The article says they used "an Anton Pilar order - which allows a copyright holder to enter a premises to search for and seize material that breaches copyright without alerting the target through court proceedings".
Let's say they find signed confessions by each of the execs, saying they formed the company for the express purpose of allowing other people to breach copyrights. These confessions do not, themselves, breach any copyright laws. They would in fact be copyrighted by the execs themselves. Could those confessions be seized and used in court, under the Anton Pilar law?
IANAL, but this seems like an abuse of an unrelated law to get law enforcement powers for free. I believe this was already tried by their US cousins.
I suspect their customers report email they think is spam, and without actually investigating, AOL blocks any SMTP server involved. I had this same user input problem with an ancient system I built to block spam based on sender address (which worked in the very early days - spammers are well beyond this stage now). My users would forward things that clearly weren't spam. I don't know if they simply misunderstood the email, sent it in error, or sent it as a joke. Luckily the system was only semi-automated, requiring the approval of a human before going on the anti-spam list. Apparently the same isn't true for AOL.
This google search gives a sample of falsely positive sites AOL has blocked with this "technology". My guess is, AOL doesn't want the email in the first place. Cutting out some legitimate email is not a concern. What possible downside is there for them? They can blame everything on the sender. Ultimately they gain because the most reliable way to send email to AOL customers (who are too naive to switch to some other ISP) is to be an AOL customer. False positives are good for AOL.
To anyone that gets caught by this, sure, go ahead and call up AOL and try to get your IP address off the list. In the meantime, change to a different outgoing IP address. They only block the single IP (which is probably the only thing saving them from a major backlash), and thus it's easy to get around. A telnet to the SMTP port from the server being blocked will immediately return with the RLY:B1 error. It's easy to test if it's happening, and just as easy to see when you've worked around it.
I can't imagine this system is blocking any spammers.
Clear Channel, Fox, et al are making money precisely because the public voluntarily chooses their programming.
They're making money because their expenses are lower than their income. Reality shows cost almost nothing to make, yet generate positive revenues. Futurama generates good revenues, but is expensive, especially with Groening's excellent contract.
Given a choice between two shows, both generating near equal net revenue, a network will always choose the cheaper of the two. Why? Because the risk is less, should the show bomb.
It's not the best shows, or even the most watched, that stay on television. It's those with the greatest profit and least risk.
You are not paying for bandwidth. You are paying for speed.
Before DSL/Cable there was dialup. People on dialup wanted to get their websites faster. They didn't want to get more websites. They just didn't want to wait so long to get each one. Broadband solves this problem. It gives people the same websites they received before, but faster.
This leads to more bandwidth being used, but not a great deal more. On average people use, and are expected to use, something like the bandwidth they used when they were limited to modem speeds.
Most modem users don't use up all of their available bandwidth either.
If you have a 1.5 Mb Cable/DSL connection, you are likely paying 1/20th the cost or less of that bandwidth. Thus you are not paying for the bandwidth you COULD use. You are paying for the bandwidth you used before, only now, you can get it faster. If you use up all the available bandwidth, you are stealing.
Your cable/DSL company isn't trying to screw you. They're trying to provide a service at a very low price point, and hoping everyone involved will be sensible, and not abuse their service by interpreting increased speed as increased bandwidth.
If people on average use too much bandwidth, prices WILL go up. Remember that when you tell people to use up all the bandwidth they can, for no purpose.
If you want to run a server, nobody is stopping you. Just pay for what you use: get a real T1 to the Internet, instead of using a fast dialup line.
--Bill
Slashdot Mirror
The article says they used "an Anton Pilar order - which allows a copyright holder to enter a premises to search for and seize material that breaches copyright without alerting the target through court proceedings".
Let's say they find signed confessions by each of the execs, saying they formed the company for the express purpose of allowing other people to breach copyrights. These confessions do not, themselves, breach any copyright laws. They would in fact be copyrighted by the execs themselves. Could those confessions be seized and used in court, under the Anton Pilar law?
IANAL, but this seems like an abuse of an unrelated law to get law enforcement powers for free. I believe this was already tried by their US cousins.
--Bill
This google search gives a sample of falsely positive sites AOL has blocked with this "technology". My guess is, AOL doesn't want the email in the first place. Cutting out some legitimate email is not a concern. What possible downside is there for them? They can blame everything on the sender. Ultimately they gain because the most reliable way to send email to AOL customers (who are too naive to switch to some other ISP) is to be an AOL customer. False positives are good for AOL.
To anyone that gets caught by this, sure, go ahead and call up AOL and try to get your IP address off the list. In the meantime, change to a different outgoing IP address. They only block the single IP (which is probably the only thing saving them from a major backlash), and thus it's easy to get around. A telnet to the SMTP port from the server being blocked will immediately return with the RLY:B1 error. It's easy to test if it's happening, and just as easy to see when you've worked around it.
I can't imagine this system is blocking any spammers.
--Bill
Clear Channel, Fox, et al are making money precisely because the public voluntarily chooses their programming.
They're making money because their expenses are lower than their income. Reality shows cost almost nothing to make, yet generate positive revenues. Futurama generates good revenues, but is expensive, especially with Groening's excellent contract.
Given a choice between two shows, both generating near equal net revenue, a network will always choose the cheaper of the two. Why? Because the risk is less, should the show bomb.
It's not the best shows, or even the most watched, that stay on television. It's those with the greatest profit and least risk.
--Bill
You are not paying for bandwidth. You are paying for speed. Before DSL/Cable there was dialup. People on dialup wanted to get their websites faster. They didn't want to get more websites. They just didn't want to wait so long to get each one. Broadband solves this problem. It gives people the same websites they received before, but faster. This leads to more bandwidth being used, but not a great deal more. On average people use, and are expected to use, something like the bandwidth they used when they were limited to modem speeds. Most modem users don't use up all of their available bandwidth either. If you have a 1.5 Mb Cable/DSL connection, you are likely paying 1/20th the cost or less of that bandwidth. Thus you are not paying for the bandwidth you COULD use. You are paying for the bandwidth you used before, only now, you can get it faster. If you use up all the available bandwidth, you are stealing. Your cable/DSL company isn't trying to screw you. They're trying to provide a service at a very low price point, and hoping everyone involved will be sensible, and not abuse their service by interpreting increased speed as increased bandwidth. If people on average use too much bandwidth, prices WILL go up. Remember that when you tell people to use up all the bandwidth they can, for no purpose. If you want to run a server, nobody is stopping you. Just pay for what you use: get a real T1 to the Internet, instead of using a fast dialup line. --Bill