John Chambers wrote: > > Kurt wrote: > | On 30-Jan-2003 John Chambers wrote: > | > > | > ... The Internet can't be killed, but there is > | > still a chance that it can be made illegal for you and me to put our > | > own stuff online. If they can do this, they can then force us to sign > | > over our rights to our own stuff to get it online, and they'll be > | > back in the saddle. > | > | I followed you this far. But are there any laws or technical proposals being > | made right now that would make it impossible to put your own stuff online? Or ... > > Well, here in the USA, a lot of ISPs have licenses that > include a "no servers" rule. They generally aren't well > enforced, but they can kick you off if you have any program > listening on any port. [skip lots] > > In most of the country, the local ISP is a monopoly. If you > don't like them, well, you don't have to have internet > service, now do you? > [skip] > > (And note that if you put your own recordings online on an > ISP's machine, you may be handing over the copyright to the > ISP.) >
This hemisphere things are not different. When I signed up with my then (really) local ISP I was told I had an amount of disk space for a personal home page and that what I put there was up to me. The ISP has, since then, been sold to foreign corporations twice before I could set up my HP, and the deal on that matter has changed. In short, a lot of what I would want to put on the net would violate the terms. Then what? Let's look for a free space provider! So far, if I publish anything via their servers, I am surrendering all my author rights and I would still be subject to the aforementioned limitations. Our problem: we have laws that state very clearly what terms the seller imposes when you by a, say, TV set that might be considered abusive; still we have no such regulations regarding ISP omnipotence. ISPs and other corporations are lobbying for their interests; Brazilian copyright law has recently been changed to comply with transnational CD, book, software and what-have-you industry exploitation and that is what they are modelling: the idea is to turn your computer screen into a better resolution extension of a TV receiver. Awkwardly, some judge has recently issued a sentence that withdraws the requirement of someone being a licenced journalist (legal here so far) to write on the press; nevertheless, ISPs still rule when it comes to write on the net. Paulo E. Tib�rcio To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
