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News & ArtsThursday, April 16, 2009
Tech / Teh Internets / International Swedish Pirates
Posted by Grant Brissey on Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:28 PM
Tomorrow brings the verdict for the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden, which some have called "the most important case the file-sharing community has ever witnessed." In the meantime, Wired.com has an interview with the with author Anders Rydell, who wrote a book on the Swedish piracy movement, and who says of the trial, "This is a generational issue, a conflict between different ways of looking at and spreading culture."
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From the Wired article:
I bet they have. You want to know why, kids? BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO STEAL THEIR FUCKING MUSIC. Only rarely do artists want you to distribute their stuff for free. If they haven't given you their permission, YOU ARE STEALING. And no fancy anti-capitalist rant about soul-crushing music companies will obscure that fact.
But go ahead, feel free to say I'm old and I don't get it. I know what my musician friends say, in private- that they love their fans but stealing music is stealing music.
Musicians and songwriters have kept a low profile.
I bet they have. You want to know why, kids? BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO STEAL THEIR FUCKING MUSIC. Only rarely do artists want you to distribute their stuff for free. If they haven't given you their permission, YOU ARE STEALING. And no fancy anti-capitalist rant about soul-crushing music companies will obscure that fact.
But go ahead, feel free to say I'm old and I don't get it. I know what my musician friends say, in private- that they love their fans but stealing music is stealing music.
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I'm older than Sven and I really don't get it. How about we all have a good laugh the next time you fucktards who think this is OK show up for work and expect a paycheck? That would be hilarious.
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"Generational issue" my ass. All the opportunistic assholes at pirate bay care about is making money, which they do through good old fashioned theft.
Hang em.
Hang em.
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I don't really care about the Pirate Bay guys one way or the other, but the "It's theft, period" attitude always makes me roll my eyes. I mean, you have probably made a mixtape and given it to a friend, at some point, and you have probably copied a chapter out of a friend's textbook rather than buying the whole thing.
Yes, filesharing is different than those things. But it is a difference of quantity, not of quality. What networking technology has enabled is for that kind of casual swapping of copyrighted material to reach a scale that was impossible when all copying was done with analog material. But, the motive is the same, and the actual quality of the copyright infringement is the same.
The frustration with these kinds of lawsuits against individual players in the filesharing world is that it is essentially whack-a-mole. In other words, the honest critics of these kinds of legal tactics are not saying "to hell with the musicians, what did they do for me recently?" They're mostly saying that these kinds of suits don't do anything to either A) curb filesharing or B) attempt to find a way to get copyright law and the entertainment industry up-to-speed with the way that content physically exists in the world today. It's just a distraction from the real issues.
Yes, filesharing is different than those things. But it is a difference of quantity, not of quality. What networking technology has enabled is for that kind of casual swapping of copyrighted material to reach a scale that was impossible when all copying was done with analog material. But, the motive is the same, and the actual quality of the copyright infringement is the same.
The frustration with these kinds of lawsuits against individual players in the filesharing world is that it is essentially whack-a-mole. In other words, the honest critics of these kinds of legal tactics are not saying "to hell with the musicians, what did they do for me recently?" They're mostly saying that these kinds of suits don't do anything to either A) curb filesharing or B) attempt to find a way to get copyright law and the entertainment industry up-to-speed with the way that content physically exists in the world today. It's just a distraction from the real issues.
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The real fact is that as a society, the issue of ownership of an idea (song, book, name, concept, invention, whatever) is still pretty new- only a few centuries. It took us thousands of years and we're still not happy with our concepts for physical ownership.
Fact of the matter is, most of what we try to value our ideas at is bull- a song is usually not worth $.99/listener, only some movies are worth $20/viewer, etc.
The entertainment industry is going to have to grow up a lot to stay in business. They can't stop all of this stuff forever.
Fact of the matter is, most of what we try to value our ideas at is bull- a song is usually not worth $.99/listener, only some movies are worth $20/viewer, etc.
The entertainment industry is going to have to grow up a lot to stay in business. They can't stop all of this stuff forever.
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Sorry to all you haters. But the verdict is not guilty, Act I is.
This will drag out for years in the Swedish courts and eventually get put in front of a judge who is not a shill for Hollywood.
They will not have to pay a cent (nor a kronor), they will never do a day in jail.
