Happy slapping

A Swedish artist wannabe called Anna Odell was convicted on charges of "ordeligt förfarande" and "våldsamt motstand" after faking a psychosis and attacking nurses and police. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I'm guessing it has to do with deception and violent resistance. It was all done in the name of art, of course, and DN's cultural editor, Maria Schottenius says she can't understand why this case ever ended up in the court of law in the first place. This trial has been a trial against art itself! Her teachers at the art academy, Konstfack, are shocked at the verdict. After all, you can't just strangle art with petty rules and laws that are for the common man.

I couldn't agree more. Artists should be above these stupid laws. Tomorrow I'm going to bring my trustworthy camera with me out into the streets and simply slap some casual people silly while filming it. That will be my contribution to the art world, my legacy, and I expect Maria Schottenius to stand up for me and my art as well!

Shut Posten down now!

Right, that's it. I've had it. The postal services need to be shut down immediately if they do not manage to block packages containing illegal substances. I don't care if they need to open each and every envelope to do so. If they don't, they're guilty of accessory.

On second thoughts, though, drugs aren't really that bad. And opening everyone's mail just to get to a few people who are abusing the postal service is really quite out of proportion. Plus, you can't really hold the postal service accountable - all they really do is provide a service that lets people communicate with each other. That wouldn't be fair. Had this happened on the Internet though...damn we would've messed those bastards up real bad, right?

Now go figure why drug dealing in real life is considered much less harmful than engaging in file sharing activities on the Internet.

– Men vi har varken rättigheter eller möjligheter att kontrollera alla försändelser. Det faller under ”brevhemligheten”.

Field trip to China

The brilliant newspaper The Local, bringing us Swedish news in English, has been censored by the Chinese government because of an article deemed to be inappropriate.

The brilliant website The Pirate Bay, bringing us all kind of culture from all over the world, has been censored by the Swedish government because certain links on the website are deemed to be inappropriate.

Unfortunately the Swedish government, relatively new to the world of Internet censorship, have not yet developed sufficiently sophisticated methods to actually keep "inappropriate" websites out of sight for long. I would suggest Swedish politicians take a field trip to China to study what they do there.

The importance of a free, growth-driven and entrepreneurial Internet

Two clowns by the name of Gerard Versteegh and Shadi Bitar, representing two companies I can only assume deal with entertainment through the internet, film2home.se and earbooks.se, have a reader's letter published in Svenska Dagbladet today. The letter is so filled with wrong assumptions, logical flaws and plain errors that's it would take me more effort to go through it step by step than I'm willing to put in. I'll take the short version:

The letter is basically a poorly executed attack on the Moderat politician Karl Sigfrid, who has profiled himself as the only Moderat politician interested in questions regarding the Internet and integrity, and of course on the politics of Piratpartiet, the pirate party.

I feel one of the very first sentences of this letter sums it all up pretty nicely:

En moderat internetpolitik bör sträva efter ett fritt, tillväxtdrivande och entreprenöriellt internet.

Translated to English: Moderat internet politics should strive for a free, growth-driven and entrepreneurial Internet.

Umm...well, yes, and that's exactly what Karl Sigfrid is striving for and you two morons are fighting against.

Obviously Mr. Versteegh hasn't succeeded very well in being free nor entrepreneurial, and of course neither Mr. Versteegh nor Mr. Bitar will see any of my money any time soon.

How the music industry makes its money, part 2

Read part 1 here.

So, in addition to ripping off songwriters and artist, and suing their customers, this dirty industry, in this case the record company Universal, is also threatening Stockholm stadsteater with a lawsuit for not paying them enough money in royalties for the songs that appear in the "De tre musketörerna" play. Apparently "only" paying the standard fee to STIM isn't enough for Universal, who claim this play is actually a musical, and for some reason a musical should mean even more money in Universal's pockets.

How long will these repulsive parasites be able to survive before they have sucked their hosts completely dry?

