[-empyre-] laws, outlaws & golden pirates

[shu lea cheang]

following the thread -

>>>>let's start again from the beginning, how do you think that your 
>>>>work drives innovation? how can we reclaim creativity through 
>>>>piracy? isn't that we are just artists not free to express 
>>>>ourself because of copyright?

>>>>back to the strategies, maybe we should think about a Union of 
>>>>Pirates, which mutually can help singular cases, i mean for 
>>>>pirates who may get sued, the union may provide money backup for 
>>>>legal costs and a crew of lawyers, and why not, an insurance, if 
>>>>each pirate pay a little fee of subscription for being covered 
>>>>and being part of the union, i'm sure the money will be enough to 
>>>>face this difficult time. and in the meanwhile a class action can 
>>>>stress for innovative legislation change for reclaiming rights of 
>>>>fair use for digital content.

i dont know if this is the right occasion to distinguish artistic 
endeavour and the common practiced
piracy act which indeed has become an industry parallel to the online 
digital content devlopment.

As an artist, i also dont know if i can be the flag waving union 
member of the Pirate Union.
For the curatorial texts  of [kop] in 2002, we stated, "Kingdom of 
Piracy <KOP> is conceived as an online, open work space which 
explores piracy as the net's  ultimate art form. "
we could easily get into the discussion of art form, art genre here, 
and maybe get into
how our work (of this specific genre) can be marketed or simply 
unsellable in the current art scene... (well, guess someone is still 
naming the price.)

Lawsuits are really applicable when they do bring in money or fame 
(or notority), arent they?

As artists deriving concept/content from the 'wealth' of the net, do 
we/do you set out to trip the troubled water?  or do you accidentally 
fall into the crack and stumbled? Maybe the question, then, is not 
"we are just artists not free to express ourself because of 
copyright', but what considered to be, then, the 'limit' (boundary) 
how far can you go without getting yourself procecuted? or to choose 
prosecution and make a martyr or a hero of yourself. What is the 
balanced act on this thin rope?  My pirate republic work was not 
realized mainly caused of the opposition from my kop partner, how i 
could threat/damage public participants of willing confession of 3 
strikes. In my current work UKI viral game, we aim to infect a city,
targeting on googlemap. The game is conceived to mobilze the public, 
the infection, however,
  is gestural.

A gestural act as an art form? face2facebook elegantly realized such 
an act. for me, then, the question is strategy for engaging the 
public. When facebookers make objection that you
steal their faces, you also bring up most serious issues of our 
social network generation.
Yes, we are now 'willingly' participating in the corporate piracy 
scheme, contributing to a wealth which could be of any minute deemed 
'data trash' in the net's black hole that sucks in all data.

what do you think?

over
sl