Libervis Newswire

p2pnet news | RIAA News:- “Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and their RIAA like to accuse their file sharing victims of being ‘massive’ online distributors of copyrighted music,” p2pnet posted late last month,going on:

“Now they’re levelling the same charge at Project Playlist which, among other things, offers an embeddable music player.”

But CEO and founder Jeremy Riney believes he’ll prevail and will, “eventually license music from the big four record companies,” says CNET News.

“There is no money in shutting down companies,” it has Riney saying.

Er, don’t go to the bank on that. Ask Morpheus, BearShare, LimeWire ….

However, Riney has something none of the aforementioned companies had, or have —- an RIAA heavy on their side.

Actually that could potentially be two RIAA heavies. Because Riney has retained Jay Berman, who used to run Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) , as well as their IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry).

These days, Berman operates a lobbying-cum-fixit outfit —- with another ex-RIAA boss, Hilary Rosen.

Together, they boast of their “internationally recognized expertise in entertainment industry intellectual property, media technology, digital music, trade, anti-piracy and public policy”.

And CNET observes the labels, “appear to be using litigation as a way to soften up tech companies at the negotiating table,” adding:

“Riney says now he must wait to see how the music industry plays its hand. The labels shouldn’t wait too long.

“The advertising-supported Project Playlist, according to Riney, is profitable.”

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p2pnet - RIAA sues Project Playlist, April 29, 2008
CNET News - Former RIAA chief advising Project Playlist, May 8, 2008

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Ex-RIAA vs current RIAA

CC Australia announces:

Registration is now officially open for the Creative Commons ‘Building an Australasian Commons’ Conference. The conference will be held on Tuesday 24^th June 2008 from 8.30am – 5pm at the State Library of Queensland, South Brisbane, and is proudly supported by Creative Commons Australia, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, and the State Library of Queensland.

It provides an opportunity for those interested in the free internet to come together to exchange ideas, information and inspiration. It brings together experts from Australasia to discuss the latest developments and implementations of Creative Commons in the region. It aims to be an open forum where anyone can voice their thoughts on issues relating to furthering the commons worldwide.

Attendance is free and open to all. To register, please download this form and return via email to CC Australia. The conference will be followed on the day at 6pm by the second CCau ccSalon, a showcase of Creative Commons music, art, film and text from Australia and the region.

p2pnet news | P2P:- “Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing promises to be the paradigm with mindshare sufficient to push a number of interesting distributed computing technologies from the shadows into the spotlight,” stated Todd Sundsted, chief architect, PointFire back in 2001.

“Unless you’ve been asleep at the wheel for the last nine months, you’ve heard of peer-to-peer (or P2P) computing,” he said.

But instead of seeing P2P for what it should and could have been, an important component for a new business model to mark their entry into the 21st digital century, the major record labels, initially, soon followed by the big Hollywood movie studios, reeled back in abject terror, striking out at anyone and anything not tied directly to them who showed the least sign of trying to turn P2P into a business based on worldwide networks of computers both sharing and competing with each other.

When p2pnet first went online, it was supported by P2P file sharing companies Limewire, Bearshare, Blubster and Morpheus, in no particular order. Warez P2P came along a little later and the five paid the rent, in effect.

Today, thanks entirely to the RIAA’s efforts, only Blubster remains and, “With an ‘assimilation agenda’ that only the Borg would be proud of, the RIAA / IFPI and their puppeteers have almost completed the takeover of all the major P2P players, and just need one final filesharing cornerpiece to complete the home-run,” says FileShareFreak in RIAA: Three Down, Limewire to Go, going on >>>

Batting .750 with the new Bearshare, iMesh and the most recent takeover (webjacking) of Shareaza.com; there’s but just one lone P2P juggernaut remaining - Limewire. We suspect that there, too, will come a day when filesharers will rightfully have to avoid the Limewire domain - probably sooner than later. The empirical RIAA will use it’s normal modus operandi to acquire Limewire, much in the same surrepticious way they snagged Shareaza less than three months ago.