Stockholm tingsrätt dismantling the judicial system

The scandals surrounding the corrupt bastards over at Stockholms tingsrätt continue...

Read Peter Sundes blogpost here, and Piratpartiets press release here.

It seems if you ever end up in Stockholm tingsrätt, unless you've got the mafiosos at Danowsky & Partners representing you, you know you're screwed no matter how good your case is. Way to go completely destroying the public's faith in the judicial system.

The mafiaa wants you!

Wanna join the axis of evil and become the mafiaa's unscrupulous hired hand? Do you get turned on by the power of ruining ordinary people's lives? Would you sell your grandmother if paid enough? Are you a sworn enemy of the Internet, free speech, civil liberties and the constitution?

Then boy have I got the job for you. The weasels at Danowsky & Partners are looking for a legal practitioner, so here's your chance to sell your soul for what I can only assume has to be a shitload of money:

Danowsky & Partners är en advokatbyrå med inriktning på affärsjuridik och processer. Vi strävar efter att lämna en rak, enkel och resultatorienterad rådgivning i komplicerade affärsjuridiska frågor och processer. Det sker genom personlig omsorg, lyhördhet för klienternas intressen och ett starkt engagemang i varje ärende.

För tillträde under hösten söker vi nu ytterligare biträdande jurister med tingsmeritering eller motsvarande erfarenhet. Även du som har några års ytterligare erfarenhet från annan advokatbyrå är givetvis välkommen att söka. Vi ställer höga krav men erbjuder samtidigt varierande och utmanande arbetsuppgifter, bra utvecklingsmöjligheter och attraktiva villkor.

Ring gärna advokat Ann Nilsson på tel 08-614 64 00 eller gå in på vår hemsida, www.danowsky.se om du vill veta mer. Ansökan med kopior på sedvanliga betyg och intyg skickas så snart som möjligt och senast den 18 september till emma.hjartberg@danowsky.se. Det går också bra att skicka ansökan per post till Danowsky & Partners, Box 16097, 103 22 Stockholm.

And for those of you who are not familiar with the Swedish language, let me give you a quick translation:

Danowsky & Partners is a law firm specializing in blackmailing, harassment and threats. We strive to squeeze the most money out of our opponents in any way possible, with no regard to ethics or moral. We are proud of our excellent connections within the Government, the police and the courts of law that make it possible for us to tailor new laws to suit us and our clients, and also lets us adapt or ignore the existing laws, all to our advantage, when needed. This way we can guarantee you that we never lose a case. Ever.

We are looking for a legal practitioner to join our firm this fall. Our expectations of you are high, but at the same time we can offer you a high salary and a wide range of challenging tasks, including extortion, badgering, gagging the freedom of speech and dismantling the Internet at any cost.

Disclaimer: This translation may not be correct to the letter, but I think it captures the essence of the ad pretty well. So, what are you waiting for? Send them your resume today and embark on a long and successful career of tyranny and terror.

The Pirate Bay regarding Stockholms Tingsfel

Speaking of the Pirate Bay censorship scandal, the TPB crew's press release is simply hilarious.

Brits being their usual technologically impaired selves

Inspired by the massive fiasco of the French Hadopi law, the Brits are planning a similar law to ban individuals from the Internet based on mere allegations of copyright infringement by the entertainment mafia, and without any court ruling. The people subjected to this ridiculous miscarriage of justice will still have access to a small selection of government websites though. Yes, it's just as insane as it sounds:

Enligt lagförslaget kommer besluten att stänga av illegala fildelare inte att tas av Ofcom utan direkt av regeringen, uppger The Guardian. Modellen motiveras, enligt regeringsdokument som The Guardian refererar till, med att åtgärder måste kunna vidtas snabbt i en tid när Storbritanniens kreativa industrier är hotade.

It other words, the British government is actually saying - straight out - that increasing the profit of the entertainment industry is more important than justice for their citizens. They're not even trying to wrap it in. I'm speechless. Absolutely speechless.

