Underground Media: Reloaded

So, apparently, Hollywood has finally exerted enough pressure with the telecoms such that AT&T and it's brethren appear ready to cave in to their demands. According to the New York Times, " AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter" ! Scandalous! That means any content that your ISP's filter deems to be "pirated" or "copyright" simply won't load in your web browser. So what's a downloader to do?! Absolutely nothing. No serious pirate worth their salt is downloading in the open anyway. Encrypted proxies (or VPN's for rent) are springing up all over the place. Giganews offers encrypted SSL downloads. Bittorrent client Azureus can similarly mask downloaded content, while also choosing to only download from others who similarly mask their content. All filtering is going to do is PISS OFF HONEST WEB SURFERS! When your favorite website is blocked because it is using a keyword that your ISP happens to be filtering,...

Till the fat senator sings. Or so it would seem in the struggle for net radio to survive. Quick article updates. One about the ongoing industry "talks" , and the other is a primer to the whole freakin' mess. Check 'em out and tell me what you think. Today is Saturday, 7/14 and 1.fm is still online and streaming. George Michael is crooning about "Calling You". Ah, the 90's. My college years. Man, I'm getting old...

A moment of silence if you please. On Sunday, July 15th, the Copyright Royalty Board's new rates for internet broadcasters will go into effect . And hundreds of streaming radio stations will pass quietly into the night. The impact will largely impact smaller broadcasters who were barely breaking even in terms of revenue vs expenses before. But now, they will essentially be paying more out to the record companies than they are taking in from ad revenue. This article from the good folks over at P2Pnet gets at the heart of the issue. Here are some quotes to give you some background: "On March 2, 2007 the CRB hiked Net radio royalty rates, and not by a few points. They’ll rocket up by between 300% and 1,200%." The rate hike was then postponed in court while a group of broadcasters appealed the decision. On July 15th, the rate hike goes into effect even while the appeal is still on-going. "At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ig...

Allow me to rant for a moment, in a similar vein to my good buddy Richmond over on her blog a few days ago. Whenever some lunatic shoots up a school, the "family values" lobby comes pouring out of the woodwork to start blaming violent movies. I knew it was a matter of time. From the article : "Cho’s video and photos were lifted from movies. The two gun pose, arms spread, straight out of Boondock Saints, or Snatch, or Layer Cake, or The Transporter, or any number of mainstream action movies. The hammer pose, straight out of Oldboy. In a very disturbing way, Cho was doing what the movies told him to do." What the movies told him to do?! I am usually a fan of the guys over at NewTeeVee , but on this issue, I SERIOUSLY part ways with the author. My comment, in case you don't end up reading the article: "This article misses the point COMPLETELY. Sociopathic killers have ALWAYS been addicted to the fame. Reference Jack the Ripper and work your way forward. ...