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Indiana Gregg to The Pirate Bay: The Internet Police Are Coming
Date : 2008 07 04 Category : Web News
TorrentFreakA little while ago we wrote about the exchange of emails between artist Indiana Gregg and The Pirate Bay. Indiana wanted The Pirate Bay to remove torrents linking to her work, which they refused to do. Now Indiana has a response for The Pirate Bay and file-sharers in general. It doesn’t pull many punches.
Recently we wrote about the exchange of emails between vocalist Indiana Gregg and Peter Sunde at The Pirate Bay. Indiana and her label asked Peter to remove some torrents but he refused, instead publishing the details of their correspondence in the site’s ‘legal’ section. The exchange caused quite a stir on the web and the news today is that the debate is not over - at least as far as Indiana is concerned, turns out she has a lot to say - as well as sing.
TorrentFreak heard that Indiana had a message for The Pirate Bay, the BitTorrent community and file-sharers in general, so we caught up with her to find out exactly what. She told us that although she agrees with the concept of file sharing, she believes that musicians and writers need to make a living or at least enough money to enable them to re-invest into their creation. She also gave us her opinions about how file-sharing will be ‘policed’ in the future and notes that the methods may not be 100% fair. “With all forms of change, there are always the up-sides and down-sides,” she told us.
It’s not very often an artist will speak as openly or at such length on this subject as Indiana has. Some people are going to like what she has to say. Thousands, maybe millions are going to hate it, but there isn’t a debate when only one side speaks - so here it is - uncensored, controversial, outrageous and thought provoking.
Something tells us this debate is far from over…..
I felt misrepresented in the first article and obviously, my attempt at humor by stating I’m a ‘millionaire’ wasn’t appropriately quantified. Am I a millionaire because I have millions of ants in my garden? Is it because I have had millions of people listen to my music on sites like MySpace or YouTube? Is it because I’m grateful to be healthy? How people quantify ‘richness’ in their lives depends on how people perceive value. And, yes, I’m guilty of fueling Peter Sunde’s fire and animosity. I can image it’s not easy in his position just now considering the amount of angry artistic people who are fronting against his cause. I’m sure he has his core values that he wants to defend… I have mine… and I’m not afraid to speak about them… for the sake of music.. and the common good.
The Pirate Bay: The Sinking Ship…..My Response
The Wild West of the Internet seems to be getting seriously out of hand and i’ve been wondering if and when the Internet Police will come and sort it all out. I mean… this is the new Wild West…
We’ve all heard and read every form of complaint about the Internet. From cyber-bullying, to child pornography sites, to copyright theft in the form of ‘file-sharing’.
Imagine….What if the Internet had ‘frontiers’. Why can we go all over the world on the Internet without a passport? Why are cybernauts allowed to steal goods from the store ’shelves’ and ’shop windows’ and justify it as ’sharing’? Since the birth of the Internet, people have been hacking software, stealing music, books, films, television shows, credit card numbers, eBay accounts, IP addresses… you name it, if it’s out there and can be downloaded, it’s being virtually stolen from under your nose.
So, why is this Wild West so hard to monitor? Why are people up in arms and waiving their guns wildly… … Are these new pirate ships sharing other people’s goods for gold? Of course they are… yes, I’m speaking about the torrent sites… and all the other sites who are making money on other people’s back…
Is the Internet really that much ‘bigger’ than the ‘real’ world? I think not. I believe that in the near future, we will all be using our Internet passports. If the government can do it in the real world, what’s stopping them from monitoring this new ‘Wild West’ phenomenon of the Internet in every town, city, state and country. I mean… Don’t we have just as much right as citizens to be protected on the Internet as we would be anywhere else? And really, the only people who would disagree with this idea are people who either are engaging in illegal activity or people who claim ‘civil liberty and freedom of speech’ on the Internet, but remember guys, those freedoms are only good until you begin to harm other people.
You don’t have freedom to shout from the rooftops at 3am outside your neighbor’s house…. and it’s certainly not your civil right to steal from your local baker and share his cream puffs outside his shop window…either, is it? Allow me to explain.
Let’s take one of the major forces on the Internet for example. Let’s look at all of the big music content sites (such as MySpace, Yahoo Music, etc) who seem to be huge driving swarms of traffic on the Internet. When you see the amount of advertisements per page and click, you know you can almost hear the ‘kerching’. These sites are like interstate junctions at rush hour (24 hours a day) so to speak. Torrents are no different…. Kerching kerching… They are giving away things like films, music, tv programs, software…. If it can be downloaded, it can be found… for free…
Thousands upon thousands of websites, sharing sites, and torrent sites exist. These websites are making a constant steady flow of income by using other people’s goods…they are pointing people to the goods (music) for free and selling masses of advertisement because people come to ‘leech’ the goods…these sites are basically allowing people to steal and destroy the music industry (which is in fact like shooting themselves in their own foot). The sites themselves claim to be ‘legal’. It is the user’s responsibility not to share copyrighted files.
So, you’d be silly to think that the Internet police are not planning on coming. How easy would it be to simply find all these people who are illegally ’sharing’ and slap a lawsuit on them. They can do that with a virtual push of a button. How hard do you think it will be for the ISP’s to hand over your Internet passport over to the new frontier police? They can see how much you’ve ’shared’ and potentially fine every single torrent user. I bet the torrent sites wouldn’t like that very much. Suddenly all their users would disappear.
