Jag har börjat skriva på Ajour.se. Det är både spännande och läskigt på samma gång. Nu tänker jag inte sluta skriva här på bloggen, där det är åsiktsbetonat utan krav på nån slags grävande kvalitet. Men visst, som kompisen sa, hur ska du få tid till det? Det löser sig väl, disken har alltid hamnat långt ner på priolistan över vad som “måste göras”.

Här i alla fall mitt första inlägg på ajour, som jag hoppas ni tycker är läsvärt. Det handlar om Sven-Erland Västros, satirbloggaren, som hamnat i upphovsrättstrångmål med Dagens Nyheter.

Jag håller på att bygga om bloggen, så ni får ursäkta stöket. Jag vill dock sticka emellan med en bloggpost som betyder mycket för mig. Så here it goes:

Jag är extremt mån om mitt privatliv, men nu tänker jag göra ett litet undantag och släppa er lite närmare inpå livet än vad jag normalt känner mig bekväm med. Jag känner mig inte speciellt bekväm med det den här gången heller, men efter att ha läst #homoriot i några dagar och ha sett torsdagens SVT Debatt, så känner jag att någon måste säga det jag har att säga.

Jag är tämligen övertygad om att jag kommer att få skit för det, men vet ni vad? Bring it on. Det är bättre att ni dumpar era fördomar på mig än på någon som inte orkar ta skiten.

Jag har i hela mitt liv konsekvent vägrat att känna mig diskriminerad. Jag tror nämligen att det bästa sättet att bekämpa diskriminering är att leva som man vill och helt enkelt vägra acceptera tramsiga begränsningar som andra försöker tvinga på en. Jag fokuserar hellre på det bra än på det dåliga.

Det har fungerat alldeles utmärkt i princip hela mitt liv. Men, på sistone har min grandiosa plan fallerat en smula. I dag slog det mig varför. Jag har tidigare hållit mig på min kant. Jag har noggrant valt vilka jag umgås med. Jag har valt utbildning och arbete som ger mig frihet. Jag har valt att leva i marginalen där folk bryr sig om mig och ger blanka fan i hur jag lever.

Nu står jag dock inför en del stora val här i livet. Det är val som tvingar mig att lämna mitt trygga liv i marginalen och röra mig in mot samhällets mitt. Detta har tvingat mig att smått förvånat inse att: “Shit… Jag har levt i en skyddad verkstad…”

De senaste veckorna har stora delar av den världsbild jag byggt upp raserats. Min trygga värld i samhällets utkant räcker inte till och när jag ger mig ut i resten av världen är jag inte så välkommen som jag inbillat mig att jag skulle vara. Jag får vara där, men bara på nåder.

Låt mig ta några exempel:

Realitycheck 1:
För några år sedan friade jag till min flickvän och hon sa ja. Sedan dess har vi inte lyckats ha semester samtidigt tillräckligt länge för att hinna med att gifta oss ordentligt. Det suger, så nu har vi beslutat oss för att strunta i semestrar och annat världsligt och gifta oss i alla fall.

Vi tog ett första steg mot giftermål genom att fråga en mycket god vän om hon kunde viga oss. Vännen har ett arbete som potentiellt medför vigselrätt. Eller, det var vad vi och vännen trodde. Dessvärre har vännens arbetsgivare andra tankar och meddelade vänligt, men bestämt, att det där med vigselrätt fick nog vara, eftersom man anade att den potentiellt skulle användas till att viga samkönade par. Det sög för oss. Det sög ännu mer för vår vän som tvingades in i ett helt omöjligt val som ingen ska behöva göra.

Realitycheck 2:
Nästa anhalt var Skatteverket. Man måste skicka in en hindersprövning när man ska gifta sig och den kan man enkelt och praktiskt ladda hem från Skatteverkets hemsida. Piffigt värre. Det är mindre piffigt att Skatteverkets exempelpar på blanketen är: “Lotta & Hektor” och “Emmi & Alfons”.

Det är subtilt, men oavsett vad lagen säger om könsneutrala äktenskap, så är det uppenbart att blotta tanken att Lotta och Emmi eller Hektor och Alfons skulle finna lyckan tillsammans inte är vad man på Skatteverket föreställer sig när man tänker på äktenskaplig lycka. Jag hade inte brytt mig om det var ett exempelpar. Men när man nu har två exempel, så varför är de likadana? Skulle någon ha dött om de inte vore det?

Realitycheck 3:
När vi nu tagit tag i det första riktigt stora vuxenbeslutet, nämligen att gifta oss, så beslutade vi oss för att fundera på om vi ska utöka vår lilla familj med barn. Det är ett område vi inte ens vågat närma oss tidigare. Det har bara känts avlägset. Något som andra gör, men inte vi. Men när vi till slut började prata om det insåg vi att det kanske egentligen inte var vad vi tyckte, utan snarare det vi blivit itutade att tycka. Därför beslutade vi oss för att ta oss en ordentlig funderare och fatta ett välinformerat beslut på egen hand, så att vi inte skulle sitta och ångra ett ickebeslut om tio år.

Realitycheck 4:
Efter lite research visade det sig vara en smula mer komplicerat än vad vi hade trott. Vi hade först en tanke om att adoptera, eftersom det finns så många barn som behöver föräldrar här i världen. Dessa barn får dock klara sig utan åtminstone de här föräldrarna ett tag till.

Trots att homosexuella par enligt lag har fått adoptera barn i Sverige i flera år, så har ynka ett samkönat par hittills faktiskt lyckats få bli föräldrar till ett adopterat barn. Anledningen är att adoptionsbyråerna inte ens försöker hitta samarbetspartners i utlandet som är villiga att låta homosexuella par ta hand om ett barn. Samtidigt görs inte ett skit från politiskt håll för att uppmuntra dem att göra det.

Realitycheck 5:
Eftersom vi båda är 37 år gamla kan vi i princip glömma inseminering i det landsting där vi bor. Den sammanlagda väntetiden för att ens börja försöka gör att det är en reell möjlighet att vi inte ens skulle hinna försöka innan vi blev för gamla.

Om vi skulle hinna och faktiskt lyckas, så är det helt uteslutet att vi skulle hinna med att skaffa ett syskon till barnet. Eftersom vi båda tycker att att syskon är viktiga, så blir det problematiskt.

Vi skulle naturligtvis ha researchat detta tidigare, men ett helt liv av mer eller mindre subtila hintar om att barn inte är något som sådana som oss gör att tankarna kommer sent. Kanske för sent.

Realitycheck 6:
Då kvarstår insemination i Danmark. Där finns det ett gäng kliniker som är både seriösa och välkomnande. Väntetiden är noll eller betydligt kortare än i Sverige vilket är ett plus. Det är däremot bökigt och kostsamt att behöva åka till Danmark med jämna mellanrum. Det är inte utan att man funderar på varför det inte finns privata alternativ i Sverige. Det kanske finns någon nifty lagparagraf som sätter stopp för det. Vad vet jag?

Realitycheck 7:
Det finns dock ett betydligt mycket värre problem med Danmarks-lösningen. Eftersom vi båda är kvinnor, så blir vi i lagens mening inte båda föräldrar till eventuella barn som kommer till i Danmark. Hade en av oss varit man hade det inte varit några som helst problem. Då hade mannen per automatik blivit pappa.

Eftersom lagen gör denna märkliga skillnad på folk och folk, så återstår bara närståendeadoption. Det är en process som, vad jag förstår av samtal med folk med erfarenhet av detta, kan se ganska olika ut på olika ställen. I värsta fall är den marginellt oblodigare än vilken adoption som helst. I bästa fall en ganska enkel historia som innefattar ett hembesök av socialen, samtal med någon släkting eller vän som intygar att man inte är en hemskt person och lite pappersarbete. Oavsett vilket, så är det ett stressmoment som varken barnet eller de nyblivna föräldrarna behöver under en period som är nog så omvälvande i alla fall.

En närståendeadoption kan bara ske efter att barnet är fött. Det innebär att barnet under några månaders tid bara kan hålla tummarna och hoppas att ingenting händer med den biologiska mamman. Den andra mamman har nämligen ingen “riktig” mamma i lagens mening. Om något skulle hända med den biologiska mamman är både barnet och den andra mamman utlämnad till någon byråkrats godtycke vad det gäller vårdnaden. Det är statens uppgift att se till att barn är trygga. Att placera dem i vårdnadslimbo utan någon som helst anledning är inte att bidra till deras trygghet.

Och nu då?
Jag vet inte vad just våra funderingar kommer att landa i, men det gör mig upprörd att våra funderingar hela tiden stöter på patrull. Vi håller på att fatta beslut som borde omgärdas av glädje och framtidsvisioner. Istället måste vi fundera på hur vi ska ta oss förbi hinder efter hinder. Jag önskar att det enda vi behövde fundera på vore om bröllopstårtan ska smaka choklad eller jordgubb och om en potentiell lillknodd ska heta Stig efter farfar eller Emelie efter mormor. Det vore ta mig fan en ren jävla lyx…

I somras bet jag huvudet av en god vän som sa att det där med hbtq-frågor är överspelat i Sverige eftersom alla slag är vunna. Han menade inget illa. Han såg världen ur sitt perspektiv. Jag tror att det ofta är så. Man ser världen ur sitt perspektiv.

