tagged w/ ISP
-
It's been a sliver under a month since UK ISP British Telecom was ordered to cut all ties to filesharing site Newzbin 2. Now, a European court decision deals a counter blow to media owners by denying their demands to hustle ISPs into tracking freeloading downloaders. Specifically, the court held that it was illegal to force an ISP to install and maintain a system filtering all of its traffic as it could infringe customer privacy rights. While the decision will prove unpopular in big-wig boardrooms, joe public will no doubt be pleased with the court's upholding of both net neutrality, and of course not having to shred quite as many strongly worded letters from his or her ISP.It's been a sliver under a month since UK ISP British Telecom was ordered to cut... more
-
-
Too little, too late, we're afraid. For the past decade or so, the RIAA (amongst others) have spent every waking hour figuring out how to best sue and frighten every internet-connected human that even dares think about an illegal download. Now that said practice has failed miserably, it's finally resorting to something sensible. The entity announced today that AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision have teamed up with the RIAA and MPAA in order to agree upon a six-stage notification system that'll electronically alert internet users whenever their account is used for wrongful downloading. It's actually not all that much different than the systems that have been in place at Suddenlink for what feels like eons, but at least this creates a standard protocol that the whole lot can adhere to.
Oh, and before you ask -- under no circumstances will any of these notices result in termination of your broadband connection. There's no way an ISP would agree to such a thing, and indeed, they haven't here. The full run-down can be delved into below, but it's worth noting that no extra "watching" procedures are being put into place; your ISP will only drop you a line if a content overlord asks 'em to. Good times, no?
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/08/isps-agree-on-copyright-alert-system-plan-to-notify-you-to-dea/Too little, too late, we're afraid. For the past decade or so, the RIAA (amongst... more
-
-
When companies try to artificially control the way their digital products get used in today's connected society, we all lose.
Published 10:00, 24 June 11
When society was arranged as a series of intermediaries serving disconnected clients, distinguishing clients from non-clients was a key element of business. But in a meshed, massively connected society, simulating that world using artificial control mechanisms simply does harm.
First, some links to explore:
Disastrous Implications of New Apple Patent for Blocking Cellphone Video
What an amazingly dangerous world Apple are exploring here. They want to create a system that allows a cinema to switch of video cameras in consumer devices without the involvement of the owner of the device. The scope for abuse, together with the quantisation of analogue freedoms (explained in the last link below), makes this breathtakingly poor judgement.
Closing keynote at Personal Democracy Forum
Cory Doctorow makes an excellent point in this recent talk about how all technical measures need to evaluated not only by their effectiveness for their stated purpose but also by their potential for abuse and unintended consequences.
A movie lover’s plea: Let there be light
Fascinating article that reveals how the movie industry’s control-freak paranoia that treats all third-parties as criminals has as a corollary the degradation of the movie experience for paying customers becuase projectionists turn out to be untrusted third-parties who have to be controlled with ridiculous degrees of technical measures. If it’s this hard to change lenses, imagine how hard it will be to preserve the movie in the future after the business model that’s driven the technical measures has died.
DRM is toxic to culture
It's not just that the systems of artificial control harm the business and its customers; I also assert in this essay that it's harmful to society as a whole, and that any attempt to represent human discretion using digital means is a best doomed to fail.
Topological Change
The first mechanised communications - dating back to the start of the Industrial Revolution and before - helped to create a hub-and-spoke social topology in a world that had previously been generally hierarchical. The ability to communicate to a large number of people was necessarily centralised and recognition of a client-intermediary relationship became more important. As more communications became industrialised and businesses were established that exploited that, so did society become more centralised. Many models embraced the topology: author at the hub, readers at the spokes; suppliers at the hub, customers at the spokes; government at the hub, citizens at the spokes - and more.
The Web has changed that for good. The topology is changing from hub-and-spoke to a mesh that even crosses cultures and borders. Peer-to-peer is the new order in every system that is touched by the change, from the ephemera of the music industry to the hard reality of the Arab Spring.
If your business relies on the anachronism of hub-ness to make money, that's bad news for you. When businesses have a strong and authoritarian culture, there's little to mitigate their reptilian instincts. Instead of exploring new models that fit the new society, they try to artificially recreate the friction that used to exist in their business model. They implement digital restrictions, they attempt network filtering, they try to obtain extrajudicial controls over their customers. In every case, the people harmed are not those they believe are "subverting" their business, but actually themselves and their customers.
