[HN Gopher] Internet Filtering in Canada: Rogers' NHL Blocking O...
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Internet Filtering in Canada: Rogers' NHL Blocking Order
Author : ChrisArchitect
Score : 232 points
Date : 2022-06-09 05:30 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (typefully.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (typefully.com)
| unglaublich wrote:
| The idea that a single host with a single IP hosts a single type
| of content is outdated.
|
| Just like a postal address is no substitute for an identity
| document, an IP is no substitute for a content identifier.
|
| The only thing that uniquely identifies content, is the content
| itself or a derivative identifier. However, TLS encryption will
| make these identifiers unreadable for the routing party.
|
| This problem cannot be solved reliably at the routing level as
| long as encryption prevents inspection of the internet packets.
|
| The consensus at this point seems to be to just accept the false
| positives and negatives and ignore the consequences.
| unglaublich wrote:
| P.s., distributed networks will turn the relation between IP
| and content upside down:
|
| - By definition, any IP can serve any content. - - To block ANY
| content, you need to block ALL IP addresses.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Isn't it relatively easy for people that know what they are doing
| to get any content that the want?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Movie pirates never have to watch the unskippable anti-piracy
| ads, either.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I used to be a very happy TekSavvy customer, until I moved
| someplace they don't service. I wish I could keep paying them my
| monthly fee anyway, toward their ongoing efforts to advocate this
| kind of stuff. They're a tiny voice of sanity in an ocean of
| stupidity.
| alephxyz wrote:
| I especially like how transparent they are about their rate
| increases : https://blogs.teksavvy.com/teksavvy-forced-to-
| raise-prices-a...
|
| On the other hand, Bell will raise their rates by 10% every
| year, and if you forget to call them after the 24 months of
| "reduced rates/credit" (whatever they call it) your monthly
| rate will double.
| fartcannon wrote:
| The only way to beat this is to stop watching. FIFA too.
| Olympics. All these trash organisations are powered by our
| viewership. Let's stop.
| 0des wrote:
| Since we know that won't happen, lets devote that energy to a
| solution that works.
| ratboy666 wrote:
| Malicious compliance.
|
| I imagine that Teksavvy, et. al. would not do it, but the
| point of the exploit is that the lists are dynamic, supplied
| by the NHL/ESPN/whoever. Get the provider to make a list that
| blocks everything.
|
| Could be as simple as creating a web site posting that there
| is an intention to stream a game. Just a list: "I hear that
| you can watch the upcoming Leafs game on IP a.b.c.d". Let
| NHL/ESPN/whoever scrape it. Start with providing nothing but
| "bad actors". Spring the trap by flooding with sites you
| desire to be blocked, you know, just before the next
| playoffs.
|
| This is pretty much the same strategy used to poison
| bittorrent feeds. More effective, though. In the case of
| bittorrent, only _really popular_ torrents can be poisoned.
| In this case, there are a very limited number of targets that
| need to be attacked.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Maybe some of the root DNS servers accidentally end up on
| the list right before an election
| fartcannon wrote:
| Some kind of TV viewers union? What would work? Hoping that
| they forget to pay off politicians?
| anotheracctfo wrote:
| Sure, lets get some blue collar solidarity and all cancel
| our subscriptions. I'm sure that the cable companies will
| listen to our demands and not triple down on squeezing the
| last nickle out of the Boomers.
| fartcannon wrote:
| What would you propose instead?
| a1371 wrote:
| For me it has always been confusing that how these decisions come
| to be. Specifically, in Canada the internet is overpriced and it
| is getting more monopolized by the day. A Canadian YouTuber's
| recent story of being in front of a house committee really put
| things into context
|
| https://youtu.be/ZN5kZPs1XSw
|
| Long story short, the decision makers live in a small bubble that
| tells them what they want to hear
| kettro wrote:
| His response to the ad-hominem is just flat-out the wrong
| answer for the committee. The answer is to address his main
| point, which is to say that there are many non-Canadian
| creators that won't go through the hoops when they start out,
| and who get buried under the algorithm by the large producers
| who do, stifling growth. Just railing about government
| overreach is just the most easily dismissed talking point.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| The CRTC is a revolving door for the telecom industry.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Well, what is the recourse for legitimate businesses then? When
| pirates can set up shop and distribute content that is expensive
| to produce, how do these businesses evolve to a more flexible
| model when an unknown large chunk of their rightful proceeds are
| directed elsewhere?
|
| >DNS blocking is a way of basically taking a phone number out of
| the phone book...then we're going to be back here five years from
| now talking about why we need to implement deep packet
| inspection,
|
| How about we make it mandatory to enforce transparency on the
| assets of the bad guys? Who are the ad networks that are allowing
| the blatant monetization of illegal content?
|
| Why are the hosting providers who presently find it easy to
| detect and kick off workloads deemed damaging to their
| infrastructure such as crypto mining unable to detect illegal
| video hosts?
|
| Don't get me wrong, i'm staunchly in the bucket of the free
| transfer of information, but i simply cannot turn a blind eye to
| crime.
| int_19h wrote:
| There's no obligation for society as a whole to support your
| business model above and beyond enforcing basic property rights
| via due process. If your business model _requires_ throwing due
| process out of the window to be sustainable, go find some other
| way to earn money; it 's not like there are no options.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| The business model relies on societal guarantees against
| serious crime.
|
| You can't be serious when you claim that illegal streams
| raking in tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of
| dollars for popular sports through plague like ad banners are
| the innocent party that should be allowed to operate freely.
|
| Why not punish all the ad networks that, in retrospect allow
| their ads to be shown on these illegal streams? Don't they
| have an obligation to ensure their ad models aren't
| supporting illegal businesses?
|
| The dual standards by intelligent tech workers who should
| know better is one of the biggest shames of our time.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| I don't think anyone is saying that. I think the problem is
| systemic and to fix the problem, focus needs to be put on
| why their is rampant piracy in this sector. Hence why
| someone posted the [Piracy-is-a-service-
| problem](https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-
| Newell-Says-Pir...) from Gabe Newell.
|
| The internet is a vast ocean of interdependencies, its not
| like the tangible world, as such, it requires different
| strategies to combat. This is why the software gaming
| industry is flourishing and not declining because someone
| decided to work on the problem from the point of the
| service, and the rest followed suit.
| my80thaccount wrote:
| Society evolves into communism. These are just the
| complications of late stage capitalism where we are still
| trying to patch the leaks. But, as you alude to, it is
| impossible to have a capitalist system where the commodity
| (sharing files and data) has zero cost or value.
| refurb wrote:
| Communism failed long before capitalism, so I'm not sure your
| statement is really based on reality.
| int_19h wrote:
| Communism is a classless post-scarcity society; it wasn't
| ever achieved, so how could it have failed?
|
| If you mean USSR and the likes, those guys were claiming to
| "build" communism, with authoritarian socialism
| ("dictatorship of the proletariat") as the ostensibly
| required temporary stage that was supposed to be brief and
| kept getting indefinitely extended. However, none of them
| have ever claimed to achieve it.
| refurb wrote:
| It's never been achieved because it would never work.
|
| I mean the USSR was willing to murder people who opposed
| the idea and it still failed.
|
| And China tried it and abandoned it out of failure true.
|
| Your rationale is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| ls15 wrote:
| If we can have communism in the solar punk sense without
| surveillance and all the scarcity, then I am in. If not,
| then that idea better dies in hell.
| [deleted]
| jimbob45 wrote:
| It's often difficult to impossible to get sports streams. It
| feels like they don't want you watching their product unless
| you're prepared to pay thousands. Conversely, these ramshackle
| pirating operations get by on ad revenue just fine.
|
| It seems like these sports leagues could easily bring thousands
| of viewers back into the fold by not trying to charge thousands
| just to watch one stream. It's just not feasible since most
| sports-watchers watch every sport and don't have the multi-
| thousands to purchase every streaming package.
| vageli wrote:
| > Conversely, these ramshackle pirating operations get by on
| ad revenue just fine.
|
| Is that surprising? The pirate operations don't contribute to
| the production of the sporting events or anything at all,
| they just have hosting/streaming costs.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > Well, what is the recourse for legitimate businesses then?
|
| Maybe try selling it?
|
| Paramount refuses to sell Star Trek in my country, or let other
| people sell it, thus Paramount gets no money from me.
|
| My understanding of region blocks in the US with sports games
| is they are often blocked but there's no way to subscribe to
| ESPN or whatever to watch it because another broadcaster has
| the rights to show it, but have decided to show it later that
| night (not live), or not show it at all.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Isn't it a chicken and egg problem? The existence of this
| illegal market can never allow legitimate sales to exist
| sustainably.
|
| When people can just google " f movies
| <insert_movie_name_here>" and watch the movie series you
| mention in HD, unfettered, and ad networks reap the reward of
| turning a blind eye. . . this makes a sustainable market for
| legitimate goods impossible because the scale simply does not
| exist for enough people to subscribe to a streaming service
| or to invest in paying to watch so the costs drop at scale
| etc.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| How would you rate the relative significance of these things:
|
| - blocking of IP addresses on an ISP level, introduced via
| court order
|
| - folks who organize hockey lose some revenue
|
| For me, the former is a 10/10, the latter maybe a 3/10. About
| as severe as ..bike theft. Happens all over the place, costs
| normal people quite a bit of money and distress, and no one
| does a thing about it.
|
| This reflects an inappropriate influence of that sports league
| on law and society, don't you think?