Min värld var alldeles utmärkt så länge jag höll mig på min kant och inte tillät mig att göra någre större anspråk på att ha samma rättigheter som alla andra. Så snart jag började få ambitionen att kunna göra allt det där som andra gör såg den inte lika trevlig ut längre.

Det suger fett att vid 37 års ålder inse att man är en andra klassens medborgare. Min vän hade rätt i en sak. Hbtq-frågor är överspelade. Det är dags att tala klarspråk och benämna det hela vid sitt rätta namn: medborgarrätt. Ett samhälle är inte öppet och rättvist bara för att de i mitten kan tänka sig att tolerera de som befinner sig på kanten. Det handlar inte om att tolerera. Det handlar om att inkluderas, om att behandlas som alla andra och om att vara lika inför lagen.

Det är en ganska smärtsam process att få de här insikterna, men vet ni vad? Jag har något som är starkare än alla fördomar i världen. Jag har kärlek.

Jag tänker fortsätta att fokusera på det som är bra och vägra acceptera att känna mig begränsad, men jag tänker inte fortsätta att gömma mig i marginalen för att åstadkomma det.

Jag har inte bara kärlek, jag är dessutom envis som synden också. Motgångar gör mig bara än mer beslutsam att göra Sverige och resten av världen till en bättre plats. Eller som Catwoman skulle ha sagt: “Life’s a bitch, and so am I.

Civil Liberties: The news just broke: Germany says it will not be signing ACTA for the time being.

The news (Spiegel, Netzpolitik) seems to cast the future of ACTA into serious doubt. The accord requires signatures and ratification from all 27 of the European member states as well as from the European Parliament itself.

It started with Poland announcing a hold to the ACTA ratification, which – just like that – put the whole agreement in doubt. Few people seem to know this, but Poland is a heavyweight in the European Union’s policymaking.

That was followed by the Slovenian Ambassador apologizing in public for her signature on the agreement, saying she had failed in her civic duty, and calling for anti-ACTA rallies, which is profoundly unique.

Since then, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Latvia have stepped forward and said they’re putting ratification on hold.

With Germany – the European Union’s superpower, by far the heaviest politically – now saying that it won’t even sign ACTA for the time being, much less ratify it, it looks like we can actually win this fight and kill ACTA dead in the water.

And let’s be clear: while the US and Japan could theoretically have ACTA between them, without the European Union, there is effectively no ACTA at all.

Tomorrow, there are anti-ACTA rallies all over europe. This is one seriously impressive map of rallies:

Tomorrow, rallies all over Europe demand freedom of speech and protest laws that were made in backroom deals by corporate executives.

It makes me proud to see people rising up and demanding their civil liberties to apply even when they’re on the net. In history, it will probably seem amazing how, for a time, that seemed to not be obvious.

(Meanwhile in Sweden, the government officials are going to extremes to deny any and all interviews concerning ACTA. We’ll have to see how long that can hold.)

I förrgår skrev Lars-Göran Engfeldt i DN om sju punkter för att skydda Sverige från korruption. Anna Troberg har nu svarat i DN.

läs mer

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Jag tänkte bara förvarna om att det kan komma att bli en del stök här på bloggen i ett par dagar. Jag tänker nämligen äntligen göra slag i saken och flytta hem min blogg från servern i USA. Det känns en smula tryggare att låta den husera hemma i Sverige.

Om allt går som planerat ska flytten vara fix och färdigt inom ett par dagar. Efter det ska bloggen designas om en smula och få lite nya funktioner, men en sak i taget.

Så, jag hoppas att ni står ut med röran. Det kommer att bli bättre.

Activism – Zacqary Adam Green: The copyright industry is not going quietly. The legitimacy of its monopolist and consumerist practices are still upheld by policymakers and panicking creators who haven’t seen any real alternative in action. I humbly submit my silly cartoon about people with inanimate objects for heads as a first step in that direction.

Your Face is a Saxophone is a surrealist satire of the advertising industry, which makes fun of actual companies and brands. It tells the story of the staff of Buzzword Marketing, and their dealings with the absurd demands of their corporate clients. Also, everybody has inanimate objects instead of heads for some reason. It’s either an artistic statement on how consumerism objectifies us all, or an excuse for us to not have to animate their mouths moving; you decide. As a bonus, Your Face is a Saxophone is Public Domain under CC0.

My friends and I formed a group called Plankhead to produce the series. At the beginning of 2011, we released the first full-length, 25 minute episode — a pilot that we pitched not to a TV network, but to the Internet. We were able to raise enough money from individual donors to make a second one, which came out astronomically better than the first. Naturally, we’d like to continue the series — we have five more episodes planned, and we’re starting on the third in the next few weeks. But this isn’t just yet another crowdfunded indie project.

Your Face is a Saxophone started out as an assault on advertising. Since it began, I’ve realized that the problems with advertising are just one part — along with the copyright monopoly, unchecked greed, the pursuit of censorship, and other problems — of the holistic problem that is the ancien régime of the corporate entertainment industry. Much like these motivations, Your Face is a Saxophone is a part of a larger whole; a prototype for how to produce, promote, and proliferate culture in complete opposition to the problematic habits of the copyright industry.

I certainly hope you find the show entertaining. But even if you don’t, let me explain why you should still help it succeed:

The Problems

Advertising
In conceiving the project, I decided I was fed up with advertising-supported media. Humanity had created the Internet — possibly the most empowering technology of the millennium — and yet had failed to come up with a better way of sustaining its contents than by splattering ads all over everything. At best, it’s annoying and ugly — São Paulo, Brazil mayor Gilberto Kassab famously called advertising “visual pollution” when banning billboards in 2006. At worst, advertising has a chilling effect on free speech, making it too unprofitable to say something that corporations disapprove of.

So, I decided to prove that a full-length TV show could be made without advertiser support — by making it something that nobody in their right mind would want to sponsor.

But how to finance a show without ad dollars? There’s grants, but that just gives the veto to governments or private foundations instead of corporations. No question: it would need to come from individual fans — the people who actually care about the message. So, that’s why we crowdfunded Episode 2 of Your Face is a Saxophone, and plan to continue that.

Obviously, crowdfunding alone can’t go very far; Mike Masnick reminds us often that “Give it away and pray” isn’t a business model. That’s why many independent creators make their money selling T-shirts, mugs, mousepads, posters, and other merchandise. Except that falls into the trap of…

Selling a Product
The chief reason why the copyright industry is running around with its head cut off is because its products — music, movies, news, information — are no longer products. Everything digitized can, and will, be made available for free, regardless of its creator’s wishes. You can’t sell a non-scarce good.

Obviously, many companies and artists still try this by “selling” digital downloads. But it’s been said that the way to compete with piracy is to respect your customers; selling a glass of tap water is not respectful to your customers.

Whereas the old guard tries to recreate the scarcity of information by lobbying to destroy our civil liberties, more nimble independent players simply find new scarcities to sell. This often takes the form of merchandising, which the copyright industry does its fair share of as well.

But that runs into another problem: everything can, and will, be digitized. Why buy an official T-shirt, poster, mug, or mousepad when you can print your own? 3D printers are set to drop in cost, increase in capability, and pervade society through the next decade, making the sales of merchandise into a very short-sighted business plan.

Merchandising also alienates the audience, reinforcing the false dichotomy of producer and consumer. It turns the art into yet another advertisement, and the fans into nothing but customers for the mass-produced crap which the art is hawking. Speaking of which…

Monologue Culture
When you hear the term “consumerism” thrown around, you often think of what I just alluded to: people being sold a bunch of crap in massive quantities. But the copyright industry fosters another type of consumerism: the consumption of monologues.

Most media takes the form of a creator or author communicating a message to the audience. The audience’s response, input, or thoughts do not matter, because they can’t change the message. This isn’t inherently a bad thing — indeed, it’s often a good thing for one person’s message to be communicated without meddling from others. The problem is that the audience doesn’t feel invested in the message. It doesn’t feel like it’s theirs.

The works which foster large, devoted fanbases are the ones which capture an audience’s imagination. A well-built fantasy world will inspire thousands of fan-fiction spinoffs; a great piece of music will inspire thousands of cover performances; a video game is already more engaging simply because it’s interactive, but open, hackable code will inspire thousands of modifications. Works like these do get the audience invested, and give them a sense of ownership.

This creates two challenges. First, not every story worth telling, song worth performing, or creation worth creating has the capacity to inspire direct remixing; Hitchcock’s Psycho isn’t the most fertile ground for a fan-fiction movement, for example. That point, I’d like to get back to. For now, let me digress with the second challenge: the fact that the copyright industry makes such creative communities illegal.

