[spectre] THING.NET EVICTED

[Chelovek Svobodnyi]

This message is not commercial. To get off our list,
write . December 23, 2002 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thing.net assistance page:

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. # 30 # This message is not commercial.