According to This German Report, Starhub Blocks Bittorrent?

Something of note: a German institute has released their results concerning the actions by various ISPs around the world engaging in Bittorrent traffic blocking activities. This was stemmed by the fact that a major US Internet service provider has engaged in "traffic-shaping" activities, and singlehandedly pointed to Bittorrent as the target for blocking. This has caused a massive outcry by a P2P distribution company, and questioned the right of service providers blocking information/traffic on the Internet.

Interestingly, a Singaporean company is actively mentioned in the result.

If anyone read into the Odex saga previously, Singnet had committed the ultimate faux pas against its customers, by not contesting against Odex's court orders in the battle against P2P users. That the experts' opinion suggested that a non-action on Singnet's part shows "consent" for Odex's actions, illustrated the indifference towards ideals — ideals that should have been part of Singapore's core values towards a First-world City — and the policies and climate that favours corporate whims rather than an individual's right.

We're not talking about Singnet.

Starhub, on the other hand, had been mentioned in the aforementioned website as the perpetrator of the Bittorrent blocking. The only similarity between Starhub and the other two ISPs were that all of them used cable technology for Internet connectivity. (SingTel used an ADSL technology — a dated technology relying on phone lines to connect to the Internet.)

The report, however, stopped short of anything equalling Starhub to the US ISPs, in that:

"While we did observe blocking for hosts in 10 other ISPs (7 of which are in the U.S.), we did not see widespread blocking of BitTorrent traffic for hosts in those ISPs."

So, I am writing this post, to let others know that something fishy's going on in this Island Republic. Someone could do us a favour, and ask Starhub bluntly, like an Ah Beng gangster, "Eh, you try to play punk with us, is it? Bloody KNN."

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Anime-Hating: I Bet The Hippies Are Also Hating Anime

Before I entered into sleep mode, I happen to chance upon this entry on THAT Animeblog. Coupled that with reruns of Yahtzee's diatribes ("you mean you watch reruns on Youtube?!"), it sparked an imaginative thinking on my side, to give a 1-cent worth of this debate. (I'm also expecting some responses from the people running the upcoming STCC, hopefully we can rest in peace this almost-Arab-Israeli-like conflict within the pop culture sphere.)

(And yes, I've visited both the West Bank and Israel, in case you're wondering.)

In the beginning, I was also ambivalent about animé. The closest thing to animé was the reruns of Doraemon on a Malaysian channel, which happened to be dubbed in the national language. (This was OK, back at its time: I was a kid, Doraemon was marketed for kids in Malaysia, and until I discovered that some publisher forgot to censor Shizuka's naughty bits in the manga, I thought this was, at least, a decent "conforming to societal norms" kind of show.)

In my early teens, cable television came in, but I was still asshole-stuck to American cartoons (because in Singapore, the majority of shows were from America, and they still exude that venerable "I AM SAM! I AM HERE TO SAVE YOU" kind of vibe only now I realized when I contemplate on the shows I was being fed on). Heck, most of my cable TV-viewing were stuck to Cartoon Network, and the earliest attempts by them to introduce animé was Akazukin Cha Cha, and I've forgotten when was the time CN ran that show.

Because of the "American cartoon is great" spoonfeeding (a.k.a. conforming to whatever shows that's available to me, as a non-Mandarin-speaking person — more on that later), I forgot that AXN actually did showed some animé back in 2000 (or earlier). My whole experience with "I only got deeply interested with animé" only started when I was in tertiary education, when the now-detestable Naruto (and its plot) is still within believable limits. So imagine my utter shock when my younger significant other described how AXN managed to broadcast Vandread, Rurouni Kenshin and NieA_7 while I was still in this "America is great!" mode.

So, yes, I've been to that period of "I hate animé" because most of the animé shows are being predominantly broadcasted in a Chinese channel. Not being a Mandarin speaker, I find the Chinese's obsession with animé a bit odd. (I kind of conforming to the stereotype of animé haters as described by Danny Choo.) Racism aside, there wasn't a growing market for animé yet in Singapore, and even in early 2000, the prolific rise of Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! never struck me as "this is actually animé"; it was rather "Meh, it's just another show they import from some distant land."

So my 1-cent reasoning for the hate is: old habits die hard, and the circumstances shaped the hatred.