Creative Monopolies
Through use of the copyright monopoly, the industry acts as an oppressive creator’s guild. If you’re not a member of their inner circle, they don’t want you to be creating anything. They can achieve this because there is no such thing as “originality” in creative work; everything is based on, built on, or inspired by something that came before. Sometimes, the best new work comes from directly appropriating the past.

This is what makes the copyright monopoly so powerful. Hollywood can license a soundtrack of popular music, but an independent filmmaker cannot. Live performance venues cannot exist without paying licensing fees to the Big Three record companies, just in case a performer does something that might intersect with a copyright. Spinoffs and sequels to stories are the exclusive domain of the original publisher, and fan-fiction is regularly intimidated or sued out of existence. These are just a few examples of the hundreds of ways in which copyright monopolies are used to financially repress artists outside of the guild.

The attacks on civil liberties by the copyright industry aren’t about irrational fears of piracy or lost sales. The executives in charge aren’t that stupid; they’re well aware that the entertainment industry is growing, not shrinking. It is chiefly about stifling competition from the masses themselves. They fear that if we can meet all of our entertainment needs with YouTube videos, independent music, local art communities, and other such things, then we’ll no longer want to watch their TV and movies, listen to their music, read their books, or play their games. And they’re right. As Clay Shirky said in his legendary TED Talk, “Time Warner has called, and they want us all back on the couch, just consuming, not producing, not sharing. And we should say no.”

The problem is, having entrenched themselves and stifled competition for over a century, the copyright industry has our work cut out for us.

Nowhere Else To Go
While I was drafting this post, Paul M. Davis of Shareable happened to put out an article describing many of my concerns. Davis is ambivalent towards Techdirt’s Sky is Rising infographic, and writes:

For the truly DIY — the creators with limited resources who live precarious lives to pursue their passions while navigating an ever-changing media landscape — the effect of the Internet is far more complex than optimistic infographics and studies often suggest.

[A]s traditional sources of industry support (promotion, distribution, and simple business admin) crumble, it can take longer for indie artists to reach the critical mass of audience awareness to quit their day jobs. In the meantime, the workload for creators has increased, until they begin consistently making enough money to hire others to handle the additional labor that the Internet adds to the equation.

It’s unquestionably a good thing that the Internet is dismantling the copyright industry’s distribution monopoly, but its promise of eliminating their stranglehold on promotion hasn’t been fully realized. Before the Internet, creative people had to play the lottery, hoping that a corporate agent would notice them and scoop them up. Now, creative people still have to play the lottery, hoping that somebody with a large social network will notice them and tweet a link to their website. The odds may be better, but it’s still a raw deal.

The notion that artists need to work a day job until they one day “make it” is a tragedy, not a desirable component of a healthy society. As I’ve touched on previously, distracting people by forcing them to worry about meeting their basic needs holds back human progress. The copyright industry has done a poor job of solving this problem, but thus far, so has the Internet. As Davis says, DIY promotion for an unknown artist is still absurdly difficult.

I’ve witnessed this firsthand, in fact. The second episode of Your Face is a Saxophone was released at the end of October 2011. The reason you’re seeing this article months later is because working full-time on its production bankrupted me. When I said we’d raised enough money to make the episode, I was referring to buying new equipment — there wasn’t much left over to cover anybody’s cost of living. While finding and keeping a day job, I neglected to open-source the assets and project files, enact a promotional strategy, finish subtitling the new episode, or do much of anything that I’d needed to. Being unable to pay one’s bills is, as you can imagine, very distracting.

The Solution

It’s these problems that we’d like to tackle with Your Face is a Saxophone, using it to lay the groundwork for a new creative culture. Others may have pioneered the bits and pieces I’m about to describe, but it’s time to put them together in a cohesive, intentional whole.

Free and Open Source
Your Face is a Saxophone is CC0 Public Domain. Once an episode is finished and released, it belongs to the commons, irrevocably. We wouldn’t be able to enforce any copyright monopoly on it even if we someday lost our minds and wanted to.

Furthermore, it will be entirely open source. All art assets, audio, project files, and (if feasible) renders will be made available to the public. We’ll use as many open formats as possible (sadly, I haven’t had the time to learn Blender, so the first two episodes’ project files are in the propirateary (that’s not a typo) Apple Motion 5 format).

We won’t use creative monopolies, and through open source, we’ll chip away at the monologue culture problem. To further attack that…

Selling a Process
As my experiment in impromptu filmmaking shows, people enjoy creating things — and it’s not just self-described “artists” who find the creative process to be just as entertaining, if not more, than experiencing the final product. This is why video games which spark people’s creativity — for example, anything that Will Wright has ever been tangentially involved with — have proved to be so massively popular.

But not every message worth communicating can be expressed in an interactive medium. There will always be a place for monologue media — for immutable text, sound, or imagery comprised solely of the vision of its author(s). That’s why we need to blur the line between audience and author, consumer and producer, by bringing the fans into the creative process.

We can’t — and shouldn’t — finance Your Face is a Saxophone by selling access to the finished episodes. Instead, we sell access to the community. Everyone who contributes any amount of money to Your Face is a Saxophone becomes a producer of the show.

To describe what that means, here’s an excerpt of an email I sent to current producers a couple weeks ago:

Though Plankhead does provide entertaining things to the world, it’s not — as people who wear suits and have far too high incomes would say — our “core business”. We don’t aim to sustain ourselves (or, in suit-speak, “make money”) by saying to people, “You are the audience”. We do that by saying, “You are the artist”.

If you’re receiving this email, then you were instrumental in the creation of Your Face is a Saxophone. That makes you an artist, because you brought art into being. You’re all artists. Guilty as charged.

And you know how else you’re all artists? Have you ever heard a song, and then hummed it to yourself in your head for hours and hours afterwards? Have you ever quoted a movie to your friends? Ever gone halfway through a terrible pun, put on sunglasses, finished it, and then screamed YEAAAAAAHHHHH? Those are all creative acts. Even if you didn’t make up any original words or sounds, performance — even if nobody’s watching — is creative. You’re all artists.

Everyone has that burning drive to create. Some people have it during urination; they should probably see their doctors and get tested. For everyone else, Plankhead is here to help.

Enough of this abstracty mumbo-jumbo. Let’s talk concrete stuff:

For Episode 3 of Your Face is a Saxophone, we’re going to keep you updated, every step of the way, with production. And you know what I want you to do? Respond. Make comments. Make suggestions. Throw us ideas. Help us create this thing. If you think something should be animated differently, let us know. If you think there’s a hilarious prop missing from a background, tell us. Maybe you can even draw it for us and we’ll put it in. If you think Dave needs to re-record a line because he’s not making Blake sound enough like an adorable idiot, say so. Be a part of the process.

We’ll be putting up wikis and forums and stuff to make this kind of thing easier, but also suggest ideas for how we can share the production process, and get your input. Help us create the creative process.

For future episodes, we’ll also be letting you into the writer’s room. I’ve only written the scripts up until Episode 3, so I’m going to need everyone’s help to flesh out the stories for the remaining four episodes.

YFIAS isn’t just a prototype of a new way to finance art. It’s also a prototype of a new way to create it: having the community involved every step of the way, blurring the line between fan and creator.

This will effectively make our revenue stream completely indifferent to file-sharing. It won’t even be possible to lose a “sale” to a free download, and we’ll be able to brag that we have a 0% piracy rate.

For-Progress, Not For-Profit
We reject the notion that art is an investment that needs to be recouped. It is a desirable end in and of itself. The copyright industry views art as an incidental logistical concern on the path to making money; if they believed they could make more money selling toilet paper, they’d do it. This is the root of the problems that they cause.

I’m not seeking personal financial gain from Your Face is a Saxophone; my cost of living just happens to be a necessary expense of the project. And I’d wager that most artists feel exactly the same way about their work.

We’ll use the success of Your Face is a Saxophone to build Plankhead, our organization, into a support network for artists. A cooperative media company, owned and operated by its creative workers. Were I pitching it to a Silicon Valley venture capitalist — people who like to hear things like “it’s an AirBnb for Facebook games” or whatever — I’d call it “a Mondragon for media”. When we get to that stage, we will promote any work in any medium that is A) technically competent and B) willing to be released under CC0 — and finance it if possible. We’ll do our best to keep personal taste out of the vetting process, because all art has a right to exist.

Ultimately, the goal is not to make artists fabulously wealthy; it’s to keep them fed and clothed so that they can concentrate on creating things.

How You Can Help

To make this happen, we need producers and volunteers.

Today, I’m setting a new fundraising goal of $3000. That amount of money would allow me to devote my full time to animating the third episode for three or four months. If we raise even more than that, we might be able to add a second or third animator to speed the process along. You can contribute and become a producer through our donation page.

We also need people who can help produce, promote, and proliferate the show. A comprehensive list is on our volunteering page, but a few examples include:

• Subtitle translators
• Torrent seeders
• Social network/blog promoters
• Web technicians/designers
• Python coders who can figure out how to automate the “lip”-sync animation so that we can switch to Blender already (or anyone who can help us switch to Blender in any way, for that matter)

People who make significant volunteer contributions will probably get producer status out of the deal.

