What's the issue? One of the cornerstone of Mike's tacit approval of piracy is that it is something that technology allows, so creators should suck it up and deal with it, an find ways to profit from it, rather than thinking about the losses that may occur.
Tracking is exactly the same thing. It's something that technology allows (even requires in the case of cell phones), so you should suck it up and deal with it, rather than losing sleep over what you can't avoid.
I think it's better to say that DL already has a huge store of cake, so the loss of a little cake here and there no longer bothers them.
As the other AC said they have been in a pretty profitable rut. The oldies tours are very profitable, with low expectations, low requirements such as shared staging, crews, and the like, and solid profits.
There is a point for a band like this that they can go out on a short, carefully planned tour, do 20 or 30 dates over a summer, and each member of the band walks away with a couple of million for the effort.
The band doesn't really care at this point about piracy. They are stuffed full of cake already and haven't a care.
"companies bulk harvesting data are essentially going through your pockets and then removing you name from the generated report of the contents and claim that is anonymous."
Colorful description aside, you miss the point. Technology allows it. Face it, technology can track you. The phone in your pocket is a beacon to your location. Facial recognition cameras can pinpoint your location and everything from your fastpass car transponder to your refillable public transit card is tracking your every move. Technology allows for it, and it's often an unavoidable trade off for the technology to even work.
The internet is no different in reality. Google and a large number of other companies are tracking you ever day. What makes this story sort of funny is that coming to Techdirt triggers over 40 tracking cookies from a half a dozen sources. Each page view sends you visit data (anonymous, natch) to soundcloud and others, who can track your interest in the sorts of things discussed here.
For reference, EFF.ORG sets a single cookie for their own use only. A visit to the Drudge Report triggers hundreds of cookies.
There hasn't been a level of tracking in "meatspace" because Technology hasn't supported it in the past. But the cell phone alone has clearly changed all that, and all those other things I mentioned before are all conspiring to tell the world where you have been and what you do.
Is the data anonymous? At each point, it is. Combined, perhaps less so. Can we really stop one company from using your data because combining a second or third data set might be the tipping point on your anonymous life? Do you not think it's already happened?
You already gave it up. You just don't realize it.
Let's look at things. Def Leppard has been stuck on the "rock oldies" type tours are pretty much in a rut. They changed that by (shock) actually releasing a new album in 2016. Previous to that, all of the touring had been on tours with other classic rock acts, and their short Vegas residency did nothing to take them away from that.
The new album didn't do amazing well, but since classic rock acts generally don't release a lot of new music, it got good airplay on classic rock and modern rock stations, and got the band a lot more exposure than doing another mouldy oldies tour would.
With a new album, they generally get access to the "current" market rather than those who remember their 0s heyday only. So they are exposed to a wider audience through radio airplay and such, as boom, a bigger, wider, and somewhat younger audience.
Piracy is an "effect", not a cause. People are buying and / or downloading the album because they are first exposed to it somewhere else. The download or the purchase isn't step 1.
Karl, if you follow an individual around during the day and note all the places they go when in public, you can draw the same conclusions.
I can randomly pick a person and, within a few days, tell you who their immediately family is, what they like to eat, where they work, and so on.
The internet is a public place. Even if you make the effort to hide yourself, the reality is that you are walking in public places. Like it or not, everything you do online has a certain public nature to it.
I think the under story on this one is that Alphabay was recently busted. The timing of this indictment seems to be pretty much in line with information that may have been gleaned from that site's transactions and postings.
As for the legality, I am pressed to find a solid legal use for malware that involved selling it on for profit. Like many criminal conspiracy cases, this one will get down to intent. If the "other guy" wasn't capable of writing the trojan himself, then the conspiracy is clear. Even a "writing for hire" situation is unlikely to excuse actively writing malware.
It's not a pretty case, no matter how you look at it!
Paul, I think President Trump is a moron studying hard to be an idiot, and failing. I don't hold him up as a shining example.
Ken on the other hand is held up here as being just this side of godly. Yet, rather than let this pass or just blocking the guy and getting on with life, he instead engaged in a twitter spat. Seeing that he is fairly well read and followed, it's not surprising that some of it got caught in the filters that exist exactly to stop this sort of thing.
I just though that Ken would be a little wiser than to get into an argument that has no positive outcomes.
"That's not even grammatically parsable, let alone informative. But, thanks for the response."
Let me say it more clearly. Lived there, done that, and sort of technically still do.
