Bits Law, Order and Freedom Online

when an article states that "at least we aint china" that kind of says a lot, if we are saying that we are bad but at least we are not as bad as a communist dictatorship and people are happy with that then its too late - this country is burned already.

 

Everyone get your credit cards warmed up! Next in line is pay to view webpages! then its $70 per GB downloaded. So who is first in line?

oh wait.... i ALREADY pay $100 a month for DSL that cant even hit 512KB. So i pretty much pay a ultra high price to view anything on the web anyway (sorry offtopic).

Oh please Mr. Government. Block me from all my favorite sites and watch every bit I download.

My opinion? Block/filter what i can view and they can shove the internet up their asses.

Child porn is not a real arguement IMHO. Where are the people who are supposed to be stopping it from happening to begin with? So I guess it turned into: Let childern continue to get raped/exploited and just block it, probem solved.

 

The internet should not, ever, be filtered in the same way China does.

Yes, the internet is access all over the globe, in almost every jursdiction imaginable, but that does not mean that the content should be filtered to suit that jurisdictions laws, to a very certain degree.

There needs to be a better implementation of the IWF, one that isn't haphazard, badly regulated, and very capable of making some very bad judgements (See the Virgin Killer album cover fiasco, the wikipedia editing fiasco etc, for evidence of this). I am not, by any means, arguing for allowing child pornography, or anything else equally illegal (Snuff films etc). What I am saying is, things should be regulated by a watchdog of equal standing and capability as (UK reference) OFCOM.

However, the internet should not be a chargable/pay-perview affair. By that I mean, yes we should pay monthly connection fees to our service provider. No, we absolutely should not be charged extra for breaking the 'fair usage' limit. There should be no such thing - Our telecommunications network should be more than capable of handling the amount of data consumption required by users, rather than the current system of charging 'per gb', as it is.

Tiered packages should exist - And I don't mean tiered in terms of what content you can access based on what tier you pay for. I mean tiered in terms of connection speeds and tweakability of the connection. As they currently do.

The current situation of companies, such as ESPN, approaching ISP's and trying to negotiate a situation where the subscribers pay an extra charge per month and get unlimited access to supposed 'high quality' streaming videos for sports events etc.

This should happen, however it should be a very much opt-in, not an opt-out system. It should operate the same way mobile phone contracts do for businesses. Everyone on the same tier of service should get the same service, however, each individual customer can modify the contract with any number of "bolt-on" options for extra cost per month, if they choose to.

A lot of this stinks to high heaven of content controllers trying to weed out piracy. All the more power to them. Piracy is a terrible thing. However, it does not affect them in the volumes they claim (Most, if not all of you, seem to agree that if they want the money they're trying to charge for things, the content should be longer, sans adverts, and a damnsight better than it currently is). Stopping internet based piracy is not going to happen. It just isn't, it's been going for too long and has picked up too great a following to stop. They can only hope to discourage it through being decent human beings, and charging for their content appropriate to the quality - And right now, it should damn well be near free.

The internet is not a governable 'place' or thing. It was designed as, and should stay as, a method of quick transmission of information and data - A place where you can learn or see what you want to - Within reason. Each jurisdiction should filter ONLY what is considered illegal consistent with that jurisdictions laws. Everything else should remain fair game.

</rambling>

 

"The more successful approach as pioneered by iTunes, Steam and other online stores which provide content with relatively light or non-existent DRM is to beat the pirates on the only playing field where they have an even shot – the convenience of operating a fully legal service, and customer service."


Yeah......Except that Apple Customer service is Crap!

 

Amen!

A very important point. I don't think the bad DRM in legal copies is solely responsible for "piracy" (though I do believe some people think "f--- it, I'm not paying for that").
I think the problem with DRM is that it restricts you in using what essentially is your property (using it in a legal way). In most, if not all, continental European countries, we pay a VAT on blank recording media to cover the "cost" of making a personal back-up of the CD or other medium you purchased. This back-up is to be used the way you please (back-up to your PC, another disc you play all the time instead of the original, etc) as long as you don't infringe the copyright by distributing your own copies. When I buy a CD, it's my property. I have every right to make a copy of it for my own use: CDs are fallible (and so am I when handling them), so having a back-up copy to listen to is only fair. All the CDs I ever bought have turned immediately into OGG files on my main PC.
Restricting legitimate consumers, and rather often block their legitimate purchase from legitimate use because of an error, is simply not acceptable.

