RE: [wg-review] 11. IDNH Vote now - all those in favor

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

> From: Sotiropoulos [mailto:sotiris@hermesnetwork.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 9:40 AM
> 
> 1/13/01 9:14:10 AM, Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> wrote:
> >That is, the Internet is a physical entity, it is in fact 
> owned, and it
> >is owned by private enterprise, almost entirely.  It is 
> *not* owned by
> >the public at large, and, despite widespread belief to the 
> contrary, for
> >the public at large guarantees of "freedom" on the Internet are quite
> >limited.  For example, though the Internet has floods of free speech,
> >there is no global right of free speech on the Internet: whatever
> >ability you have on the Internet to express yourself is conditioned
> >entirely by your ISP.
> 
> >This is analogous to the old maxim "freedom of the press is 
> limited to
> >those who own presses". 
> 
> WHAT ABOUT THE INFORMATION?  Who "owns" that?!?!  Where would 
> all this "physical" Internet be without the Information!?!?  
> Do you let your 
> waiter or the counter help at McDonalds choose your meal for 
> you Mr. Crispin?!?!  Now be a good server and get back to 
> work.  Leave the politics for 
> those who understand the issues.  

That was established, in law, a long time ago. Look at Copyright law, Patent
law, and Trademark law. There is no such thing as publically-owned
information. Now, before you get too excited, realise that Crispin and
myself have been opponents for a long time now. Yet, this is one of the very
few things we agree on. This is why those whom have the most freedom of
speech (FoS), also are their own ISPs. Those with the least FoS, are AOL,
MSN, JUNO, customers (all three practice content censorship and state so in
their AUPs). Those of us whom are, in fact, our own ISPs, buy transit, in
bulk, from our upstream, at business rates. Many of us are multi-homed and
have our own ASN's as well, they also buy their IP addresses directly from
ARIN/RIPE/APNIC and negotiate their own peering. In short, we are not
content censored, because no one CAN censor our content. We own our own
presses, as Kent says.

But, this isn't free, any of it. It all $costs$. Even USG public information
is owned by the USG, which is owned by its citizens, and which *may* be
given out to others freely. Its publication is paid by the USG. Freedom of
speech is one thing, ability to publish is yet another. Also, let's not
confuse market forces with "rights".

-- 
ROELAND M.J. MEYER
Managing Director
Morgan Hill Software Company, Inc.
TEL: +001 925 373 3954
FAX: +001 925 373 9781
http://www.mhsc.com
mailto: rmeyer@mhsc.com
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