Piratey Movement Fun

[Scouse]

Looks like the tpb.pirateparty.org.uk proxy for the Pirate Bay has now been blocked.

My ISP, Virgin, links to a lot of pages about why pirates are bad, mkay. You can still resolve the IP but it looks like the page is now down - which is interesting to me because I thought their blocks were good old DNS-fuckers, easily broken by the use of opendns or the like.

Anyway - the interesting bit is this:

The record industry has finally struck back. Rather than seeking an injunction against the proxy, or suing the party, it has individually sued the party's executives, seeking to personally bankrupt them and their families.

So. Bona-fide political party getting bullied out of existence by commercial interests?

I can't see a lawsuit against the Cuntliberalatives gaining traction - it just wouldn't happen - but miniority interest political groups?

This is much more interesting and important than any of the pro- or anti-pirate issues...

 

[Chilly]

If you use political activity as a cover for massive illegal copyright violations, expect to get raped. And quite fucking right.

 

[Scouse]

If you use political activity as a cover for massive illegal copyright violations, expect to get raped. And quite fucking right.

I was wondering if the first person with a stick up his arse to post would miss this:

This is much more interesting and important than any of the pro- or anti-pirate issues...

...

 

[Moriath]

not as if there isnt a lot of other links to the site from other places that you can use.

 

[Scouse]

Have IQ's dropped?

Oh yeah. When "the merge" happened

 

[Chilly]

I think it's more that no one can be bothered engaging you properly, Scouse. It always turns to shit.

 

[Scouse]

Yeah. That'll be it.

 

[Raven]

Hardly surprising really.

They should campaign to change the industry rather than break the law.

 

[Scouse]

They should campaign to change the industry rather than break the law.

They're doing that. On the basis that the law is unjust.

When Black South Africans campaigned against unjust laws, should they, in the meantime, just have been good little coons and put up with it?


Yes, they're different situations. But the principle is the same.

 

[Raven]

Er, not really. One is human rights, the other is an industry stuck in the last century.

 

[Scouse]

Er, not really. One is human rights, the other is an industry stuck in the last century.

The principle, obviously, being that if something's wrong you probably shouldn't conform...

 

[rynnor]

Its an interesting case - they would have been better off getting one of the other countries pirate parties to host the proxy since the music industry has great power in the UK.

I think they will probably lose - should let some pennieless students run it who have 0 to lose.

 

[Moriath]

they are complaining its not right to download stuffs you dont own . well by supporting pirate bay they are .. what they need to support is a 21st century way of distributing media .. where they get paid by more people cause they sell at a smaller price but they get more people buying it cause they consume over the internet / at home rather than going out and buying / pirating shit.

But the music and media industry want to stayin the 20th century where we all go to hmv and pay for a dvd ... where as we say why buy dust collectors when you dont need to print shit save money and therefore sell for less to us.

its not illeagel against legal its getting the mainstream to think modern. oh and i dont mean netflix or shit like that .. they are crap offering whats there and still charge for it. i mean give us downloads we can put on SAN's or mobile devices and keep not stream 480p shit with crap sound we want 1080p and all that stuffs...

 

[Bahumat]

People can sugar coat it all they want, but at the end of the day we are all downloading things we don't already own as its free. It's not exactly surprising they are trying to shut these places down.

Also LOL at even using South Africa / black people as an example.

 

[Scouse]

People can sugar coat it all they want, but at the end of the day we are all downloading things we don't already own as its free. It's not exactly surprising they are trying to shut these places down.

Also LOL at even using South Africa / black people as an example.

The South Africa example was an illustration of principle being more important than conformity to the law - and is an obvious way to illustrate that. If you can't separate that part out from your emotional reaction to the rest of the example then that's your failing, not that of the example.

The PirateParty are also campaigning around copyright issues. Which is also fair game - because it seems that millions upon millions of humans don't think it's even "stealing" to copy a piece of music or film, or to mash bits of it up in their own compositions and animations - but the recording industry, which makes profit out of scarcity, wants to put paid to that.


I wouldn't steal a Ferrari. But if I could copy a Ferrari and distribute that Ferrari to all my friends, leaving the original intact, then I'd do it a bazillion times.

That's what the record industry is scared of. Copyright is about keeping the value of something artificially high by creating scarcity. In the digital age there's no reason why music should have a middleman that makes a fucking humoungous wedge of cash. The "industry" makes a far bigger slice than the artists in question. Piracy threatens that industry - it doesn't threaten music. (LOL! - it can't!)

 

[Himse]

 

[Scouse]

Come on then Professor Himse. Answer the points I've made rather than liberally applying graphics in an "I've not actually got a civilised answer because I haven't even considered that" way...

 

[Hawkwind]

I wouldn't steal a Ferrari. But if I could copy a Ferrari and distribute that Ferrari to all my friends, leaving the original intact, then I'd do it a bazillion times.

That's what the record industry is scared of. Copyright is about keeping the value of something artificially high by creating scarcity. In the digital age there's no reason why music should have a middleman that makes a fucking humoungous wedge of cash. The "industry" makes a far bigger slice than the artists in question. Piracy threatens that industry - it doesn't threaten music. (LOL! - it can't!)