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| We aren't reducing the argument to your simplistic depiction
| which is misleading at best.
|
| We have businesses investing legally in producing and
| securing rights to content. We then have internet ads
| businesses incentivizing unverified actors to convert any
| impressions to hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts
| even if those impressions occur on stolen content. How is
| this fair?
|
| The legitimate businesses are losing their ability to re
| invest proceeds into their business thus permanently
| impairing them since who's to say the high price of streaming
| and linear TV is not a consequence of stolen revenue thanks
| to these illegal streams?
|
| We will never know since society has turned a blind eye and
| has decided "Just too bad, let those assholes die, it's not
| my problem" while Ad networks and criminals laugh their way
| to the bank.
| TimPC wrote:
| I think there are other remedies that would be more
| palatable. Perhaps making it illegal for ad networks to
| advertise on stolen content and let Rogers and Bell sue the
| ad networks that do so. Perhaps requiring Rogers and Bell
| to sue the pirates directly?
|
| But the solution of turning off parts of the internet by
| blocking I.P.s which could block large parts of the
| internet if for example a pirate uses cloud flare is
| unacceptable.
|
| It's also problematic that it could end up blocking all
| kinds of locally hosted content from any number of ISPs
| using dynamic IPs. Your IP could end up blocked and other
| ISPs would prohibit video games from connecting to you
| because someone else used the same I.P. for some type of
| content piracy earlier.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| I . .agree. I opened my comment with the line "What's the
| recourse, then" for precisely this reason.
|
| I'm calling the rogue elements of the internet, ie ad
| networks that behave in a scummy manner with zero
| transparency, integrity and self regulation , as the bad
| nodes. I don't advocate for the blocking of IPs , I
| advocate for legal challenges that provoke a wider
| response (regulatory, policy, etc). The judicial system
| staying largely silent instead of issuing rulings in
| favor of the plaintiff that at least find the Content to
| be of a stolen and illegal nature while dismissing the
| petition to block the IPs , gives them some recourse in
| law. . .right now, the status is ambiguous , so allowed.
| Which is really pathetic of us as a society.
| darkarmani wrote:
| > Well, what is the recourse for legitimate businesses then?
| When pirates can set up shop and distribute content that is
| expensive to produce, how do these businesses evolve to a more
| flexible model when an unknown large chunk of their rightful
| proceeds are directed elsewhere?
|
| I think this falls under argument from lack of imagination.
| Overreach shouldn't be justified because we haven't yet figured
| out how to solve the problem. I still lock my car and house. I
| invest in that security because it is important to me. I think
| they could invest in their own solutions to solve some of those
| problems without gov't interference.
| 6510 wrote:
| I imagine in stead of crowd sourcing (which would work) we
| could have crowd ordering and pay after delivery. The IOU's
| would be near-instant value created out of raw ideas.
| 0x0000000 wrote:
| https://nhlbite.com/
|
| They're a link aggregator, and do not host any content, so
| hopefully this link is kosher on HN.
| alephxyz wrote:
| That's one way to get rid of Canadians on HN.
| hulitu wrote:
| I like that in US, UK, Canada, DE censorship is called filtering.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| ramchip wrote:
| Censorship: "the suppression or prohibition of any parts of
| books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene,
| politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."
|
| This is bad, but it's really not censorship in the same sense
| that China censors Tiananmen Square, etc. You can talk about
| the NHL game, write about it in the news, share screenshots,
| teach it in school, upload an animated recreation on Youtube...
| dotancohen wrote:
| > upload an animated recreation on Youtube
|
| Actually, that one would be a derivative work and thus
| disallowed.
| trasz wrote:
| >China censors Tiananmen Square
|
| https://www.quora.com/What-do-Chinese-citizens-
| particularly-...
| mike_d wrote:
| If a government tells ISPs to block a website because it is
| publishing information unfavorable to the government or its
| leaders, that is censorship.
|
| When a government tells ISPs to block content that it believes
| doing so serves a greater good, that is filtering.
|
| You can argue all day about the greater good and if filtering
| is justified, but the difference is China explicitly censors
| opposing viewpoints.
| int_19h wrote:
| It's censorship in both cases. What, you think governments
| that censor don't do so in the name of the "greater good"?
| It's just that one "greater good" is considered valid enough
| a justification (by some), while the other one is not.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| Not sure it's that clear. Some of China's censorship is in
| the name of social harmony, which is arguably the government
| believing it's doing good. Nobody wants riots and civil war,
| do they?
|
| If Germany blocks sites promoting the Nazi party, is that
| doing good because such promotion does bad, or is it
| censoring an opposing political viewpoint that's competing
| with it for power? Even if the government has the support of
| most of the population, it's still a political power struggle
| between them and the Nazis.
| ratboy666 wrote:
| Godwin's law prevails.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| You can pretty much justify anything with the "greater good"
| slogan. Women wearing Burqas, greater good of lowering
| promiscuity and increasing family stability is how
| politicians justify it in the middle east.
|
| Democracy is done in America if more people think the
| government controlling what people read and think is some
| sort of social good.
|
| You can have good intentions, but still cause terrible things
| to happen.
|
| In the last year we saw government's pushing experimental
| drug on healthy young people in order to add a few extra
| months of life to 75+ year olds with multiple health
| conditions, and the extremely obese. Locking down, destroying
| small business and causing serious food price inflation, that
| will send millions of people around the world into absolute
| poverty. A drug that did not stop transmission, had pages
| worth of short-term side effects, and yet to be determined
| long term effects. One thing it did not due, was lower the 3x
| jabbed from catching covid, since they get infected now at
| highest rates now. How long before we go from "safe and
| effective" to "no one forced you to take it".
|
| It really is debatable what if anything governments COVID
| policy accomplished. Why shouldn't people be able to debate
| it?
| aljungberg wrote:
| Far would it be for a government to describe censoring
| opposing viewpoints as "blocking content for the greater
| good", right?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| It's only censorship when China or other oppressive regimes are
| doing it.
|
| We call it "filtering", "anti hate speech", or "anti child-
| porn".
| refurb wrote:
| Enforcing a contract and IP law is not censorship any more
| than foreclosing on a house due to non-payment of property
| taxes is "violation of private property laws".
| codetrotter wrote:
| Why is that not censorship, but China enforcing their laws
| is?
|
| I think copyright enforcement should be seen as a form of
| censorship, regardless of whether or not one agrees with
| copyright laws.
|
| This Wikipedia article about internet censorship seems to
| have been partially written by people who think that
| copyright enforcement is a form of censorship as well:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship
| sofixa wrote:
| The intent behind the actions matters. China blocks
| content it is afraid of ( gays, Tianenmen, Taiwan is kind
| of a country, etc.), while US, UK, Canada, EU, _usually_
| block content that violates copyright law. The most
| recent exception i can think is the "blocking" ( it
| really isn't blocking, it's removing from some platforms)
| of Russian state sponsored propaganda, which is also
| quite easy to justify.
| trasz wrote:
| You could say this the other way around: China blocks
| content that violates the law, US blocks content Congress
| was lobbied (let's pretend that's not a legalized
| corruption) to block.
| lupire wrote:
| Copyright is in the US Constitution.
| trasz wrote:
| So is "subverting the government" in Chinese one. (I
| suppose.)
| [deleted]
| notafraudster wrote:
| It's possible that "censorship" denotatively means
| suppression of any speech (including the parade of
| horribles -- viagra spam, stolen IDs, abuse content,
| etc.) and connotatively means suppression of speech with
| at least some political valence. Or alternatively that
| it's denotatively ambiguous and has multiple
| connotations.
