| Canadian Election: lets talk politics | Posted by IH on Oct. 10
Political debates are almost as hopeless as religious ones, so I've avoided them here in the past. But reading about the
Conservatives' platform on copyright legislations,
I'm compelled to speak up. To get my bias clear first: I'm Christian and I've been voting Conservatives for the last 2 elections. But unless they substantially change their platform, I will not vote for them this election and I urge Canadians reading this not to. Here's why.
From the
Conservatives' platform:
| Quote: |
| Dion (Liberals) wants to impose a massive carbon tax that will drive up the cost of everything and hurt families. |
That is a lame and empty attack on a good idea. Living in BC,
we've already implemented the carbon tax
and our economy is doing just fine. Harper either doesn't understand what "revenue neutral" means or is just being conservative for the sake of being Conservative. I drive, and I'd gladly pay more on gas so we have greater incentives for the marketability of viable, mainstream
electric cars
sooner than later. Same goes for more non-carbon power plants. Strike 1 for the Conservatives.
On same sex marriage, I've voted Conservatives mainly for their opposition to it. But Harper
seems to be dropping opposition for that along with abortion.
Strike 2.
And for the most important and relevant issue, copyright,
the Conservatives show no intent to revise or drop bill C-61, and supports ACTA
which is an
even
worse
idea.
They shown
no support for Geist's copyright pledge,
and have continued to show no interest in soliciting feedback from the Canadian public on C-61, a most important legislation since the internet regarding copyright and how we share and consume information. This is about the freedom of speech in the digital age. Big strike out for the Conservatives.
Right now, it seems
the Conservatives are leading the polls.
But I know about 3.7 million Canadians visited isoHunt last month, which is more than 10% of Canada's population. So I ask all who read this to tell your Canadian friends to
not be a slacker
and vote on Oct. 14. I don't care which party you vote, just
vote any party but the Conservatives.
I'll update on any other P2P sites and media who pledge the same against them.
Here are some more links to more information on election issues:
-
Election Notebook
blog
-
Liberals,
Conservatives,
NDP
on twitter
- MPs growing support for
Geist's copyright pledge
(all non-Conservatives)
- Book author
Atwood blasts Harper for his treatment of the arts
For the US election, discuss
here instead,
this thread is for Canadian election only. But then there isn't much to talk about is there, McCain is a worse idiot than Bush and changes his position every other month. Obama all the way. 
UPDATE:
Interesting
video message from Jack Layton
of the NDP to
p2pnet.
Quote: "Social networking sites, torrent sites, youtube... the truly interactive websites are... fundamental to making a democracy work." What a nice quote we can use to
argue our case!
He also touched on support for
net neutrality.
Torrentfreak
has a write-up.
Also on issue of the neutrality of this site and me "campaigning": raising awareness on copyright and cultural issues, which are facing more important changes than most other elections, that's what I'm really after. We are not endorsing any party. You don't have to agree with any of my politics and your freedom of speech is very much the issue I'm raising. This site, its treatment of links it indexes and comments posted on it has and will always remain neutral.
|
| "To promote the Progress of useful Arts" | Posted by IH on Oct. 7
Today I read about some exciting news, on
more independent artists in the USA standing up against traditional labels.
Joining our
Canadian leads,
I believe the music industry is at a point of no return in an age where producing music on computers is now independently affordable, and distributing music has far great reach than was ever possible before the internet. As I
wrote before,
the record labels can either find some common ground in marketing and selling to the internet generation, or be left behind. Artists will continue to make music, it's what they do, and we will always have a demand for new and great music.
To any interested artists, join the
FAC!
Tell them we sent you
For more independent content, check out a
video production
by guys in Austria which features various indie artists. Here's what they have to say:
| Quote: |
Hello world. This is the first BitTorrent release of 'They Shoot Music - Don't They?'. We shoot music videos featuring artists we like at places we like. On the one hand having a strong cosmopolitic agenda, on the other hand being in love with the city we live in, we combine both: we glance across the borders and observe the microcosmos of a breathing city in the center of Europe. We don't care about the glamorous illusions and technical perfection that coat the typical music video productions these days. 'They Shoot Music - Don't They' is all about sharing those pure and intensive moments that make you feel what the essence of culture really is about.
