The February March Against ACTA

Vivara

Hey Guys,

This Saturday February 18th, there is a march from Daunt Square at 15.30 in peaceful protest against ACTA.

For those of you who don't know what ACTA is yet, there is an excellent explainer on the march's website: thefebruarymarch.com

If you're on Twitter, be sure to follow the march @thefebmarch. There's links to the Facebook Event and stuff from the website above.

We need as many people as possible!

Where is the march to and what level of disruption do ye intend to create to traffic etc?

TanG411

Good. I couldn't make the Dublin protest.

Doing my best to spread the word. @Anonyops on Twitter have tweeted it to 140,000 followers. I've shared it to everyone I can.

Here's hoping there's a decent turnout.

minidazzler

That video uses copyrighted material while spouting on about digital rights.

I'm not a fan of ACTA, SOPA or any other measures which are bad laws against copyright infringement which are too broad, but there does need to be something to try to prevent copyright infringement. These laws are the wrong way to go about it though.

Vivara

minidazzler wrote: »

That video uses copyrighted material while spouting on about digital rights.

Actually, WMG (the recording company) allows people to use their material in YouTube videos. So do most recording companies.

Thanks guys for the support. I'm only one of dozens of organisers here. The aim is for it to be a peaceful protest, but we assume there will have to be disruption to traffic. The march will most likely go past the City Hall and then back around down Patrick's Street or something like that. It's not my area, though. All of that will be decided by the day, though.

eth0

minidazzler wrote: »

That video uses copyrighted material while spouting on about digital rights.

I'm not a fan of ACTA, SOPA or any other measures which are bad laws against copyright infringement which are too broad, but there does need to be something to try to prevent copyright infringement. These laws are the wrong way to go about it though.

The days of buying and selling imaginary goods are coming to an end. Here we are rowing about who owns which idea and who wrote which line of code while in China and other countries they are busy getting the job done, building what ever they need, building on other people's work without the fuss. Intellectual property is actually holding us back in a big way.

Only massive companies have anything to gain from intellectual property law and thats not because they are such innovators but because they like to invent a thing once or produce a few good songs or filums and spend all eternity milking the royalties.

Really the sooner copyright is done away with the better.

indough

and in this copyright and royalty free world what will be the incentive for artists or musicians or film makers or computer programmers to work if they cant earn a living from it?

teafornine

I'll be there like net-saor.

and in this copyright and royalty free world what will be the incentive for artists or musicians or film makers or computer programmers to work if they cant earn a living from it?

old paradigm. plenty or existing violations to this (free distros, free and even anonymous art, free-to-dl music, etc.). Inadequacies of applying pre-digital frameworks to an accelerating digital society.

the_syco

eth0 wrote: »

while in China and other countries they are busy getting the job done, building what ever they need, building on other people's work without the fuss

I'm well aware of how China has stolen stealth technology from the US military.

eth0 wrote: »

Really the sooner copyright is done away with the better.

So you think that if people shouldn't make money from writing a book, a poem, a piece of software or a game? The mind truly boggles.

indough

teafornine wrote: »

I'll be there like net-saor.


old paradigm. plenty or existing violations to this (free distros, free and even anonymous art, free-to-dl music, etc.). Inadequacies of applying pre-digital frameworks to an accelerating digital society.

and these are all done as side projects by people who get paid/have already made big bucks for their other work. or do you think these people exist on some separate biological plane to the rest of us where they don't have to eat to survive or something?

its an amazing society we live in where people think they have some god given right to have whatever they want for free and to hell with those hard working people who want to get paid for their work. but it's okay to shaft them and the industry that supports them because they don't make a physical product.

by all means pirate stuff but don't try and paint this as some sort of moral crusade because that is just ridiculous. i support protesters who are actually against the legislation for the right reasons but they would be few and far between tbh.

eth0

Just because one doesn't go around selling individual copies of a piece of work doesn't mean its impossible to make a decent living off a thing.

The days of millionaire singers and filum stars are coming to an end but they were on the way out years ago since music labels have got better at getting away with not giving these people money to begin with. The film crowd aren't as deep in the sh1t but their days are numbered too. No amount of DRM and stupid laws is going to change that, no point trying to drag the disadvantages of the old world (things being hard to copy) into the new in order to preserve these lads.

indough

eth0 wrote: »

Just because one doesn't go around selling individual copies of a piece of work doesn't mean its impossible to make a decent living off a thing.

The days of millionaire singers and filum stars are coming to an end but they were on the way out years ago since music labels have got better at getting away with not giving these people money to begin with. The film crowd aren't as deep in the sh1t but their days are numbered too. No amount of DRM and stupid laws is going to change that, no point trying to drag the disadvantages of the old world (things being hard to copy) into the new in order to preserve these lads.

what? record and film companies are going to continue to make money because they will eventually get their way and the days of people getting their media for free will come to an end or at the very least it will require a fair bit more skill to get away with it (just like in the early days). what will happen is that electronic delivery of media will become the norm and whilst it will eventually become cheaper than it ever has been to consume media by legal means it isn't going to be quite the gravy train it has been for the last while. we are already seeing it with services such as netflix

musicians have been getting ripped off by suits from the very beginning so its hardly anything new and evidently doesn't spell the end of anything but the fact remains they make more money working with them than they ever would have without them. and sure there are famous examples of artists who have successfully released free stuff but they were already famous so they had nothing to lose and of course they were going to be successful because they already were successful and well known. a completely independent system simply wouldn't work on a wide scale because up and coming artists wouldn't know enough about how to promote themselves or distribute their music and they already have enough to worry about in learning how to play and coming up with decent original work.

and you might as well just forget about proper independent film making as a widespread concept straight off the bat because the cost of shooting even anything simple is extremely prohibitive. i mean there are obviously exceptions to the rule but if you relied on them alone then there might be a handful of watchable films released in a year.

and regardless of any of these facts, why would you try and impose a system where nobody who works in an IP field can demand payment for their product just because some people decide to forego what they are due? there is absolutely no moral high ground to be had in trying to put these people out of business just because you don't feel like paying for their products but don't have a problem with using them at the same time. people like to vilify the business side of media but it does serve some important enough purposes.

its ok to point out flaws in the system but to suggest the abolition of copyright and IP law in general is just beyond ridiculous and not thought through at all.