Ask Slashdot: Good Hosting Service For a Parody Site? 115
An anonymous reader writes "Ok, bear with me now. I know this is not PC Mag 2014 review of hosting services. I am thinking of getting a parody website up. I am mildly concerned about potential reaction of the parodee, who has been known to be a little heavy handed when it comes to things like that. In short, I want to make sure that the hosting company won't flake out just because of potential complaints. I checked some companies and their TOS and AUPs all seem to have weird-ass restrictions (Arvixe, for example, has a list of unacceptable material that happens to list RPGs and MUDS ). I live in U.S.; parodee in Poland. What would you recommend?"
Re:iPage (Score:5, Informative)
nearlyfreespeech.net.
They actually fight back against takedown notices. They know they're a US site and give 0 fucks what foreign governments [nearlyfreespeech.net] think of your content. They have a sense of humor (anyone have the link to their response letter about badgers?). Seems perfect for you.
Re:iPage (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, here it is [nearlyfreespeech.net] (PDF warning). It was linked from that blog post. Teach me to post before coffee!
On the general subject of badgers, we definitely do see cause for concern. It is at this point well-known among frequent Internet users -- including us -- that the rapid
proliferation of "badger, badger, badger" leads -- inevitably -- to mushrooms and, if left unchecked, a very frightening snake, in a vicious cycle with no apparent end. That
definitely seems like a concern worthy of the attention of a large UK government agency like DEFRA. We have and offer no official position on the proposed DEFRA response to the badger menace that you outline in your letter.
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Outstanding! "We refer you to figure A". Yeah.
Also I liked the "PDF Warning". So 2001sh...
Figure A (Score:1)
I wonder if NearlyFreeSpeech had the old saying, "The sun never sets on the British empire," in mind when creating figure A?
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wstaw wasn maszyn do centrum hostingowego z bardzo dobrym poaczeniem do PLIXa, albo wasne plixa, albo atm.
Co do zasad i reakcji - na pewno atwiej bdzie z nimi ustali zasady ni z jakim zagranicznym hostingiem, który moe panicznie zareagowa np. na danie jakiej polskiej partii politycznej.
hosting for parody (Score:4, Informative)
I run a small ISP. I can host it for you. Let me know how much bandwidth you expect to pull and we can work something out. brock at the domain blackmesawireless daht net.
Re:hosting for parody (Score:5, Funny)
"...
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you...
Maybe Black Mesa.
That was a joke, HA HA, fat chance. ..."
Re: hosting for parody (Score:3)
parodee in Poland (Score:3, Funny)
Gee, who woulda guessed? Are Polish jokes still in vogue?
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There are a lot of things wrong with the American legal system, but its attitude toward free speech is not one of them.
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There are a lot of things wrong with the American legal system, but its attitude toward free speech is not one of them.
Still, the cost of protecting it is way too high. We have to find a way to reverse the charges onto the damn censors.
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While your right to free speech is guaranteed in the US (though others would argue it is not). In the rest of the world it is not.
The answer is simple, just have a network of sites posting relevant satirical articles about anything but the country the joke is hosted in. These you host in another country.
You know, just like CNN, BBC and EuroNews work.
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I'm crazy curious about WTF is in Poland that anyone in the US would even recognize enough to be worth parodying.
All I can come up with is CDProjekt, but I've never heard of them being "Heavy-handed" like TFS mentions..
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The mention of RPGs had me thinking Palladium Books (Rifts) or Games Workshop, but they're in Michigan and the UK, respectively. That's probably just a red herring, though.
nearlyfreespeech.net (Score:3, Informative)
nearlyfreespeech.net
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Too bad, because otherwise it looks very attractive.
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Polish (Score:1)
Well, since you are Polish and making fun of President Putin, you might want to consider that you have more to worry about than the ISP taking you down.
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Historically, they do hate them just as much. It's just that the Germans are only the second to last occupiers. The Soviets are the most recent.
The Poles also kicked out millions of Germans from the lands they they were granted out of Germany when the USSR compensated Poland for lands that the USSR itself took from Poland. The Poles also hung the shit out of a number of Nazi war criminals.
No one has let the Poles hang any Russians. So, I'd say that the Poles have the bigger score to settle with the Russ
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I just think they want to avoid being a puppet state
Tough luck being in the EU, though.
Germany isn't currently attempting to do anything like that.
Seems like Germany is controlling the economic direction currently, so yeah, not overtly, but they have to do their bidding more or less.
Bahnhof, Sweden (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.bahnhof.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnhof
Swedish hoster. They have a credible commitment to freedom of speech. They have secretly recorded and leaked conversations with the SIGINT pressuring them to share data. They have provided hosting for WikiLeaks in the past. Also, they have been hosting a controversial Swedish serivce named Lexbase, essentially publishing the names of all persons occurring in Swedish court documents. They refused to shut it down for several days, until it was hacked and shut down due to security issues.
What I recommend (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on this
I am mildly concerned about potential reaction of the parodee, who has been known to be a little heavy handed when it comes to things like that.
I recommend a good lawyer.
See Beck v. Eiland-Hall [wikipedia.org] as to why.
Re: What I recommend (Score:3)
Re: What I recommend (Score:5, Insightful)
That seemed to come out in favour of the satirist.
IMHO only because of the lawyer backing him up.
Re: What I recommend (Score:3)
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Where do you think all those ware sites are.
In the Netherlands?
