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US Embassy Sanctioned Lawsuit Against Aussie ISP iiNet
New submitter Elenor writes with this story (excerpted) from TorrentFreak, another nugget gleaned from the cables made public by WikiLeaks: "The Canberra Wikileaks cables have revealed that the U.S. Embassy sanctioned a conspiracy by Hollywood studios to target Australian communications company iiNet through the local court-system, with the aim of establishing a binding common-law precedent which would make ISPs responsible for the unauthorised file-sharing of their customers. Both the location, Australia, and the target, iiNet, were carefully selected. A precedent set in Australia would be influential in countries with comparable legal systems such as Canada, India, New Zealand and Great Britain. Australian telecommunications giant Telstra was judged too large for the purposes of the attack. Owing to its smaller size and more limited resources, iiNet was gauged the perfect candidate." The cable describes no overt action on the part of the American embassy, but the wording is telling: "Mike Ellis, the Singapore-based President for Asia Pacific of the Motion
Picture Association ... said MPAA did not see any role for Embassy at this
time, but wanted to keep us informed."
So, american embassies are MPAA's bitches ?
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Sanctioned: Give official permission or approval for (an action). Impose a sanction or penalty on.
Conspiracy: A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. The action of plotting or conspiring.
I just read the cable, and nowhere in there is there any "sanctioning" going on. Conspiracy? Guess that depends on your point of view.
As I post this, it's almost 10:00am on Wednesday, January 24 in Perth, Australia where iiNet is headquartered.
How many Aussies will take to the streets after reading this? Ehhhh... there's one! Oh, that's just a pedestrian... how about that one?!! Nope. Going to his car.
(sound of crickets)
(fade to black)
Passing laws backed by the MPAA is usually a detriment to the victim country's economy (as seen with SOPA) and the quality of life in that country for it's citizens, which will make them unhappy with their government (as rising anger about these laws indicates).
As such it can be seen as economic and political sabotage of foreign countries.
For the US embassy to take part in that, couldn't this seen as a hostile act by the victim country?
Interfering on a foreign country's soil smells of an act of war. Imagine if the roles were reversed? Or they had oil? Look out!!!!
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
The government is spending your tax money to subvert the laws of a foreign nation in order to increase the profits of a domestic business. I suppose this is considered "pro business" by the neo-conservative types and applauded.
Asking a question for the community here: how did Hollywood get the kind of power and leverage that it has? As a major source of media I can see how it would be valued by government but the stories you hear these days of the lobbying power and secret international cables that surface make it seem like they are constantly overstepping the norms of most other industries.
How did it get to the state that it's now, and why is government working so hard to protect media interests internationally so often? Is it the size of Hollywood and consequent lobbying power, a belief that Hollywood is a/the important industry to protect, or something else? Hollywood seems to receive the most benefit from all copyright laws and protections, so how did they get to this amount of power that they can exert this much control over legislation? Even in the old days I know they had the ratings boards that could strong arm quite a lot of policies.
If anyone has any good histories to relate here or relevant anecdotes, please post below!
They're hunting down baddies around the globe without realising they're the ones that are giving them their orders.
And what role did Mark Arbib play? He is an Australian senator, who is essentially a US spy. The wikileaks cables have revealed that he is in the habit of revealing secret information to the US embassy, to the extent that that the US assigned him a code name as an informant. Has Arbib been behind the scenes doing the MPAA/US government's bidding, shoring up sympathy in the Australian government?
This goes back to that old suctupidity of saying that the hardware store that sells a hammer to someone, who then kills somebody with it, is responsible for the death.
Extrapolate that out and the music industry would be responsible for piracy given that they provide the content that people then copy.
So now that Wikileaks has been effectlivelly censored after the "ohh, releasing confidential govt info is so irresponsible" campaign the US govt may be safe from this kind of embarrassment in the future.
The press can't be censored but Wikileaks can? Why did the US accept even to discuss censoring a site like Wikileaks?
Regardless, it's things like this which makes Wikileaks absoloutely a very very important web site for the entire internet. I'm very glad this information has been revealed.
Why the MAFIAA's dealings with the US Government isn't considered corruption is utterly beyond me.