|
| A case that sort of rubs up against this in the U.S. -- I
| use an American example because in Canada s.1
| circumscribes all legal rights, including freedom of
| expression, so it would be academic whether this raised
| speech concerns or not -- is Morse v. Frederick.
|
| In this case, a student, Frederick, raised a banner that
| read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" in front of some television
| cameras. The behaviour occurred off school grounds but
| nearby, and during an event that students were allowed to
| leave school early to attend. The school suspended
| Frederick because his banner promoted drug use.
|
| A lot of the ruling relied on parsing what category of
| speech this banner was. One argument is that it was
| essentially dadaist, absurdist speech (Frederick's claim.
| Another argument is that it was promoting criminal
| behaviour (the school principal's claim; Roberts, Scalia,
| Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito in the opinion). Another
| argument is that it was political speech, aimed at
| contesting a public policy (Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg in
| dissent; Alito and Kennedy in concurrence)
|
| Although there were other issues in the case, namely to
| do with how speech is regulated within schools and
| whether this constituted a school event, one of the
| undercurrents is that constitutional protections for
| political speech seem to be more crucial to many of the
| justices than constitutional protections for gibberish
| speech.
|
| So I don't think it's crazy to suggest, at a minimum,
| that there exists a well-support denotative use of
| "censorship" that specifically refers to speech with
| political characteristics, rather than all speech.
| Through that lens, copyright enforcement could either be
| censorship (to the extent that the enforcement is
| designed or has the effect of prohibiting the
| dissemination of political speech or prohibits commentary
| on a public policy) or not (to the extent the content
| being restricted is fundamentally apolitical). And this
| is true even if there are other denotations that consider
| stopping any speech to be censorship.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > A lot of the ruling relied on parsing what category of
| speech this banner was.
|
| But that's not germane, because "censorship" is not
| restricted to "restrictions on speech that violate the
| First Amendment", so the US Supreme Court "parsing about
| which category of speech" something is has no bearing on
| the meaning of "censorship." In fact, consideration of
| what category speech is only matters in the First
| Amendment context _after_ one has determined that
| censorship (and, particularly, _government_ censorship)
| is occurring. Only then is it important to parse the
| details of which set of standards to apply to determine
| if the government censorship involved is Constitutionally
| prohibited.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Edit: all the legal references are in a US context
|
| Censorship is prohibiting speech or blocking a speaker
| because of the content or alleged content of their
| speech.
|
| Not all censorship is unconstitutional. The legal
| blocking of curse words amd nudity on broadcast TV is
| clearly censorship regardless of if the intent or effect
| of cursing while nude on TV is political.
|
| It is true that free speech protections against the
| censorship of political speech do tend to be stronger.
|
| Also generally speaking, rules that prohibit speech in
| certain contexts or manners without regard for their
| content or the speaker (thus not censorship) tend are
| held to a lower standard for legal justification than
| laws that do engage in censorship.
|
| In this case, the question is does this type qualify as
| "not-censorship" because somehow blocking "content that
| infringes our IP" is not restricting speech on the basis
| on its content. To me it seems obvious that this is a
| restriction of speech that depends on it's alleged
| content.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In this case, the question is does this type qualify as
| "not-censorship" because somehow blocking "content that
| infringes our IP" is not restricting speech on the basis
| on it's content. To me it seems obvious that this is a
| restriction of speech that depends on it's alleged
| content.
|
| To the federal courts, too, which is why "fair use" was a
| court-created Constitutional limit on copyright before it
| was incorporated into the statute (the reason for the
| weird standards in the statute is that the factors from
| the court-issued rule were incorporated directly into the
| statute.)
| franga2000 wrote:
| There are different laws. Enforcing laws that limit
| freedom of information is censorship, be it net filtering
| or burning books. Enforcing copyright laws is not - you
| wouldn't call customs intercepting a truck of illegally
| copied DVDs censorship.
|
| It's not about who does it, it's about why they do it. Is
| blocking illegal-due-to-copyright content a slippery
| slope to blocking illegal-because-opressive-regime-said-
| so content? Yes. Is "slippery slope" a bad argument? Also
| yes.
|
| I agree having court-enforced IP block lists controlled
| by private companies is bad. But that isn't censorship,
| it's just stupid.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > you wouldn't call customs intercepting a truck of
| illegally copied DVDs censorship
|
| I might, depends on the context. Copyright laws can
| indeed result in censorship. Let's say those DVDs have an
| additional commentary track.
|
| > But that isn't censorship, it's just stupid.
|
| So when your IP address gets block in Canada for a year,
| regardless of what content or speech it was engaged in
| amd without any attempt to verify that you indeed were
| sharing content out of copyright, you aren't being
| censored? Come on.
| [deleted]
| rkagerer wrote:
| In fairness there are a few safeguards and the whole order
| sunsets at the end of this season, so I hope that
| distinguishes it a little bit from similar measures by more
| oppressive regimes.
| trasz wrote:
| What makes you assume those oppressive regimes don't have
| similar safeguards?
| rkagerer wrote:
| Do they? eg. Once they identify an undesirable topic
| would they limit their censorship of it to just a single
| year? Do blocking orders there come with explicit legal
| recourse for users who believe they are affected
| inappropriately to petition an impartial court for
| exclusion (and potentially collect damages from the party
| that blocked their IP)? Actual questions, I'm genuinely
| interested.
| trasz wrote:
| No idea about China, but in US "they" can, using a secret
| sentence from a FISA "secret court", legally prohibit you
| from absolutely anything, and if you complain to anyone
| you go to jail.
| kube-system wrote:
| Because most oppressive regimes have authoritarian
| systems of government.
| Maraguy wrote:
| It's a more "palatable" word for the population.
| franga2000 wrote:
| To be fair, there is a difference. Censorship means suppressing
| information and carries a connotation of "the government
| doesn't want you to know something". Filtering is one way to
| achieve that, but it can also be used for other purposes.
|
| Blocking illegal content isn't censorship. It creates the
| technical framework and weak precedent for censorship and I
| agree we shouldn't do it this way, but it's not more censorship
| than seizing a bunch of copied DVDs at the border would be.
| [deleted]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Blocking illegal content isn't censorship
|
| Does your definition depend on what is illegal? For example,
| if an incumbent government were able to illegalize media from
| opposing parties, and ISPs blocked the websites of those
| parties, is it filtering or censorship?
| goosedragons wrote:
| It's censorship if they've blocked every way or the only
| way to view some peice of media. It's filtering if you can
| still see it after plunking down $19.95 or whatever.
| evandale wrote:
| I wish you could get sports legally in Canada for $19.95.
| Last I checked you need something like a $60 cable
| membership to even get the ability to pay $20 for sports
| packages and even that won't get you much.
|
| On top of that, the insane prices are regulated by the
| CRTC, a regulatory body controlled by the companies that
| are setting the prices and think this is totally fair.
| folkrav wrote:
| > a regulatory body controlled by the companies that are
| setting the prices
|
| To be precise, the CRTC is theorically an independent
| public entity. In practice however, the chairman since
| 2017 is Ian Scott, an ex-lobbyist who worked for ISPs and
| telecommunications companies. He's been caught meeting
| with one of our major ISPs' (Bell) then-COO, now CEO
| Mirko Bibic, right before overturning their own 2019
| order that would have forced large ISPs to lower their
| wholesale rates to smaller ISPs, rolling them back to
| previous (much higher) 2016 values.
|
| The CRTC is a joke.
| lupire wrote:
| a better way to say it is if the content creator doesn't
| want you to receive it, blocking it isn't "censorship".
|
| You wouldn't say that they GPDR or anti-tracking web
| browser tech is censorship, would you?
| dotancohen wrote:
| > not more censorship than seizing a bunch of copied DVDs at
| the border would be.
|
| That would be true if it were in fact content that was being
| filtered. But in this case it is IP addresses that are being
| blocked, ostensibly as a proxy for context.
| dspillett wrote:
| That doesn't make it censorship, just badly implemented
| filtering. A sledgehammer with a broken handle to crack a
| nut.
| shkkmo wrote:
| That is silly sementic wiggling in am attempt to refedine
| a word. "Censorship" isn't a just a word that only
| applies to bad government controls of speech, but any
| control, even if warranted.
|
| If your IP is being blocked in a country due to a court
| order you are absolutely being censored.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > If your IP is being blocked in a country due to a court
| order you are absolutely being censored.
|
| Doubly so when taken shared hosting into consideration.
| I've still got old websites running with who-knows-what-
| else on old hosting accounts, all those sites sharing an
| IP address.
