On Sun, Dec 31, 2000 at 01:48:04PM -0800, Mr.Bad wrote:
> Do you have an acceptable use policy or Terms of Service for that
> company that states that explicitly? Or were they just kissing your
> ass because you were the coolio peer-to-peer expert visiting for the
> day?
Believe me, they weren't afraid to upset me if that is what you mean, I
am reasonably sure that if they had grand plans to make P2P impossible
they would have stated that. These guys are big enough that they don't
care what God thinks, let alone me.
> Also, if you name the ISP, I bet you many Content-Type=beer/draft's
> that I can find an explicit cancellation policy on their Website.
I bet you can too, I am talking about my perception of their intent, for
what that is/isn't worth.
> You know, Ian, for a freedom fighter you sure have a weird faith in
> big establishment corporations. B-)
I have a lot of faith in them.... to protect their own interests.
Corporations are immoral creatures, they do good things when it suits
them, and they do bad things when it suits them. It is in Intel's
interests to encourage people to make better use of their PCs, and being
a digital content receiver doesn't really tax processing power. An
interactive Internet suits Intel down to the ground.
> Don't forget, Intel is one of the
> C's in the 4C Entity, pushing copy protection into the ATA
> standard. I'd be very surprised if they put even one iota of muscle
> into stopping copyright.net.
Like I said, corporations do good stuff, and they do bad stuff, depending
on what is in their interests. My impression is that 4C is a sop to the
entertainment industry who wanted a tax on computers just as they have a
tax on CD players and such like.
> Unless I'm mistaken -- somebody speak up if I'm not -- you're the only
> person who's spoken in this discussion who doesn't think that ISPs are
> wiggly spineless worms,
They may be wiggly spineless worms, but that doesn't always work against
us, since sometimes their spinelessness might prevent them from doing
stuff that might drive customers to their competitors (particularly in
Broadband which - as soon as we get competition - will be anyone's game).
> and tech companies are amoral
> money-grubbers.
I do think that tech companies are amoral money-grubbers, but that
doesn't mean that their interests don't occasionally coincide with our
own (if only by chance). We should take advantage of it when they do.
> I am *really* interested in seeing which of us is correct come New
> Year's Eve, 2001.
I don't think we really disagree.
Ian.
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