Ultimately, we need you to help us prove that this works. Let’s give the world hard, concrete evidence that even a traditional TV-length show with no copyright protection whatsoever can be successful. Let’s show that we don’t need to create a false pretense of buying and selling digital “goods” to sustain artists. Let’s validate the idea that art for art’s sake is something that society values, believes in, and wants to exist.

Det är extremt bråda dagar här. Det händer saker hela tiden. De senaste två veckorna har jag tillbringat med att försöka hinna få något gjort mellan alla telefonsamtal. Det är inte helt lätt. Det är dock på det hela taget mycket bra. Att min telefon inte är tyst i fem minuter beror på att journalister och andra vill veta vad Piratpartiet tycker om det ena eller andra. Det är skitbra.

Än mer roligt är det att de som hör av sig vill veta vad vi tycker i en massa olika frågor, inte bara om en eller två. Den senaste veckan har jag mest svarat på frågor om ACTA och hovrättens beslut att inte ta upp Pirate Bay-fallet. Men jag har svarat på en inte oansenlig mängd frågor om kommentarsfält, rättssäkerhet, datalagringsdirektivet, FRA-lagen, IPRED-lagen, filtrering av nätet, bristande transparens inom EU, osv, osv.

Jag har dessutom fått svara på en hel del frågor om själva Piratpartiet. Vad är ert nästa steg? Vad är planen fram till valet? Vad händer runt om i landet? Vad händer internationellt? Hur blir det med breddning av partiprogrammet? Jag älskar de där frågorna. Vet ni varför? För ett par år sedan hade jag haft svårt att svara på dem, men inte nu. Jag kan prata hur länge som helst om dem. Det händer saker på många ställen och vi har en plan för framtiden. Det är en lyx som vi inte alltid haft, så nu gäller det att ta väl hand om den och lägga i en växel till.

Det dyker dessutom upp fler och fler som drar i de frågor som intresserar oss. Här är fyra exempel på det bara från de senaste par dagarna:

Marcin de Kaminski och Måns Adler har skrivit i Expressen: “Telekombranschen måste välja sida“. Mycket intressant läsning.

Marcin de Kaminski är flitig och har skrivit på SVT Debatt också: “Jakten på fildelare skadar förtroendet för rättsväsendet“. Good shit!

Mårten Schultz i DN: “Rättsstaten behöver en makeover“. Intressanta tankar även här.

Lars-Göran Engfeldt, ordförande i Transperancy International Sverige, skriver även han i DN: “Vad hindrar politikerna att ta itu med bristerna i insyn?“. Riktigt bra den med. Jag har läst den och skrivit en replik som publiceras i DN i kväll eller i morgon. Länk kommer.

“Men”, kanske du tänker, “de tar ju våra frågor! Det är vi som ska äga dem!” Nej, vi ska inte “äga” frågor. Vi ska leverera spännande och nya vinklar i frågor. Vi ska vara i framkant och vara tongivande i frågor. Det är en väldig skillnad mot att äga. Om vi “äger” frågor kommer ingen annan att diskutera dem och det fungerar extremt dåligt att bilda opinion om man är den enda som pratar om något. Det testade vi inför valet 2010 och det fungerade inte. Det ska vi dra lärdom av. Riktigt bra och starkt opinionsbildning bygger på mångfald och samtal, inte på enkelriktat megafonande.

Kort sagt, uppmuntra alla som kan och vill prata om det vi gillar att prata om. Det spelar inte ens någon roll om de delar våra åsikter. Så länge de intresserar sig för samma saker, så lovar jag att deras insatser kommer att göra vårt opinionsbildande både roligare och mer effektivt.

Dessvärre innebär de bråda dagarna att jag har mindre tid för att mata mina bloggar med roliga och intressanta bloggposter. Det är ett ständigt dåligt samvete som jag kommer att försöka ta hand om bättre framöver. Jag lovar.

Jag har dessutom en mejl- och meddelandekö som får mig att känna mig som Sisyfos. För varje mejl eller meddelande jag svarar på dimper det ner två nya. Jag försöker svara på allt så fort jag kan, så ha tålamod om ni inte får svar så snart som ni hade hoppats.

Överbelastning är dock inte bra. Därför kommer jag och resten av ledningen inom kort att söka ledningspraktikanter. Tanken är att praktikanterna ska hjälpa oss att hinna med våra sysslor, samtidigt som de får en inblick i hur allt fungerar och får möjlighet att lära sig en massa bra saker, som man kan ha användning för både i och utanför partiet. Håll utkik efter mer information om det. Det kanske är något som skulle passa dig perfekt.

Nacka tingsrätt har i dag dömt en 25-årig Värmdöbo till 120 dagsböter á 50 kronor för att han fildelat ett 60-tal filmer. Det är en mildare dom än dem vi sett i liknande fall där rätten valt att döma till villkorlig dom och dagsböter.

http://press.piratpartiet.se/2012/02/08/nacka-tingsratt-domer-fildelare-...

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Repression: Documents have emerged from the European Commission that give a glimpse of the planned crackdown on online freedoms of speech post-ACTA. We’re seeing entirely new mechanisms and means of squelching dissent, mechanisms and means against pretty much anything online.

A European Commissioner responsible for the governing of 500 million people who refers to his constituents as “consumers” and describes complying at legal gunpoint as “cooperation” is just a small taste of the newspeak in the documents we find here, documents that are intended for the post-ACTA timeframe. Oh, and he doesn’t rule out shutting down your income streams either. It is not hard to see where this particular mindset comes from – and no, it is certainly not Locke’s ideas of a constitutional government or anything similarly responsible. It’s filled to the brim with terms we would otherwise only see in reports from the copyright industry lobby.

The first document is named “Proposal for a Revision of the Directive of Intellectual Property [sic] Rights”, and the second document is named “Notice and Takedown procedures”, refering to eroding the common carrier status of the ISPs (the European mere conduit).

Repression is good, so more repression is better, says the European Commissar... eh, Commissioner.

Let’s take a look at what these documents say in more detail, and translate it from the dangerously newspeak legalese. Here’s what the first document outlines as policy roadmap in the post-ACTA timeframe:

The policy options being considered include: (a) rendering the rules on obtaining evidence from intermediaries more detailed thus making possible the identification of those infringing intellectual property rights on a commercial scale and of the financial circuits involved.

Yeah, this is a lock-in of what was voluntary in IPRED1: giving the copyright monopoly cartels the subscriber identities of IP addresses accused of infringing the monopolies, something the police can’t even legally get in most European countries (including Sweden).

Yes, this specifically means that the copyright industries get more far-reaching powers than the Police.

But do note the ACTA/TRIPS keyword “commercial scale” being used. Also, note that “financial circuits” are being mixed into the things that must be identified by an ISP. This can refer to any income stream.

This would be particularly important to fight IPR infringement in the on-line environment.

Yeah, the Net is a problem. Again. Everything was better the way it used to be.

This would also require a clearer definition of “commercial scale”, so as to make sure that professional counterfeiters rather than individual consumers are targeted;

Here, we note three things:

First, this small part sounds good in substance. Today, uploading of a single music track by a random teenager is deliberately seen as targetable and targeted (refer to the US Cables on the matter of IPRED1, for instance). At the end of the day, though, I would be careful to draw the conclusion that individual citizens wouldn’t be targeted – especially since the rest of this roadmap specifies the means and methods for doing exactly that (for instance, with the IP Address subscriber data we just read about).

Second, the ACTA keyword “commercial scale” is used. However, this might just as well refer to the old TRIPS definition of “commercial scale”. It is impossible to know if ACTA redefines “commercial scale” in any meaningful way, as the negotiation protocols are still secret.

Third, having said that, the overall thought pattern here is thoroughly alarming. The European Commissioner refers to his constitutents using the word consumers. That is not a mindset I want to see in any policymaking.

(b) fast-track lowcost civil procedures (including as regards the granting of injunctions, the award of damages, the use of corrective measures etc) for straightforward infringements of intellectual property rights

Whoah, whoah. A whole lot of bad things here.

Fast-track, low-cost civil procedures: Civil procedures means “lawsuits against ordinary people”. Fast-track means “without delays caused by due process of law and exercising of rights”. Low-cost means “preferably in bulk”.

Including…: Granting of injunctions means “cutting of net access before a trial takes place, one way or the other”. Award of damages, well, we know about that one all too well. Use of corrective measures can be many things, but specifically includes destroying goods used for infringement.

and (c) the possibility to act against webpages holding content that violates intellectual property rights (see in this regard the Roadmap regarding the initiative on procedures for notifying and acting on illegal online content).

Ah, so we’re talking about censoring entire websites as well. The roadmap referred is appropriately named “Notice and Takedown”.

These policy options would require the amendment of the existing directive.

