Organized crime recruiting young prospects

The mafiosos over at Warner Bros have started recruiting prospects, who will do their dirty work of infiltrating file-sharing sites and hunt down unsuspecting kids who have not yet learned to deal with this relatively new kind of terror. The price for selling your soul to the devil? A pathetic £17.500 for a year's "internship".

The approach is similar to the criminal MC gangs like Hell's Angels and Bandidos, where young, easily impressionable kids, often from dysfunctional families and without a social network, are recruited to do the dirty work for a few lousy bucks, with hopes of one day making it big in the criminal underworld.

Go work at MacDonald's instead, the pay is the same and at least you'll have a clean conscience.

The mafia declares war on open source software

This sounds too ridiculous to be true, but nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to the "intellectual property" dinosaurs of the world:

According to the International Intellectual Property Mafia Alliance, an umbrella group for the infamous criminals over at MPAA and RIAA, the use of, hell even encouragement to start using, open source software is equal to software piracy, or even anti-capitalism or possibly terrorism.

A joke you say? Unfortunately not. It's the copyright mafia doing what they do best.

I can't stress this enough: Don't feed the monsters. Stop the cashflow.

Guilty until proven innocent

The mafiosos over at the record companies (yes, the usual "axis of evil", Universal Music, EMI Music, Sony Music and Warner Music) continue their crusade to make the world an insecure place to live. According to Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and Svenska Dagbladet they insist that two of the Pirate Bay founders are still involved in the management of the site, and should be fined accordingly. Not only that, but they seriously expect that mere allegations should be enough, and that the accusers should have to prove their innocence! The witchburners of the 18th century would be proud.

Enligt skivbolagen har de två har brutit mot vitesförbudet "genom att delta i driften av fildelningstjänsten", och skivbolagen anser att bara det faktum att Pirate Bay fortfarande fungerar är tillräckligt för att de två ska anses ha överträtt förbudet - såvida de inte kan visa att de inte längre är delaktiga.

"So, you're not a witch, huh? Prove it, or you're obviously guilty and will be burned at the stake."

I actually had to read that last sentence a couple of times before I realized it was serious. The good old "guilty until proven innocent" tactics that most developed countries abandoned decades ago. You're kidding me. However I'm quite sure the court will continue to obey the entertainment industry no matter how seriously it violates basic human rights.

Extorsion is the new business model

A german parasite company called Digirights Solutions are specializing in hunting down and threatening alleged pirates on behalf of the entertainment mafia, demanding 450 euro for the victim to avoid a lawsuit. Whether or not this person is actually guilty is irrelevant. Approximately 25% of the victims pay up to avoid the devastating costs of a lawsuit. Much like most people would give up their wallet and watch to a crook on the street to avoid a beating or a bullet in the head.

The loot is split 80-20 between Digirights Solutions and the entertainment mafia, making it a very profitable "business" for both. In fact, Digirights Solutions claim it's 150 times more profitable than actually selling content online.

In other words, as far as this mafia business is endorsed and encouraged by corrupted governments in Europe and the US, there's really no reason for the entertainment industry to come up with new business models. The threats and bullying business model is by far the most profitable. And we all know ethics is not part of the equation.

Who knew Warner Brothers owned Casablanca...

Threats and lawsuits are in no way a new invention in the entertainment industry, and Warner Brothers have a long and proud tradition of harassing their customers, peers and actors:

Dear Warner Brothers,
Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.
It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca.
I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.
You claim that you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without permission. What about “Warner Brothers”? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about the name Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. We were touring the sticks as the Marx Brothers when Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor’s eye, and even before there had been other brothers—the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazov; Dan Brothers, an outfielder with Detroit; and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (This was originally “Brothers, Can You Spare a Dime?” but this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other one, and whittled it down to “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”)
Now Jack, how about you? Do you maintain that yours is an original name? Well it’s not. It was used long before you were born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks—Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Jack the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day.
As for you, Harry, you probably sign your checks sure in the belief that you are the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are impostors. I can think of two Harrys that preceded you. There was Lighthouse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of 93rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Unfortunately, Appelbaum wasn’t too well-known. The last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner.
Now about the Burbank studio. I believe this is what you brothers call your place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you remember him. He was a great man in a garden. His wife often said Luther had ten green thumbs. What a witty woman she must have been! Burbank was the wizard who crossed all those fruits and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such confused and jittery condition that they could never decide whether to enter the dining room on the meat platter or the dessert dish.
This is pure conjecture, of course, but who knows—perhaps Burbank’s survivors aren’t too happy with the fact that a plant that grinds out pictures on a quota settled in their town, appropriated Burbank’s name and uses it as a front for their films. It is even possible that the Burbank family is prouder of the potato produced by the old man than they are of the fact that your studio emerged “Casablanca” or even “Gold Diggers of 1931.”
This all seems to add up to a pretty bitter tirade, but I assure you it’s not meant to. I love Warners. Some of my best friends are Warner Brothers. It is even possible that I am doing you an injustice and that you, yourselves, know nothing about this dog-in-the-Wanger attitude. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that the heads of your legal department are unaware of this absurd dispute, for I am acquainted with many of them and they are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits and a love of their fellow man that out-Saroyans Saroyan.
I have a hunch that his attempt to prevent us from using the title is the brainchild of some ferret-faced shyster, serving a brief apprenticeship in your legal department. I know the type well—hot out of law school, hungry for success, and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion. This bar sinister probably needled your attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., into attempting to enjoin us. Well, he won’t get away with it! We’ll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin, and we’ll remain friends till the last reel of “A Night in Casablanca” goes tumbling over the spool.


Sincerely,
Groucho Marx

Source.

A conviction at any cost

Have a look at Peter Sunde's blogpost on how the dutch branch of the entertainment mafia, Brein, are committing a serious crime fabricating evidence in a desperate attempt to convict some people of something that shouldn't even be considered a crime, in a country these people have no connection to whatsoever.

So, what's worst? Fabricating evidence to get people wrongfully convicted, or possibly aiding in copyright infringement by providing an infrastructure that lets people communicate and share files with each other? Who should really be on trial here?

Of course the outcome of this ridiculous case is already given. Brein's fabricated evidence will be accepted without and questions by a court consisting of people with close affiliation to copyright lobbying organizations, and another miscarriage of justice will be committed.

If anyone's interested the documents are available at wikileaks.

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.