[Gem Windcaster]

If anyone is interested in checking out what is really going on, you can go to Torrentfreak - they have tons on ACTA, aswell as other related topics. I agree with pretty much everything they write over there, so if you are curious what I think, they you should go there. You might wanna check out their sources (yes, they have them) links. The reason I link to Torrentfreak it's the best English speaking source that agrees with my own views - in Sweden we have been debating these issues for quite some time now, while in other countries they mostly still haven't a clue.

Cheers

[Shinrei]

Is the ACTA just about copywrited media though? Movies/Songs etc?

Because frankly, that hardly seems insidious to me, especially since this first came up over on a discussion where people were talking about human rights. I'm not sure why it's something to get worked up about.

I know this has been done to death, but I feel sorry for neither party when it comes to the whole file sharing thing. If you share music illegally, you should be punished. But not "we will bankrupt you and ruin your life" punished, which is why the copywrite holders deserve no sympathy either.

However, anything that is breach of privacy and "we will search random computers at the airport" sort of policy should absolutely be stopped.

[Obdigore]

Gem Windcaster, on 16 December 2009 - 03:25 PM, said:

If anyone is interested in checking out what is really going on, you can go to Torrentfreak - they have tons on ACTA, aswell as other related topics. I agree with pretty much everything they write over there, so if you are curious what I think, they you should go there. You might wanna check out their sources (yes, they have them) links. The reason I link to Torrentfreak it's the best English speaking source that agrees with my own views - in Sweden we have been debating these issues for quite some time now, while in other countries they mostly still haven't a clue.

Cheers

You are right, Sweden certainly is the shield of humanity from the greedy corporate overlords, and Torrentfreak is the most unbiased and accurate news source for anything relating to file sharing you can think of.

In other news, today the Roman Catholic Pope declared that he is, in fact, emperor palpatine and that his stormtroopers, consisting of his bishops, have already stormed all the world's government facilities and siezed control.

This post has been edited by Obdigore: 16 December 2009 - 04:27 PM

[Obdigore]

Here Gem, why don't you go vocalize your rage at things like this:

http://www.theregist...ringement_suit/

[Gem Windcaster]

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 04:26 PM, said:

You are right, Sweden certainly is the shield of humanity from the greedy corporate overlords

We try our best, which is more than you could say about a certain self righteous country in the west.

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 04:26 PM, said:

, and Torrentfreak is the most unbiased and accurate news source for anything relating to file sharing you can think of.

It certainly isn't unbiased, but it's fairly accurate, and it gives an alternative view on your regular media propaganda.

I'm not telling you to buy everything I say or Torrentfreak says, I am just saying you should try to take the matter of human rights and democracy a bit more serious. We don't have big armies to send across the world over here, so we have to actually earn respect.

Edit: I am, Obdi, you're not paying attention.

Edit: gah I forgot a negation, so the meaning of a sentence became different, fixed now.

This post has been edited by Gem Windcaster: 16 December 2009 - 05:07 PM

[Grief]

"You do realize that the democracy we are talking about is electing officials to speak for us, wether behind closed doors or in open session, right? Have you stopped and thought that perhaps it is behind closed doors specifically to avoid lobbiests from getting their hands on the fledgeling agreement and harping and whining for change?"

I would argue that if the democratically elected officials are keeping issues that people consider important secret from them then they undermine the democratic process because the voters are kept uninformed on issues that may affect their vote. They cannot make a reasonable judgement on whether or not to vote an official into power if the views of the official on issues that they consider important are kept secret. The officials democratic power comes from those who vote for them, it seems unreasonable that the people the power comes from, the voters, are kept in the dark about the issues that may affect their vote.

It is, on a lesser scale, like asking soemone to vote for a political party but refusing to tell them what the party stands for.

As for stopping people whining about it, it occurs to me that the people in power should not be trying to stop people whining by refusing to give the public certain information. Pople have a right to criticise the actions of those in power, to me that's part of what a democracy is.

[HoosierDaddy]

Gem Windcaster, on 16 December 2009 - 05:04 PM, said:

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 04:26 PM, said:

You are right, Sweden certainly is the shield of humanity from the greedy corporate overlords

We try our best, which is more than you could say about a certain self righteous country in the west.

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 04:26 PM, said:

, and Torrentfreak is the most unbiased and accurate news source for anything relating to file sharing you can think of.

