The parasites of copyright (real copy wrong)

Some sense has to come under light in the ridiculous debate about Internet “piracy” and copyright (copy wrong). Yesterday, December 22nd 2010, the Spanish Parliament has rejected a sneaky law which would give the “creators” the right to shut down the websites which allow users to reach the URL’s of copyright protected materials. The Spanish cultural establishment woke up today with a terrible hangover. They wanted to be judges of something that is not even a misdemeanor under Spanish law and granted, decide what is allowed or not into the web. No, sorry but no.
The classic model of copyright is dead. It is based on absurd rights (70 years of benefits after the death of the author) and the cherry on the top of the pie is the fact that the financing of the absolutely majority of it is done with public money: directly or indirectly. In Europe in general and in Spain in particular, there is no right to point fingers and accuse of crime an internet user who downloads a work that was funded with taxes of the very same users. Directly subsidized or indirectly is the same. The structure of the collecting agencies which use real mafia type of pressure and benefit the well-off artists and almost never the small fishes of the ocean is rotten and must be wiped out completely to start to have a serious conversation.

Demonstrators in front of Spanish Congress

I accept the right to not have somebody’s work abused and used but thieves (plagiarism for instance which there are plenty of accusations in the industry and nobody dares to confront it) but once I write something, get a fee for it, it is not mine but public. Yet, I wish millions will read it, watch it, etc. etc. The struggle is to get people to watch good work. That is the real profit. There are plenty of possibilities to monetize content creation and audiovisual work done with subsidies or TV stations antenna rights are not eligible to complain in any instance for further compensation. The absurd argument that it represents more than 4 percent of the GNP forgets to mention that in the fallacious account it includes: newspapers, radio, TV stations, film, gossip magazines, etc. etc. Sorry but no, not with public money: get your salary and go out singing your guts out or dancing or stepping in a theatre stage (which in Spain is doing great by the way) and collect more benefits. Otherwise, Mr. and Mrs. “Divas”: strike! Will the government intervene as strong as you represent 4 percent of the GDP? I guess not. The establishment lives in five stars hotels, travels first class, first not business (some with their private jets), eat in Michelin 3 stars restaurants and charge it all to their own private LLC. I dare anyone of them to open their personal and business Income Taxes to the public. Basically nobody pays taxes and much the opposite, many collect taxes returns. Of course, the general public seeing the lavish lifestyle have no sympathy for such poor people.
As Freddy Mercury sang in “We’re the champions”: ‘you brought me fame, fortune and everything that goes with it and we thank you all’. And yes, it has been no bed of roses but you or me are no better to the world than a doctor, a scientist, the butcher or the garbage men who don’t have privileges for 70 years after our death day. Let’s ring the bells, it is Christmas and another sort of rights most be defined instead of parasites eating our turkey. Poor starving stars, the Red Cross could be of some help may your fans turn their backs to you.

Anything goes: now the financial system secrets will be rocked

As we all are seen, transparency is not the only effect that the leaks have had until now. Much the opposite who felt affected by it fought back with every single available weapon. Assange is only still alive because he is savvy enough to have established an insurance policy with much more heavy duty information. For instance the hint (the real threat of revealing Bank of America’s and other financial institutions real state-of-affairs) is not an empty threat but something that will come along… perhaps bit by bit but is in the making.

The truth of the matter is there is not a single government on the face of the planet that is not dirty and smeared with plenty of sh*t under their shoes and sometimes in their faces. Zapatero (Spain Prime Minister) in spite of his “independent and transparent” discourse has offered a gigantic military base for military operations to the U.S.A. to control North Africa from Spain; Lula brave’s anti-imperialist discourse “went to Washington for Bush’s blessing before taking office”; Berlusconi… well, why bother with him?

Governments are dirty by essence and cannot be another way. The oligarchies and the politicians are the real patriots, they love the countries in which they are powerful, above the laws (although not publicly) and hold the economic fictitious system. The middle class is oblivious to the real world we live in. The lower classes have a better sense of the real world given the dispossession of basics make real consciousnesses arise.

