What is Digg?79 Comments
- vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -5/+47"F you and your blanket statement. Like it's *my* fault my government is a complete sellout to corporations? Prick"
Why yes. Yes it is. Of course it is my fault to. I'm an American and as you see here I haven't been much of help towards the situation. I don't vote much... I buy products of companies and I know its wrong and I don't speak out that much as I should.
However, we can not say it is not our fault. For you and I are still alive. If we really wanted to do something about it we could either:
1.) Go out and vote
2.) Go out and protest
3.) Organize a resistance groups to corporations and government beings
Two and 3 require much more effort than many of us are willing to do and will cost us our families and possible our freedom and lives for what would happen.
Personally, I am going to take the day off from work November 12 and vote my mind. I haven't voted since the 2000 election but I know this is more important than the 2004 election because we have contended congressional seats that affect what happens to the political makeup of the House and Senate.
So no... Don't tell me it isn't your fault unless you have gone out and voted... Been to a protest... Or have been arrested for some anti-government action (sit in or some other non-violent means of resistance). We are all to blame for what we have allowed. If only 10% more of our population (nay maybe 1-5%) had bothered to go out and vote we wouldn't be in the situation today.
What we have sowed with our apathy was been reaped by the crap we deal with today.
So this November 12th... Take the day off and vote no matter who you are and no matter which side you are going to vote for. - szelij, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41In the end the raid was good news...it brought the movement to the forefront of the media war and free publicity almost certainly will help propel the pirate party to more votes..
- cal3b, on 10/12/2007, -4/+41"You foreigners have no idea. Do you really think it's fair to lump all Americans together?"
No, I don't.
But it seems you have lumped the rest of the world together.
Double standards? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+43You foreigners have no idea. Do you really think it's fair to lump all Americans together? I think outsiders tend to forget almost 50% of Americans have a very different view of how the country should be run. We hate our government at the moment too, but attack the political parties reponsible instead of the whole country.
- wharlie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+30What amazes me is that the US is prepared to use a sledge hammer (trade sanctions) to crack a nut (copyright infringement).
It just goes to show the amount of influence organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA have on the US government.
It sure puts the Swedish govt in a difficult position.
On one side you have the economic power of the US government and on the other side you have a groundswell of support amongst the Swedish people.
They seem to be in a no win situation. - Aidenag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28Yes, Yes keep informing the world about Pbay, other Torrent Trackers, and the movement in general.. PirateParty US forming this month...
When will the MPAA learn we only do more when they piss us off.. - MrHolla, on 10/12/2007, -37/+58Damn Americans.
- tallmatthew, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22The economy of the United States is in no way adversely affected by copyright infringement. Only individuals and corporations who already have sick amounts of cash stand to lose anything from the Pirate Bay, and the industry has no one to blame but itself for not offering digital media before it became freely available. Tom Cruise has to take $15M for his next picture instead of $30M? Too ***** bad.
This all about big money people using American politicians as puppets. No one in the Fed shed a tear when manufacturing jobs on the East Coast were shipped off overseas. And they're planning a superhighway which will undercut the longshoreman, meaning even more lower middle class people out of work. We're supposed to think they're being patriotic when they threaten sanctions against Sweden now? *****. - lokoluis15, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20@sailor
"Stay off Digg too...it is a american product...as is the internet...as is most everything you enjoy...***** OFF"
Seriously man, what's wrong with you? Digg an "American product"? Stop acting so self righteous. Pirate's Bay is a "Swedish product" and they aren't telling anyone to ***** off, are they? It's just contrary to the spirit of the internet, its purpose is to share information and ideas everywhere in the world free of nationalism. Sure the Internet STARTED in the US, but it just wouldn't be the internet without the rest of the world, now would it? Stop being such a greedy, arrogant prick please. - phpirate, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18This is ironic in a way. I see the americans saying all kinds of crap about Canadians and they think its funny, yet when someone says crap about Americans now everybody is freaking out.
- phpirate, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18The MPAA is in the center of the universe, didn't you know?
- Emilianos2k6, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17First of all they should handle piracy within their country and leave us alone...
I hate it when they stick there nose in everything that goes on and they always create tension! - chetanw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12The shutdown of Pirate Bay made Internet headlines and served only three purposes:
1. It made Pirate Bay more determinded to stay afloat
2. It brought Pirate Bay to the attention of all of those folks who were unaware of it's existence (such as me) - free publicity
3. It depicted the MPAA as villians though in this case, they are really morally correct.
All we need is a way to allow the MPAA and companies to exist while at the same time allowing free sharing of content - similar to the books library system. - sbrown123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12"They seem to be in a no win situation."
