Huguenot

Gosh, yes, whatever happens don't look at the sun. Here's how to view ith with binoculars:

"Anyway - we met a squirrel in Peckham Rye Park this morning. He was very tame and stood up and begged, even though we had a dog (on a lead) with us! Silly squirrel." Ah, the old 'she was wearing a short skirt m'lord' ;-)

bsand is a case in point. There is a significant difference between the occasional bite at forbidden fruit and incitement to wholesale banditry. I shoplifted when I was a kid, but that doesn't put me in the same bracket as the 19 year old thugs who message, facebook and telephone their friends inviting them to ram-raid Peckham, loot shop windows and burn down retailers. Not only is s/he breaking the law, but actually boasting about it, and attempting to facilitate and persuade other people to follow suit. This person actually thinks they are a hero. Where on earth does that kind of conviction come from? bsand is a prefectly reasonable example of why the network tracking and cutting off of large scale gobshite petty criminals is justified.

"Ah, but I wouldn't care if the Pirate Bay was (physically) shut down, but blocking it at network level is the thin end of the wedge of network censorship mission creep as far as I'm concerned. Today we don't like copyright, tomorrow we don't like porn, the day after we don't like ... " As in: I wouldn't mind if terrorist orgainsations were physically shut down, but blocking mail order weaponry is the thin of the wedge. Today we don't like semtex, tomorrow we don't like anthrax, the day after we don't like Kay's catalogue... It's reductio ad absurdum, but restricting the trading of companies illegal under UK law is an obligation of our public services. We have a deomcratically elected government who have a mandate to establish and enforce laws on our behalf. DJKQ's argument that it's not going to be entirely successful is also illogical. There are 13,000 cases of rape in the UK every year, does she suggest that we legalise that because it can't be completely stopped?

Absolutely - and you wouldn't see me complaining about a loss of freedom if the opportunity was shut down. The conversation regarding Pirate Bay was about the 'righteousness' of copyright thieves who claim that they're in the right. My position has always been clear: infringe copyright if you wish, but don't claim to be in the right. Clearly my sensitivity to copyright theft is significantly higher now than it was then. :X

How fucking stupid do you have to be to imagine that net neutrality debates are about big companies controlling and stealing money from the little guy? It's pathetic - it's chem trails and New World Order stuff. I am gobsmacked. Most global governments, the EU and US included have legislation that dictates that net provision is for 'any lawful content, any lawful application, any lawful device, and any provider'. Right? Get it? The PROBLEM is when you can't access 'any lawful content, any lawful application, any lawful device, and any provider' because UDT is pirating season 18 of The Big Bang Theory and using his smelly back bedroom as an industrial server blocking access to your local exchange. Get it? There is freedom of access, but there is not freedom of delivery because UDT and 14 year old boys have swamped it with slack jawed crud. That is what the debate about net neutrality is about. Cockheaded Bladerunner bullshit about big corporates stealing from you has no place in this conversation. It is for retards.

Everybody impressed with cookie privacy law? Did it not make you wonder even for one second why companies like Google or Yahoo with their endless pockets and willingness to go to court on the drop of a hat would not contest this? It sounds great yes? So why did they not contest it? Come on UDT, with your massive brain and your much vaunted defence of the common man, why did Y! and Google not contest cookie law? The reality is that you haven't thought any of this through - you espouse witless purist ideology backed up with easily winnable face-value arguments that simply don't reflect reality. Like cookie law, net neutrality favours big companies who rip off small players. You don't get this mainly because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It's exhausting, but I'm confident that anyone reading this knows who they want on their side in a tight spot, and it ain't UDT. Like Gollum or Weaseltongue in Lord of the Rings he's very plausible in his betrayal, but the reality is that I don't defend 'the man', I defend the rights of small business to flourish, my own included.

As with cookie law, it simply favours the big companies. The web does not have unlimited resources. There is no such thing as net neutrality, there never has been and there never will be. Every server is currently making a decision as we speak about what data packets to send where. In a free for all the bullies win. That's why Google believes in 'net neutrality' - because they take 30% to 40% of data traffic without paying a sov. UDT's conviction that this is about making small guys fail is pathetically ill informed. He is capitalising upon insecurities to win a cheap argument. Like Mr. Bean he's arguing that anyone can plough this field whilst over his shoulder Google has seeded it with genetically modified american corn and forced everyone else to look on. Freedom for everyone teenage bullshit has resulted in freedom for no-one. Sure you can argue for net neutrality, but as you do, US based companies are fucking you up your dim witted arse.

