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.

A double set of morals is twice as good as one!

Or so artist Lily Allen seems to believe. She's stirred up quite a commotion lately positioning herself as a firm believer in draconian, revolting laws enabling the music industry to cut the Internet access for people suspected of piracy without any form of trial or hearing, let alone a sentence.

Her attempt to brainwash the public on her anti-piracy blog "It's not alright" (which she has now deleted), backfired badly. Not only did she have to take a lot of verbal abuse from alienated fans, it was also discovered that Mrs. Allen herself has been quite the busy little pirate, creating mixtapes of copyrighted material and distributing it to the whole wide world through her website, lilyallenmusic.com.

So, if anything the RIAA should come knocking down your door, Allen, and slap you in the face with a 50 million dollar lawsuit, before they cut off your Internet connection. See how you'd like the record mafia treatment, you ignorant bitch.

Ben Franklin was way ahead of his time

Found the following quote by Benjamin Franklin on this blog (which, by the way is an excellent blogpost for those of you who read Swedish):

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety."

It's a classic, and never has this been more true than it is today, with obtrusive, oppressive "anti-terrorist" and "anti-piracy" laws stripping us of basic human rights and civil liberties all in the interest of "protecting the public" (as if any of us have asked for it...) and that greedy entertainment industry. "Hey, if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about", right?

Poor old Ben would twist and turn in his grave if he knew how humanity had degenerated in the 200 years or so after his death.

Exit Mr. Schulman

The website of the not-so-successful political analyst and not-so-funny comedian (or whatever he is), Alex Schulman, will be shut down due to lack of funding. Big surprise.

Must be caused by those damn pirates who just want to get everything for free. It seems they are the cause of most economical problems these day.

Tricky Dick

Swedish writer Dick Harrison has probably done more to hurt his own career lately than any pirate could. This cartoon character has made a complete ass of himself while debating the Pirate Bay verdict and other piracy questions on national TV, demonstrating both a lack of knowledge and a lack of manners. He has openly applauded the highly questionable and ridiculously harsh Pirate Bay trial verdict, claiming that he would have loved to see an even harsher sentence (...). Not only that, but the Dick is also highly in favor of the Ipred law, a revolting piece of work designed to protect the profit of the entertainment industry at the sacrifice of personal integrity and privacy.

Following all the ill-informed nonsense and ridiculous TV-appearences, Mr. Harrison appears to have become a victim of harassment, brought to our attention in this article by his charming fiancee, Katarina Lindberg. Seeing as Dick Harrison is no stranger to harassing people himself, it's tempting to say that what goes around comes around. Bad karma and all that.

Still, frustrated pirates, or local loonies, whoever it might be, should not stoop to his level like this. There are better ways to fight the insanity of Tricky Dick and others. Informed argumentation worked remarkably well on TV, for instance. Keep going down that path.

I will refrain from commenting on Katarina Lindberghs rant about threats and freedom of speech, as I guess everyone can see the obvious irony in them. However, I found this little piece of text a bit amusing:

Vi skall bemöta våra motståndares åsikter med argument, men inte kränka dem som människor. Om det finns människor som vill argumentera för att det skall vara okej att sno andras grejer, visst sätt igång att slipa argumenten, för ni har ett tufft jobb framför er.

Right. So Lindbergh want's to fight her opposition with good arguments (clearly her fiancee doesn't agree with her on that one), and in the very same sentence she accuses people having different opinions about copyright laws for promoting theft? Very smooth, Lindbergh. Very, smooth.

Piracy is what...?

Does this scenario sound familiar to you:
- You go and buy a new DVD
- You put it in your DVD-player, go get some popcorn, a beer or whatever snacks you're into, and press play on the remote control.
- After several annoying commercials (mind you, this is a movie you've actually paid money to buy, yet still the entertainment industry is bold enough to put commercials on it - all to make a few extra bucks!) you're force-fed (the next chapter and fast forward functions are temporarily disabled) the ridiculous, boring and completly untrue "Piracy is stealing" ad.

First of all, I expect commercials on TV, but on a DVD that I've actually paid for? No thanks!

Second, piracy is not stealing. Claiming that a copyright infringement is the same as a theft is as ridiculous as claiming that running a red light is the same as murder. They are two completly separate crimes, and can not be compared in any way. So please, stop this ridiculous propaganda.