| filleokus wrote:
| I agree with you that seizing counterfeit goods is similar to
| this, and not censorship, but at the same time it's
| dangerous/unhelpful to define censorship based on wether the
| goods/information is "legal" or not.
|
| I'm guessing most authoritarian censorship is, in the local
| legal system, just seizing illegal goods.
|
| Wether its censorship or not is more dependent on the type of
| information/goods, and to some extent the moral or cultural
| framework of the observer.
|
| Is the suggested ban in Sweden on posting photos/videos of
| dead people censorship or just a reasonable way to protect
| relatives of e.g terrorist attacks?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Blocking illegal content is censorship.
| weberer wrote:
| >Blocking illegal content isn't censorship
|
| That's a nonsense statement. Declaring something illegal is
| how governments censor.
| franga2000 wrote:
| It's also how they prevent and punish genuinely bad
| behavior, which is why you need to look at why a certain
| thing is illegal, not just whether it is or isn't.
|
| Does the law say "you may not write bad things about the
| government or good things about gay people and if you do
| we'll block your site"? Anything blocked under that law is
| censorship. Does it say "you must have permission from the
| rightsholder to distribute any copyrighted material and if
| you don't we'll block your site"? Blocking under that law,
| whether you agree with it or not, isn't censorship.
| sib wrote:
| "you must have permission from the rightsholder to
| distribute any copyrighted material and if you don't
| we'll block your site"? Blocking under that law, whether
| you agree with it or not, isn't censorship.
|
| But that is not "illegal content" - that is illegal
| sharing of legal content. The government making content
| itself illegal is much much the definition of censorship.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So would you be okay if a company "illegally" used and
| distributed GPL software?
| AlanYx wrote:
| The linked post doesn't highlight one of the most egregious
| elements of this order, in my view, in that the list of blocked
| sites is subject to a confidentiality order.
| jensenbox wrote:
| Maybe I am missing some important fact here but why can't you
| just use a VPN and bypass their attempts at "filtering"?
|
| If a VPN can do the trick, I think it would be hilarious if
| TekSavvy provided a free vpn to all their customers.
| moeadham wrote:
| Seems the long term trajectory will be that the only way to
| access a neutral net will be via VPN.
| timenova wrote:
| And then governments will come after VPNs' service providers,
| and ensure even VPNs don't get access to a neutral
| Internet...
| switch007 wrote:
| I predict within 10 years businesses will have to license
| VPNs from the government and it'll be illegal for the
| general public.
| paulgb wrote:
| I don't think you even need a VPN, just to set your DNS to
| 8.8.8.8 or similar:
|
| > The latest version of the list of sites to be blocked does
| not require us to block any IP addresses, so we are not doing
| so.
| makeworld wrote:
| What's the source for that quote?
| Niksko wrote:
| The irony for me is that the NHL is an excellent example of why
| piracy happens. Last hockey season, I could pay the NHL directly
| to get access to all hockey games from Australia. They have a
| Google TV app that was flawed, but worked well enough, and I was
| happy.
|
| This year, because the NHL have done a deal with ESPN, I have to
| do a convoluted deal with a third party to get access to ESPN,
| and my experience is terrible. ESPN's Android app is terrible,
| the Google TV app flat out doesn't work, and casting from my
| phone to my TV craps out during period breaks and long ad breaks.
|
| Piracy would be easier, better and cheaper than paying for
| things. It's the same reason Netflix reduced piracy, and now it's
| tanking. They created something that was easier, cheaper and
| better than piracy. Now with their increasing prices, declining
| quality, and fragmentation of their library, piracy is going to
| increase again.
| indigomm wrote:
| Welcome to the UK, where the Premier League matches are split
| between three different broadcasters. So there isn't even one
| place you can go and be sure of being able to watch your
| favourite teams. Instead you need to see if Sky, BT or Amazon
| have got the rights to that particular game - all of which
| require paying for.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| The copyright monopolists always defeat themselves with their
| little "deals" that nobody really cares about. They run their
| little profit maximization schemes with the full knowledge that
| consumers have no choice but accept it. The service they offer
| is always of such poor quality that nobody would be giving them
| the time of day were it not for the actual government-enforced
| monopolies that rob people of choice.
|
| "Piracy" is the full realization of the potential of our
| computer and internet technologies. They will never, ever be
| able to compete it with it without legal backing.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| maybe - what about the animation and camera action on NFL
| football games. I don't watch sports but you have to be
| impressed if you watch what they built. I think of it more
| like Rome or Las Vegas..
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Not enough to justify copyright monopolies.
| blahyawnblah wrote:
| All of ESPN's streaming solutions are awful. "Your event is
| starting soon" messages half hour into events, events on the
| wrong channel, events not cutting over, and the list goes on
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy.
| Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing
| problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24
| x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal
| computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-
| locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US
| release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store,
| then the pirate's service is more valuable." --Gabe Newell, [0]
|
| [0] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-
| Pir...
| lucasyvas wrote:
| He was right then, and he's still right now.
| JTbane wrote:
| This was a big part of why Steam was such a success. You get
| free updates, online multiplayer, storage of your games,
| cross-platform support, etc
| kmeisthax wrote:
| I absolutely love this comment, but very few creative media
| actually work like this. Valve is able to create a market
| where it makes sense to discount older games, which means
| that people buy more of them, and developers come out ahead.
| This works because Steam is fixed price pay-per-game - the
| more games you play, the more money comes out of your pocket
| and goes to the developers. This is quite possibly the most
| consumer-friendly business model you could pick where you
| still get paid for your work.
|
| It's tempting to look at Netflix and say, "oh they're stupid,
| why would they stop being like they were in 2012". The
| reality is that 2012 Netflix streaming was never going to
| last. They were dramatically _under_ pricing their
| subscription because nobody in the TV industry understood
| streaming[0] and thus underpriced their TV shows. When TV
| companies realized, "oh no, people are actually cancelling
| cable to subscribe to Netflix", they started to charge
| Netflix higher rates... because it turns out the TV business
| sort of just requires that $100 + ad revenue come out of your
| pocket every month no matter if the bill collector is called
| Comcast or Netflix.
|
| Sports are like this but worse. Out of that $100+ads that
| cable costs, the ad revenue pays for the entertainment, and
| the $100 pays for the sports, because pretty much every sport
| is far more extravagantly expensive to run than you'd think,
| and never pays its way for anything[1]. This is also why
| sports will often have extremely customer-hostile business
| practices and weird blackout policies - because the audience
| itself has been sold to other companies who can then force
| them to pay more money.
|
| [0] Remember how there was a writers' strike about a decade
| and a half ago, over, among other things, streaming
| royalties? TV execs genuinely thought that Netflix was never
| really going to take off and _replace_ cable. Just like how
| the music execs thought downloads were never really going to
| take off and replace CDs.
|
| [1] If you really want to get angry, look up how much money
| your city is paying in tax credits to your local sports
| teams.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > Out of that $100+ads that cable costs, the ad revenue
| pays for the entertainment, and the $100 pays for the
| sports, because pretty much every sport is far more
| extravagantly expensive to run than you'd think
|
| I think it's kinda the reverse - e.g. the AHL is able to
| pay its players, televise its games, and make do with an
| order of magnitude less revenue than the NHL. After
| adjusting contracts, etc. the NHL could presumably do the
| same.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Note that Newell's comments are from the perspective of the
| _consumer_. I, as the consumer, don 't care at all about
| how expensive it is or is not to run a production company
| or cable channel or streaming service or sports team, I'm
| assessing quality, ease of access, and price.
|
| >because the audience itself has been sold to other
| companies who can then force them to pay more money
|
| Again, don't care. The point is that I, as the consumer,
| can't pay to watch NHL games in a reasonable way, but the
| pirate's product is _better_ and _free_. So! Is it immoral
| to "steal" from ESPN/NHL in this way? Maybe, but it
| strikes me as kinda like Mr. Burns setting up a sunshade so
| as to be able to force everyone to use nuclear power for
| their lights -- it's a way to try to make money, and aw-
| shucks things are expensive [0] so they've gotta make
| money, but it's not going to work terribly well because of
| the realities of the medium and the consumer's experience.
|
| >It's tempting to look at Netflix and say, "oh they're
| stupid, why would they stop being like they were in 2012"
|
| Your straw-reasoner doesn't seem to get that Netflix isn't
| the owner of the content they're trying to get you to pay
| money for. Understanding that 2012-Netflix is streaming
| things they've licensed at rates reasonable to them is key
| to understanding why modern-Netflix stopped being like they
| were in 2012 -- the rates are no longer reasonable, so the
| content gets dropped. In contrast, the NHL _is_ the owner
| of the content they 're trying to get you to pay money for.
|
| The NHL _could_ unwind itself from predatory audience-
| eyeball-deals, just as I, as the consumer, _could_ jump
| through flaming hoops to get a low-quality legal stream,
| but neither party wants to do that. So!
|
| [0] I'm well aware of the horrifying practice of municipal
| (and even higher levels of government!) spending on private
| sports arenas, but I was under the impression that sports
| teams printed money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_
| professional_sports_le... suggests I'm not wrong...
