The Australian government passed the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 late last night, which is meant to deter piracy, enable site blocking and more. Interestingly, he appears to have a lot to say about where the bill will NOT apply however - especially taking time to comment on VPN use (which is skyrocketing in Australia):
"VPNs have a wide range of legitimate purposes, not least of which is the preservation of privacy — something which every citizen is entitled to secure for themselves — and [VPN providers] have no oversight, control or influence over their customers' activities." Turnbull said. The Communications Minister went on to give the example of an Australian consumer using a VPN to 'trick' a U.S.-based site into thinking they were located inside the United States. "This Australian could then — and this is widely done — purchase the content in the normal way with a credit card. The owner of the Australian rights to the content so acquired might well be quite unhappy about that, but they could take a remedy against the American site or the underlying owner of the rights. This bill does not apply to a site like this. It is not intended to apply to VPNs." Turnbull confirmed, and then continued "If Australian rights owners have got issues about American sites selling content to Australians in respect of which they do not have Australian rights, they should take it up with them. The big boys can sort it out between themselves and leave the consumers out of it."
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:14PM
How about the native network in Australia just works without any bullshit?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:23PM
You mean didgeridoos and clapping sticks network? She'll be apples, mate.
Oh, sorry, you said native, not aboriginal network, my wrong. It will still work... sometime, maybe... and only just.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:28PM
Perhaps it takes some Australians that lay their own optical cable to get plain IP without big brother? ;-)
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:55PM
Based upon what I hear about the price of goods imported to Australia, I shudder to think what that much fiber must cost.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 18 2015, @10:48PM
They have a vast desert, shouldn't they be able to make fiber there?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:12PM
Direct import? share cost between people that want no fuss high speed connection? Or it could just somehow show up and no asked anything?..
"dude I found 1000 km of fiber cable in my garage this morning. No idea what to do with it. Perhaps we should lay some network?" :D
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:30PM
Besides, you'd have to exit somehow in this world, so back to Big [theaustralian.com.au] Boys [wikipedia.org] - which, Aussies or not, will sell your rights without a whisper [whirlpool.net.au].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 19 2015, @12:30AM
Arrange for some nerd ghettos?
And collaborative sea cable financing? kickstarter?
(starting to think here, Murdoch, kickstarter, bad people.. hmm ;-) )
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 19 2015, @01:26AM
Mmmm.. speaking 'bout ghettos, like this [wikipedia.org]?
Some are listed by non-operational (e.g. http://www.taswireless.net/ [taswireless.net] - dead. The http://townsville.wireless.org.au [wireless.org.au] reads "Stay Tuned we have new things to offer for 2013").
Then, Kickstarter doesn't help too much if you don't have access to internet to launch a campaign, does it?
(stop teasing, will yea?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 19 2015, @02:10AM
Perhaps they did it the wrong way?
Anyway I don't think wireless cuts it in any way. It will always have too great latency and a lot of wave propagation issues. One could also do things in steps. Ie build a local fiber network. Then cooperate to get a direct line to US/Europe.
The basics is quite simple. Avoid government, cooperate.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 19 2015, @03:24AM
There is a thing called.. surprise!... network effect [wikipedia.org]. Given the distances in the outback, putting up (or burying) the fibre is the most costly thing, yet brings almost no additional benefit to you on top of what you'd already have (a landline phone or a radio).
Think a bit: get out of the city and the population density is about 650,000 people/7,000,000 km² [aifs.gov.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:17PM
For VPNs, it doesn't matter how well the native network in Australia works. Online content sellers still see which IP block you're coming from and charge you differently just because you're in a different country, or refuse you access altogether. The only way around that is VPNs, so that an Australian user can appear to be in the US. The Australian government has no control over that.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:29PM
You are absolutely correct. The issue I had was that the government seems to censor and delay deployment of improvements. My thinking is that the government should keep their hands out of content, facilitate fiber upgrades and keep ISPs in check.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 19 2015, @03:24AM
We in New Zealand have it even worse.
We had a nationally owned Post Office, which ran the phone system, which we sold for 3 magic beans when anyone could tell it was going to be worth a huge amount of money.
Then we had a monopoly phone/cell/internet provider. Then another company entered the market and we had a duopoly.
Then the Labour Government decided to regulate the market and roll out a new national fibre network, paid for by taxpayers, but not including the two dominant players. Yay! competition.
NO! Labour lost the election before they could pass legislation, so the new National did what it had always done in the past and protected the incumbent players from competition by paying them the $1.4 billion to build the network.
End result, no network to speak of, and among the slowest most expensive internet access in the world.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NoMaster on Friday June 19 2015, @05:16AM
Y'know, that's pretty much what happened in Australia.
The only real differences are that we created our own duopoly competitor by selling the government satellite company for 3 magic beans, and then we sold the phone system back to the people at an extortionate price...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 19 2015, @06:51PM
Time to upset the market somehow?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday June 19 2015, @03:05AM
Still, it seems like a remarkably open stance for Turnbull to take give the amount of filtering and blocking that government want's to impose.
I suspect this statement gets rolled back and eviscerated as soon as he figures out what he actually said.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by glyph on Friday June 19 2015, @06:03AM
I suspect this statement gets rolled back and eviscerated as soon as he figures out what he actually said.
I doubt it, he's been saying the same thing for as long as he's been communications minister.
I think it's actually official party "messaging". This way the government gets to pass whatever laws the copyright lobby demands while appearing to be sticking up for the consumer.
I mean, just look at this submission! He just passed egregious regulations expanding internet censorship and even on a tech site like soylent coverage is about what a stand up bloke he is.