Ah, so this is indeed a resurrection of the horrible but previously killed IPRED2 – only much worse than the original IPRED2.

Complementary measures in softlaw instruments designed at disrupting the business/value chain of counterfeiters and at increasing the cooperation between intellectual property rights holders and intermediaries (e.g. internet service providers, shippers and couriers, payment-service providers etc) could not be excluded

Whoah! Whoah! Hold your horses!

First, the newspeak here causes my bullshit bingo cards to spontaneously explode. To begin with, let’s highlight the word cooperation. In normal speak, cooperation is an action of mutual consent and mutual gain. Here, there is no such thing as mutual consent or reciprocity; the Commissar^H^Hioner tries to force “cooperation” where one part gains and the other loses massively at legal gunpoint – specifically, internet service providers are ordered to bend over for the copyright industry. All in the spirit of, eh, “cooperation”.

In other words, ISPs are going to be forced to police the net in some fashion, going against its users and customers – all spun in the language of the positive resulting worldview of the copyright monopoly cartel.

But there’s more. Did you notice “payment service providers”? This is the first time I’ve seen credit card companies and similar being threatened with “cooperation” with the copyright industry in a European context. If you’re thinking of SOPA, you’re drawing the right parallels here.

Other measures aiming at promoting the legal offer could also be envisaged.

“Other measures” have previously included sending political propaganda to schools promoting the copyright monopoly. It could be pretty much anything, it leaves the door wide open.

All in all, this is a completely horrible document that shows how the European Commission prepares to legislate post-ACTA. The proposals above have already entered the legislative process and will result in a real legislative proposal. We need to stay more vigilant than ever.

The second document, the one about Notice and Takedown procedures, doesn’t contain much of real substance (yet). However, it should be noted that it specifically mentions caching. Just like TPP, it may therefore try to regulate technical caching in the infrastructure with regards to the copyright monopoly, which would be… quite insane, frankly. But we don’t know yet; it just mentions caching in passing, which is cause enough for alarm.

See also La Quadrature du Net‘s press release on who’s who in this game.

 

British conservative MEP Syed Kamall asks the Commission about three-strikes in ACTA

Syed Kamall is a British Member of the European Parliament in the conservative ECR group. He has asked a very good question to the Commission about three-strikes in ACTA:

Question for written answer P-001085/2012
to the Commission
Rule 117
Syed Kamall (ECR)

Subject:    Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

I have been contacted by a civil society organisation which tells me that according to the Commission’s summary of its ‘Civil Society Meeting’ on 25 March 2011, ‘many rumours have circulated on “three strikes” measures and other measures restricting the access to internet. It is important to clarify that no such rules were ever proposed by any of the parties involved in the ACTA negotiations.’

The civil society organisation claims that this assertion from the Commission directly contradicts an alleged leak of the digital chapter of ACTA (originally published in March 2010 and reproduced in a European Parliament briefing document), which contains a footnote which proposed disconnection of (presumably ‘alleged’) repeat infringers as ‘an example of such a policy’. The full text of the footnote was:

‘[a]n example of such a policy is providing for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscriptions and accounts in the service provider’s systems or network of repeat infringers’.

1.    Can the Commission either confirm or deny the existence of that footnote in the preparatory works of ACTA?

2.    If it confirms the existence of that footnote, can the Commission point to subsequent preparatory work that confirms that disconnection of end users is not an example of the type or severity of punishment that should be imposed in the proposed private law enforcement foreseen by ACTA?

This is a very good question, and the Commission will not enjoy answering it. To answer the first sub-question, they will either have to admit that they lied about the contents of the March 2010 ACTA draft, or continue to lie about it (despite the fact that the document has been leaked and anybody can read it).

And to answer the second sub-question, they will either have to confirm that disconnection of end users is indeed what is foreseen by ACTA, or come up with some completely new references that nobody has heard of so far.

The answer from the Commission should appear in about 6 weeks in Kamall’s Europarl home page.

While we are waiting for the answer from the Commission, please take the the time to read an op-ed on ACTA by another MEP, Marietje Schaake from the liberal group. The liberal group has not yet formed a group opinion on ACTA, but Marietje Schaake is proof that there are at least some real liberals in that group.

Aftonbladet fanns på plats och dokumenterade demonstrationen mot ACTA i Stockholm. Se film här:
 

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Mitt ACTA-tal på YouTube (10 min)

Vi var ungefär 1000 personer som trotsade kylan och demonstrerade mot ACTA i Stockholm igår lördag, enligt polisens uppskattning.

Jag talade, och Urban Sundström, som brukar vara flitig och uppskattad gäst i kommentarsfälten på många bloggar, filmade mitt tal och la upp det på YouTube (10 min).

Det här är vad jag sa:

Jag heter Christian Engström, och jag är Europaparlamentariker för Piratpartiet.

När jag tillträdde som parlamentariker 2009, då var det en fråga som var hetare än allting annat: Telekompaketet. Det hade blivit över från föregående mandatperiod, kan man säga. Det var ett stort paket som handlade om internet och alla de sakerna. Det som var kvar var en ”liten detalj”, som i debatten gick under namnet ”Tillägg 138″.

Det handlade om att om folk ska stängas av från internet, för att det har gjort saker som någon inte gillar, då ska det ske på ett rättssäkert sätt. Vi i Piratpartiet tycker inte att man ska stängas av från internet överhuvud taget, men om så ändå skulle ske, var frågan: Hur ska det gå till?

Då krävde vi, tillsammans med andra, att det ska i vart fall vara ordentliga rättsliga garantier. Om någon ska bli avstängd från internet, då måste det ha varit en ordentlig rättslig prövning innan, och inte något som bara händer.

I striden om Telekompaketet 2009, då vann vi. Vi fick in de starkaste skrivningar som överhuvud taget var lagtekniskt möjliga. De sa att om någon ska stängas av från internet, ska det vara en ordentlig rättslig prövning innan.

Det här tyckte vi var bra, och det var en stor seger. Men det här gillade inte Hollywood, och det gillade inte de stora skivbolagen. Och lobbyisterna ger aldrig upp. De fortsätter, och fortsätter, och fortsätter.

Nu handlar det om ACTA, och nu försöker de ta sig runt den seger som vi vann i Telekompaketet. Där sas det: ”Om myndigheterna ska stänga av någon så måste det ske på ett ordentligt lagligt sätt”. Men då kommer lobbyn tillbaka och säger: ”Men om det inte är myndigheterna som stänger av, utan privata företag istället, då då kan vi ta oss runt det!”

Det här är en av sakerna som står i ACTA, men det står dolt och det står inlindat. När de höll på och förhandlade i de hemliga förhandlingarna bakom slutna dörrar, då stod de i ett av de tidiga utkasten: ”Vi ska uppmuntra till samarbete mellan internetleverantörer och rättighetshavare, till exempel three-strikes” (där three-strikes betyder att om man blir anklagad tre gånger blir man avstängd från nätet).

Men så läckte de här förhandlingsdokumenten ut, och det blev protester mot det. Då tog de bort den förklarande fotnoten, men det står fortfarande kvar ”Vi ska uppmuntra till samarbete mellan internetleverantörer och rättighetshavare” (alltså film- och skivbolag). Det är luddigare uttryckt, men det står där.

Och då undrar man: När det står luddiga saker i ACTA-avtalet, vem ska tolka det?

Jo, det står också i avtalet. De ska tillsätta en egen liten ACTA-kommitté.

ACTA-kommittén ska ha rätt att tolka avtalet när det är oklart, och ACTA-kommittén ska även ha rätt att föreslå förändringar i avtalet, så att avtalet kan bli ännu vidare. De som kommer sitta i ACTA-kommittén är precis samma tjänstemän och precis samma lobbyister som har förhandlat fram det här avtalet från början. Varje luddighet som finns i avtalet kommer tolkas till vår nackdel, om avtalet går igenom.

Men det här ska inte gå igenom. För om det finns någonting vi har lärt oss, så är det att det går att påverka parlamentariker. Det gäller parlamentariker i Sveriges riksdag i viss mån, men det gäller verkligen Europaparlamentariker.

Att vi kunde vinna en stor seger i Telekompaketet berodde på tusentals och åter tusentals människor skickade mejl till Europaparlamentarikerna och berättade varför internet är någonting viktigt, varför det är den del av samhället, och varför internet behövs om vi ska kunna utnyttja våra fundamentala rättigheter, som rätten att söka information och rätten att uttrycka sig fritt, och alla andra rättigheter.

Massor med massor med mejl från vanliga medborgare till Europaparlamentarikerna gjorde att stämningen i parlamentet svängde, så att vi kunde få en majoritet för att få med garantin för att man inte ska bli avstängd på lösa boliner i Telekompaketet.

Precis samma sak var det 2003 till 2005 när det var mjukvarupatenten som var den stora frågan. Då var det samma — det är alltid samma, de vanliga misstänkta — det var stora amerikanska företag som ville införa mjukvarupatent i Europa. Det skulle ha slagit hårt mot fri och öppen programvara, som till exempel Linux, och det skulle gjort det riskabelt att skriva vissa dataprogram.