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Yes, you are correct that the NHL sets the price of the
| content. And if fans _were_ to lose interest or move to
| piracy, then Newell 's argument would absolutely apply.
|
| The problem is that, as it stands, sports fans aren't
| going to do that. Remember, these are the same kinds of
| people who shout at city governments to keep subsidizing
| sports arenas so they don't lose "their team". The NHL
| has a massive money spigot and they're going to keep it
| flowing for as long as they can.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| > _same kinds of people who shout at city governments to
| keep subsidizing sports arenas_
|
| In San Diego, we had a stadium which had hosted 3 Super
| Bowls. The NFL team owner arranged for multiple
| referendums on the question of city subsidies for an
| improved stadium in a San Diego location he preferred.
| These votes failed. Then the owner moved the team to Los
| Angeles.
|
| American fans: You can loose the bonds of subsidy to
| teams that believe they can get anything and be paid to
| take it.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > "oh no, people are actually cancelling cable to subscribe
| to Netflix"
|
| Because Netflix was a better service than cable, it doesn't
| take a rocket scientist to see that. The change came from
| TV companies wanting their own streaming service too,
| basically bringing back the cable model to the internet.
|
| If they don't want to depend on Netflix, why don't they
| cooperate to build a unified and neutral streaming service
| where they can share the revenue? Every Internet user would
| want to subscribe to that.
| swatcoder wrote:
| > If they don't want to depend on Netflix, why don't they
| cooperate to build a unified and neutral streaming
| service where they can share the revenue? Every Internet
| user would want to subscribe to that.
|
| That's exactly what Hulu was meant to be. It's a fair
| thought that well-positioned people shared, but it turns
| out it's not so simple.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You mean...cable
|
| Disney/HBO content is worth a lot more - they both have
| multiple billion dollar franchises - than Netflix.
| cgriswald wrote:
| > The change came from TV companies wanting their own
| streaming service too, basically bringing back the cable
| model to the internet.
|
| With streaming, the middle man is cut out (versus cable)
| which makes a huge difference. Rather than buying a
| package of 100 channels from the cable company, I can
| instead subscribe to individual packages of content
| direct from much smaller packages of channels. Although I
| am paying more for the content I want, I save money
| because I'm not forced to subscribe to dozens of channels
| I will never watch.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| A "unified and neutral streaming service where they can
| share the revenue" already exists. That's called cable -
| and 2012 Netflix was just a better, more convenient, and
| cheaper version of that.
|
| Part of the whole premise of how the Internet was
| supposed to disrupt the publishing business was
| disintermediation - i.e. cutting out the middleman.
| Instead of everyone selling their works through a
| distributor, they'd sell them direct to the public. And
| that's basically what every streaming service turned into
| - including modern Netflix.
|
| Cable companies used to be good, too. The shenanigans
| they resorted to with "packages" and price discrimination
| were the result of the same pricing pressure from the TV
| networks that killed 2012 Netflix. When Netflix refused
| to play that game, the TV networks decided to disrupt
| Netflix, because they own the content and Netflix owns
| nothing.
|
| Sometimes innovation sucks.
| luma wrote:
| I'm sitting in my chair wearing a Red Wings jersey as I type
| this, and I haven't watched a single game this season after
| several years as an NHL.tv subscriber. I always had to do some
| shenanigans to be able to watch my team, but as they ramped up
| their protections to prevent people from ever being able to
| watch their home team, I eventually gave up and cancelled my
| subscription.
|
| Haven't seen a game since and now I spend my weekends watching
| F1 cars drive around in circles. They seem happy to have me as
| a fan so that's where my money goes these days.
| thoughtpalette wrote:
| Same issue as a Wings fan outside of the market area
| (Detroit) in Chicago.
| selectodude wrote:
| Yes, but it's important to remember that Detroit Sucks.
| Ralfp wrote:
| I'm from Poland and this is final year that we can watch F1
| on TV or via F1.tv. Starting with 2023 F1 in Poland becomes
| available exclusively via streaming on ViaPlay. And those
| guys are hell-bent that 780p is best for sport because 60fps
| is more important than picture quality. Liberty Media is up
| for a rude awakening.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Is that a type and you meant 480p?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| After Putin's invasion in the Ukraine, Formula 1 management
| has cancelled the airing deal with the Russian sports channel
| that aired the races. Comically, this led to an immense
| improvement in coverage: long time TV commenters started
| commenting the races live on their page in VK, without the
| video stream, and others started streaming the race video,
| mixing the audio stream with their commentary. An there are
| NO FREAKING ADS! Ads were a curse - they took up almost 20%
| of the race time, but now there are simply none. And
| commenters and streamers get a lot of donations from fans for
| their service. Imagine that?!
| ISL wrote:
| If you are in Russia, please do whatever you can, however
| small, to bring this war to an end. Nobody is winning.
| soperj wrote:
| When people said the same thing about Iraq and
| Afghanistan, what did you do?
| ISL wrote:
| I voted and advocated for change in directions I felt
| were healthy and positive.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Well, I too have always voted against Putin and his gang,
| and was always very vocal about my political views.
| Somehow, it didn't help.
| Nobody1989 wrote:
| ipaddr wrote:
| The prolonged war is a US strategy. Asking a random
| Russian citizens to stop it is like asking a random
| American to stop it
| icambron wrote:
| This is a weird framing. "Prolonging the war is a US
| strategy" only makes sense if you believe Russia has an
| unassailable right to conquer Ukraine. If Russia wants to
| stop the war, it need only withdraw its forces. The US is
| only prolonging the war in the sense that it's preventing
| Russia from winning it. It's unreasonable to expect the
| rest of the world to roll over and play dead because
| easing Russia's conquest would shorten the war.
| darkarmani wrote:
| > The prolonged war is a US strategy.
|
| If so, that's a stupid strategy. Russia can easily defeat
| the US's strategy by leaving Ukraine.
| bsedlm wrote:
| that's the same thing as asking people in europe to
| please do whatever they can to influence NATO's
| behavior...
|
| or asking somebody in Colombia to please help stop all
| that cocaine (or dunno)
|
| there's something deeply flawed in the assumptions of how
| the world works when pleading to a random person in a
| country to please please influence the actions of the
| international institutions controlling the country.
| Nobody1989 wrote:
| Nobody1989 wrote:
| No, no I am not.
|
| If I were winning, the demagogueries we call democracies
| would be extinguished from existence, and new nations
| would be forming in their place.
|
| And as far as Russia goes; it would have never gotten
| this far if 'I' were winning.
|
| The Cabal is winning, and they have been for years now.
| Russia vs Ukraine is just their latest plaything.
|
| Nothing we do or say will end this bullshit until the
| rest of you do what is right for once in your lives, and
| not just whatever is most convenient to you.
|
| Have a nice day. Might be your last. Who knows? Nobody.
| enterexit wrote:
| Yeah, because this is how wars are stopped. /s
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The main sponsors of war with Ukraine are EU and US who
| continue to buy oil and gas from Putin. It is estimated
| that since Feb 24 EU has paid more than 60 Billion Euro
| [1] for resources stolen from Russian people. If this
| revenue stream would dry out, Putin's economy would
| collapse overnight. So the most effective strategy is to
| cut the payments, now.
|
| (I personally think that EU should have stopped buying
| energy resources from Russia in 2014 after Crimea
| annexation. Instead, EU countries increased energy
| dependence on Russia and continued to fuel Putin's
| oppression and war machines)
|
| As for my personal efforts, well, I don't think that
| there is a realistic way of doing something significant.
| I have protested Putin's regime for more than 10 years,
| was detained once, cops threatened to plant drugs on me,
| and do nasty things to my family. I don't think unarmed
| protests have any prospects in stopping Putin's regime
| anyway: Ukraine has an army with heavy weapons, Javelins
| and Baryaktars, and help from the West, and they still
| have difficulty stopping Putin's orcs. And whatever he
| has thrown on Ukraine he has at home - so good luck
| fighting that barehanded. By now I think everybody
| understands that if the protesters will gather enough
| strength so riot police would not be able to disperse
| them, he'll just order to mow the protesters down with
| machine guns and flamethrowers.