Especially now, I still think that the American comics/animation scene has still some latent potential to be great. In fact, with the prolific rise in comics-to-silver-screen transition we've seen, it's the mainstream audience's sign of acceptance of the cultural impact of American comics in society. Maybe.

Maybe I might be stuck in a time when everybody knows the limitations of AmComs (my short word for American comics) — just take a look at this comparison of the two pop icons' portrayal of a Star Wars canon —. And also, most of the animation nowadays have shifted the paradigm (or trend, whatever rocks your boat) to 3D, which basically marked the decline of mass production of 2D, hand-drawn shows in the West.

Even today, Marvel and DC Comics are struggling with the female audience of the comic market. Manga (and whatever companies that licensed them to the States — the [un]official place for international English-language manga licensing —) has garnered this segment of the market, and with the decline of the staple series' appeal on the AmCom side, it seemed apparent that America is no longer the dominant cultural force in the 21st than they were back in the 1980s and 1990s.

So I guess this talk of the main crowd's "mild hostility" towards animé are mostly restricted to the people that are into animé. For this, I have only 4 words: "Where are your manners?" It's like you are that Singaporean couple trying to proselyte a Muslim recently (actually the idea of charging them under Sedition Act was a bit, morose, considering the tensions associating with the act of proselytism, but that will be another story to be told in another day). I've given up on my contemporaries (I did try to nudge them to watch animé, but like all "normal people," they prefer going out on social events, party like there's no tomorrow, and actually get laid like it was actually fun), but I don't necessarily have to defend my hobby. Even tj_han admitted that animé, as a hobby, isn't going to go well with your social life. (I'm too lazy to find that link, but as a reference, here's how he was being perceived, at least in the satirical eye of another great blogger.)

So, there you have it. I have to submit to the fact that not all will be attracted to animé. But I have hope in the next generation: they have been fed into the animé scene, so more or less both genders are exposed to the same thing.

Then there will be a new group of grousers wishing for the revival of the AmCom scene.

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Aria Is Good, But I'm Still Fighting the Copyright Bullying

Indeed, the falling exchange rate of the USD against some of the Asian Tigers' currencies has cemented my decision to pre-order Aria. Thank you, Right Stuf, for retaining the Japanese dub, and adding the English subtitles, as well as releasing the first season of Aria in complete boxset.

(It still fails to amaze me why the American distributors still insists on a single DVD release schedule. It makes sense to do so on an "ongoing" series, whether it's from Shonen Jump or otherwise. In the end, animé still caters to a niche audience, and therefore appropriate the right method of disseminating the product in an economically viable, yet consumer-friendly manner. Like a complete season release of old series.)

But enough on my ramblings on animé. The main point of this discussion is the fight for better copyright reforms.

The actions taken by various pro-copyright entities has taken the meaning of "ludicrous" to whole new level. At the same time, it's high time we have to look at the current system very seriously, because evidently we can talk high-and-mighty about moral ethics; in the end, if the legal system indirectly "promotes" a system of consumer bullying (which otherwise Singapore wouldn't have CASE), there's no stopping these corporations to continue their legal offensive. I find it offensive, in my opinion.

To look at where these companies stand in terms of copyright ownership, let me digress (or simplify, if I have to say) on the workings of content creation, and the ultimate owners of such creations.

Take an example: you somehow believed that you made a wonderful song/book/film (henceforth collectively called "work"). Now, all you need are several things:

1. Capital to fund the work.
2. Expertise to make the work.
3. Exposure/advertisment to spread the promotion of the work.
4. Management to handle the various aspects in creating the work.

Regardless of whether your work can actually make the next step in production, let's say that you have the approval of a major publisher/record label/production company (henceforth called "the company"). Now, in all business sense, there's bound to be trade-offs.

The trade-off, should the company accepts your work, is that you give up your right to own your work. Essentially, it becomes the company's work. You still work on it, but the company ultimately have the final say on what is to be on the work, ranging from what plot goes into the work, what genre the work will be released under, how and when the work be sold, and how much royalty you get to be paid.

Essentially, these companies act like "repository of other people's copyright," meaning they "own" other people's works, so that the works can be released and consumed to the consumer.

That was before the advent of the Internet, back when Hollywood actually prides itself on piracy. (According to legend, certain individuals were miffed at how Broadway were monopolizing the theatre scene, and consequently moved to Hollywood, to set up a so-called "pirate haven" by putting up what we now called "film," to capitalize on the theatre's inability to mass-propagate i.e. actors can only be at one place — the stage — to enact a scene. For a film, the actor can enact himself many times in many areas.)

