the truth behind online piracy

[Sasha]

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You do realize that the Cato Institute is a rightist bourgeois think tank?

[Princess Luna]

You do realize that the Cato Institute is a rightist bourgeois think tank?
A broken clock is right, at least twice a day. the Cato Institute has some good positions on civil liberties and foreign policy /

[workersadvocate]

It's interesting that much of the ruling class itself turned against this legislation.
All of them believe in stopping "online piracy" and protecting "intellectual property" (kinda funny how they whine about piracy hurts the content creators, but how often do those creators themselves actually own exclusive rights to their creations, and how often is it really just the purchased property turned product of the big media companies?)

The opposition to SOPA and PIPA from parts of the U.S. bourgeiosie centered around how they feel it would harm their own interests and probably not effectively stop online piracy (i.e., sharing).

Which to say, their reasons for opposing SOPA/PIPA are not the same as why revolutionary leftists do. And the fight is far from over...

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Exactly. They oppose it for their own reasons, just as a section of the bourgeoisie opposed the debacle in Iraq.

Google posed it's opposition in the following way: "No to piracy, yes to freedom."

[Ostrinski]

No to piracy, yes to piracy searches.

But this is one of the main advantages that the proletariat has above the bourgeoisie. The interests of the proletariat are homogeneous, while the interests of the bourgeoisie conflict with one another.

[black magick hustla]

:shrugs: first these bills wont pass. only the factions of the bosses that have vested interests in stringent copyright law will be happy about it. however, this is a more interesting take http://www.zog.net/xanadu-or-bust/rants-ideas/the-inevitability-of-censorship-oppression-and-stupidity/ . basically it says that the lobbies behind this antipiracy shit are just pushing a dummy bill right now, and that they already are planning to push their agenda under anti child porn laws.

anyway, i am not really that worried about antipiracy laws. worst comes to worse the interesting internet will shift to russia and sweden or something. shitty facebook hipsters are making too much noise about this shit because they wont be able to share dumb cat pictures through tumblr

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I think in the case of intellectual property it goes deeper than that.

We've reached a point where it's now possible to make any form of information that can be digitized (text, photos, audio, video, software, etc.) freely available to everyone on the face of the earth, on demand. Think about that.

The only way the bourgeoisie can continue to squeeze money out of these things is through the force of its state.

This is a real case of "conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production," and it's indicative of things more generally.

[R_P_A_S]

good stuff guys!

[tbasherizer]

I think in the case of intellectual property it goes deeper than that.

We've reached a point where it's now possible to make any form of information that can be digitized (text, photos, audio, video, software, etc.) freely available to everyone on the face of the earth, on demand. Think about that.

The only way the bourgeoisie can continue to squeeze money out of these things is through the force of its state.

This is a real case of "conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production," and it's indicative of things more generally.

This is why the Internet and technology get me so excited! The Internet will/is bring/bringing a change in the mode of production, and lots of the political phenomena we're seeing right now are reactions within a historical materialist framework.

[bcbm]

This is why the Internet and technology get me so excited! The Internet will/is bring/bringing a change in the mode of production, and lots of the political phenomena we're seeing right now are reactions within a historical materialist framework.

pfffft

[Nicolai]

Piracy: You make a copy of a file. The original still exists and so does the copy, and they call it stealing?

Yes to piracy, and yes to free speech. Sorry, but the insane results they show on lost revenue simply can't be true, as not every person on the net even are pirates. And I'm sorry, but I refusse to pay my whole income on the Adobe pack that comes with an update every second year (I used it, I've gone over to Open-Source alternatives now). :closedeyes:

[NewLeft]

This is why the Internet and technology get me so excited! The Internet will/is bring/bringing a change in the mode of production, and lots of the political phenomena we're seeing right now are reactions within a historical materialist framework.

Yes, it will bring a change... Nothing that capitalism cannot adapt to.

[Zav]

As BMH suggested, the bills will be back under the guise of child porn laws, and then anyone who opposses it will be labeled a baby-fucker. I imagine the U.S. will start seeing propaganda for it soon. It will be similar to the anti-abortion stuff.

"This is Johnny. He was kidnapped and molested by this scary guy with an eyepatch so Eyepatch-man could make child pornography. Don't let this happen to your children. Support the Stop Child Pornography Act today."

[Ocean Seal]

No to piracy, yes to piracy searches.

But this is one of the main advantages that the proletariat has above the bourgeoisie. The interests of the proletariat are homogeneous, while the interests of the bourgeoisie conflict with one another.


