Web Research

[Commie_User]

If all the wiring and boxes which make up the Internet were collected and laid on the ground, would there be enough to cover the Isle Of Wight ?

Just wondering.


Oh, and is Commodore Remix subject to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? That info-killing Bill is now in action across the Pond, thanks to Mr. freedom-loving Obama and pals.

[Chris Abbott]

It's been in operation over the pond for ages. R64 is now hosted in Sweden (it was on my servers in the US but had to move to Ziphoid's servers), so launching any DMCA takedowns would be pretty difficult.

> Mr. freedom-loving Obama and pals.
It was passed by a Republican congress in the era of that well-known Fascist and friend of the wealthy Bill Clinton, actually, and although open to abuse (at one point Google said that DMCA takedowns against rival firms constituted 57% of all takedown notices), at least established a safe harbour policy for ISPs.

It's the successor laws PROTECT IP Act (introduced in 2011, shelved indefinitely) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (introduced in 2011, shelved indefinitely) that were pretty damn chilling, but were introduced by a Republican led congress with the support of some of the more corporate-friendly Democrats, not by President Obama: it's not the job of the executive branch to legislate, as far as I know.

From Wikipedia:
<<<
Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users.
>>>

Chris

[Commie_User]

Thanks Chris.

> Mr. freedom-loving Obama and pals.
It was passed by a Republican congress in the era of that well-known Fascist and friend of the wealthy Bill Clinton, actually, and although open to abuse (at one point Google said that DMCA takedowns against rival firms constituted 57% of all takedown notices), at least established a safe harbour policy for ISPs.

That's me told. I'm surprised at myself for not checking first, though I think I had in mind something about campaigns against Obama for enforcing it more rigidly, or something.

[Chris Abbott]

I found it interesting that what really killed the SOPA and IPProtect bills wasn't really to do with public opinion or wellbeing (at least, not directly). It was basically that you had two mega-industries fighting: the Internet giants (Google, Facebook) who were facing being responsible for everything they hosted, and the Entertainment Giants (Sony, Disney, Warner, etc) who wanted to be able to police the internet without trivialities like "evidence".

When you've got a situation with megacorps fighting, it's very difficult to know which way congress will fall, since they're both rich enough to buy the votes they need. The last time something was genuinely that hard fought was retailers vs card companies/banks. The retailers came off best in that one, as I recall.

But in either case, the outcome was almost entirely independent from the merits of the bill (or, in the case of SOPA and IPProtect, lack of merits). Which pretty much sums up all branches of congress: up for sale to the highest bidder.

Chris

[Commie_User]

I also remember divisions of Sony fighting amongst themselves: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/sony_pr.html

In perhaps the most public example of megacorps gone mad was the sight of arrested children paraded on television for the heinous crime of downloading a bunch of stuff. Certainly illegal but a particularly cruel and unusual punishment which may have raised a constitutional issue.

I remember something about that but can't seem to find a link in reasonable time.



And as for the politicians, they seem corrupt in all things, let alone in regards to big business lobbying. But that's just my view from outside.

[Vosla]

I remember the funny time when the lawyers of Paramount tried to sue Star Trek fans for the use of Star Trek imagery on websites until Paramount had to swat some of the pettifoggers for damaging the brand with unnessarily harassing paying customers. Especially funny as the lawyers never had the commisson to pursue fans for that and any normal thinking judge would think of it as fair use.

There was also a very short episode where somebody tried to sue Star Wars fans for making their owns costumes "without license". And that guy wasn't even employed by Lucas. This attempt was swiftly choked.