Warp wrote:

>   If an ISP started censoring all websites related to a political party,
> should they be allowed to do that? What if all the ISPs started blocking
> all political parties except one? Should they be allowed to do that?
> 
>   No, they don't have the right to actively censor information which would
> otherwise be available.

Right now, I'm wondering about newspapers. I mean, they very selectively 
report only certain news stories. And some newspapers seem to definitely 
only report information that makes their favoured political party look 
good, or the opposition look bad. Now I'm curios to know whether this is 
actually legal.

(Of course, it's not the same thing as ISP censorship at all. Somebody 
has to *write* the news, after all. And it can be very difficult indeed 
to write in a way which is truly objective and unbaised. But some 
publishers don't even attempt to be objective. Is that legal?)

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scott wrote:
>>  Do you understand the concept of censorship?
> 
> Yes, but when it costs a company money to provide the information, IMO 
> the company should not be forced to provide everything in existence for 
> a fixed price.  That is not censorship, that is just business.  If an 
> ISP wants to charge more for bittorrent than http, or more to access BBC 
> iPlayer because it generates 10x the bandwidth, they should be allowed 
> to, and that has *nothing* to do with censorship.

...until ISPs start deciding to charge content producers in order to 
allow access to their content. Hell, ISPs are *already* trying to charge 
the BBC for access to iPlayer because it hurts their profits.

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>> Sure, it gives you lots of new choices:
>>
>> Of course, these are stupid, stupid choices, but hey, it'll allow ISPs 
>> to charge you way more money for exactly the same thing, which can 
>> only be good, right? (For the ISPs, that is.)
> 
> That will only happen if all ISPs work together to fix the prices, which 
> is strictly illegal under EU law.

Only if you can prove it.

Besides, ISPs have so far successfully convinced people that things like 
YouTube and iPlayer are "hogging" all the bandwidth. (Er, no, it's just 
that people are actually using *all* of what they've paid for, when your 
entire business model is based on the assumption that they won't do 
this, and now you're pissed about it.) They manage to make it sound like 
it's YouTube's "fault" that their networks can't cope - when really the 
problem is that they've sold more product than they physically have.

Given the above, how hard can it be to convince a court of law that it 
"really does" cost more to allow access to more websites?

> And even if it did happen, there 
> would be an irresistable opportunity for a new ISP to start up offering 
> cheaper access to everything, taking all the customers and making a huge 
> profit.
> 
>> Personally, I can see two ways for this to play out. If some ISPs 
>> continue to offer access to everything for a reasonable price while 
>> other ISPs try to stop you accessing things without paying extra fees, 
>> the unlimited ISPs will suddenly become rather popular, and the other 
>> ISPs will be forced to either close or start behaving sensibly again.
> 
> Exactly.

I want to believe this is what will happen, but... I have a sinking 
feeling that it won't be.

> As I said, there would then be an irresistable opportunity for some 
> company to make a shed-load of profit.
> 
> Being an ISP is not like, say, providing live coverage of a sporting 
> event, there is no restriction to how many companies can offer it.

True. But to provide access to "the Internet", you have to peer with 
somebody. If they start deciding they don't want you to access stuff 
without exhorbitant fees, you have a problem.

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On 21-4-2009 11:46, scott wrote:
>>> You are talking like there is some basic human right that you should 
>>> have access to every single website in existance?  Why on Earth 
>>> should that be the case?
>>
>> 1) because that is how the internet started and has been run for 
>> almost it's entire existence. "I'll pass on you packages because I 
>> know someone else will pass on mine if and only if everybody does that".
> 
> Sure, but that doesn't mean it's illegal not to.

I didn't mean to imply that. Merely that it was fundamental to the 
internet and that tampering with it may result in unwanted effects. 
Until now you can add a link between two existing networks and the 
internet will adept to that. What happens if you add a connection to 
your neighbour that has another ISP? Will that be illegal because you 
now have access to sites your ISP does not want you to see?

> 
>> We don't sell is valid, but I think Warp was more thinking along the 
>> lines of not selling and making sure nobody else can sell it.
> 
> But they are not doing that.  If the directive is passed through, there 
> is nothing to stop an ISP deciding to "sell" or pass-on every single 
> website - it's the individual ISP's choice.

That assumes a model where every ISP has access to all information and 
is free to make there own policy. Imagine a layered structure. Imagine 
that someone owns the point where the internet connects to the country. 
Imagine big companies buying shares in ISP companies.

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >  If an ISP started censoring all websites related to a political party,
> > should they be allowed to do that? What if all the ISPs started blocking
> > all political parties except one? Should they be allowed to do that?

> It wouldn't be very popular, but IMO it shouldn't be illegal.

  I suppose you are entitled to your opinion. However, I would at least
hope that that kind of behavior from the part of ISPs would be highly
illegal in most civilized countries.