:shrugs: first these bills wont pass. only the factions of the bosses that have vested interests in stringent copyright law will be happy about it. however, this is a more interesting take http://www.zog.net/xanadu-or-bust/rants-ideas/the-inevitability-of-censorship-oppression-and-stupidity/ . basically it says that the lobbies behind this antipiracy shit are just pushing a dummy bill right now, and that they already are planning to push their agenda under anti child porn laws.

anyway, i am not really that worried about antipiracy laws. worst comes to worse the interesting internet will shift to russia and sweden or something. shitty facebook hipsters are making too much noise about this shit because they wont be able to share dumb cat pictures through tumblr


I think in the case of intellectual property it goes deeper than that.

We've reached a point where it's now possible to make any form of information that can be digitized (text, photos, audio, video, software, etc.) freely available to everyone on the face of the earth, on demand. Think about that.

The only way the bourgeoisie can continue to squeeze money out of these things is through the force of its state.

This is a real case of "conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production," and it's indicative of things more generally.


These three posts sum up what I had to say

1.) The bosses in the high end technology sector don't want this to pass. In fact they will duke it out with the bosses in movies, music, and so on to stop it from passing. Google, microsoft, among others are against this not for good press, but rather because they would lose profit if it passed.

2.These laws are but a distraction getting stupid internet annoykids up in a frenzy of mah freedoms be under attack. Instead of looking at the serious class struggle that has taken place in the last few months.

3. The bourgeoisie need to stop piracy immediately because it gives people free access to a lot of things. Free books which one can read off one's kindle without paying a cent past the 80 investment. Imagine that every book in the world for $80. Every song for the price of an mp3 player. Every video for the price of an Ipad. Sounds like the bourgeoisie really need the state to bail them out on this one.

[~Spectre]

The Pirate Bay chimes in:


INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012.
PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for
the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person
to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like
Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they
circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works,
without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the
studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being
able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.
If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing
other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the
rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow
people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take
over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them).
It's all based on the fact that we're competition.
We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.
We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws
should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the
USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this:
The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.
They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the
rest of us obedient consumers.
The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with
trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that
you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the
hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to
mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.
To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're
creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls
become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching
movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones
is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had
no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy
in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more
honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information
when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.

[sanpal]

I think in the case of intellectual property it goes deeper than that.

We've reached a point where it's now possible to make any form of information that can be digitized (text, photos, audio, video, software, etc.) freely available to everyone on the face of the earth, on demand. Think about that.

The only way the bourgeoisie can continue to squeeze money out of these things is through the force of its state.

This is a real case of "conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production," and it's indicative of things more generally.

yeah, this. Dialectical materialism in reality.

[Klaatu]

"...worst comes to worse the interesting internet will shift to russia and sweden or something."

That is exactly what I was thinking; the "center" of the internet will emigrate to another country, (as we let good-paying jobs do already) and such and such a country will reap the benefits: jobs, high-tech, etc. Just Say No to internet censorship.

[aty]

That is exactly what I was thinking; the "center" of the internet will emigrate to another country, (as we let good-paying jobs do already) and such and such a country will reap the benefits: jobs, high-tech, etc. Just Say No to internet censorship.

The center of Internet is already in large parts in Sweden. The internet here was built from the start by the "underground scene", and the "anti-authority" sentiment is still very strong. The companies that provide internet are largely controlled by the pirates or supporters of pirates. So when the state changed laws to counter the piracy the companies refused to give IP-adresses to the police and destroyed all data. So the internet is still controlled by the people in Sweden. The new laws as IPRED have not helped a bit, it just created an even larger support for piracy.

If you want to be 100% safe you can just get your internet from PirateISP :): http://pirateisp.net/

And yes, the revolutionary left have been involved in some parts of the pirate-movement. And highlightened that this is a sign of that capitalism is begining to become irrelevant and the property relations is holding back the technology.

It is Sweden that is the center for the fight about the Internet to remain a free place were we share information and culture.
The US have used Sweden as some sort of training-ground for later trying to introduce the same laws that Sweden have in the US.
But I most say that the repression against the internet-users in Sweden have backlashed pretty hard and when the Pirate Party got 7,1% in the european-elections they got scared.


IIPA: Sweden an infamous pirate haven
Sweden is a free haven for piracy, hosting more Direct Connect hubs than any other country in the world. It is also the home of the Pirate Bay and this illegal distribution continues to increase because of bad legislation. This is claimed by the copyright organisation IIPA in a special report on Sweden.
In the report it is claimed that Sweden is the home of 40 per cent of the top sites that are specialized pirate servers with large storage capabilities and large bandwidth, that are present in Europe. It is also claimed that Sweden is home to the largest number of Direct Connect users and hubs. The report points out that Sweden is the home of the Pirate Bay.

[workersadvocate]

US Injustice Dept. and the FBI just took down Megaupload today, indicting 7 people.

[Comrade Jandar]

The primary arguments I've heard against these bills by the bourgeois press is that it will interfere with "small business innovation." As we all know the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. As Brospierre said, even within the bourgeois there are antagonisms and these of course must be taken advantage of.