A number of European countries see online censorship implemented, including Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and some others. The Internet service providers in those countries are required to block access to several websites like The Pirate Bay. However, WordPress came with a simple solution to the problem – they have released a plugin that allows users to set up a proxy site and be able to access blacklisted domains.

The plugin in question is called RePress. It has been written by the hosting outfit Greenhost and lets everyone having a WordPress blog to launch a proxy for websites included into the ISPs’ blacklist, such as Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay.

After you add this plugin to your WordPress blog, it will begin working as a proxy and unblock any censored site you want. Anyone having a WordPress site and the ability to install new plugins can do that. Afterwards, you will be able to maintain a list of sites you would like to keep open freely available on the Internet. This should be interesting for US citizens as well, as they now face the possibility to see SOPA or PIPA enforced one day. The developers hope that Internet users outside the Netherlands would use the plugin to unblock The Pirate Bay, because this site is currently in danger of being censored after a court-ruling. In the Netherlands, residents could then unblock sites for people from such oppressive regimes as Iran, Syria or even the United States after SOPA is enforced.

New copyright bills SOPA and PIPA are meant to defend the interests of the entertainment industry, but the observers agree that in reality they would only cause grave and undeniable damage to the open Internet and all netizens, starting from the end-consumer to the cutting edge developers and inventors. The aim of RePress creators is to make this impossible.

This plugin has already been praised by a number of political figures, including European Parliament member Marietje Schaake, who claimed that was a fantastic opportunity for human rights activists and a great way out for Internet users who faced technological censorship and repression. As usual, the plugin is absolutely free and it won’t be a problem for you to find it online and install if you know what WordPress is and how plugins work.

By:
SaM
February 1st,2012

Once MegaUpload was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there appeared all sorts of theories circulating around the Internet, all trying to explain the reasons of such a drastic move. Meanwhile, most of them are trying to answer the only question: why MegaUpload?

Actually, there is one theory that really makes sense. According to the recent media reports, the cyberlocker’s management was going to introduce a new service, which would shake the world of music industry from its grounds. The service was dubbed MegaBox and was meant to be a cloud-based alternative music shop, which could offer the musicians a better deal than the record labels. Meanwhile, MegaUpload’s founder Kim Dotcom told to the media that the website would soon accommodate musicians to offer them a chance to sell their works directly to consumers, at the same time keeping 90% of the earnings. In other words, in this case record labels lost clients and source of income.

Moreover, the cyberlocker was ready to pay the musicians even if their songs were downloaded for free. MegaUpload claimed that this business model proved to be successful after it has been tested with a million users. Indeed, claims like these might explain very well why the cyberlocker had the support of a lot of great artists before its abysmal fall.

In case this theory is true, which looks very credible, the shutdown of MegaUpload could be just an effort to stop an alternative business model that would have ended the era of record labels. Meanwhile, as everyone knows today, by some people, like those holding the monopoly on the outdated but still working business models, “change” is regarded as a bad word.

By:
SaM
January 30th,2012

A leaked cable between the American and the Australian governments has revealed how far the United States is having its foreign policy dictated to it by the entertainment industry.

The Canberra Wikileaks cables revealed that the embassy of the United States had blessed a conspiracy by Hollywood studios to target an Australian communications company iiNet via the local court system. It turned out that the idea was actually to achieve a binding common law precedent that would have made Internet service providers responsible for the illegal file-sharing of their subscribers.

The entertainment industry has selected this country and this ISP carefully. Indeed, if it managed to set a precedent over there, then it would have been influential in all other Commonwealth states. Since Telstra had too many legal resources to see off such a complaint, iiNet ISP appeared to be the perfect candidate.

The cables of the embassy of the United States revealed that the case was originally filed by the Motion Picture Association of America and its international affiliate, known as the Motion Picture Association (MPA). However, neither of them wanted this fact to become widely known. Formally, the case was launched by the local Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft – a consortium of US movie studios with token Australian representation, which started legal action against the selected ISP over three years ago.

The embassy of the United States in Canberra was saying that it would monitor this case, but it finally turned out that the US and MPA and American embassy badly misjudged their target and found the ISP put up the legal fight of their lives. According to the leak, AFACT was routed in every court in the land.

By:
SaM
January 29th,2012