a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by ecib
Congratulations Content Providers. You have likely eliminated free wifi. No business (coffee shops, restaurants, etc) that offers it will anymore out of fear of losing their Internet connection for their business.




insomniasexx  ·  4639 days ago  ·  link  ·  
I may be wrong, but don't McDonalds and Starbucks block certain sites? I know I use a free community wifi here and they use OpenDNS to block porn sites, file sharing sites (mediafire, rapidshare), 4chan type message board sites. Unfortunately (for them) they don't have torrent sites blocked, but if they had half a brain they would.

When I was taking Megabus from Boston to NYC ever other weekend they also used OpenDNS and had it so you couldn't use cam sites, youtube, flash games, etc. because the bandwidth available was able to sustain 50 or so people all watching youtube videos at once. Weirdly, they had the porn/nakedness up so high that reddit was blocked. :(

If this happens, don't you think Starbucks and McDonalds and similar other wifi hotspots (airports, community wide, smaller coffee houses, etc.) will come to an agreement with the ISPs that as long as they put certain measures in place to prevent the sharing of copyrighted material, they won't have to worry about the 6 strikes?

mk  ·  4638 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Hey, how is Megabus? I will never ride Greyhound again, but we have a Megabus that goes from here in Ann Arbor to Chicago. It's about a 4-5 hour ride. We've been tempted, but haven't done it yet.
insomniasexx  ·  4638 days ago  ·  link  ·  
They're good. Sometimes the outlets don't work. The wifi is shitty but does work, even if it is slow at times. Lot's of sites blocked. Get there about 30-45 minutes before your bus to get best seats. My ex and I always got the table seats on the bottom level because we could stretch out legs. Some seats have more leg room than others, so look for those if you sit in the regular seats.

I took them from NYC - Wash DC - Raleigh. It took 10 hours but was like 20$ because I booked early. Can't beat that price.

dublinben  ·  4639 days ago  ·  link  ·  
A business operating an open hotspot could surely claim safe harbors immunity as a service provider under both the DMCA and the CDA, Section 230. I can easily see large companies like McDonalds and AT&T (provider for Starbucks) going to bat over this.
ecib  ·  4639 days ago  ·  link  ·  
I have to wonder if they would be able to be classified as service providers. I definitely think they would go to bat though. Also, as the article points out, this framework sidesteps the courts completely. It's an agreement between ISPs and content providers. As I read it, DCMA isn't recognized here (probably one of the reasons the author argues that this agreement should be looked at from an antitrust perspective).
dublinben  ·  4638 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Yup, this is private right of action that was decried in SOPA and ACTA coming to bear extralegally. I don't know if there's any precedent for an inter-industry agreement like this holding up in court.