I have a couple of things that have been bothering me lately. I'll start in entirely reverse chronological order, since I'm more pissed off about this particular news story.
As seems to be the case, according to a leaked memo from the Copyright Council of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, there is a process for introducing new legislation which would censor any website which includes pirated material. This includes many many websites, but one site that has been held up in the limelights is, as one can expect, The Pirate Bay.
Now a few years ago I would've laughed in my naivete and trusted that our nation, which has been ranked for years amongst the most free and uncorrupt nations in the world, would never go through with this kind of notion. That it would be thrown out of parliament like a rat out of a five star kitchen. But now I'm not entirely sure anymore. The fact of the matter is that in the last eight years, Finland has moved away from independence and freedom, only to become a lobbyist-infested pro-nuclear powerhouse for mad schemes and utter disregard for personal rights and freedoms.
I wouldn't perhaps be so angry about this, had I not read the comments of a certain copyright group lobbyist who stated that legal alternatives cannot be put out and developed if piracy is still on the internet.
WRONG!
As we saw with Spotify and Voddler, simple easy-to-use alternatives that are cost-effective and still bring certain royalties to artists is the way to go. They cut down drastically the amount of music and movies pirated off P2P networks. They are cheap and good alternatives for laggy and buggy websites with a shitload of advertisement and exploitative prices. And who knows how much of that money really would go to artists.
The solution to piracy is not to try and ban it or put up flimsy obstructions. Even the average internet user can find out how they get around blocks in e.g. China and Iran. The solution to piracy is to win hearts and minds. Smear campaigns, warnings, fines and blocks will not avail those dastardly flames of Udûn.
If the money currently being spent on tracking down and making life miserable for pirates of the world would be used into developing a good, reliable and cheap alternative to P2P networking, there would be no problem for the big corporations. A lot of people find pirating stuff annoying and if there is a good alternative that is within legal confines, they will gravitate towards it.
But that would mean corporations and governments listening to the masses and relinquishing their notion about how evil piracy and pirates are. Forget terrorists, pirates seem to be the real problem of the world. And why wouldn't they be? They cost corporate America more money annually than a few suicide bombers hitting a subway station.
The world is a corrupt place. There's no such thing as a democracy any longer. People put their faith in parties who then do what they will after securing enough seats of a stupid fucking parliament. The world's full of fucked up oligarchies which in turn are puppeted around by special interest groups.
But alas, democracy does not build consensus - it enforces consensus.
As seems to be the case, according to a leaked memo from the Copyright Council of the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, there is a process for introducing new legislation which would censor any website which includes pirated material. This includes many many websites, but one site that has been held up in the limelights is, as one can expect, The Pirate Bay.
Now a few years ago I would've laughed in my naivete and trusted that our nation, which has been ranked for years amongst the most free and uncorrupt nations in the world, would never go through with this kind of notion. That it would be thrown out of parliament like a rat out of a five star kitchen. But now I'm not entirely sure anymore. The fact of the matter is that in the last eight years, Finland has moved away from independence and freedom, only to become a lobbyist-infested pro-nuclear powerhouse for mad schemes and utter disregard for personal rights and freedoms.
I wouldn't perhaps be so angry about this, had I not read the comments of a certain copyright group lobbyist who stated that legal alternatives cannot be put out and developed if piracy is still on the internet.
WRONG!
As we saw with Spotify and Voddler, simple easy-to-use alternatives that are cost-effective and still bring certain royalties to artists is the way to go. They cut down drastically the amount of music and movies pirated off P2P networks. They are cheap and good alternatives for laggy and buggy websites with a shitload of advertisement and exploitative prices. And who knows how much of that money really would go to artists.
The solution to piracy is not to try and ban it or put up flimsy obstructions. Even the average internet user can find out how they get around blocks in e.g. China and Iran. The solution to piracy is to win hearts and minds. Smear campaigns, warnings, fines and blocks will not avail those dastardly flames of Udûn.
If the money currently being spent on tracking down and making life miserable for pirates of the world would be used into developing a good, reliable and cheap alternative to P2P networking, there would be no problem for the big corporations. A lot of people find pirating stuff annoying and if there is a good alternative that is within legal confines, they will gravitate towards it.
But that would mean corporations and governments listening to the masses and relinquishing their notion about how evil piracy and pirates are. Forget terrorists, pirates seem to be the real problem of the world. And why wouldn't they be? They cost corporate America more money annually than a few suicide bombers hitting a subway station.
The world is a corrupt place. There's no such thing as a democracy any longer. People put their faith in parties who then do what they will after securing enough seats of a stupid fucking parliament. The world's full of fucked up oligarchies which in turn are puppeted around by special interest groups.
But alas, democracy does not build consensus - it enforces consensus.