It isn't 'corrupt' in the eyes of the law, but to ordinary people, it certainly smacks of corruption.
We can't expect it to be criminalised any time soon either, because the legislators who would be responsible for this have a massive conflict of interest.
According to documents released under Freedom of Information, the Attorney-General wants a "solution" to "be educative and aim to change the social norms."
That's right. They want to force "education" onto the population to make them want to prop up the content industry's failing business models.
Of course, only industry groups were invited to this meeting. I have to say, Ludlam is the reason that I voted greens in the last election.
So pretty much, iinet walked away a winner from the trial, so the this Precedent for all other nations going to do be a good thing. iinet was passing the "infrigement notices" onto the police, which from my understand decided not to do anything about them (not enough evidance). This was taken as enough action on the part of iiNet and now the content studios are appealing the decision, which is still going. But from the results of the first trial, it looks like they aren't going to be able to "save face" at all. Sometimes, they can stuff themselves up, and this is one of them.
Then you have Pres. Obama throwing in to tonight's State of The Union that "It’s not right when another country lets "OUR" movies, music, and software be pirated".
All fits the bill of our politicians being lap dogs for media makers and that things like SOPA and PIPA need to be continued to be rallied against because they are trying still going to try and push them through.
We came up with Big Brother and exported it to the world :(
With the tanks the German made Leopards we just retired were superior in a lot of roles, as I'm sure some US made tanks are. However it was a "take it or leave it" package deal that some US Senator was getting rich on. It wasn't as bad as the Sea Sprite fiasco (buying a lot of very expensive and very old helicopters and scrapping them), but that's the sort of thing that gets attached to trade deals.
As one of my former teachers said: "politics...poly-ticks: poly: more than one, ticks: blood-sucking creatures." For a statement that seems so immediately incorrect in terms of the underlying meaning of the term 'politics,' it's somehow remarkably true... Really, who didn't see this coming...?
They sure want to go after those pirates. But their actions sure want to make me into a pirate. Guess that reverse psychology stuff does work...
Om, nomnomnom...
They own our country and there's not a dam thing we can do about it...now I'm thanking all of the useless fanbois who when I post on GT5 and mention what Sony did with root kits I was told to stfu that Sony was doing it to keep theft costs down.. Wtf? They deserve it..
Owing to its smaller size and more limited resources, iiNet was gauged the perfect candidate.
According to Wikipedia iiNet is out second largest ISP these days, and are doing pretty well considering they just bought Internode for $105. They've been fighting for the user for a while now, and recently did just win against AFACT.
Nothing but a low-down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous perverted worm!
Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him!
He should be torn into little bitsy pieces and buried alive!
It seems like five seconds after you tell them anything it becomes international news.
Remember that pakistani group that wanted to form an alliance with the US to squeeze out the military faction? Well, they're all running for their lives now because the instant they told the US State Department it was all over the nightly news.
Forget the issue of the moment here, what we're looking at is a state department leaking everything they're given.
That means it's impossible to conduct diplomacy with the US. THAT is a much bigger problem then some stupid MPAA conspiracy to create a precedent in Australia.
State Department needs to get their shit together now. I don't know who's fault this is and I don't care. It doesn't matter. Fix it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The fault is with the irresponible and unethical deals the government keeps making. If you are going to act unethically all the time then you have to expect to have the odd person within the government become morally outraged enough that they think it is better to leak the info than to remain silent. The real solution is to clean up the governments behaviour so that there is no need for leaks to occur.
Not really... this sort of behavior is common throughout the world and was common with the US government prior to these leaks.
The leaks are new and specific to the US State Department. The CIA isn't leaking. Think they're doing less nasty things behind closed doors?
This has nothing to do with being nasty or sneaky. This has everything to do with not being able to keep a secret. And furthermore, diplomacy is impossible if you can't keep secrets.
The alternative to diplomacy is shutting down the whole US diplomatic system and shifting those responsibilities to other entities... or just conducting everything through war.
You do NOT want the US diplomatic system to collapse. I don't know who is responsible for this... I am loath to lay this at the feet of Hillary Clinton but she is Secretary of State... this is HER division. I don't blame her for what is happening but she is responsible for fixing it. If this keeps happening it will be her fault.
