True enough -- and the default configuration of most P2P clients automatically share any files you download, so the line between downloading and providing uploads for others is blurred, if not eliminated.
Joe Defendant aside, Ms. Rosen has been a well-paid shield for an industry that deserves the criticism that she has shouldered in their place. I'm not surprised she stepped down.
The labels will have a weaker, less unified front without a strong RIAA spokesperson. Opponents of the RIAA would do well to remember to divide and conquer: attacking the RIAA at its strongest, most publicly unified point lends them legitimacy and will continue to be a painful, head-against-the-wall experience.
In a recent Wired article profiling Ms. Rosen, she specifically said that the RIAA isn't interested in the internet users that are DOWNLOADING, rather those UPLOADING music. The recent ruling against Verizon that forces the ISP to release the identity of a Kazaa-happy music-downloading customer is evidence to the contrary.
Maybe Ms. Rosen is tired of being the target for vitriol that should truly be directed at the art-crushing record labels themselves.
It doesn't hold them hostage, but long-term contracts and the lack of number portability are definitely barriers to exit for customers that are dissatisfied with their current service.
When the annual cancellation/renewal window comes around on a long-term contract, customers realize how difficult it would be to reprint business cards, notify friends, family, and clients of the change, and update PIMs and electronic directories. The lack of number portability doesn't hold customers hostage, but it makes the exit door tough to find sometimes.
Wireless telephone pricing is increasingly hostile to consumers, and the lack of true number portability holds customers hostage.
About five years ago, I signed on with a progressive wireless PCS carrier named Powertel. They were the antithesis of closed-minded carriers at the time, and saw that wireless telephone customers wanted high-quality service at affordable, predicatble prices. Powertel did not force customers into annual contracts -- which signalled to many that they were confident enough not to lock you into a poor service -- and ten-cents-per-minute pricing was in line with the rest of the industry. They offered fabulous features for a 1996-vintage carrier, like store-and-forward fax, and "Appear Local," which let me buy a local number in neighboring states in their service area so my clients would need to dial long-distance.
Deutsche Telekom made a bid for VoiceStream, with contingencies on VoiceStream's purchase of Powertel. They all became one big conglomerate on or about February, 2001. And service went down the tubes.
VoiceStream immediately ditched "Appear Local" because of a policy decision. They brought mandatory contracts upon Powertel customers, forcing long-term agreements if a customer wanted to modify their service plan.
When the change to T-Mobile officially took place, customer service seemed to slump. Billing errors became commonplace again (reminiscent of Powertel's earliest days), and credits to remedy the billing errors were somehow "unapproved" after the Representative ended the call. Their pricing plans became nearly identical to every other carrier, eschewing strightforward pricing for the free phone, high-priced service, long-term commitment style that so many other carriers have practiced for years.
Finally fed up, I called last month to cancel my T-Mobile service after nearly five years. The "Customer Rentention Specialist" threw all sorts of offers, pricing plans, and FUD at me, even suggesting that my new carrier of choice, Verizon, has "radiation problems" with their phones!
Now that I've received my second Verizon bill, I've already been erroneously overbilled $120+ by my new carrier.
True number portability would allow us customers to remind carriers that we can walk -- and take our phone number -- without the hassle of reprinting business cards, notifying dozens of friends and family, and updating PIMs and electronic directories.
Or better yet, let's organize a slashdot buyers' group and tell them what our pricing plan will be... =]
The DOJ and the FCC ignore fierce competition from cable companies, which have a stranglehold on all but the largest markets. As long as DirecTV and Dish are forced to carry duplicate programming in the name of competition with each other, cable companies will be protected from true competition. There is limited space available for/on geostationary satellites.
If the DOJ and the FCC would consider the product substitution possibilities possible when a satellite network could offer local channels to everyone, they would see the possibility of true competition for cable companies.
And hey, where was the DOJ when Verisign was buying up Thawte and Network Solutions? Where's the competition now? Seems to me, those guys are blocking all the wrong mergers and acquisitions.
Gee, does anybody actually use Google anymore? I asked Google for quiet power supply ATX and just one of the many wonderfully informative links it returned was for QuietPC.com.