När den här frågan först kom upp 2003 fanns det ingen i hela Europaparlamentet som hade en aning om vad det var frågan om. Det såg ut som en liten grej: ”Det är väl bara att skriva på, så går vi vidare till nästa ärende”.

Men då var det samma sak: Det var tusentals och åter tusentals vanliga medborgare som skickade mejl till parlamentarikerna, som ordnade demonstrationer, som bloggade och skrev på internet, som skrev till tidningar. Och genom att jobba på det här traditionella politiska sättet, gnetigt och långsamt men effektivt, lyckades vi få stopp på mjukvarupatenten 2005.

Vi vet att det här fungerar. Mjukvarupatenten 2005, Telekompaketet 2009, och — ACTA 2012 ska bli de riktigt stora segrarna!

Nu ska ACTA behandlas i Europaparlamentet under våren. Politik är en långsam sport, det är ingenting som händer över en natt (i vart fall ingenting bra). Vi tror att den stora omröstningen kommer komma i juni, men det är motståndarsidan som kontrollerar agendan, så det här kan ändras åt vilket håll som helst.

Men på vägen dit ska det gå igenom ett antal utskott i parlamentet. Det kommer bli många tillfällen att diskutera och debattera. Följ med på bloggarna för att se vad som händer. Skriv själv för att föra ordet vidare. Ordna demonstrationer som idag (men kanske inte alltför många så länge det är så här fruktansvärt kallt ). Traditionellt politiskt arbete. Kontakta EU-parlamentariker genom att mejla.

Då kan vi vinna det här, och vi kommer att vinna det här.

Och det måste vi göra, för oberoende av detaljerna i just ACTA finns det ett bredare perspektiv. ACTA är bara det senaste exemplet i en lång bokstavssoppa. Det är FRA, IPRED och IPRED2, det är SOPA, det är PIPA, det är som sagt bokstavssallad överallt. Men allihop är steg i samma riktning, mot det dystopiska samhälle som vi inte vill ha.

Men ACTA kan bli vändpunkten i Sverige och i hela Europa. Det kan bli när vi sa nej, när vi sa att vi inte vill ha ett internet som är kontrollerat av storföretagen. Vi vill ha ett internet som tillhör oss, där vi kan finnas och vara fria. Vi vill ha det öppna internet som vi alltid har haft. Det här kan vi vinna, och det här ska vi vinna.

Mitt namn är Christian Engström, jag är Europaparlamentariker för Piratpartiet. Nu vinner vi!

…………

Infopolicy: I live in Stockholm, Sweden. A hundred years ago, one of the largest employers in the city was a company named Stockholm Ice. Their business was as straightforward as it was necessary: help keep perishable food edible for longer by distributing cold in a portable format.

They would cut up large blocks of ice from the frozen lakes in the winter, store them on sawdust in huge barns, then cut the blocks into smaller chunks and sell them in the streets. People would buy the ice and keep it with food in special cupboards, so the food would be in cold storage.

(This is why some senior citizens still refer to refrigerators as “ice boxes“.)

COLUMN REPOST
This column has previously been published on TorrentFreak. It has been updated here to reflect recent developments.

When households in Stockholm were electrified in the first half of the last century, these distributors of cold were made obsolete. After all, what they distributed was the ability to keep food cold, and everybody could suddenly do that themselves.

This was a fairly rapid process in the cities. With the availability of the refrigerator from circa 1920, most households had their own refrigerator by the end of the 1930s. One of the city’s largest employers – distributors of cold – had been made totally obsolete by technical development.

There were many personal tragedies in this era as the icemen lost their breadwinning capacity and needed to retrain to get new jobs in a completely new field. The iceman profession had often been tough to begin with, and seeing your industry disintegrate in real-time didn’t make it any easier.

But here are a few things that didn’t happen as the ice distribution industry became obsolete:

• No refrigerator owner was sued for making their own cold and ignoring the existing corporate cold distribution chains.
• No laws were proposed that would make electricity companies liable in court if the electricity they provided was used in a way that destroyed icemen’s jobs.
• Nobody demanded a monthly refrigerator fee from refrigerator owners that would go to the Icemen’s Union.
• No lavishly expensive expert panels were held in total consensus about how necessary icemen were for the entire economy.

Rather, the distribution monopoly became obsolete, was ignored, and the economy as a whole benefited by the resulting decentralization.

We’re now seeing a repeat of this scenario, but where the distribution industry – the copyright industry – has the audacity to stand up and demand special laws and say that the economy will collapse without their unnecessary services. But we learn from history, every time, that it is good when an industry becomes obsolete. That means we have learned something important – to do things in a more efficient way. New skills and trades always appear in its wake.

The copyright industry tells us, again and again and again, that if they can’t have their obsolete distribution monopoly enshrined into law with ever-increasing penalties for ignoring it, that no culture will be produced at all. As we have seen, equally time and again, this is hogwash.

What might be true is that the copyright industry can’t produce music to the tune of one million US dollars per track. But you can’t motivate monopoly legislation based on your costs, when others are doing the same thing for much less – practically zero. There has never been as much music available as now, just because all of us love to create. It’s not something we do because of money, it’s because of who we are. We have always created, ever since we learned to put red paint on the inside of cave walls.

What about movies, then? Hundred-million productions? There are examples of garage-produced movies (and one even has beat Casablanca to become the most-seen movie of all time in its native country). But it may appear true that the argument is somewhat stronger with the blockbuster-type cinema productions.

A recent article of mine dispels this, too; blockbusters can make double  their investment back before a digital copy can even exist in the wild, so it will not be an issue. Investments will  happen.

But I’m going go out on a limb here and say, that even if it is true that movies can’t be made the same way with the Internet and our civil liberties both in existence, then maybe it’s just the natural progression of culture.

I spend quite a bit of time with teenagers through my work with the Pirate Party. One thing that strikes me is that they don’t watch movies, at least nowhere near the quantity I did when I was a teenager. Just like I threw out my TV set 15 years ago, maybe this is just the natural progression of culture. Nobody would be surprised if we moved from monologue-style culture to dialogue- and conversation-type culture at this point in history. Immersive gaming stands out as an excellent candidate to replace movies.

After all, we have previously had operettes, ballets, and concerts as the high points of culture in the past. Even radio theaters (and famous ones). Nobody is particularly concerned that those expressions have had their peak and that society has moved on to new expressions of culture. There is no inherent value in writing today’s forms of culture into law and preventing the changes we’ve always had.

Everywhere I look, I see that the copyright monopolies need to be cut down to allow society to move on from today’s stranglehold on culture and knowledge. Teenagers today typically don’t even see the problem – they take sharing in the connected world so totally for granted, that they discard any signals to the contrary as “old-world nonsense”.

And they certainly don’t ask for a refrigerator fee.

Just nu är jag så himla glad. Trots att det har varit svinkallt i dag, så satte tusentals personer på sig långkalsongerna och gav sig ut för att demonstrera mot ACTA på många platser runt om i landet.

Det känns fantastiskt. Så länge det finns människor som är beredda att kämpa för en bättre värld, så finns det gott hopp.

Fler bilder från Stockholmsdemon finns här. (TAck till Christian Engström för dem.)

Media har plockat upp saken. Det kan ni spana in här: Expressen, Aftonbladet, SvD, DN 1, DN 2, Sydsvenskan, GP, SVT, SR.

Flera personer talade under demonstrationen i Stockholm. Bland annat Christian Engström (MEP, PP), Carl Schlyter (MEP, MP) och Mikael Gustavsson (MEP, V). Jag pratade också en liten stund. Jag hade som vanligt skrivit ihop ett tjusigt tal som jag sedan naturligtvis inte höll mig till för att fingrarna var för alldeles för kalla för att scrolla fram texten i telefonen.

Det jag faktiskt sa kan ni kika på här. Om ni blir sjösjuka så beror det på att fotograf-Janne höll på att frysa ihjäl när han filmade.:

Det jag skrivit i förväg kan ni läsa här:

För två och ett halvt år sedan valdes Piratpartiet in i EU-parlamentet. Sedan dess har vårt folk i Bryssel i princip dagligen lämnat små rapporter till mig om hur dåligt det är ställt med öppenhet, transparens och demokrati inom EU.

Att det fanns en brist på transparens och ett demokratiskt underskott kom inte som en överraskning för någon av oss, men omfattningen blev en chock.

Det internationella handelsavtalet ACTA är ett perfekt exempel på det maktmissbruk som genomsyrar så mycket av arbetet i Bryssel. ACTA visar upp EUs absolut sämsta sidor som i en liten ask.

ACTA har förhandlats fram i största hemlighet. Bakom stängda dörrar har byråkrater och lobbyister från film- och musikbolagen. De har hejats på av en ivrig EU-kommissionen. De har suttit och kommit överens om saker rakt över huvudet på våra folkvalda EU-parlamentariker. Man har ägnat sig åt ett systematiskt hemlighetsmakeri för att minimera våra möjligheter att påverka avtalets utformning.