Pioneers, Not Criminals
More than that, in plenty of cases the people framed as "criminals" are actually pioneers. Consider for example, the case of the original MP3.Com web site. It allowed music lovers - people with actual, purchased CDs - to "scan" them on their computer and then stream the music anywhere. Rather than welcoming this innovation as a way to serve customers better, the music industry found an obscene technicality on which to persecute and eliminate MP3.Com. It's taken until today for a rich and powerful company - Apple - to rediscover that innovation and announce it as part of iCloud.
As we see more and more attempts by the commercial and political giants of an earlier era to shore up their old world as it crumbles under the force of the new, we need to oppose it. The new topology simply needs a new approach, and allowing old leaders to establish new markets in the new world is akin to an abuse of a monopoly position.When companies try to artificially control the way their digital products get used in... more
-
-
Right on the heels of a rash of copyright lawsuits, comes the news that your Internet Service Provider may soon become an attack dog for the film and recording industry, according to an online report. Major U.S. ISPs including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are reportedly close to an agreement with the entertainment industry to monitor how you use your Internet connection and punish you if you step out of line. The plan, which has not been finalized, calls for a "graduated response" to stop users from pirating video, music and other copyrighted content. Punishments can include bandwidth throttling and restricted Web access, according to CNET.
Here's how the plan would work: rights holders keep an eye out for copyright material being traded over peer-to-peer file sharing such as BitTorrent. The companies would then identify the pirates trading the material (presumably by IP address), and alert the ISP about the scallywag sailing their digital shores. The ISP would then send you a notice called a Copyright Alert, CNET says, warning you about your actions.
Reeducation camp
If you fail to heed the warning (and any potential subsequent warnings) you would then be subject to restrictions on your Internet service, as mentioned above, until you stop trading in copyrighted files. If that wasn't bad enough, the ISP could even go so far as to ask you to participate in a program that educates you on "copyright law and the rights of copyright holders."
There's no word on what the process would be for reintegration after you complete copyright reeducation camp. But I'm guessing your ISP restrictions won't be lifted until you declare your love for Big Brother and the Party.Right on the heels of a rash of copyright lawsuits, comes the news that your Internet... more
-
-
-
-
Today there are thousands of ISP’s (Internet Service Providers), but it all started with a handful of dial-up services. Some of the names you will recognize and some of them you will not. All of them played a part in the early beginnings of what is now known as the world wide web.
LInk : http://www.ispfinder.com/blog/2011/10-early-isps-and-what-has-become-of-them.htmlToday there are thousands of ISP’s (Internet Service Providers), but it all... more
-
-
-
Many Internet service providers keep records of user behavior—though not for long. The US government would, once again, like to change that by adopting some form of "data retention" requirement for ISPs. That's because, as Jason Weinstein of the Department of Justice put it today, "data retention is [now] fundamental to the Department’s work in investigating and prosecuting almost every type of crime."
There's no call yet for specifics, though the US surely has its eye on the (controversial) European model: ISPs must hang onto logs for at least six months but no more than two years. These "logs" are huge databases that grow exponentially as more devices access the Internet and do so for longer periods of time; there's a reason most ISPs only hang onto this information for a few months right now. After that, it's simply deleted.
That's great for privacy. It's less great for cops who are, say, investigating a serious felony that occurred 91 days ago only to find that their trail has hit a dead end because the data was deleted on day 90.
Lurid examples
Weinstein made this case to the House Judiciary Committee by way of an example:
> In a 2006 hearing before another committee in this House, an agent of the Wyoming
> Division of Criminal Investigation gave a heart-wrenching example of the harm that a
> lack of data retention can cause. He described how an undercover operation
> discovered a movie, depicting the rape of a two-year-old child that was being traded
> on a peer-to-peer file sharing network. Investigators were able to determine that the
> movie had first been traded four months earlier. So, investigators promptly sent a
> subpoena to the ISP that had first transmitted the video, asking for the name and
> address of the customer who had sent the video. The ISP reported that it didn’t have
> the records. Despite considerable effort, the child was not rescued and the criminals
> involved were not apprehended.
John Douglass of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, who spoke next, had an example of his own—this time a positive one of how important electronic data can be to an investigation.
> On July 26, 2006, 22 year old Tori Vienneau and her 10 month infant son, Dean
> were murdered in their 2 bedroom apartment in San Diego. Tori was found strangled
> in her living room and baby Dean was found strangled and hung from his crib in one
> of the adjoining bedrooms. This horrifying crime scene triggered an exhaustive 18
> month investigation.