If your "editorial independance is legally guaranteed under no matter who owns [slashdot]," how do you explain Roblimo? His "contributions" arrived because of the Andover acquisition, correct? The best of intentions...
Nobody has the right of internet access. Most ISPs have language in their T&C that allows them to terminate service on any grounds.
Yes, it's unfair to the customer that was disconnected, but what of the fellow customers that were impacted by the DoS? You might assume that the service provider has more than one customer to serve.
The reaction is unfair at the moment, but it's hardly censorship and is well within reason.
This process happens all the time with ISPs. First you name "John Doe" in your suit in order to subpoena the records you need to discover the AC's identity.
Then you get slashdot's records of when the post was made and from what IP address, then you go to the ISP that owns that address space and get the logs from them. You then change "John Doe" to the actual name of your victim/perp/whatever and serve papers to them.
Contrary to Emmet's "we don't back down" posturing, I agree that the actual text should be removed, but the links to other sites are not infringing. Microsoft needs to deal with those sites directly.
There is no conflict between owning something and sharing it freely. That's exactly what the GPL allows: the original author owns the copyright to the code and has licensed its use freely and permanently.
My working definition of censorship has been "the prevention of publishing" -- which reflects my view that you have a right to speak in a public forum, but no right to be heard. I realize there are some holes in that brief working definition, but I've recently needed to form detailed views on the subject in my first few months as the principal geek for an ISP that provides filtered service.
As definitions go, Jim Tyre makes a level-headed distinction in his answer to zantispam's question. Jim draws a sharper focus on censorship, saying, I can decide that I only want to "hear" comments on slashdot which are scored 3 or better, but the government cannot decide that for me. Hrm... what if there were enough people with views like Jim's, wanting to avoid certain content (in this case, slashdot comments below 3), to form an ISP that would filter content on agreed-upon criteria? Is that truly censorship, or outsourced, criteria-based decision-making, a cousin to power-of-attorney?
Using charged terms like censor and derivates such as censorship are inflammatory. Whatever the speaker's definition of censorship, it has more to do with authority than content -- whose authority imposes restrictions on whom?
A dictatorial government's authority on its subjects?
An elective government's authority on its citizens?
A parent to a child?
A person unto himself?
I've read Jim's censorware.org report on N2H2's Bess proxy (a customized derivative of which we use) and am all too familiar with the so-called overblocking. I can't answer for N2H2, but I can say that most requests for review of an unjustly-blocked page are handled swiftly and the results are installed nightly at our distributed proxies across the nation. I more frequently see overblocking (most recently against www.empeg.com, the manufacturer of an MP3-playing linux box that replaces your car stereo) than underblocking (only once have I encountered a page that should have been blocked according to our criteria).
However, I question Jim's and his censorware.org associates' motivation to release such a negatively biased report to coincide with N2H2's IPO. His comments (as referenced above) suggest that censorship has less to do with the software and its ruleset and more to do with the authorities using such software. Is the correct action to attack the manufacturer of the tool? That makes as much sense as suing a weapons manufacturer after their product is used in a crime (esp. when the same product may be used by police daily). Censorware.org is fighting a political battle, not a moral one.
If censorware.org was genuinely concerned about the problem of balancing free speech rights with easily accessible pornography, hate speech, etc. on the internet, they would suggest alternatives to imperfect proxies and filters.
Proxies like ours are basically enforced rating systems. The way I understand it, our proxy vendor, N2H2, rates content with flags for nudity, partial nudity, violence, hate speech, etc. and configures their products to filter on whatever flags the customer specifies. My company hasa specific ruleset that no other Bess proxy has.
Further, to minimize the effects of N2H2's inability to keep up with the explosive growth of the internet, each of my proxy's "this site is blocked" pages has a "request review" link. This allows our customers to intelligently question the blocking of a page -- which prompts a review of the page by our "Site Patrol" team, who compares the page to our criteria. Many thousands of customers help fine-tune our proxies by questioning "overblocked" pages and submitting pages that should be blocked. In effect, it teams like-minded people together to minimize unwanted content. It's collaborative, not dictatorial!