|
| So, a few years ago I moved most of my business offshore
| to EU, and pay ~zero taxes to Putin's regime, but now
| this virtue signalling campaign by western businesses
| cancelling everything russian actually creates great
| difficulties to simply function. Russians were
| discriminated even before by EU and US institutions and
| banks, and now this discrimination is turned up to
| eleven. The sad irony is that most of these
| discriminating measures actually help Putin, like idiotic
| ban of Visa / Mastercard payments - now Russian people
| have great difficulty paying for foreign VPS services,
| for example, and can only visit websites that perpetuate
| existing state propaganda.
|
| [1]: https://crea.shinyapps.io/russia_counter/
| ISL wrote:
| Thank you.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| It's "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine":
|
| https://time.com/12597/the-ukraine-or-ukraine/
| philistine wrote:
| Hey! There are turns and stuff in an F1 race! It's not a
| circle!
| criddell wrote:
| Baseball is the worst. Their app is pretty great but you can't
| watch local games because they've sold rights to Bally's so you
| need a cable TV subscription. The Sunday morning game is only
| on Peacock and that's a separate fee. The Friday night game is
| only on Apple TV, but at least it's free. The Sunday night game
| is on ESPN, so again you need a TV subscription. Every once in
| a while, some game is only on Facebook or YouTube.
|
| Why won't they sell me a tier in their app where I can see all
| the games? I don't mind paying more.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Why would the Yankees, who own the YES Network, want to give
| up carriage revenue from that TV network? And it's not just
| the Yankees -- a surprising number of teams are tied up with
| regional sports networks, and they're more interested in
| maximizing that revenue than providing a good online product.
| And sports fandom is generally localized to the team's
| location ("we'll root, root, root for the home team/if they
| don't win its a shame"), so that local cable deal is
| generally one of the biggest sources of revenue (generally on
| par with ticket sales).
|
| The only reason why the MLB has a good app is because they
| can capture the thin slice of revenue teams miss out on from
| out-of-market fans with that app; there's generally not
| enough of those fans to drive a per-team standalone
| subscription service (although the MLB does offer one, it's
| not price-competitive with the full league option), so the
| league does it as a whole.
| criddell wrote:
| If I would normally see Yankees games on the YES network
| and I watch a Yankees game on the MLB app, MLB should send
| a portion of my subscription money to YES.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| The issue is that MLB.tv is a lot, _lot_ less expensive
| than what the Yankees make by offering a cable channel
| (where they make a lot of money from people who never
| even tune the channel, because of carriage fees). So that
| $160/year you pay the MLB would have to outweigh all that
| money that YES makes because they have exclusive rights
| to carry games in their broadcast area.
|
| Are you willing to pay $300/year+ for MLBtv?
| criddell wrote:
| > Are you willing to pay $300/year+ for MLBtv?
|
| For every game? Absolutely. Sign me up.
|
| For me to get my local teams and the games on ESPN I have
| to subscribe to a mid-level cable package which costs
| something like $1000 / year. To get the Peacock games,
| it's another $5 / month.
| corrral wrote:
| > Are you willing to pay $300/year+ for MLBtv?
|
| Given how many people I know who pay $80+ a month for
| cable _only_ for sports, I guarantee you 'd get a lot of
| takers for a "stream any game, any time, anywhere,
| $350/yr" plan for any of several major sports, including
| baseball.
| bradleyankrom wrote:
| And if you live in Iowa, you can't watch six teams
| regardless.
| criddell wrote:
| Yeah, those are the "local" games whose broadcast rights
| were sold to somebody else.
|
| When I was in Hawaii I couldn't watch any of the west coast
| teams - Mariners, Angels, Giants, Dodgers, A's, or Padres
| because they were the _local_ teams.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is where it gets asinine - back now 20 years ago the
| local San Diego network that made a deal for the Padres
| _also_ made the game free to stream for anyone in the San
| Diego area - that was nice. I doubt anyone is doing that
| these days. I don 't even care if I get the ad-filled
| stream (for awhile you could get "raw video" feed on the
| MLB app, which was fun because when the game went to
| commercial you'd just see whatever the last camera that
| had been on wandering around the park) - make it so we
| can get the game!
|
| And don't even get me started on the "it's easier to be a
| fan of a team far away than your local one" that is so
| common now because of all the restrictions.
| briffle wrote:
| In the US, I would like to watch football games from my
| favorite team.
|
| This team is in the Pac-12, which has its own media company
| https://pac-12.com/
|
| My choice is literally just: 1) Subscribe to Satellite, or
| XFinity(comcast), or sling and make sure I pick a tier that has
| the Pac12 Network, ABC and FOX (local affiliates that carry
| some home games) and ESPN, and between them get many of the
| games live.
|
| I would much, much rather just give my money directly to the
| pac12 network, and be able to live-stream all of the football
| games for my teams I like (and basketball, etc)as they happen,
| but apparently, that isn't a thing.
|
| Piracy is so much easier, because of the business descisions
| that have been made by media companies to offer 'exclusive'
| content.
| pluc wrote:
| In Canada, I can't even buy the NHL's own product to watch
| hockey games! They black out their own local games because
| they've sold the rights to someone else. The NHL wants me to
| buy cable, then get not one, but four channels in order to
| watch one team (since RDS split the rights with TVA Sports and
| they are both specialty channels, that you must subscribe to
| their parent channels to get, or in case of RDS it _is_ the
| parent channel, but _must_ come with their child channels).
| Thanks but no thanks.
|
| The NHL is 100% the cause of NHL piracy. I have the money, give
| me an option that isn't retarded.
| boringg wrote:
| Exact same thing with the NBA. Paid for their product but
| needed to sub to a couple local outfits to get coverage on
| all my teams games. It was super frustrating how bad the
| experience was. Now paying two separate subs to catch all the
| games.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| The cause of sports piracy and all of these weird deals is
| because games are most valuable in the regions of the
| participating teams. It's a Gordian Knot of rights issues,
| and it exists as a way to extract as much money from fans as
| possible.
|
| And the teams want it this way -- both the Leafs and
| Canadiens are tied into telco/cableco ownership, who has a
| vested interest in getting you to pay more for games.
| pluc wrote:
| That's correct. If I lived in Montreal and wanted to watch
| all the Avalanche's games, there would be no issues. If I
| live in Montreal and want to watch the local team, I need
| to agree to get fucked three different ways.
| mdm_ wrote:
| I live in Leafs region and last I checked I think you have to
| be subscribed to three different premium cable channels to
| watch all 82 Leafs games.
|
| Similarly frustrating is trying to follow tennis in Canada.
| There is no comprehensive tennis streaming option, the ATP
| and WTA use separate apps that each have a $20/month
| subscription, and do not have rights to show any major
| tournaments. So for four months out of the year, you're
| actually paying $20 for two weeks of tennis coverage, and you
| also need to pay for TSN streaming if you want to watch the
| biggest tournaments. All this adds up to $60+tax/month to
| follow _one_ sport!
| nyjah wrote:
| I really enjoyed the TennisTV app in the US, but this year
| they updated it and added a bunch of 'features' and now its
| slow and ugly and the logo is big. It still 'works' but
| it's not nearly as good as it used to be. My biggest gripe
| with tennis coverage is exactly what you are saying where
| the Tennis app doesn't stream the grand slams. I couldn't
| even figure out how to watch the French Open. I was too
| afraid to purchase the wrong streaming option. Was it
| Peacock? Or TennisChannel App? Or something else? I have
| regular nbc. ESPN streams the other slams, but they stuff
| matches with commercials and it completely ruins the
| viewing experience if you are coming from TennisTV.
|
| Last US Open ESPN would play the same Home Depot commercial
| over and over and the first part of the commercial is
| someone using a circular saw. I have a massive phobia to
| saws and I couldn't change the stream fast enough to not
| see it in the commercial so I inevitably gave up. I'm a
| massive tennis fan, but I rarely watch the grand slams. .
|
| The worst part of all this though is that there is a
| TennisTV App for the men's and a TennisChannel App for the
| women's. It's unbearable. Tennis coverage is broken. mdm_
| you are not alone on this one.
| pycal wrote:
| You can buy a sportsnet subscription for $12/mo, directly
| from sportsnet, and stream all the NHL games (and more) live
| in the sportsnet app.
