OpenBusiness.cc has a blog entry about a film about “piracy” and its politics in Sweden, including a bit about the Swedish Pirate Party. Appropriately enough, you can download it for free.
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Meta
Well, it’s NOT a film about the Pirate Party.
The first part is focused on the Swedish filesharing movement and the raid against The Pirate Bay. The leader of the Pirate Party occurs briefly, but it’s really much more about Piratbyrån and The Pirate Bay, and about filesharing culture in a broader sense.
Sorry, right you are. I misread the description, and had only had a chance to watch the beginning.
I think that with such an extreme (and stupid) administration that the U.S. has now, people do not want to take their advice anymore. In Scandinavia, we have something called “allemannsretten” – meaning everyone should feel free to pick berries, mushrooms, and utilize the common forest space. Now people should be free to share culture. The file-sharers want to redefine copyright as something different from American predatory gangster capitalism. As the young Swedish woman says, she feels quite the opposite of the Americans about them loosing their work – first of all they obviously that they are sick to their stomach with American culture, which is seen as superficial and unsophisticated by many Europeans. And apart from that they want a diversification of the music business with more local acts and less commercial speculation – leading to better music. How can they be said to be the ones that are wrong, and labelled “pirates”? They hardly can. In fact, the Europeans are right to think that the American capitalists that want a nazi copyright regime are as much “pirates”, if not more. The MPAA has even borrowed the ridiculous vocabulary of the Bush administration “no safe harbors for pirates” – I hope Hollywood goes bankrupt, to be frank. I don’t want a commercial nazi regime pressured on me by WTO fanatics. Reform the WTO, accept Europeans as they are. After all, we are the most cultivate people on the planet, and a far older people than the unexperienced teenagers in the U.S. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Canada has implemented some of its most liberal laws ever during the reign of the Bush fanatics? I don’t, and I hope it won’t stop there. If it wasn’t for the elitocracy in the EUropean Union. So I hope people resist, and continue to do so. We won’t accept this undemocratic trampling on our right to feel free and share culture. Copyright needs to be abolished. Intellectual property is a terrible concept. Noone has the right to own my thoughts, to erect a tent around thoughts that can be thought by other people. Then people become shallow. We need to be allowed to borrow. This has gone too far!
In Scandinavia, we have something called “allemannsretten”
allemansrätt exists only in sweden – not in scandinavia in general – and it is somewhat akin to “fair use” in copyright.
the basic tenet of allemansrätt is “inte störa, inte förstöra” – that is don’t disturb, don’t destroy.
to the extent that “sharing culture” does not disturb or destroy the business model of artists and authors who produce “culture” the idea of applying allemansrätt in the digital domain makes some sense.
using allemansrätt as an excuse to take that which does not belong to you is like those pesky germans who come to sweden every summer and think the law of allemansrätt allows them to camp for weeks on end anywhere they want, steal road signs, and generally make a nuisance of themselves.
I just finished watching this movie, and I have to say that I enjoyed it for the most part. I do have a few points I’d like to bring up.
First, I think they got their point across about the the spin that has been placed on the subject by the motion picture association. In particular I’m tired of hearing the word steal and seeing the analogy between tangible goods and digital copies of some material under a restrictive copyright. It immediately places an entirely different connotation on the act of copying digital materials than I think is appropriate.
I also find the short bit about hitting a single button and ‘beaming’ an exact digital replica to a million people at once absurd. There is always an opportunity cost involved in finding and downloading copyrighted materials. If an individual thinks that the cost of downloading is less than the cost of the copyrighted good, then they will obviously download it. Downloading is not free. You have to find exactly what you’re looking for, download it, fight with players and/or file formats, and then you only get to enjoy it on your computer screen. If you want to go any further the opportunity cost, even for many pirates, is higher than the cost of just buying a DVD.
I do want to state my opinion that if anyone creates a work they have a right to place restrictions on how it is modified, performed, or distributed. Many of the people who pirate things on a daily basis can agree with this. What I think needs to come into balance are the types of restrictions artists and movie studios are accustomed to placing on their works and costs and prices of certain goods through different distribution channels. Most people are not going to pay $25 per DVD or $15 per audio cd for a particular work that they are going to download from a digital store. The point at which the cost of these items becomes reasonable will vary by person. New technology changes the demand for the items at certain prices, something which industries based on recording and distribution simply don’t know how to handle well.
Through discussion and time, this situation will get better as recording and distribution business models begin to catch up with the realities that are being placed on them by improved technologies. It has happened once or twice already over the past 30 years, and I don’t expect this time to be any different.
You Swedish imperialist !! That’s NOT TRUE. Good Old NORWAY has allemannsretten too!!!
They should remove the subliminal messages, as it’s a complete communist superstition. Apart from that I agree with them that the Hollywood people are gangsters and deserve to not earn anymore money so that culture can be retaken by the people. People power!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_message
Wow, it’s been at least a few years since I have seen a well-done documentary that so intricately outlines the horrors of my country’s current political climate. I was completely in the dark about the tactics that we used against TPB.
The film was very well done, although I kept rewinding to catch the subliminal messages, heh. I was quite suprised that it was as cleanly-produced as it was. While it wasn’t a blockbuster-grade film, it wasn’t the unwatchable trash that I expected to see. The content was very fresh and smart, and it kept me engrossed the whole time. I wish TPB and sister trackers the best of luck during these turbulent times. Hang in there guys.
And please remember everyone – don’t judge us all poorly based on the actions of our government. They often act on their own accord, with little to no regard to what we want. Thank you
Ryan,
I’m sorry. I know that Americans are all very different, and there are SO many things I just love about America. Unfortunately, those things are not what come to mind these days. Let’s all change that and make America more democratic.
was it blatant irony that the film is copyright (with the circle c) League of Noble Peers?
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