No, I'm the kind of bloke that drags you by the hair from the 'out' door to the 'in' door because watching you pat around for a handle is too painful to bear. I'd probably gently chide you, then insult you, question Darwinism, and then find someone else to criticise to make you feel better. :) "You need to look for the sign mate, what kind of moron are you? Tell me you don't have kids? Oh my God, look at that bloke doing it worse than you in terry towelling socks...."

The video is poorly informed political rhetoric. It feeds on Americanised 'fear' politics to push a sense of entitlement amongst a well supplied and well serviced public who are under no threat at all. The reality is that the web is a limited resource whose supply to the common man is being limited by a righteous and greedy set of suppliers who capitalise on 'free' access to prevent everyday traffic from gaining reasonable transit times in lieu of massive, niche interest, video traffic. The greatest threat to reasonable internet access are the people who capitalise on 'free access' to fill their swimming pool from your tap. They don't give a fuck if you have no water as a result. Why do you really think retail internet subscribers struggle in the UK - the most likely scenario is that their web access isn't being fucked by commercial suppliers, but by the next door neighbour ripping time to download Men In Black.

I'm not into prohibition pookie - Pirate Bay is an illegal supplier of stolen property that has been prevented the opportunity to trade in the UK. Like any fence. Stop trying to inflate this into some kind of plaintive political stance about freedom. It's illegal, it trades in stolen goods, it has been prevented from benefitting from these services. Net neutrality, as I have made clear, is a different issue about resource management.

Haha - yes - anyone can do what I suggested, I was just trying to be helpful! I would have created a new Y! or Gmail address and registered under that. I would have invited you to then log in on that username, change the contact details in your profile and then deleted the original email address. It would have been all yours :) I only know how it works because I came back in 2006 just as it was created and I didn't know many in ED because I'd been in China for a while.

To UDT and DJKQ and their gormless assumption that I'm confusing copyright and net neutrality, I refer you to my earlier completely clear comment: "The Pirate Bay is a trading operation that's illegal under UK law, and the government has the mandate and is entitled to restrict their operations. 'Net neutrality' is a deliberately emotive term underpinning an entirely different question regarding whether suppliers, traders and users should carry the burden of paying for the internt proportionately to the benefits they reap." So get a grip kids.

For the benefit of those who have a genuine interest, my concern with copyright on the web lies from the fact that I teach an extensive range of courses on media that cost around $20,000 each to create. Having made these available online for both customers who attend the courses and at fractional rate for independent small subscribers, I discovered that a wheedling little turd had stolen two of these and made them widely available for personal benefit to the point that neither course could now be taught. In effect he stole $40,000 from me, and justifed this in the same snot-nosed terms about being 'able and free to do what he want' that most of the snivelling cockgrinding copyright thieves employ. Regardless of the fact that this is illegal, it's now resulted in a change of the way we do business such that the expertise of my team, and the benefits that insight can offer to the industry have been severely curtailed. Whilst the little shitrag may have got a fleeting few minutes of fame, his mates and the industry have both suffered in the medium term as we've restructured our business to meet only the needs of high fee paying secure industry contracts. That means that because of copyright theft, our product is now less widely available, at a higher price, and only to big companies. We have NO choice but to do otherwise. What now for all the minor players who could have created a garden of online cottage industries informed by the quality of content at low price that only the big boys can usually pay for? Dickwad boy and UDT don't care. They'll drag us all down to their miserable level of failure. Copyright theft ruins innovation, creativity and social enterprise. Everyone loses. The idea that this is a defence of big grey corporates is stupid.

UDT, I'm afraid that you are simply trying to make 'net neutrality' about what you to want to make it about. As I've already pointed out it's simplistic and ideological. I'm surprised by the naivety of an argument that demands freedom to act criminally without redress. It's no more intelligent than most 'thin end of the wedge' arguments. Both people and companies are entitled to ask the public prosecutor to defend them from illegal activities and theft, and the government is well within its rights to pursue these objectives on their behalf. All this rubbish about essential freedoms is nonsense - we don't have freedom of expression in the UK, we have laws against the incitement of hatred and obscenity for example. None of the people arguing in favour of Pirate Bay would be doings so if people were openly trading goods recovered from a smash and grab raid on their house from a market stall outside their front door. Claims that this is an essential freedom are ridiculous, and 'freedom' arguments are a wheedly way to cover up self interested pillaging of intellectual property.

