Remember
Telenor own Tele2, who gave in to the IFPI about a year ago. So the're not all good.
Still, it's great to hear an ISP who actually likes the idea of common-carrier status!
Norwegian ISP Telenor has refused demands from representatives of the US music and film industry to block access to BitTorrent tracker website The Pirate Bay. The Norwegian wing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) demanded that telecoms group Telenor prevent access to the infamous file sharing …
It's a surprise that they didn't follow their natural instincts of screwing the customer on this one, but given the Norwegian state interest in Telenor, pandering to corporate censorship interests might have crossed some political line. Doing nothing was the safest corporate thing to do, I guess.
Eircom in Ireland did not agree to block any website. What they stated was that they would not contest a court case if IRMA decide to take one. A court order will be required before any website is blocked by Eircom. Do not take this as supportive of Eircom - it's not - they are a shower of spineless bastards. But misinformation doesn't help when there are plenty of legitimate examples of their ineptitude.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a criminal enterprise. The only reason the Feds have not gone after the RIAA on RICO statutes is due to political clout. Charles Nesson of the Harvard Law school has joined the fray showing that in the US, the RIAA's behavior violates the US Constitution. Interestingly enough, the RIAA studiously avoids threatening any Harvard students for file sharing.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081030/0203582685.shtml
"I might move there soon (I am considering moving out of the UK soon due to the government's erosion of people's rights and general incompetence)" .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 3rd March 2009 16:54 GMT
Get the Civil Service to threaten to withdraw their labour and withhold/confiscate their paychecks/expenses/pensions* unless they call an immediate election, would have the wasters serving the people rather than themselves, AC, and give the new lot a powerful reminder of their Duty.
It would save you a lot of bother too.
* If it is Good enough for Fred the Shred is good enough for them too ...... Quite why we are still rewarding them for their Failures is ....... ? Well, does anyone have an answer to that which is acceptable.
Why the court is in Sweden, Stockholm, if the site runs in Norway? If I visit prostitute in Amsterdam, shall I be sued then in my country where even erotic massage is illegal? I think on April 17 the Swedish court shall say they cannot rule about legitimacy of what is happening in the Norway territory, otherwise it would be disrespect to the independent nation.
Its time to build "The Great Firewall of United States", if some rich companies in USA do not like the web sites in other independent countries. Then USA will be able to close wrong sites at the firewall based on the USA laws and USA court decisions.
Views to whats legal whats not will never be the same in all the world. Some will say these four men help to distribute culture and knowledge for the masses, and these inquisitors from USA shout out these man are devils and trying to burn them on the fire.
Political opinions about what is part of basic freedoms, and what must be payable and forbidden very differ. I remember how bad it was for president Clinton all this oral office story about girl Monika, even congress got involved in such a private and personal thing. But in many european countries this would remain completely private issue, and the president would only earn points for doing such a funny affair, it means to the public that he is still an "able" man and not only sleeping in the office! I was so suprised at that times - do they have in USA any serious jobs to do in their businesses if they are so busy with that one man and one woman affair.
This PB case became political long time ago. Courts must not be a tool to solve the political issues. If they try, they will fail, as people will loose the trust in them. Its impossible for the court to take a fair decision for both parties in political case.
Time to close this case and do nothing. Music industry shall change business practices. Its POSSIBLE to make billions from the music sales on the Internet, see iPod case and others.
I welcome you over here to Norway. You will find that in effect we are British for the most part. There are some minor differences, and I advice you to take note of these.
-Our monarch is atm male.
-Our monarch and his family have for the most part a right to privacy. I am not sure if it is illegal to hide in the bushes with a camera in Norway, but I am quite sure that if you do, you will not get included into our society. Even the republicans in Norway adore their king.
-This brings me to that in Norway there are quite a lot laws, but even though something is legal it doesn't mean we do it or even accept it. This is because of the unwritten laws we have a lot of. You can ask us about them, but we won't tell you them. We only expect you to follow them.
-Our police don’t carry guns either, so that should be easy. However they are not allowed to carry hijabs here.
-Our mother tongue is Norwegian, but if you want to you can disregard this and speak English to us. We will then switch to English whenever you are around. This is our way to show you that we really would like you to learn Norwegian. If you wonder what we talk about if you happen to hear us speak Norwegian it is mostly about the weather and how good it is when really it is not.
-Our climate is mostly like yours, but colder.
-We have good dentists over here.
-We have a lot of land per capita. The result is that we don't want you to come too close, we do not want a hug, or you touching us. We assume people want to be left alone, especially people that stick out. This mean you will have to initiate contact if you want to talk to us. This is a place were our king Olav V, now not longer with us, during the oil crisis in 1973 took the city tram. He insisted on paying and everybody else on the rather full tram pretended they didn't know who he was.
There are more minor differences, but if you are British and behave we will for the most part accept you and ignore you in case you do not want to be bothered. If you are American, disregard whatever I just say. We do not exist. It is a make belief country.
Civil liberties are on a decline everywhere in the world, and we have a tendency to copy whatever happens out there in the world. So you might want to wait a bit before moving here to see if we will be affected in the same way.
Mr K - pass on our regards ...
The Norwegian PTO and the Consumer Council have agreed interesting internet principlals. The principles are summarised as;
1.) Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection with a predefined capacity and quality.
2.) Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection that enables them to
- send and receive content of their choice
- use services and run applications of their choice
- connect hardware and use software of their choice that do not
harm the network.
3.) Internet users are entitled to an Internet connection that is free of discrimination with regard to type of application, service or content or based on sender or receiver address.
Of course there are limits but the customer gets to choose! One for the Ofcom 09/10 workplan consultation and about time to give the Ofcom Consumer Panel another nag!
I am nagging at the Digital Britain folk to include these principals in the final version of Digital Britain.