Digital Act Could Spur Creation of Pirate ISPs In UK 204
scurtis writes "British anti-copyright group, Pirate Party UK, has predicted that Pirate ISPs will spring up across the country — promoting online privacy and allowing users to share files anonymously — in response to draconian file-sharing proposals outlined in the Digital Economy Act. The news follows reports that the Pirate Party in Sweden (PiratPartiet) will launch the world's first 'Pirate ISP.' The move is designed to curb the use of online surveillance in the country, and combat what PiratPartiet describes as the 'big brother society.'"
Am I naive to think it might get scrapped? (Score:5, Informative)
Hopefully public pressure (e.g. the ideas on the "Your Freedom" Government run website for suggesting laws to scrap: here [hmg.gov.uk] and here [hmg.gov.uk]) will cause the Digital Economy Act to be scrapped.
Aside from public pressure, there is also a possible review in the Lords [zdnet.co.uk] so there are a few chinks of light in the sky.
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Sadly, we'll never see anything of the sort in the USA, because the MafiAA and ISP-Mafia ensure that 90% or more of our people don't even have two rival choices for their ISP - just whatever the fuck shitty company like Cocks or Comcrap paid off the local county board for the right to run "exclusive" cable or phone lines back in the day.
FiOS is 2 miles from my house, but I can't buy it because Verizon doesn't own the fucking PHONE LINES on my side of the interstate and therefore isn't allowed to service fib
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Well, most of us at least have the choice between DSL and Cable, or, God forbid, wireless and satellite.
P2P and web browsing aren't that sensitive to latency though, so it might make sense to have two internet connections, and use wireless for activities that might be censored, and get DSL or cable for games and VoIP.
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so there are a few chinks of light in the sky.
I would add to your list the petition for judicial review, which BT and TalkTalk have brought jointly to the High Court.
In my understanding of the situation, the basis of BT's decision is that BT does not consider that the DEA got a fair hearing in Parliament, as a result of being pushed through the wash-up procedure; BT feels that the House of Commons did not have the opportunity of giving the bill, as it was, adequate scrutiny, despite the attentions of
Re:Am I naive to think it might get scrapped? (Score:4, Interesting)
I would add to your list the petition for judicial review, which BT and TalkTalk have brought jointly to the High Court.
When BT and TalkTalk announced that they were going for judicial review I emailed my (new, Tory) MP the following
...
...
could you please clarify the Government's stance on BT and TalkTalk's legal challenge to the Digital Economy act? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10542400.stm [bbc.co.uk] I note that the statement from BIS in the BBC article just commented on the purpose of the act, not whether the government would actually be defending it. Indeed, given the wiggle room it leaves, it could have been written by Sir Humphrey Appleby himself.
In response I've got, on House of Commons headed notepaper dated 12th July 2010 a letter a copy of a letter from her to the Secretary of State.
We've not yet received a response; I don't think that the coalition government has actually decided what it'll do with the act; it knows there's a lot of public pressure, the lib-dems opposed it a lot of Tory back bencher's are\were unhappy with the way it went through in the wash up without proper scrutiny. I'm not 100% convinced that they'll even defend it at the judicial review. Indeed, Nick Clegg is on record as saying that it "badly needs repealing"
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An excellent example of why a fully elected second chamber is the only democratic way forward...
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a fully elected second chamber is the only democratic way forward...
Pretty much by definition. But is a fully elected second chamber the best way forward?
Re:Am I naive to think it might get scrapped? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I don't think so. You only need look at the US to see that having two elected chambers is not necessarily a good thing. While the hereditary aspects of peerages are not very nice, the vast majority of the debate that goes on within the Lords would surprise you and some startlingly frank and honest discussion is carried out that really does represent the best interest of our country.
In my ideal world (and I'm not suggesting for a moment that this is a perfect system), the upper house would be replaced with a system of jurors. Just like in jury service, a selection of 100 people are chosen at random and they debate the bill under discussion, and place their vote in favour, against, or decline to vote. There would be no politics to play, as they have no seat to defend - just like how the Lords was designed. Only now, you get the common-man check on the bill that the Commons is trying to pass.
