Patrice Riemens on 17 Jul 2000 15:05:06 -0000 |
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<nettime> Re: Altern.org shut down |
The whole affair around the (hopefully temporary) closure of Altern.org is a very vexing one. As far as Valentin Lacambre (Altern's founder and sole employee) is concerned, it is simple and fair enough, as Christine has very well explained. He is tired, he is fed up, and he is alone. We should all admire him for keeping up the good struggle for so long. So no, it is not a question of playing the 'victim card' (however, that can be a valid method too: Liberation asked (rhetorically?) whether he was not 'blackmailing' the public to have the law changed). Background to this unfortunate developments - which were, again, very well outlined by Christine in her posting - is the incredible imbroglio surrounding the law position and juridical status of the on-line domain, not only in France. The difficulties are indeed exacerbated in that country due to a propensity to regulate, compounded by an equal propensity to litigate. The same issues obtain for instance in the Netherlands too (cf xs4all's various tiffs with all sorts of parties), but are usually resolved 'pragmatically'. Yet the basic fact remain that the hybrid position of 'expressions' on the Net, in between personnal communication (which is free) and publication (which is regulated), has still not been properly formulated in law. This would entail, for instance, a serious discussion of the right to anonimity, which some people think is God-given (it is not), and others would want to abolish altogether (God forbids!). But instead, legislation is introduced where none is necessary, since previous law was quite clear (cf hackers issues, copyright, etc) whereas fundamental problems concerning eg the upholding of basic liberties are dodged. This all smacks of a hidden political agenda. Meanwhile, it would be probably very good if some sort of international successor to Altern.org would come up, to take over the burden that Valentin was shouldering almost alone. But it might be even better, I am afraid, to start thinking seriously about communication and publication alternatives to the Internet itself... # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net