"Why do you seem to think that everyone involved in these messages will inevitably just stop if pressured?"
I don't think they stop with pressure. China is well known for sending people to "retraining" facilities to change their views. They have other ways of accomplishing things. People like Ai Wei Wei have talked about how their lives and those of their families are disrupted for decades. The system has way more patience than the people fighting it.
" Resistance movements throughout history have had non-violent action and printed material supporting those taking direct action."
The difference in places like China (and say North Korea) is that they relentlessly track down those spreading such information and make sure that it gets stopped.
That piece is a bit fluffy, but it gives you an idea of how solidly the information is suppressed, and also how maybe one more generation from now that it will effectively become nothing more than a lie put forward by the West to discredit China, or something along those lines.
China is also very wise. Unlike NK which has built up a whole big bundle of lies tied together with misinformation and an iron fist, China uses an interesting combination of tools to achieve much of the same without having to lie extensively. Except for certain gaps or bumps in the day to day, it really is as if nothing ever happened. It's been surgically removed and has left no obvious scarring. It's actually pretty amazing.
You are thinking about it wrong. If you want to build a revolution, you don't do it under the bright lights where the government sees you and stamps you out. Those who post online in China aren't really much more powerful than you average keyboard warrior.
""standing out in China is not a good thing (trust me, been there, done that)""
I have spent have been spending a bit of my life living in China.
" I dare say that the important thing here is to try and get ideas and information past the automated filters being used by Chinese authorities."
It's a game played by people who spend their lives trying to get around the rules and the laws put in place by their government. There is some official tolerance in many areas, but a few things such as what happened on that day not in May is not up for debate. Like many other things, the people do like to test the government and see how far they can push, just like animals testing the limits of their cages in a zoo. The reality, however, is that they are still caged.
Whatever gaps they find are just as likely traps built to catch the unwary. The people who really fight stuff like this aren't posting online, they aren't dumb enough to call attention to themselves and their friends.
I think that the judge in this case isn't wrong. While the police are law enforcement, they are not lawyers and they cannot be 100% sure of the law - it's why they are not judge and jury, right?
The nature of the warrant is pretty new, and it's not unusual for judges (and law enforcement for that matter) not to truly understand all of the ramifications of an internet based process.
The real error rests with the judge that issued the warrant. The judge should have known that an internet wide warrant would be beyond his jurisdiction and declined to issue it.
Law enforcement should have considered it as well. But in the end, it's up to the judge to decide if they have the power to issue it. The police should not suffer because a judge overstepped his bounds. The police operating in good faith to try to capitalize on the chance offered by having the site stay live, allowing them to discover so many pervs that really do need to face the law.
Now, the upside of all of this is that any time in the future someone considers a similar NIT, they will know that they need a much more wide ranging warrant to cover it all.
Here's the funny part. If you post in China in "martian" or use long winded prose to suggest a whole bunch of stuff without saying anything, you get added onto a list, and you are likely to find out that the neighborhood watch is watching you a little more and checking who you are talking to in real life.
China has one and only one set of "truth" to work from. Any variation makes you stand out, and standing out in China is not a good thing (trust me, been there, done that).
This is another Karl story that makes me laugh, because he clearly isn't in the know about Canadian media, broadcasters, and media ownership.
The CRTC is the Canadian equivilent of the FCC, at least in part. People are appointed to the CRTC for a 5 year mandate, and those people generally represent the various regions of Canada.
The tone for the CRTC was set when it was first created, the first chariman was Pierre Juneau, a media guy and political player (was a Federal cabinet member), who after the CRTC went on the run the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for seven years.
The chairman (and woman one time) have all been either well connection media people or political flacks of one flavor or another - sometimes both. The one woman chair, as an example, has gone on to be hair of Quebecor, the single biggest media company in French Canada.
Each of these people have, over the years, rubber stamped their way into history, approving merger after merger, sale after sale, and consolidation after consolidation. The two biggest wireless companies (Rogers and Bell) are also the two biggest ISPs, the biggest cable company and the biggest sat TV company respectively, and both companies own cable TV channels, broadcast networks, and huge swaths of the Canadian radio and TV universe.
The CRTC has been effectively "captured" since it's creation. A new chairperson isn't going to change anything, the rubber stamps are pre-inked.
