Today's the day... It's finally happening.....
Today is the day that FRA get connected in to cables carrying ALL Swedens cross border e-traffic and the Swedish state gets to monitor anything they fancy from traffic passing through the kingdom (though the king I don't think gets much say in things). Since bits aren't all that fussy which route they take that's just as much an issue for the rest of humanity as it is for the few million herring eaters out here on the continental fringe - in fact they are intending to primarily focus on monitoring international traffic not sourced from Sweden.
So... Happy Christmas.. Big Brother Sweden is giving all of us a big slice of state surveillance to chew on. Pour another glass of glögg and... Skål!
Still Big Brother does have a sense of humour.... check out this at Techbelly...
Merry fucking Xmas, Love Big Brother
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Saturday, 28 November 2009
ACTA update - Things afoot in EU, US, NZ & AUS
There has been a lot of vocal opposition to ACTA over recent days - some of it against the secrecy of the process and some of it against the content of the treaty itself. EFF already have a good round up so take a stop by there as well....
In the US, two senators have sent a letter to the US trade representative asking for ACTA documents to be made public. Meanwhile Swedish Minister for Communications Åsa Torstensson is on her way to Washington to lobby for opening up the negotiations to more public scrutiny - and to express the Swedish governments view that ACTA opening up for a three strikes policy for internet access termination is unacceptable.
Michael Geist is a good source as usual - reporting amongst other things that the EU has filed it's responses on the ACTA internet chapter - available here. ...that the kiwis are waking up to why ACTA is no good thing - and an analysis of the impact of ACTA in Australia. And he also links to a MUST READ piece from the american Library Copyright Alliance on the scope and implications of ACTA.
"ACTA could alter ways in which intellectual property infringement is discovered and penalized;
expand the reach and activity of courts in prosecuting intellectual property infringers; alter the scope of civil and criminal infringement; lower the threshold at which criminal infringement is defined, thus increasing cases of criminal infringement; increase remedies, including monetary damages and reimbursement of legal fees and costs in cases of infringement; increase border searching; and increase instances of confiscation and destruction of goods."
The EFF meanwhile highlight the ongoing double standard, with action to harmonize on the 'best practice' for copyright enforcement, without similar harmonization on best practices for fair use and educational and other exemptions.
"In the U.S. Copyright Office's WIPO treaty consultation, they are claiming that such a harmonization of standard copyright limitations would "begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms."
What comes through is that the world is waking up to the carve up that's taking place behind closed doors and that the ACTA train is starting to see some obstructions on the rails.....
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
In the US, two senators have sent a letter to the US trade representative asking for ACTA documents to be made public. Meanwhile Swedish Minister for Communications Åsa Torstensson is on her way to Washington to lobby for opening up the negotiations to more public scrutiny - and to express the Swedish governments view that ACTA opening up for a three strikes policy for internet access termination is unacceptable.
Michael Geist is a good source as usual - reporting amongst other things that the EU has filed it's responses on the ACTA internet chapter - available here. ...that the kiwis are waking up to why ACTA is no good thing - and an analysis of the impact of ACTA in Australia. And he also links to a MUST READ piece from the american Library Copyright Alliance on the scope and implications of ACTA.
"ACTA could alter ways in which intellectual property infringement is discovered and penalized;
expand the reach and activity of courts in prosecuting intellectual property infringers; alter the scope of civil and criminal infringement; lower the threshold at which criminal infringement is defined, thus increasing cases of criminal infringement; increase remedies, including monetary damages and reimbursement of legal fees and costs in cases of infringement; increase border searching; and increase instances of confiscation and destruction of goods."
The EFF meanwhile highlight the ongoing double standard, with action to harmonize on the 'best practice' for copyright enforcement, without similar harmonization on best practices for fair use and educational and other exemptions.
"In the U.S. Copyright Office's WIPO treaty consultation, they are claiming that such a harmonization of standard copyright limitations would "begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms."
What comes through is that the world is waking up to the carve up that's taking place behind closed doors and that the ACTA train is starting to see some obstructions on the rails.....
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Legalise filesharing: Wise words from that William Bloke
Billy Bragg.. a leading figure in the Featured Artist Coalition .. has made a press release in conjunction with a concert in Ottawa urging Canadian legislators to legalise filesharing.
