The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says:

Originally posted by Cory Doctorow

Boingboing.com
November 4, 2009

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says:

* That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn’t infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

* That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet — and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living — if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

* That the whole world must adopt US-style “notice-and-takedown” rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused — again, without evidence or trial — of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

* Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

More details: The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

Footage from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 leaked onto the Internet yesterday, and if you thought the lack of dedicated PC servers were the big controversy in regards to this game, you're in for a huge surprise. The leaked gameplay footage reveals that you'll be able to play part of the game as a terrorist.

Heavy spoilers ahead, obviously. The footage has since been pulled from YouTube, and has been pulled from CNN's iReport site as well. In the level (reportedly the beginning of the game), the player is with a group of men who murder innocent civilians in an airport. The level seems to consist primarily of capping innocent people, including the clearly injured who are trying in vain to hobble away as you shoot them in the back. This is where CNN's video ends. Based on other internet reports, after the airport killing spree, the group then exit to the tarmac where they pass a pile of dead bodies, and shoot some cops. Eventually, the main terrorist, Makarov, murders the player with a shot to the head. It's strong stuff.

When asked if the footage would be in the game, Activision released a statement to the press, saying:

“Yes it is. The scene establishes the depth of evil and the cold bloodedness of a rogue Russian villain and his unit. By establishing that evil, it adds to the urgency of the player’s mission to stop them.

“Players have the option of skipping over the scene. At the beginning of the game, there are two ‘checkpoints’ where the player is advised that some people may find an upcoming segment disturbing. These checkpoints can’t be disabled.

“Modern Warfare 2 is a fantasy action game designed for intense, realistic game play that mirrors real life conflicts, much like epic, action movies. It is appropriately rated 18 for violent scenes, which means it is intended for those who are 18 and older.”

I predict an uproar from certain members of the excitable media. I predict semi-accurate headlines will proclaim: "New Game Has Players Take The Role of Terrorists!" while ignoring the fact that this is, essentially, a cut-scene where you control a character, and the scene itself doesn't glamorize terrorism: After all, you are betrayed by your own leader, who is so evil, he shoots his own men.

We don't really know the context of the level either: Perhaps the player is infiltrating the terrorist group and has to participate or blow his cover. Maybe the main character is under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Maybe it's a dream sequence. But no matter what utility it might serve in Modern Warfare 2's plot, it's a disturbing thing to watch; I can't imagine how disturbing it would be to play. While I'm all for artistic freedom in games, even I gotta shake my head a little at how far this goes.

Modern Warfare 2 is scheduled for a November 10th release. Please Boycott this game until the PC version is repaired (dedicated servers and mod tools re-added)

GeoCities' time has expired, Yahoo closing the site today

We always imagined how this might end: GeoCities would finally take down all of the animated "under construction" signs, and we'd hear one last Midi file to the tune of horns playing taps.

Instead, GeoCities will probably go down with a whimper today.

Time is up for Yahoo Inc.'s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock its doors and take millions of pages offline.

GeoCities allowed anyone to build a custom Web page for free and reserved a small amount of virtual storage to keep pictures and documents. It was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet.

At the turn of the century, GeoCities was nearly ubiquitous. Fathers created websites about their families; kids created sites about Pokemon; teenage girls created sites about the Backstreet Boys. Practically every facet of culture was documented and thanks to search engines, easily accessible.

All of those documents are about to disappear.

GeoCities stopped accepting new registrations earlier this year. Existing users could continue to update their pages and save sites to a personal hard drive in advance of the impending closure. Yahoo is encouraging the relatively few remaining users to transition their accounts to the company's $5-per-month Web hosting service.

The decision to shut down GeoCities rather than keep it around for historical reference and, say, slap ads all over it is curious. Especially when you consider that the network is still among the top 200 most-trafficked sites on the Internet, according to metrics tracker Alexa.

"Yahoo continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences," according to a company spokeswoman. GeoCities' closing is "part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers."

The company downsized in a different way on Friday when billionaire financer Carl Icahn announced he was resigning as a director.

Yahoo boasts that it has closed nearly 20 services in less than a year, which includes a sort of competitor to GeoCities called Yahoo 360 as well as My Web, which was similar to Delicious, another Yahoo property.

Read more »

Originally posted by smnet at vBulletin.com/forums.

I'm very sorry Jelsoft but I can't help but feel extremely offended and insulted. I have several licenses with you and I've been on these forums for years (I have a few usernames here so I can keep my businesses separate and anonymous) and never in the history of vBulletin have I seen such a fundamentally WRONG decision made.

I am speaking of course in regard to the lack of demo prior to the close of the pre-release window sale.

I love Jelsoft and vBulletin, don't get me wrong - I've been a very loyal defender of vBulletin on many occasions.

However, I cannot possibly imagine how you can be both so blind and so deaf to have missed the VERY VERY clear warnings from the community in this regard.