I have to laugh at those (like the anonymous coward above) blaming the entertainment business for this. Snap out of it son, you are missing the real story.
it's not about copyright or anything like that, it's all about government control and the simple fact that Russia is not a democracy and the people aren't truly free. What the Russian government fears the most isn't pirated software, but rather people thinking they can operate outside of their control.
Dictatorships (even "elected" ones) need to be in control to remain in power. They cannot allow an opposition to build up and perhaps threaten them. An internet completely hidden by VPN, which would allow subversives to meet and build up a resistance without the government knowing, is not acceptable.
It's not about entertainment. It's about controlling a country in perpetuating power.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
I am smart enough to know when you are trying to avoid saying "I was wrong" and instead are spending your time slagging me off personally.
"you're avoiding every point raised"
Let's see:
I've encounters twats like you on a regular basis
People like you aren't worth wasting time with
people who constant come here, personally attack both writers and other commenters
Hard to address your points when you are literally beating up on yourself.
However, one point i will directly address:
" was the confusion deliberate - as you are claiming - or did he agree to make some changes to reduce confusion while maintaining the parody? I'm not reading whatever 60 page document you want to link to, but I'll be happy to read any evidence you want to specifically reference (this is how honest debate works - "page 36 of the judgement shows...." is honest."
If you aren't willing to go read the document, I am not going to play Coles notes for you. To have a better understanding of the story, you should read the documents attached by the writer, as they are quite important. The answers to your questions are all in there, but you have to read more of it to understand how and why they go there. There is no single line that I can point to that answers your wide ranging question, as it has to do with the whole judgement and how it got there, and not a single hot quote that can satisfy you.
I will give you one to work from: " During cross-examination on one such complaint, the Defendant himself acknowledged that “clearly this customer is confused”. "
If you want to understand the ruling (and the rules and laws of Canada), you need to read it, at least at a cursory level. Canadian law is different from US law (parody requires actual comedy, "sucks" sites are not considered parody in Canadian law, apparently). Moreover, the defendant in the story repeatedly admits to his use of United's graphics, site design, and such. You cannot get the full understanding by hitting 1 or 2 pages, you really need to real through the whole thing. The judge does an excellent job in explaining (with bilingual citations, I should point out) as to how the judgement was reached.
Contrary to the way the story is written here on Techdirt, the judgement is sound and reasonable as per Canadian law. The law of Canada does not give quite as much latitude as is given in the US for defamatory speech guised as a "sucks" site.
Read Paul. Learn something. Oh, and the personal attacks are almost all yours. Perhaps you need to fix yourself first!
Re: Re: The wording here doesn't reflect technical reality
The issue of course is that without the actual information, they have no idea. A lack of specific knowledge as to who was accessing the site supports the idea of Good Faith.
For that matter, let's just say that the warrant process in regards to computer services is still a bit in the grey. To be honest, they seem to have touched all the bases, the site was in the state, the agency was operating in the state, etc. Not clear what they exactly are suppose to do beyond what is there already.
I think it is. Muni broadband because an obligation, no matter what the actual costs or liability that comes from it. How much fun do you think it would be if your muni provider was named in an RIAA lawsuit? Would the taxpayers be on the hook for those costs too?
A model of re-sold infrastructure would appear to be a much better game plan, and one that would encourage all sorts of competition. Remember, if they multi-strand it for each house, then you can have more than one service (ISP, cable, whatever the future brings). That is sure to build healthy competition.
Almost every country faces the same problem. Companies want to wire up where there is enough density to pay the bills, and unless you have enough of those places, they never seem to have the money to do the rest to any decent level - unless absolutely mandated by government to do so.
Muni broadband sounds nice, but it's a taxpayer burden forever, you don't just have to set it up, you have to keep it working. I think municipal governments would be best paying to (a) put fiber or similar into every home in there area, brought back to "huts" where multiple companies could operate, and (b) pay to bring in decent internet service from afar to the center of town, where they can sell connections to the companies who wish to be part of (a). Then GET OUT OF THE WAY and let competition actually exist, and only be responsible to fix broken lines and nothing else. Lease the lines out to the ISPs who want to use it for a decent price, don't overcharge on peering to your decent internet connection, and let the ISPs actually operate things.
Having only one ISP (the muni) isn't in the end any better than having a lazy monopoly. Encouraging competition is really key in all of this (and they can avoid many of the "pole" problems by trench installing fiber in the municipal land strip next to roads, which private companies would have a harder time doing.
On the post: Once Again With Feeling: 'Anonymized' Data Isn't Really Anonymous
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ..and?