....

I'm not telling you to buy everything I say or Torrentfreak says, I am just saying you should try to take the matter of human rights and democracy a bit more serious. We don't have big armies to send across the world over here, so we have to actually earn respect.
....

That is one of the more trollish statements I've read here in awhile.

Your insistence that the right to piracy as a human right at the most extreme, and even the right to the internet at its least, is something I consider to be outlandish.

[Gem Windcaster]

H.D., on 16 December 2009 - 05:31 PM, said:

Gem Windcaster, on 16 December 2009 - 05:04 PM, said:

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 04:26 PM, said:

You are right, Sweden certainly is the shield of humanity from the greedy corporate overlords

We try our best, which is more than you could say about a certain self righteous country in the west.

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 04:26 PM, said:

, and Torrentfreak is the most unbiased and accurate news source for anything relating to file sharing you can think of.

....

I'm not telling you to buy everything I say or Torrentfreak says, I am just saying you should try to take the matter of human rights and democracy a bit more serious. We don't have big armies to send across the world over here, so we have to actually earn respect.
....

That is one of the more trollish statements I've read here in awhile.

Your insistence that the right to piracy as a human right at the most extreme, and even the right to the internet at its least, is something I consider to be outlandish.

It might sound as trollism to you, but I am actually deadly serious and honest. It's not even close to being a joke.

[HoosierDaddy]

That the only way the U.S. can earn respect is because it has big armies it can send around the world? You are deadly serious about that and it isn't trolling?

[Cougar]

Cut it out please you two, I'll leave the above exchange in but stop arguing about who is trolling, the irony is killing me.

[Obdigore]

Cougar, on 16 December 2009 - 06:02 PM, said:

Cut it out please you two, I'll leave the above exchange in but stop arguing about who is trolling, the irony is killing me.

Cougar got after someone for trolling in a thread that I was involved in and it wasn't me? I feel so dirty!

Anyway, Gem, I still want you to tell me what a 'non-commercial' copyright is.

[Morgoth]

Gem Windcaster, on 16 December 2009 - 03:25 PM, said:

If anyone is interested in checking out what is really going on, you can go to Torrentfreak - they have tons on ACTA, aswell as other related topics. I agree with pretty much everything they write over there, so if you are curious what I think, they you should go there. You might wanna check out their sources (yes, they have them) links. The reason I link to Torrentfreak it's the best English speaking source that agrees with my own views - in Sweden we have been debating these issues for quite some time now, while in other countries they mostly still haven't a clue.

Cheers

Gave me a chuckle at least. Torrentfreak makes me want to cry a little. There are plenty of good sources of information on the Internet that are not so problematically biased. Their facts generally seem to be accurate, but I find it easier reading the local Norwegian far left news paper (the class struggle) with all its inherent bias than I do Torrentfreak - whom I more often than not agree with.

[Gem Windcaster]

Obdigore, on 16 December 2009 - 06:10 PM, said:

Anyway, Gem, I still want you to tell me what a 'non-commercial' copyright is.

What can I say, negations confuse me. And I had a headache when I wrote that - no excuse, I know.

Morgoth, on 16 December 2009 - 10:04 PM, said:

Gave me a chuckle at least. Torrentfreak makes me want to cry a little. There are plenty of good sources of information on the Internet that are not so problematically biased. Their facts generally seem to be accurate, but I find it easier reading the local Norwegian far left news paper (the class struggle) with all its inherent bias than I do Torrentfreak - whom I more often than not agree with.

Unbiased or not, it's the only English speaking source I know of that actually reflects my own views, which why I linked to it. People can easily follow the sources in the articles and make up their own minds, the reason I mentioned Torrentfreak is because they do reflect my views. That news outlets reflect a certain type of view is not special for Torrentfreak though, although TF is more like a news blog than a regular journalistic source. About 90% of the stories on Torrentfreak I already know of from other sources, but they are in Swedish, so unless you expect me to start my own news site or people here want to learn Swedish, there was no use linking to them, if you know what I mean?

What newspaper do you read Morgoth, I know there might be a Swedsih counterpart, that I can check out.

Btw, Morgoth, is that information you were talking about in English, because then I'd appreciate some links.

This post has been edited by Gem Windcaster: 16 December 2009 - 10:44 PM

[Shinrei]

Gem, can you please explain to me how you determine file sharing to be a "human right"? I think we're defining human rights in a startlingly different manner.