As a by-product, I think you'd get legislation that is also a hell of a lot easier to read and understand, rather than the legalese that seems to be produced at the moment.
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I think that's a great idea. We should just pull Joe Blow off the street and he'll be our president for the next year. It certainly couldn't be any worse than what we have now.
If he really sucks, we can recall or impeach him.
As for having a fully elected legislature, I disagree with this idea. US Senators were not originally elected by the people, but rather by state legislatures. The reason is that voters are very easy to manipulate. (Politicians can fool some people all the time, and all people some
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Sounds good!
One amendment though - you NEVER want one person in charge of something for a long period of time. They might learn how to do things better, for sure, but they're more likely to take self-interest into the equation much sooner.
That's why I suggested that for each bill, a new "jury" of 100 people were chosen. It seems fair, considering ultimately they would have to abide by those laws when deciding someone's innocence/guilt in a court.
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The European Union's Council of Ministers is elected by member states, and I'm not at all convinced that they do a better job than the directly elected EU Parliament. Look at software patents for an example.
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Or we might get one that puts people with communist ties in his cabinet, borrows money from China and spends it like there's no tomorrow, gives money to the very people that caused the financial crisis, and nationalizes our entire health care and banking systems.
Oh wait, that's what our current system produces.
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Of the ways that have been seriously suggested recently, yes, I think it is. The other ways are essentially some balance of government-appointed vs. elected people.
I think this is a "best possible outcome" vs. "best outcome possible" situation. The best possible outcome may well be something very different; I have in the past suggested something based on random selection from the population, not so different to the juror idea mentioned by dotwaffle in another reply. However, realistically, the best outcome
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Crazy Talk (Score:5, Insightful)
Next you'll be telling me draconian drugs laws could create multi-billion-dollar black-market economies that could turn streets into war zones, corrupt law enforcement, and actually bring down elected governments.
Go sell crazy somewhere else.
Why Pirate? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm all for the idea of having certain protections in place at your ISP so you can sleep well at night, maybe even have an unsecured access point knowing that the ISP won't help authorities get you for something your neighbor or a wardriver did.
But what if I don't care for piracy and like to buy the stuff that I enjoy? Why do they want to, in a way, force you to be guilty by association?
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Not that I know anymore then you do, but I think pirate ISP is just them taking a name that induces more controversy. Not that they do not want people to pay for anything digital.
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Marketing towards computer-savvy customers? Those that usually recommend ISP to others too?
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I assume it's from "Pirate Radio". They are "pirate" because they don't have a license or permit to be a real ISP.
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No, it is because small ISPs are exempt from the rules, so the answer is to create lots of small ISPs that are below the subscriber limit then people can do what they want.
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Pirates have almost always been criminals that steal, rape, and pillage. Your one example of anime where they just so happened to be good doesn't justify a name change.
Sooo the MPAA is run by Pirates then? I'm so confused....and high....
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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And if having complete privacy is legislated, criminals will do whatever the f**k they want, safely hidden behind an anonymity shield that means they can never be held accountable for their actions.
The world is not black and white.
Re:Why Pirate? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the world I want is somewhere in between.
Where you have the reasonable expectation of privacy, but given sufficient evidence, the authorities can get a warrant.
You know, the kind of place that America was supposed to be?
Unfortunately this concept is rapidly loosing ground to the Police Statist agenda.
You can not fight an extremist with reasonable moderation.
If you do, any compromise will result in loosing ground.
You need an opposing extremist.
That way, a compromise may hopefully exist somewhere within the reasonable area between the two.
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You can not fight an extremist with reasonable moderation.
If you do, any compromise will result in loosing ground.
Well, I respectfully disagree. I'm completely with you on the seeking-a-middle-ground part. I just don't think when we're talking about rules that have the force of law, any sort of extreme is likely to be a good idea. The elected governments in a democracy are supposed to be there precisely to ensure that only a reasonable balance actually makes it to the statute books. Giving in to extremism is just as damaging, whether it is Big Media "we own your soul" or freeloader "information wants to be free".
Wow, thats retarded (Score:2)
Oddly enough that's the only way to fight extremism with any meaningful end to the conflict.
