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Us versus Them
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Yesterday, Sweden lost The Pirate Bay case and “Stockholm district court had an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that Sweden is still the free and progressive country it was once famous for being”.
It may have been the only headline which didn’t present the decision in Sweden as a win for the corporate entertainment industry.
Instead, the story, “confirmed that like America, [Sweden] is little more than another music and movie industry enforcement, sales and marketing division which puts corporate interests before those of its citizens.”
Well, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, and Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, tried to ignore us. That didn’t work. They mocked us. Didn’t work. Then these ass-hats, as surfer calls them, started suing us. That isn’t working either.
Now we’re at stage four, a la Mahatma Gandhi.
We’re winning.
What can we do? What can we DOOOO ?!
Henry Emrich would be the first to tell you he did a polar switch from being one of the hardest of the hard-core supporters of the idea that people who share are thieves, and that the world owes the corporate movie and music industries a living.
But he’s smart and since he is, when he realised he was being taken for a ride by the cartels, he climbed off their bandwagon.
In a Reader’s Write to Ryan’s The Pirate Bay decision means … nothing, Henry says »»»
Everybody needs to read up on something called ‘cointelpro’. It was a CIA operation which involved infiltrating ‘dissident’ organizations to spread what we’d now describe as ‘FUD’ — ‘Fear, uncertainty, and doubt’.
We all know — or at least suspect — that various trolls defending the corporations actions (you know who you are) infest the various p2p-related boards to spew pro-corporate crap and intentionally ‘misunderstand’ our position.
But I’m really coming to the conclusion that the REAL threat comes from supposedly ‘well-meaning’ types … who add nothing to the debate by cynicism and defeatist thinking.
The pattern goes like this:
1. Overstate your opponent’s power at every turn. (’Ooh, I just KNEW the big evil MAFIAA megacorps were gonna win this one!’ etc. etc.)
2. Downplay your side’s power at every turn (’What can WE do against a bunch of megacorps and their government goons’, etc etc.)
3. When confronted with evidence that their ‘win’ isn’t as solid or meaningful as portrayed, discount it.
I’m not trying to flame anybody here, but to claim that Big Media is ‘winning’ is a real stretch:
Sure they’ve managed to score a few ‘hits’, even some high-profile stuff, but in the process they:
A. Pissed a whole generation of people off.
B. Turned copyright (and by extension ‘intellectual property’ itself) into a laughing-stock.
C. Demonstrated conclusively that whatever our economic system IS, corporate capitalism is NOT a ‘free’ market, and they don’t want it to be.
Now, let’s look at the few ‘wins’ they’ve managed to score:
Jammie Thomas: overturned at appeal, so now it gets to grind through the system all over again.
That’s out of how many thousands of harassment suits, in the US (the jurisdiction which is MOST favorable to their bullshit), and they’ve only been able to score 1 decisive ‘win’, which was then over-ruled.
Remember when the RIAA types televised a bunch of teenagers during that award show, having the teens download stuff? I’m really starting to think that their NEW tactic is to have ’sincere’-sounding folks post defeatism like the above simply to demoralize us, and get us to over-estimate the threat.
You’re frustrated and think they’re ‘winning?’ You think p2p advocates/corporate watchdogs/grassroots activists don’t stand a chance because the opposition is ‘too powerful?’
Drop out, now. Because that’s what your defeatist nonsense can ever accomplish.
To put it bluntly, we can’t AFFORD defeatism, because let’s be honest: ALL OUR OPPONENTS HAVE is their cronies in government and a hell of a lot of misinformation. Let’s not give them the satisfaction of cowering, okay?
TPB is still there, the verdict isn’t even anywhere close to final (and this could take years, as Sunde said) to BECOME final.
‘Winning?’ Pffffffgh, yeah sure.
(Just like they ‘won’ on the Napster thing, but had to keep their shitty lobotomize corporate knockoff using the same logo.)
But hey, keep sewing seed of FUD, because we all know the best way to win is through defeatist attitude. :)
Right. Keep it up,
The joke is on Dan
Henry’s comments come in response to others in the story from Ryan, an admin at eZee.se over in Sweden.
In it, says Ryan, “I’m no stranger to the lets-stretch-the-truth releases (also known as press releases) from Hollywood.”
He continues »»»
But maybe I’m just a bit irritated by the way the TPB’s fiasco turned out so I just had to write a second post.
In a previous article on p2pnet Dan ‘The Joker’ Glickman said:
“This decision will help to support the continued investment in talent and in new online services, and the creation of new films and television shows for enjoyment by audiences around the world.”
I respond with:
Ummm HOW?
* Appeal in the works: check
* ThePirateBay.org still online: check
* ThePirateBay.org - no downtime planned and no plans of being forcefully taken offline by law: check
* All torrents and tracker still online: check
* No torrents deleted: check
* Accepting new torrents: check
* Dan Glickman still a douche: check
(Most important) Public opinion not been swayed by the decision: check
Will someone *please* explain to me what exactly have they gained by this “win”?
* Is this the final say on this matter?
* What have they taken down?
* How have they curbed ‘piracy’?
* Heck, leave “curbed”, how have they even slowed down piracy with this verdict?
* How have they made it harder to get pirated movies and songs?
Other than the pro-filesharers, I’ve seen a lot of comments from “industry people” on this blog (you can usually make them out as the dimwitted posts, you know who you are) so please, I ask any one of you dimwi… oops, people, to kindly enlighten us parrot-on-shoulder-peg-legged pirates how your “HQ” can make such ridiculous if not downright ludicrous statements and think people won’t see it for the BS it is.
In short, the defeat in Sweden isn’t a defeat.
It’s just another stage in the process.
And remember: the one statistic the “devastated” labels and studio never call up when they’re claiming they’re being ruined by file sharing is the one arising because millions of people now routinely boycott corporate ‘product’.
And their numbers grow every time someone new opens an online account.
You can also bet the house that Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, and Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music know almost to the penny how much their ridiculous war against the people who keep them alive has cost, and is costing, them —- or, I should say, is costing their shareholders.
Gandhi also said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
:source: Source: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/20495
