Have you? Those who follow me on twitter will have noticed my avatar has changed. Why? because I support the BlackOut Ireland Protest. Cian of Viewfromthequad.com started this off on twitter and his site the other day and says it needs to start now
The website for the campaign will be launched later today.
So what is it about? Eircom have gotten into bed with the IRMA and the music companies. The IRMA have sent threatening letters to Irish ISPs and sent one to Blacknight also (Note: Blacknight is a hosting company NOT an ISP). This was picked up by the Register. The IRMA want to block access to sites like Pirate Bay, something Damien Mulley writing on the Blackout Ireland blog describes as creating a "digital Guantanamo". He writes
A digital Guantanamo has been created with all these sites being locked away along with our freedom to surf on the rare chance that an act of copyright infringement could happen. Like many locked away in orange boiler suits in cages, now our freedoms are doing the same thing. We are not criminals, we are not pirates, we are not threats to security, yet we are being treated as such.
Next Thursday (March 5th) has been designated as Black Thursday and the campaign will run for one full week from then. It is hoped that that week people will contact their ISP's and the Minister of Communications on this issue.
Lets hope it works and the other ISP's dont follow Eircom and actually have a backbone
UPDATE: Anyaz has an excellent post with background and international context on his blog.
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The same thing is happening at New Zealand at the moment. It will probably happen in other countries too. Ah well, the internet was nice while it lasted.
ReplyDeleteNZ is more draconian, there you get accused your out, if I remember right. I wonder where this will end???
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