News Corp? Didn't they own News of the World
I hear a kettle calling, you bastard.
News Corporation Australia has used an inquiry by the nation's Senate into a proposed Australia/South Korea free trade agreement to suggest internet service providers become copyright enforcers. In its submission to the inquiry (number 56 in the list that starts here), News backs proposals in the treaty to criminalise 'net …
I think you will find ol' Rupert, a proper 'man of the people' whose legacy of 'News' given to the 'Free Man' is starting to think that the potential of 'News' gleaned from other sources isn't quite right. ie, Not controlled by him, thus no money made. So he attacks the Internet. Think of him like 'Anonymous' only inverted. Imagine that: a sea of Murdocorp employees all wearing Rupert masks...
Tell you what, Rupert, old sport, why not sponser a news agency that isn't full of shite, celebrity gossip, copy-and-pasted Reuters bulletins and press releases from Celebrity's agents, press releases from companies marketing departments in the guise of a 'White Paper'.
Or, buy The Register. Or attempt to. That would be really funny. I am not saying that you couldn't buy it, no offence Reg staff, I know that ultimately there is a price point that you couldn't say no to, but the fallout would be better than any 'Scandal'. I think that might possibly start the long wished for Revolution. Imagine that: Britain's uprising finally started by Sysadmins everywhere. Programmers, too, but they would need to follow the spec for revolution written by the Analysts. Sysadmins are Anarchists anyway. Have you seen their perl scripts? *shudders*
Glossary:
'Man of the people' - term usually assigned to dictators by dictators.
'News' - Official Twitter tweets.
'Tweets' - a term misappropriated for an entry on Twitter. Usually inane drivel. Usually used to keep companies' customer service in check. Birds' tweets are far nicer.
'Free Man' - Not a Mac Nac Feegle.
'White Paper' - Toilet Roll
'Scandal' - today's revelation that someone is human, and/or a celebrity stating how they suffered during their public humiliation. Usually started by a 'tweet'.
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Now you are talking.
A revolution based in Apathy.
Relatives' and friends' computers are no longer going to be fixed/wiped of virii. All general upkeep of servers, patches, hardware fixes are now left. 5 get you 7 that gov.uk fails first. Payroll starts to stutter, then fail completely, which drags in other non-IT people that already started to worry when POS terminals started playing up and payment services started to fail.
YES! WE, THE TECHNORATI, PWN YOU. Muhahahah *cough*
Or, maybe not. I have just started the second series of 'Orange is the new Black' and I would like to finish that first. Also GoT season 4. But after. Oh yes. We shall .., sorry, coffee time!
Lack of coffee excuses much - but 'virii'? That's going a bit too far.
The word is 'viruses'. For the same reason that you call Mr and Mrs Jones 'the Joneses' and not 'the Joneii' (which actually sounds rather cool, but still).
It's not a Latin plural, because 'virus' in Latin is an uncountable noun and does not have a plural. So it's merely a perversion of the language that makes you sound precious and affected rather than geeky. Please, I beg you, give it up.
Rupe's minions at News International once tried to get preferential treatment from The Press Association (the UK's news gathering agency). They told his minions to piss off, so Rupe tried to buy PA. He was again told to piss off, since the PA charter established by Parliament prohibits it being owned by anyone.
Or, buy The Register. Or attempt to.
No. Nope. Wrong! We're talking about Rupert here, remember?
He will not want to buy el Reg, there's too much negative spin about his operations in the forums. No. He'll have the site shut down for whatever fucking (yeah, i know, the swearing isn't necessary) reason he can think up.
Hmm... what excuse could he think up to shut down el Reg?
They say bad things about me and damage my FB profile.
pfft!
A 'strict responsilibility' law making media owners criminally responsible for the illegal actions of their titles, with a requirement to sell if found guilty.
Optional (but likely to be popular); the guilty owner put in stocks in Parliament square along with any politicians who have previously taken donations from them, defended their business in parliament or who have photo ops gladhanding them. Along with Jeremy Hunt just on general principle.
The City of London itself [New York, Melbourne, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Athens, Rome, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Buenos Aries, whatever, pick a town] is accountable for all crime in that city.
Yeah. That'll fly on the world stage.
Just goes to show how embedded the thinking of the tabloid set is. Poor barstards.
"....it's not a stretch to imagine that ISP liability is therefore News Corp's preferred position worldwide....." Well of course that's what Mr Murdoch would like, it would remove all the legal burden of finding and proving that pirates are pirates and pass that on to the ISPs. Unfortunately, whilst it will upset the posters here, he will probably get it in the end. The general public are sick and tired of e-crims of one type or another, they just want a 'safe' Internet to look a kitten videos and do their online banking; similarly, the banks and finance companies would love to put the onus on ISPs of policing the service they provide to the ISPs' customers; and the politicians want to look tough on crime, and stay on good terms with the papers Murdoch runs as they can make or break an election. That makes a pretty solid trifecta - voters that may misunderstand or simply not care about all the issues, big business, and eager politicians - that will want to push a regulated and controlled Internet. And Rupert can stick his bit of anti-pirate legislation on the end of it.
Hasn't the senile old git remembered that he owns a large ISP here in the UK - maybe he should start by putting his own house in order. But given that the editor of one of his rags claims she had no idea what her senior staff were doing I don't see that happening any time soon.
What about the rest of us?
