Author: Maëlys McArdle

Is Cheap Broadband Un-American?
by Tim Karr

We have Big Media to thank for saving Americans from themselves. Just as the notion of affordable broadband for all was beginning to take hold in towns and cities across the country, the patriots at Verizon, Qwest, Comcast, Bell South and SBC Communications have created legislation that will stop the “red menace” of community internet before it invades our homes.

Full Article Here

Through working with the EYNTO Show, I’ve developped an affinity for anyone willing to spend inane hours working on a film. Enter “Welcome to teh Scene”. This show is a spoof of the horrid “Welcome to the Scene”, a program that purports to be “cool” as it follows the really inaccurate life of a top-level warez dude. “Welcome to teh Scene” parodies its brethen, and makes fun of its inaccuracies as well as script-kiddies overall. The movies are also really well thought out, with good camera placement and editing. As well as being genuinely funny.

www.welcometotehscene.com

RIAA, which began suing Internet pirates in 2003, said it will file suit against 405 students at 18 colleges across the country.

Among the schools being targeted are New York University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State.

Source: New York Daily Post.

We must be nearing the 10,000 mark aren’t we?

Well they’ve done it again! The Record Industry has shot themselves in the foot; pissing more people off; making lives harder for everyone, whilst still completely ignoring why piracy is so prevalent in the current environment (see Magnatune.com for an example of how the Industry should be run.)

The IFPI (International Record Industry Federation if you will) would like your ISP to abide by a set of policies, the likes of which are usually only seen in authotarian nations. For example:

ISPs would put in place filtering technology to block services and/or sites that “are substantially dedicated to illegal file sharing or download services”.

In other words, filter the Internet. But not only filter known sites that do not share the views of the IFPI, but any site that the IFPI does not approve of. That’s really creepy: filtering libraries for the sake of the interests of a corporation.

Providers should also collectively adopt new terms and conditions, to ‘require subscribers to consent in advance to the disclosure of their identity in response to a reasonable complaint of intellectual property infringement by an established right holder defence organisation or by right holder(s) whose intellectual property is being infringed,’

In summary: at the whim of the IFPI, your information would be disclosed to the Record Industry. Whether there is legal precedence or not. The IFPI would in essence become a power higher than that of the courts. No need to even subopeana anymore.

To enforce terms of service that prohibit a subscriber from operating a server, or from consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth where such consumption is a good indicator of infringing activities.

In other words: they want to limit how much you use the Internet. And given the breadth of the first statement: it would be illegal for me to operate a website. Or SSH server. Or use my phone (VOIP via Skype).

This is simply amazing. Enacting such policies would destroy so much, so much that has nothing to do with copyrights or the IFPI… for the sake of the interests of this one corporation. It’s just mindblowing that some bloke actually wrote this, and that some other blokes let it pass.

With this, there would be no more Free Speech. If you operate a website discussing unfavourably of the IFPI, then by two claims they would be allowed to shut you down. Or if they deem that you use the Internet too much for your own good, then they would also shut you down. And then take down all your personal information for good measure. There’s a good reason why the court system is in place: its to prevent abuse of power. But the IFPI wishes to bypass that (and democracy) completely.

Urban Geography Students can discuss their exam ideas here. Attachments (ie. word documents) can be uploaded here and viewed here [links removed]. Please warn me first if you are to submit attachments that are larger than 100kb in size.