For every impassioned hate speech, have a well reasoned response.
For every senseless attack, have a precision response.
For every threat, have nothing but indifference.
If you believe this then I suggest you take a look at your own views. You may be the very extremist that other extremists tell me
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There are plenty of ways to track criminals other than IP addresses. But if the "crimes" don't involve money, or physical goods, or (physical) personal interaction, or something else trackable in the real world, then "safely hidden" is probably the same as "free speech", so I'm OK with that. The occasional act of digital vandalism is a small price to pay for protection from overbearing governments and corporations.
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There is no absolute right to free speech in this country (or any other than I am aware of, for that matter).
In any case, are you suggesting that spamming, phishing, credit card fraud or outright identity theft, selling life-threatening fake drugs, grooming vulnerable people (children or otherwise), DOS attacks, spreading malware, and all the other illegal things that get done on-line are just "occasional acts of digitial vandalism"?
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Right, so if it doesn't meet you definition of crime, it's a-ok in your book.
Close: if I don't see something as immoral, then by definition(/i> it's OK in my book. Not that laws should directly encapsulate morality - that never ends well - but morality sets the objectives. I certainly care more about the rights of content creators than content owners. I've long argued here that if you use a copy of a song or game or whatever without paying for it, you're morally a thief, and getting pedantic about legal definitions doesn't change that fact. But that's pretty low on my list of
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The invisible internet [tumblr.com]
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And which right would that be?
I am a firm believer in privacy being the default, and I have no problem with an absolute requirement for judicial oversight any time that privacy is going to be violated. (I never said I did, though a few people replying to my GP post seem to have read that into it for some reason.)
But an absolute right to privacy, including preservation of anonymity, by definition means that you can never be held accountable for your actions. The same practical measures that would let pirates
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That's precisely what court warrants are for. Last I checked, none of those "extra privacy" ISPs claimed that they would ignore a warrant. They just don't want to hand anyone (including law enforcement) any information above and beyond that mandated by the law as it stands. Which is as it should be.
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I completely agree about having oversight by a court before compelling any ISP to reveal someone's identity. I'm just saying that there are times when doing that is justified, because some times you do need to be able to catch the bad people.
Given the fact that I was modded Troll and lots of replies contradicting me were modded up, I'm trying to work out whether I'm misinterpreting the post I originally replied to, lots of people are misinterpreting my post, or we're just all talking at cross-purposes...
Privacy has been redefined (Score:3, Interesting)
Privacy has been redefined; from the sixties where nudity was a sin, the seventies where everything was relaxed and aliens visited the world, the eighties where nudity was a common thing, the nineties where the .com market was blooming in size, after 2000 where our privacy started to erode and take different terms and conditions.
Phonelines can be tapped, faxmachines and e-mails can be read, privacy does not exist anymore because the current technologies allow for high-speed capture of such content. Not only
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Of course, there is a connection in that by trying to stop the piracy the authorities are inclined to trample on our right to privacy, but if that is their concern they should call themselves the Privacy Party or something. They have defined themselves by their rejection of the right to intellectual property and in my opinion that
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They aren't "linking" anything. Privacy is one of the things they defend - just like any other party, they defend more than one thing.
Then open your own "Privacy ISP".
Re:Why Pirate? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Pirate" movement has distanced itself from the "I want free stuff" mentality. Their platform involves freedom, privacy and individual rights, and many "pirates" that have actually thought about the issues do support their artists. The Pirate movement is using the word "pirate" specifically in an attempt to reclaim the word, which is currently used as a propaganda term by the copyright lobby in an attempt to link downloading to stealing ships, and associate it with freedom, privacy and all that other good stuff. It's all a war of words.
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If I posted your credit card info on a website, should the site get taken down?
Did you just seriously advocate taking down an entire site just because one person posted one other person's credit card data on it?
Also, I think that sort of thing is covered under the "privacy" section of the platform.
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Why associate the creation of ISPs that protect your privacy with piracy?
Because those will be their strongest supporters. Not that it's their only supporters or that's all that they are good for, but thats who will identify with them most. No more, no less. Just like you don't have to be an environmentalist to support the Green Party in Canada, but they call themselves that.
