Tag Archive for 'arrrrr'

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The Indie Paradox: Paying Rent Without Depending On Corporations

If you're not indie...Piracy happens for two reasons: people don’t have a lot of money, and 90% of everything is crap (or DRM’d, but that makes it crap). Therefore, by getting everything free, you won’t lose any of your hard-earned cash on that 90%. Unfortunately, because no money is going to the creators of the other 10%, they won’t continue making things for everyone to download free.

Large corporations have come up with a solution: go into the manufacturing business. They are now Digital Rights Manufacturing companies, creating new rights for themselves using a revolutionary new process known as “fellating lawmakers”. Their revenue stream comes from licensing these digital rights at high prices, and suing people who don’t pay. But it’s too expensive for indie artists and creators, and it doesn’t win you any friends.

Because of this situation, indie game developers are doing horrible things like experimenting with in-game advertising. I’m not saying this as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of annoying ads bombarding us. I’m saying this as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of depending on the advertising industry for revenue.

Think about it: TV series with devoted fanbases are cancelled because they don’t make enough ad revenue. Millions of websites depending on Google AdSense would go broke if their accounts were inexplicably terminated (I’ve read about this happening before but can’t find a link detailing it. Maybe I’m typing the wrong words into Goo…gle…wait a minute). And remember when GameSpot fired Jeff Gertsmann when their advertisers didn’t like his reviews? For people who call themselves indie, it’s not very indie-pendent.

The best way to be indie in any medium, be it game development, filmmaking, music, writing…hell, even running a business in general, the only party you should be depending on is individual people. Some may know them as “customers”, or “users” who “generate content” on your “social media application”, but let’s avoid such corporate-speak, as it makes baby Jesus cry and is killing America. But there’s still the problem of how exactly to make money on individual people anymore. In a world where art is hard work and people don’t seem to want to pay for it, one man will stand up to explain his opinion. That man is me. Reread the previous two sentences in a movie trailer guy voice, then click the jump-cut-continue-reading thingy:
Continue reading ‘The Indie Paradox: Paying Rent Without Depending On Corporations’

    Blue Gold: Terrifyingly Inspiring

    What better way to segue out of my recent torrent (pun very much intended) of anti-copyright, free culture hippie posts than to talk about an excellent documentary which I’d never have seen if it weren’t for the horrible, illegal practice of pirating movies on the high seas Internet? Blue Gold is a film I heard about when TorrentFreak reported the fact that the director was embracing the piracy of the movie, happy that more people would see the movie, and can they please donate. That’s not what the movie’s about, though. It’s about how the dwindling water supply on Earth could make us slaves to corporations if we don’t do something about it. Have a look at the trailer:

    The film is excellent, showing why the water’s disappearing, why it could kill us all, how governments and corporations (the line is blurry) are exploiting it, and how we can fix this whole fiasco. It proposes “the blue alternative,” which is a bunch of simple ideas that can be used to help rainwater get back into the ground and heal the disrupted natural cycle, among other things. I guess now we have to go blue as well as green. Can’t we just simplify it and go turquoise?

    Colorful buzzwords aside, everyone should see this movie. It’s available free on The Pirate Bay, and you can buy the DVD or donate from the official site.

      If You Like Stealing Music, You’ll LOVE Burger King’s Cheeseburger Deals!

      TorrentFreak has told its friends about Burger King’s new King Deals. So cheap, and so tasty. Oh, also, their ad makes no sense. Apparently, Burger King is like downloading music from the Internet, only legal.

      Check out the original post for the original ad. In the meantime, I’ll show you my improvements to it:

      Like downloading music from the Internet, only legal, and it's food, and not much like downloading music at all, but we digress,

        Update: Pirate Bay Lawyer Wants A Retrial

        Time to clarify my last post, as the news has surfaced in English from The Local, whose slogan is “Sweden’s news in English.” Convenient, no?

        “A lawyer representing one of the men convicted in the Pirate Bay trial has called for a retrial after reports that the judge was a member of the same copyright protection organisations as several of the main entertainment industry representatives.
        [...]
        One of the groups of which [Judge] Norström is a signed up member is Svenska föreningen för upphovsrätt (‘the Swedish Copyright Association’), where he is joined by Henrik Pontén, Peter Danowsky and Monique Wadsted, all of whom represented the entertainment industry in the case against file sharing site The Pirate Bay.

        The judge also sits on the board of Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property), a group actively advocating for more stringent copyright laws.

        Norström argues that he was not however swayed in his judgement by involvement with copyright protection groups.”

        Of course you don’t think you have a conflict of interest, Norström. You’re a member of the scumbag lobby, so you have to stay in character. It’s rather disgusting how the “good guys” upholding the “law” are resorting to political corruption. Granted, Norström did dismiss a lot of the charges based on lack of evidence, but that just amounts to covering his ass.

          The Pirate Bay Trial Judge In League With Plaintiffs?

          Speaking of The Pirate Bay verdict, it seems there are some dubious connections between Judge Tomas Norström, who presided over the trial, and copyright lobbyists. One of the defendants, Peter Kolmisoppi, tweeted that the story was breaking in Sweden. At the moment, that’s the only place the story was broken. Here’s what I can discern from a translation into English.

          “I fredags dömdes alla fyra grundarna av The Pirate Bay till ett års fängelse och över 30 miljoner kronor i skadestånd. Men nu visar en granskning som P3 Nyheter har gjort att domaren i Pirate Bay-målet kanske är jävig. [On Friday sentenced the four founders of The Pirate Bay to a year in prison and over 30 million in damages. But now a review of P3 News has made to the judge in Pirate Bay case is perhaps biased.]
          [...]
          Vår granskning visar att det finns kopplingar mellan domaren i Pirate Bay-målet och målsägarsidan, det vill säga film- och skivbolagen och deras advokater.
          [Our review shows that there are links between the judge in Pirate Bay case and target ägarsidan, namely film and record companies and their lawyers. ]
          [...]
          Henrik Pontén, Peter Danowsky och Monique Wadsted som företräder rättighetsinnehavarna i Pirate Bay-rättegången är också medlemmar. Föreningen skriver på sin hemsida att de är ”en mötesplats för kvalificerade upphovsrättsliga diskussioner.” [Here is the judge member at leisure. Henrik Pontén, Peter Danowsky and Monique Wadsted representing rights holders in Pirate Bay trial are also members. The association writes on its website that they are "a meeting place for skilled copyright discussions."]
          [...]
          Föreningen jobbar med frågor som patent och mönsterskydd, men har också verkat för en starkare upphovsrätt. Här sitter domaren med i styrelsen. [The association works with issues such as patents and designs, but has also pushed for a stronger copyright. Here sits the judge with the Board.]

          If I’m interpreting the broken translation correctly, the photo accompanying the article depicts the judge at a meeting with copyright lobbyists (debatable since “here is the judge” is used in two sections). There is also apparently evidence that he either knew the lobbyists personally or sat on their board. I’m definitely not getting the full story since the only comprehensible English is from Kolmisoppi’s tweets, but there’s certainly something fishy about this.

          I’ll be watching this, and I’ll give an updated rant as soon as someone who can translate from Swedish gets on the story.