It should come as no surprise that a suggestion like this comes from a country where they have yet to discover the joy of a water tap that can serve them with a pleasing combination of hot and cold water. Technologically impaired bastards.

How to keep a steady growth rate

Do you feel your business is a bit slow these days? You don't feel like exploring new business models or giving your customers what they really want? And as a consequence of these old business models, do you see your YTY growth rate go down from 30% to a mere 2%?

No worries, do what the entertainment mafia did: Create laws that give you police authority, spread terror and force the consumers back:

Förra året kom trendbrottet i den till synes ständigt rusande dvd-­försäljningen. Enligt branschen var det fildelningen som slog igenom på allvar – trots detta handlar det, efter 10 års oavbruten ökning, om hela 35,6 miljoner dvd-filmer som trycktes ut på den svenska marknaden. Försäljningen fortsatte att öka, men bara med 2 procent, inte med de omkring 30 procent som ökningen legat på tidigare år.

Men efter Ipredlagens införande i april i år är ordningen återställd. Stora videodistributören Bonver, som har 1.500 videouthyrare och 1.200 dvd-försäljare som kunder, redovisar kraftiga ökningar för månaderna maj–juli.

Uthyrningen ökar med 27–34 procent jämfört med 2008, och dvd-försäljningen i juni och juli låg på 70 procent plus.

Ordningen är återställd. Of course, any business should be able to uphold such an incredible growth rate. Any dip is unnatural and should be remedied not by new and future-oriented business models but by threats and terror. If the consumers don't want to buy your old, outdated products, force them to do it. That's the Hollywood way. That's the ugliest face of capitalism.

– Det här är något fantastiskt som vi ser, man respekterar verkligen Ipredlagen. Det har blivit tydligt för svenska folket att det är olagligt att ladda ner och så har man slutat att göra det, säger Gerard Versteegh, vd på Bonver.

"We're experiencing something truly amazing. People with a loaded gun pointed at their forehead are actually doing what we tell them to do! Faced with massive threats they're being obedient customers!" says Gerard Versteegh, CEO at Bonver. Any dictator will tell you that oppression and threats will make the people do what you want in the short term, you compete ass.

Please stop supporting this insanity. Stop feeding the monster. Stop buying those damn DVD's.

Shooting a duck with heavy artillery

So, the entertainment mafiaa and Stockholm tingsrätt have taken a major step in killing the free Internet in Sweden and turning it into a one-way pay-per-view channel, all in the name of stopping a few copyright infringements. More or less like using heavy artillery to kill a duck.

How well have they succeeded? Pretty well when it comes to contradicting existing laws and setting a new and bizarre precedent.

Not so well when it comes to actually stopping The Pirate Bay:


Much like the use of heavy artillery would cause a lot of damage without necessarily hitting the duck, it took The Pirate Bay only a few hours to get online again, and yet a few hours for DNS-servers around the world to get up to date with their new IP-addresses. A minor inconvenience. However, the damage inflicted on the free Internet in Sweden by Stockholm tingsrätt and that damn mafiaa may very well be irreparable. Good job, you absolute morons.

A lesson in irony

Today's lesson in irony:

The ISP Black Internet pulls the plug on The Pirate Bay, making it inaccessible for Internet users.

The Internet users pull the plug on Black Internet.

Personally I don't see how one is worse than the other. Both these acts of sabotage harm a lot of innocent people, cost a lot of money and threaten the infrastructure of the Internet. Of course the ones who should really have their plugs pulled - big time - are the mafiosos of the entertainment industry and the ever-so-corrupt and incompetent Stockholm tingsrätt.

I never seem to repeat this often enough: Stop feeding this monster. Let it crawl under a rock and die for the benefit of the entire free world.

The free Internet is dead in Sweden

Stockholm tingsrätt have, by ordering the censorship of a website that has not been proven illegal, once again proved they are not only criminally incompetent, they are also setting a new precedent when it comes to Internet censorship in Sweden. In short, they're choosing the totalitarian approach, where "unwanted" websites are closed at will, joining the ranks of freedom loving and friendly countries like China, North Korea and Iran - with the exception that in the case of Sweden it's not at all about ideology, it's all about money.