Sweden has an easy decision to make: just ignore the U.S. government. The rest of the world is starting to find this out too. And even though the MPAA and RIAA have a lot of sway over them, so do other corporations that want to freely trade with Sweden. So just ignore the empty threats Sweden. - wilsonics, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Technology knows not borders, my friend.
Digg is international...it just happens to be in english...hosted in the US.
But be sure, that the spirit behind digg knows no boundary. I'm sure anyone can aggre to that.
Everyone is welcome here. - Rhipf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Actually according to the article WTO members can impose sanctions on other WTO members (i.e. the U.S. can impose sanctions on Sweden). So it isn't the WTO imposing the sanctions it is in fact the U.S. imposing the sanctions!
- fredrichl, on 02/10/2009, -6/+16What i, as a swede would like, is a total ban on American products, culture and software...We gotta learn to live without that *****, that way the amis can never do this again.
- diecastbeatdown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12after a draw with england and now facing germany in the worldcup, i think sweden has more to worry about than silly pirates.
- BaldMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Jag som svensk undrar vad du gör här på en amerikansk hemsida i såfall.
Translation: In that case, I as a swede would like to know what you are doing on an American site. - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9No, they're just like the film industry in the 40s. They didn't just own the movies, they, more or less, OWNED the actors/actresses.
- noisyb, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Trade sanctions against a EU country? Did GWB himself have this amusing idea?
Would someone mind to tell me what, except some terrible fastfood, Sweden might lose because of these sanctions? - JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"... is a total ban on American products, culture and software."
The most reasonable and sensible proposal I've heard thus far. Sweden and other like-minded contries should band together and create their own music and film industry free of copyright restrictions. - Beej, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I'm American, and I've talked to people all over the world, and you know what? They are all pretty friendly. Even the ones from Russia, France, Canada, Israel, and Iran. Most of them are normal people who are "border-blind" and would welcome you into their home.
(Come to think of it, the only anti-American slur I've ever heard directed toward me was in Ireland. But I hear they're short-tempered. ;) )
The bad apples are the ones that think the other bad apples are representative of the population of the whole. Then other good people get caught up with them, and don't realize the actual people in the group that is irritating them so are actually pretty nice and share many of the same values. Maybe they even agree with your point of view.
But, whatever. Damn me. Damn me for pouring thousands of my own dollars into the fight against these insane copyright laws. Damn me for supporting causes that suggest a reasonable foreign policy. Good job. It makes me feel so appreciated to know there are people like you out there who will write me off no matter who I support or what I do.
I would say, "***** you and the horse you rode in on," and start supporting the aspects of my government that I hate simply to spite you, but that would make me no better than you, now would it? Instead, I'll not let your comment influence me, and I recognize that no matter what nationality you are, your attitude toward Americans does not represent that of your fellow countrymen*.
* If you are an American baiter, I'll direct my comment to foreigners with similar attitudes. But some Americans would do well to listen, too. - kevincannon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I don't think that would work. Swedish people have an incredible sense of democracy and personal responsibility.
Most of the rest of the world lags pretty far behind them in that regard. - Rhipf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Since I wasn't able to finish my editing in time let me add...
All that Sweden could do would be to ask the WTO to appeal the sanctions after the fact. This is simular to the U.S./Canada problems under NAFTA with respect to soft wood lumber and we all know how well that is going for Canada (incase you don't Canada keeps winning the appeals but the U.S. keeps ignoring the decisions). - el_jefe, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12@ dmron
You do not understand the American goverment and how it gets its power do you? - fani, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7wilsonics -
you can say the same about piratebay, no ?
"PirateBay is international...it just happens to be in english...hosted in Sweden.
But be sure, that the spirit behind PirateBay knows no boundary. I'm sure anyone can aggre to that.
Everyone is welcome here." - vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7"@Shurato"
My bad, I'm quite aware that its not November 12th (i had no idea why that was on my mind at the moment), but unfortuantley someone gave me a call at work and by the time they were done I had lost my chance to edit the document. Chances are it was because I was talking to them while I was typing it.
But it is still important we go out and vote. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Since when did Sweden become part of US territory? /sarcasm
US is trying to set up laws and lawsuits as if Sweden was their own country.
Well, US should really realize that, people are different, and no matter what you do, you can't stop people from doing something.
There still will be terrorism in Middle East(Mainly), there still be child rape in Cambodia, there still be the case that over half of population of china doesn't own a legit copy of Windows, there still are KKK groups with their marches, etc. Come on look at the news, no matter how many times you tell some one that something is wrong, their will always be people that will do it anyways.
Look at the torrent sites there are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_sites
And that is only a few, there is far more, in different languages, some even are blocked to people who don't live in the country where it is hosted. Speaking of which many small but quite largely used pirate/torrent communities actually use this process of protecting their groups.
Apperentlly their is a way if you have a website, you can make it that only people from a specific country can see it, thus it only is under one countries set of laws.