> The case was ultimately solved exclusively by the circumstantial evidence, including
> cell text message content and cell tower data from Verizon Wireless. The defendant
> denied any involvement in the killings and provided an intricate and extensive alibi.
> Investigators focused their attention on Dennis Potts almost immediately because he
> was rumored to have had dinner plans with Tori on the night of her murder. Mr. Potts
> denied these rumors of dinner plans and the victim’s cell phone was examined for
> any text messages between the two of them supporting/refuting such rumors. In a
> most interesting twist, all incoming and outgoing text messages prior to 6:30 pm on
> the night of the killings had been deleted. The victim’s cell phone provider was
> contacted, but the text message content was not stored by the cell provider and
> therefore could not be recovered that way. Over the ensuing months, the victim’s
> phone was subjected to extensive forensic analysis in the hopes of recovering some
> of these messages.
> The defendant’s cell phone carrier (Verizon Wireless) was also contacted and
> investigators were told incoming text message content (victim to defendant texts
> only) was preserved only for 3-5 days. In a stroke of good luck, this incoming data
> still existed and was preserved. It later proved to be pivotal in proving the
> defendant’s guilt. The text message content proved not only that the defendant lied
> to investigators and that the two did, in fact, have plans to meet that evening, but
> also that the defendant was checking to see if the victim and her son were alone in
> the apartment.
> Verizon also provided the cell tower data for the defendant’s phone. This data,
> coupled with some additional testing, showed that the defendant’s alibi was false and
> he was not where he said he was. Furthermore, at the time of the killings, his cell
> phone “pinged” off of a cell tower only 500 yards from the victim’s apartment. This
> became the single most important piece of evidence linking the defendant to the
> killings and to his ultimate conviction in September, 2009.
Target or dragnet?
ISPs and phone companies aren't overly excited by the idea of new retention rules. They say that they already work with investigators, and point out that police can ask at any time for a specific user's data to be preserved and it will be.
Kate Dean, who represented ISPs at the hearing, made clear that her industry "has come to the understanding that a blanket legal requirement to retain Internet usage data for established time periods is certain to present significant challenges to the communications industry, both for well-established companies and newer online media enterprises, as well as unintended consequences which are incapable of precise identification."
Instead, the ISPs could support "further opportunities to innovate around the preservation model" which targets specific users, rather than some requirement to store terabytes of information on every single subscriber.
Congress hasn't yet proposed specific legislation in this area, but the hearing suggests some might be coming. John Morris of the Center for Democracy & Technology warned Congress about the privacy and free speech dangers of a lengthy retention mandate.
"Mandatory data retention is a risky and costly path to go down," Morris concluded, "and one that is all the more problematic because once Congress opens the door to mandating that service providers amass huge tracking databases documenting citizensʼ Internet usage, it will be hard to close it. If Congress were to impose data retention on even just a narrow category of service providers, and even for a narrow category of crimes, there would be a strong and inevitable push to broaden the scope and reach of data retention. Congress should not cross this risky line."
Further reading
The House Judiciary Committee's hearing documents (and webcast) (http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_01252011.html)Many Internet service providers keep records of user behavior—though not for... more
-
-
According to The Next Web and the Sunday Times, the government will be in discussions with the UKs largest ISPs to find a way to block internet porn in UK homes. The method mentioned so far is similar to one in Australia where ISPs will ban website by default.
The post quotes the papers interview with Conservative MP Claire Perry, who states the ban is to protect children from accessing pornography in the family home. “We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren’t stumbling across things we don’t want them to see.”-Times
Next Web points out the difficulties to setting in such a ban,
"Does this sound insane to you? It does to us. While most people probably don’t want children exposed to porn, the idea of blocking it at source is hairbrained on a number of levels:
* How do you define porn? Sure, some sites are obviously explicit but what about sites which cover the academic study of pornography? What about message boards like 4chan which cover a wide range of topics including porn? Where is the line?
* If you do block sites which cover porn among other subjects, where do you stop? It’s potentially letting Internet censorship in through the back door.
* Adults shouldn’t be stigmatised for viewing porn. Forcing them to contact their ISPs for “permission” does that."-The Next Web
The story sounds familiar to the 'Video Nasty' era where the new tech of the day VHS brought fears of children accessing horror and adult films at home. This led to censorship of horror films and saw film director Sam Raimi make a court appearance for the Evil Dead.According to The Next Web and the Sunday Times, the government will be in discussions... more
-
-
The big American ISPs like nothing better than trashing every new metric that shows the US slipping in the worldwide broadband rankings (turns out we're really number one). It's true that such claims are complicated and that the countries whipping us at the Internet tend to be small ones. And yet...
