Cheap Therapy

That would be Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network, who as the Australian Federaction Against Copyright Theft have filed suit against iiNet, at the same time as distributing “Nothing beats the real thing” DVDs to high schools (I guess they’re suggesting reading books instead of watching tv :). Amusingly these “educational” packs include the claim:

The resource is not a propaganda exercise. It does make clear to students that there are harmful consequences from film piracy, but it does so through educationally valid processes. It is an educational approach that allows students to face a significant civics and citizenship issue: their role in a society where many of them and their peers are breaking the law.

Check out Tama’s blog or the Electronic Frontiers Australia response to the suit (and make sure you join the EFA, you may need their help someday. Maybe sooner than you think!)

Reposted from Slashdot:

If you are an Australian, please take action:

1) Call Senator Conroy’s office on 03 9650 1188. Do not be rude, do not swear, just in a very reasoned and rational voice, express your disapproval, and in a few short sentences, say why you disagree. It matters a lot.

2) Write a letter to Senator Conroy, make sure it’s between half a page to one page (no more than 400 words). Again, in a polite tone (that doesn’t have to be formal, and doesn’t have to have letterhead, etc., just your name and address) let him know why you disagree with him. His address is:
Senator Stephen Conroy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002

3) Write a letter to your local MP. It doesn’t matter what party he/she is from, Liberals will use your letter to back up their claims in Question Time, which gives publicity to the whole issue and will bring it to mainstream media’s attention. Labor members will also express their criticism, privately, to him. This specially matters if your local MP is a Minister and serves in the Cabinet. To find out who your local MP is click here

4) Write a letter to Prime Minister Rudd. Let him know that when the Australian people voted him in office last year, they didn’t know “Education Revolution” means censorship. Rudd’s address is:
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

5) Donate or become a member of Electronic Frontiers Australia . Right now the EFA is the sole organisation fighting this. They need all the help they can get.

6) Write a letter to your ISP. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Evil Telstra; on this, we’re all together. They are fighting the battle for us right now, but it would help them to know that what they are doing is a good business practice, that you expect them to fight this to the end.

Don’t just sit around and do nothing and then complain about how evil governments are. We, the citizens are the ones who allow governments to become evil, by our political apathy. Move! Take Action! Now!

I’m thinking of swapping to TPG as my ISP. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with them? It seems that the same ADSL 10/15G over 1500/256 with static IP as I get with Westnet (AU$71.19) I can get for $20/month cheaper from TPG (AU$49.95) (Even though I have a 5% Westnet discount!) which seems pretty compelling to me.

In case anyone missed it, Google, in partnership with the US Department of Defence, launched its own (spy) satellite with 40cm black and white resolution (less in colour). And they have plans for their own LEO satellite constellation to provide net access. via Valleywag

The other day I was reading the newspaper when I realised that I’d already heard about the story because it was a headline that spammers had picked up (presumably from an RSS feed somewhere) and were using it on a subject line on spam being sent to my inbox.

The Australian reports that Channel Seven will be releasing TiVos on July 29th at Harvey Norman.

So, word on the street is that Facebook is having growing pains, seeing as pretty much everyone who knows anyone is using it, they’re having problems getting their server infrastructure to cope with the load. Plus, the vulture capitalists want some payoff, at the same time as more capital’s needed to buy the farm (server farm, that is :). Blog articles such as this one, for example. I guess that’s why Google started out with the invite-only idea for Gmail and Orkut.

Visit nocleanfeed.com to get informed as to what you can do to stop Stephen Conroy from crippling Australia’s internet access.

The “Iron Sky” trailer looks very interesting.

It seems that iinet are intending to buy Westnet. Meanwhile ‘coincidentally’, Internode are offering free churn to them (a saving of $39). I’m not sure if Amnet will follow suit. Maybe it’s time to change ISPs?