Asking the folks at isohunt.com (thanks!) who made this spotlight possible had a specific reason. As one can imagine we produce and promote our videos with the approval of the artists. If you want to see it that way then we are a promotion tool of the music industry (we don't get paid though ^^). Every artist involved gave us a clearance for this Isohunt.com release. We strongly believe that there is a peaceful way of sharing and that technology such as search engines shouldn't be doomed for enabling people to share digital content. But ... as we in Austria like to say: There will be a lot of water running down the danube before a proper way is discovered.
Even if you can get free media quite easily these days please remember that the majority of artists are having a hard time paying their bills. We work together with quite a few of them and see most of them struggling. So if you like their work take an effort and spend a few bucks on their media, drop by at their shows and give them constructive feedback somewhere in the social network jungle. They deserve it. |
Their debut video is
posted here on isoHunt.
Check it out, and expect more from
thshmu
in the future.
Another interesting development for video distribution is the
legal dilemma with Moore's Slacker Uprising.
Interesting and real problems many producers are facing. Since Moore's production company don't allow him from distributing his film outside N. America, I won't link to torrents which were originally posted on
Moore's site itself,
and I forbid you from searching for them here if you are not in N. America. The lawyers said so.
PS. title of this post is a paraphrase of part of the
US constitution,
summing up the essential purpose of IP in one sentence. The timelessness and elegance of language used in this document is admirable, and we forget the reason for copyright in the first place and how far it's been twisted.
UPDATE:
thshmu
noted that their videos can be directly previewed on http://theyshootmusic.com/ and his
posted torrent
is an archive of 54 of his videos rather than just one debut video.
|
| isoHunt sues CRIA on legality of search engines | Posted by IH on Sep. 8
This is one of the hardest decisions I had to make, to sue one of the most powerful lobby and corporate conglomerates in Canada. But for sake of continuing operation and development of isoHunt, this is something we must do. I don't pretend to speak on behalf of all BitTorrent websites or users, but I speak to point out that with a lawsuit from CRIA hanging over our heads, we fight not just for our survival as an internet company of search engines and social networks, but also for other websites, from BitTorrent sites to larger search engines like Google, on which most of us have come to depend. The legal ramifications concerning search engines and linking here are far reaching.
For a better understanding of what brought us here, this is a brief history of our dealing with the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association).
In October 2006, CRIA's anti-piracy department sent us a notice and takedown on certain songs. They included correct identification by URL's of .torrent links to files allegedly infringing their copyright. We took them down.
There was no further communication, until May 2008 when Mr. Sookman, counsel representing CRIA, issued cease and desist letters to isoHunt.com and our sister sites (
Torrentbox.com
and
Podtropolis.com
), as well as to our upstream ISP. The letters all used similar language, that our websites serve no other purpose but to infringe CRIA's copyrighted music. They harassed our ISP with accusations of hosting a den of thieves (my paraphrase). We pointed them to our copyright policy ( http://isohunt.com/dmca-copyright.php ), and that we have cooperated in the past in identification and takedown of links they wanted removed. We asked them in subsequent letters to identify links to their copyrighted files as we had done in 2006. They ignored our offers, and cited there's no "safe harbor" for a service provider like us and our copyright policy doesn't mean anything to them in Canada.
Here lies some great ironies. We have had cooperation from various music companies and associations in other countries in issuing notice and takedowns for links to their respective infringed content, some of which are the same international companies that CRIA represents. Some of their copyright agents have made blunders in misidentifying links, like requesting takedown of links that look very much like porn, based on colorful vocabulary in their filenames, or at least we were pretty sure were not music files based on some of their file extensions. But we move on after rejecting such obviously erroneous requests. But CRIA's blatant ignorance of their very own past takedown practices which happened to be proper and correct just because they want to sue us, illustrates the importance of ISP safe harbor provisions in the new bill C-61 for the survival of whole classes of internet websites and search engines.
No wonder why a group of prominent Canadian artists and labels formed the CMCC, broke out of CRIA and told them, "not in our names" ( http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp/?p=231 ). This is why Canadians who care about music should support artists in the CMCC group, those who doesn't want to sue their fans, those who are trying to find ways for fans to share in our new world online that can fairly compensate their work, and those who actually make good music. At least I'm a fan of some on the CMCC's artists list.
