I’m not surprised to hear that record labels have put composers in a shitty situation, why pay someone that you’ve chained in a basement somewhere if you don’t have to? But to say that a good way to make composers earn more is to disconnect accused file sharers from the Internet is simply laughable. If, unlikely as it is, disconnecting people from the Internet creates more goodwill than badwill among your customers, and that the record label can convert that goodwill into money… Yes, I know, unlikely. But still, if they manage all that, what could possibly make mr Ulvaeus think that composer would see any of that money? Or the bands/artists performing their songs for that matter, specially the new ones?  The entertainment industry just keeps on growing and if you aren’t getting paid now, exiling people from the Internet isn’t going to get you paid either.

Then again the letter has a part that I agree with.

Joking aside, the joy of creation must never be denied, and it is truly a wonderful thing to know that something one has written remixed is listened to by many people; waking emotions, causing goose bumps, and drawing that irresistible urge to listen again. Maybe a song you wrote remixed could help a poor, depressed person out there to forget his misery for a while.

Sadly he wants ISPs to monitor your Internet connections to make sure you aren’t being creative and remixing stuff!

Mr Ulvaeus goes on to say:

All this is, of course, reward in itself, but a prerequisite for the existence of these songs is almost always that their author can afford to devote himself entirely to cultivating his talent.

Translation: People are only creative and good when they get paid. If you still are creative but not getting paid, what ever you create is bad. Linux and Wikipedia disagrees I think.

Nevertheless, it makes me angry when those who want to get round copyright on the Internet evoke a faceless and immensely powerful “intellectual property industry” as their main enemy just because it suits them.

Well, I agree the “immensely  powerful intellectual property industry”  is a big problem. But them being faceless is of their own design by hiding behind organisations like MPAA, RIAA, BSA and IFPI. And they have no problem trying to associate file sharing with terrorism and child pornography, just because it suits them. So my advice to Mr Ulvaeus is to not go down that line of argumentation.

Those under attack are people of flesh and blood, who are passionate about their profession.

We, the Internets are people of flesh and blood and are passionate of our freedoms and human rights.

It must be possible to design a modern copyright environment that works with the Internet without demanding surveillance that eats away at integrity

…

Internet service providers and technology companies can, and should, take steps to deal with piracy.

Right, sounds reasonable… Wait?! What?!  The only way for ISPs to join the crusade against piracy is for them to deploy massive surveillance… So which is it? A modern copyright environment or a surveillance society?

But perhaps I should be nice for a few. It’s sad that creative people aren’t valued enough. And where music is concerned I think part of the solution is to start seeing the performers and a small company. And they in turn hire the competence or buy the services they need to succeed. This would help solve the problem for the writers and composers as well. People in the music business need to reevaluate the money sinking role of the traditional record label. If they do that the truly creative people that add value to our culture and deserve the money will get it.

It’s pretty funny.

Most important now in my opinion is to start work on all the preparations for our national election next year. We left Falkvinge back home in Sweden to make sure we have a strong presence here for that election. As part of these preparations we should make sure that all we do in the EuroParl are fully transparent to our voters. If we can show results in our issues down in Brussels much will be gained in the upcoming national election.

Oh, and Keyzer was nowhere to be found at the Spectrial. Prosecutor Roswall told Judge Norström, on a direct question, that he had tried contacting Keyzer but had been unable to and therefore needed to remove him from the witness list.

These people don’t need harsher laws to protect them from financial loss due to marketing incompetence!

Damn us cheap pirates! Drougge managed to cover her costs for the recording in a manner of hours and the damn pirates downloading her book from The Pirate Bay for free JUST WONT STOP PAYING HER… I mean, geesh we have a reputation to uphold…

Since google translates are a little iffy, here’s the story in a nut shell. Drougge got really pissed at the Spectrial verdict and her fellow authors for hailing the verdict as their salvation. So she made a proof of concept, recorded her latest book as a 96kb/s mono MP3 and uploaded it as a torrent on TPB. The TPB crew convinced her to register at PayPal which she hadn’t considered on her own and helped her make a nfo-template for her torrent. The torrent hovers around 1000 seeders and transfer speed of 2.5mb/s have been reported.

From said nfo:

I won’t allow myself to become cannon fodder for a derailed entertainment industry that works together with underhanded political forces prepared to use any and all methods to dethrone our biggest democratic platform

While she was at it she also grabbed the mic at the Stockholm demonstration against the verdict, unasked i might add.

So the lesson here? You earn more money and get a stronger brand from allowing people to pay, then from forcing them. Even our damn TV license collection agency has figured this out…

Thanks CollegeHumor!

Found via BoingBoing.

Today was a weird day. It started in a deep sense of hopelessness with the guilty verdict. But as the day wore on it’s turning into more of a righteous anger.  OMG Internets!(sv) sent me to a awesome key note by the man who gave us The Machine is Us/ing Us. This is what the conflict is all about. Should the greatest communication platform be free to explore and use by anyone or should it be controlled, filtered and censored into a cable-TV network. 

Some of the highlights of the day was an interview with(sv) some Swedish artist where Anders Wedin aka Moneybrother said: 

I don’t know what to say, no way in hell did I expect this. they where sentenced to jail! I was unsure whether there was actually any crime committed at all. I think the fines seem astoundingly high, but I want to side with the artists. Downloading is something you do on ones own authority.

When asked if he was surprised but happy, he replied:

I think amphetamine has been really helpful to me and I would really love to see it handed out to school children. I’d rather you write that then that I’m pleased with the verdict.

Another “sensation” was that judge Thomas Nordlund, who held a press conference after the verdict was handed out, was totally unprepared to answer questions in English… I guess it’s just more proof multiple worlds (co)exist simultaneously. Then again the certified translator they used during the trial was horridly bad at English. So maybe they should let the pirates do all the translating. 

19845 members, getting close now.

Apparently the verdict was leaked from the court before the official time. TorrentFreak has the story. It’s sort of strange but I’m not sure what bearing it might have. 

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