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That may be, but the word 'pirate' has been strongly associated with lawbreaking since the invention of the term, and there's very little that any sort of political campaigning is going to do to change that.
Now that said, I know that language evolves over time and words that mean one thing can come to convey another notion - but this sort of evolution takes a long time, and I really don't see piracy not having the connotation of breaking the law being strongly associated with it any time within the next
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I've always presumed that they use the word "Pirate" to poke at the idea that illegal copying is somehow equatable to high-seas violence. (As opposed to, say, "copying your neighbor's homework").
I think the next step is to apply the same overbearing verbage to those who are trying to screw over the consumers. I think "rights rapist" has a nice ring to it.
And yes, I am fully aware that rape is a serious and not-funny crime. Kind of like actual piracy.
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I think the next step is to apply the same overbearing verbage to those who are trying to screw over the consumers. I think "rights rapist" has a nice ring to it.
IPillager
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That may be, but the word 'pirate' has been strongly associated with lawbreaking since the invention of the term, and there's very little that any sort of political campaigning is going to do to change that.
That is the point of using the name.
The pirate party was established to fight the unjust laws. Thus breaking the laws as a political statement.
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Except that the word piracy is most heavily associated with the breaking of laws that are *not* unjust, specifically laws that protect one's security of person and property, so no... the term remains invalid from any sort of literal standpoint. At best they might hope to appeal to people who have a more romantic ideal of piracy, perhaps brought about by some recent Hollywood imagery, but I remain quite convinced that the most they might manage to do in the next few decades as a result is make some people
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but the word 'pirate' has been strongly associated with lawbreaking
That's not exactly a new thing in politics. Snipped from Wikipedia:
Tories: The word derives from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe; modern Irish tóraí: outlaw, robber, from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit", since outlaws were "pursued men".[1][2] It was originally used to refer to an Irish outlaw and later applied to Confederates or Royalists in arms.[3] The term was thus originally a term of abuse, "an Irish rebel",
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Perhaps, but superfluous anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in the event that the "less than 400K subscribers" loophole doesn't manage to give people enough freedom, there's always the various darknets. And if the freedom is for copyright infringement, actual physical "sharing parties".
Really, if you don't have enough freedom to break the law, you probably don't have enough freedom. (And before the comprehension-disabled jump on me for encouraging crime, I did not imply that people should break the law --- just that they should have enough personal freedom that they could.)
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Really, if you don't have enough freedom to break the law, you probably don't have enough freedom.
That may be an oversimplification, but it's probably true. I would perhaps qualify it slightly differently: if you are going to be completely, preemptively restrained from carrying out an act, the consequences of that act had better be serious and non-reversible enough to justify the constraints. Would I want to allow just anyone to have a large nuclear weapon that they could detonate in the middle of a city? No. Do I think that locking down the entire Internet to prevent a bit of song-swapping is justified
Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. (Score:2)
Even in the event that the "less than 400K subscribers" loophole doesn't manage to give people enough freedom, there's always the various darknets.
I have wondered now and again how the ever-paranoid geek builds a network of trust that he can trust.
He trusts A because B trusts A. He trusts B because C trusts B. He trusts C because D trusts C... He doesn't know how big the network really is. He doesn't know how many nodes or super-nodes have been compromised.
It all seems very fragile.
Is Pirate ISP viable? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is Pirate ISP viable? (Score:5, Interesting)
ISPs receive a safe harbor status provided they actually respond to DMCA takedown notices
To my mind, it would depend on whether the "Pirate ISP" simply handled traffic (i.e. was an access provider), or whether it provided hosting services too.
s.512 of the DMCA, and Art.14 of the eCommerce directive (European) offers protection for hosts (in Europe, the provision of services which "consist of the storage of information"), provided that the ISP takes steps to remove infringing material upon becoming aware of them. However, the corresponding protection for traffic carriage, Art.12, has no such requirement - as long as the IAP does not select the receiver of the transmission, initiate the transmission, or modify the content of the transmission, it is not liable for the traffic which it carries.
