Darkness at Noon

At the Melbourne Social Forum on the weekend I mentioned that I’d put my handout up on this blog.

True to my promise, here they are.

The Pirate Bay have been fined 31,000,000 SEK (about US$3.6 million) and sentenced to a year in gaol for assisting copyright infringement, about a third of what ‘hollywood’ was asking. They have already appealed the decision and have no intention of paying the fines. TPB blog has the following statement:

So the first verdict finally came, almost 3 years after the raid. You might have heard about it in the news…

You, our beloved users, know that this little speedbump on the information super highway is nothing more than just, a little bump. Todays verdict has already been appealed by us and will be taken to the next level of court (and that will take another 2 or 3 years!)

The site will live on! We are more determined than ever that what we do is right. Millions of users are a good proof of that.

We have seen that some people that we dont know have started collecting donations for us, so we can pay those silly fines. We firmly ask you NOT to do this. Do not gather or send any money. We do not want them since we will not pay any fines!

If you really want to help out, here is a list:
* Seed those torrents a little bit more than you usually do!
* Buy a t-shirt and show the world where your sympathy is.
* If you live in Europe, vote in the election for the EU parliament in June.
* Continue to build the internets! Start more bittorrent sites, blog more, start your own lobby group, create, remix, mash up and continue to grow more heads on this amazing hydra that we know as the internets!
* Do not be afraid of using the network. Invite your friends to this and other file sharing systems. Calm people down if they’re upset. We need to stay united.

And say it loud say it proud! We are all The Pirate Bay!

Will anything change? No. TPB have already moved their servers to the Netherlands and are appealing the decision.

Once again, I’d like to say ‘Go Pirate Bay!’. You are creating a lot of debate and systematically showing that traditional models of distribution are failing and the the current copyright regime is out of control..

I’m reading Against Intellectual Monopoly at the moment. They make the argument that copyright does two things, and it’s only the second of these things that is the problem:

In the case of both patents and copyright, from the point of view of economics, there are two ingredients in the law: the right to buy and sell copies of ideas, and the right to control how other people make use of their copies. The first right is not controversial. In copyright law, when applied to the creator this right is sometimes called the “right of first sale.” However, it extends also to the legitimate rights of others to sell their copies. It is the second right, enabling the owner to control the use of intellectual property after sale, that is controversial. This right produces a monopoly – enforced by the obligation of the government to act against individuals or organizations that use the idea in ways prohibited by the copyright or patent holder.

While TPB go a lot further than this in their opposition to copyright, Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine make an excellent point. Movies are still making a killing at the cinemas. Every time there is a new blockbuster film released you need to line up about 45 mins before the film starts to get a seat, if you can get one at all.

I suspect that if movie companies provided high quality, quick downloads for a reasonable price (a few dollars) without DRM, they could save a mint as it would be close to free for them to distribute the content and people would pay for the service because a) they want to and b) it would be worth their while as they would receive a superior product.

You are never going to do away with copyright infringement in this digital age. But by providing a superior product at a reasonable price and maintaining the right of first sale (the cinema) you could circumvent a lot of it.

The Guardian notes:

If the digital model is free, then the best option for an industry which does not want to participate in the digital economy is not to be digital, or at least not to rely on digital distribution for a revenue stream of equal value to non-digital revenues. Every moment companies spend thinking about how to protect what is already lost, rather than how to innovate into what might be gained, is a moment spent hastening their own demise. Obviously, if you can do both at the same time, then that is ideal.

Further to my comments yesterday about language and copyright infringement, not theft, the Guardian has an article today about problems with the word ‘piracy’.

People are pointing out that the activities of digital rebels such as The Pirate Bay couldn’t be further from the raw violence of Somali pirates who are locked in a string of bloody battles off the east African coast.

Read the rest of the article here.

As well all know, iiNet are being sued by the record industry. Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) are undertaking the proceedings on behalf of the companies they represent. Which brings me to my first point. You can’t steal intellectual property. There is no Theft, there is only the infringement of copyright law so the name of this ‘federation’ is a lie unto itself – one that works in it’s favour.

Needless to say I’m not a fan of AFACT for a range of reasons, not least of which is stifling debate by purporting these lies. But I digress.

