

Stunning new filtering plan contradicts its “Your World” marketing campaign










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Not even public domain
By rebturtle on 1/27/2008 12:29:46 PM , Rating: 1
You know, I can drive down a public street, and a police officer has every right to run my plates if I'm doing something suspicious. My car might be stolen, I might have a warrant, etc.

Now we start talking about AT&T's network, which they spent billions on to provide us all a wonderful service at a profit!, and everyone's going to get in a huff because they might not be able to get all that pirated crap for free anymore, or might have to become responsible for their actions.

Please, I'm not on the MPAA's or RIAA's "side" by any means, but this closer equates to paying to drive through private property. If you want to use it, you have to obey their rules, and they can pull you over and turn you over to the authorities if they see fit. If you haven't done anything wrong, then there's nothing to worry about.

If you're going to state that you have rights not to be spied on, it's "your" data, etc, etc, please stay in your bunker eating spam and canned corn. AT&T has a right to protect it's investment, and nobody cares about your e-mails to grandma or your porn addiction. If you're downloading or sharing stuff illegally, you should be afraid, but you shouldn't be pointing fingers.

RE: Not even public domain
By porkpie on 1/27/08, Rating: 0
RE: Not even public domain
By JoshuaBuss on 1/27/2008 8:24:12 PM , Rating: 1
this post needs to be moved up somehow. you nailed the issue on the head.

the internet is not a free service we have some sort of 'intrinsic right' to use like air... and it's not even a public service provided by taxes.. it's wholly private and we should NOT expect complete anonymity. like the OP said.. if you've done nothing wrong, there's nothing to get upset about here. that'd be askin to getting upset that wal-mart has a history of what's been bought on a certain credit card.

RE: Not even public domain
By Fallen Kell on 1/28/2008 1:56:13 PM , Rating: 3
The only issue here is that they are treating people who havn't done anything wrong as though they have done things wrong. Simply using bittorrent is not wrong. There are many legal downloads that are done as torrents. But because it is very difficult to figure out exactly what you are downloading (especially on the encrypted torrent networks that have been starting to be used), the simple fact that you are using a torrent client they feel you are guilty of something, when they have no proof that you did anything wrong. That is the only issue I have with this.

RE: Not even public domain
By mallums on 1/29/2008 2:02:42 AM , Rating: 2
Correct. I usually get the latest release through bitTorrent. For example. As far as I know, that's legal. I don't understand the legal mumbo jumbo that outlawed the original Napster. Something about, "Must have substantial non-infringing uses." Of course law and common sense are not the same.

RE: Not even public domain
By Christopher1 on 2/2/08, Rating: 0
RE: Not even public domain
By radializer on 1/28/2008 9:33:14 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed ... a point well made about Private vs Public networks ... however, the only problem with your entire argument would be if the response that AT&T planned on taking actually involved some form of bandwidth limiting or information throttling. That requires a pre-assumption of guilt, which is troubling!

How, then, would you differentiate between a legitimate user and an illegitimate user? If someone with a small business uses the P2P protocol to transfer business-related information from their home to their office - should they be penalized with slower network speeds purely because P2P "tends" to carry pirated material on average?

