Many criticise Conroys babblings about internet control but when their positions are questioned they are dismissed with similar arrogance. At least he was elected.

I want to know why isp staff are somehow given insights into controls that the public are not. Are they police, lawyers, or security agents? No, they are members of the public employed by isps yet they seem to have some god given authority to make value judgements we are not.

Happy New Year.

Ed Husic needs to get involved. Just say to the content industry, you fix your price gouging and the distribution issues in the Australian market and we will look into the piracy thing for you. Then change patent laws and copy right laws so that companies suing restricted market pricing and restrictions on the distribution on goods don’t enjoy access to the laws designed to the protect them.

firstly, the meeting was indeed held in secret. The only reason we know it was held is because the existence of the meeting was leaked to The Australian. The Attorney-General’s Department declared in its FoI documents that it was planning to issue a press release following the meeting, but it never did.

Secondly, as other commenters have noted above, AGD is actively preventing the public from knowing what took place at this meeting. As I have noted in our articles on this, AGD has declined to provide the public with minutes of the meeting, has redacted position statements given at the meeting by the attendees from FoI documents released over the past week, has redacted the names of the individual attendees and has declined to provide further information about what was said at the meeting.

Furthermore, it has declined explicit requests by consumer groups to attend a meeting, the outcomes of which will primarily affect consumers.

To my mind, this is the very definition of a “secret meeting”, and entirely different to the kinds of meetings which are held every day that you mention.

I have been disturbed by the Government’s response to this issue, and, as my readers have urged me to do, will continue to shine the light in on this secretive process. I am sure that the Attorney-General’s Department, following the multiple FoI requests that it has fielded on this issue, is feeling itself pressurised to be more open and transparent about this whole issue, and that can only be a good thing for the general public.

Cheers,

Renai

Regarding that voluntary Interpol filter, exactly how were you able to ascertain the ‘really nasty stuff’ was on it? Had a peek? Got all your ASIO clearances yet? Elected to act by anyone as your customers rep for what they see or don’t? Get to call the shots as an isp employee? No illusions of grandeur there at all?

Happy New Year, watch out for the TPGer in the woodpile though…

Those two are incredibly different things

Indeed Renai is pointing out that consumer groups were specifically denied access to “this part” of talks. The part of the talks where they decide what is best for us as consumers of media. I am sure consumer groups will be invited in to listen to the new plan for us all, once all the objections that you guys might raise have been ironed out.

Indeed Renai is pointing out that consumer groups were specifically denied access to “this part” of talks. The part of the talks where they decide what is best for us as consumers of media. I am sure consumer groups will be invited in to listen to the new plan for us all, once all the objections the you guys might raise have been ironed out.

“Perhaps consumers would have some suggestions.”

There’s lot of well-intentioned people on the threads and forums hammering this out with gusto, intelligence and informed opinion. Maybe the rights-holders would find their time well used to read some of them.

So, Steve, you are incapable of distinguishing between the meetings of private citizens, and those held by Government Departments and paid for with our taxes are you?

Private maybe.

Getting past that pedantic peeve, I would hope that any solution needs to take consumers into account. After all it is them that consume and distribute the unauthorised content. To paraphrase the old saying “If you are part of the problem, you should be a part of the solution”.

throughout the iiNet trial we’ve heard very little from rights holders about a solution, plenty of rejection, but little by way of removing the incentive to seek out unauthorised content. Perhaps consumers would have some suggestions.

Happy Christmas to you and your readers.

S

iTunes showed the world there’s big money to be made in selling people exactly what they want with no nonsense. The equivalent services on offer for movies and TV shows are poor, and cable TV is just plain pathetic.

In a world of high speed internet and media enabled devices, it should be trivial to sell TV shows and moves episodes or season at a time for a reasonable price, that can be played on any device without special software or hardware vendor lock-in, and do so free from advertising.

The video game industry has seen this boom already. There are dozens of online services available now to purchase and play games with few restrictions and for reasonable prices. Why have the media industries (with the exception of Apple iTunes) not figured this out yet? Instead they’re wasting their time on stupid “three strikes” laws, when they should be working out how to beat their competition into delivering a profitable service that keeps paying customers happy.

The nation is dead, Long live the people !