Last year, in an article on Sky News, I read that a woman received a massive fine for file sharing on the KaZaA network. I thought, great! The police are coming.Then my husband sent me a link to another article titled “Should You Pay For Music?” I instantly thought….eh? Has the world gone mad? It’s like saying “Should you pay for petrol?” or “Should you pay for bread?” Hey, maybe I was being too ‘traditional’? I guess you could compare it to you, yourself, working all week long. You go to the bank and cash your check, and the banker takes your money without putting it into your account.
But, it’s much deeper than this. Whether or not the public is offered music for free or at a cost is not the real issue. The real problem lies in the fact that ’share’ sites are making money by pointing to other people’s copyrighted content… The end user gets it for free… the torrents make money…. And the musicians and artists?? Well, they get to live off of ‘fresh air’. Put simply, musicians will not be able to exist financially in order to create music if income streams are cut off (whether or not a record label comes to play).
And this is exactly what is happening.
As a musician and an independent record-label, I see my livelihood being sucked away every day through file-sharing and torrent sites which are allowing copyright material to flow in and out of their sites. All they have to do is claim that it’s the responsibility of the user to make sure the content they are sharing is not copyright protected material. Last year, in a period of two weeks, we tracked and found over 100,000 leechers of my album alone. Since then, we’ve found about 150,000 more, of which I, the artist, who put my heart and soul, time and sweat into an album and raising money to market that album, haven’t received a dime, not one red cent. Full torrent files of a complete album! Since it’s so easy to ’share’ the music….
In the real world, if everyone walked into HMV and took as many albums as they like… and said they were ’sharing’…errr… shoplifting? I really don’t see how people think they can give music or any other form of media for ‘free’ without it hurting the livelihoods of musicians. Sharing of copyright protected material is 100% illegal. However, since it’s not being regulated, it’s as if all of us musicians have just left the shop door open so that anybody can lift our guitars and gear out on the street and drive off with it. Isn’t that what’s happening? If you can’t make a dime from that album you just spent all your money, time and effort on because everyone is ’sharing’ it, then how are you going to buy your guitar strings, pay your landlord, or eat? You’ll be selling your gear soon and asking the boss for overtime. Right?
Torrent sites are claiming that they are creating ‘free promotion’ for musicians…. that’s right.. they claim that by giving all these people the opportunity to “share” the music, they are doing all of us musicians a big huge favor. In fact, they think that musician’s, songwriters, sound engineers, mastering companies, etc… should all live on ‘pure fresh air’. They blatantly state that they think it should be enough for a musician to make music out of their ‘passion’ for music… and well, since it’s ‘art’ it shouldn’t have a price….. er, ok….. maybe we should go and see if Fender will start giving away free guitars? Free gear for everybody!!! Yipppeee…. Free strings, free amplifiers, free microphones and drum kits……awww… how novel.
Here’s another funny one…the torrent site’s answer to how musicians are supposed to earn a living is: .. well, musician’s will just need to go out and gig some more in order to make a living. Maybe the band can sell a few more T-shirts, etc. etc. They rationalize stealing by stating that they go to gigs and buy tickets…(or that they plan to do so if ever their favorite band can finally afford to come and do a tour in their country). They claim that by allowing sharing, they are ‘leveling the playing field’.
Well, torrent sites are absolutely NOT leveling the playing field. They are just moving the field and reaping the benefits due to a temporary loophole in the law. I’ll bet that when all their users get slapped a fine for ’sharing’ in their respective countries the torrent sites won’t be there to support them. I doubt that they are planning to send all their users a bunch of ‘gold’ off of their pirate ship. So far, there have only been a few ‘examples’ made with users being slapped heavy fines. I have a hunch that this will CHANGE.
Aww, now there’s a word “CHANGE”.
Well, let’s talk about CHANGE for a moment. The torrent people even go as far as to quote Charles Darwin in an effort to justify theft:
“In nature, it’s not the strongest nor the most intelligent who survives. It’s the most adaptable to change.” (a quote from a torrent fanatic referring to Darwins theory).
Hmmm………..well, I assume that the torrent sites are planning to be adaptable pretty soon then, considering the number of pending lawsuits from pretty strong and intelligent companies who have not only proven their adaptability to change, but have changed the world as we know it (companies like Microsoft, for example).
Please.. spare us this kind of rhetoric guys. With the likes of Microsoft, Prince, and the IFPI going after you, any outsider might begin to wonder when YOU plan to adapt to ‘change’. It’s becoming evident that your business model is a sinking ship. Pretty soon, your users will be slapped with fines and more big companies will be slapping on lawsuits. Why not just sink your ship yourselves..eh? That’s really what you’re doing.. Your resistance to ‘change’ is in complete conflict with your very survival… Oh the irony. “Let’s have all our users quote Darwin”.
“Sharing is caring”, so they say. Torrent sites are promoting the idea that if people are taking the time to ’share’ other peoples copyright material it means they care. So, what’s stopping the torrent pirates from ’sharing’ the revenue from the advertising on their sites? Funny how it’s ok for musicians to live off of ‘fresh air’ but these pirates are meanwhile filling their boat with loot on the backs of other people’s hard work. Let’s see how adaptable to ‘change’ they decide to become… and put their Darwin theory where their mouth is….
Free promotion? Basically, torrents are promoting music that has ‘already been promoted’, so it’s not ‘free promotion’. There will be a small percentage of people who go through the millions of songs that are being seeded and perhaps discover something new because they searched for something they had already heard about. So, torrents are not only ‘moving’ the playing field, they are, in reality, making the playing field so un-even that bands are going to be the new “Sysiphus’s” trying to roll a ball uphill for eternity - although the sites would like to fool us all into believing otherwise.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Indiana Gregg to The Pirate Bay: The Internet Police Are Coming