Actually, as we said earlier, Pablo Soto’s Blubster (and Piolet) are still very much alive (and continuing to help keep p2pnet online), but that apart, the point is well made and as the post says:

“With an ‘assimilation agenda’ that only the Borg would be proud of, the RIAA / IFPI and their puppeteers have almost completed the takeover of all the major P2P players, and just need one final filesharing cornerpiece to complete the home-run. Batting .750 with the new Bearshare, iMesh and the most recent takeover (webjacking) of Shareaza.com; there’s but just one lone P2P juggernaut remaining - Limewire. We suspect that there, too, will come a day when filesharers will rightfully have to avoid the Limewire domain - probably sooner than later. The empirical RIAA will use it’s normal modus operandi to acquire Limewire, much in the same surrepticious way they snagged Shareaza less than three months ago.”

FileShareFreak continues >>>

RIAA + Shareaza = The Proof

There is no *definitive proof* that the IFPI and/or RIAA is involved in the latest Shareaza scandal - at least no paper-trail has yet been brought to fruition (c’mon TorrentFreak - if anyone can find it, it’s you!). However, the evidence lies within the facts that iMesh, BearShare and the new Shareaza v4 are all the same P2P client. We already know the RIAA had a heavy-hand in flogging iMesh and BearShare into submission, and in turn conjured up a whole new proprietary P2P software solution as a pay service. How is it possible that this rogue company called Discordia Ltd. - who now owns shareaza.com - got hold of the same proprietary client used by the RIAA? Remember folks, that iMesh & BearShare are not open-source projects. This was no coincidence.

Knowing full well that defeating P2P is futile, perhaps the RIAA methodology is to gobble up as many of these P2P trophies as they possibly can. The philosophy is akin to laying out a spiderweb in the hopes to catch whatever passes your way - the “flies” being unwary seekers of file sharing programs. In an effort to thwart illegal file sharing by branding many well-known P2P programs as “legit” and, of course, pay-to-use, this undoubtedly catches at least some hapless passers-by. It’s a simple lesson in playing the percentages - exactly the same as when they send out those deplorable “Pre-Lawsuit” letters to college kids - some will bite; others will not.

This “dragnet” approach must work to some degree. Take the Shareaza example - since the takeover on Dec. 19/07, Shareaza.com traffic has plummeted, but perhaps not to the extent of what we’d expect (or hope) to see. Statistics show that they rebounded quite nicely since that fateful S-Day one week before Christmas (although latest trends show they’re on a slippery slope). The stats from three major web traffic analyzers (compete.com, quantcast.com and Alexa.com) all show the same metrics. Notice the decline in page views, traffic and overall rank, spanning across the last three months:

Another way to interpret the data is to look at trending since Dec. 19/2007. Clearly they rebounded for the first month, but traffic has been sliding ever since. People are catching on.

So, what’s the reason behind this sudden interest (but recent decline) since the webjacking of Dec. 19th? There are a few reasons, actually:

1. —- People were upgrading their existing older versions of Shareaza, and being redirected to the bogus domain. At the time, all older versions would have seen a message similar to the one shown below: (NOTE: this has since been fixed in the latest version of Shareaza, available at the true official website - http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/). This is now beginning to wane as more and more people came to their senses and downloaded the proper version. P2P filesharers are a fickle bunch - take away their free P2P program and slip in a new “pay” program, and most (if not all) won’t be one bit happy about it.

2. —- For the first month or so, major software hosting websites such as download.com, tucows.com, afterdawn.com, etc. were offering the newer ShareazaV4.exe version (which is the scam “version” of Shareaza). We’re happy to report that they’ve all switched back to the official version of Shareaza - v2.3.1.0. This explains the dropoff in traffic numbers to www.shareaza.com in recent times - nobody is linking to that bad file anymore since the scam has been publicly exposed. A “Google search” for Shareazav4.exe turns up very few results.

