Why might the government seek to close the site down? After all, aren't mySociety "the biggest single catalyst for political change in this country"? (Lord Gould of Brookwood, House of Lords debate, 15/6/06)
Well, they may be, but they may have fractured, or at least bent, a copyright law or two.
You see, Parliamentary video exists under a draconian copyright license under which it "must not be hosted on a searchable website and must not be downloadable", apparently for fear of naughty citizens making humorous or satirical use of it; or indeed any use at all.
To which the mySociety guys and gals seem to have said a collective, "Well that's silly," and gone ahead and done it anyway. Good on you, people.
I installed a pair of EOC3220s for my sister-in-law, who was in a similar position -- just out of range of ADSL but within line of sight of a friend who had it, and no cable for miles around in their case.
The units are dead easy to install and configure, and have worked like a charm for the last nine months.
Just one thing -- it was really handy to have a 9-pin serial null modem cable to reset one of the units, so I'd recommend picking one up just in case.
The installation I did spans a distance of just over 1km, and seems to work in all weather without a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
El Reg reported a similar incident a few months ago: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/17/wikipedia_and_the_mirror/
Just announced yesterday: mySociety's House of Commons video site. Crowd-source some video timestamps today!
Why might the government seek to close the site down? After all, aren't mySociety "the biggest single catalyst for political change in this country"? (Lord Gould of Brookwood, House of Lords debate, 15/6/06)
Well, they may be, but they may have fractured, or at least bent, a copyright law or two.
You see, Parliamentary video exists under a draconian copyright license under which it "must not be hosted on a searchable website and must not be downloadable", apparently for fear of naughty citizens making humorous or satirical use of it; or indeed any use at all.
To which the mySociety guys and gals seem to have said a collective, "Well that's silly," and gone ahead and done it anyway. Good on you, people.
Seriously, do your bit for democratic transparency and go and timestamp a few videos now. It's curiously addictive.
I installed a pair of EOC3220s for my sister-in-law, who was in a similar position -- just out of range of ADSL but within line of sight of a friend who had it, and no cable for miles around in their case. The units are dead easy to install and configure, and have worked like a charm for the last nine months. Just one thing -- it was really handy to have a 9-pin serial null modem cable to reset one of the units, so I'd recommend picking one up just in case. The installation I did spans a distance of just over 1km, and seems to work in all weather without a problem.