Even the largest and densest US cities don't see the sort of pricing found in other countries, as we were reminded this week by a bizarre spat playing out in the UK. Virgin Media, which runs a hybrid fiber-coax system, has just announced 100Mbps access starting this December. Big deal, you might say, since FiOS and DOCSIS 3.0 have allowed such speeds in (limited) American locations for some time.
But consider the price in a market where Virgin has to compete fiercely against an open-access copper (and now fiber) deployment from BT. Virgin plans to charge a mere £35 ($56) for 100Mbps access when ordered as part of a bundle with cable. When purchased on its own, the plan goes up to £45 ($72).
Rival ISP BT has criticized Virgin for this new plan—on the grounds that it's still too expensive.
In a statement sent to several European press outlets, BT took a shot at Virgin for not having to open its network to rivals. It added, "Take up is as important as availability, however, and we would question why Virgin is charging such a premium. Its new service is more than twice the price of BT's fibre product, so we are surprised by the high price when most family budgets are tight."
Does reading that make you want to weep? If the answer is "no," consider the following two graphics. Here is Verizon's listed FiOS rate chart when Internet access is ordered without a bundle of other services. Note the price of the 50Mbps tier, which is half the speed of Virgin's:
http://static.arstechnica.com/2010/10/28/verizon-fios-rates.jpg
And here's Comcast's 50Mbps standalone pricing, offered in the Chicago area:
http://static.arstechnica.com/2010/10/28/comcast-50mbps.jpgThe big American ISPs like nothing better than trashing every new metric that shows... more
-
-
The Los Angeles Times has raised questions about the financial relationship between some large telecommunications companies and influential minority groups.
According to the report(http://lat.ms/dsDq08), AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications have poured big money into the coffers of such groups as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Urban League, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
These groups just also happen to support the telecoms' anti-Net neutrality proposals. It's all a big coincidence says the telecoms and minority groups. No pay for play, they contend.
Not everybody at the Federal Communications Commission is convinced.
Net neutrality supporters want to prevent Internet service providers from discriminating against sites(http://bit.ly/9lsmAD), content or platforms. What they also want to prevent, according to Jennifer Martinez, the story's author, is ISPs "from charging more to give some residential and corporate customers priority in delivery online content."
Such a hypothetical scenario might be seen by some to be a potential threat to minority groups, right?
Mignon Clyburn(http://bit.ly/aAJ4oP), an African American and a member of the FCC board, obviously considered this possibility too and in a speech in January noted her surprise that the leading minority groups were so hushed up about Net neutrality.
"There has been almost no discussion of how important--how essential--it is for traditionally underrepresented groups to maintain the low barriers to entry that our current open Internet provides," Clyburn had said.The Los Angeles Times has raised questions about the financial relationship between... more
-
-
The big telco and cable ISPs are always busy beavers over at Capitol Hill, lobbying Congress on a wide variety of issues. But our perusal of the relevant public disclosure databases suggests that Verizon wins the prize for money spent on convincing Senators and Representatives to see broadband- and mobile-related matters the wireless giants' way.
According to the latest data provided to the US House of Representatives' Office of the Clerk, during the second quarter of this year, Verizon forked over $4,440,000 to its team of crack buttonholers, who talked up every issue from net neutrality to the proposed Distracted Driving Prevention Act.
To offer some perspective, however, at the same time last year, the company spent $1,120,000. That's still a lot of money, but less than a third of the latest sum.
Of course, we don't want to offend Verizon's competitors by implying that they were slouches in this field of endeavor. AT&T spent $3,086,786.27 on lobbying in Q2, about $30,000 more than it did in the second quarter of 2009. Of late, Comcast dispersed $3,820,000 in green love to various causes dear to the cable giants' heart. And Time Warner Cable spent $1,440,000.
And don't forget about the companies that provide online content. Google budgeted $1,340,000 for lobbying in Q2, Amazon set aside $500,000, slightly less than Yahoo!'s $550,000, and Microsoft had $1,850,000 on hand for the task.
Looks like Facebook is just getting started in DC-land, allocating a comparatively modest $60,000.
But that nearly $4.5 million in scratch definitely got our attention. Let's see what Verizon spent it on, and who did the spending.