That being said, I would not be surprised to see an application of the Sharman Networks / Grokster reasoning, that there is a difference between being a mere conduit, over which parties transmit and receive information, where these acts are infringement of copyright, and promoting / encouraging copyright infringement (using these words loosely).
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The trick would be to provide just bandwidth and privacy, no storage nor any sort of search/matchmaking service.
If they emphasis that they are selling "lack of logging", then they should be better off than "file exchange" services.
Legality? (Score:2)
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What would the legality of this be? I RTFA and am still unclear, yet it seems that a lot hinges on this question.
The legality of what? TFA basically states the new law doesn't apply to ISPs smaller than 400,000 users. Are you questioning whether it's legal to operate such an ISP? Or what?
More harm than good? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish the people behind these anti-big-brother movements would stop calling themselves pirates. There are LOTS of good reasons to support file-sharing and a free-as-in-speech Internet, and to oppose abusive government intrusion and the commercialization of the Internet. Those who fight for this cause under the "pirate" banner are not only doing a disservice to their own cause, but to the rest of us who want a free Internet for reasons other than downloading the latest crappy summer blockbuster movie via BitTorrent.
At the very least, the word "pirate" should be avoided because that is the MAFIAA's loaded word of choice for painting file sharers as dangerous criminals. Why let your enemy frame the argument in his own terms? It's akin to the way the neocons in the U.S. frame the war debate as a question of whether or not you support the troops.
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And I think that the MAFIAA's should stop using the word pirate to talk about people who are infringing on their temporary state granted monopoly handout. Piracy requires the threat or act of violence to capture ships, cargo or hostages at sea. But it isn't going to happen.
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"Piracy" has been used in the meaning **AA uses it today for over 300 years now. You're a bit too late at trying to change that article in the dictionary.
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At the very least, the word "pirate" should be avoided because that is the MAFIAA's loaded word of choice for painting file sharers as dangerous criminals
Whilst I agree with the substance of your comment, that "pirate" is an inappropriate descriptor, used to gain emotive advantage, the term has been used in this context for far longer than just this round of the "copyright wars".
For a great history of the term "piracy", and on copyright infringement generally, I'd recommend Adrian Johns' excellent bo
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I'd recommend Bill Party's "Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars".
Sorry, Bill - that would be "Patry", and not "Party".
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I don't think so. For one pirates are cool. So your argument is invalid. Also it is much easier to counteract MAFIAAs message if we 'embrace and extend' their message against them. They call us pirates, so we have fun like all the cool pirates do. If they can make stuff up, so can we! Piratez of the world unite and fight back the ninjas of MAFIAA! For the boooty!
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I think what you were trying to say is that there is nothing wrong with uniting people behind a symbol, the only people who consider pirating (in today's terms) a crime are the record companies, and a few of their lackies.
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The Religious Society of Friends were mockingly referred to as "Quakers" for the way they quaked with the power of the lord. Officially they're supposed to call each other Friends for short, but Quaker stuck and lost its derogatory meaning. Same story with Mormons, Moonies, Queers, and probably every group with a short name. They adopted the name used to demean and mock them, and it became legitimate.
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I wish the people behind these anti-big-brother movements would stop calling themselves pirates. There are LOTS of good reasons to support file-sharing and a free-as-in-speech Internet, and to oppose abusive government intrusion and the commercialization of the Internet. Those who fight for this cause under the "pirate" banner are not only doing a disservice to their own cause, but to the rest of us who want a free Internet for reasons other than downloading the latest crappy summer blockbuster movie via BitTorrent.
At the very least, the word "pirate" should be avoided because that is the MAFIAA's loaded word of choice for painting file sharers as dangerous criminals. Why let your enemy frame the argument in his own terms? It's akin to the way the neocons in the U.S. frame the war debate as a question of whether or not you support the troops.
While we are on that, hacker needs to go back to the non criminal meaning.
Unlimited needs to mean that, unlimited.
people been changing the meaning of words since the beginning of time. Just deal and accept it.
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You're missing the point. I don't have a problem with the meaning of the word pirate - neither the old meaning nor the new meaning. I just think it's folly to call yourself a pirate when that's exactly what your enemies want you to be called.
