[-empyre-] laws, outlaws & golden pirates

[magnus lawrie]

Hi Paolo,

On Thu, Jul 07, 2011 at 10:34:10PM +0100, Paolo Cirio wrote:
> Hey guys,
> 
> i'm a bit confused, you Magnus sent us a good news of 2 years ago, instead this is the bad news of 5 hours ago:
> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/major-isps-agree-to-six-strikes-copyright-enforcement-plan.ars
> apparently in U.S. they are going to be pretty tough with the pirates, if we would link to the news that i mentioned before:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/03/us-anti-piracy-extradition-prosecution
> it's just scaring.

Right, yes - Hadopi, like the Digital Economy Bill in the UK, went
through only by some extraordinary legislative procedures.

Regarding the six strikes plan, as a euphemism, Mitigation Measures
certainly sounds pretty scary. It seems like government on behalf of
big business might sabotage the individual user with outsourced
bureaucracy.

> however, somehow i follow these news since some years and they barely scare me anymore. considering that the pirates are millions around and the globe and the softwares p2p evolve continuously, i think that this sort of laws and exemplary lawsuits are more propaganda rather than effective way to stop piracy. nevertheless, we should take in account that, after all, both ISPs and companies that sell players for digital content benefit from the share of the pirated material, because it just increases the need for bandwidth, devices, and related stuff. for instance it's quite ironic the position of Sony, which in one side would control its copyrighted content, on the other side it needs to sell more mp3 players.
> such of firms have their own contradictions that they didn't manage to solve yet, and so they keep the old business model, eventually with some tricks to make more money out of it. this is my general impression.
> this contradictions are also evident with internet giants as Google, Facebook, which rely on pirated content (voluntarily published by their users, and eventually with the users' legal responsibility). 
> 
> there is a lack of innovation in copyright legislation, which creates just a mess with permanent debates and fights between lawyers, firms departments, legislators, and in general struggle over different way to gain revenues. it's just ridiculous that they didn't clean up the mess with some new ideas of copyright.
> i mean, something like the deal that Amazon and Google had when they started to scan books and publish them online, they had hard time with publishers, but they finally had a deal. although they books aren't completely available for free yet, i consider that case a new way to see the content online as not just a possible uncontrolled leak of material available for pirates, but also a new way to increase revenues, if we would see the situation with business eyes.
> 
> unfortunately, who really suffers by this mess and contradictions it's the final citizen that is who is always blamed for his/her culprit! 

There is a sort of co-dependence it seems to me. Perhaps another type
of feedback emerges. I wonder if it can be harnessed for innovations.
> 
> some of these aspects were part of the Amazon Noir project, when i was able to steal digital books from Amazon.com. initially my idea was to focus the project on public library services, and stress the Fair Use legislation of public library applied to digital content. then the project unfortunately took others conceptual directions.

I would be really interested if you are able to say more about your
original planned direction. Were you aiming to engage issues around
Open Access?
> 
> 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.

Perhaps some pirate actions have a role in changing societal norms.
Meanwhile, the P2P ethos seems to imply less disruptive strategies. Am
I right? How can that work for a more radical creative practice? In
light of that question I am looking at BURN beside Platoniq's Burn Station
http://burnstation.net/ There is an interesting comparison I think,
the latter being wholly legal, so I suppose circumvents the piracy domain.

> however instead of using the character of the Pirate, maybe for the promotional campaign of the union we may use little kids dressed up like Peter Pan who cry because they can't access to the library of their school anymore. i'm sure that this will touch the hearts also of the more conservative target ;)
> 
> paolo.
> 

Or imagine the Peter Pans before the Library of Congress, where as
James Boyle writes, copyright lasts "Long enough to lock up almost all
of twentieth century culture"[1] 

[1]http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/93/Boyle.pdf.txt?sequence=2

Best wishes,

Magnus
> On 7 Jul 2011, at 18:58, shu lea cheang wrote:
> 
> > hi,  magnus
> > 
> > I had much doubt about how the 3 strike gonna work, for sure.
> > 
> > before i get into the talk about public engagement/innovative with paolo, a quick response to this one. I never meant for pirate republic nor the kingdom adrift in the sea to be a utopia state, and i also afraid that we are running out of alternative. I think it is about mobilizing the public, strategies to engage public...
> > 
> > best
> > sl
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> Hi Shu Lea & Paolo,
> >> 
> >> I see that efforts to introduce the three strikes rule in the virtual
> >> domain didn't succeed, at least in recent France and Germany
> >> 
> >> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/germany-walks-away-from-three-strikes-internet-policy.ars
> >> 
> >> This handling of petty freeloaders of the virtual puts me in mind of fare
> >> dodgers on public transport, where in Germany, I believe, the three
> >> strikes rule can lead to a custodial sentence. This is expensive to
> >> administer, for sure. But I wonder, is the analogy appropriate at all? Is
> >> the
> >> pirate republic a utopia or a purely pragmatic alternative - for the net
> >> users threatened with being marooned by (the real) pirate kings?
> >> 
> >> Best wishes,
> >> 
> >> Magnus
> > 
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> > 
> 
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