But four or five years from now when the final appeal goes thru, laws, mentalities and nations will have had ample time to learn to embrace all that the internet brings without trying to drag others down.
Oh and most important of all is the global fight against American bullies in whatever form they may come, who preach freedom but truly care only about lining their pockets.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is a dupe and nothing more.
This will drag out for years in the Swedish courts and eventually get put in front of a judge who is not a shill for Hollywood.
They will not have to pay a cent (nor a kronor), they will never do a day in jail.
But four or five years from now when the final appeal goes thru, laws, mentalities and nations will have had ample time to learn to embrace all that the internet brings without trying to drag others down.
Oh and most important of all is the global fight against American bullies in whatever form they may come, who preach freedom but truly care only about lining their pockets.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is a dupe and nothing more.
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Hollywood and their satanic marketing cronies are much more afraid of the reality as it stands. Folks no longer have to rely on them for content or distribution.
You really think a person like me living in Europe downloading obscure Asian art films is having an impact on Hollywood, their artists etc.? No but the fact that I am free to choose content that lies outside their realm of influence terrifies them to the core.
When Indonesia calls up and wants $15 for the 5 films I downloaded last nite – I'd be happy to give it to em just for the mere fact that it's not a snotty self-obsessed, self-important, self-aggrandised, narcissistic Hollywood production.
Dear Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA, US lawyers and those who sadly believe their bullshit – the dynasty is coming to a close and your whining and crying won't prevent it. Remember when you wanted to go global? You hoped, prayed and assumed that meant global profits for you. Well guess what, thanks to the net and technology it means global options for global citizens.
Eat my global shorts
You really think a person like me living in Europe downloading obscure Asian art films is having an impact on Hollywood, their artists etc.? No but the fact that I am free to choose content that lies outside their realm of influence terrifies them to the core.
When Indonesia calls up and wants $15 for the 5 films I downloaded last nite – I'd be happy to give it to em just for the mere fact that it's not a snotty self-obsessed, self-important, self-aggrandised, narcissistic Hollywood production.
Dear Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA, US lawyers and those who sadly believe their bullshit – the dynasty is coming to a close and your whining and crying won't prevent it. Remember when you wanted to go global? You hoped, prayed and assumed that meant global profits for you. Well guess what, thanks to the net and technology it means global options for global citizens.
Eat my global shorts
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Gee, I guess that would explain why they've had one of their most profitable years ever. Sorry, you lose.
Thank you for playing Slog.
Dear Hollywood, MPAA, RIAA, US lawyers and those who sadly believe their bullshit – the dynasty is coming to a close and your whining and crying won't prevent it.
Gee, I guess that would explain why they've had one of their most profitable years ever. Sorry, you lose.
Thank you for playing Slog.
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Big Sven @3: "Only rarely do artists want you to distribute their stuff for free."
Counter-arguments:
-MySpace and other places where artists let you stream (but not download) for free; many many musicians do this. The recent re-issue of Paul's Boutique was provided for free streaming by the Beastie Boys in order to get people to buy the album.
-They Might Be Giants have been giving away music for years, starting with their Dial-A-Song service.
-The first single on the new Byrne & Eno was available as a free download.
-Nine Inch Nails released the first album of their four-album instrumental set, "Ghosts" for free, followed by a free download of the entire album "The Slip" (>1.4 million downloads so far), then a Bittorrent download of HD-quality video from several of their live shows.
-Radiohead's recent album "In Rainbows" was made available for download for whatever price the consumer wanted to pay, including $0.
-Harvey Danger's 2005 album "Little by Little" is available for free download on their website (via bittorrent)
et cetera, et cetera.
Counter-arguments:
-MySpace and other places where artists let you stream (but not download) for free; many many musicians do this. The recent re-issue of Paul's Boutique was provided for free streaming by the Beastie Boys in order to get people to buy the album.
-They Might Be Giants have been giving away music for years, starting with their Dial-A-Song service.
-The first single on the new Byrne & Eno was available as a free download.
-Nine Inch Nails released the first album of their four-album instrumental set, "Ghosts" for free, followed by a free download of the entire album "The Slip" (>1.4 million downloads so far), then a Bittorrent download of HD-quality video from several of their live shows.
-Radiohead's recent album "In Rainbows" was made available for download for whatever price the consumer wanted to pay, including $0.