But with Pirate Bay being world wide open to every country, they get affected by everyone's laws, or so the US may think.
Viva La Pirate! - ByteGuerilla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I would imagine it's the same history book that seems to inform Americans that they single-handly won the First and Second World Wars.
I too agree to the other posts, though. A state should enforce its own laws within its own borders. - toolpc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8you forgot #4
4. The MPAA is living in the stone age - tnvwboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Piracy will continue regardless of the laws or technologies employed. That it's a brave new world of copywrite. What worked for the past decades does not work now. Digital media has changed the rules.
Books: 10-15 years ago a PDF copy of a book wasn't available. The easiest pirate copy would be a photo-copied version. Who's going to bother unless they just need to read a chapter or two (think textbooks).
Music: 10-15 years ago a dubbed cassette was about as good as you could get for pirating music. We all did it but it was so much work and never as good as the real thing we went and bought the CD or cassette.
Movies: 10-15 years ago you were VERY hard pressed to find a newly released pirate version of the movie that just came out last week. If you really wanted to see it you went to the theatre. You might record, on VHS, a movie from HBO (many of you did this too), but often it was easier to just go to Blockbuster or your local video store.
The book industry hasn't changed much yet, but with digital paper and easier to read digital displays coming out books will become more and more threatened.
The music and movie industries have continued to keep prices high, or raise them (think movie theatre prices) while quality has diminished. Consider how many of the movies that have come out in the last two years are REMAKES of past movies. A few music bands here and there come out and shine, but the amount of crap surrounding them is significant.
The industries need to adjust with better content and pricing structures that work for the average consumer. They will never be able to reclaim those who don't have a problem with downloading pirated goods until they make legitimate legal methods worth the time, effort and money.
But instead of inovating they litigate. It's all over the tech industry too. It's really a sad day for business as a whole. The customers have been forgotten and the shareholders rule all.
BTW I don't download illegal movies or music. But I boycott all RIAA labels (enjoy indies and used music stores) and may soon be doing the same for the MPAA. - hitkaiser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Trade sanctions? Bleh, imagine a world without IKEA.. impossible !
- cheesehead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's easy to lump all the poor Americans together and judge them on the actions of their gov't.
But I look at the direction of my own (Canadian) gov't and see they are also losing perspective as to how an effective democracy is supposed to funtion for the people, as opposed to financial interests..
I think a more effective approach would be for the enlightened in all countries to boycott all the corporations you can, as well as to take direct electoral action against their most embarrassing bumboy politicos.Don't have a solution for crooked judges and amoral lawyers at this time. - JohnnySoftware, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Suppose you were an actor who had a minor role in about one successful movie about every 4 or 5 years and was the lead in one very successful movie a dozen years ago. Back when you were in your prime, at the peak of your career.
Unfortunately, the movie was so popular it was widely pirated and the DVD was not reissued after the last edition sold out. Bean counters calculated, rightly, that it just would not be cost effective compared to other titles that had been overlooked/underworked by pirates.
You should be making decent income from royalties on that once-in-a-career lucky break just over a decade ago. But you are not - because of pirates. What would you feel was the right thing to do then? Keep their sites open and unregulated?
Suppose you are an author of the leading engineering textbook in your field, following years of work as an underpaid, though tenured and well-liked professor. Your book is the one used in half the universities that teach the subject, which is a lot of them.
You should be making a mint. But strangely, after two years as a runaway best seller in the field, sales mysteriously crater. You ask around with colleagues at other universities and you cannot figure out why. More, not fewer of them are requiring the book for their course.
You ask your publisher and they too profess to be mystified. They have noticed a similar trend with a couple of their other previously best selling textbooks.
The following semester they get back to you with the bad news.
Your book is not selling because a PDF of it was put on a series of websites, cataloged by author/subject/keyword/ISBN/filetype/filesize/filedate (and ironically, its list price which was not even mentioned in the PDF), and then indexed by a couple of services. All this, despite the PDF being an illegal bootleg pinched by - or from - a grad student you trusted to be a reviewer, it turns out. He has no money, so you cannot sue him.
This textbook was the capstone to your career. You had hoped to use the royalties to send your own children to a leading school to pursue their own academic & career inspirations. Now, unfortunately, that probably will not happen.
You can afford to send just one of them to follow their life's dreams. How will you pick which one? How will you break the news to the other two? You have to decided in a few more years. One just started in high school last week, the other two are in junior high.
How about this? You are a leading photographer with a worldwide reputation. Everyone knows your name.
You have been working on a private collection of pictures. They are ones you have taken over the past twenty years on your own during vacations and between paying gigs. Quite a few are great, and you know it with both your artistic and professional eye.