Vid dessa hemliga förhandlingar har man bland annat kommit överens om att våra, era och mina, grundläggande rättigheter är mindre värda än privata bolags vinstintressen.

Man har i handling visat att man struntar högaktningsfullt i de röster vi har lagt i demokratiska val. Det är inte okej.

Världen är rutten, men tillsammans kan vi göra den bättre!

Tänd ljuset i maktens korridorer. Transparens och öppenhet föder ärlighet.

Världen är rutten, men tillsammans kan vi göra den bättre!

Förbättra beslutsprocesserna. Avtal och lagar ska förhandlas fram av våra folkvalda, inte av byråkrater och lobbyister.

Världen är rutten, men tillsammans kan vi göra den bättre!

Släng ut lobbyisterna ur förhandlingsrummen. Privata intressen ska inte ges mölighet att utforma våra liv och inskränka våra rättigheter.

Världen är rutten, men tillsammans kan vi göra den bättre!

Värna om det fria nätet. Ett fritt nät leder till bättre rättssäkerhet, bättre yttrandefrihet och bättre demokrati. Ett fritt nät är vårt starkaste vapen i kampen för våra grundläggande rättigheter. Det är ett demokrativerktyg.

Jag vet att det kan kännas tröstlöst ibland. Vi drunknar i bokstavskombinationer som hotar vår frihet. Är det inte FRA-lagen, så är det Ipred-lagen. Är det inte Sopa. så är det Pipa. Är det inte Datalagringsdirektivet, så är det Acta. Och det slutar inte där. Det finns många fler. De tycks aldrig ta slut.

Men när jag ser alla er som vågat trotsa vinterkylan idag, så fylls jag av hopp.

Tillsammans har vi chansen att bli de hjältar som framtidens ungar kommer att läsa om i sina historieböcker.

Världen är rutten, men tillsammans ska vi göra den bättre!

Tack för att ni finns!

Tack för mig!

Klicka för fler bilder från demonstrationen mot ACTA i Stockholm

Idag hade vi en mycket lyckad demonstration mot ACTA-avtalet på Sergels torg i Stockholm.

Här är några bilder fria för publicering (Creative Commons CC0).

Andra som skriver om demonstrationerna: Expressen, Aftonbladet, DN, SvD, GP, Nyheter24, SVT, Futuriteter, Rick Falkvinge,

Activism: Just look at this map. I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of people all across Europe demanding their freedom of speech and being angry against backroom corporativist deals that steals their most basic civil liberties.

Today, Sweden rallies for freedom of speech, a free net, and firmly against ACTA. Late yesterday, it was announced that Poland is suspending its ratification of ACTA indefinitely. The Slovenian ambassador signing the document (which has no legal effect whatsoever) has publicly apologized and called people to rally in Ljubljana, Slovenia for their rights.

This is not Hollywood versus Silicon Valley, as oldmedia likes to frame it. This is Hollywood versus The People. For decades, they have trained us to think in black and white, in good versus evil fighting for domination of the free world. And now, they’ve gone and put themselves in the role of evil villain.

The copyright cartel thought they were battling Google.

They’re not.

They’re waging war against the people, with the help of the politicians.

And we’re not standing for it. We can’t change the copyright cartel, but we can send a clear message to the politicians that 250 million Europeans sharing and preserving contemporary culture is not a problem. It is a power base of 250 million voters  that will kick you out of office  if you dare so much as touch the net.

And there are visible cracks in the façade, especially seeing Poland falter and the copyright cartels visibly shaken from the SOPA defeat in the US, with the politicians having started to pay attention to what the Internet wants. We can win this.

Today, Sweden rallies. List of rallies below (via Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament):

• Stockholm: Sergels Torg, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Göteborg: Götaplatsen, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Malmö: Stortorget, at the Karl X Gustav statue, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Helsingborg: at the Magnus Stenbock statue, 13:00. [Facebook]
• Umeå : Apberget, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Kalmar: Giraffens Köpcentrum, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Sundsvall: Torget, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Karlstad: Stora Torget, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Borlänge: Jussi Björlings torg, 12 noon. [Facebook]

(The observant will note that less than half of these rallies are marked on the already-impressive map of European rallies. Makes me wonder what the map would look like if all rallies were included.)

Most of Europe will rally next Saturday, on February 11. That’s going to be something, too. Let’s give Europe the best of precursor to those rallies from Sweden that they could possibly get!

As of early morning on February 4, 11,000 people have committed to coming to the Stockholm rally, with another 3,500 maybes. Those are numbers that would overfill the Plattan plaza by a wide margin. I’ll be at the rally in Stockholm, Sweden, and will be taking plenty of imagery and will follow up here.

The Outcome

UPDATE AT 1500: Seeing that this story is #3 on Reddit Front Page at the moment (server is holding… holding…), I want to follow up with the outcome right here:

Rally at the Sergels Torg plaza in Stockholm, Sweden. Anna Troberg, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, speaking (at left) and maybe 1/3 of the crowd.

The turnout was like nothing I’ve seen for a February rally in Sweden. In -20°C, there were well over a thousand people protesting corporate rights over their freedom of speech; normally, you’re lucky getting 50.

Also, there was a very clear recurring theme among the Members of European Parliament speaking, MEPs from three different parties. They all told the story of how software patents had been defeated in Europe, followed by the crucial “amendment 138″ in the Telecoms Package, which aimed to shut people off en masse from the Net. Well, thanks to diligent activists and people on the inside, we managed to get as strong safeguards in place as possible against shutting people off. But the monopoly lobbyists never quit. Now they’re at it again, this time saying that if authorities can’t shut people off en masse due to that “amendment 138″, maybe they can get private corporations – the ISPs – to do it instead through third-party liability forcing certain terms of service and wiretapping. Hence, ACTA.

Fortunately, and this was a consistent message from all Members of European Parliament, we have the blueprint for defeating ACTA. We need to repeat what we did with the software patents and with the Telecoms Package. It takes hard work, it takes tons of activism, but we know exactly what to do and how to do it, and most importantly: we know that we can win.

As the rally concluded, everybody was determined to win this fight, having heard the clear message that it takes work but is perfectly doable.

UPDATE 2: There are more photos from Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament here. Free for any use (CC0 / Public Domain). Here’s one of his photos, showing the protester crowd:

Lördagen den 4 februari ordnas det demonstrationer mot ACTA på flera platser runt om i landet. Piratpartiet kommer att delta för att visa sitt stöd i kampen mot ACTA.

http://press.piratpartiet.se/2012/02/03/piratpartiet-deltar-i-landsomfat...

läs mer

Freedom of Speech – Andrew Norton: The US as an ‘idea’ is dying. The country that used to pride itself on free speech, democracy, and being ‘the last remaining superpower’, is now apparently drunk on its own power. With unchecked powers expanding at every turn, and terror laden missives booming out from government departments, the country seems to be taking a counterbalancing position from those who embraced freedom in the Arab Spring of last year, and is actively cracking down on freedoms previously embraced as a national advert.

The US likes to be known as the land of freedom and integrity; indeed the first verse of the US National Anthem – the Star Spangled Banner – ends:

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Over the last ten years, the answer has turned into a resounding NO!

Over the last ten years there have been many laws passed ostensibly about ‘fighting terrorism’, but which boil down to naked fear. A fear from the populace that some nebulous ‘terrorist attack’ will kill them all (despite the fact you’re more than 70x more likely to be just plain ‘murdered’ and 150x more likely to die on America’s increasingly poor quality roads than be present at a terrorist attack) which has supported a government that is increasingly spineless and cowardly. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the many instances over the last few months involving the uses of the police, when it comes to the First Amendment.

There have been many well documented clashes between police and the various ‘Occupy’ camps around the country in the last few months. Police officers have on occasion responded with excessive violence and weapons that did not fit the situation. In those instances, video recordings have made it clear what has happened, and often contradicted police reports and claims. Yet, as was pointed out a few months ago, there’s usually very little in the way of repercussions when police officers break the law.

Take for instance Joe Arpaio. The self-described ‘toughest sheriff in America’ is no stranger to controversy. There have been a number of wrongful death cases which his department has lost, his central jail lost a lawsuit about unconstitutional conditions in 2008, and the verdict was reaffirmed in 2010 when he still hadn’t improved them. He was feeding inmates bad food (commonly known as ‘poisoning’) and was broadcasting video footage of in-processing after arrests to the web, prejudicing trials (otherwise known as perverting the course of justice) and because of general misconduct, his whole department had their ability to enforce Federal Immigration law stripped by the Department of Homeland Security (and I remind you, that’s the same department that has no problems with sexually abusing 6yo’s in the name of ‘security’, so you KNOW it’s bad) which was why Arizona passed SB 1070 – the ‘papers please’ law. He’s also under investigation for witness, voter and candidate intimidation, harassment of newspapers, and for ignoring serious sexual assault cases. So has he been punished in any way? No, of course not. As Sheriff, he is almost untouchable.