And I won't even begin to describe the legal liability benefits and time savings that our business customers realize...
Just Some Guy said,
My child can view any web page she wants to. However (and she'll know about this from the first day I sit her in front of Netscape), it'll be completely within my parental (and administrative) rights to view the Squid logs at my leisure. I will hold her accountable for viewing site that she knows we don't approve of.
I applaud your efforts to teach self-discipline to your daughter. If every parent had the technical chops to set up a similar system, children would learn to independently guard their browsing eyes. I hope services like ours make it easier on parents that want the benefits of the internet without the pitfalls.
rm (officially, "Technical Operations Manager for Integrity Online")
Doesn't this article apply to technology in general? It wants to extend a bit of truth to unabomber-manifesto proportions. Still, I imagine there are more than enough anal editors, middle managers, and meddlesome cow-orkers to abuse a geek's wired-ness.
I confess: I have a Palm organizer and a Nokia cellphone. Both have changed my lifestyle in subtle yet profound ways: the organizer let me let go of the little yellow stickies that always seemed to hide when I most needed their help (and let go of the frustration that ensued); it gave me the scheduled ammunition to tell people "no" -- I have the same 24 or so hours in a day as everyone else and now have a handle on how I use my 24; and it became another little burden to carry around. However, it's there for me to use as I need.
Unfortunately, choosing the progressive, cellphone-is-my-only-phone stance was not the best choice for me. It made me a perpetual resource for others: I'm always on, always available, always ten digits away. It's so convenient, yet so frustrating. Even my beautiful girlfriend complained that every time she calls, I answer. Everyone needs time "unplugged," whether we geeks admit it or not... she was irked that my continual availibility made her feel intrusive. Fortunately, I'm finding a balance by using the "silent" mode more and refusing calls at inopportune times. IRL, have you ever been momentarily ignored while your conversation partner takes a call? It's a silent compliment to refuse the call, apologize for the interruption, and continue with the conversation. [mental note: it's uncool to get a call from clueless customers while mugging at ALS]
I enjoy being a geek, and I don't regret my early-adopter tendencies. But even geeks are social animals -- I'm working to find a balance between being wired and having privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
True enough -- and the default configuration of most P2P clients automatically share any files you download, so the line between downloading and providing uploads for others is blurred, if not eliminated.
Joe Defendant aside, Ms. Rosen has been a well-paid shield for an industry that deserves the criticism that she has shouldered in their place. I'm not surprised she stepped down.
The labels will have a weaker, less unified front without a strong RIAA spokesperson. Opponents of the RIAA would do well to remember to divide and conquer: attacking the RIAA at its strongest, most publicly unified point lends them legitimacy and will continue to be a painful, head-against-the-wall experience.
She's not mean enough for the RIAA.
In a recent Wired article profiling Ms. Rosen, she specifically said that the RIAA isn't interested in the internet users that are DOWNLOADING, rather those UPLOADING music. The recent ruling against Verizon that forces the ISP to release the identity of a Kazaa-happy music-downloading customer is evidence to the contrary.
Maybe Ms. Rosen is tired of being the target for vitriol that should truly be directed at the art-crushing record labels themselves.
When the annual cancellation/renewal window comes around on a long-term contract, customers realize how difficult it would be to reprint business cards, notify friends, family, and clients of the change, and update PIMs and electronic directories. The lack of number portability doesn't hold customers hostage, but it makes the exit door tough to find sometimes.
About five years ago, I signed on with a progressive wireless PCS carrier named Powertel. They were the antithesis of closed-minded carriers at the time, and saw that wireless telephone customers wanted high-quality service at affordable, predicatble prices. Powertel did not force customers into annual contracts -- which signalled to many that they were confident enough not to lock you into a poor service -- and ten-cents-per-minute pricing was in line with the rest of the industry. They offered fabulous features for a 1996-vintage carrier, like store-and-forward fax, and "Appear Local," which let me buy a local number in neighboring states in their service area so my clients would need to dial long-distance.
Deutsche Telekom made a bid for VoiceStream, with contingencies on VoiceStream's purchase of Powertel. They all became one big conglomerate on or about February, 2001. And service went down the tubes.