Financial System

Nevertheless, it is from the illustrated ranges of the middle class where the leaks and the hackers come from and with the rage which only the youth have they are shouting from the depth of the Internet world: “we are up to you and we are going to get you”. Can the U.S. or anyone as a matter of fact win the battle against an army of well educated, tech-savvy and the majority digital natives? I doubt it. As I have said some days ago, the depression started with smart asses and it is just beginning, not ending. The leaks and the tremendous outrages the government counter-actions have taken are provoking the unthinkable: hackers are up with their tools to bring down the banking system, the credit card companies and Internet fortunes that are willing to obey the central intelligence services (because they already belong to the oligarchy themselves) and try to shut the leaks out of the map. These realities are here to stay: leaks shall leaks, liars shall try to shut down the leaks (present and futures) and hackers (middle class upper echelon, never too much to remark) are going to fight back, from anywhere to everywhere.

DONATION PLEASE!

Laura Flanders speaks out

Here goes a short video with plenty of good perspectives about what will come next in the whole ordeal of Assange and Wikileaks:

<

 

And Previously:

Assange, Wikileaks and Freedom of Speech

It was bound to happen and I am afraid it is just the start of it. Obama has decided to take stakes of the Assange’s Wikileaks matters in his own hands in a supposedly “treason” act committed by Mr. Assange. You can change colors but you cannot change essences. Julian Assange owes no allegiance to the United States of America because he is not subject to their laws neither bears the U.S. nationality. Neither do me nor 96% of the World population. Therefore he cannot be accused of treason.

What is the price of his head?

Assange’s determined to expose documents that were available according to US own accounts to more than 3 million American citizens (many of them who hate their country’s policies) and may have received the information from a myriad range of sources. Why don’t the US government start to look into their own back yard instead of looking for scape-goats abroad who did not harm, spied, killed, blackmailed neither pressured judges, politicians, human rights advocates as their diplomats have done along the whole of last century promoting “coup d’état’s” (Pinochet for instance); boycotting legitimate governments; setting up torture camps in shadowy dictatorships, etc. etc. etc. The king is naked and will have to bear with the shadow and shame of its own ineptitude. As I said before, spying is an old game, very old and we all have done it with somebody in some point of our lives: spying the girlfriend, a neighbor, your business competitor, your son or daughter. It’s all about invading private matters. The U.S. do its game so do other countries and we all know. Why to respect the U.S. as a God’s Commandment of the Universe? For the U.S. freedom is relative to the “others” and absolute for themselves. As Erich Holder Jr., U.S. Attorney General had the chutzpah to declare: “To the extent there are gaps in our laws, we will move to close those gaps, which is not to say that anybody at this point, because of their citizenship or their residence, is not a target or a subject of an investigation,” he said. Mr. Assange is an Australian citizen. Still, Mr. Holder said Monday that he did not believe that Mr. Assange’s citizenship or location was a barrier to prosecution.

Eric Holder Jr. U.S. Inquisitor

Assange probably will disappear from the face of the planet without leaving a trace behind but he will have left written his name in history as the “crazy” guy who dared to show his face and expose the ridiculous and inefficient acts of the U.S. government: a country which wasn’t able to oversee their own financial system and threw the world in chaos deserve little respect and only can impose itself by force as it’s showing now. The “open-minded” Obama, the “guy” who used openness and crowdsourcing to be elected, promising a new “world” to his people and to the rest of the world is up for Assange’s head. The eagle is hurt in its self-esteem and claims for blood as if Julian Assange was a Bin-Laden of the Internet up to blow the towers of the U.S. secret services and bring down the U.S.!!! Bad news? No, good news! Many Assanges will sprout along many countries in the world. The solution? Why not shut down the whole of the Internet? It may solve the problem.