|
| I got it for the playoffs, it was easy, and I was ok with the
| pricing.
| pluc wrote:
| Sportsnet has the same blackout policy to not infringe on
| whoever owns the rights in Quebec.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I seriously doubt that out of all the problems Netflix is
| having, the majority is due to piracy. Netflix content doesn't
| have the mass market appeal of Disney/HBO. They don't have the
| IP that gets people excited nor do they have the multiple
| outlets of revenue to fund content like Disney.
|
| And before the typical "I don't like Marvel drek" response, a
| bunch of HN posters don't matter. Disney has multiple billion+
| franchises
| rjmunro wrote:
| If I route an illegal stream via something like Cloudflare or
| Cloudfront, will the court ask the ISPs to block all cloudflare
| IPs? That's not going to go well.
|
| I guess Cloudflare could block the stream, hopefully in time for
| that to not happen, but it seems risky.
|
| If the stream uses something like https://webtorrent.io/, your
| going to have to block the IP of everyone else in the world
| watching it.
| eterevsky wrote:
| I am utterly confused that such an important policy decision is
| introduced as a court order and not a law.
| nikanj wrote:
| Because this way nobody risks losing an election over it
| rkagerer wrote:
| For sure.
|
| Though reviewing the order, I have a bittersweet suspicion this
| judge and the defendants might have done a better job than
| parliament will when they eventually take a crack at a
| legislated framework.
| lupire wrote:
| Its the Anglo Common Law model.
| Sunspark wrote:
| I wonder if the information on the IP addresses is made available
| in a plaintext form stating the reason why they are on the list,
| or if it's just a blank feed of only IP addresses?
|
| It will be interesting to see when IP addresses start being added
| that belong to competing ISPs or platforms that are politically
| opposed to the board of directors of Rogers & their political
| interests. For example, recently Ed Rogers fought to not have
| Masai Ujiri be the Raptors President and it was discussed on the
| Internet. Ed Rogers went to court to fight his siblings for
| control of the company. It was also discussed how Ed Rogers hangs
| out at Mar-a-Lago. Does Ed Rogers have the power to say put the
| IP addresses of every site that mentions the bad behaviour of Ed
| Rogers on the list?
|
| What is the process? Do people sign off in meeting minutes notes
| with an audited trail that this address is being added or why, or
| is it just someone adding whomever their boss tells them to?
| rkagerer wrote:
| The order isn't terribly long and is worth a skim. This part
| dismays me:
|
| _...Respondents have no obligation to verify whether the IP
| addresses to be blocked ... have been correctly identified, and
| are wholly reliant on the Plaintiffs or their appointed agent
| accurately identifying and communicating ... such IP addresses_
|
| I get the practical reason, but it's very dangerous that a single
| entity gets to dictate what to block and customers who are
| impacted in error have limited recourse (I hope we see some of
| them apply to the court for relief).
|
| Also the judge left us an out:
|
| _Respondent shall not be in breach of this Order where it
| suspends in part compliance with paragraph 2 because the capacity
| of its blocking system is exceeded by the number of IP addresses
| for the Target Servers notified_
|
| Everybody and your toaster, go get your IPv6 addresses and
| overwhelm their blocklists! Finally a use for my internet-enabled
| fridge / toothbrush / toilet flusher.
|
| For those who are able, it looks like non-residential plans may
| be exempt.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| The issue here is that IPs are dynamic and the list will by
| design incidentally block reassigned IPs and thus noninfringing
| content. One could write an order creating draconian penalties
| for incidentally blocking noninfringing content, but the judge
| instead almost certainly will give plaintiffs a "pass" for
| interfering with the ability of Canadians to incidentally
| access noninfringing content. He'll do that because he feels
| responsible for crafting the remedy, even if it's one that
| isn't suitable to be deployed. My guess is this ends badly for
| the judge in terms of eventually accidentally blocking some
| popular nonifringing content, and he receives an unexpected
| level of popular attention. Since he is responsible for a
| dynamic interference with information available to nonparties I
| hope he is making his contact information available to people
| whose browsing he interferes with.
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| It's only a matter of time before they stumble on a streaming
| site hosted behind a Cloudflare IP and the ISPs end up
| blocking half the internet.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Someone should make sure to flag the ranges used by AWS as
| well...
| trinsic2 wrote:
| LOL. I hope this happens, maybe it will wake people up to
| the consequences of allowing this practice to happen.
| mig39 wrote:
| Let's hope Rogers, Bell and Telus's IP ranges get flagged "by
| accident."
| t0mmyb0y wrote:
| bstar77 wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but I used to pay the $25/month USD for
| Center Ice (or whatever the program is called). I watch 2 teams
| regularly and only care about them, but I was still fine to pay
| the full $25 for the convenience. I only watch games on my iPhone
| or Linux PC, I effectively don't own a TV or a streaming box.
|
| Reality of the situation is that I could not watch 1/2 of the
| games I wanted to because of blackout rules and other broadcast
| conflicts. If a game is blacked out, I'm screwed. If a game is
| playing on the NHL Network, I'm screwed. If a game is playing
| nationally, I'm screwed. I'm paying $25/month to catch 1, maybe 2
| games a week.
|
| I no longer pay to watch hockey. There are other means that have
| a substantially better experience and I never miss a game. The
| NHL did this to themselves due to their antiquated business model
| and hubris.
| Fogest wrote:
| My parents cut the cord and one of their only holdups was live
| sports. They have been trying to watch MLB this year and now
| they have found out the odd game for their favourite team is an
| "Apple exclusive". So they were left with the option of buying
| yet another subscription or trying to figure out how to get a
| pirate stream working. And the main app for streaming the game
| sucks. The quality almost always degrades. Can watch YouTube or
| Twitch live no problem in 1080p60fps but Sportsnet can't even
| seem to do 360p without buffering on Chromecast devices.
|
| Unfortunately these companies have little incentive to improve.
| Because what can my parents do? Go watch on a competitor? That
| isn't an option because of the stupid exclusivity deals. It is
| like how EA has a monopoly on most sporting franchises for
| being the only one who can produce games. You end up in a state
| where they release year after year new games that often suck,
| but no other company can compete as they can't use the
| franchise or players in their games.
|
| Exclusivity almost always seems to be a negative for the
| public.
| bstar77 wrote:
| The stream quality is my experience as well... I was shocked
| the first time I watched a 60fps hockey game (and it wasn't
| on sportsnet or NHL channel).
|
| There are ways to not have any issues catching any game you
| want to watch, but older people are simply not going to be
| stream hunting... but that's what all the young people are
| doing.
| Fogest wrote:
| Yeah you're so right about that. People my age will just
| pull up sport streams like it's just a regular simple
| thing. Often it's so easy that I've realized many people
| don't even realize it's an illegal stream. It's always such
| a sad state when you can get better quality, no blackouts,
| at no cost. The incentives are really in the favour of
| pirating.
|
| Just like how I've gone back to pirating tv shows. It's
| just easier and more reliable. I don't want to hunt for
| where each tv show is on which network. Streaming is
| starting to feel no different than having to buy cable
| packages. It used to just be simple and cost effective to
| just have Netflix. But now each company got greedy and
| switched to exclusivity. Each with their own shitty video
| players.
|
| I have Amazon Prime and have a better experience watching
| Amazon Exclusives via a downloaded file on Plex than I do
| using their player. Especially considering Amazon's service
| has ads that play mid tv show.
|
| I guess a lot of this comes down to the same principle I
| mentioned in my original comment. Exclusivity is almost
| never a good thing for a customer. Whether it's streaming
| or ISPs that have a monopoly on internet infrastructure,
| it's never good for the customer.
| amitkgupta84 wrote:
| The content producers (NHL) and publishers (Rogers) neither own
| nor operate the content distribution networks (ISPs). However
| they make commercial terms with each other to give one party
| exclusive rights to distribute the other party's content via the
| ISPs, implying a restriction on how any other party (eg ordinary
| citizens) can use the ISPs. Since they don't actually control the
| ISPs, they're having the government enforce the terms of their
| commercial agreements against parties that weren't part of them.
|
| Doesn't seem like this should be the role of government, but not
| surprising for Canada. On the spectrum of irrational distrust of
| government to irrational trust of government, any population is
| going to have a distribution. Canada skews towards greater trust
| of government, with more broad and intense irrational trust in
| government in the last few years than I'd ever noticed in the
| decades prior.
| unfocused wrote:
| You are incorrect. I'm going to assume you are not Canadian?
| Every Canadian knows that Rogers is an ISP, and so is Bell.