VoiceStream immediately ditched "Appear Local" because of a policy decision. They brought mandatory contracts upon Powertel customers, forcing long-term agreements if a customer wanted to modify their service plan.
When the change to T-Mobile officially took place, customer service seemed to slump. Billing errors became commonplace again (reminiscent of Powertel's earliest days), and credits to remedy the billing errors were somehow "unapproved" after the Representative ended the call. Their pricing plans became nearly identical to every other carrier, eschewing strightforward pricing for the free phone, high-priced service, long-term commitment style that so many other carriers have practiced for years.
Finally fed up, I called last month to cancel my T-Mobile service after nearly five years. The "Customer Rentention Specialist" threw all sorts of offers, pricing plans, and FUD at me, even suggesting that my new carrier of choice, Verizon, has "radiation problems" with their phones!
Now that I've received my second Verizon bill, I've already been erroneously overbilled $120+ by my new carrier.
True number portability would allow us customers to remind carriers that we can walk -- and take our phone number -- without the hassle of reprinting business cards, notifying dozens of friends and family, and updating PIMs and electronic directories.
Or better yet, let's organize a slashdot buyers' group and tell them what our pricing plan will be... =]
The DOJ and the FCC ignore fierce competition from cable companies, which have a stranglehold on all but the largest markets. As long as DirecTV and Dish are forced to carry duplicate programming in the name of competition with each other, cable companies will be protected from true competition. There is limited space available for/on geostationary satellites.
If the DOJ and the FCC would consider the product substitution possibilities possible when a satellite network could offer local channels to everyone, they would see the possibility of true competition for cable companies.
And hey, where was the DOJ when Verisign was buying up Thawte and Network Solutions? Where's the competition now? Seems to me, those guys are blocking all the wrong mergers and acquisitions.
My former title "Manager of Technical Operations" seemed like doubletalk to me, particularly when my workforce is mostly routers and servers.
I'm now "Chief Geek" at API Digital Communications. It's more accurate in the spirit of my job, and it amuses customers and prospects.
I think I'll order a new power supply now...
rm
If your "editorial independance is legally guaranteed under no matter who owns [slashdot]," how do you explain Roblimo? His "contributions" arrived because of the Andover acquisition, correct? The best of intentions...
"Age of Access" by Jeremy Rifkin.
Nobody has the right of internet access. Most ISPs have language in their T&C that allows them to terminate service on any grounds.
Yes, it's unfair to the customer that was disconnected, but what of the fellow customers that were impacted by the DoS? You might assume that the service provider has more than one customer to serve.
The reaction is unfair at the moment, but it's hardly censorship and is well within reason.
rm
This process happens all the time with ISPs. First you name "John Doe" in your suit in order to subpoena the records you need to discover the AC's identity.
Then you get slashdot's records of when the post was made and from what IP address, then you go to the ISP that owns that address space and get the logs from them. You then change "John Doe" to the actual name of your victim/perp/whatever and serve papers to them.
Contrary to Emmet's "we don't back down" posturing, I agree that the actual text should be removed, but the links to other sites are not infringing. Microsoft needs to deal with those sites directly.
rm
There is no conflict between owning something and sharing it freely. That's exactly what the GPL allows: the original author owns the copyright to the code and has licensed its use freely and permanently.
rm
My working definition of censorship has been "the prevention of publishing" -- which reflects my view that you have a right to speak in a public forum, but no right to be heard. I realize there are some holes in that brief working definition, but I've recently needed to form detailed views on the subject in my first few months as the principal geek for an ISP that provides filtered service.
As definitions go, Jim Tyre makes a level-headed distinction in his answer to zantispam's question. Jim draws a sharper focus on censorship, saying, I can decide that I only want to "hear" comments on slashdot which are scored 3 or better, but the government cannot decide that for me. Hrm... what if there were enough people with views like Jim's, wanting to avoid certain content (in this case, slashdot comments below 3), to form an ISP that would filter content on agreed-upon criteria? Is that truly censorship, or outsourced, criteria-based decision-making, a cousin to power-of-attorney?