How ironic, it seems, that the very industry that founded on "theatre piracy" is finding itself at the forefront of the so-called "e-piracy" of the digital generation.

Essentially, the fight against piracy is basically the giant conglomerates' fight against the new wave of piracy. The countless excuse of litigation, and news of tough reforms on copyright, are actually on the behest of these powerful companies, who are asking to extend copyright protection to basically longer periods of time than a human being can outlive. To put it simply: the companies will get more money, while the original authors/composers/directors are still stuck to the old contract, which is basically screwing them, if you factor in increasing affluence of society over time, inflation and appreciation of the currency in which these people are being paid for their work.

Which is what some singers, bands, film directors and authors have been noticing. There has been a collective rise of concern and anger at the companies' portrayal at the "threat of piracy." It has lead Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails to experiment on self-distribution and self-labelling, to test on artists' ability to survive without the need of a record label.

Independent film-makers have also toyed with the idea of Bittorrent distribution. Some have allowed big Bittorrent portals like Mininova to allow the release of their films on Bittorrent, to increase exposure of their films to many people.

Increasingly, authors are also paving the way for acceptance of Bittorrent technology as the new way to market their works to a larger audience.

They say, piracy, in a copyright infringement sense, was founded on the lack of availability for legal distribution in the market. In the Internet sense, it was basic foundation in which the iTunes Store and Amazon was founded on.

The advent of new technologies meant that some old business models will have to go, just as well as how machines do away all labour-intensive jobs in the past. The onus in on how businesses should adapt to new realities, and how laws should adjust in accordance to such realities as well.

The entire copyright saga also touches on the right of personal privacy in online spectrum, the democratization of medium which was previously unattainable to a large population, and to a certain degree, how technology can disrupt and harmonize society simultaneously. It's one aspect of current affairs I am very interested in, because, like Spiderman says, "With great power, comes great responsibility."

Articles worthy of reading (Main Source: Ars Technica - because it's the best resource for covering the copyright saga in general):

• Copyright coalition: Piracy more serious than burglary, fraud, bank robbery - which is why the saga becomes ludicrous
• History suggests copyright crusade is a lost cause - indeed
• AT&T willing to spy for NSA, MPAA, and RIAA - a look at how some ISPs are increasingly curry-favouring (i.e. willing to bend over with) some entities to restrict how we use the Internet
• Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy - one of the many examples of ludicrity
• Campuses swimming in flood of infringement notices from RIAA - now they are targetting students?
• Is Lessig's Free Culture just a modern Das Kopyright? - A dissection of an anti-anti-copyright's book, and where flaws in his judgement are

Other articles worth mentioning:

• IFPI Erases Evidence Of Fascist Roots For 75th Anniversary - IFPI are based in Europe, operating in the same manner as RIAA/MPAA in America. The article suggest that the IFPI made use of the climate in Mussolini's government to rise and become what they are today.
• I Was a Hacker for the MPAA - A Wired article on the inner workings of MPAA's activities against P2P
• Anti-Copyright (Wikipedia) - An introduction to the anti-copyright mission

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It's Been A Long Time: Let's Talk About P2P

My apologies, again, for not posting up anything here for the past month. Writing has always been about my biorhythms, if anyone begs a reason for my absence. Once again, many apologies, but I draw the line of posting every day (even though that's a reader's paradise), because even I myself get burnout sometimes. XD

OK, to spruce up this post, let me talk to you about conflicts of interests, especially in the field of P2P arena.

There are currently two sides of the argument: those who vehemently wished that the P2P scene be exterminated (anti-piracy outfits, major labels and publishers, privacy-invasive-prone filesharing detective companies etc.), and those that fight for the consumers' right to fileshare.

I do believe that we should honor intellectual property, because we acknowledge the creative processes and efforts that goes into a product. However, at its current state, intellectual property laws are based on a defunct and obsolete 19th century rules which can never be practically applied in the age of the Internet. Major entities that you can find in major record labels (for music), production companies (for film and media), and publishers (for books), have been behind some of the most repressive actions against their customers, potential and/or otherwise.