-Harvey Danger's 2005 album "Little by Little" is available for free download on their website (via bittorrent)
et cetera, et cetera.
15
Dear 52 80,
You are more than welcome to believe their bullshit and whine for them. It's a free country after all. No scratch that, it's a free world for non-xenophobes.
You'll have to pry my torrents from my cold dead (seedy) hands.
I'll continue to download non-hollywood content with or without your approval and you'll continue to sound like a sheep.
But that's your right, so go ahead.
Baaa to you sir and good nite.
You are more than welcome to believe their bullshit and whine for them. It's a free country after all. No scratch that, it's a free world for non-xenophobes.
You'll have to pry my torrents from my cold dead (seedy) hands.
I'll continue to download non-hollywood content with or without your approval and you'll continue to sound like a sheep.
But that's your right, so go ahead.
Baaa to you sir and good nite.
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The RIAA and the distribution system it supports is Luddism. It's straight out of E.P. Thompson. Craftsmen and their guilds are trying to maintain a monopoly on the production of goods by prohibiting easy and cheap duplication of their product.
This first happened a couple hundred years ago with furniture makers and the like. Craftsmen making handmade one of a kind items wanted to protect their livelihood and manipulated the legal system to ensure they would have no competition. The last thing they wanted was the availability of cheap mass-produced goods. However, that's exactly what consumers wanted and laws protecting the medieval guilds rapidly disappeared.
The economic model the RIAA supports is no longer rational or supportable. Because their goods are now overpriced, based on the market value of the musicians' labor, there is a raging black market and within a generation or so, a completely different economic model will come to fruition that more accurately reflects the market.
You can lament the passing of your way of life, but times change, and the next generation won't have your values and will eventually change the legal code to reflect their own values.
There probably won't be any more mega rock stars with fabulous wealth, but that's probably not such a bad thing. Musicians will have to get day jobs or find a wealthy patron.
This first happened a couple hundred years ago with furniture makers and the like. Craftsmen making handmade one of a kind items wanted to protect their livelihood and manipulated the legal system to ensure they would have no competition. The last thing they wanted was the availability of cheap mass-produced goods. However, that's exactly what consumers wanted and laws protecting the medieval guilds rapidly disappeared.
The economic model the RIAA supports is no longer rational or supportable. Because their goods are now overpriced, based on the market value of the musicians' labor, there is a raging black market and within a generation or so, a completely different economic model will come to fruition that more accurately reflects the market.
You can lament the passing of your way of life, but times change, and the next generation won't have your values and will eventually change the legal code to reflect their own values.
There probably won't be any more mega rock stars with fabulous wealth, but that's probably not such a bad thing. Musicians will have to get day jobs or find a wealthy patron.
19
Big Sven @3: and at this very moment, I'm listening to "This is Daptone Records," a full-length sampler of great soul music that I downloaded for free yesterday from Amazon MP3, along with similar samplers from Barsuk and Saddle Creek.
20
The future seems so obvious. It lays at the ISP level and I'm not talking about a crackdown on file sharing.
I stopped downloading Stewart & Colbert when I got free streaming off the web. I have to sit through about three 30 second commercials but that's a fraction of what I would have to endure on live TV.
The last piece of the puzzle is getting local advertisers who know where I live thanks to my ISP and by agreement likely more than that in exchange for less advertising. By micro targeting their ads it's a win win for both parties.
If I want to watch to go see a movie in a theater I have to sit through several TV commercials now - by using this same targeted advertising you could generate enough revenue to support 90 minutes of on-demand content.
I pay $85/mo already for my cable TV & Internet - I'm already paying enough money for the amount of content (bandwidth) I use. It's a matter of efficiency.
I stopped downloading Stewart & Colbert when I got free streaming off the web. I have to sit through about three 30 second commercials but that's a fraction of what I would have to endure on live TV.
The last piece of the puzzle is getting local advertisers who know where I live thanks to my ISP and by agreement likely more than that in exchange for less advertising. By micro targeting their ads it's a win win for both parties.
If I want to watch to go see a movie in a theater I have to sit through several TV commercials now - by using this same targeted advertising you could generate enough revenue to support 90 minutes of on-demand content.
I pay $85/mo already for my cable TV & Internet - I'm already paying enough money for the amount of content (bandwidth) I use. It's a matter of efficiency.