If current laws or legal methods of accusation cannot cover the information-age copyright infringement, then either we need new laws or methods - without resorting to full-blown surveillance of everyone on the internet - or a new copyright system.
For the freedom of internet users, I'm voting for a new copyright system. Partly because I hold in high regard the thought that it is very much flawed anyway.

I agree that it is not an argument. I (slightly) disagree with "continue ... block it".
Systems and laws of tracking and investigating suspected child pornographers and those who watch the content are already in place (including, of course, their conviction if found guilty). In general, these systems and laws work and the different nations co-ordinating their efforts on this is a very good example of international police work. Every year, there's at least a few big "rings" broken up, content removed and people sent to prison.

The police work, well, works. The politicians, however, don't want any kind of crime at all (especially not such a heinous one) just because it serves them well, not necessarily because it serves it. Therefore, in their eyes, disregarding our freedom (to be clear: NOT the "freedom" to look at child porn! - that should always be a crime) by just blocking or censoring everything is good because it lowers the statistics of people arrested watching it - because there's nothing to watch.
I am sure the advent of the internet has led a lot more people to this sick way of "pleasure", but before the internet I am sure they traded as well, though on a smaller scale, in smaller groups (and not through JPEGs).
With the internet I think it's actually easier to catch them. They've grown from small, enclosed groups to international communities of perverts. I hardly doubt a lot of them are network security experts, or know any more about computers than my mother, so catching them may just have become easier by "simply" following the audit trails.

The only change to that I would propose would be to better train computer crime unit people, or to add more people to the teams that are already fighting this battle. I will never stand for total censorship just because of a minority who are so insecure that they cannot jerk off to anyone older than 18.

Apologies for the rant, but I was trying to illustrate that the current systems, laws and methods that are in place are working; and there is no need for more control or surveillance of all, mostly innocent, internet users just because of a few pervs.

 

-

 

Wait, is this a police officer condoning illegal activity?

 

-

 

Not at all. I was trying to say (it may have gotten lost in the rant) that I think the police are doing a good job at using current law to fight these crimes. If anything is "stopping" them, it's politicians trying to get crime statistics down.
Ever since I heard of the people who, in order to protect the innocent, have to face these things and hunt the perpetrators down, I have had the utmost respect for them. No, I wouldn't like to do that job, because I'd probably kill myself after a few days.

By "better training" and "adding more people" I meant to say that (in relation to my home country), these sad excuses for human beings could maybe be hunted down and thus prosecuted faster. We cannot get rid fast enough of sickos like child pornographers.
This wasn't a stab at the authorities tasked with finding them, rather at the politicians not giving them enough resources for doing so.

 

Ah, police officer was the wrong word but it was all I could think of - sorry

And do I think all law enforcement agencies abide by the law - nope - but it was kinda hoping that you were condoning everyone else breaking the law to protect themselves

 

Most people trading child porn use the normal post offices to send their CDs/DVDs around. They talk about it online, then they burn the CD/DVD, go to the post office and mail it to the other person. It's safer.

I think we should come down hard on those sickos. And thank God there are people trying to do just that!

 

Man this reminds me of that idea of Freedom the American founders had... well I think we know how that ended. But hey people seem to be waking up and are more informed nowadays so although we may no longer be able to save our nations perhaps our internets will be free... oh wait that does not sound right. Well maybe one day when nations can find freedom again the internet will too. Personally I think that the quest to keep the internet free will help some people to remember why freedom is so important and why we need to bring out nation/nations back to it. (depending on where you are from)

 

-

 

Very interesting post, HTR. But we're [or at I am] used to that.