On the 25th March they logged their claim in the Federal Court:

In the Federal Court in NSW on March 25, AFACT’s layers claimed that the federation had enlisted a couple of investigators to log onto iiNet and swap copyrighted material with other iiNet customers. Counsel for AFACT argued that this proves iiNet customers have engaged in acts of piracy and that argued that the evidence was valid even though its investigators participated in the alleged acts of piracy.

AFACT’s layers also argued that any iiNet customer can, while they’re online, identify the IP number they’re assigned for that session and that it’s possible to identify IP numbers as belonging to a band that iiNet uses. AFACT asserted all of this meant that iiNet could identify the customer account that was in use at the time an alleged act of piracy was committed.*

Ok, so now I’m a little more relaxed about the situation. AFACT is having to go to pretty extreme lengths to prove this case, including infringing copyright law themselves along the way.

I think I’ve said before that it is by and large in the interests of Internet Service Providers (ISP) to keep as little information as possible regarding its users and what they are doing on the net. If they have to track and report copyright infringements then any data plan over 5 gig suddenly become redundant.

The other thing that I’m generally relieved about is that the debate seems to have moved away from trying to ban bit torrents altogether.

Anyway, watch this space. I really hope AFACT get a slap for this.

*Interestingly the site that I took this quote from has a mechanism in place which prevents you from copying and pasting its content. That just strikes me a stupid. Don’t you want people quoting you and linking to you – that’s what directs traffic to your site and therefore your advertisers. It’s particularly strange considering it’s a tech blog. Also, the comments on that post are particularly good.

I’ve got a long post about the problem with the Broadband network brewing away in my head. I think it fails a basic class analysis and forces us as individuals down a particular path that people might not want to go down, but more on that later.

But I’m reluctant to criticise it because I’m so consistent reminded why I love the internet and why I’m excited by the prospects of the new network.

I’ve been trying to get my head around the Google Maps API. The official documentation is a little too technical for where I’m at so did a search on “Google Maps API” or something like that and came across this – a Google Maps API tutorial that is very easy to follow with lots of great examples.

What I love about it is this line of text on the home page “This tutorial is provided by the Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team.”

I don’t know where to begin except to say “go Blackpool Community Church Javascript Team”. If Church groups now have Javascipt teams and are taking the time to share their skills then the world is a better place.

Thanks for the tutorial Blackpool Community Church.

Well, it’s on again, the Melbourne Social Forum. I used to be an organiser of it and still keep in close contact with many involved in the event – they are a pretty solid bunch of people.

Also, the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice will be running a workshop about online Activism so if you want to hear me talk, come on down.

Admittedly I have read very little on the New Broadband Network but from what I have read, I can’t help but be just a little bit excited.

Firstly, we will finally get fast internet – long overdue, please fix up the cable outside my house first. It will also mean that all TV will eventually be delivered via the new fibre which will mean a new era of interactive TV and a massive increase in connectivity in every ICT sense of the word.

Secondly, it’s just nice to hear the Prime Minister, one who describes himself as an ‘economic conservative’ (which is he is not), say that markets can fail and won’t always come to the rescue. If only he’d admit that in the broader sense and stop dealing with the global financial crisis in a ‘business as usual’ way. Sure, this is a win for Stephen Conroy which is a bitter pill for me to swallow at the moment but I’ll cope.

Finally, my problem with the sale of Telstra has always been that we sold the infrastructure with it. This always struck me as madness. Now, the fibre will be publicly owned for some time (although the long term plan is to sell it). This also means that we are no longer reliant on Telstra who are pitiful at best. I moved into my current house in October last year. Telstra have still not connected my phone completely. Every month I get an update saying that it is top priority to complete the job but they don’t. Moreover, as long as Telstra are the wholesale provider of these services, internet in Australia will continue to be expensive.

When the Commonwealth Bank was first created, it was done so with the intention of regulating the banks. By providing banking services at the prices that they should have been provided at they forced their competitors to do the same. While I’m still a publicly owned sort of guy, you could argue that the bank was sold when it had finally achieved that aim.

Let’s hope the creation of this publicly owned company that will be commissioned to install the fibre to the premises broadband network does the same.