Before you think I'm trying to rally a riot against copyright, I want to reiterate our stance that we do believe in Imaginary Property (IP) because imagination takes effort, and realizing them through music or videos or games takes more effort, time and money. Copyright laws need reform for the 21st century, and my hope as a Canadian is in a substantially improved C-61. I defer to Geist's blog ( http://www.michaelgeist.ca/ ) on pointing out what's wrong with C-61 in its current form. All Canadians who appreciates how copyright affects them should support reform for a more fairly balanced bill C-61. Geist's website has information on how Canadians can help reform C-61.
Now, before the critics say isoHunt.com is full of links to copyright infringing content and we should just pack up and leave. To which I'll summarize what our petition to the BC court is all about. isoHunt is a search engine of BitTorrent sites, and our sister sites are indices of direct user contributed .torrent links. None of the pieces of files exchanged over BitTorrent pass through our servers, they are exchanged over external P2P networks. We serve cached .torrent links to such files on P2P networks. Some of these files maybe copyright infringing, some aren't. But given the ridiculously long copyright terms in most countries of the world (which does differ) and that all creative media are copyrighted by default (in many countries), large majority of files exchanged on the internet would be copyrighted. That includes Linux ISO images and your videos of friends and family doing whacky things. The real question is are they infringing against the wishes of respective copyright owners. We make and run a great search engine here at isoHunt, but we unfortunately do not have the technology to mind read what are the wishes of all copyright owners, or who they are to begin with in association with the tens of millions of files on BitTorrent, to which we only indexes metadata links and not actual content files. Whatever copyright laws or safe harbor provisions provided in different countries, the only sensible and technically possible thing to do we've found is to take down links to allegedly infringing content only upon request and verification. This part of the US's DMCA is one which has much foresight and makes sense. (although not perfect obviously, it should add provisions for monetary punishment on erroneous notices as we receive plenty of ignorant or erroneous takedown requests and there isn't much recourse about them, but that's another topic)
The bottom line is we developed a search engine for BitTorrent protocols when it was still in its infancy, and even now it has not yet gained full mainstream use. We are on the cutting edge of emerging internet technologies, and I ask reasonable people of Canada and whoever else reading this to accept that it is not my wish for my websites and search engines to infringe rights of others. As all emerging technologies go, increasingly beneficial usage of BitTorrent will emerge with more widespread adoption by various parties. I'm referring to the US's Sony Betamax decision here; as the VCRs have been allowed to develop, enabling a new industry of videos playable at home, I plead that emerging technologies like BitTorrent and our web services be allowed that same chance to develop.
Attached are 2 documents we have filed at the BC court last Friday, one is our petition and the other my affidavit. The petition is more of an overview of facts, my affidavit is the supporting evidence. We petition the court preemptively for its guidance and clarification of our rights as an internet company, in hope that by laying out all the facts here early, we can make it easier for the court to cut to the heart of the legal issues. In some ways, this is a condensed summation of the core issues with our other
MPAA lawsuit
(which is still pending a decision on a Motion for Summary Judgment in the US).
Media inquiries can be mailed to media at isohunt.com. I understand that some news and comments have already been circulating online regarding this, hopefully I have cleared up some points.
UPDATE:
To all of you who have voluntarily donated towards our obviously increased legal expenses without me even asking for them, my sincere thanks and gratitude. It shows that users of BitTorrent and isoHunt sensibly understands that not all things are free, that we are not here to pick a fight with copyright owners, and how much you care about isoHunt. But whether you are able to donate or not, most importantly we can use your simple support. Especially to Canadians, that you spread the word in raising awareness of the issues at stake concerning your ability to search, and in what ways we as consumers can do with electronics and media we buy. Please support our undoubtedly long legal battle, and in
reforming bill C-61.
Here's a list of interesting discussions and stories regarding our case on other websites:
- http://torrentfreak.com/isohunt-sues-the-cria-to-legalize-bittorrent-sites-080905/
- http://digg.com/tech_news/isoHunt_Sues_the_CRIA_to_Legalize_BitTorrent_Sites_2
- http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/07/239245
- http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16945
---
Gary Fung, aka. IH
President, isoHunt Inc.
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| Happy (belated) Sysadmin day! | Posted by SecretSquirrel on Jul. 26
Yep, I completely missed it... http://www.sysadminday.com was yesterday... I was so busy having fun on mine that it just slipped past me. Well, to all the Systems Administrators that visit, happy late SAAD!
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