Climate change part 1

heeheehee

File sharing and the case of the Pirate Bay

I tend to not write about political stuff (or any stuff at all for that matter, judging from the amount of entries lately). But this court case is an as interesting political issue as it can become, and since my awesome brother never starts up his political blog (which he should, since he has the best political PoVs I've ever seen in anyone), I guess I'll just write some, in my limited manner (I'm not a politician!).

Wow. I never thought the court would give them such a harsh conviction. (30 million kr and 1 year each in prison) esp. compared to what real criminals get - often 1% of that sum, at most. I might surprise a few of my readers when I write that I think the judgment is insane - many seem to equalize that with agreeing that stealing is ok. Do I? No. But a) I think i can be discussed if it really should be classified as stealing, and b) I think the world is a bizarre place (which we already knew it is) when the fines go to the companies Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Sony BMG and EMI - companies that don't seem to be in such a need to survive, while there are people without access to education, starving or living under insane circumstances everywhere in the world. It seems to me this political issue is a fight for market economy rather than justice.

I noted quite some distinction of bias in media btw - if you read an article covering the case on CNN, there's a strong bias in favour of the accusers (the movie companies), with lots of bad commenting about the owners of PB, quotations without context etc. If you read Swedish newspapers, for once it seems to be more unbiased, or even sometimes on the side of the defendants. BBC's story was (as usual) to the point and not choosing sides. (one of these days I'd like to write about media and their methods...).

Question: Can file sharing really be equalled with stealing? Services such as Last.fm, Spotify etc are legal - the difference is a file on your computer versus accessing it online (I know there are some finer differences in the details, esp for last.fm, but for this particular user, this difference really doesn't matter).

Here are some of my thoughts, in no particular order:

• The crime these guys are being conviced for is really providing infrastructure. How is that different from e.g. Google? What is the result going to be, more than getting 4 scape goats?
• History: Think back on the reaction of music at cinemas (rather than musicians playing for silent film), radio (huge issue), recording capabilities available in the homes, cassette tapes (that was a big one), and then recordable cd's, the mp3 industry, etc etc. The protests from the same kind of companies were enormous in each case. Is this so different? Still infrastructure for the same crime? or not?
• The technology used in file sharing is ingenious. I showed my wonderful spouse yesterday how it works, and he was genuinely impressed. It's something that should be used and explored.
• If so much energy was spent at fighting pornography on the internet, wonders might happen. Instead a technology is being fought, in the interest of the already rich (uhoh, I see why I in the country in the south sometimes get accused of being a communist...)
• Are really 83% (I think this number, denoting how many that disagree with the court ruling, is even higher now) of the Swedish population so deprived (well, perhaps they are, but in this particular question?)?
• 50 000 kr in fines is the result of murdering children (actual case in Sweden). 30 million for linking to ones and zeros...
• There is research that shows that filesharers spend their money to a greater deal on concerts (where the money hopefully goes more directly towards the artists rather than passing through the pockets of the big companies), going to the cinema, etc. In other words, it's not even proven that money is actually being lost. Many people buy what they like (to get better quality). Many artists get the attention they would otherwise not get. It's not all bad.

Proposed solution: As this is not a matter of life and death, but rather economics, it seems the best (and really, only) solution, would be for the $$-companies to change strategy in how to gain money. That's what all the photography stores had to do at the advent of digital cameras - they had to totally change, follow the technical development, or perish. It's an opportunity for learning and change, a challenge. Perhaps a new try at 3D movies in theatres (I'd be very interested!) Because - I'm not so sure the opinion of the people will change, regardless of it being right or wrong.

One unexected(?) and interesting outcome of this court ruling is the extreme growth of the Pirate Party just in time for the upcoming EU election. I'm quite fascinated..

If I had time, I would spend some of it on language and structure of blog entries. That will be a project for the future.