>  An ISP is 
> just providing you a service for money, they should be legally allowed to 
> offer whatever service they want, whether they only give you access to 1 
> website, 1000, half, 99% or 100% of them.  The ISP business is open and 
> follows market demands, they will provide for whatever the customers want.

  Just because an ISP is providing a service for money does not mean they
can break the law.

  If an ISP started silently "offering" its clients a rootkit adware, that
would likely be highly illegal in most countries. This even if their
client contract specifically stated that the client allows the ISP to do
so. Even signed contracts do not overrule law.

  There's a limit of what a company can do, even if it's completely with
their own property.

> >  No, they don't have the right to actively censor information which would
> > otherwise be available.

> The point is it *wouldn't* otherwise be available, the ISP is providing you 
> a service which you are paying for, if you don't pay for it you don't get 
> access to the information at all.

  You are still nitpicking rather than discussing what I said.

>  How does your "human right for all 
> information" work with half the population who can't even afford a computer, 
> yet alone an internet connection?

  Is someone actively censoring information from them? Is someone actually
spending money to stop those people from getting the information?

  Maybe the word "active censorship" is incorrect, as I'm not a native
speaker. Can you suggest a better expression? (Because I'm certain you
really understand what I'm talking about.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:

> >   If an ISP started censoring all websites related to a political party,
> > should they be allowed to do that? What if all the ISPs started blocking
> > all political parties except one? Should they be allowed to do that?
> > 
> >   No, they don't have the right to actively censor information which would
> > otherwise be available.

> Right now, I'm wondering about newspapers. I mean, they very selectively 
> report only certain news stories. And some newspapers seem to definitely 
> only report information that makes their favoured political party look 
> good, or the opposition look bad. Now I'm curios to know whether this is 
> actually legal.

  I suppose there's a decisive line when offering information actually
costs money, vs. active censorship.

  If the newspaper would actively censor something which would otherwise
be available (if they did nothing), *that* would probably be highly
illegal.

  Of course biased newscasting is morally quite dubious and against
journalism ethics (which are actually real written texts in most
countries which, while not enforced by law, breaking them is frowned
upon, usually).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Right now, I'm wondering about newspapers. I mean, they very selectively 
>> report only certain news stories. And some newspapers seem to definitely 
>> only report information that makes their favoured political party look 
>> good, or the opposition look bad. Now I'm curios to know whether this is 
>> actually legal.
> 
>   I suppose there's a decisive line when offering information actually
> costs money, vs. active censorship.
> 
>   If the newspaper would actively censor something which would otherwise
> be available (if they did nothing), *that* would probably be highly
> illegal.

Indeed, if the newspaper did *nothing*, there would be no information 
available at all... And it would be perfectly impossible for them to 
offer *everything*. (And nobody would buy it anyway.)

>   Of course biased newscasting is morally quite dubious and against
> journalism ethics (which are actually real written texts in most
> countries which, while not enforced by law, breaking them is frowned
> upon, usually).

I bet somebody does it now and then to make a crok of money though...

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>  Just because an ISP is providing a service for money does not mean they
> can break the law.

I never said they could, my argument is that an ISP shouldn't be forced by 
law to provide access to the entire internet or nothing at all.  It should 
be able to decide what it wants to provide.

>  Maybe the word "active censorship" is incorrect, as I'm not a native
> speaker. Can you suggest a better expression? (Because I'm certain you
> really understand what I'm talking about.)

I think "active filtering" is better, because censorship to me (and the 
dictionary agrees) means only for political or moral reasons.  It seems 
likely to me that the "active filtering" could also be used to block 
torrents, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, or other high-bandwidth content (this would 
make more financial sense for the ISPs).

I suspect the ISPs really want to change their eg $10/month plan into two 
separate plans.  Where plan A is $5/month without access to (eg) any 
streaming video or torrents, and then a plan B that is $20/month and has 
access to everything.  That is a proven business model that is more 
profitable, and if they are prevented from doing that at the moment then I 
can see why they want it changed.

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >  Do you understand the concept of censorship?

> Yes, but when it costs a company money to provide the information, IMO the 
> company should not be forced to provide everything in existence for a fixed 
> price.

  In this particular case it would cost the company money to implement the
censorship. Letting all IP packets through without filtering costs them
nothing extra.

>  That is not censorship, that is just business.

  Also business has to obey the law.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> ...until ISPs start deciding to charge content producers in order to allow 
> access to their content. Hell, ISPs are *already* trying to charge the BBC 
> for access to iPlayer because it hurts their profits.

Sure, but that's a standard commercial matter to sort out, not legal.  If 
they wanted the ISP could block iPlayer and save the bandwidth, but there is 
no way they would do that because they would lose a load of customers. 
Basically the ISPs have no commercial leverage against the BBC, the same way 
as they can't tell YouTube to pay them money.

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