randomness

[Heironymus]

can I wear the v for vendetta mask and be Anonymous?

[Subb]

I can't wait for Dante's Inferno, ACII, Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 to come out!

[Phienyx]

Dragon Age is out

[Subb]

Not on the PS3 - not 'til the 20th :/

[Fuse]

Not surprised at this... It's been expected to come for a while from this administration.

From: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

For more on this goto: The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

[Manic Velocity]

Get schooled on exactly what ACTA is:
http://eff.org/issues/acta

Tell your senators that you are concerned:
http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=383

The EFF website makes it extremely easy to contact your representatives about this stuff. It takes less than 5 minutes.

[Tbone]

"In October 2007 the United States, the European Community, Switzerland and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA."

OMG! Obama has been trying to eat our intranets since before he was prez! Conspiracy!!! I totally saw it coming from this administration back in October 2007...socialism at its worse! Impeach impeach!

I agree that a secret internet police = bad. However I disagree that Obama's administration put this together. Sounds like it has been on the agenda since 2007 and Obama was probably like "oh crap...what did Bush leave me with now?! let's figure this out before people start freaking out."

Or perhaps he is truly angry that his personal blackberry was taken away and is seeking revenge on us all from a plan he secretly set into motion in Oct 2007!

At its worse, it'll be the Napster Effect. They shut something down and 5 similar things pop up. You start policing the internet and people will create their own internet. Sounds like there's going to be way too much opposition for it to go into effect. Luckily we have an administration who cares about the people and not greedy corporations! Huzzah!

[Manic Velocity]

"In October 2007 the United States, the European Community, Switzerland and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA."

OMG! Obama has been trying to eat our intranets since before he was prez! Conspiracy!!! I totally saw it coming from this administration back in October 2007...socialism at its worse! Impeach impeach!

I agree that a secret internet police = bad. However I disagree that Obama's administration put this together. Sounds like it has been on the agenda since 2007 and Obama was probably like "oh crap...what did Bush leave me with now?! let's figure this out before people start freaking out."

Or perhaps he is truly angry that his personal blackberry was taken away and is seeking revenge on us all from a plan he secretly set into motion in Oct 2007!

At its worse, it'll be the Napster Effect. They shut something down and 5 similar things pop up. You start policing the internet and people will create their own internet. Sounds like there's going to be way too much opposition for it to go into effect. Luckily we have an administration who cares about the people and not greedy corporations! Huzzah!

I think you may have missed the point.  This treaty is bad news because of its broad brush interpretation of what constitutes "copyright infringement".  According to the treaty, corporations like the RIAA and the MPAA only have to accuse you of copyright infringement, and your ISP would be required by law to disconnect your service.  All without obtaining a warrant to back the claim.

Hell, all of FA could essentially be charged simply by our faction music videos.  Again, all they would have to do is make the accusation, and every one of us could potentially have to pay a hefty fine, and we wouldn't be granted the right to defend our case.  We would be guilty, without the opportunity to prove our innocence.

I don't want to claim that the proverbial sky of the interweb is falling, but in this day and age, the vast majority of people don't understand the implications of this.  It's the whole mindset of "Hey, I haven't broken the law, so I have nothing to worry about."  In the context of this treaty, it doesn't matter if you've broken the law or not.

Regardless of who is sitting in the oval office, discussion of any and all laws should be made public so that the public can have their say.  The majority of what is in this treaty has been kept behind closed doors until very recently.

[Lithium]

...we have an administration who cares about the people and not greedy corporations! Huzzah!

Very true. The government is taking over (and now owns) major corporations in this country and justifying it as, "too big to fail."

But, similar to your theory if we just let them fail in the first place, "5 similar things pop up." It is anti-capitalistic methods that contributed to the whole mess in the first place.

I download very very few things illegally and intentionally. I'm not naive to the fact that someday it is bound to catch up to people.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Copyright laws don't really work in the internet and information age.

[Fuse]

T, who said Obamas admin put this together and there is a call for impeachment? I seem to have missed that in the articles - at least the ones I've seen. The administration is insistant that government can do things better than companies made by the people of America so they will never shoot down the chance to regluate.

My comment wasn't based on the ACTA - it had more to do with his comments in the past when he was a senator of my state. Mainly in 2007 about regulation of service providers. The main concept is the fear ISPs can limit access for thier users. While I think that's bullshit for an ISP to do, it sure as hell isn't the governments place to tell someone what to do with their own company. I agree with the reasons net nutrality is wanted, but think it should be the consumer and market to regulate ISPs who may do this simply by not supporting their service. I say his administration because some of his friends in the house (many of which have also come from my state of IL) have even more restrictive views of what the internet should look like.

Bottom line - if you're against the ACTA forcing ISPs to be regulated, then I think you should also be against government forcing them to be regulated. IMO

[Tbone]

Very true. The government is taking over (and now owns) major corporations in this country and justifying it as, "too big to fail."

But, similar to your theory if we just let them fail in the first place, "5 similar things pop up." It is anti-capitalistic methods that contributed to the whole mess in the first place.

I agree with you. They should have let the companies fall and let companies with more responsibility take their place. Apparently that would have thrown the entire world economy into devastation, but that's a little strange that a couple of companies have that kind of power.

Fuse, you seemed to be implying that the Obama administration was the one pulling all the strings behind this. I was just pointing out that wasn't the case.

If you have to hide something from this many people that affects this many people, it is bound to fail. I don't see anyone having the resources to enforce it either. It'll be interesting to see what comes of the talks.

[Fuse]

That implication wasn't intended. Eh, I miscommunicate all the time. *shrug*

Let's hope this doesn't see much headway. I'd rather see net nutrality pass. :/

[Lits]

Not to change the subject, but this is too cool NOT to show off:

When we're dead at work I get the stippers to teach me their pole tricks. So I learned how to do a simple invert two days ago, check out the bruise! And I only did 5 inverts! Apparently you have to get used to it... I'm just glad I don't do this for a living. Fun workout though!

(PS it's 7"x 4"... larger than pictured)

So the move looks like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn-oSzrfU1o

And the resulting bruise looks like this:

[Fuse]

Holy shit! *kiss* all better?

[Broin]

LOL... Where the hell do you work at?