[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Hotmail? I don't think so. e-mail goes way back in the history of computing and networking: before there was even a web, let alone the idea of web-based mail.

Originally Posted by hserus

Email is very very old and predates Bhatia by near on two decades.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I think he wanted to say how email was liberated from being associated with the ISP. In the 90s, your email was always associated with your ISP, there was no escape unless you got your own email server, static IP and domain name.

That's right, I was pointing to how e-mail was institutionalised at first only to be liberated by two people by means of Hotmail, only to be partially institutionalised again by way of Microsoft. I feel that before all the Silicon-valley glass buildings spread over acres of land, there were just people trying to ride a tech wave by providing a service of use to the people, free of cost.

For example one of the first dedicated video broadcast sites was Broadcast.com in 1999, with Mark Cuban as the co-founder, Yahoo! acquired it for 5$ billion and it bombed shortly after because they simply had no idea how to market it, with slow speeds and grainy video quality the time had not come yet. YouTube was about to meet the same fate upon its founding 5 years later, because it's direction was not yet defined.. the only rule was that videos should be between 10 or 15 minutes long (contents were verified before permission for duration increase was given). Google acquired it within a year and put its muscle into marketing.. vlogs, entertainment videos, comedy skits, tv clippings, tv shows, everything was authorised and the public did the rest carrying YouTube into a multi-billion $ revenue site. What the Google do next? Make rules, implement iron-handed copyright regulations and all this because Hollywood made its official entry into the site, then came adverts and it never was to be as good as before.

The same people who popularised internet with usage, created a demand for high-speed browsing and high-speed downloads.. created a market for apps, online viewing and cumulatively made the internet a 100s+ billion $ market are today being punished worldwide. The institutions will not mind if each service is chargeable on a per-view basis soon and their goal is to make it a multi trillion $ market.

It won't work, the beauty of internet is that it's free. Television content today is looked at as total garbage by most of the public thanks to massive advertising, propaganda pushing and way too many paid channels forced down the throats and soon internet will meet that same fate.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by Samurai

33.6K? I don't think you are talking about 90s pre-hotmail days. The fastest modem then was 9600bps.

I didn't use AOL browser, because I was aware of Mosaic from my office use. I downloaded Mosaic with great difficulty, and then I would fire up Mosaic once the AOL dialup connection is established. Getting good speed was not easy, I had to dial many numbers before one of them gave the top speed of 9.6kbps.

Bring Your Own Access came in around maybe the late 90s. OK possibly around a year or two after Hotmail, good point.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

What the Google do next? Make rules, implement iron-handed copyright regulations and all this because Hollywood made its official entry into the site, then came adverts and it never was to be as good as before.

Well, they had no choice. Remember what happened to Napster? To remain a legitimate business, you have to follow the laws, and in this case copyright laws.

Originally Posted by dark.knight

It won't work, the beauty of internet is that it's free.

It was free (of laws), but it won't be in future. That is mainly because no government/business can ignore Internet anymore. It is the primary communication media going forward.

Whenever a new frontier opens up in front of humankind, it is like this. When American explorers like Lewis and Clark explored the American west and opened it for Homesteaders, it was the same. People who settled down in various remote places could live for free, pay no taxes, followed few laws, as long as they could survive on their own. People who were good at it, survived and thrived. When the taxes/laws finally caught up when these places were tamed and civilized. Then I am sure people complained similarly about having to follow laws of the civilized world.

I am an history buff, and lived the Internet life in 90s in USA, it was pretty much like the wild west. Nobody had to worry about breaking any laws.

[nitinralli]

So does that mean we cant use piratebay sites anymore in India?

[DriverR]

From what i understand, the rule states that accessing and using any torrent site is illegal. But this seems to be a knee-jerk reaction due to a few reasons such as:
1. It is impossible for the govt to monitor all torrent sites, given the fact that for every torrent site that is taken down, a new mirror site comes up.
2. For the rule to be successful, all ISPs need to share their user traffic data details with the Govt. While some of the big established ISP such as Airtel, Tata Comm can do so, there are various other smaller/regional ISP (such as the local cable ISP) who would not volunteer such info unless forced.
3. Even if all ISPs decides to share traffic data with the govt, there would be millions of offenders. Does the govt have the time and mechanism to legally pursue all of them? Nope.
4. Even if the govt somehow blocks all torrents sites via the ISPs, one just needs to get a VPN account to bypass the block. And using VPN, it becomes x times more difficult to track what site a user is accessing.

