🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4rsjbq$ufa@news3.realtime.net>, bladex@bga.com (David Smith) wrote:
>Just looking at the trends of liability law, my prediction is that
>
>1) this will become more of a standard practice within 3-5 years, and
>2) the list of newsgroups will grow.
>
>I don't think the newsgroups are going to disappear, but will be slightly 
>harder to access.

Probably MUCH harder.

Check out an interesting precedent currently being set. Canadian 
satellite-television interests are taking a number of vendors to court for the 
"crime" of providing equipment used to access US-based satellite services. The 
issue here isn't anything so heavy as morality; it's just copyright and the 
rights of government-endorsed monopolies to dictate our buying options. The 
upshot is that Canadians already DO NOT have the right to access legal, 
commercial, widely-available communications services, simply because they are 
based in another country.

If this model is applied to the Internet, you can see what's going to happen. 
Apparently, countries in the Far East are already doing this: funneling all 
Internet access through tightly controlled access points, so as to restrict 
the international flow of information.

It's obvious that this iSTAR business is just the first warning shot in a 
rather desperate global struggle. My EFC membership fee is going in the mail 
tomorrow.

............. Frank.

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No flames but the ones you lit yourself.
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