Subject: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP> From: John MacKenzie Date: 19 Nov 11 - 01:13 PM I get this on a black strip superimposed over the Mudcat Café logo. Is it just me> |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 19 Nov 11 - 01:14 PM |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,999 Date: 19 Nov 11 - 01:30 PM Click it, John. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: John MacKenzie Date: 19 Nov 11 - 01:41 PM I did |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 19 Nov 11 - 01:43 PM Anyone use Cox Communications for phone or internet? They're eager to turn you in. They have a helpful FAQ for subpoena seekers and even a fucking price list. http://mudc.at/vSrFix They'll sell a 30-day wiretap on you for $3,500. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: John MacKenzie Date: 19 Nov 11 - 01:50 PM Tim Berners Lee's baby is growing up. It's changing from a Little Orphan Annie, into a Damien. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:05 PM I am livid over this shit. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:05 PM International Community Rallies Against SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] This week the House of Representatives opens hearings on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that EFF - along with a number of prominent organizations and other actors - has opposed loudly and vigorously. Though the bill would have grave implications on free expression for American Internet users, website owners, and intermediaries, its effects on the international community are even worse. In light of that fact, a coalition of international civil society and human rights groups have penned a letter expressing their opposition to the bill. The letter - whose signatories include prominent groups like French groups La Quadrature du Net and Reporters Without Borders, UK-based Index on Censorship, and global consortium the Association for Progressive Communications - states: "...by institutionalizing the use of internet censorship tools to enforce domestic law in the United States creates a paradox that undermines its moral authority to criticize repressive regimes. We urge the United States to uphold its proclaimed responsibility as a leader in internet freedom and reject bills that will censor or fragment the web." |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: BTNG Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:09 PM The only problem I have with this statement is that the United States (at least the governments) have never even been soldiers, let alone leaders, in internet freedom fight. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:17 PM Whatever about the semantics (or diplomacy?) of the above statement, if that bill passes there ain't gonna be no freedom to fight FOR. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,999 Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:23 PM I'm waiting for someone to say, "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear." That was the war cry when some of us objected to the little green cameras springing up all over everywhere. This is simply the logical extension. Yes, it sucks. And yes, I hope it can be fought. But bit by bit it has crept into the culture of so-called security. It ain't new, just more invasive. I suppose that next we can look forward to tags much like those used to track caribou or various birds. I mad as hell about it, too. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:26 PM Maybe they're Just Following Orders... |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 19 Nov 11 - 02:50 PM I couldn't put my finger on what was giving me such an awful sense of deja-vu. Then I remembered a thread I started nearly two years ago BS: Blasphemy law in Ireland http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=126211#2802095 in which I wrote: Happy new year. When I drank my auld-lang-syne toast, I raised a silent glass to the founding fathers of the US Bill Of Rights. [#ironyalert] Tonight, on another website, a friend put up a YouTube link to something that was very funny, and HARMLESS, but could certainly be interpreted as sacrilegious. He's now taken it down. Whether or not he would have been prosecuted, that is intimidation. He censored himself, voluntarily, because he didn't feel safe otherwise. How Orwellian is that? Never knowing whether you're on safe ground or not is intimidating - and there are no fear-police like the ones in your head. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: bobad Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:02 PM We Are Winning: Pelosi Comes Out Against Internet Censorship Bill Nobody thought it could be done, but it looks like we've turned the tide against the Internet Blacklist Bill. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi just spoke out against it, and Republican Darrell Issa says it now stands "no chance of passage"! It's been a show of force like no other: More than 700k anti-censorship contacts have been delivered to Congress so far this week, as the Blacklsit Bill gets heard in committee. https://act.demandprogress.org/act/pelosi/ |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: DebC Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:12 PM One of our media critics here in Boston, Dan Kennedy has a BLOG POST about this. I agree with max. This un-f%^$ing believable, but I am not surprised. Deb Cowan |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:12 PM "Whatever about the semantics" yeah whatever |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bill D Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:37 PM F**K Censorship! (If you are old enough to remember The Realist magazine, this needs no comment.) |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,999 Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:40 PM I had one of those shirts. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: BTNG Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:51 PM (If you are old enough to remember The Realist magazine, this needs no comment.) errr...it doesn't need any comment whether you remember the a fore mentioned periodical or not |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: BTNG Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:53 PM sorry, forgot to add this link The Realist Archive Project |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: gnu Date: 19 Nov 11 - 04:38 PM Max... "They'll sell a 30-day wiretap on you for $3,500." And THAT is legal? |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 19 Nov 11 - 05:47 PM So "UNCLE SAM" has dropped the pretense, and revealed that he is really "BIG BROTHER" in disguise. And now it seems he's to be frustrated after all, it has left his little toady spies rather exposed. Cox Communications better keep a sharp eye on their share price, because anybody with half a brain will be getting shot of 'em before the shit hits the fan when their clients head for the exit in droves. Don T. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Jeri Date: 19 Nov 11 - 07:16 PM We gave up the right to criticize other countries' torture of POWs with Abu Ghraibe. What other high ground, real or believed in, will we give up? They'd better not pass this. I get tired of complaints of censorship here, and complaints about the lack of it. The right to free speech that we have (and at Mudcat, we have it because Max believes in it) means that people who say what we don't like have the right too. It gets messy sometimes, but I like not having somebody making the decision about what I can read. ...and if I were into conspiracy theories, I'd think a certain faction really wants to stupidify Americans. Well, OK, it might actually be true. Some of these guys would never get into power if the folks who voted for them could competently operate their brains. Letter from Congressional representatives opposing SOPA (It's a .PDF) |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Spleen Cringe Date: 19 Nov 11 - 07:43 PM Good shout, having the link on the logo. Good luck, US friends, stopping this. Remember, there are more of us proles than there are of those people who are temporarily in charge... |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: the lemonade lady Date: 19 Nov 11 - 08:11 PM How come it's only this site? |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 19 Nov 11 - 08:47 PM Think I'm missing something... how come what's only this site? |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bill D Date: 19 Nov 11 - 09:58 PM It's NOT only this site. Max is making a point with the banner/link that many/all sites 'could' be affected. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Jeri Date: 19 Nov 11 - 10:08 PM From the Wikipedia article on SOPA: Opponents of the bill include Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla Corporation, and Wikimedia Foundation, the Brookings Institution and human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch.They had the banner up on the 16th, Mudcat has it today. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 19 Nov 11 - 11:02 PM They'll come right for us... mudcat.org... you know... if this is passed. You have no idea how much pressure I get as it is now, publishers telling Google to block individual threads because they contain copyrighted material even though the lyrics we have are from 1906 and someone did a cover of a public domain song and copyrighted the arrangement yet... The publishing company merely fills out a form online and the thread is blocked by Google. I get an email (this one just 2 days ago, ON the 16th even, and AFTER I fought it once already in March) that says:
I need to file an actual legal counterclaim with proof that I have the right to "publish" that material that initiates a legal proceeding which essentially invites the publishing company's lawyers to start digging around the site. The last step of the Google process warns (in bold and red no less):
My personal info goes right to the person who complained but I still don't know who they are. This happens about 30 times per year, 4 times I've been in court. I mess with them sometimes just because I have nothing to lose, when they find out that I'm poor and host myself (no cloud or ISP to pressure) they usually quit fighting me. I'm a nut with an excellent philosophy education and way too much free-time. It's expensive to get into litigation with me. I make sure of it. And SOPA was introduced by democrats, by the way. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 19 Nov 11 - 11:23 PM I shit you not, it was a few years ago around this time of season that I got a letter from Character Arts, LLC on behalf of The Rudolph Company, L.P. reminding me that the song AND story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is not public domain even though it, as they said, had become Christmas folklore. I was to cease and desist allowing my users to publicly discuss Rudolph... during Christmas time. But I looked at the other side of the court order and it didn't say nothin' so... |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 20 Nov 11 - 12:11 AM so we can mention Rudolph on 19 Nov, but not 19 Dec? sandra in sydney, australia |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: katlaughing Date: 20 Nov 11 - 12:18 AM Fuckers! Thanks for the banner, Max, and the examples. Just one note: it was a dem in the senate, but a gop-er in the house, so no one party..still fuckers,imo. There's a good piece about it HERE. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 20 Nov 11 - 01:34 AM Here's how that one resolved. I sent them one letter saying something about "prying [something] from my cold dead hands." They sent another letter, certified, with fancy seals and signed by what seemed like 37 lawyers and notaries and referencing me DEFENDANT, and making these (as if trying to help me) strong recommendations that I hire council. I ignored that for a while, then I got a phone call from a law firm asking who my council was for the case (number apparently pending). Now they were saying Rudolph was one of MANY violations involving their clients and we were to remove all songs that their client, Character Arts LLC, represented. So, I asked them for a list. They said it was my responsibility to provide THEM a list of their songs that are being talked about on my site. I agreed to disagree by saying something like "have fun looking through 75,000 threads" and I believe it ended with "go fuck yourself... hello? ...hello?" Then I sent a letter c/o the CFO with a copy of my bank statements with the account balances and told them to hold it next to their bill from their law firm that month... ...never heard from them again. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Max Date: 20 Nov 11 - 01:40 AM If Xerox Parc could have just done that the Digitrad would still be on their servers and mudcat would still be a blues site. I think they had more than $17.02 it their checking account though. If I were a lawyer I'd be such a dick. |
Subject: stop censorship? From: stallion Date: 20 Nov 11 - 02:30 AM Why am I getting this block message overwriting the Mudcat logo at the top of the page? I am on my Android phone and not a pc |
Subject: RE: stop censorship? From: GUEST Date: 20 Nov 11 - 02:39 AM Try looking at the existing thread It'a only 4 messages down... |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: stallion Date: 20 Nov 11 - 02:44 AM Now I understand . Got a bit panicy thought I had down loaded veal on my phone |
Subject: RE: stop censorship? From: stallion Date: 20 Nov 11 - 02:48 AM Got it ogre thought I had done something wrong |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bob the Postman Date: 20 Nov 11 - 03:17 AM Intellectual property is cultural theft. You're my hero, Max. Karmic law #2:19 states that you become your enemy. The bad news is that the US is turning into China. I sure hope China turns into the new Home Of The Free. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Richard Bridge Date: 20 Nov 11 - 06:26 AM Some censorship is both necessary and desirable. Indeed the US state wrongly (in my view) permits some things to be said that would rightly be restrainable and in some cases criminal in most other countries and also wrongly restricts the law of libel. The UK law of libel is too generous in some respects and too restrictive in others, and the US refusal to enforce UK defamation awards in relation to things done in the UK to claimants in the UK is a shocking rejection of what lawyers call "the comity of nations" (particularly when compared to the terms the US likes to ram into its extradition treaties although these relate to criminal rather than civil law). Some laws of intellectual property are desirable, but perhaps more in the USA than anywhere else the tendency has been for the monopolies or other protections afforded by intellectual property have tended to grow to excess. The USA has tried to export some of these excesses to other jurisdictions - a case in point being the criminisation of the removal of copy protection even if the copy protection needs to be removed to exercise rights that are entrenched in copyright law to back up or decompile computer programs. The Sherlock Holmes estate are great proponents of trade-mark style protection (based on "secondary meaning") for characters delineated in literary works that are out copyright, and the pre-emptive effect of copyright expiry needs to be clearer. The examples Max gives above about discussion of Rudolf are likely (I am guessing, not having seen the correspondence) to be founded not so much in copyright but on a very greedy interpretation of character protection, under US common-law trademark and/or statutory trade-mark laws. The USA has however a broader general "fair use" copyright exemption (including "parody") from copyright protection than many other countries, and some examples of arguments put by "anti-censorship" campaigners fail to recognise this and also fail to recognise the breadth of the US view of "transformative use". A number of the arguments I have heard or seen that might appear to be focussed on the recent Bill seem inaccurately to conflate the two. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Dave the Gnome Date: 20 Nov 11 - 06:48 AM I realy am torn here. I fully agree with the sentiments of free speech and an ability to say stay anonymous if required. On the other hand, having been victim to some of the more extreme tactics of certain people who shall be nameless, I can see a case for a better way to handle these things. If that involves some censorship and the giving up of some anonimity then so be it. The big question is where do we draw the line. I certainly would not consider myself qualified to be the architect of that one! DtG |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,Howard Jones Date: 20 Nov 11 - 07:23 AM I agree with Dave. There's a very difficult balance to be found between protecting legitimate rights and maintaining rights to free speech. One of the negative effects of the internet is to create an environment where people seem to think it's acceptable to take things without paying for them, and to say or write things without the need for justification or evidence. This is now seen as normal behaviour - a recent TV ad here for a respectable internet provider showed a family using their broadband, finishing with one of them downloading music and instantly sharing it with friends. People feel free to make comments on Twitter which would see them in court if printed in a newspaper. Whilst some sort of control over this is perhaps needed, it seems almost impossible to find a way of doing this which doesn't do more damage than it prevents. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,Jon Date: 20 Nov 11 - 07:55 AM Whilst some sort of control over this is perhaps needed, it seems almost impossible to find a way of doing this which doesn't do more damage than it prevents. I don't think there is any Internet control method that wouldn't risk or actually do more damage than it prevents. I don't know what the solution is though. I just wish that the media companies didn't have people so addicted with their must watch/must listen to in the first place... |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 20 Nov 11 - 08:01 AM ...people so addicted with their must watch / must listen to... Oh, you mean like Mudcat? :-p |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,Jon Date: 20 Nov 11 - 08:09 AM Not at all, Bonnie. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 20 Nov 11 - 08:13 AM (that was a joke...) |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: alex s Date: 20 Nov 11 - 08:26 AM Get your bloody banner off my screen |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: Richard Bridge Date: 20 Nov 11 - 09:20 AM I feel that anonymity rather than a blessing is the curse of the internet. If the typical things were done by post rather than online they would be called "poison-pen-letters". It seems to me first that in general providers of internet services (which is wider than ISPs) should be required to take reasonable steps to identify and store identities of uploaders, and to reveal those details to individuals (note I did not say corporations) aggrieved and to emanations of the state - apart from states without civil rights (and for a first approximation that would be any state not fully subscribing to the ECHR. I am debating whether the US's court system and constitutional rights outweighs the extraordinary and flagrant breaches of human rights in the name of or by the US government, and the way things are going about the UK I am open to persuasion that the UK does not properly implement human rights either. Second is the issue of how far (a) intellectual property rights and rights to reputations or privacy should go and (b) the extent to which breaches of rights should be capable of attracting the criminal law. I'd probably abolish the law of blasphemy altogether. Most IP rights have now gone too far. Life +70 is too long for copyright (but formats should be protected although they are not). Fair use needs clarifying but there is no need to exempt sampling, collection societies have standard licence packages that cover artists using sampling and incidental use covers a range of things. There should be a wider private learning exemption to cover for example the words of songs that one intends to learn for personal use - the "rightsowner" gets his cut out of the performing right. I am on balance probably against protection for typographical arrangements. I am probably against the statutory recording licence. However collection societies need to behave properly and many do not. Certainly the US and probably the UK need to control the abuse of copyright in arrangements in ways that unreasonably impact use of works in which copyright has expired. Some trade mark protections need cutting down (including US "dilution" theory) and the right for example to advertise that you repair or sell spare parts for (say "Citroen") needs cutting down. Design right repair and replacement exemptions need bolstering. I think registered designs should vanish altogether. Plant variety rights have become overmighty and are abused. Software should not be patentable, and there should be much much tighter control on pharmaceutical and medical patents. US control of international treaty bodies that govern IP law is excessive. IMHO only substantial intentional commercial breach of IP rights should be criminal, but the burden of proof both of infringement and intent should be to the criminal standard. One place the US got it right and the UK have an epic fail is on online gaming. All gaming and gambling (apart from small prize lotteries for registered charities) should be illegal - it's simply another type of fraud. State lotteries, apart from being mostly in the hands of companies connected to organised crime are hidden taxes on stupidity. |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: pdq Date: 20 Nov 11 - 10:07 AM SOPA is the House version of this legislation. The Senate version is called Protect-IP and was itroduced by Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, |
Subject: RE: Tech: STOP CENSORSHIP From: GUEST,Hookey Wole Date: 20 Nov 11 - 12:19 PM It's been at least a day.. has it stopped yet ? |
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