I couldn’t avoid posting this and I cannot stress how important it is. The web site may, at times, undoubtedly include the standard ‘act now before we it’s too late’ text that’s stereotypical of activists globally whenever some braindead lobby tries to threaten our hard earned liberties. Ignore that part. Don’t ignore the fact that it is important that you and the people around you know what’s happening in Brussels and Strasbourg, what’s at stake. You should strive to stay up to date and — last, but not least — act. Do yourself a favour and read the linked page; filter the excessive parts, see beyond the sentimentalism. Then try to find out more about the proposed directive by reading the text [or a summary of the controversial amendments]. An open and neutral internet is way more important than any national election in Europe, even to those that have no clue what the internet really is.

Act today. Call your MEPs and tell them how you feel about the internet. It doesn’t matter which part of the political spectrum you identify with; the internet is part of everyone’s life.

One of the better examples of great content online. Easily rivals most similarly themed TV shows. Great stuff!

The Silicon Alley Insider raises an important question, with regard to Radiohead’s testimony against RIAA in a case against a college student: Would Radiohead be able to take that stance if they hadn’t sold millions, “without the protection and promotion of an RIAA that Radiohead now blithely dismisses”?

But while arguing RIAA’s importance with regard to the vast majority of musicians is mildly amusing in its fallacy, the article doesn’t stop there:

We love Radiohead, but we’re not sure if the band realizes they’re superstars, and the normal rules don’t apply to them anymore. The band’s “pay what you want” idea for the In Rainbows album may have been successful, but for every one Radiohead there’s ten thousand would-be rock stars selling CDs out of the trunks of their car (or MP3s on some little-visited web site) and starving.

So, one Radiohead per ten thousand would-be rock stars. Apparently the authors ignore that this is exactly the status quo that the RIAA nurtured in decades past, exactly what the internet, mp3, file sharing and indeed Radiohead’s testimony help change: total control over music promotion, repertoire selection, bias in favour of genres/artists by a few multinational corporations aimed at nothing more than profit maximisation. Put another way: A small minority of artists getting all the exposure [and some of them going bankrupt despite the megacorps' multi-million contracts], while millions more being unable to promote their music, make money, live off it. Those same approaches that have led to a just few hundred artists getting millions and the rest starving. If anything, testifying against the RIAA, especially if you’ve attained superstar status, goes against that. Lastly, Radiohead — whether you like or dislike their music — have proven their artistic integrity as well as their popularity time and again, most certainly without RIAAs help. There’s no doubt that the interests of musicians around the world should be protected; RIAA never did that and most probably never will.

Dealing with illegal file-sharing is a job for the police. It is their job to enforce the law. Now we have given private corporations the legal right to go after our civilians. That’s not how Western democracies work.[...]

In a study, 80% of people thought we shouldn’t go after file-sharers. But ask them how they feel about taking money out of the pockets of musicians, authors or artists and that number falls by a significant amount.

Ultimately we have to change peoples perception on file-sharing.

Indeed we do. But most importantly we have to change executives’ in those media multinationals perception on culture, art, freedom of communication and privacy as well as protect our liberties from unbounded profit and greed.

If file sharing did anything, besides rendering the status quo obsolete, it was to bring to the spotlight on how slanted and unfair the media industry is: favouring less than 1% of the artists globally, fixing prices to maximise profit, compromising on our very own cultural foundations through the systematic, condescending promotion of junk while at the same time making thousands of executives rich for no reason whatsoever. There’s no doubt that stealing is bad, although I’m not so sure that not-for-profit sharing of digital copies is. What I am sure about is that what the industry is accustomed to doing — and keeps trying to achieve, now through the institutions — is worse.