Using charged terms like censor and derivates such as censorship are inflammatory. Whatever the speaker's definition of censorship, it has more to do with authority than content -- whose authority imposes restrictions on whom?
I've read Jim's censorware.org report on N2H2's Bess proxy (a customized derivative of which we use) and am all too familiar with the so-called overblocking. I can't answer for N2H2, but I can say that most requests for review of an unjustly-blocked page are handled swiftly and the results are installed nightly at our distributed proxies across the nation. I more frequently see overblocking (most recently against www.empeg.com, the manufacturer of an MP3-playing linux box that replaces your car stereo) than underblocking (only once have I encountered a page that should have been blocked according to our criteria).
However, I question Jim's and his censorware.org associates' motivation to release such a negatively biased report to coincide with N2H2's IPO. His comments (as referenced above) suggest that censorship has less to do with the software and its ruleset and more to do with the authorities using such software. Is the correct action to attack the manufacturer of the tool? That makes as much sense as suing a weapons manufacturer after their product is used in a crime (esp. when the same product may be used by police daily). Censorware.org is fighting a political battle, not a moral one.
If censorware.org was genuinely concerned about the problem of balancing free speech rights with easily accessible pornography, hate speech, etc. on the internet, they would suggest alternatives to imperfect proxies and filters.
Proxies like ours are basically enforced rating systems. The way I understand it, our proxy vendor, N2H2, rates content with flags for nudity, partial nudity, violence, hate speech, etc. and configures their products to filter on whatever flags the customer specifies. My company hasa specific ruleset that no other Bess proxy has.
Further, to minimize the effects of N2H2's inability to keep up with the explosive growth of the internet, each of my proxy's "this site is blocked" pages has a "request review" link. This allows our customers to intelligently question the blocking of a page -- which prompts a review of the page by our "Site Patrol" team, who compares the page to our criteria. Many thousands of customers help fine-tune our proxies by questioning "overblocked" pages and submitting pages that should be blocked. In effect, it teams like-minded people together to minimize unwanted content. It's collaborative, not dictatorial!
And I won't even begin to describe the legal liability benefits and time savings that our business customers realize...
Just Some Guy said,
I applaud your efforts to teach self-discipline to your daughter. If every parent had the technical chops to set up a similar system, children would learn to independently guard their browsing eyes. I hope services like ours make it easier on parents that want the benefits of the internet without the pitfalls.
rm
(officially, "Technical Operations Manager for Integrity Online")
Doesn't this article apply to technology in general? It wants to extend a bit of truth to unabomber-manifesto proportions. Still, I imagine there are more than enough anal editors, middle managers, and meddlesome cow-orkers to abuse a geek's wired-ness.
I confess: I have a Palm organizer and a Nokia cellphone. Both have changed my lifestyle in subtle yet profound ways: the organizer let me let go of the little yellow stickies that always seemed to hide when I most needed their help (and let go of the frustration that ensued); it gave me the scheduled ammunition to tell people "no" -- I have the same 24 or so hours in a day as everyone else and now have a handle on how I use my 24; and it became another little burden to carry around. However, it's there for me to use as I need.
Unfortunately, choosing the progressive, cellphone-is-my-only-phone stance was not the best choice for me. It made me a perpetual resource for others: I'm always on, always available, always ten digits away. It's so convenient, yet so frustrating. Even my beautiful girlfriend complained that every time she calls, I answer. Everyone needs time "unplugged," whether we geeks admit it or not... she was irked that my continual availibility made her feel intrusive. Fortunately, I'm finding a balance by using the "silent" mode more and refusing calls at inopportune times. IRL, have you ever been momentarily ignored while your conversation partner takes a call? It's a silent compliment to refuse the call, apologize for the interruption, and continue with the conversation.
[mental note: it's uncool to get a call from clueless customers while mugging at ALS]
I enjoy being a geek, and I don't regret my early-adopter tendencies. But even geeks are social animals -- I'm working to find a balance between being wired and having privacy.
How do you manage your connectedness?
rm
http://www.network solutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?slashdot.org
btw, the InterNIC sucks. Their PGP is still broken; I guess they've been too busy redesigning the site to sell some tshirts. Bah.