[FWD] [hackerartnews] Fwd: ACTIVIST NETWORK IN NY EVICTED FROM INTERNET BY DOW, VERIO

[Marco Trotta <mrta at libero.it>]

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From: Tommaso Tozzi <T.Tozzi at ecn.org>
To: hackerartnews at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [hackerartnews] Fwd: ACTIVIST NETWORK IN NY EVICTED FROM INTERNET
BY DOW, VERIO
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 17:41:31 +0100



>December 23, 2002
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
>       Thing.net assistance page: https://secure.thing.net/backbone/
>       Contact: mailto:thing-group at rtmark.com
>
>ACTIVIST NETWORK IN NY EVICTED FROM INTERNET BY DOW, VERIO
>
>Bowing to pressure from the Dow Chemical Corporation, the internet
>company Verio has booted the activist-oriented Thing.net from the Web.
>
>Internet service provider Thing.net has been the primary service
>provider for activist and artist organizations in the New York area
>for 10 years.
>
>On December 3, activists used a server housed by Thing.net to post a
>parody Dow press release on the eighteenth anniversary of the disaster
>in which 20,000 people died as a result of an accident at a Union
>Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. (Union Carbide is now owned by Dow.)
>The deadpan statement, which many people took as real, explained that
>Dow could not accept responsibility for the disaster due to its
>primary allegiance to its shareholders and to its bottom line.
>
>Dow was not amused, and sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
>complaint to Verio, which immediately cut Thing.net off the internet
>for fifteen hours. A few days later, Verio announced that Thing.net
>had 60 days to move to another provider before being shut down
>permanently, unilaterally terminating Thing.net's 7-year-old contract.
>
>Affected organizations include PS1/MOMA, Artforum, Nettime, Tenant.net
>(which assists renters facing eviction), and hundreds more.
>
>"Verio's actions are nothing short of outrageous," said Wolfgang
>Staehle, Thing.net Executive Director. "They could have resolved the
>matter with the Dow parodists directly; instead they chose to shut
>down our entire network. This self-appointed enforcement of the DMCA
>could have a serious chilling effect on free speech, and has already
>damaged our business."
>
>
>RTMark, which publicizes corporate abuses of democracy, is housed on
>Thing.net. Please visit https://secure.thing.net/backbone/ to help
>Thing.net survive Dow's and Verio's actions, and to develop a plan to
>avoid such problems in the future.





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