3. —- The “scam” Shareaza website still generates a large number of HITS in a search engine. If you do a search for “Shareaza” in Google, the ’scam’ site is the first result shown. Without a doubt, they still develop a lot of traffic from unwary visitors who don’t know any better, and this will continue to occur. Again, it’s a percentage game. It’s for this exact same reason why the RIAA acquired the domain names for iMesh and BearShare - people remember a familiar name, type it into a search engine and voila! they’ve fallen into the trap. They would like nothing better than to “own” Limewire.com as well.

RIAA + Legal P2P File Sharing = Dual Profits

Two things happen when the RIAA muscles in and pistol-whips a P2P file sharing program into submission through threats, lawsuits and takeovers:

—- First; they immediately convert it into a monetizing P2P program. Now, instead of users downloading music for free, they’re either having to pay for music (using the same software), or switch P2P programs. This is hardly successful, and received with less than favorable reviews. Why it doesn’t work: Existing older versions of the same software are still able to access the P2P network for free. Two well-known examples are BearShare v5.2.5 and Shareaza v2.3.1.0 that still exist and are completely free. BearShare v5.2.5 doesn’t even have a website anymore, yet remains a very popular choice among filesharers - it’s hosted exclusively by software websites like tucows.com and download.com (this is what keeps it alive).

—- Second; when they take an “illegal” file sharing program off the market, more users will be forced to start purchasing CDs again. (At least in theory, this is supposed to be their happy ending). Why it doesn’t work: Users just end up switching to a different P2P program to get the files for free. We’ve seen this time and time again - they shut down Napster, everyone flocks to KaZaA. Shut down KaZaA, everyone goes to Limewire (just to name a few). If they manage to shut down Limewire, that’s when low-level filesharers are going to have some problems. Many inexperienced P2P users are loyal to Limewire exclusively, for lack of knowing any other methods available. So owning the Limewire Trophy is important to the RIAA.

RIAA vs. Limewire - The Ongoing SagaThe case of the RIAA vs Limewire (officially known as Arista vs Lime Wire) is far from over. The latest news is that they’re headed back to court on March 31/08, as described in this latest court document.

Expert reports shall be provided by March 31, 2008; rebuttal reports shall be provided by April 30th, 2008; and expert depositions shall be completed by May 31, 2008.

Our Final Thoughts

With the ever-impending takeover of Limewire (both in program and domain), the RIAA stands to make a tidy profit. www.download.com reports over 138 million downloads for Limewire, and more than one-third of all PCs worldwide now have LimeWire installed. Thus there’s bound to be a profit margin due to increased CD sales and online music revenue bolstered through a monetized version of the same software.

However, Average-Joe filesharer is much wiser than he once was, and has had to learn to adapt to changing P2P times. The RIAA has single-handedly taken down Napster, Morpheus, Grokster, KaZaA, eDonkey, iMesh, WinMX, I2Hub, BearShare and now finally it’s Shareaza’s turn. And if you can see into our crystal ball, Limewire will also fall prey.

Limewire’s assimilation into the RIAA Borg won’t make a lick of difference to the P2P community. There will be a new heavyweight to connect to exact same P2P network (Gnutella) that rolls in and fills the vacancy. The RIAA will be back at square one again, just as it’s been at in the past, many times before.

P2P will survive. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Note - interesting stuff in the works: stay tuned.]

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RIAA 'assimilation agenda'

p2pnet news | Freedom:- Is the Net “sputtering”? And is the reason its “runaway success”.

Both questions questions are posed by Jonathan Zittrain, professor of internet governance and regulation at Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, and co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

With the unwitting help of its users, “the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation —- and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control,” he says in his new book, The future of the Internet, and how to stop it.

“Tethered appliances” such as iPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos, “represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners,” he says.

