steal my computer, that is a real world asset, which can only be replace by purchasing another computer.
Physical assets and imaginary property are not equal.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br