Tracking is exactly the same thing. It's something that technology allows (even requires in the case of cell phones), so you should suck it up and deal with it, rather than losing sleep over what you can't avoid.
On the post: Def Leppard Claims Music Piracy Is Bringing Younger Audiences To Its Concerts
Re: Re: Re:
As the other AC said they have been in a pretty profitable rut. The oldies tours are very profitable, with low expectations, low requirements such as shared staging, crews, and the like, and solid profits.
There is a point for a band like this that they can go out on a short, carefully planned tour, do 20 or 30 dates over a summer, and each member of the band walks away with a couple of million for the effort.
The band doesn't really care at this point about piracy. They are stuffed full of cake already and haven't a care.
On the post: Once Again With Feeling: 'Anonymized' Data Isn't Really Anonymous
Re: Re: Re: Re: ..and?
Usually technology is the friend of the Techdirt readers. When the tables are turned, it's fun to watch the song change.
On the post: Once Again With Feeling: 'Anonymized' Data Isn't Really Anonymous
Re: Re: ..and?
Colorful description aside, you miss the point. Technology allows it. Face it, technology can track you. The phone in your pocket is a beacon to your location. Facial recognition cameras can pinpoint your location and everything from your fastpass car transponder to your refillable public transit card is tracking your every move. Technology allows for it, and it's often an unavoidable trade off for the technology to even work.
The internet is no different in reality. Google and a large number of other companies are tracking you ever day. What makes this story sort of funny is that coming to Techdirt triggers over 40 tracking cookies from a half a dozen sources. Each page view sends you visit data (anonymous, natch) to soundcloud and others, who can track your interest in the sorts of things discussed here.
For reference, EFF.ORG sets a single cookie for their own use only. A visit to the Drudge Report triggers hundreds of cookies.
There hasn't been a level of tracking in "meatspace" because Technology hasn't supported it in the past. But the cell phone alone has clearly changed all that, and all those other things I mentioned before are all conspiring to tell the world where you have been and what you do.
Is the data anonymous? At each point, it is. Combined, perhaps less so. Can we really stop one company from using your data because combining a second or third data set might be the tipping point on your anonymous life? Do you not think it's already happened?
You already gave it up. You just don't realize it.
On the post: Def Leppard Claims Music Piracy Is Bringing Younger Audiences To Its Concerts
Re:
Let's look at things. Def Leppard has been stuck on the "rock oldies" type tours are pretty much in a rut. They changed that by (shock) actually releasing a new album in 2016. Previous to that, all of the touring had been on tours with other classic rock acts, and their short Vegas residency did nothing to take them away from that.
The new album didn't do amazing well, but since classic rock acts generally don't release a lot of new music, it got good airplay on classic rock and modern rock stations, and got the band a lot more exposure than doing another mouldy oldies tour would.
With a new album, they generally get access to the "current" market rather than those who remember their 0s heyday only. So they are exposed to a wider audience through radio airplay and such, as boom, a bigger, wider, and somewhat younger audience.
Piracy is an "effect", not a cause. People are buying and / or downloading the album because they are first exposed to it somewhere else. The download or the purchase isn't step 1.
On the post: Once Again With Feeling: 'Anonymized' Data Isn't Really Anonymous
..and?
I can randomly pick a person and, within a few days, tell you who their immediately family is, what they like to eat, where they work, and so on.
The internet is a public place. Even if you make the effort to hide yourself, the reality is that you are walking in public places. Like it or not, everything you do online has a certain public nature to it.
On the post: Guy Who Accidentally Stopped WannaCry Ransomware Detained After Defcon
Alphabay
As for the legality, I am pressed to find a solid legal use for malware that involved selling it on for profit. Like many criminal conspiracy cases, this one will get down to intent. If the "other guy" wasn't capable of writing the trojan himself, then the conspiracy is clear. Even a "writing for hire" situation is unlikely to excuse actively writing malware.
It's not a pretty case, no matter how you look at it!
On the post: Twitter Suspends Popehat For Writing About Violent Threats He Received From Another Twitter User
Re: Re:
Ken on the other hand is held up here as being just this side of godly. Yet, rather than let this pass or just blocking the guy and getting on with life, he instead engaged in a twitter spat. Seeing that he is fairly well read and followed, it's not surprising that some of it got caught in the filters that exist exactly to stop this sort of thing.