This is not a war that can be won without having the public on your side. It doesn't matter how many geeks on Slashdot or elsewhere think that pirates are cool. Most of the pu
The ACTA will squash these . . . (Score:3, Funny)
From the leaked draft:
Rule One: No Pirate ISPs!
Rule Two: No member of law enforcement agencies are to maltreat the innocent Internet users in any way at all -- if there's anybody watching.
Rule Three: No Pirate ISPs!
Rule Four: From now on, I don't want to catch anybody not using DRM.
Rule Five: No Pirate ISPs!
Rule Six: There is NO ... Rule Six.
Rule Seven: No Pirate ISPs!
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I don't need a "pirate" ISP (Score:2, Insightful)
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What has piracy got to do with it? (Score:2)
Sounds sort of like community or municipal efforts to me. The 'pirate' label really should be dropped to help with marketing. Sure, its cute, but wont help.
How does one form a PIrate ISP? (Score:2)
The article's definition of a "Pirate ISP" is somewhat misleading. It really is just talking about making smaller ISPs.
I've thought about how to do real "Pirate ISP" stuff myself a few times, but how exactly does one go about becoming an ISP?
1) You have to have some kind of facility, even if it is a ship at sea.
2) You need to have lots of bandwidth.
3) You need to have some connection to other facilities, to form a root DNS zone.
4) You need to have a way of connecting others.
Now, if you plan on just being a
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Here's a specific example: http://mapa.buenosaireslibre.org/ [buenosaireslibre.org]
The site is all in spanish, but the map should help you understand the scope. Internet access is orthogonal to community wireless access.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_community_network [wikipedia.org]
That article is a should be a decent jumping point. Enjoy!
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The thing that I have been contemplating is the creation of a truly "pirate" ISP. That is, one that uses the backbone fibre of the internet to create an internet within the internet.
This is a solved problem, and your personal Freenet node is just a download away. True anonymous peer-to-peer for web browsing, filesharing, or whatever, is already here. It just needs more nodes, and a lot more content. The "network effect" is not yet working in Freenet's favor, but technically it's solid, and there's nothing wrong with it that more users won't fix. (Well, what it really needs is a client that's as easy to use as Bittorrent).
Good Luck With That (Score:2)
British anti-copyright group, Pirate Party UK, has predicted that Pirate ISPs will spring up across the country
Independent slashdot user, dangitman, predicts that the Pirate Party UK is incorrect in their statement and is just attempting to get publicity. A wave of "Pirate ISPs" suddenly appearing is about as likely as the British people rising up in mass revolt against the government.
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Leader of Pirate Party UK reveals that he wasn't actually trying to get publicity, he was just answering a journalist's question about the possibility of the UK party following the Swedish party's lead and setting up their own ISP. Out of all the countless quotes he's given to journalists over the last year, he's actually quite surprised that this one made it to the front page of Slashdot.
Reform != anti-copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
hohum (Score:2)
"Pirate" ISPs already exist (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been running a UK ISP for a couple of years now, aimed at very heavy users who want privacy and no restrictions. I don't know if my customers are pirates or not but as long as they conform to the AUP "don't do anything illegal or stupid" then they are more than welcome to use their connections for whatever purpose they choose.
Shameless plug: http://superawesomebroadband.com/ [superaweso...adband.com]
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> You can't get rid of copyright completely and wouldn't want to. Without copyright, companies
> could steal GPL code without consequence because the GPL is a copyright license
> and is thus protected by copyright law.
Much as I like the availability of the GPL and other copy-left licenses, if you would give me a magic wand which would erase copyright, I would have a hard time deciding if I should use it. Face it, copyright can never really get fixed --- as in, optimally benefit society as opposed to
Re:What to call groups like these (Score:5, Interesting)
GPL is a clever hack of the copyright system created because people did not agree with the predominant (then) system of knowledge lockdown. Stallman has stated in the past that if he would have the power to abolish copyright, he would do so, even considering the fact that this would also kill the power that GPL depends on, because this is what GPL was created to defeat in the first place. By hacking around it.
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... since most of "society" are sheeple...
Surely, you must be quoting one of the great philosophers with such elegant verbiage. Which one of the great thinkers are you cribbing from?
