Sorry about my rage post earlier, here’s a more reasonable post about my feelings on SOPA amd PIPA…
Gabe Newell, the head of Valve, which I believe is one of the greatest video game companies in existence today, had this to say about the problems of pirating:
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates… . If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”
Why do these large corporations seek shelter from the government when they have no on else to blame but themselves if piracy is a problem to them? These music and movie industries are in trouble because they’ve put themselves there. These people who think they can overcharge for movies and music, then get completely defensive and offended when others offer their services at a better rate and quality than they can provide.
Do they really think that they can stop pirates? I don’t believe even they’re stupid enough to believe so. The internet has millions of ways to share files outside Megaupload. All the government has done is mildly inconvenient pirates and captured seven people, in comparison to the millions of providers and the billions of downloaders that are out there. They did it for show, I believe, wanted to flex their big government muscles and act like they’re in power of the situation. They essentially cut off the head of a Hydra in an attempt to scare away the Hydra later.
I believe the motto of capitalism and especially the United States is: ‘Competition is the life-blood of the economy’, right? Well, Hollywood, you’ve met your largest competitor. It’s up to you now, do you adapt or do you die?Accurate. Piracy won’t go away. Most of us who do download, and those who share the files know lots of different ways to transfer them. The hydra is a good metaphor, because if you don’t know a hydra is a mythological beast with many many heads, and every time you cut off a head more grow back in it’s place. So they cut down Megaupload. Does the government really think they’ve even touched the tip of the iceberg?
A more-detailed explanation of ACTA
WATCH THIS. Just watch.
WATCH.
THIS IS LAST ENEMY.
This is V for Vendetta, this is EVERY big brother horror story, every dark future written by any author, imagined by any artist… and it’s happening now.
Sorry to flood your dashes but we need to get educated, get signing and get awareness… Wiki and Reddit and everyone need to do for Acta what we did for Sopa.
(Source: thisisbrucebanner)
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
(Source: mimamel)
Let’s be honest, the people behind SOPA/PIPA are smart, very smart. They know without a doubt the bill will not put a dent in piracy. The kind of people who pirate and run piracy services are far too smart to be brought to heel by mere legislation and have continued to elude the best efforts of the US and it’s lackeys. SOPA/PIPA exists for one reason, to protect an aging and crooked business model, dominated by large corporations who are slowly but surely being eroded by people like you and me. These corporations want to stifle the internet because the internet is the biggest threat to their dominance that has ever existed. For decades, through control of radio stations and television channels, corporations have made bank, but now, all the money in the world can’t save them from guys in their bedrooms and home-made studios creating content that is more relevant to the current generation. The variety the big media corporations refused to provide because it “wasn’t profitable”, is now being provided by hundreds of thousands of amateur, semi-pro and professional independent creators and directors and we’re all competing for the most important currency of all, time. The time you spend watching our material is time you don’t spend watching theirs. It’s money directly out of their pocket that they could have been earning before the internet came along and that’s the hilarious thing about this whole deal. Piracy is not what’s killing their profits, completely legitimate competition from the internet is. They use the cause of “fighting piracy” as a trojan horse to force through bought and paid for legislation to kill independent content creation for good because they can see the end is nigh for their aging and increasingly irrelevant business model. They know they cannot win legitimately, so they do what they’ve always done, exploit a corrupt political system to bully and extort their way to what they want.
This is what SOPA/PIPA are really about and that is why you should oppose them. You are standing up for what your generation represents, just as previous generations have done the same on a slew of different issues. As much as those in power would like us to believe we are the apathetic, lazy generation. The truth is we are anything but and that scares the shit out of them.
(Source: cynicalwitch)
