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Tag Archive for 'Internet'
From the Results of Bilateral Negotiations on Russia’s Accession
to the World Trade Organization (WTO), November 19th:
The United States and Russia have agreed on a binding blueprint for actions that Russia will take to address piracy and counterfeiting and improve protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR), both stated priorities of the Russian Government, starting immediately. This agreement sets the stage for further progress on IPR issues in Russia through the next phase of multilateral negotiations, during which the United States and other WTO members will examine Russia’s IPR regime. This binding agreement is an integral part of the United States – Russia WTO bilateral market access agreement, and implementation of the commitments on IPR will be essential to completing the final multilateral negotiations on the overall accession package.
And then, a few paragraphs farther down:
The United States and Russia agreed on the objective of shutting down websites that permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works. The agreement names the Russia-based website allofmp3.com as an example of such a website.
Now, with former Russian secret agents getting killed in Western Europe, countries like Chechnya being ruled by Russian puppet politicians and a blatant disregard of freedom of the press (or even worse than that) in what reminds some of the old Soviet Union, a website selling music for less than the services approved by the RIAA is of course the biggest problem of all of mankind. Or the multi-national corporations who are actually the only ones gaining from a cut-throat organisation like the WTO.
Read a bit more about the issue here.
Since I’m too cheap (or rather “frugal”) to pay the 100€ for Blogtalk Reloaded here in Vienna, I will attend another blogging event today that’s probably quite as much fun as above mentioned 2-day event. Why? Because it probably won’t be filled with hundreds of people attending just so they can live-blog to their own websites. And it’s free.
I love the Internet. I especially like the services that let me connect, share and compare my ideas, my ideals and my interests with others.
But there’s a dirty underbelly to that wonderful creation, and that’s the fact that there are thousands if not millions of people out there who are just not mature enough to handle the Internet. Case in point:
A guy posts a fake ad on Craigslist. He pretends to be a woman who’s looking for rough sex. The answers come in, many of them by married men looking for a fling, and what does he do? He posts the hundreds of replies complete with real names, pictures, phone numbers and sometimes work email on a wiki (read about it here).
Now, the problem here is twofold. On the one hand, single-handedly a guy is destroying not just people’s lives, but also every trust anyone could have in the Internet. Especially today, when services like 43Places, Twitter or generally Blogs are enabling people to open up to the world and discover what else is out there, pulling a prank like that, is one big disaster, causing people to retreat back into their shells and adhering to the “rather safe than sorry” mentality. And well, they have a point.
I remember posting about a girl who got entangled in a plagiarism affair, and even though I didn’t make it clear enough then, exposing her to the Internet was a cruel and wrong thing to do. This recent prank? About a million times worse.
The second part of the problem is the fact that a majority of the people responding to above linked Wired blog article, were in favour of the guy who did this. Here’s an example:
Wow. You seriously think it’s okay for married men to troll the internet for ass without any consequences, and that anyone who catches them, outs them and calls them on it are actually the assholes in such a scenario.
I seriously can’t believe you guys. You have no reasonable sense of morality whatsoever. And WE’RE the social conservatives?!
That you two have a forum like Wired to express your backwards, amoral point of view is supremely horrifying.
The fact that the commenter decided to post anonymously displays exactly what makes me hate the Internet: The fact that there’s always a mob of self-righteous cowards just around the corner, waiting to impose their backwards, pseudo-moral views on whoever they think deserves it.
That’s my Pollock (no, not the fish, silly). Or, rather, that’s one of them. I think I spent two hours on this website trying to imitate something like this, but gave up and settled for the one above. Try it, it’s addictive.
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