They’ve already been used in, “remarkable but little-known ways,” he goes on, citing car GPS systems re-configured at the demand of law enforcement to, “eavesdrop on the occupants at all times,” and digital video recorders, “ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away”.

Web 2.0 platforms such as Google mash-ups and Facebook are “rightly touted,” but their applications can be, “similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source,” says Zittrain, continuing, “As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet —- its ‘generativity,’ or innovative character —- is at risk.

“The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true ‘netizens’.”

Here’s a taste >>>

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to an eager audience crammed into San Francisco’s Moscone Center.1 A beautiful and brilliantly engineered device, the iPhone blended three products into one: an iPod, with the highest-quality screen Apple had ever produced; a phone, with cleverly integrated functionality, such as voicemail that came wrapped as separately accessible messages; and a device to access the Internet, with a smart and elegant browser, and with built-in map, weather, stock, and e-mail capabilities. It was a technical and design triumph for Jobs, bringing the company into a market with an extraordinary potential for growth, and pushing the industry to a new level of competition in ways to connect us to each other and to the Web.

This was not the first time Steve Jobs had launched a revolution. Thirty years earlier, at the First West Coast Computer Faire in nearly the same spot, the twenty-one-year-old Jobs, wearing his first suit, exhibited the Apple II personal computer to great buzz amidst “10,000 walking, talking computer freaks.”2 The Apple II was a machine for hobbyists who did not want to fuss with soldering irons: all the ingredients for a functioning PC were provided in a convenient molded plastic case.

It looked clunky, yet it could be at home on someone’s desk. Instead of puzzling over bits of hardware or typing up punch cards to feed into someone else’s mainframe, Apple owners faced only the hurdle of a cryptic blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the screen: the PC awaited instructions. But the hurdle was not high. Some owners were inspired to program the machines themselves, but true beginners simply could load up software written and then shared or sold by their more skilled or inspired counterparts. The Apple II was a blank slate, a bold departure from previous technology that had been developed and marketed to perform specific tasks from the first day of its sale to the last day of its use.

The Apple II quickly became popular. And when programmer and entrepreneur Dan Bricklin introduced the first killer application for the Apple II in 1979 —- VisiCalc, the world’s first spreadsheet program —- sales of the ungainly but very cool machine took off dramatically.3 An Apple running VisiCalc helped to convince a skeptical world that there was a place for the PC at everyone’s desk and hence a market to build many, and to build them very fast.

Though these two inventions —- iPhone and Apple II —- were launched by the same man, the revolutions that they inaugurated are radically different. For the technology that each inaugurated is radically different. The Apple II was quintessentially generative technology. It was a platform. It invited people to tinker with it. Hobbyists wrote programs. Businesses began to plan on selling software. Jobs (and Apple) had no clue how the machine would be used. They had their hunches, but, fortunately for them, nothing constrained the PC to the hunches of the founders. Apple did not even know that VisiCalc was on the market when it noticed sales of the Apple II skyrocketing. The Apple II was designed for surprises —- some very good (VisiCalc), and some not so good (the inevitable and frequent computer crashes).

The iPhone is the opposite. It is sterile. Rather than a platform that invites innovation, the iPhone comes preprogrammed. You are not allowed to add programs to the all-in-one device that Steve Jobs sells you. Its functionality is locked in, though Apple can change it through remote updates. Indeed, to those who managed to tinker with the code to enable the iPhone to support more or different applications, Apple threatened (and then delivered on the threat) to transform the iPhone into an iBrick. The machine was not to be generative beyond the innovations that Apple (and its exclusive carrier, AT&T) wanted. Whereas the world would innovate for the Apple II, only Apple would innovate for the iPhone. (A promised software development kit may allow others to program the iPhone with Apple’s permission.)

Jobs was not shy about these restrictions baked into the iPhone. As he said at its launch:

We define everything that is on the phone. … You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.