These will bring you a mint as a coffee table book when they are published next year. Unfortunately, the laptop with copies of most of them on it - the ones you liked the best, unfortunately - was stolen from your car a week ago.
The police caught the kid that did it, and they even recovered the computer. When you get it back you are disturbed to see the Internet login settings have changed. It is set to connect to a different provider and using a different username.
Looking in the browser history, you notice that in the past few days it has been to a couple sites that specialize in pirated files. You check and, sure enough, all your photos that were on its hard drive have been uploaded to not just one but two of them.
How do you proceed? Do you still move ahead with plans to sell your coffee table book? Is it even worth bothering now? With a sick feeling in your stomach you realize that this book will not be the runaway best-seller that you had been envisioning in your mind's eye for the past decade.
Websites like the 'bay or the ones they index probably don't publish biographies like that on their home pages, do they?
Welcome to the hall of smashing dreams. Just smashing. Wonderful. Snaps, everyone. Big props to the people who make it happen. - clevershark, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5If the MPAA wants action from the Swedish government, they should do what they do at home and bribe...er, I mean, contribute to the political campaigns of politicians.
- kabewm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@JQP123
"... no matter how many times you tell some one that something is wrong, their will always be people that will do it anyways."
By that logic, we might as well legalize murder. After all, "people will do it anyways."
Point of fact murder is legal in the US, it's called the death penalty. And FYI: There's a difference between murder and copyright infringement. If the Gov't is criminalizing behavior that the majority of it's citizens are doing, then the law needs to be changed plain and simple. I disagree with copyright infringement, but I dislike the idea of technology being killed over non-infringing use (ReplayTV) and broadband being a laibility. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who were sued for illegal copyright infringement who had done nothing wrong (E.G. Accidental Open WiFi, Incorrect records from ISP, pre-teen kids downloading on Grandparents, etc). Simply having broadband today could lead to a lawsuit against you, and that's just wrong. - halik, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8umm first of all, it's WTO that imposes sanctions, not the US. So the most MPAA can do is to bring it up at the next summit. From there it would be another 5-8 years before WTO decides the issue and if it finds in favor of US, it allows to impose sanctions. In any case MPAA is just bluffing, just because IIRC there hasn't been a single WTO case dealing with IP.
- halik, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Excellent point!
Seeing as the euroland is an economic union, you cannot impose sanctions on just one member. You'd have to impose it on the whole eu. Good luck MPAA. - jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This is hilarious. What a weak country.
- BaldMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Somewhere around 10% of the total export.
- eliteturbo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Whole thing is blown out of proportion
- Hurricane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://pirate-party.us/
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Awww..... o.o
Well at least I tried. - halik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Here's a couple of points why MPAA is bluffing:
1. MPAA is not the US and US is not the WTO. Neither MPAA or US can impose sanctions because they feel like it. If anything the issue would have to be brought up at the next WTO summit(they never had to deal with IP issues before iirc) and then some 5+ years later they might reach a decision. If WTO decides against sweeden after couple more years, then economic sanctions could be imposed.
2. Sweden is a meber of EU. This a huge, huge disadvantage to MPAA's efforts. The european union is sort of a mix of free trade area and customs union. They have the same customs and tariffs for countries outside the union and charge NO customs/ trariffs/levies between each other. So you in fact CANNOT impose sanctions on just one memeber, because arbitrage would nullify all your efforts. (charge 20% on sweedish imports? they'll just ship them form finland), So any sanctions would have to apply to the entire EU... and it's very unlikely that US would want to distrupt trade between EU just because of this relatively miniscule issue. - JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I think a more effective approach would be for the enlightened in all countries to boycott all the corporations you can..."
I think the most meaningful way for the "enlightened" to boycott corporations is by quitting their cushy corporate jobs. That'll really fix 'em! Personally, I think it is the absolute pinnacle of hypocrisy for kids who've enjoyed all the rewards of daddy's corporate job during their pampered middle class upbringing to start trashing corporations.
- residual, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Really good read. Make sure you read the letters unfortunately they are in .pdf but whatever.
- ByteGuerilla, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I don't think the U.S. would have any problem bringing it's own sanctions against another country, regardless of how they're meant to go about it. In America, national sovereignty means the right for the United States to do whatever it likes to whomever it likes.
- asmodai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3So the non-involvement of the US in the world caused World War II? Ye gods, I don't know what book you read (if any), but it's high on the disinformation of how the world war(s) started.
Your other points are well constructed, but the first one is absolutely wrong, sorry. - wharlie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How did it work prior to copyright?
Beethoven, Shakespeare, Da Vinci?
Just because there wasn't an industry doesn't mean it can't work.
Artists are only worth what people are prepared to pay.
If this has to be artificially increased by property laws then so be it as long as it provides a benefit to society as a whole but not simply a means to make the middleman rich. -
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