Net Freedom

I've been catching up on some news today, and something that i've been seeing is a imminent battle brewing between User Rights and Copyrights.

As many of you know the RIAA is leading the charge in this one. Though their tactics have changed from suing everyone from 11 year olds to senior citzens to now going straight to the governments of the world asking for their unwavering compliance to the will of RIAA. Some governments such as the French and the New Zealand government have bowed down and said "We Will Follow". All are going with the 3 strikes tactic which is targeting "bandwith hogs" starting first with a written warning up to disconnection on the 3rd time caught downloading illegal files.

But there is a bright spot between all of this:


Norway: I think this is pure brilliance in terms of User Freedom.
"The new rules lay out three guidelines. First, Internet users must be given complete and accurate information about the service they are buying, including capacity and quality. Second, users are allowed to send and receive content of their choice, use services and applications of their choice. and connect any hardware and software that doesn't harm the network. Finally, the connection cannot be discriminated against based on application, service, content, sender, or receiver. "
Taken from: arstechnica.com ( Ars Technica) for full story go here:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/norway-gets-voluntary-net-neutrality.ars

Australia: A Political About Face
"The current government tried to make clear, however, that the report was commissioned by the previous government, and it hoped to move forward with the plan despite the numerous issues identified in the report. That may prove difficult now, however, with Xenophon withdrawing his support for the filtering system. As noted by the Sydney Morning Herald, Xenophon has now joined the Greens and the opposition in blocking whatever legislation may be required to get the plan going.

"[T]he more evidence that's come out, the more questions there are on this," Xenophon told the newspaper. "I'm very skeptical that the Government is going down the best path on this. I commend their intentions but I think the implementation of this could almost be counter-productive and I think the money could be better spent."

In addition to Xenophon's decision to stop supporting the filtering legislation, an independent poll of Australian citizens conducted by Galaxy showed that only five percent of Australians actually want ISPs to be responsible for controlling access to content, and only four percent want the government to hold the reins to such a system."

Taken from: arstechnica.com ( Ars Technica) for full story go here:
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/02/key-backers-change-of-heart-endangers-aussie-net-filtering.ars

Canada: Equal to all.
"In its filing, Pelmorex makes clear that traffic management has a place, but such management needs to be "open and transparent and applied equitably." With wireless network growing in importance and ubiquity, the company says that it's no longer possible to artificially divide wireless and wireline ISPs."
Taken from: arstechnica.com ( Ars Technica) for full story go here:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/canadian-websites-wireless-network-neutrality-needed-abuses-abound.ars

With that said I can say within the next year we are going to see a "Tech Revolution" in the world, and by my count the US is falling behind in the User Rights fight manily because the RIAA knows how to talk to the government officals to make it sound like the internet is a territory of anarchy. For we all know that the congressmen and senaters don't know the first thing about how the internet works. All they here is "They are stealing and it needs to stop." They don't see the whole picture.

Hope you enjoyed and please tell me what you think.