Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> 	I don't like what the ISP's may be planning, but I can't find a good
> legal or constitutional argument against it

Look under "common carrier". If you start filtering, then you're responsible 
for what you pass on. If you decide to filter bittorrent because it might be 
copyright violation, you become responsible for that violation. If you 
filter content but don't block child porn,  you become responsible for 
distributing child porn if you miss any. This is how the phone company 
avoids being convicted of conspiracy when two drug dealers make a deal over 
the phone.

Freedom from such responsibility (in the US at least) comes with some rules, 
like being required to offer everyone the same service for the same price, 
and the responsibility *not* to filter things.

> 	It's like if I own a store with a bulletin board. I have the right to
> dictate what goes on there and what doesn't. I could arbitrarily say
> that you can post anything you want to sell on it, but no postings
> regarding private tutoring are allowed.

Yes. But then if someone posts up naked children, you are *required* to take 
it down, on the grounds that you're policing the content to start with.

This is how google gets away with letting you search illegal content.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> 	In the short term only. If some ISP is getting hurt by huge bandwidth
> requirements (iplayer, youtube, Bittorrent, etc), in the long run they
> may save more money by implementing filtering.

I've seen studies showing it's cheaper to add more bandwidth than filtering.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> You just haven't
> established that there is something legally wrong with that.

  So why are the directives being considered, again?

  If the practice is completely legal and allowed, what do we need the
directives for? Aren't they kind of obsolete?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:22:02 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> If they're privately held companies, they can do whatever they like.
> 
>   That's certainly not true in the general case. There are tons of laws
> governing what private companies can and cannot do, even with their own
> property. Monopoly law is just one example.

Sure, I was exaggerating for effect; they can, however, report the news 
that they feel is important, and they can do so in a biased way if they 
so desire.

There was an interesting proposal here recently to allow the newspapers 
to choose to take federal funding.  One of the caveats of the proposal 
was that they could then no longer endorse political candidates.

Jim

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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:59:13 +0200, scott wrote:

> That will only happen if all ISPs work together to fix the prices, which
> is strictly illegal under EU law.

Price fixing is illegal in the US as well.  But just because something's 
illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:22:02 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> If they're privately held companies, they can do whatever they like.
> > 
> >   That's certainly not true in the general case. There are tons of laws
> > governing what private companies can and cannot do, even with their own
> > property. Monopoly law is just one example.

> Sure, I was exaggerating for effect; they can, however, report the news 
> that they feel is important, and they can do so in a biased way if they 
> so desire.

  Well, there are also journalism ethics for unbiased reporting...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:10:25 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:22:02 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >> If they're privately held companies, they can do whatever they like.
>> > 
>> >   That's certainly not true in the general case. There are tons of
>> >   laws
>> > governing what private companies can and cannot do, even with their
>> > own property. Monopoly law is just one example.
> 
>> Sure, I was exaggerating for effect; they can, however, report the news
>> that they feel is important, and they can do so in a biased way if they
>> so desire.
> 
>   Well, there are also journalism ethics for unbiased reporting...

Sure, but they often aren't followed or the articles are intended to be 
editorials.  The problem is that a lot of news media (not just print 
news) is *all* heavily editorialized.

This is my biggest beef with the news media in general - it tends to be 
overly editorialized, to the point of the writer/producer telling people 
what to think and why to think it.

This type of editorialization in mainstream media tends to lead to a 
populace that doesn't and often can't think for itself.  Which I think is 
a bad place for a society to be.

Jim

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:49ede9ef$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:

> > In this context, information is a commodity, the very thing being sold.
They
> > can chose what to sell and what not to sell, or how to bundle them and
what
> > pricing levels they use.

> The argument is not against people charging for the information. The
> argument is the ISP specifically blocking you from buying information
> without paying the ISP extra money to deliver it above and beyond what
> you're already paying for the ISP.
>
> It's Sony making a TV that won't play NetFlix DVDs unless you stick a
> quarter in the slot when you put a NetFLix DVD in the DVD player. You
> already paid NetFlix, the studios, etc, and you already bought the TV from
> SOny. Why is it a good thing to pay more?

If you don't like it, don't buy the Sony TV. Buy another brand. In a free
market, people speak with their wallets. Making it unlawful for Sony to
manufacture such a TV is not the answer, it is censorship.

> What happens when the ISP starts filtering out access to any web site
> critical of the ISP, or which reveals their lobbying information?

Newspapers already have editors in place to filter out unwanted content. So
do broadcasters.

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:49ede41c@news.povray.org...
> somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> > "scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote in message
news:49ed8c94@news.povray.org...

> > > 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?

> > Agreed. As a sidenote, some piracy advocates claim that there's some
basic
> > human right that guarantees them access to every single bit of
infomation
> > out there. I call that the "entitlement mentality". There was a point
not
> > too long ago where creators were respected and it was a priviledge to be
> > able to purchase and enjoy the fruits of their hard work and investment.
> > Nowadays, creators and providers are regarded as greedy scumbags if they
> > don't give you the heaven and the earth for free.

>   Yeah, there's absolutely no difference between:

There is quite a bit of difference, but there are some similarities.

> 1) The claim that people should be given unhindered access to all free
> information

Nothing is free. Bits and bytes cost money to push around.

>  in the internet.
>
> 2) The claim that people should be given free access to all copyrighted
> commercial material.
>
>   These two things are the exact one and the same, and advocating one
> advocates the other.

You know I didn't say that, but I am sure you can recognize the similar
mentality.

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somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> If you don't like it, don't buy the Sony TV. Buy another brand. In a free
> market, people speak with their wallets. Making it unlawful for Sony to
> manufacture such a TV is not the answer, it is censorship.

  Apple has the right to do whatever they want with their own iPods,
don't they? After all, they fully own all possible rights to everything
related to iPods, and Apple is a privately owned company. Nobody has the
right to go and tell Apple what they can or cannot do with their own
products, right?

  For example, if Apple wants to implement DRM in the music they sell
online so that they will only play on Apple's own iPods, they have the
full right to do so, don't they? They own the rights to sell the music,
and they own the rights to their iPods. What rights does anyone else have
to go and tell Apple that they can't do that? After all, if you don't like
it, you can go and buy some other mp3 player.

  Well, the European Union disagreed with this view and told Apple to
lift their DRM from iPod.

  So it's not always that simple, you see?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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