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Criticism Of Copyright Alert System Mounts
Dangerous_Minds writes "This last week, the Copyright Alert System was rolled out. Now that everyone is getting a better idea of what the alert system looks like, criticisms are building against the system. Freezenet says that the mere fact that ISPs are using a browser pop-up window opens the floodgates for fraudsters to hijack the system and scam users out of money. The EFF criticized the system because the educational material contains numerous flaws. Meanwhile, Web Pro News said that this system will also hurt small business and consumers."
Aren't they protected from liability as long as they act as "dumb pipes"? Doesn't his mean they are opening themselves up for liability? Yeah, I understand the ones that own media companies but what about the rest? Seems like a way to lose customers is all.
Everyone should draw a crappy picture in paint, host it on something free like google sites, and spread links that bring people to a second page that says "You don't have permission to click this link" with a link to the picture itself. Then bring copyright complaints to all the ISPs of all the people who inevitably click that and hence download your copyrighted crap without permission. Flood the fuckers.
The fact that the content industry has no problems with having the ISP industry monitoring their CUSTOMERS use of the Internet makes me sick.
Some rights are more important than others. My right to not be spied on by a company I (not the content industry) am doing business with is much more important than the content industries desire to make sure they're paid every dime they think they deserve.
The ISPs should have fought like hell to achieve a common carrier status which would have allowed them to tell big content to pound sand. Oh and as for the content industry owning many ISPs our government should have never allowed that.
I'll say it again. If your business model requires a police state to be viable, you need to fucking go out of business.
Browser hijacking popup?
Noscript says "wat?"
It seems to me that the content of an IP packet should be protected under wiretapping laws. What gives the ISPs the right to monitor my traffic. If they do have this right, do they also have the right to break or somehow spoof encrypted traffic as well?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
If, as is described on the copyrightinformation.org website, the copyright alert system is implemented such that the IP addresses it gathers genuinely are being used by infringers, I don't have much of a problem with this, since I don't download infringing content, nor do I do anything which might permit or enable other people to use my internet connection who may, and I do not hold much sympathy for those who do.
There are, however, two major flaws that concern me greatly. The first is that if they are falsely alleging that a subscriber infringed on copyright with one of these alerts, the subscriber cannot actually challenge the alert until after about the 3rd or 4th one. The other issue, an even bigger one, is that all of the alerts, even including the ones which permit an alleged perpetrator to appeal, are worded very much like a form letter, and do not contain any particulars about the accusation, like what work was allegedly infringed on, which network the alleged infringement occurred on, when it occurred, etc. It doesn't even identify the *TYPE* of alleged infringing content, which strikes me as incrediby unfair.... and has a very similar feel in my opinion to the notion of, say, being stopped and given a warning by a police officer, but them not telling you what it was that you supposedly even did. If you don't know what they are even talking about, then how are you expected to sensibly respond, beyond calling them liars?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If you take the time to read over that you will see some interesting facts.
1. They consider consumer goods bought in the country by traveling foreigners exports (t-shirts, cake, cell phones, etc) I don't think that should count its cheating since those goods were not manufactured here and we are just middle men. Walmart is not an exporter of TV's, they are a retailer.
2. The other factor they add in which accounts for 500 billion of that is software, movie, and TV royalties. These are not physically manufactured goods or property as much as your civil ideology likes to believe they will never be property. The wealth from this industry is even worse distributed then the wealth from the auto and oil industries. It only accounts for probably the top 1000 wealthiest families and is probably immediately exported to tax havens.
So I am going to call $2 trillion exports bullshit, its great that we can use Hollywood accounting there also.
I would like to see numbers that show real exports of physical goods, that are useful in a real sense, like water, steel, oil, natural gas, salt, food, cars, etc...
True. When this was first posted, I didn't need to read further than "browser pop-up" to realize it's a bad thing. I am a professional IT security expert, after a couple of years you get an intuition about stupid ideas.
Will it work? Are you kidding me?
Will it have unintended consequences? Nah... neeeeever... what could possibly go wrong?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org