Maybe this will help you grasp the problem. Lets say you're a foreign official that knows your government is doing bad things. You want to tell the US government because you think they'll stop it. Well, now what will happen is that they'll leak the fact that you told them to everyone... including your own government which means that they might just kill you. Try giving information is you live in North Korea or Iran.... you'll die.
That means you can't tell the US state department anything because they can't keep secrets.
Do you understand? This is a test.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
And this is why lobbying and campaign contributions need to be outlawed.
The true cellar-dwelling geek --- the mushroom maiden --- with no social or political life whatsoever --- has no need of organizations and lobbyists to represent and protect his interests.
The politician aligns with interests that are important to his home district. There are people he has to know, people he has to listen to whether they support his campaign or not.
The congreswoman for Redwood City won't give a damn if Anonymous hacks her website.
But she will know to the dime how much Dreamworks Animation (400 employees), Oracle (6700) and Electronic Arts (3159) contribute to the local economy --- and they will get a hearing.
Why doesn't the US have two state departments, each with slightly different livery and branding, one can be marketed "The Original State Department" and one can be "The Authentic State Department". That way, with countries like Australia (which pretty much does what it's told anyway), they can send the sort of diplomat who will immediately run to the closest bar and say "wow guys, so busy, we're planning a really big covert thing, but I can't tell you what it is", hoping the intrigue will get him some sex or at least a lot of people interested in talking to him. So the host government can relax, knowing that if the US was planning some espionage, they would know about it before the CIA resident does. With NK and Iran, the other State Department can be full of steely faced people who take secrets to their grave.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Sigh.
This was news in August 2011.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/31/afact_subcontractor_to_mpaa/
... you're clearly joking... but even in your joke, everyone would just talk to the state department that kept secrets... and the state department that didn't be defunded or rolled into the other one as a subordinate entity... which would mean the same thing. Since the first thing any competent organization would do is fire the leaks and disband practices that lead to the leaks.
This just needs to stop. This is unsustainable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I think that people who take everything they read in the media at face value, are dangerous mentally ill douchebags.
Yes, I agree. It pains me to boycott I have many American friends and good memories of many places [haven't visited recently though] and boycotting will hurt people rather than politicians. However, it's part of the answer. I've started with everything 'obvious' coca-cola, mcdonalds, KFC [they're franchise but they're also symbols] and am now moving on to banking [the execrable Bob Diamond is head of Barclays in the UK], book purchase, office supplies etc. etc.
In the UK we had two extraditions recently, our government is feeble enough and in vested interests pockets enough that they'll agree to special rendition for downloading soon.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
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Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
Welcome to 5 months ago...... http://technologyspectator.com.au/industry/internet/wikileaks-cable-reveals-iinetafact-case-background Published 1:02 AM, 31 Aug 2011 "A document published by WikiLeaks appearing to be a US diplomatic cable looks to have revealed much of the previously hidden background behind the iiNet/AFACT court case, including the Motion Picture Association of America’s prime mover role and US Embassy fears the trial could become portrayed as “giant American bullies versus little Aussie battlers”."
Playing with an acronym for a moment. NSFW: (New South Fscking Wales?!)
Meanwhile, are we sure that the taste we're leaving in the Australian Judge's mouth is bad?
I was strange teenager had little interest in music, then came Napster and I got interested in music, I started buying CD's, lots of CDs. Then the attacks on Napster started and I decide to stop buying CDs and haven't since. I actually am one of the few people that still goes to the cinema, that ends today , welcome to Democracy you arseholes.
Since this article is about iiNet and people have been talking about SOPA, I thought it a good idea to post this article published on the official iiNet blog yesterday about SOPA: http://blog.iinet.net.au/sopa-internet-censorship-effort-beginning/
The US government has also been pushing ACTA.
Just for the record, I agree. I'm a registered Republican.
still following a party that has a record of fucking people up for the profit of the minority elite, OVERTLY. while others do it covertly, these openly declare its their philosophy. it doesnt matter what your philosophical reasons are for supporting them. you are supporting them despite thier track record. because people like you do that, that party can exist as a power that can grab government. if you havent, they would recede back to 20-25% radical segment like similar line parties in other parts of the world are.
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