How good is your SEO features? How good is the CMS? How good is the new forum, the social groups, the templating system, the blogs - what does this mean for our mods, x, y, z? How good is this and that.....

These are all fundamental NEED TO KNOW questions that can only really be answered and gauged by seeing a demo.

How can you STILL be asking people to part with money before seeing a demo? If you were that confident in the product you are releasing then a demo should be no issue. If the homepage is anything to go by then I'm fairly sure vBSEO are breathing a huge sigh of relief that there is so much still lacking in vB4 to warrant their continued involvement.

If the demo will take a while then either extend or reschedule the sale.

I'm sorry but this is one leap of faith that is a little too far for me to jump at.

Once I've seen a demo, I demand the pre-sale price because I am a loyal customer with multiple licenses of vBulletin, Blogs and project tools. I've always supported you, I've always upgraded and I've always come back time and again.

If you wish to punish me for making a purely reasonable and sound business decision (ie, needing to assess the damage and extent of upgrade prior to purchase) then I am taking myself, and my website's over to IPB.

Several very big vBulletin players are already making this move and I urge you along with countless other people to reconsider this action.

I have no wish to leave vBulletin but at the same time I have no wish to stay with a company who puts money first and the needs of customers last.

Without us Jelsoft, your loyal fan base and customers - your company would be NOTHING. You have made it to where you are purely because customers always have been put first... you've listened, you've delivered...... that is until now.

I hope this is one of those situations where you have simply not thought this through properly and can quickly make amends.

I urge everyone with a voice who feels as strongly as I do to speak up and be counted on this monumental and detrimental shift in vBulletin customer relations.

I truly hope this is not a goodbye.

Your comments and thoughts would be welcome and desired.

AT&T today appears to have begun blocking access to parts of the internet site 4chan.

Various users have confirmed the block(twitter), which is affecting all AT&T DSL and AT&T U-Verse customers at this time. The block is affecting the server that /b/ and /r9k/ resides on, img.4chan.org. No other 4chan servers are affected at this time.

In addition, no other internet connections appear to be having an issue accessing 4chan. This appears to negate any other possibility, that the access issue is due to some server or backbone failure or DNS update. If such issues were the culprit, it would be almost impossible for only AT&T customers to be having an issue, and AT&T customers would likely be unable to access any of 4chan, not specifically its most popular board.

4chan and others interested in this matter has been unable to to get anyone at AT&T to confirm the blockade. Other unconfirmed reports have been relayed from AT&T’s highest, levels of support. These reports claim that /b/ had been blocked due to costly DDOS attacks, stemming from AT&T customers. We have been unable to confirm this.

Under the FCC’s Comcast/BitTorrent ruling, Internet Service Providers may only slow or cap connection speeds. They are not allowed to block any service or protocol on the internet. Here, 4chan as a web site appears to fall under an internet service, but it is also conforming to standard web page protocols. It appears AT&T does not have the legal right to block 4chan, only to cap customers who are “abusing” their access to the internet.

4chan’s founder, moot, has been voted one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people, initially via an online poll, and then inducted into the list by Time’s editorial staff. The site is considered one of the most bandwidth-consuming non-video web sites online.

We here encourages all AT&T customers who are unable to access 4chan.org /b/ or /r9k/ sections (and there’s an easy test), to call AT&T and escalate as high as possible. Spend as much time on your speakerphone as possible… only complaining will show AT&T that it is more costly to block a site, than to mitigate the infrastructure of the web.

Both DSL and U-Verse customers can reach AT&T Support by calling 1-800-288-2020. We suggest escalating the matter at least to Tier 2 support.

This does leave customers in a difficult position, in many cases. With Comcast applying national bandwidth caps (plus throttling), and AT&T blocking access to individual web sites… which is the lesser of two evils?

Update (8:45 PM 7/26): After over an hour of trying, we finally got someone from AT&T corporate to provide a statement. AT&T has confirmed that they are “currently blocking portions of the internet site 4chan.org”, but states that they are “following the practices of their policy department.”

AT&T went on to say that they did contact (or, at least, attempted to contact, they wouldn’t clarify) the owners of 4chan. They say that they have specific reasons why they blocked these parts of the site, but they would not disclose them to anyone besides 4chan. AT&T states that they have requested specific things and changes from 4chan’s owners, and that 4chan has not complied.

Regardless, without a clear explanation of specific rational for blocking 4chan… both 4chan and us encourage you to continue calling AT&T technical support, and filing your complaints there (escalate as high as possible, we have heard reports that Tier 1 support agents are being told to incorrectly state that AT&T doesn’t block any web site).

Update (9 PM 7/26): Moot, the owner of 4chan, has stated that 4chan has received no contact from AT&T, calling into question if AT&T followed their own protocol when blocking 4chan.

We'll have more as it becomes available..

Update (11:15 PM 7/26): AT&T appears to have restored access network-wide to all areas of 4chan.