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"Sheeple." Ugh.
Anyway, the thing about copyright is that it protects things that aren't necessities. We're not entitled to movies and music. They're entertainment we are able to enjoy. Copyright's primary purpose is to make sure people make money from their work so that we have an economy, which is a benefit to society. If nobody pays anyone for their work, you won't have the amount and quality of art as before, and culture would suffer. It's common sense.
Somehow I think you lack imagination, and culture would survive quite well, even without copyright. Not that it's going to happen, anyway.
I never understood the complaint when Slugboat Willy was about to fall into public domain. We have a right to Mickey Mouse? Who cares about it? If Disney is still making money off of it, why shouldn't they still own it?
Now it's my turn to say "ugh". Corporations, unlike people, are virtually immortal. Your paragraph is something which could only have been dreamed up by someone who doesn't actually create any "culture", because the vast majority of the those who do create culture (the ones who aren't too full of themselves) will tell you that they are just recycling and revitalizing mate
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I'd say books were pretty pervasive and long-term when copyright was created. Copyright's primary purpose is to maximize the works available to the consumer, or more specifically, to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". Ensuring payment to the author is a (very important) means to that end, but not the end itself.
Copyright needs to last long enough for the creator of a wor
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Well, it was more about ensuring the writer got paid by the printer back then, legitimately protecting the individual from the Evil Corporations(TM), rather than the reverse. Seeing the writers get paid maximizes the available works - then and now. But we don't need the "printer" in the digital world, and I think it's just a generational thing for writers accepting the way the internet works. There's a webcomic I follow where the author sells printed book versions of his work, but won't sell a PDF becau
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Copyright's primary purpose is to make sure people make money from their work so that we have an economy, which is a benefit to society. If nobody pays anyone for their work, you won't have the amount and quality of art as before, and culture would suffer. It's common sense.
Wrong. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the release of creative works to the public domain by providing a temporary monopoly on the work in exchange for this release. Its not for making money off of work so we have an economy. Its for the sharing of ideas, the ability to springboard off of an existing creation to a new creative height.
Copyright is about sharing, not hoarding.
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Let me rephrase that: Content creators aren't entitled to our tax money to protect their monopoly.
Yes. That's w
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Copyright's primary purpose is to make sure people make money from their work so that we have an economy, which is a benefit to society.
Copyright's primary purpose is to make sure a given piece of work can be sold more than once (effectively infinitely in its modern incarnation).
If nobody pays anyone for their work, you won't have the amount and quality of art as before, and culture would suffer. It's common sense.
So you're saying there wasn't any art and culture to speak of before a couple of centuri
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Without copyright, companies could steal GPL code without consequence
So what's your point? Suppose some company takes my code, adds cool features to it, and starts selling it. Well, I'll just copy that code, improve it further, and sell it myself. THERE'S NO COPYRIGHT, remember?
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Well, I'll just copy that code, [...]
From where ?
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The GPL exists to ensure source code is available to the user. Without copyright, companies would use your volunteer code in their own binaries without contributing back. You may be able to pirate the binaries, but you wouldn't have the freedom of source code access that the GPL is supposed to protect.
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Laws make guarantees of things all the time. As a software license, the GPL cites copyright law to make a guarantee that source code be accessible, with legal consequences for violators.
Theft of intellectual property. You've never seen a "GPL code theft" story on Slashdot before?
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Without copyright, GPL could be implemented as a contractual agreement. It would loose some of its teeth, but it could still bite.
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Without copyright, GPL could be implemented as a contractual agreement. It would loose some of its teeth, but it could still bite.
How much community involvement do you think you'll get if everyone (or their guardian) has to sign a legally-binding contract before they can do anything ?
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That is a good question. And it is one that there is no clear answer for.
A lot of people agree to click through EULA's, but that isn't the greatest example.
But perhaps more than you think.
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A lot of people agree to click through EULA's, but that isn't the greatest example.
EULA's aren't contracts.
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Good, without copyright GPL software is no longer necessary and the license is useless.
The GPL is certainly useless without copyright. Whether it's "no longer necessary" depends on whether you believe the GPL exists so you can have free stuff, or source code.