From now on it appears any powerful organization or corporation can get a court order to block the access to websites they feel are a threat to their business. The free, uncensored Internet we've been used to in these parts of the world has just been replaced by a corporation controlled censorship system.

Kverulant.se puts the whole spectacle into perspective by showing how this mindless court ruling could impact the Internet.

If my blog is gone tomorrow at least you know what's happened.

How the music industry makes its money

We've already seen how the movie industry makes its money by ripping off the writers and actors through "Hollywood accounting".

How about the music industry? Much the same, really, ripping off the songwriters and artists. While they're not busy suing their customers, that is.

There truly is no business like showbusiness, perhaps with the exeption of organized crime.

CMX - what is it good for?

The music industry "axis of evil", Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI, are launching a new download format for albums, called CMX. What's wrong with MP3, you might ask. Well, for starters MP3-files don't include lyrics and music videos. But who really cares about that? Do a google search and find the lyrics you're interested in. And music videos? What is this, the 80's?

Most importantly, though, MP3-files don't include DRM, a computer virus that I'm convinced this new CMX-format will be infected by:

"Only playable on a Microsoft Windows computer with Internet Explorer 8 installed. Can only be installed on one computer at a time. We reserve the right to shut down our DRM-servers at any time, rendering your purchase useless".

Ooooh, I can't wait to waste my money on this. Not.

"This CD is brought to you by Elisabeth Arden"

The latest in a series of pathetic convulsions from a dying record industry: Selling ad space in CD booklets in an attempt to further increase profit. God forbid you should give the consumers what they actually want:

Skivförsäljningen går ned. Vinsterna blir mindre. Nu försöker skivbolaget Def Jam lösa problemet genom att sälja reklam i sina cd-häften. Först ut blir Mariah Carey vars kommande album ”Memoirs of an imperfect angel” kommer att innehålla reklam för bland annat Elisabeth Arden, Angel Champagne och Bahamas turistbyrå.

Presumably the price for the consumer will still be the same, in other words way too high for an outdated, unnecessary piece of plastic. Personally I would take it as an insult if I bought a CD and found the booklet filled with ads, and ask for my money back. If I bought CD's, that is.

What's next, a deep, melodramatic voice telling us about the upcoming blockbuster movie "coming to theaters near you in October" at the beginning of the CD? In between the tracks, maybe? The movie industry has been doing this for ages, so why not? The question is who will buy rubbish like that?

Trucks overtaking trucks

You're driving along the motorway, minding your own business, when you notice a cluster of ridiculously slow moving vehicles in front of you. Of course you prepare to overtake them, check your mirrors and blind zone, and change to the left lane.

As you're approaching these slow moving vehicles one of them suddenly decides to overtake the other, turning out into your lane right in front of you, at a speed 40-50 km/h slower than you. Thats like driving toward a brick wall in 50 km/h!!!

Sounds familiar?

Recovering from the shock of this neanderthal trailer truck driver nearly killing you, you're faced with his stupid truck blocking the road for several minutes desperately trying to overtake a vehicle moving perhaps 2-3 km/h slower than himself. And of course this couldn't wait until the coast was clear and no cars were in sight behind him.

I've often wondered what the qualifications are to become a trailer truck driver, and clearly there aren't that many: "Can you sit? Can you hold a steering wheel? That's good enough for us, you've got the job, Billy-Bob!". A monkey could probably do a better job.

At one point I got so fed up with these insane maneuvers that I couldn't control myself anymore. After finally overtaking one of these trucks and moved back into the right lane I slowly decreased my speed until he was right behind me, and I continued decreasing my speed, forcing him to brake. Of course when he started overtaking me I stepped on the throttle. I know it was childish, I know I shouldn't have stooped to his level, but seriously, it felt sooo good to finally show that son of a bitch just how annoying it is to have a moron block the road in front of you.