[Gem Windcaster]

Shinrei, on 17 December 2009 - 12:37 AM, said:

Gem, can you please explain to me how you determine file sharing to be a "human right"? I think we're defining human rights in a startlingly different manner.

Noo, I don't think file sharing is a human right, although I think it's good for humanity. But I don't think it's a human right for big corporations to make a disgustingly amount of money either, much less do I think they have the right to extort people and pretend they are the police, and even less so I think it's right that they are allowed to dictate laws, especially on a global level.
I do however think that internet access should be considered close to being a human right in a modern society, where all normal day activities like paying bills and job searching are increasingly done on the internet - for example in Sweden it's hardly possible to pay bills off the internet. The internet is quite fast becoming an important social structure, and therefore it should be considered as any other social structure like hot water or telephone services or road management (pardon my English).
So when big corporations are allowed to dictate that people must pay them a shit load of money, or their access to the internet gets cut, I think it's wrong on many levels - for one thing it reduces us all to customers - or else...

People often comment on these matters and think it's all about getting stuff for free - it's not even close. Artists benefit from free file sharing, while the market of selling music on pieces of plastic is dying quickly. The big corporations know this, they know they eventually will have to change tactics, but they intend to milk the money as long as they can by using pure mafia methods while trying to look like victims and whining about losing money when the industry is in fact doing great as a whole. It's just that the big CEO's get less money and the artists are getting more money from concerts. No wonder the CEO's whine and spend millions of dollars on attorneys. Why don't they use that money on developing new business strategies? Well the extortion thing basically is the business strategy. Hey, the timid politicians are eating out of their hands. Never mind their customers - why would they, when they can just intimidate people into giving them money, right?

All the while, people are sharing culture like never before, becoming hard core fans of things they never heard of before, and having money over to spend on concerts and conventions and other related stuff. Studies in fact show that the people downloading stuff are the people that spend most money on concerts and stuff like that. So technically, reducing file sharing would mean that the artists would make less money than they do now. (allright so that's not exactly proven, but it might very well be, actually it's more likely than the opposite)

Oops didn't mean that to turn into a rant. Hehe.

[Obdigore]

So, you are under the assumption that secret, closed door talks between a couple of nations regarding copyright standardisation and enforcement, is caused soley by, and can only benefit, big buisiness?

How can any artist, or any small buisiness function, unless they are able to protect what they make/do/sell from big buisiness using copyrights?

[Gem Windcaster]

Obdigore, on 17 December 2009 - 09:58 PM, said:

So, you are under the assumption that secret, closed door talks between a couple of nations regarding copyright standardisation and enforcement, is caused soley by, and can only benefit, big buisiness?

Until proven otherwise - in a nutshell, yes.

Obdigore, on 17 December 2009 - 09:58 PM, said:

How can any artist, or any small buisiness function, unless they are able to protect what they make/do/sell from big buisiness using copyrights?

I'm not against copyright, it just needs to be reformed to fit into a modern society. Business strategies need to change, and as with all changes that happen throughout history, those that can adapt will profit. It's funny how everyone suddenly are fans of planned economy, soviet style, when they talk about this. If you want a free market, you have to adopt to the business strategies that works in the current market - the market can't really adopt to the ideas of the business. Of course I realize the changes that come with the new technology are fast and sometimes like a sledgehammer in the heads of business, but do I want it any other way? Not really. The technology is evolution, plain and simple, and with it comes great opportunities - we can't afford, for humanity's sake, to work against it. I'm not even sure it's possible. Probably not.

This post has been edited by Gem Windcaster: 17 December 2009 - 10:07 PM

[Obdigore]

But some companies are using P2P and filesharing for good. As well as protecting such things with copyrights.

Your crusading attitude against all copyrights, especially when you claim you want to abolish any 'non-commercial' copyrights, does not help your cause.

Perhaps, Gem, if you exclaim that you don't like this meeting because it is secret and because you are for copyright REFORM instead of complete copyright abolishment, as you seemed to be claiming for a while, people might start taking you seriously.

You also might want to tone down the 'Only I can see the problems facing mankind, the rest of you are worthless fools and I must open your eyes because you are so stupid' vibe, as that might alienate some readers.

Just a thought.