Com priorities
Verizon cares about many issues—taxation, patent reform, health care, and international trade questions prominent among them. But this disclosure list starts with a category that the House Clerk classifies as "communications/broadcasting/radio/tv," or "COM," for short.
Among the various Com-related bills that hit Verizon's radar were H.R. 2271, the Global Online Freedom Act of 2009; H.R. 3458, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009; S. 2825, the Cell Phone Early Termination Fee, Transparency and Fairness Act; and H.R.1076, the (hold your breath) Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act of 2009.
The document at hand doesn't say whether Verizon supported or opposed these bills. But the company is staunchly opposed to the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality proposals. Representative Edward Markey's (D-MA) Internet Freedom Preservation Act would write the FCC's Open Internet policy statement into the Communications Act, barring ISPs from being allowed to "block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade" access to any lawful content from any lawful application or device.
Next there's Christopher Smith's (R-NJ) Global Online Freedom Act, which would make it the policy of the United States to deter businesses from cooperating with countries that the Secretary of State has declared "Internet-restricting" nations. The law would also prohibit US-based businesses from locating in these countries "any personally identifiable information used to establish or maintain an Internet services account."
S. 2825, the Cell Phone Early Termination Fee, Transparency and Fairness Act, puts a ceiling on what Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) calls "budget busting" early termination fees. And Lamar Smith's (R-TX) Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act would clamp down on interstate financial transactions that involve child pornography.
In terms of general Internet/wireless issues, Verizon listed the following as central to the company's focus:
Internet governance; Net Neutrality
Telecommunications Act of 1996: revisions to Title I and Title II
FCC's National Broadband Plan
Privacy issues including potential updates to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act
Retransmission consent
Smart grid
Anti child pornography efforts
Wireless issues:
- competition
- net neutrality
- tower siting
- FM radio chips in cell phones
- RF labeling on cell phones
- 4G rural plan
- spectrum policy/allocation; public safety, D Block
Meet our team
Who wandered about the halls of the Senate and House on Verizon's behalf regarding these matters? According to the Open Secrets database, lobbyists who in some instances have prior experience in government.
Shirley Bloomfield: press aide for the House Budget Committee; also worked for Rep. David Obey (D-WI).
Frank Cantrel Jr.: Tax Counsel for the Senate Finance Committee; Aide/Staff for former Senator Robert Packwood (R-OR).
Peter Davidson: General Counsel for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX); General Counsel, Office of US Trade Representative.
Robert Fisher: Legislative Assistant to Senator John McCain (R-AZ); Professional Staff Member, Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee.
Brian Rice: Communications Policy Advisor for Senator John Kerry (D-MA).
Does that $4.44 million spent in Q2 represent a new record for Verizon? In 2008 and 2009, the company spent well over $15 million for lobbying each year. This year the firm has spent over $9 million so far. So we'll have to wait until the end of 2010 to know the final figure.
One thing is for sure, however: Verizon obviously cares a lot about how Congress governs the Internet, and is willing to spend what it takes to make its positions clear.
Other big Q2 spenders
National Cable and Telecommunications Association: $3,930,000
National Association of Broadcasters: $3,020,000
CTIA - The Wireless Association: $2,030,000
Consumer Electronics Association: $700,000The big telco and cable ISPs are always busy beavers over at Capitol Hill, lobbying... more
-
-
The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in Sweden, are planning to shake up the country’s ISP market. After taking over the supply of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet will now partner in the launch of Pirate ISP, a new broadband service that will offer anonymity to customers and provide financial support to the Party.
I'm moving to sweden.
http://torrentfreak.com/worlds-first-pirate-internet-provider-launches-in-sweden-100720/The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in... more
-
-
The BBC reports on the continued opposition to the Digital Economy Bill by companies like BT and TalkTalk.
Back in August 2009, the website held a story about internet service providers (mainly TalkTalk) criticising the act when it was announced as a proposal by saying "But introducing measures to simply cut people off will not work, he said."-BBC
Now in 2010, TalkTalk and BT are back with critics once again saying cutting people off would not work to stop persistent file sharing "It means we could have huge swathes of customers moving to smaller ISPs to avoid detection."-BBC
While also saying the act was rushed through before the election, resulting in a shorter debate "It meant it was subject to a shorter debate than other acts."-BBC
Since there was little debate on the act, the companies are now going to the High Courts to challenge the legality of the bill cutting off file sharers. It is stated Ofcom plans to start the cut off policy in 2011.