It seems that both police officers and politicians have an allergic reaction to video cameras being pointed at them by the public. A search on YouTube will return LOTS of videos of police officers reacting ‘badly’ to being videotaped. Often the argument put forward by the police is that people are interfering in their work by videoing them. In other states, with two-party consent for audio-recording where there’s an expectation of privacy, police officers going about their duty have arrested people for wiretapping, a felony which often carries 5-10 year prison terms just so you’re aware, recording video is ok, recording audio is the no-no. Generally when these cases are made public, some prosecutors back down, but some stick at it. Almost inevitably the courts decide that no law was broken, because there was no expectation of privacy at the time of filming.

Compounding this is that most police cars in the US have dash-cams recording both audio and video, even in those states. So while the police officer is free to record audio and video at all times, a person involved in an encounter with that same police officer can’t record their own copy, because the police officer has some expectation of privacy? It’s an amazing double-standard. (The pinnacle of such double-standards goes to the Claremore Police Department in Oklahoma, who do not consider the dash-cam recordings to be public records under the state’s Open Records Act, and amazingly, a court agreed. The Department of Public Safety, aka the State Police force, also lobbied successfully in 2005 that the state legislature exempt state patrol dash cams from that legislation.)

Thankfully MOST courts are standing behind citizens and saying clearly that recording police officers in the course of their duties is NOT wiretapping, or a felony, but is in fact a protected 1st Amendment Activity. Yet that doesn’t always stop the police. In Pennsylvania, despite rulings that it’s legal going back to 1989, police there will sometimes arrest for ‘wiretapping’, with documented cases as recently as 2007, and still no adequate recourse for the victims of officers acting outside the law.

The occupy movement has also brought another spotlight onto the First Amendment. The ability to petition the government and protest is the less well known side of it, but it’s there. However, the ability to do so has been severely curtailed in recent years, from the ‘free speech zones’ created during the Bush era (and later copied by the likes of China) to the storm-trooper raids on the Occupy camps. The arrests and intimidations of the police against media attempting to cover the camps, and the police actions against them are further attacks on the first amendment.

In fact, the US has dropped a significant number of places down the current Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, from 20th to 47th, because of this. NYPD’s Deputy Inspector Bologna, and UC Davis Police’s Lt. John Pike are now symbols on the net of excessive violence. And their punishment? Bologna has been reassigned to Staten Island, and Pike has been on ‘Administrative leave’ (with pay, which was $110,000/year in 2010).

Oakland, which also made a splash with video of a young ex-Marine getting shot in the head and then pelted with flash-bangs is already in trouble. They’ve been under court orders to improve their behavior for almost ten years now (after a gang of police officers called the Rough Riders were planting evidence, using excessive violence and falsifying police reports) and have been given a March ultimatum, or else the city will have control of its police force taken from it. It’s a step that should have been taken 5 years ago, when Oakland PD failed the original order, yet unlike any normal person that had failed a court order, they were not disciplined, but let slide for another 5 years.

Politicians are also getting in on the act. One of the more unusual stories this week was the arrest of a documentarian from a US Congress committee hearing. The hearing, on fracking, was going to be recorded by Josh Fox, (who has already produced one documentary on the topic, the Oscar Nominated Gasland) as well as credentialed ABC news reporters. The Republican chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Andy Harris (R-Md.), directed Capitol Police to arrest him for ‘unlawful entry’. The issue there was not so much one of ‘not wanting to be filmed’, as the cable-funded C-SPAN network was filming the hearing, but an attempt to deny Fox the ability to have his own high-quality shots for a follow-up documentary.

As far as violating the First Amendment, there can’t be a clearer example. Worse, the oath of office Rep Harris took on assuming office is as follows:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

In undertaking his actions on February 1st, Rep. Harris violated his oath of office, by actively acting against the First Amendment. So what’s the consequence of that? The same consequences as when Joe Arparo violated the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments, as when Pike and Bologna attacked protesters, using chemical weapons on people exercising their 1st Amendment rights. Nothing.

The serious issue is, there’s no accountability – no respect for the law – by those whose job is to write the law or enforce it. This goes for former members of Congress who have turned into lobbyists as well, demonstrated by Chris Dodd’s blatant admission of bribery when SOPA lost its support.

One North Carolina State Rep, Larry G. Pittman, made news last week for suggesting public hanging should be brought back to increase the deterrence of murder (and he included abortionists there, making him part of the ironically named ‘pro-life movement, better characterised as anti-choice), and that appeals should be filed all at once. Given the often questionable nature of US Capital convictions, it’s rather disturbing. Especially as violations of what is deemed the country’s HIGHEST law, the Constitution, are rarely punished at all. Funnily enough, there are laws specifically to deal with it.

18 USC § 241
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or…
… They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both

and

18 USC § 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

Perhaps hanging, with only one appeal, would deter people from violating the country’s highest tenets, not that it will happen. Those that wield the power rarely feel the need to submit to the rules they lay on everyone else. And that’s the REAL problem. Until that problem is fixed, the Constitution is just a piece of paper.

Repression: In an inadvertent slip, the European Commission reveals that ACTA will indeed bring censorship to the Internet. As usual, they say this in the calmest soothing tone of voice.

The European Commission, which is sort of the Administration in the EU, published a rebuttal to “rumors on the net about ACTA” and tries to set the record straight. Note the two first points: “ACTA ensures people everywhere can continue to share non-pirated material and information on the web. ACTA does not restrict freedom of the internet. ACTA will not censor or shut down websites.”

There is one word on their web page that stands out and reveals so much more about the nature of ACTA:

“Non-pirated”. Everybody will be free to share “non-pirated” material. All of a sudden, there is a qualifier  to what information we are able to share on the net; this qualifier has never been there before. We have always been able to send whatever we like, and possibly answer for it afterwards.

This is very, very serious. For what it says here is that the net will only be usable for government-approved communications; the government takes itself the right to determine what the net is usable for and what it isn’t usable for. To 250 million Europeans who share culture and don’t see anything wrong with defying an immoral monopoly, this is an arrogant slap in the face, but it’s more  than that and worse  than that. Any qualifier  to what can be communicated — “non-pirated” in this case — always means “government-approved”, that only governmentally approved communications may take place.

And this is serious for the deepest of democratic reasons: Any communications technology must be compatible with dissent.

At the same time as the government takes itself the right to determine what can be communicated and what cannot, a communications technology stops being compatible with dissent.

Now, the prudent question here would be if it isn’t true that some information has never been free to share, and that you can get prosecuted for doing so? This would be a very relevant observation.

There are many things you’re not allowed to share in terms of information. Military secrets, medical journals, libel/slander, ongoing criminal investigations, just to name a few. All of these have always been possible to share on the net, but if caught doing so, you can be hauled off to court for it. After the fact.  The postal service has always still been usable  to share this information.

And yet, the one single thing listed as impossible to share over the net is violations of the copyright monopoly. If the Commission really was referring to things that you were legally  unable to share, you’d expect military secrets to come first, followed by governmental hush-hushy documents. But no.

This is an obvious slip trying to calm people into saying that everything will be as before, but the forced factual correctness of it reveals that we are indeed talking about censorship.

Another objection here would be that the language requiring ISPs to police the net was taken out of ACTA. That is… not quite so. The specific phrase requiring that was taken out in one revision, yes. But in the same revision, the same thing was re-inserted in another place. Specifically, this text was inserted:

Desiring to promote cooperation between service providers and rights holders to address relevant infringements in the digital environment;

It looks fairly innocent, like most legal text where you don’t have the full context. To fully appreciate the impact of this text, one needs to know the background leading up to it and the negotiations. Hax writes a bit about it here (in Swedish). The gist of it is that it’s enforcement of extrajudicial censorship, plain and simple, through threats of third-party liability.

UPDATE – seeing that this story is climbing on Reddit, and now hitting frontpage, I’m inserting the fuller explanation from the summary of today’s anti-ACTA rallies:

…there was a very clear recurring theme among the Members of European Parliament speaking, MEPs from three different parties. They all told the story of how software patents had been defeated in Europe, followed by the crucial “amendment 138″ in the Telecoms Package, which aimed to shut people off en masse from the Net. Well, thanks to diligent activists and people on the inside, we managed to get as strong safeguards in place as possible against shutting people off. But the monopoly lobbyists never quit. Now they’re at it again, this time saying that if authorities can’t shut people off en masse due to that “amendment 138″, maybe they can get private corporations – the ISPs – to do it instead through third-party liability forcing certain terms of service and wiretapping, shutting people off outside due process of law at the copyright industry’s fingerpointing as well as trying for live, realtime censorship. Hence, ACTA.

(original article continues)

ACTA will bring censorship. Extrajudicial censorship. At the request of a bloody entertainment  industry. That is shameful. 

Tomorrow, Saturday February 4, large-scale rallies against ACTA take place. I will be at the rally in Stockholm, Sweden at Plattan at noon.