Ok. So it’s on the tongue of many IT guys. The Pirate Bay conviction. So they apparently got 6 years of prison time, and a 30M crown fee (also, I have NO idea how much a Swedish crown is worth).

I say, ANY punishment is too much. I mean, it might only be obvious to us IT guys, and us nerds, but the whole torrent business is gonna run with or without TPB. Not only do we have many more trackers, but eventually if it keeps up, this is gonna get decentralized like other P2P networks. I don’t really think this is a good idea, which brings me to my next point.

Sweden and France. France is trying this new plan in which they want to cut off people who download ‘Copyright Infringed Material’. Like, two warnings, three times is strike. Gone is your internet. Sweden wants to punish file-sharers as well. Both are being really, really counter productive.

When you push people in corners like that, they will find a way to get out. That way out has already been dug out, people just need to discover it. Anonymous, encrypted P2P networks. No government or instance can touch it. (funny side note: did you know america only just recently started allowing encrypted material to get out of the country? They wanted the CIA and NSA to be able to read everything, and encryption can –and still does– firmly stand in the way of that)

But yeah. Once you start encrypting, god knows what gets through. The big issue I’m having with this, is that the REALLY BAD STUFF (i.e. Child Porn), will always be encrypted as well. This means that these anti piracy models help produce Child Porn.

So that’s argument no. one. Argument two has to do with business models. Right now, record labels are the largest part of the music industries. Not the artists you love, not the people behind the scenes. No, the record companies have the biggest piece of the cake. Big artists (like Metallica) are able to squeeze money out of these labels, because they have money for lawyers and the likes.

This business model STINKS, and here’s why:

1. Piracy. I just explained this just now. They won’t be able to stop it, and it indirectly helps Child Porn producers.
2. The smaller artists don’t get enough space and air time, because of the record labels.
3. Stimulates the sales of regular CD’s, which are bad for the environment. Contrary to downloads (which can also be better quality. I see 96Khz Stereo 16-bit lossless songs in the future.)
4. Point 3 goes for the Movie industry as well. No worries about wether next-gen HD-DVD or Blu-ray becomes the standard.

Many industries are already adapting to this new medium called the ‘interwebs’. First, I’d like to take Valve’s ‘Steam’. They sell games. They sell them cheap, easily, and it just works. I don’t know much about DRM (too complicated to get into right now anyway), but I know that with Steam, it just WORKS.
My second example is about web-comics. A lot of comic artists, especially those who are learning, never really had a medium on which to distribute their works. Nowadays, a lot of comics on the web are able to survive solely on merchandise, or advertising. Isn’t that doable with music? Wait, it’s already being done. A good friend of mine tries to shove ‘Spotify‘ (oh, if anyone can hook me up with an invite, I’d love it) down my throat. And with good reason. It’s free music, with minimal advertising. Basically the Youtube model; in a handy music application.

So I figure the governments are being influenced by the record companies (or retarded ‘music’ lobbies, like the RIAA) so much, that they lose the ability to see the logical outcome in things.

Long post is looooooooong.

Post Scriptum: I’d like to link the Dutch people here to the blog of a friend of mine, name Florian Cats. I’m building his site for him, so that should be something to look forward too… 0_0