The basic purpose of the rule is not clear. If it is to stop piracy then blocking torrents is not the best way to achieve it. By doing do, many legal torrent downloads (eg Linux) will be blocked. and those who want to download movies will find other ways of doing so. Who knows, in place of torrents, a new file sharing platform may come up!

Edit:
See the below link:
Link

This article states the reasons why there was a change in the notification of the blocked sites. it also states that the Govt in all likelihood did not issue any such order for the change of notification, but it was done by Tata Telecom on their own. Other news articles from FirstPost, Economic Times, etc has a similar story.

[Thad E Ginathom]

We can't blame Yahoo for the copyright thing. I guess the media industry would have closed them down if they had not cooperated with it.

We can blame them for the implementation. This situation seems to have settled down now, thanks to concerted action by a few people, but the carnatic classical world was having a heap of trouble with uploads of their own songs being flagged as matching commercial CD releases --- as if Thiagarajah had not died 150 years ago.

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by DriverR

Who knows, in place of torrents, a new file sharing platform may come up!

True that.

First it was LimeWire which provided the easily accessible P2P file sharing services. It was brought down after it lost a long fought legal case on piracy.

Then Torrents gained a lot of momentum.
And they are Legal for sure, since they still work in the US, which has one of the largest mechanisms in the world to control Piracy.

[Samurai]

High Court has clarified the issue for now. Viewing is not an offense. So the ISP message was erroneous.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c.../54009022.cms?

[pganapathy]

I really don't understand why we need censorship at all in the first place.
Fair enough, banning piracy is good because it encourages people to create and innovate and charge for it.
Yes, stopping dark web sites from selling illegal material or banning child porn sites for example is good.
Why is there a problem with me viewing porn for example. Who cares and why should a government stop me viewing it. A couple of months back they tried to stop all porn sites in India. Some stupid misguided attempt that got nowhere

[haria]

Originally Posted by pganapathy

I really don't understand why we need censorship at all in the first place.

This has been debated at length in various forums, but the conclusion is foregone! Govt. WILL censor - Period. Recent example, ALL internet traffic was shutdown recently in Kashmir - to avoid escalating of situations.

This problem is not localized to our country, censorship is there in various degree in most of the countries.

But if one digs around a little deep, there are ways to get over it, which is on the borderline of being dangerous, hence not mentioning it

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by haria

This problem is not localized to our country, censorship is there in various degree in most of the countries.

That is true, but for a country that calls itself the largest democracy and the 2nd greatest democracy after U.S.A, this doesn't fly at all. Its not about censoring, its about arranging an alternative for viewing international shows "legally" whatever that is. America has HULU, NETFLIX etc, we don't. I'm one who doesn't want to watch the propaganda news/debates of our country, I'm not much of a Bollywood fan either (except for certain artsy, intelligent cinema).. but where do I go to when I want to watch shows I like, like say the classic sitcoms King of Queens, The Goldbergs, That 70's Show etc.. or drama shows like Mad Men (which I've not seen yet), The Sopranos etc? Zee Café proudly advertises that they show Big Bang Theory the same time as U.S but what about previous seasons? I've to explain what the earlier seasons were about to a friend who doesn't know and I don't even like that show!

Star World, Zee Café, AXN etc were at the top of their game in the early 2000's.. everything Americana I've learnt from these channels, best of shows, best of content minus censorship and it made t.v truly worth it, not the hypocritical garbage spewing machine it is now.. in the meantime Indian shows have been westernised and American shows have been stopped (all new shows post 2012 are garbage). Can I still get tickets for Sultan? I guess they need to get my 500 bucks.. all it made was 500 crs afterall.