"The current government has the right to repeal any previous legislation and, during the election campaign, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said that the Digital Economy Act "badly needs to be repealed". But the coalition government told the BBC it had no plans to change it"-BBCThe BBC reports on the continued opposition to the Digital Economy Bill by companies... more
-
-
"The Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma) has begun supplying Eircom with "thousands of IP addresses", from which the ISP will initially cross-reference about 50 per week to extract the physical address of identified net pirates."-BBC
The article states the company will start sending out letters to the illegal file sharers, with a follow up phone call or a pop up message from Eircom. They received the addresses with help from a company called Dtecnet, who picked out files sharers away from downloaders.
It also sounds like the three strike rule will be in place, with Eircom suspending internet access from users for a week and a year for further violations.
"The pilot scheme is the conclusion of a long-running dispute between Eircom and Irma. It [Irma] took the ISP [Eircom] to court in January 2009, saying it was not doing enough to protect the intellectual property of its members."-BBC who also state Irma will take other ISPs to court."The Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma) has begun supplying Eircom with... more
-
-
For all of the stories about this in the past few weeks, it strikes me as pretty amazing that we are not making a bigger deal out of a handful of providers (like AT&T) trying to become our evil overlords and own all of the net.
Without the oversight of the FCC, we will be facing another 'Ma Bell' in the future.
As the writer puts it
"If we had vigorous competition among broadband providers, we might not need the Feds to referee the market."
But given the free-market approach we have seen in the areas of Insurance, Banking and Pharmaceuticals perhaps it's time to pay more attention to where our service comes from rather than the geeky phones we all want to be seen with.For all of the stories about this in the past few weeks, it strikes me as pretty... more
-
-
-
It’s been exactly one year since the introduction of the controversial IPRED anti-piracy legislation in Sweden and it has been a great success for everyone involved. Not only have legitimate online media availability and sales increased, piracy has both increased and decreased, pirates have been left alone and VPN providers are doing a roaring trade.
A year ago today, Sweden introduced its highly controversial IPRED legislation designed to make it easier find and take action against illicit file-sharers.
The entertainment industries, who were hugely in favor of the new law, said it would lead to decreases in illegal file-sharing, boost online availability of media and encourage citizens to spend money legitimately in official online stores.
http://torrentfreak.com/happy-birthday-ipred-the-best-anti-piracy-law-ever-100401/It’s been exactly one year since the introduction of the controversial IPRED... more
-
-
"First Native American Television Network to be launched soon... World Indigenous Network gives back native voice.
CORTE MADERA CA / World Indigenous Network ( WIN-Tv ) is an idea that was born into the mind of Gérard Angé two and a half years ago. He has invested over a million dollars of his own money into an innovative concept that is sure to cause much-deserved hype among Native Americans as well as non-natives.
World Indigenous Network, or Win-TV, is the first national 24-hour satellite and cable based American Indian television network. It could be up and running in less than three months after funding. The network will feature all aspects of indigenous life, including but certainly not limited to news, music, dance, sports, politics, religion, food, and tribal issues. Mr. Ange’ believes that the network will “give all indigenous peoples back a voice that was ripped away from them”.
Win-TV will feature several shows that will provide information, entertainment, and education all from a native standpoint. Some shows planned for the network include Good Morning Native America, the Native American’s version of the popular Good Morning America; Native America Talking, a Larry King-ish talk show on Native issues, All Native Sportscene, Kids Korner, the first children’s program targeted at Native American youngsters, and Medicine Wheel, a show that targets the unique health needs of indigenous people. These are only a few of many programs that will benefit viewers in all aspects of living.
Win-Com, the company’s retail division will have five separated parts: shop-at-home, eCommerce, catalog sales, merchandising, and retail outlets. These five divisions will work cumulatively to stimulate business for native people and native businesses, as well as provide marketing platforms to demonstrate native arts, crafts, and talents in a larger, more mainstream market.
Win-Com will also provide a way for non-Native Americans to receive a sincere look into native life and culture without movies, or history books. Finally, Win-Com should positively boost the company’s reputation through sales of apparel and other products that will carry the company logo.
The primary goal of Win-TV is to give Native Americans back a voice that has been long lost, although much deserved. Mr. Ange hopes to provide an “exchange between nations” through the networking of native ideas and platforms among other cultures."
Information about: WIN-Tv: Powerpoint & Videos : http://ow.ly/1pUTw
NativeAmericanTimes:
Article#: 2595
7/16/2003
Candice Adson
-------------------------------------------------------------
FOR THE REST OF THE STORY PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINKS BELOW:"First Native American Television Network to be launched soon... World... more
-
