In the immediate after math of the verdict against Pirate Bay their supporters conducted a denial of service attack against The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Now they are attacking the law firm who represented the industry.
Who will be next? And where are the champions of net neutrality? Can they not understand that censorship by the mob is as much censorship as that by cable providers?
Showing posts with label file sharing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label file sharing. Show all posts
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Kool Aide
UPDATE - As of this morning 95% of poll participants think the verdict was unfair, it seems it took a while for the Boing Boing vote to come in.
Have supporters of Pirate Bay been living in a dream world? Boing Boing alerts us to an online poll in the Guardian where, as of this posting, 86% of the participants support the verdict. You could argue that the industry is gaming the poll, but is it less likely that file sharers are doing the same?
Have supporters of Pirate Bay been living in a dream world? Boing Boing alerts us to an online poll in the Guardian where, as of this posting, 86% of the participants support the verdict. You could argue that the industry is gaming the poll, but is it less likely that file sharers are doing the same?
Friday, April 17, 2009
Conflating free speech with free beer
The defendants in the Pirate Bay case have been found guilty and sentenced to one year in jail and ordered to pay 3,6 million in damages to copyright holders.
The Entertainment industry has been doing reasonably well in courts of law; but in the court of public opinion it has been a disaster. Ever since Nabster the industry has been playing whack a mole with successive file sharing services. For their part the file sharing services, for reasons best known to themselves, have been content to play mole.
Supporters of Pirate Bay seem to have confused free speech with free beer. I particularly recommend their agit-prop movie, Steal this Film. In the film they confuse themselves with fifteenth century printers defying local censors. In reality they are enabling the theft popular movies that corporations spent millions of dollars creating. In their movie they compare themselves to the French revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille; storming the local beer brewery would be closer to the mark.
From the very first entertainment industry trade groups have mishandled the file sharing phenomenon. File sharing is a useful technology that has a legitimate business model. Rather than embracing it and offering customers a legitimate option, the entertainment industry has sought to stamp it out.
Much of the file sharing community are digital looters, people who think that simply because they can take film or music, that makes it right, even noble. The industry needs to communicate to the public that just as physical looters make it impossible to live everyday life, digital looters present a problem to the cyber public and there is a common interest in suppressing illegal file sharing. But the litigious thud and blunder tactics of the industry have been a PR nightmare and served to transform morally pretentious thieves into folk heros.
The industry has also destroyed whatever moral authority it had with its law for me but not for thee approach to the world. I refer of course to Sony’s rootkit disaster, the MPAA email case, and most notoriously, the NDS Piracy case. Corporations who engage in piracy cannot reasonably expect the general public to takes their claims of intellectual property rights seriously.
The industry must:
The Entertainment industry has been doing reasonably well in courts of law; but in the court of public opinion it has been a disaster. Ever since Nabster the industry has been playing whack a mole with successive file sharing services. For their part the file sharing services, for reasons best known to themselves, have been content to play mole.
Supporters of Pirate Bay seem to have confused free speech with free beer. I particularly recommend their agit-prop movie, Steal this Film. In the film they confuse themselves with fifteenth century printers defying local censors. In reality they are enabling the theft popular movies that corporations spent millions of dollars creating. In their movie they compare themselves to the French revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille; storming the local beer brewery would be closer to the mark.
From the very first entertainment industry trade groups have mishandled the file sharing phenomenon. File sharing is a useful technology that has a legitimate business model. Rather than embracing it and offering customers a legitimate option, the entertainment industry has sought to stamp it out.
Much of the file sharing community are digital looters, people who think that simply because they can take film or music, that makes it right, even noble. The industry needs to communicate to the public that just as physical looters make it impossible to live everyday life, digital looters present a problem to the cyber public and there is a common interest in suppressing illegal file sharing. But the litigious thud and blunder tactics of the industry have been a PR nightmare and served to transform morally pretentious thieves into folk heros.
The industry has also destroyed whatever moral authority it had with its law for me but not for thee approach to the world. I refer of course to Sony’s rootkit disaster, the MPAA email case, and most notoriously, the NDS Piracy case. Corporations who engage in piracy cannot reasonably expect the general public to takes their claims of intellectual property rights seriously.
The industry must:
- adapt its business model to offer customers product in the medium the public prefers
- treat its customers like customers rather than criminal suspects
- engage the public on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect
- start to employ ridicule as effectively as John Stewart
- always set a proper example by showing unfailing respect for the private property of others
Friday, March 09, 2007
The PR of the of the recording industry
Music Industry Tightens Squeeze On Students
Why does the recording industry think the schools would be shamed by such a list?
The actions of the RIAA are like the Luddites smashing looms, doomed to failure. The need to get together with the Future of Music and come up with a workable business model.
The recording industry is dusting off an old tactic in its never-ending effort to crack down on pirated music: Target the college kids.
So far this year, the music industry's trade group has sent out hundreds of complaints to students, pressured school administrators to take tougher anti-piracy measures and tried shaming colleges into doing better by putting out a list of the top offending schools.
Why does the recording industry think the schools would be shamed by such a list?
The actions of the RIAA are like the Luddites smashing looms, doomed to failure. The need to get together with the Future of Music and come up with a workable business model.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)