"Mr. Bragg.. joined NDP MP Charlie Angus Friday to press Ottawa to avoid criminalizing music downloading when it updates copyright protection law.
The British singer and the New Democrats are calling on Ottawa to let artists find a way to make music file swapping a legitimate part of promotion and sales.
Mr. Bragg and other artists want to see new ways to pay performers for music available online while protecting downloaders. He said record labels will often sell entire catalogues to websites without giving the artists a cut."
Billy is also one of the founders of a2f2a - a blog site aiming to provide a forum for debate between fans and artists.
A2F2A blogging about the press conference quotes Billy as saying:
“The internet brings fans and artists closer together than ever before and brings great benefits to both. Let’s not allow the record industry to keep us apart in order to protect their old broken business model.”
I can't argue with that...
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
"Mr. Bragg.. joined NDP MP Charlie Angus Friday to press Ottawa to avoid criminalizing music downloading when it updates copyright protection law.
The British singer and the New Democrats are calling on Ottawa to let artists find a way to make music file swapping a legitimate part of promotion and sales.
Mr. Bragg and other artists want to see new ways to pay performers for music available online while protecting downloaders. He said record labels will often sell entire catalogues to websites without giving the artists a cut."
Billy is also one of the founders of a2f2a - a blog site aiming to provide a forum for debate between fans and artists.
A2F2A blogging about the press conference quotes Billy as saying:
“The internet brings fans and artists closer together than ever before and brings great benefits to both. Let’s not allow the record industry to keep us apart in order to protect their old broken business model.”
I can't argue with that...
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
ACTA under fire from EFF
The EFF level their sights on ACTA in 'Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut' with a piece that highlights the way process has been manipulated to avoid serious debate on a trade agreement that has significant implications for national legislation on Intellectual Property.
It's hard to have confidence in a process that seems to be entirely based on avoiding any form of critical scrutiny. It's not consulting stakeholders (for that would include the public) - it's pandering to interested parties...... which may be politics... but sure ain't justice.
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
It's hard to have confidence in a process that seems to be entirely based on avoiding any form of critical scrutiny. It's not consulting stakeholders (for that would include the public) - it's pandering to interested parties...... which may be politics... but sure ain't justice.
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Musicians and the Mona Lisa effect
The availability of music as digital files has made recorded songs a commodity. Reproduction costs are low and there is a huge and ever expanding choice of artists and titles to choose from. Market economics say that prices should fall - and consumers clearly expect that to be the case. It's not unsurprising then to hear that revenues from selling music are falling...
As a consumer I see it as what I call the Mona Lisa effect. Leonardo's masterpiece has world renown - everyone knows what it looks like. The original is worth a fortune - (more probably several fortunes) - but a printed copy in a newspaper, or a jpeg image on the web, is practically worthless. Seeing the copy in the consumer's mind is not the same as seeing the original.
And that's the way it's going in the music industry. Listening to the record is not the same as seeing the original. Musicians are artists - performance artists - and it is in performance that the public value what the artist does. With that in mind it is interesting to read the figures on the Times Labs Blog showing that artists revenues are increasing thanks to live performances - while record label incomes are falling. They have a telling graph that highlights this well - also copied and with comment on Boing Boing, and Christian Engström's blog. The raw data is available here.
Artists income from recordings has fallen 27% over four years - but during the same period artist's income from live performance has gone up 70%, giving artists a net gain of 45% over four years. Not many industries can point to the same good news in the midst of a recession.......
As the Mona Lisa shows - the value lies in the original... remember that next time you see that enigmatic smile ;-)
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
As a consumer I see it as what I call the Mona Lisa effect. Leonardo's masterpiece has world renown - everyone knows what it looks like. The original is worth a fortune - (more probably several fortunes) - but a printed copy in a newspaper, or a jpeg image on the web, is practically worthless. Seeing the copy in the consumer's mind is not the same as seeing the original.
And that's the way it's going in the music industry. Listening to the record is not the same as seeing the original. Musicians are artists - performance artists - and it is in performance that the public value what the artist does. With that in mind it is interesting to read the figures on the Times Labs Blog showing that artists revenues are increasing thanks to live performances - while record label incomes are falling. They have a telling graph that highlights this well - also copied and with comment on Boing Boing, and Christian Engström's blog. The raw data is available here.