I just though that Ken would be a little wiser than to get into an argument that has no positive outcomes.
On the post: Twitter Suspends Popehat For Writing About Violent Threats He Received From Another Twitter User
On the post: How May 35th Freedoms Have Blossomed With China's Martian Language
Re: Re: Re: Re: Effect and Cause
Let me say it more clearly. Lived there, done that, and sort of technically still do.
"Why do you seem to think that everyone involved in these messages will inevitably just stop if pressured?"
I don't think they stop with pressure. China is well known for sending people to "retraining" facilities to change their views. They have other ways of accomplishing things. People like Ai Wei Wei have talked about how their lives and those of their families are disrupted for decades. The system has way more patience than the people fighting it.
" Resistance movements throughout history have had non-violent action and printed material supporting those taking direct action."
The difference in places like China (and say North Korea) is that they relentlessly track down those spreading such information and make sure that it gets stopped.
https://newrepublic.com/article/117983/tiananmen-square-massacre-how-chinas-millennials-discuss-it-n ow
That piece is a bit fluffy, but it gives you an idea of how solidly the information is suppressed, and also how maybe one more generation from now that it will effectively become nothing more than a lie put forward by the West to discredit China, or something along those lines.
China is also very wise. Unlike NK which has built up a whole big bundle of lies tied together with misinformation and an iron fist, China uses an interesting combination of tools to achieve much of the same without having to lie extensively. Except for certain gaps or bumps in the day to day, it really is as if nothing ever happened. It's been surgically removed and has left no obvious scarring. It's actually pretty amazing.
On the post: How May 35th Freedoms Have Blossomed With China's Martian Language
Re: Re: Re: Re: Effect and Cause
On the post: How May 35th Freedoms Have Blossomed With China's Martian Language
Re: Re: Effect and Cause
I have spent have been spending a bit of my life living in China.
" I dare say that the important thing here is to try and get ideas and information past the automated filters being used by Chinese authorities."
It's a game played by people who spend their lives trying to get around the rules and the laws put in place by their government. There is some official tolerance in many areas, but a few things such as what happened on that day not in May is not up for debate. Like many other things, the people do like to test the government and see how far they can push, just like animals testing the limits of their cages in a zoo. The reality, however, is that they are still caged.
Whatever gaps they find are just as likely traps built to catch the unwary. The people who really fight stuff like this aren't posting online, they aren't dumb enough to call attention to themselves and their friends.
On the post: Another Appeals Court Denies Suppression Of Evidence Obtained With An Invalid FBI Warrant
The nature of the warrant is pretty new, and it's not unusual for judges (and law enforcement for that matter) not to truly understand all of the ramifications of an internet based process.
The real error rests with the judge that issued the warrant. The judge should have known that an internet wide warrant would be beyond his jurisdiction and declined to issue it.
Law enforcement should have considered it as well. But in the end, it's up to the judge to decide if they have the power to issue it. The police should not suffer because a judge overstepped his bounds. The police operating in good faith to try to capitalize on the chance offered by having the site stay live, allowing them to discover so many pervs that really do need to face the law.
Now, the upside of all of this is that any time in the future someone considers a similar NIT, they will know that they need a much more wide ranging warrant to cover it all.
On the post: How May 35th Freedoms Have Blossomed With China's Martian Language
Effect and Cause
China has one and only one set of "truth" to work from. Any variation makes you stand out, and standing out in China is not a good thing (trust me, been there, done that).
On the post: Canada Appoints Lobbyist To Top Telecom Regulator, Follows US Down The Regulatory Capture Rabbit Hole
The CRTC is the Canadian equivilent of the FCC, at least in part. People are appointed to the CRTC for a 5 year mandate, and those people generally represent the various regions of Canada.
The tone for the CRTC was set when it was first created, the first chariman was Pierre Juneau, a media guy and political player (was a Federal cabinet member), who after the CRTC went on the run the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for seven years.
The chairman (and woman one time) have all been either well connection media people or political flacks of one flavor or another - sometimes both. The one woman chair, as an example, has gone on to be hair of Quebecor, the single biggest media company in French Canada.
Each of these people have, over the years, rubber stamped their way into history, approving merger after merger, sale after sale, and consolidation after consolidation. The two biggest wireless companies (Rogers and Bell) are also the two biggest ISPs, the biggest cable company and the biggest sat TV company respectively, and both companies own cable TV channels, broadcast networks, and huge swaths of the Canadian radio and TV universe.