No doubt, for a significant number of us, Jobs was exactly right. For in the thirty years between the first flashing cursor on the Apple II and the gorgeous iconized touch menu of the iPhone, we have grown weary not with the unexpected cool stuff that the generative PC had produced, but instead with the unexpected very uncool stuff that came along with it. Viruses, spam, identity theft, crashes: all of these were the consequences of a certain freedom built into the generative PC. As these problems grow worse, for many the promise of security is enough reason to give up that freedom.

* * *

In the arc from the Apple II to the iPhone, we learn something important about where the Internet has been, and something more important about where it is going. The PC revolution was launched with PCs that invited innovation by others. So too with the Internet. Both were generative: they were designed to accept any contribution that followed a basic set of rules (either coded for a particular operating system, or respecting the protocols of the Internet). Both overwhelmed their respective proprietary, non-generative competitors, such as the makers of stand-alone word processors and proprietary online services like CompuServe and AOL. But the future unfolding right now is very different from this past. The future is not one of generative PCs attached to a generative network. It is instead one of sterile appliances tethered to a network of control.

These appliances take the innovations already created by Internet users and package them neatly and compellingly, which is good —- but only if the Internet and PC can remain sufficiently central in the digital ecosystem to compete with locked-down appliances and facilitate the next round of innovations. The balance between the two spheres is precarious, and it is slipping toward the safer appliance. For example, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console is a powerful computer, but, unlike Microsoft’s Windows operating system for PCs, it does not allow just anyone to write software that can run on it. Bill Gates sees the Xbox as at the center of the future digital ecosystem, rather than at its periphery:

“It is a general purpose computer. . . . [W]e wouldn’t have done it if it was just a gaming device. We wouldn’t have gotten into the category at all. It was about strategically being in the living room. . . . [T]his is not some big secret. Sony says the same things.”

It is not easy to imagine the PC going extinct, and taking with it the possibility of allowing outside code to run —- code that is the original source of so much of what we find useful about the Internet. But along with the rise of information appliances that package those useful activities without readily allowing new ones, there is the increasing lockdown of the PC itself. PCs may not be

competing with information appliances so much as they are becoming them.

The trend is starting in schools, libraries, cyber cafés, and offices, where the users of PCs are not their owners. The owners’ interests in maintaining stable computing environments are naturally aligned with technologies that tame the wildness of the Internet and PC, at the expense of valuable activities their users might otherwise discover.

The need for stability is growing. Today’s viruses and spyware are not merely annoyances to be ignored as one might tune out loud conversations at nearby tables in a restaurant. They will not be fixed by some new round of patches to bug-filled PC operating systems, or by abandoning now-ubiquitous Windows for Mac. Rather, they pose a fundamental dilemma: as long as people control

the code that runs on their machines, they can make mistakes and be tricked into running dangerous code. As more people use PCs and make them more accessible to the outside world through broadband, the value of corrupting these users’ decisions is increasing. That value is derived from stealing people’s attention, PC processing cycles, network bandwidth, or online preferences.And the fact that a Web page can be and often is rendered on the fly by drawing upon hundreds of different sources scattered across the Net —- a page may pull in content from its owner, advertisements from a syndicate, and links from various other feeds —- means that bad code can infect huge swaths of the Web in a heartbeat.

If security problems worsen and fear spreads, rank-and-file users will not be far behind in preferring some form of lockdown —- and regulators will speed the process along. In turn, that lockdown opens the door to new forms of regulatory surveillance and control. We have some hints of what that can look like.

Enterprising law enforcement officers have been able to eavesdrop on occupants of motor vehicles equipped with the latest travel assistance systems by producing secret warrants and flicking a distant switch. They can turn a standard mobile phone into a roving microphone —- whether or not it is being used for a call. As these opportunities arise in places under the rule of law —- where some might welcome them —- they also arise within technology-embracing authoritarian states, because the technology is exported.