| Heck Rogers and Bell even have stakes in professional sports!
|
| They are the 2 major telcos of Canada that all Canadians love
| to complain about.
|
| I really don't understand your last paragraph.
| amitkgupta84 wrote:
| You're right about the first part. I actually am Canadian,
| though haven't lived in Canada for over a decade. Absolute
| brain fart on my part. If you asked me outside the context of
| this article what Rogers does, I would've listed cable,
| Internet, telephone provider before any of its
| media/publishing stuff, but got tunnel vision in the context
| of this article.
|
| I forgot about the degree to which Rogers is vertically
| integrated (ISP, cable provider, landline and cell provider,
| TV stations, radio, partial ownership in all major sports
| teams, etc.) and the degree to which this is a duopoly with
| Bell in Canada. But it's no wonder they can get the courts to
| issues these orders against themselves (and their smaller
| competitors) to legitimize actions that protect their broader
| interests.
|
| Weirder still is that Rogers has apparently sub-licensed the
| English-language broadcast of NHL in Canada to the state-
| owned broadcaster, CBC:
| https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/deal-gives-rogers-
| rights...
|
| One hand washes the other.
| unfocused wrote:
| It's all good. You should come back and visit :) You will
| definitely not find a shortage of people that do not like
| how Rogers operates. You then probably missed out on the
| whole Rogers fiasco where Edward Rogers was infighting with
| his own family in trying to regain control. It just turned
| everybody off.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| > Heck Rogers and Bell even have stakes in professional
| sports!
|
| Rogers and Bell own two of the most popular (if not the two
| most popular) teams in Canada -- Rogers owns the Leafs, Bell
| owns the Canadiens.
| JTon wrote:
| Might be a quibble but Rogers doesn't own the leafs. They
| own the jays. MLSE owns the leafs. Rogers has a partial
| ownership of the MLSE. Not sure stake but its not large
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| True, Rogers indirectly owns part of the Leafs. But, when
| it's time for the team to make a decision on media,
| that'll generally be enough to swap that decision.
| JTon wrote:
| Was curious about ownership stake and it's much larger
| than I remember. So I stand corrected on that aspect.
| Looks like BCE and RCI basically co-own the leafs at
| 37.5% respectively [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_Leaf_Sports_%26_E
| ntertai...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Canada skews towards greater trust of government, with more
| broad and intense irrational trust in government in the last
| few years than I'd ever noticed in the decades prior.
|
| I mean didn't they just decide that the constitution not
| applies and start freezing bank accounts and detaining people
| for political speech the government didn't like?
| [deleted]
| bregma wrote:
| Rogers and Bell are the two ISPs that between them control the
| Canadian ISP market. They also own the content publishers (the
| streaming services and networks) that send bytes over those
| cables, wires, and allocated public radio spectrum provided by
| the ISPs. They also own many of the Canadian sports teams that
| provide the content streamed by those bytes. The NHL is owned
| by the teams, hence controlled by Bell and Rogers.
|
| What's going on is that the vertically-integrated
| entertainment/communications cartel is refining its regulatory
| capture through the judicial branch of of the Canadian
| government in order to launder artificial restrictions on
| competition at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. It's how
| they pay me my big fat dividend checks so I can contribute
| their massive quarterly profits through my taxes, since I don't
| watch sports.
| helloooooooo wrote:
| Rogers itself is an ISP. This order is Bell(also and ISP)
| targeting all other ISPs in the country.
|
| Finally, I don't get what purpose your final paragraph adds to
| the conversation? This is a court order. It has nothing to do
| with executive action from the government, rather a judge
| ruling that the ISPs must block pirated sports.
| mortenlwk wrote:
| Let's not be naiive here. The courts and the government are
| not totally disconnected. Everyone has at some point observed
| court rulings that they thought to have been impacted by
| political discourse. Instead of indulging myself into a
| loquacious sesquipedalian treatise on the nature of ethics
| and origin of judicial and political systems, I will,
| paraphrasing Hemingway, let go of my dick and just tell you
| what is there. The system is man-made and man controls every
| aspect of it. It is corrupt and everything is connected. This
| is obvious to anyone willing to step away from their ivory
| tower and just apply common sense.
|
| I believe that last paragraph to be an observation that is
| obvious to most people.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| > loquacious sesquipedalian treatise
|
| This sounds like a species of fish.
|
| I went fishing for marlin but we accidentally caught an
| endangered _loquacious sesquipedalian treatise_ and had to
| throw it back before the fish and game officer saw it
| unfocused wrote:
| No one is naive here.
|
| The person made a false assumption in their first
| paragraph, and then linked that false information to his
| second that is really not that relevant here.
|
| If you read the article, it even states:
|
| 6. That didn't stop Bell, Rogers, and Quebecor, who went
| straight to the Federal Court in 2019, _asking for an order
| against themselves_ to block a streaming service called
| GoldTV. They also asked the court to order other ISPs to do
| the same, including TekSavvy.
|
| In addition, they have tried this twice before, through the
| Federal Government, and it didn't work:
|
| 2. For years, media companies in Canada have asked the
| government to use Internet filtering--or "site blocking"--
| to help enforce copyrights. In 2017, through a coalition
| called FairPlay, they asked the CRTC to create a site-
| blocking regime. _They lost_.
| https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2018/2018-384.htm
|
| 3. They made a similar pitch to the federal government
| committee reviewing the Copyright Act in 2018. I was there
| to oppose it. In its report, the INDU committee recommended
| studying a limited, copyright-specific injunction that
| balanced interests. https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Commi
| ttee/421/INDU/Reports...
|
| So to write that ALL IS CORRUPT and the Government is the
| baddie is unnecessary. These corporate people, and I
| certainly am not on their side, are just trying the numbers
| game. They will keep asking their lawyers to keep trying in
| order to restrict their product/service so they "make more
| money". I certainly don't agree with Rogers and Bell, but
| let's not mislead people here.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Where is the misleading? Are you saying its misleading to
| say that government, by definition is corrupt?
| unfocused wrote:
| I'm saying that the entire original comment was
| misleading since it was based on a false assumption which
| lead to a false conclusion. The government has said No to
| this twice already! I do not believe the person who made
| the comments is malicious, it's just a simple error and I
| hold nothing against the person. But then another
| commenter jumped on board and continued on that false
| premise.
|
| At this point, we are going off topic.
| timwaagh wrote:
| Well until they actually do move on to 'defamatory content' or
| they start to block things like YouTube that are only vaguely
| associated with piracy I do not think there is too much to worry
| about. Free internet would be nice but as with everything the law
| has to be maintained and users need to be protected from very
| easily breaking the law and opening themselves up to severe
| consequences. People could be getting a record for clicking on
| the wrong link if ISPs are like 'yeah, do whatever you like'.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| By then, it will be too late. First they came
| for the socialists, and I did not speak out--because I was not
| a socialist. Then they came for the trade
| unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade
| unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did
| not speak out--because I was not a Jew. Then they
| came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| Trust us. This is for your own good.
| sschueller wrote:
| This is utterly stupid IMO.
|
| I find that these broadcast exclusivity deals are not compatible
| with todays tech and should be thrown out the window. They cause
| people to pirate content because they can't legally or easily
| purchase it in some regions.
|
| The NHL should offer all their games directly to anyone who wants
| them anywhere in the world which they do except for the US and
| Canada. If a cable company/tv station wants to carry them they do
| not get exclusivity.
| [deleted]
| sacrosancty wrote:
| No doubt they need that to make money to run the games.
| pluc wrote:
| From a TekSavvy lawyer:
| https://twitter.com/kaplanmyrth/status/1534662222810468352
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| "So, as we were ordered to, TekSavvy is now complying with the
| order, and we will be blocking access to whatever IP addresses
| Rogers' consultant tell us to block. This sucks. It's not how
| the Internet works. But we have to comply with the order."
|
| This is very scary.
| eljimmy wrote:
| That's the same article and author.
| AntonyGarand wrote:
| This is the author of the linked post. The tweeted content is
| the exact same as the post, in a different format
| eric4smith wrote:
| Is Canada going the way of Australia (or even worse)???
| trinsic2 wrote:
| It's seems there is a genuine push to authoritarianism.
| Australia and Canada are the testing grounds for what is to
| come for other nations.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| How can a court order be fairly made against "unidentified
| persons" who have no way to defend themselves, and not even
| knowing they are defendants?
| Mindwipe wrote:
| When a court considers them to have gone to some considerable
| lengths to conceal their identity, yes.
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