21
many of the pirate supports are so annoying. and stupid.
first off, if someone wants to give away music or movies for free, then they can. just because some huge band or some label promotion is free doesn't mean all bands *want* to give away their music for free. is this debate 101?
second, the idea that you don't want to pay "hollywood" -- aka "anyone" -- the price charged for a movie doesn't mean that eventually movies will cost less. that's not what's at stake anyways. or are you saying that if movies were $3 each pirate bay should be found guilty? no, you think what they are doing is okay because they are doing it to a big "american corporation". but the law applies to all. it's almost giving me a headache listening to some of the justifications here.
i'm not that opinionated about this issue -- but i do hate it when the "followers" of an idea do such a poor job representing that idea.
first off, if someone wants to give away music or movies for free, then they can. just because some huge band or some label promotion is free doesn't mean all bands *want* to give away their music for free. is this debate 101?
second, the idea that you don't want to pay "hollywood" -- aka "anyone" -- the price charged for a movie doesn't mean that eventually movies will cost less. that's not what's at stake anyways. or are you saying that if movies were $3 each pirate bay should be found guilty? no, you think what they are doing is okay because they are doing it to a big "american corporation". but the law applies to all. it's almost giving me a headache listening to some of the justifications here.
i'm not that opinionated about this issue -- but i do hate it when the "followers" of an idea do such a poor job representing that idea.
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@21: The point isn't that artists don't have a right to set a price for their product, or that movies should magically not cost anything to produce. It's that technology has radically undercut the demand for traditional distribution media. $18 music CDs are becoming less and less a sensible business model for the music industry: but they are trying to hold on to that model through lawsuits and intimidation.
Those of us who truly want a future in which artists are recognized and paid for their contributions to society realize that we need a new profit-model, not lawsuits that try to scare people back to the old one.
Those of us who truly want a future in which artists are recognized and paid for their contributions to society realize that we need a new profit-model, not lawsuits that try to scare people back to the old one.
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that's fine, but that really has nothing to do with what i'm talking about.
sure, i think the riaa is lame. sure, i'd like cds to cost less, and would buy more if they did. it's a huge conversation, and i'm just pointing out that the peeps here bringing attention to lame "hollywood" and bands that want to give away some of their music isn't really the point.
the pirate bay suit isn't the end of the conversation. there is part of me that thinks they should be found innocent. there is another part of me that can at least recognize that many people are acting in an outright illegal way, and not out of altruistic motives - though they often pretend to. that's all.
so i agree with your first sentence. but i didn't say that was the point. people defending the pirate bay in this post brought that shit up. and the way in which they argued those points was pretty annoying. i mean, some poster thinks it's okay to resell bootlegs? that's just silly... right?
on some level, if you want to honor an artists contribution, they have to have some control for remuneration.
sure, i think the riaa is lame. sure, i'd like cds to cost less, and would buy more if they did. it's a huge conversation, and i'm just pointing out that the peeps here bringing attention to lame "hollywood" and bands that want to give away some of their music isn't really the point.
the pirate bay suit isn't the end of the conversation. there is part of me that thinks they should be found innocent. there is another part of me that can at least recognize that many people are acting in an outright illegal way, and not out of altruistic motives - though they often pretend to. that's all.
so i agree with your first sentence. but i didn't say that was the point. people defending the pirate bay in this post brought that shit up. and the way in which they argued those points was pretty annoying. i mean, some poster thinks it's okay to resell bootlegs? that's just silly... right?
on some level, if you want to honor an artists contribution, they have to have some control for remuneration.
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@23: Yeah, I was responding to your point that the existence of free music doesn't imply that all music should be free (which I agree with, in a "shouldn't that be common sense?" way). Anyway, I responded to you because your post was sensible, and not among the annoying ones that you accurately identified. So, I didn't mean to come across as disagreeing strongly, just adding some points.
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tim- the fact that you can only cite anecdotal evidence of artist support for free downloading proves my first point, which is that it's rare. Even the artists you cite only offer one or two "loss leaders." I can't help but notice that "Flood" isn't available for free.
I have nothing against artists choosing to distribute their music for free. But if they want you to pay for it, and you jack it anyhow, you are stealing from them. That's what they say.
I have nothing against artists choosing to distribute their music for free. But if they want you to pay for it, and you jack it anyhow, you are stealing from them. That's what they say.
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