OzHub, the Macquarie Telecom-led cloud computing alliance, has come down firmly on the side of Optus over the copyright controversy surrounding Optus TV Now, warning that any moves to change the law "risk branding Australia a global luddite state."
Controversial Australian politician Stephen Conroy has picked up an online Oscar for his starring role as Internet villain of the year, but let's not forget the supporting cast: the Australian Government.
The 11th annual Internet Industry Awards ceremony was hosted by the
Internet Service Providers' Association in London this week. The ISPA
is the UK's Trade Association for ISPs and the awards ceremony has
become something of an Oscars for the online world.
Stephen Michael Conroy was actually born in England, but has found fame
(or should that be infamy) as an Australian politician. Specifically
for his role as the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the
Digital Economy in the Australian Government.
The Internet censorship policies which were pitched as protective measures for children in the face of online pornography, have actually ended up painting a much broader filtering landscape. Indeed, so broad
are the censorship brush strokes that they include revolting and
abhorrent phenomena that offends standards of morality. Whatever that
means.
And so it was that the ISPA opted to include an award category where a
number of individuals and organisations could be nominated for their
hard work in upsetting the Internet industry, hampering its development
and ending up being hated by the online masses.
Conroy, naturally enough, was a favourite to win from the start.
However, he was up against stiff competition including the European
Parliament for supporting an amendment to the Telecom Package on
cookies which could bring the Internet to a standstill.
Other shortlisted nominees included French President Nicolas Sarkozy for his commitment to the HADOPI law
which advocates a system of graduated response, despite repeated
arguments suggesting the law is disproportionate from the likes of the
European Parliament.
However, on the night it was Stephen Conroy along with the entire
Australian Government which picked up the award (or rather didn't as
Conroy did not attend for some strange reason) for their work in
continuing to promote network-level blocking despite significant
national and international opposition.
Usually I heartily disagree with the judges when it comes to handing
out Oscars, but the ISPA has got this one spot on. Couldn't have gone
to a more deserving chap.
In case you wondered, the Internet Hero of the Year award went to the
Featured Artists Coalition for publicly recognising that the focus of
music companies should be the development of new business models for
distributing content online rather than attempting to pass
responsibility to ISPs to take action against users. Nice!
David Frost
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