Well first it was bandwidth limitations now they are going to shutdown access to Usenet on their service. It is to early to tell if this is going to affect third party usenet services.

This is simply shocking and while many people have not a clue what usenet is, many rely on the service to participate in over 100,000 discussion groups.

Sprint and Verizon also are going to block access to some Usenet groups.

I am not yet a 100% sure if this means time warner is going to block access to third party usenet services, or if they are going to completely block access to Usenet by blocking Port 119 that the service runs on.

If the block access to Port 119 then this turns into a net neutrality issue among other things.

This stems from people using Usenet to share child porn which is horrible, but what is dangerous here is that they have decided to kill access to Usenet as a whole to stamp out what is happening in a handful of the 100,000 discussion groups. [CNET]

Comcast was involved in FCC hearings in which the FCC attempted to get to the bottom of their P2P traffic shaping that has caused P2P users on Comcast to have their outbound traffic delayed.

Their were representatives from organizations at the hearing as well that were speaking on behalf of consumer rights. The public was allowed to attend these hearings as well.

It turns out that Comcast hired a bunch of people to fill the public seating at the hearing. In a brazen move to keep critics out of the hearing.

It is my opinion that the FCC should re-open these hearings in light of this revelation. It is obvious that the stakes are very high and Comcast is doing everything in their power to stifle the voice of the people. PortFolio.com

In the past 20+ years I have probably purchased 1000 CD’s. When I was a DJ I purchased 12-inch singles for club tracks. All told I probably have 1500, 12-inch singles, not to mention at least 2000 individual tracks of music since the advent of the Internet.

Going way back to when I was a Teenager, I purchased 8 track Albums and recorded songs off the radio because I had very little money. When cassettes came out I bought every single album I had on 8-track and over time, replaced radio recordings with cassette albums. When CD’s came out I replaced every single cassette I had.

All told, there are a significant number of albums I have paid for at least 3–4 times. It will be a cold day in hell before I purchase an MP3 Track that I already have on current media! I will continue to enjoy the music I have paid for in whatever format I choose to consume it.

Shockingly, the RIAA is now saying that it is ILLEGAL for me to rip any of the 1000 CD’s I have to MP3, and it is also ILLEGAL for me to rip any of the 12-inch Vinyl Albums I have to MP3’s

Let me be very clear: I have never stolen a song, I have always paid for music that I own. I have been a good customer, I have paid my way. Yet the RIAA is saying today that we are all now criminals for ripping music that we have LEGALLY purchased.

Here is a message to all of the recording companies that support the RIAA “I will never ever buy an Album, Single, go to a concert or purchase anything from any of your signed artists so long as you continue to support the RIAA”.

From this day forward I don’t care if you company has DRM-free music or not, you will not get a penny of my money, nor my children’s money, and anyone else I can influence through my podcast and this website.

Fair Use is a RIGHT and I will exercise my rights with my current music collection!

The language I want to call your consortium is not fit to print here. The Gross Injustice being played out in the referenced court case makes the RIAA scum and those that advocate for the RIAA no better.

The music companies are culpable in the RIAA actions, as they are allowing this Gross Injustice. They have chosen through contracts and yearly multi-million dollar contributions to allow this organization to speak on their behalf, the actions of the RIAA and the Record Companies that support them are Anti-American! 

I am disturbed to the core ,and I can only pray that artists and music consumers in this country wake up and call for the disbanding of the RIAA. Washington Post

Well, this is going to turn into a firestorm of unbelievable proportions. With T-Mobile blocking Twitter SMS, they have just turned a significant number of bloggers and Twitter users into their arch enemy. I predict within several days T-Mobile will have no choice but to reverse course on this.

I pay for unlimited Text Messages with T-Mobile and I bet that they are not happy that literally thousands of text messages are coming into my phone and the thousands of others using their service.

To block a service that I am paying for is criminal in my opinion. T-Mobile, I have been with you a long long time and I can guarantee that the $1700.00 plus I spend with you each year and the 4 mobile phones I have would be served just as well on Verizon or another carrier.

If you are a T-Mobile user and have a twitter account I would call and ask them why they are blocking the service and raise a big stink. Make the telephone call painful on them. If we tie up their customer service lines enough they will know they have a PR nightmare on their hands.

See the full story alternageek.com

Thankfully I do not live in a area serviced by Comcast. Sadly though many of you do, and some of you have no choice to use an alternative carrier as Comcast has a monopoly in some areas that they serve.

With the confirmation last week that Comcast was blocking BitTorrent traffic, I am sure many people are just seeing red. While I use BitTorrent everyday for legitimate uses like delivery of my podcast, I can only imagine the frustration people are feeling.

Comcast has decided to ignore Net Neutrality and go their own way. Meanwhile, it is being reported that they are blocking legitimate traffic from business applications as well.

Actions taken by Comcast cannot be tolerated and those affected by their blocking need to start holding some protests outside of Comcast offices to inform the public at large that they are blocking legitimate services from being utilized.

Comcast should not be involved in censoring what people do with their Internet connection. If the person is using the connection for supposed illegal purposes that is not for Comcast to deal with unless informed by law enforcement.

Since they are now examining and killing BitTorrent and supposedly other business traffic, I feel that Comcast is now setting itself up to have to police all of their traffic. If you’re gonna sniff a small section of the traffic, you are then telling the world that they know what is moving around on their network thus should be responsible to monitor it all.

No longer can they say they have no control over what customers do, because what they have done is essentially hacked their customers connections.

It’s pretty scary when you think about it. Your own ISP snooping on what you do. If you have a choice please look at a different carrier. Second if you are in a area that is a monopolized by Comcast take your grievance to your local city council. Finally, get some signs and go protest at the local Comcast offices. EFF

This is simply amazing. A guy creates a video, puts in on You Tube. VH-1 who’s parent company is Viacom takes the video off YouTube and plays it in on of their shows without permission. Then the video creator grabs the segment from VH-1 and puts in back on YouTube with commentary inter-spliced.

Viacom obviously thought fair use was in play when they used the clip on a VH-1 program but claimed copyright infringement when he reposted it. Simply incredible.  theknightshift.blogspot.com

If this indeed turns out to be true, and it is proven Comcast is throttling BitTorrent users to the point that BitTorrent is not usable this is going to get ugly. Their are unconfirmed reports that Comcast is preventing seeding of torrents by the usage of Sandvine broadband traffic management equipment.

I use BitTorrent on a regular basis for valid reasons to include distributing my podcast. So much for network neutrality! Thank goodness I am not a Comcast customer. The Register