Don't agree, the problem with that model is that the labels and thus artists won't make any money. Then they won't bother making the music we so enjoy. The industry gets a bigger slice because of the costs of doing what they do - Studios, Marketing, Printing etc. all costs money. That does not come out of the artists share.

At the end of the day they run a business to make money. Whilst I may not like the way copyright particularly in the US is being applied it is there to safeguard businesses and jobs.

 

[Scouse]

Don't agree, the problem with that model is that the labels and thus artists won't make any money. Then they won't bother making the music we so enjoy.

You're so wrong there.

The labels won't make money. And I'm fine with that. They need to die anyway.

Musicians, however, will always create music (they did fine since the dawn of mankind, right up until copyright was invented to artificially create scarcity so a small group of rich white bastards could control access to music) and will always have an ability to make money for their skills.

 

[Raven]

The basic principle is people are not paying for a product when they should be. I download films and TV but I don't pretend for one minute that it is legal, or even morally right. I don't download games and haven't since half life 2 (which I bought a week later anyway) because the industry woke up very early to digital distribution, I think it will take off even more when the consoles drag themselves out of the 90s with the next gen machines.

I would love there to be a legal means to watch everything on demand but there isn't. For the record, these days I watch more films on sky box office than I download and I would gladly pay for a TV series too. The only other option other than pay per view is adverts and they just ruin everything.

People don't work for free and the music (while cunts) are protecting their revenue.

That's not to say they aren't making improvements in the music industry, pretty much everything is available via digital distribution... If a little over priced imo. We just need the TV studios and movie makers to follow suit.

 

[Hawkwind]

Whilst I would love to see Simon Cowell reduced to eating out of garbage cans and stop the current train of boy bands, I believe there still needs to be some form of distribution, marketing etc. In your utopia of free music how exactly will they all make money to live, busking perhaps as it was back in history?

 

[Scouse]

Whilst I would love to see Simon Cowell reduced to eating out of garbage cans and stop the current train of boy bands, I believe there still needs to be some form of distribution, marketing etc. In your utopia of free music how exactly will they all make money to live, busking perhaps as it was back in history?

I'm not saying free music. I'm saying cut out the middleman is all. Now all we need is the invention of a global distribution medium that would allow artists to directly connect with their fans in a manner that's more meaningful than has ever happened before - that cuts out the need for a promoter that takes 80-90% of the gross and wangs it in his pocket, eh?

BTW - Live performance is where music is at anyway. Be it in a pub, in a field, in an auditorium, whatever. Live music has always been a bazillion times better than listening in your front room

 

[Hawkwind]

Plus 1000's of jobs gone, especially in UK were music industry exports are so large.

Not sure going back to the days of buying a bootleg tape of a live performance will be a plus personally. Artists directly connecting to their fan base sound grand but to me it just says they will never make much money doing it. It then becomes a labour of love rather than a profession. Whilst we may be saved the whining torture of Justin f'in Bieber we would also lose many decent bands. You can only stay on the road playing gigs for so long before the inevitable break up.

 

[Scouse]

Plus 1000's of jobs gone, especially in UK were music industry exports are so large.

Not sure going back to the days of buying a bootleg tape of a live performance will be a plus personally. Artists directly connecting to their fan base sound grand but to me it just says they will never make much money doing it. It then becomes a labour of love rather than a profession. Whilst we may be saved the whining torture of Justin f'in Bieber we would also lose many decent bands. You can only stay on the road playing gigs for so long before the inevitable break up.

1000's of shit unneeded jobs gone. Capitalism was supposed to produce that but protectionism means that a profiteering industry limps on in the face of mounting opposition.

There will always be a market for performers to make money from - because we all love to consume it.

 

[Himse]

I wondered how long it'd take before the word Capitalism was thrown into the frame.

 

[opticle]

To be honest, if someone finally comes up with a decent distribution business, which isn't rocket science in the slightest - I don't understand why they haven't (although places are starting to) - then they will become the new middle man - all that distributing costs money. Not the same as a shop ofc

 

[Scouse]

I wondered how long it'd take before the word Capitalism was thrown into the frame.

Ah! Another great argument by Professor Himse.

Of course it's part of the argument - it's an argument centred around economics and scarcity - and it happens to be the system we currently use. Why fucking not bring it up?

they will become the new middle man

The costs are astronomically lower so profiteering (which is what the big companies are trying to do with their online efforts at the moment - reduce their operating costs to open up huge profit margins whilst paying their "artists" the pittance that they're generally on anyway) should be more difficult.

 

[Hawkwind]

LOL Scouse, Earth needs to fund a space mission for you to start your little utopian experiment on a planet far far away. Your ancestors should write back in a 1000 years to let us know how it went. For breeding purposes we'll throw in Mylie Cyrus and Charlotte Church.

 

[opticle]

For breeding purposes we'll throw in Mylie Cyrus and Charlotte Church.

I'm ashamed to ask, but can I ride shotgun?

 

[Himse]

Maybe he could also take all of the Occupy lot with him?