The CRTC has been effectively "captured" since it's creation. A new chairperson isn't going to change anything, the rubber stamps are pre-inked.
On the post: Russia Has Banned VPNs
Odd
it's not about copyright or anything like that, it's all about government control and the simple fact that Russia is not a democracy and the people aren't truly free. What the Russian government fears the most isn't pirated software, but rather people thinking they can operate outside of their control.
Dictatorships (even "elected" ones) need to be in control to remain in power. They cannot allow an opposition to build up and perhaps threaten them. An internet completely hidden by VPN, which would allow subversives to meet and build up a resistance without the government knowing, is not acceptable.
It's not about entertainment. It's about controlling a country in perpetuating power.
On the post: Terrible Ruling Allows Untied To Keep Its Domain But Not Its Soul
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ... assuming everyone is an idiot perhaps
"you're avoiding every point raised"
Let's see:
I've encounters twats like you on a regular basis
People like you aren't worth wasting time with
people who constant come here, personally attack both writers and other commenters
Hard to address your points when you are literally beating up on yourself.
However, one point i will directly address:
" was the confusion deliberate - as you are claiming - or did he agree to make some changes to reduce confusion while maintaining the parody? I'm not reading whatever 60 page document you want to link to, but I'll be happy to read any evidence you want to specifically reference (this is how honest debate works - "page 36 of the judgement shows...." is honest."
If you aren't willing to go read the document, I am not going to play Coles notes for you. To have a better understanding of the story, you should read the documents attached by the writer, as they are quite important. The answers to your questions are all in there, but you have to read more of it to understand how and why they go there. There is no single line that I can point to that answers your wide ranging question, as it has to do with the whole judgement and how it got there, and not a single hot quote that can satisfy you.
I will give you one to work from: " During cross-examination on one such complaint, the Defendant
himself acknowledged that “clearly this customer is confused”. "
If you want to understand the ruling (and the rules and laws of Canada), you need to read it, at least at a cursory level. Canadian law is different from US law (parody requires actual comedy, "sucks" sites are not considered parody in Canadian law, apparently). Moreover, the defendant in the story repeatedly admits to his use of United's graphics, site design, and such. You cannot get the full understanding by hitting 1 or 2 pages, you really need to real through the whole thing. The judge does an excellent job in explaining (with bilingual citations, I should point out) as to how the judgement was reached.
Contrary to the way the story is written here on Techdirt, the judgement is sound and reasonable as per Canadian law. The law of Canada does not give quite as much latitude as is given in the US for defamatory speech guised as a "sucks" site.
Read Paul. Learn something. Oh, and the personal attacks are almost all yours. Perhaps you need to fix yourself first!
On the post: First Playpen FBI Spyware Warrant Hits The Appeals Court Level; Is Upheld On 'Good Faith'
Re: Re: The wording here doesn't reflect technical reality
For that matter, let's just say that the warrant process in regards to computer services is still a bit in the grey. To be honest, they seem to have touched all the bases, the site was in the state, the agency was operating in the state, etc. Not clear what they exactly are suppose to do beyond what is there already.
On the post: West Virginia Tries To Improve Broadband Competition, Incumbent ISPs Immediately Sue
Re: Re: Re: Re:
A model of re-sold infrastructure would appear to be a much better game plan, and one that would encourage all sorts of competition. Remember, if they multi-strand it for each house, then you can have more than one service (ISP, cable, whatever the future brings). That is sure to build healthy competition.
On the post: West Virginia Tries To Improve Broadband Competition, Incumbent ISPs Immediately Sue
Re: Re:
Muni broadband sounds nice, but it's a taxpayer burden forever, you don't just have to set it up, you have to keep it working. I think municipal governments would be best paying to (a) put fiber or similar into every home in there area, brought back to "huts" where multiple companies could operate, and (b) pay to bring in decent internet service from afar to the center of town, where they can sell connections to the companies who wish to be part of (a). Then GET OUT OF THE WAY and let competition actually exist, and only be responsible to fix broken lines and nothing else. Lease the lines out to the ISPs who want to use it for a decent price, don't overcharge on peering to your decent internet connection, and let the ISPs actually operate things.
Having only one ISP (the muni) isn't in the end any better than having a lazy monopoly. Encouraging competition is really key in all of this (and they can avoid many of the "pole" problems by trench installing fiber in the municipal land strip next to roads, which private companies would have a harder time doing.
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