When we mentioned RIAA, MPAA or the like, we are referring to the same entities that sued dead people and the elderly for exhorbitant amounts of money (millions of US dollars) for "compensation" that many academics have solidly questioned their claims. Because of the abovementioned companies' refusal to accept the new business realities of the Internet — because they never gave the new generation of Internet users the speed and availability, as well as the ease of transaction, needed to acquire legal products — and their draconian measures to stop the "piracy," even rightful consumers are being "punished" for buying legitimately, in the form of digital rights management (DRM)-enforced products and rootkits, which Sony has made the ultimate "slap-in-the-face" to its customers.

Around the world, similar efforts have been replicated. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is a similar RIAA-like organization that employs the same legal tactics in Europe. (I would like to highlight the story of their origins, and think for yourself whether we should allow such entities to continue their activities.) Major Internet service providers (ISP) around the world — the most famous, the Comcast scandal — have practised some form of "repressive networking" to infuriate its consumers of using popular P2P technology, even though there are legal uses to it. (On that front, Vuze has launched a formal complaint to the US statuory board, FCC, against Comcast.)

Oh, don't get me started on the Odex issue in Singapore; even Odex themselves knew that they are not the right people to launch such legal complaint.

These — and other reasons — are why I have become so dismayed by the owners of content i.e. people that own the rights of what we listen, watch and enjoy, that I appreciate what The Pirate Bay, other Bittorrent portals, and other similar entites had done, to up the fight against corporate bullying towards their customers. Essentially, they represent the wishes of consumers that the original copyright owners have not been listening to for so long. They are paying the price of ignorance.

But for me, I know that in time to come, this fight must come to a close. Either way, the consumers must always win, because, as they say, "the customer is always right."

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Various Post-Ups, In 3 Minutes

This is one of my post-ups that I find interesting, but nonetheless aren't worthy of their own articles. So, in 3 minutes (or more/less), let away your speed reading skills! (Details after the jump.)

AMD produced a minor update to their Phenom processors, to get rid of the flaw that somehow locked up all of their processors that used the Barcelona architecture (Phenom and Opteron processors used this architecture). However, I'm still sceptical that this will improve their already beleaguered market position in the processor sector. Intel still dominates this particular segment of the market, and AMD has other commitments (with ATI, nonetheless) to look into, so expect AMD to fall further behind. Unless they could find something revolutionary to lift their fortunes.

After a 3-day hacking challenge over at Vancouver (the CanSecWest conference), a Sony Vaio that ran a Linux OS was left as the sole survivor, after the Mac OS and Windows Vista platforms have been cracked by 3 other participants. I suspect that nobody wanted to crack the Linux OS, because why would you want to throw dreg onto a platform that everybody, from pirates to hackers, and open-source advocates, respect, although about 400 bugs were found on it?

The next-generation Asus Eee PC, which is touted to display a 10 inch screen and major upgrades to its solid-state hard drive space and RAM, is confirmed to be on sale somewhere in May or June. There are also images touted to be the desktop version of the same brand-model floating on the Internet. In short, I'm already eyeing on the 10 inch Eee, while deceiving others to get hold of the current 7-inch as soon as possible, to eliminate competition. XD

Akihabara Channel — the same people that gave you the English-translated map of the famous Electric Town — have released an event schedule of what's happening in this otaku haven. Doujinshi events, galleries, fairs etc. are all detailed. Tentative dates and what not, for those who frequent Tokyo and/or are planning to visit the area, this is definitely a good guide to choose the period you want to go.

Lol. America likes dark, top-secret projects. No wonder all that R&D money goes into military projects that don't require public auditing. Two words: good luck. In the race for economic succession, China and India are poised to contribute their share of their political, economic and cultural clout (minus the Tibetan protests for the Chinese) to the world. And the outgoing world superpower? Economic recession, and an increasingly Orweillian society that trades freedom for security.

And, this is probably the biggest news, in my opinion.

Spotted at the Tokyo Anime Center, a big poster has been set up, calling for the end for fansubs and their distribution. The copyright pundits have proposed a meeting sometime in April to discuss on ways to combat the pirate culture of fansubbing. Two words: good luck. As Funimation CEO admits: they are also tracking the fansubbing community to discern the titles that are popular with the animé viewers, and to subsequently license them to ride on the popularity wave of series that will benefit their coffers. So, no way, Mr. Web Sheriff-wannabes. Fansubbing is here to stay. While I can't offer you any solutions to the problem, I suggest looking at what Gonzo has done, with their partnerships with video-streaming websites to increase their audience share globally.

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