A lockdown on PCs and a corresponding rise of tethered appliances will eliminate what today we take for granted: a world where mainstream technology can be influenced, even revolutionized, out of left field. Stopping this future depends on some wisely developed and implemented locks, along with new technologies and a community ethos that secures the keys to those locks among groups with shared norms and a sense of public purpose, rather than in the hands of a single gatekeeping entity, whether public or private.

The iPhone is a product of both fashion and fear. It boasts an undeniably attractive aesthetic, and it bottles some of the best innovations from the PC and Internet in a stable, controlled form. The PC and Internet were the engines of those innovations, and if they can be saved, they will offer more. As time passes, the brand names on each side will change. But the core battle will remain. It will be fought through information appliances and Web 2.0 platforms like today’s Facebook apps and Google Maps mash-ups. These are not just products but also services, watched and updated according to the constant dictates of their makers and those who can pressure them.

“In this book I take up the question of what is likely to come next and what we should do about it,” Zittrain states.

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Jonathan Zittrain - The future of the Internet, and how to stop it, 2008

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iPhones, Xboxes: threats to the Net

p2pnet news | Freedom:- Yesterday, CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) chairman and president Tom Copeland forecast the Liberals were getting ready to make their position on Net neutrality clear, and it seems the process may already have been started.

Julianna Yau blogs on April 2, she sent a letter to her MP, Andrew Telegdi (right), on Net Neutrality.

Here it is >>>

Honourable Andrew Telegdi:

I am deeply concerned about Bell Canada’s recent announcement that it will make its practice of throttling official starting April 7.

Canada does not have strict enforceable net neutrality legislation and so there is very little structure in place to prevent the big ISPs from discriminating by speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

I am outraged that Canada does not have a policy to protect my ability to communicate and access information freely on the Internet and urge you to take action on this matter immediately.

Sincerely,

Julianna Yau

And here’s Telegdi’sa response, just received >>>

Dear Julianna Yau,

Thank you for your email regarding net neutrality. The issues you have raised are both valid and timely.

The internet is currently unregulated in Canada. Given the fluid and evolutionary nature of the internet, it is extremely difficult to develop effective measures to protect both consumer and internet provider. With that being said, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), is mandated to regulate the internet. Last year, the CRTC announced that it will be holding hearings concerning internet regulations by 2009.

In 2006, the Conservative government advised the CRTC that it should adopt a more hands-off approach and let market forces determine the telecommunications landscape as much as possible. This approach does not afford proper recognition to the rights of Canadian internet users, and has resulted in the problems we are beginning to see now in terms of internet providers’ practice of throttling internet connections.

I have forwarded your email to the Hon. Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry, so that your concerns can be properly addressed.

Thank you again for your correspondence.

Sincerely,

Katherine Preiss
Member’s Assistant
Hon. Andrew Telegdi P.C., M.P.
Kitchener-Waterloo

Now you know.

Stay tuned.

(Thanks, YKW)

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Net neutrality - NDP really gets traffic throttling issue: CAIP, May 8, 2008
Julianna Yau - My MP Responds to C-10 Net Neutrality, May 6, 2008

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Liberal's Telegdi on net neutrality

p2pnet news | Freedom:- The biggies are scrambling to try to come up with ways to make sure their social network businesses stay profitable and viable.

Facebook is revamping its profiles and now profile information, pictures and videos on MySpace will be made “openly available” to user accounts on Yahoo, ebay, Photobucket and Twitter, says PC Pro.

“The move is part of the site’s Data Availability project, which is open to all interested parties, including rival social networks such as Facebook,” it says. It, “allow users to control what information is shared with other sites, and manage profile information for various networks from MySpace”.

The story notes MySpace is trying to revive flagging traffic after visits in April fell by over 15% compared to the previous year.

Yahoo and MySpace both back Google’s OpenSocial project whose stated raison d’être is to find a way for multi-platform applications to run on various sites, and the three have created a “non-profit organisation” slated to go online on July 1, says PC Pro, adding:

“However, Facebook has declined to join the group.”