Artists income from recordings has fallen 27% over four years - but during the same period artist's income from live performance has gone up 70%, giving artists a net gain of 45% over four years. Not many industries can point to the same good news in the midst of a recession.......
As the Mona Lisa shows - the value lies in the original... remember that next time you see that enigmatic smile ;-)
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Monday, 9 November 2009
Danish Anti-pirates give up
In a moment of prescience I mentioned last week the difficulty in providing an adequate standard of evidence to find people guilty of copyright infringement on the web – something that makes the concept of guilty until proven innocent particularly distasteful.
Now the Danish Anti-Pirate group have officially given up. After seven years they conclude that the chance of getting a conviction without a confession are too low to continue working to prosecute infringers.
But it's still OK to cut off peoples internet on the basis of an accusation... isn't it?
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Now the Danish Anti-Pirate group have officially given up. After seven years they conclude that the chance of getting a conviction without a confession are too low to continue working to prosecute infringers.
But it's still OK to cut off peoples internet on the basis of an accusation... isn't it?
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Internet users take privacy into their own hands
The (UK) police and intelligence services are calling on the Government to drop plans to disconnect persistent internet pirates because they fear that this would make it harder to track criminals online
Source: The Times via ORG
If evidence from Sweden is anything to go by it could soon be the case that that horse has bolted. Torrent Freak report on an article ths week in Dagens Nyheter (in swedsh) on the rapid growth of 'anonymising' services - mostly the use of 'virtual private networks' (VPNs) to hide a user's IP address. A survey of 15-25 year olds found that an estimated 130 000 users in this age group are already using privacy services to surf online. The survey authors estimated that as much a 6 or 7% of the populaton at large could be doing the same - and the survey also showed that up to 55% surveyed intend to use this type of service if laws against filesharing are strengthened.
There are many reasons for wanting privacy in your communications - and users don't need to justify why they want privacy - it is a right. Equally clearly, when users see that government is not protectig their rights they will take the ball into their own court at take steps to protect it themselves.
So if you are not doing it already... what's it all about?
Using a VPN provides an encrypted secure connection from your PC to a server on the net - at which point the IP address you got from your internet service provider is changed for another anonymous one. Which means.
UK UKiVPN
Sweden VPNtunnel.se Relakks
or for a bit of everything.... Hide My Ass
You might want to check
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
Source: The Times via ORG
If evidence from Sweden is anything to go by it could soon be the case that that horse has bolted. Torrent Freak report on an article ths week in Dagens Nyheter (in swedsh) on the rapid growth of 'anonymising' services - mostly the use of 'virtual private networks' (VPNs) to hide a user's IP address. A survey of 15-25 year olds found that an estimated 130 000 users in this age group are already using privacy services to surf online. The survey authors estimated that as much a 6 or 7% of the populaton at large could be doing the same - and the survey also showed that up to 55% surveyed intend to use this type of service if laws against filesharing are strengthened.
There are many reasons for wanting privacy in your communications - and users don't need to justify why they want privacy - it is a right. Equally clearly, when users see that government is not protectig their rights they will take the ball into their own court at take steps to protect it themselves.
So if you are not doing it already... what's it all about?
Using a VPN provides an encrypted secure connection from your PC to a server on the net - at which point the IP address you got from your internet service provider is changed for another anonymous one. Which means.
- Your ISP can't see where you surf - or what type of traffic they are carrying for you -surfing, VOIP, filetransfers - all look the same - encrypted...
- Unless you register on sites you are anonymous when you surf. (Most sites collect the IP addresses of people using the site).
- You get safer surfing from WiFi hotspots and on your home wireless LAN. Encryption means your traffic can't be read 'off air' - to e.g to snoop or hack passwords.
- VPNs can usually be used from within firewalls - letting you surf to sites that might otherwise be blocked.
- If you choose a supplier from another country you will appear to be surfng from that country.... useful if you regularly use sites that restrict content depending on where you are. (Some suppliers give the option to switch)
- and it only costs around £5/50kr a month..
UK UKiVPN
Sweden VPNtunnel.se Relakks
or for a bit of everything.... Hide My Ass
You might want to check
- what encryption do they use?
- where are they based?
- is my account or payment traceable back to me?
- underwhat circumstances can they be obliged to release data to authorities?
- what data do they store that they could be asked to hand over?
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Putting privacy first.
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