I should point out that this applies to you retards in the RV's as well. You know who you are. If you're unable to go faster than 80 km/h, don't try to overtake that truck going 79 km/h in a 120 km/h zone with traffic coming up behind you.

Spotify owned by criminals

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Unfortunately it's true. Not only is the music industry making money on royalties every time a song is played back by you on Spotify (*), prominent members of this criminal industry actually own 18 percent of the Spotify shares, which they got virtually for free in exchange for access to their record archives - no free stocks, no deal:

According to newspaper Computer Sweden, which has got hold of documents that Spotify send to the companies registration office in Luxembourg, the record companies bought the shares for 100,000 kronor (€9.700, $13.900).

The record labels are: Sony BMG (5,8 percent), Universal Music (4,8 percent), Warner Music (3,8 percent) and EMI (1,9 percent). Also Merlin holds a small stake.

Time to uninstall Spotify and stop feeding the monster. Try Grooveshark instead, and lose those annoying ads at the same time.


(*) At the very least I think they should provide some sort of record label filter, so the users could choose to exclude artists from certain labels, thus minimizing their income.

Hilton - it´s 2009 for God´s sake!

A couple of years ago, when I was frequent customer of Hilton hotels, I remember the annoyance of having to pay extra for wireless Internet access. If I remember correctly there was wired Internet available in the rooms for free though (go figure...), so I always brought a cable.

It´s been a while since my last Hilton stay, but this weekend I´m staying at Hilton Malmö. A nice hotel in most ways, with beautiful views from the higher floors and everything, but frankly I was a bit shocked to see that they´re still sticking to their ridiculous pay-for-Internet policy. At 1500 SEK per night you´re still expected to pay 150 SEK for 24 hours of wifi access - or 20 bucks an hour!

There´s free wifi at most coffee shops, and sitting down in the hotel lobby I can find several free hotspots. Come on Hilton, it´s 2009, you simply can´t charge people for Internet access anymore. That´s just so 2004.

Free - or not

I read a couple of reviews of Chris Anderson's book on the new business models on the web, "Free - the future of a radical price", and found it to be intriguing. So intriguing in fact that I wanted to have a closer look at it, and possibly even buy it. The review mentioned that the book was, true to it's content, available for free on the web.

So I googled it, and found that it was indeed available for free at Scribd, but wait...

Are you freakin' kidding me? The book is arguing that trying to protect your intellectual property with various kinds of annoying restrictions is not a very good idea in this new economy, yet it's actually utilizing the very same, ridiculous techniques as the rest of the entertainment industry, providing the consumers with a sub-quality product (who wants to read a 274 page book online, with no option for saving or downloading???) and the infamous and hysterically annoying geographical restrictions found on DVD's and several streaming video sites, to mention a couple. Makes me wonder if Chris Andersson's publisher, Random House, has even read the book they're publishing, or if it's all just a bad joke.

Granted, you can download the sound book version in MP3 format here, but who wants to listen to a book for seven hours? Where's the damn PDF?

Needless to say, I'm not contributing to Chris Andersson's and Random House's "radical economy".

RIAA Radar - use it!

If you, like me, are engaged in an entertainment industry boycott, but unlike me are finding it hard to stay away from those CD's (or downloads for that matter), please use the search engine on riaaradar.com, and make sure you're not purchasing any music released by members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Remember, if we stop feeding this monster it will eventually crawl under a rock and die, which would be of great benefit to the entire free world.

Nice job, Samuelsson

I en smyginspelad ljudupptagning från ett möte som sändes i Sveriges Radio förra veckan gjorde Marianne Samuelsson uttalanden om att generösare regler ska gälla för mäktiga företagare. På inspelningen diskuterades Payex-ägaren Max Hanssons privata strandnära byggen på Gotland. Samuelsson drog bland annat en parallell till Västra Götaland och sade att där skulle man inte bråka om Volvochefen vill göra åtgärder i närheten av en strand.

