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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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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?
I would say its worse than that.
I live in the US. Our major exports are IP (movies, recordings, blueprints, and software all together in one group), raw food stuffs, military equipment/aviation goodies, and bad legislation.
Eg, other than corrupt factory farm operations, (why's the park smell so stinky mommy? That's just the columbia meat packing plant on the hill dear.) And aerospace + military industrial (lockheed martin, boeing, and pals), intellectual property is about the only relevant industry the US has, other than bullshit like the bank and loan infrastructure.
This is why politicians are all too happy to take bribes err.... "campaign contributions" from those industries, and why they are treated like sacred cows in terms of regulatory compliance issues, and in terms of getting carte blanc with proposing legislation.
The US is anemic as hell. My government knows it. They want golden parachutes for when the shit hits, so they stay cuddly with multinationals.
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?
Time for some Peabody's improbable history, so step into the wayback machine Sherman, and let's look at the US as it was 100 years ago.
In 1912, the US was a heavily invested industrial nation, specializing in steel, oil refinement, textiles, industrial machinery, and scientific advancements. It had reached this status through the addage "you get what you pay for", and "the american way." (Which back then meant taking pride in your work, producing only quality goods, and being judged by the quality of your work and of your word. This motif was euphamistically referred to as free market capitalism, since it relied on heavy competition between stakeholders to provide only the finest goods at prices that were reasonable, and the buyers bought for quality and durability. Your products directly influenced your brand's desirability.)
Over the course of the next 30 to 40 years, these industries vied heavily with one another, eliminating competition, and then reached a certain threshold where they realized that competing with one another was counter productive to producing profits. This is pre rico act, pre sherman act. These idustries had established a thriving local enconomy based on quality goods, which people had become accustomed to buying, and which had greatly improved the quality of living of their native demographic populations. As such, worker wages had gone up, unions had formed, and other "this hurts our profits" influences surfaced. (Additionally, the depression caused many contenders to go under, allowing for a "land grab" by the survivors, accellerating the development of the oligopoly.)
At first, these companies agreed to not poach each other's profits through initiating pricewars, and instead agreed that they would increase the wealth of their directors and financiers through the reduction of quality in the merchandise produced. As quality dropped, the need for employees that had grown up on an ethic for perfection waned, and with that, the ethic itself also waned. Eventually, the only real characteristic that differentiated a us worker from a cheap foriegn one was the price of employment.
Skip ahead another 30 to 40 years, after the momentary military industrial booms of the 30s and 40s, to the 60s and 70s. "Deregulation" was the buzzword. Restrictions that had been put in place to protect american citizens from corporate interests were discarded like used toilet paper. Trade tarrifs dropped like sleezy curtains at a peep show. Outsourcing began.
Over the next 30 to 40 years, most of america's manufacturing industry had flown the coop, electing to capitalize on the post free love generation's niavite' and inherited buying power with cheaply made foreign built products. Buying american made started getting much much harder. Even commodity items like clothes and shoes couldn't compete with the cheaper, and often inferior foriegn labor that was made protiable by dropping the trade tarrif walls. The old vangard of US corporate power had officially left the US.
In the wake of the second world war, the US motion picture and recording industries sprang into being, thanks to the developments in film and radio technologies, coupled with the obvious propoganda potentials of those mediums. In the ww2 and post era, these industries flourished while the old industrial center declined. The US work ethic had diminished to such an extent by the 60s, that entertainment and pleasure were basically the primary motivational force in people's lives. The idolization of hollywood actors and actresses really came alive. This generation was blinded by hollywood and television, greedily assimilated the "disposable goods" philosophy, and the media industry grew like crazy. (There is no coincidence that this is the golden age of filmography and music in the US. The vast majority of holdings of those industries were created during this time frame. It was a perfect storm for the entertainment industry.) During this time, the technology to really export entertainment to other countries came into
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.
(sound of crickets)
Well, I don't know about Perth, but in Ballarat last week, Ben Powell delivered an excellent run-down on the status of the AFACT v iiNet case to a fairly large and very interested audience.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
We're used to it - we had a bumbling crop of idiots from the bottom of the US intelligence barrel expose themselves as attempting to remove the leader of Australia in 1975 when he was not only doomed anyway but also had demonstrated that he would roll over and do whatever the USA said (eg. East Timor, US listening posts) with nothing more than a grumble. The only consequences of that were some CIA guys using that as an excuse to sell secrets to the USSR, a movie based roughly on the court case after they were convicted, and a quite decent song by David Bowie.
We know the USA does this sort of stuff. Every few years it inspires a few people to gather outside the US consultate and yell a lot, but mostly we just accept it as part of being an ally of the USA and the nature of portions of the US government being for sale to the highest bidder. East Timor is right on our doorstep so we've got a pretty good reminder that even a President (eg. Ford) can be bought out even by a foreign power (eg. the HUGE donation to the Republican party by the Indonesian President on the day of the invasion and Ford going to Jakarta personally to accept it).
So yes. We're the bitch of the USA, but the USA at times is the bitch of whoever wants to buy your government even if it is a foreign power. I'll bet Rupert Murdoch has bought a few major changes himself.
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.
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.
Like most Australians, I don't live anywhere near Perth. However, I did recently switch to iiNet as my ISP, and its fight against the Powers of Darkness has made me very pleased with the switch - aside from the fact that they are a good ISP in general. I feel like I am backing the right crowd.
iiNet has been winning in court so far, so being their customer and recommending them to other people is a practical way of supporting them.
I am anarch of all I survey.