You greedy media moguls are doing it to protect your goodies from unauthorised copying, fair enough but what about my photos? Will they get the full weight of the law next time some thieving, spotty faced sod has at one of my images, butchers it and tries to pass it off as their own? Will you lot come to my aid? Will you send in SWAT teams to protect my rights and my copyright? Will you f**k! I'll drop an email to the ISP and the website in question and if I'm really, really lucky someone might take the image down but most of the time I'll just get ignored, while someone little bastard gets the glory for my all hard work and I lose out on potential sales. Must be so great to live on those wonderful ivory towers the likes of Murdoch and co live in.
"This still rankles in the halls of News Corp, which says what it wants is “workable and technology-neutral provisions” to protect it."
That's a reasonable request. However, so to is the expectation that there are "workable and technology-neutral provisions" to protect carriers. A telephone provider is not liable for illegal activity committed over its service so if we are to be 'technology-neutral' then an ISP should not be liable for infringing behaviour conducted over its service.
Right-on Uncle Rupert!
Or does it only apply the one way?
Being technology-neutral must apply both ways for it to be fair to all. Murdoch only needs to look to his own operations. What about reading the newspaper online? Let's just go to the first, alphabetically, in Australia - "The Australian". Reading the terms, one can share the subscription with members of your household (which is reasonable) but not anyone else.
That seems reasonable but a printed copy can be shared with whomever you want. What about companies that buy a few papers and have them in the foyer or the lunch room? What is the online-subscription equivalent? To be technology-neutral, one must allow for a company to sign into their subscription on a kiosk PC or a tablet so that visitors can use it.
What about if I want to find all the reviews of my restaurant from various papers, cut them out and make a framed collage to display in my window? (Which looks awful, but whatever . . . ) Am I allowed to do the same with a digital copy of the articles and copy/paste them all together on my website?
The same goes for online magazine subscriptions vs the printed equivalents. Even more so, in fact as magazines are generally published less frequently are the articles are less time-sensitive. This means people can buy a magazine, read it, and then give it to a friend or leave at work or drop it into the doctor's waiting room.
Where's the 'technology-neutral' equivalent of that?
And this goes to the heart of the matter and the hypocrisy from content providers. On the one hand, they want to treat digital and physical media the same - most notably their insistence that copyright violation is indistinguishable from stealing and should be viewed and punished in the same way.
On the other, they want to treat digital copies as subject to special rules and restrictions not applicable to the physical equivalents.
For what it's worth, I think that the two different media should be treated differently because, well, they are different. There's just no getting around that. The point, however, is that you just can't go treating them the same in a legal context. That means that you can't go about wringing your hands because your online content is being treated differently in by the law, when you treat it differently yourself.
Followon to post @dan1980
The suggestion that ISPs be made responsible for copyright violations in a transparent (and patently idiotic) ploy to stifle the exchange of news and views on the internet.
Does Ruprecht (cinematic reference:"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) envision that ISPs will be held accountable for "unfair use" on his unsupported say so? As dan1980's comments rightly imply, there are issues that we do not begin to know how to deal with
Copyright law and the legal interpretation of "fair use" are egregiously difficult to interpret and apply, even for existing media of exchange. The internet poses a set of issues for which we have little or no legal precedent. The suggestion that ISPs be made accountable for actions for which we have virtually no established procedures or precedents is simply disingenuous.
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Given that Telstra also streams Foxtel over it's cable network, I wonder how long until Telstra come to the conclusion that it is no longer worthwhile providing Rupert & Co that functionality, if News Corp will sue it's service provider for something that they are not responsible for.
Rupert, you are a class dick. Here in oz - have you actually lived here recently? - your media influence is known as the "murdocracy".
You want all the laws and rules to favour you ..... well, they don't and I for one don't give a flying fuck about what laws you want that give you more influence over what I use/see/watch on the internet. I am responsible for that, not you or my ISP.
Thank God iinet had the balls to take you to the High Court who royally fucked you over.
Fuck you Rupert, and fuck you News Corp (and I apologise to those more sensitive El-Reg readers who don't like the f-word)
Rupert, you are a class dick. Here in oz - have you actually lived here recently?
Doubt he's been there in a long while. He's a US citizen these days, which is handy as it makes it harder for the UK authorities to extradite the old sod for running, in the words of prosecutor Andrew Edis, "a thoroughly criminal enterprise".
all ips should be responsible for what their clients get up to fair enough, at the same time all booze manufacturers should be lisble for all violance, drink driving undertaken by drunks, all car manufacturers should be liable when drivers of their vehicles cause death or injury. we could just keep on going blaming others for our actions,
I can stroll down to several satellite stores in SaiGon./Hi Chi Minh City and pick up a code key that allows me to see any of the Murdoch garbage channels.
It's almost enough to make me go out and buy a TV, just the thought of shafting the old fart.
LOL! Like the Micro$oft vs. Open Source? PMSL
What everyone needs to remember, and especially here in Australia, is that Murdock is a US citizen and him sticking his nose into our countries business warrants a big F!#$K OFF from us all here.
From an Australian standpoint the reasons why we have people downloading content is directly associated with his FOXTEL being arrogant rip off merchants. THEY were the ones who stitched up the deal so GoT episodes could not be seen locally until after the season had finished on FOXTEL, so what happened? all the tech savvy fans just went and downloaded them.
The Free to Air broadcasters here are also in the same boat, they screw up the order of the series, stop showing it if the ratings period has finished and then if some ridiculous reality show comes along where they make more money they either dump the show or put it on late at night.
We in Australia have been putting up with being ripped off for too long, as far as I am concerned they can all go jump, the US networks don't care, they have made their money.