Good for you if you've found a workaround. The reason why domestic services have bandwidth throttling in place is because the net is being crippled by 14 year olds downloading Game of Thrones and Lady Gaga, not office circulars from the HR department. In the US Netflix on its own accounts for 20% of ALL internet traffic, and it does it between 8pm and 10pm at night. Youtube, BitTorrent and Flash video account for the next 23% between them - so that's 43% of all traffic. If Netflix is controlling 20% of the internet activity then they should be paying for the privelege. In the end they're reaping profits off the back of people like you and me who paid for the internet infrasturcture through BT bills and taxes. Don't be fooled by Google's 'do no evil' position - they don't want net neutrality, instead they DON't want to pay for Youtube.

UDT's position seems righetous because it's been made simplistically and ideologically. It's not difficult to agree that access should be available to all equally. However, bizarre as it may seem, the net is not an endless resource - there are limitations on bandwidth (information flow) and connectivity. A reasonable analogy is that both yourself and your neighbour are provided with free access to a water pipe. Equality is fine until your neighbour installs an Olympic sized pool and then starts selling so much water on that your own supply dries up. At that point you start asking for regulation and fair usage. This is what underpins the debate about net neutrality - it's only the ideological nitwits that have turned this into a conspiracy by rich companies to steal the net from us. Infrastructure has costs invovled: either you pay be general taxation as a public service (in which case there should be regulation) or you pay by usage (and youtube and porn video happy teenagers get to take responsibility for their data greed).

This is no more a creeping curtailment of freedom than a police raid on Brick Lane market to shut down industrial scale bicycle thieves. They wouldn't get away with it 'because they're Dutch and you're allowed to sell stolen bicycles there'. Fencing stolen property is illegal on the streets, in pubs and in your house - there's no reason why stolen films over the internet should be any different. Incidentally, nobody is stopping you going to a country where Pirate Bay is legal and downloading from them there. Go for your life. Likewise you're perfectly entitled to go and buy a farm in Zimbabwe - let's see how long you can keep hold of it? People protest about curtailments to 'freedoms to steal film and music' simply because we're all morally ambiguous when we think we can get away with crime.

I don't consider this to be remotely close to censorship - this is a confusion of content vs. distribution. The Pirate Bay is a trading operation that's illegal under UK law, and the government has the mandate and is entitled to restrict their operations. 'Net neutrality' is a deliberately emotive term underpinning an entirely different question regarding whether suppliers, traders and users should carry the burden of paying for the internt proportionately to the benefits they reap. I don't think there's a straightforward answer to this - but many 14 year old boys uploading video of their first happy slap should be aware that they're driving around in a technological Ferrari that they haven't paid for. Returning to Pirate Bay, copyright owners have created ridiculous situations around the world where they ceaselessly promote digital media content, but singularly fail to deliver access. Here in SG for example itunes doesn't deliver any meangingful digital content like music or video downloads. I don't feel copyright theft is a justifable crime at any level, but it's very diffficult to sympathise with content owners who have done the cinematic equivalent of hanging round railway stations late at night using a diamond encrusted iphone with John Inman as a bodyguard.

Heh heh. So instead of 'the Euro is bad because it has failed', your argument is to the opposite: the Euro is bad because it has been tremendously successful, and this is all part of a Franco German conspiracy to create a New World Order that's actually part of the as yet unfinished Third Reich? We are indeed lucky that you have been posting everywhere your theory that the Second World War is not over!

bucketowater, what is it with the ridiculous posturing of you two prats? In order to prosecute someone you'd need to prove that the owner was culpable, that the outcome was predictable and that it resulted in suffering. The Dangerous Dogs Act was an illustration that owners are considered to be in control of dogs when the same doesn't apply to cats. There are various charges could apply from various acts including fighting, baiting and suffering - my intention was to reassure the OP that there was recourse in law. For some reason known only to you you've yanked your pants down and in between furiously and painfully pleasuring yourself you've jabbed out some sort of nitpicking twaddle that doesn't contribute anything to the conversation. Are you really proud of yourself? Really? You just sound like a prig.

That's very flattering, but you'll be reassured to learn that as early as 2006 the mods made clear that they have absolutely no intent to let me anywhere near the admin tools. I'm simply too badly behaved. There's been noises about a ban on at least 2 occasions ;-)

I think you understand this completely Alexthecamel, and you're just being an argumentative idiot. What went wrong in your childhood Alexthecamel, to make you so sad?

The Dangerous Dogs Act establishes that humans control dogs, and are culpable for their actions. No such law exists for cats. The owner could justifiably argue that the first attack was unprecedented, he couldn't use that defence for the second.

*sighs*