BitTorrent Shows You What The Internet Looks Like Without Net Neutrality; Suggests A Better Way

from the change-things-around dept

If you've been following the whole net neutrality fight for a while, the following graphic may be familiar to you -- showing what a potential "cable-ized" world the internet would become without strong protections for net neutrality: At some point, someone created a similar version, that was specific to AT&T: A little while ago, however, someone took the joke even further, and set up a website for a fake broadband provider, asking people to Join the Fastlane!, and it was pretty dead on in terms of what such a site might look like: I particularly like this bit: It's now come out that this campaign (along with some associated billboards) has been put together by BitTorrent Inc., not all that different than the company's billboard campaign against the NSA. Along with this, BitTorrent has put out a blog post explaining, in part, how we got here, but more importantly how we need to start thinking about a better way to handle internet traffic to avoid the kind of future described above.

The key issue: building a more decentralized internet:

Many smart researchers are already thinking about this problem. Broadly speaking, this re-imagined Internet is often called Content Centric Networking. The closest working example we have to a Content Centric Network today is BitTorrent. What if heavy bandwidth users, say, Netflix, for example, worked more like BitTorrent?

If they did, each stream — each piece of content — would have a unique address, and would be streamed peer-to-peer. That means that Netflix traffic would no longer be coming from one or two places that are easy to block. Instead, it would be coming from everywhere, all at once; from addresses that were not easily identified as Netflix addresses — from addresses all across the Internet.

To the ISP, they are simply zeroes and ones.

All equal.

There's obviously a lot more to this, but it's good to see more and more people realizing that one of the fundamental problems that got us here is the fact that so much of the internet has become centralized -- and, as such, can be easily targeted for discrimination. Making the internet much more decentralized is a big step in making it so that discrimination and breaking net neutrality aren't even on the table.

Filed Under: centralized, decentralized, discrimination, fast lane, innovation, net neutrality, open internet, spoof
Companies: bittorrent

Spoof Time Warner Cable Site And Video Asks Customers 'What Can We Do Worse?'

from the tough-question dept

Last week, a lot of people liked that video about what a TV commercial would be for an honest cable company (ah, if only truth in advertising laws really worked...). And, soon after that came out, a few people alerted us to a new "gripes site" called TWCCustomerService.com, claiming to be (you guessed it) Time Warner Cable Customer Service... but using the slogan "Enjoy Worse." They put up a video in which they pose as Time Warner Cable Customer Service employees walking the streets of New York asking people what they can do to make their service worse. The original video on YouTube has been taken down, but other copies are being uploaded in a bunch of places. The website itself has a list of helpful facts, such as:

We have a monopoly in parts of New York City and no incentive to provide customer service.

We will bill you for services you don’t have and fight you when you dispute the charges.

We will set up appointment times that force you to miss work then cancel at the last second.

We can record your phone call but you can’t record ours.

Even if you report a service outage you will still be charged.

If you call one of our customer service experts to disconnect your internet we will continue to charge you indefinitely until you return our modem. We will make no mention of this during our phone call.

We have one star on Yelp.

Our customer service people routinely "play dumb" during an outage and are rude to subscribers calling for service.

The latest American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Time Warner Cable the 8th worst in the country!

Clearly whoever put together the site is... well... not a happy customer. They also include a... um... "message" from TWC CEO Glenn Britt. As gripe sites go, these guys are definitely pushing it, but it's ridiculous to think that anyone viewing the site would actually think that it's an official TWC site (the guys on the street may be a different story...).

Filed Under: spoof, trademark, what can we do worse
Companies: time warner cable

Jeremy Piven Sends Cease & Desist To Stop Play From Mocking Him

from the is-your-ego-that-fragile? dept

I've been a fan of the actor Jeremy Piven for years, but apparently he's a bit quick on the legal trigger. His lawyers have sent a cease-and-desist letter to a playhouse that has been showing a mocking play called "The Piven Monologues." Apparently, Piven had pulled out of a planned gig on Broadway in a revival of David Mamet's excellent play "Speed the Plow" (a role that Piven would be great in, actually). Piven claimed he couldn't do it because of "mercury poisoning" from eating too much sushi -- an odd excuse to be sure. Mamet supposedly was heard to comment: "My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer," leading some playwrights to put together a quick play more or less mocking and parodying the whole situation. Piven's lawyers are claiming that it's defamatory, but it's difficult to see how anyone would take anything in such a play seriously, as it's obviously a spoof. But, in these days of aggressive litigation and people thinking they get to control every use of their own brand or name, is it any surprise that Piven would lawyer up?

Filed Under: defamation, jeremy piven, mocking, parody, plays, spoof

Spoof Elton John Diary Not Libelous

from the get-a-sense-of-humor dept

The UK has much stricter libel laws than in the US, but at least there are some reasonable limitations. Elton John has lost a libel case against the Guardian newspaper for publishing a spoof diary from John that mocked his White Tie and Tiara Ball fundraiser. The whole thing was clearly a spoof -- and it's a feature that the Guardian does on a regular basis. Yet, John still was apparently offended and felt that it was libelous. The judge, though, pointed out that no reasonable person would take the obviously fake diary entry as serious news. Who knew we now needed judges to tell people they need to get a better sense of humor.

Filed Under: elton john, libel, spoof, uk

De Beers About To Learn That The Streisand Effect Is Forever

from the let's-explain-how-this-works dept

It would appear that the lawyers at diamond conglomerate De Beers are unaware of the Streisand Effect. As you might have heard, a week after the US Presidential election, some prankster put out a spoofed version of a future New York Times. It got plenty of attention for a few days and then people moved on. Well, apparently not everyone. De Beers is upset that the online version of the spoof contained a fake De Beers ad. Rather than recognize that this was a spoof (ha ha) that everyone had pretty much forgotten about, the company had its lawyers send off a threat letter. However, rather than target the creators of the spoof, or even the hosting firm, De Beers threatened the registrar who handled the domain registration for the site, demanding that it take down the site or face a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Of course, as the EFF notes at the above link, intermediaries (third party service providers) are clearly well protected against liability for the actions of their users in the US. And, of course, there's the whole issue of parodies being protected from infringement suits. However, even more ridiculous is the fact that De Beers is now calling more attention to the ad. The spoof of the entire newspaper did get some attention, but that attention quickly waned, and it's unlikely that too many people paid attention to the spoof banner ad on a spoof website for the NY Times. I hadn't even heard about the ads. Almost all of the attention was on the spoof stories. Yet, now that De Beers is threatening to sue, a lot more folks are going to know about and see the ad. How is that possibly a smart move on the part of De Beers?

Filed Under: intermediary, registrars, spoof, streisand effect
Companies: de beers