As people set up multiple profiles on different sites, they’re, “demanding the ability to carry their data, content and connections from one site to another, so that they don’t have to re-enter all that information again,” says PC World, going on:

“The functionality will become available at some point in the coming weeks to both users and third-party sites. At the core will be privacy and security controls so that users retain tight control over what data they share and in which site.”

However, it’s difficult to see how that’ll be reliably achieved given that ultimately, all these data are in the hands of the corporations running the sites.

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revamping its profiles - Facebook profile redesign, May 8, 2008
PC Pro - MySpace opens profiles up to Yahoo, May 9, 2008

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MySpace on-the-go user data

p2pnet news | Freedom:- Click here and be there! It’s in your best interests  —- unless you want your Net controlled by a couple of big media, content-providing Telcos!

The TekSavvy forum on dslreports.com was born to keep people informed about the rally on Parliament Hill slated for May 27, and it’s been the center piece for the voices of Canadian ISP customers as the debate rages in in the face of Rogers’ web-injections (and I thought only hackers interfered with you packets and performed web-injections ) and Bell’s total monopolization of what applications internet users on its own service and that on 3rd party ISP’s can use without restrictions and interference.

Bell was kind enough to inform third-party ISPs and their customers (only after the fact) that, with their forced application throttling, the “majority of your end users will experience an increased level of satisfaction”.

The experience level has reached such a high satisfaction level that it’s led to  hundreds of letters in support of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers (CAIP) being filed with the CRTC, which “presented a variety of arguments, not the least of which is Net Neutrality, and asked that the Commission order Bell Canada to cease and desist their current traffic shaping practices”.

In fact this “increased level of satisfaction” Bell Canada forced on its clients, including its wholesaler ISPs, has now persuaded hundreds of thousands of “satisfied” people to rally in support of Canadian Net Neutrality.

To show their support, they’ll be demonstrating on Parliament Hill on May 27!

The official Net Neutrality Parliament Hill Rally website sports such names as NDP digital culture spokesman Charlie Angus, CIPPIC, Campaign for Democratic Media, National Union of Public and General Employees, National Capital Freenet, and Mauril Béllanger, Liberal MP.

I wonder if the organizers will get the Quebec Consumers Union to attend this event?

May 27 —- be there or be throttled’.

Ottawa Gal - p2pnet

[Ottawa Gal is a long-time p2pnet reader and comment poster who’d rather remain anonymous. She says she works in the University, likes her cat, reality TV, and Doctor McDreamy. Her favourite web sites are the Michael Geist blog and p2pnet.net. “Privacy on the net is also important to me,” she says. “I need a tinfoil hat ;)” She’s also the mother of, “two darling little girls who tore down my ceiling fan thinking it would be fun to hang from it.” So she advises parents to, “never have an armchair around from which little ones can reach fans”. (No one was hurt ) ]

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May 27 -- be there OR BE THROTTLED

Huh? Isn’t video on the web ubiquitous already?

Sort of. Video on the web today is seriously lacking when it comes to things like addressability (e.g., a standard way to link to a specific time segment or frame region), standard codecs, and metadata. All of these are really important if video (and other media types) are to fully take advantage of the web’s architecture — among other things making video more amenable to reuse — legally enabled by most CC licenses, but not exactly facilitated by today’s video-on-the-web technologies.

So Creative Commons is a supporter of the W3C’s Video on the Web Activity Proposal, appropriately subtitled as such:

Video on the Web is not just what you see — it’s what you can search, discover, create, distribute and manage.

There are actually several efforts included in the proposed activity. Not all will bear fruit; others may take years. However, upgrading video and other media to first class on the Web is important, so we wish these efforts the best, as well as (open in nature) efforts outside of the W3C.

A workshop report linked from the proposal makes for excellent background reading.