Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 7 April 2003

Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

From: gremlin
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: MSN XTRA

dear sir

I am interested in your recent article on MSN Xtra's claims
to any IP material that is put through its systems. This
sounded familiar to me, from hotmail email service. About 2
years ago, several friends noted a similar clause in the
terms of service for hotmail, claiming free access to any
material sent through MSN hotmail. They were quickly
removed after protest.

anyway, there may well be a link between these two attempts
to gain free access to valuable material.




From: Karl Stephens
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Response to Xtra's Dumbest Ever Move

I am not an Xtra or Telecom employee.

(1)	You accuse Xtra of steal their clients IP then call
this the "Dumbest Ever Move". It's either the "Smartest
Ever Move" or illegal but not dumb.

(2)	You cannot explicitly abrogate your obligations
under the Copyright Act (or any law) so the movie owners
will still own their property. If you could give away your
obligations then it would be legal to kill somebody if they
gave you a letter consenting to their own death.

Without the second point, the rest of your argument is
founded on a flawed premise.

Aardvark Responds:
I think you'll find that there's nothing illegal about section 4
of Xtra's Service Terms. It's quite legal to grant someone a
licence for intellectual property and Xtra are giving people
a choice: grant the licence or find another ISP. Now, since
Xtra isn't the only ISP in NZ they can't even be accused of
monopolistic practices in this case. Whether a court would
uphold a challege to this contract is another issue though.




From: Alan
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra

I don't know why people bother getting access through one of
the most expensive internet service providers in New Zealand.

For around $20 per month you can use, Paradise, E3, Ihug,
Freenet, Kwiknet, Worldnet, Slingshot.

There are plenty of choices in this country for what ISP you
can get access through.




From: Shane W.
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra and ownership of material

I have read your article with great interest, and I only
have one thing left to do, and that would be to call
Internal Affairs to take Xtra to the cleaners, as they have
implied they have rights to all that porn and many other
illegal information that travels their servers, giving them
a "worldwide" usage right.....

I wonder how good there spam and porn filters really are?




From: Alex King
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Possible reasons for Xtra's T&C

You mentioned 3 posible reasons Xtra's outrageous terms and
conditions, but there is another possibility.  Perhaps XTRA
have so little faith in their own systems and employees/
contractors, that they fear anything sent through them could
"leak" into the public domain.  Rather than fix their
systems (technical and human, which perhaps leak like a
sieve) they just alter their T&C to give themselves some
leagal insurance???




From: Vincent
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra

Might want to check esolutions, xtrahost's big brother, if
you can get to it.

Now, would P2P traffic count?
They would own most media by now if it did.

On another note.
The Proceeds of Crime Act 1992.
I know that it is ment to cover serious crimes but if the
RIAA have their way file swapping could be.

So comon' xtra, hand over that dirty money.




From: Deane landreth
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra IP clause

No suprises, the clause has been qualified by this on the
Wtra site.

"in each case for the limited purposes for which you
provided or made the Customer Materials available or to
enable us and our suppliers to provide the Services."

I'd say their lawyer left it to the tea-lady to draft the
clause in the first place.

Hit Reload For Latest Comments

Now Have Your Say