And an Open Letter to whoever keeps neg-repping me in this thread any time I get pos-repped. Thank you. I don't think rep should be enabled in the discussion forum, and you are keeping me in a healthy balance. I appreciate it.

[Gem Windcaster]

Obdigore, on 17 December 2009 - 10:11 PM, said:

But some companies are using P2P and filesharing for good. As well as protecting such things with copyrights.

Your crusading attitude against all copyrights, especially when you claim you want to abolish any 'non-commercial' copyrights, does not help your cause.

Perhaps, Gem, if you exclaim that you don't like this meeting because it is secret and because you are for copyright REFORM instead of complete copyright abolishment, as you seemed to be claiming for a while, people might start taking you seriously.

You also might want to tone down the 'Only I can see the problems facing mankind, the rest of you are worthless fools and I must open your eyes because you are so stupid' vibe, as that might alienate some readers.

Just a thought.

And an Open Letter to whoever keeps neg-repping me in this thread any time I get pos-repped. Thank you. I don't think rep should be enabled in the discussion forum, and you are keeping me in a healthy balance. I appreciate it.

I thought I've been pretty clear on that fact that I am not against copyright. And I've been using the word REFORM at least twice, I think. I don't really think I know everything humankind faces, I am expressing my opinions, and if you feel intimidated by that, then that's your own insecurity talking imho. As for alienating people, I am not looking for a popularity prize - these are matters that I take very seriously, and worth taking shit for. If I make one person think twice, it's definitely worth all the shit I ever get.

[Obdigore]

Gem Windcaster, on 17 December 2009 - 10:20 PM, said:

Obdigore, on 17 December 2009 - 10:11 PM, said:

But some companies are using P2P and filesharing for good. As well as protecting such things with copyrights.

Your crusading attitude against all copyrights, especially when you claim you want to abolish any 'non-commercial' copyrights, does not help your cause.

Perhaps, Gem, if you exclaim that you don't like this meeting because it is secret and because you are for copyright REFORM instead of complete copyright abolishment, as you seemed to be claiming for a while, people might start taking you seriously.

You also might want to tone down the 'Only I can see the problems facing mankind, the rest of you are worthless fools and I must open your eyes because you are so stupid' vibe, as that might alienate some readers.

Just a thought.

And an Open Letter to whoever keeps neg-repping me in this thread any time I get pos-repped. Thank you. I don't think rep should be enabled in the discussion forum, and you are keeping me in a healthy balance. I appreciate it.

I thought I've been pretty clear on that fact that I am not against copyright. And I've been using the word REFORM at least twice, I think. I don't really think I know everything humankind faces, I am expressing my opinions, and if you feel intimidated by that, then that's your own insecurity talking imho. As for alienating people, I am not looking for a popularity prize - these are matters that I take very seriously, and worth taking shit for. If I make one person think twice, it's definitely worth all the shit I ever get.

Oh really? Time for a Montage!

Quote

I am in favor of non-commercial file sharing being completely legalized - I am in favor of copyright being reformed - meaning I think a commercial copyright should stay, but that non-commercial copyright should be abolished.

Then I ask you what a 'non-commercial' copyright is. I ask numerous times, and you finally say:

Quote

What can I say, negations confuse me. And I had a headache when I wrote that - no excuse, I know.

.
So, you think all copyrights should be abolished? Is that what you are getting at?

And, instead of explaining your true views, you link the most Pro-P2P, nearly militant anti-big corp website I have been to in a while. Then, you decide that Sweden, and by association, you, is obviously the only voice that counts, and the only place that has a clue regarding this issue:

Quote

in Sweden we have been debating these issues for quite some time now, while in other countries they mostly still haven't a clue.

Oh, and let us not forgot your blaise US bashing:

Quote

We don't have big armies to send across the world over here, so we have to actually earn respect.

Frankly, Gem, if you want anyone to listen to anything you say, ever, you need to post what you mean, stop claiming you were saying something different when you werent, and stop attempting to anger people to drag them down into a discussion that consists of 'yes. no. yes. no.'

Tell me, Gem, all about you copyright reform plans. I would like to know how you intend to reform the entire worlds copyright system, while being against a uniform code across the world.

I am also still curious, by the way, how your elected official appointing another official to talk about this treatie, which will be voted on by your elected official before it can be made into law, is ignoring or bypassing your DEMOCRATIC vote?