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I'm hearing that this person wants to criticize someone in Poland who likes Putin. I'm guessing Russia is not actually a good choice here.
Russia is only better when you aren't doing something that directly opposes Russian interests. If you are opposing Russian interests, you'd probably have better luck in China.
Russia doesn't protect free speech, they just allow things to be hosted that piss off countries they don't like. That looks like free speech only to those who the Russian government likes or doesn
1984 Hosting in Iceland (Score:5, Informative)
https://1984hosting.com/ - they have defended their customers freedom of speech all the way up to the highest court in Iceland numerous times.
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dreamhost just renames the vhost dir for DMCA's and emails you after the fact
one decent use for bitcoin (Score:1)
rent a cheap vps off a sketchy dealer that takes btc, job done.
steadfast.net - home of SomethingAwful (Score:4, Informative)
SomethingAwful is over at Steadfast.net, who has a rather first-amendment heavy interpretation of most laws. I know first-hand how their abuse desk works, and they'll allow practically anything that's not explicitly illegal.
weak link isn't the host (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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But what if the atmosphere here on Earth were to suddenly level out at 21%?
Check out XMISSION (Score:1)
Make sure to check out xmission.com . They are US based, but they have a great track record of supporting free speech and customer privacy. If they're willing to host maddox and his "best page in the universe" I'm sure that they can handle a parody site that might not be popular with the parodied person/company.
Here is their transparency page: http://xmission.com/transparen... [xmission.com]
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But they use *plesk* for a cpanel. Yuck. >_
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How about (Score:4, Funny)
Let's talk (Score:2)
AWS (Score:1)
If you're technically inclined, just setup your own server on AWS.
I'm not sure about their policies, but given the nature of AWS, you'd probably have to host something outright illegal for them to care.
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IIRC, AWS ditched wikileaks.org like a hot potatoe after a simple phone call by some US official [theguardian.com]. Of all the services suggested here, AWS would probably be the last service one should look at for this purpose.
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A host not caring is the worst thing possible in this situation.
Not caring makes it easy to just delete the site instead of bothering with paper work and lawyers.
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Works both ways. Not caring means they probably won't do anything to the site unless it's actually breaking some law that could get AWS in hot water. A parody site sounds like it would be legal if a bit controversial. The poster before you mentioned Wi\kileaks getting the boot from AWS, well, Wikileaks is definitely engaged in illegal activity, so can't really say there's much surprise there.
I like AWS, I think they provide a good service and again, unless it's outright illegal, I doubt they'll do anythi
You should ... (Score:5, Funny)
[Ducking and running]
CloudFlare (Score:4, Informative)
I can host (Score:2)
I can provide hosting. I am not a big host like some others, but am located in USA and I do not cave to threats.
The last guy, Robert Smolely, who threatened me with a libel claim for posting my lawsuit accusing him of illegal spamming spent 40 months in prison. I had an ex employer threaten me with a libel claim which when we went to court, they wrote me a 6 figure check.
Contact me through my web site.
Hosting in the EU (Score:3)
I recommend https://www.syseleven.de/ [syseleven.de] for a number of reasons:
* Technically highly sophisticated staff whose motto is "Hosting done right"
* Located in Germany (Berlin) with laws applicable in the EU
* Motivated staff in terms of looking at content from a data protection POV
* Staff is known not to budge from unsubstantiated threats
* They will tell you whether your content is legally acceptable
Won't get any better than that.
The ISP that supported Boing Boing over a notice (Score:2)
From the story about "Ralph Lauren Opens a Store in the Uncanny Valley":
However, Ralph Lauren's marketing arm and its law firm don't see it that way. According to them, this is an "infringing image," and they thoughtfully took the time to send a DMCA takedown notice to our awesome ISP, Canada's Priority Colo. One of the things that makes Priority Colo so awesome is that they don't automatically act on DMCA takedowns. Instead, they pass them on to us and we talk about whether they pass the giggle-test.
This o
Is it really parody or an excuse? (Score:2)
Unfortunately an awful lot of so-called "parody" posts and sites are just people being mean-spirited and cruel and using the age old bully's line when called on it -- "Can't you take a joke?"
So before you go hunting for an ISP, do a little soul searching and above all else, ask yourself if anyone but you is going to find it funny.
Nothing surprising about RPG/MUD restrictions (Score:2)
Doesn't surprise me at all, and hardly seems a fair criticism. I would expect most hosting services would prohibit sites that are likely to cause disproportionate load, unless they have a charging model that allows for it.
Freenet (Score:1)
Lots of places (Score:2)
Some reasons for RPGs and MUDs being banned are that traditional MUDs are server systems rather than web apps, RPGs for the web tend to be heavy applications, they tend to be heavily trafficked, they tend to be poorly written and become security issues, the gamers tend to complain to the hosting company when things go wrong, they tend to get very spammy in their chat systems, and they tend to turn into command and control systems for malware if the people running them aren't careful and skilled. If you want
DIY? (Score:3)
Seriously, why not do it yourself? You can get a pretty cheap virtual host from any number of providers and just do it. You don't even have to manage the entire server, plenty of virtual hosting services too... but personally I'd recommend doing the entire server. My Linode is cheap as hell and provides a great place to host my mail and web host, as well as providing a hub for my VPN network. Yes, I have to manage it as well, but apart from the occasion patches I don't really do much with it once it was all set up except use it.
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Reddit, if you don't need TLD (Score:1)
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