- Yes, I said that and I meant every word of it. The only thing I regret is being caught on tape.

- No, wait, I didn't mean it after all. I was framed by disloyal bureaucrats with a political agenda.

- On second thought I wasn't framed after all, I was just misunderstood.

Nice smoke screen, Samuelsson. In fact, you've done such a great job that you'll be rewarded with a new position within the Government Offices, Regeringskansliet. Congratulations!

The insanity of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

A college student in the US has been arrested and charged with violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a legal abomination passed by former president Bill Clinton (if anything that act of criminal ignorance should have gotten the bastard impeached!). The 27-year old man is facing up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

What has this college student done to deserve this, you might ask. Murder? Armed robbery? No no, far worse... He has modified his Xbox or Playstation or whatever, making it possible to play - oh the horror - games that are copies of original DVD disc! In other words, this man has made it possible to play backup DVD's of his games, and probably unlocked a number of other handy features (copying games onto the hard drive to avoid the hassle of changing DVD's all the time, adding useful applications, you name it) that his console was not originally shipped with.

The very idea that this should be a criminal offence is so offensive that I literally lack the words to describe it.

If anything the evil masterminds behind the pure insanity of the DMCA should be the ones going to jail for 10 years, getting their teeth punched out and become the bitches of a huge, tattooed guy called Papa Bear.

Another contribution to my list of shame

A bunch of movie companies have decided to test drive the infamous Ipred law, and have turned to the court in an attempt to gather info on the owner of an Internet subscription, in order to sue him or her for millions of dollars, obviously.

Much like the first Ipred-case a couple of months ago, where a bunch of publishing houses presumably broke the law in order to gather "evidence", and still had the court ruling in their favor instead of throwing them head first out of the court room (yes, the legal system in Sweden is that corrupted at the moment), these morons from the movie industry are doing the exact same thing: Illegally gaining access to a private torrent tracker, SweTorrents.org, trying to secure some sort of "evidence" that it contains copyrighted material:

- Swetorrents tillhandahåller upphovsrättsskyddade filmer som de inte har rättighet att sprida på internet. I vissa fall gäller det filmer som inte ens har kommit ut på marknaden. Det handlar om relativt omfattande verksamhet. Det blir ett dränage på filmbolagens intäktssida, säger Antipiratbyråns ordförande Björn Gregfelt.

Riiight, so we're still not past the completely misleading "torrent trackers contain actual movies that can be downloaded by anyone" reasoning.

Luckily, and quite surprisingly to be honest, the ISP in question, Telia Sonera, has decided to fight this, and not give out any sensitive information to the movie industry without a proper court ruling. Let's just hope this case doesn't end up in the hands of those baboons over at Solna tingsrätt...

I can hereby add the following movie companies to my list of shame, to mock and to boycott for eternity:

• Svensk filmindustrin
• Pan vision
• Filmlance international
• Yellow bird

I wish you all an ever decreasing profit with a future of really crappy movies that absolutely no one will pay to watch. That would serve you right, you criminal bastards.

Why exactly should I buy this crap?

I read a comparison of various cell phones in today's DN, and not surprisingly the hysterically over-hyped Iphone 3GS won the competition, together with the far superior, yet cheaper, Samsung Omnia HD.

Let's have a look at Iphone 3GS's selling points, according to the article:

• It can send and receive MMS.
• It's got bluetooth.
• It's fitted with a 3 megapixel camera, without flash.
• It's got a compass.
• You can copy and paste text from for example an e-mail.
• It's got support for the Swedish special characters ÅÄÖ (although the keyboard is "still hard to use").

All these new "features" are really the bare minimum you would expect from even the cheapest cell phone sold in the last 2-3 years, possibly with the exception of a compass. On the other hand, when have you ever been in a situation where you thought "damn, I really wish my phone had a compass"?

Why on earth should I literally pay through my nose for yesterday's news, when I could get a state of the art phone for almost half the price, and at the same time avoid the infamous Apple lock-in effect and the AppStore censorship madness?