US is set to censor internet

[seejay21]

life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to all have little meaning for private interests. they have been actively grinding down those liberties for the last 2 decades.

The American people have been wary of special interests for the last 200 years. Especially when it comes to the bill of rights, and the first amendment. They constantly challenge legislation that infringes on those rights, without fear of persecution.

Americans are human after all. They certainly get it wrong a lot, but the nature of the "system" allows for these things to be corrected.

The idea of the Internet being a free flow of information exchange would have been clear to the US Government in the beginning. I can't see them having an agenda to take it away, as they knew that would be impossible.

[turtledude23]

Unity, I understand where you're coming from, but come on, you use the word private interests as if it was an unstoppable force. Alot of good has come out of the U.S. despite the attempts of many STS people, the people are not powerless. Civil liberties and quality of life have gone up in the U.S. since the dawn of the 20th century, up until Bush jr. Private interests were always at play, and they don't always succeed. And while it's good to know the possible threats I think it's better at times to expect something better and play your small part in making that vision come true.

[unity100]

Americans are human after all. They certainly get it wrong a lot, but the nature of the "system" allows for these things to be corrected.

just tell me one thing that was corrected.

Unity, I understand where you're coming from, but come on, you use the word private interests as if it was an unstoppable force.

with the system at work in usa, they are an unstoppable force, unless you just ignore the rules of the system and do what you want to do. or, change the system.

whomever has the most money, not only makes the rules, but also has the justice.

[turtledude23]

whomever has the most money, not only makes the rules, but also has the justice.

That's not always true. Gandhi had no money and he overpowered the British Empire, which had alot of money. The founding fathers of the U.S. had little money and soldiers compared to the British Empire but they succeeded in making the world's first democratic country. You're being very pessimistic and frankly, narrow minded. Money = power only when normal people don't stand up for their own interests, but when they do, money becomes less and less important. If the world was really as dark as you think it is we wouldn't be here today, speaking freely, on the internet, with our own personal computer, in a heated/air conditioned house, in a safe country, with a long life expectancy. Humanity has come a very long way since before the industrial revolution in terms of the power of an average citizens, civil liberties, human rights, technology, and comfort - despite "private interests" that tried to stop all these things. If your theory was correct we would still be living in a feudal society with monarchs, and we're not. I really think you should rethink your bleak world view, it's not going to help you or anyone else. There's a big difference between recognizing potential threats and seeing unstoppable monsters around every corner.

[unity100]

Lack of information on history may allow one to make errors in judgment. it is understandable how you perceive my approach as 'narrow minded', due to the lack of enough information on the examples you have given. i am going to detail a bit, and tie them into an important point.

Gandhi had no money, and he was able to gain independence because his movement came at a time when entire western world was sick of wars, nationalism and imperialism. british and french have lost 300,000 a day in assaults on western front very often in world war i, the total cost of the war was too high and its results were too low. for the first time, a war touched almost every home, and it made people question the causes, justifications of such nationalism and imperialism. the support was so low that british government had itself in a harder position trying to justify what british troops were doing in russia, fighting against russians to bring back tsar into power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_inte..._Civil_War, for example. Similarly, they have partitioned anatolia, from old ottoman empire, but were not able to send troops to even enforce the occupation against the turks rebelling, and instead 'encouraged' greece to launch an occupation into anatolia, so that they would fight the turk independence movement. same goes for france. france was trying to enforce occupation of se anatolia with mere 300 or so soldiers.

in this climate, sympathy for the independence causes of the dominions, the minority rights were incomparably higher than it had been in the victorian era. gandhi, after starting his campaign in india, had received considerable support from british public, which could easily be seen from the way he was received in times when he visited britain after that point.

moreover, the press/media, which was an everyday element, bringing news of the world into every household, was contributing greatly to the support he was receiving in western countries.

had it been in the period of boer war or earlier, gandhi would have probably been killed by british governorial forces on the spot. just like how british army committed the first organized genocide of the century on their own kin (boers) in concentration camps.

so, gandhi was there with the right method, at the right time. had he been incarnated earlier, like mid 18th century, or, god forbid, earlier, he would have been easily killed. even if he wasnt killed, his effort would not be successful.

the founding fathers of the u.s., who are actually followers of the ideals of age of enlightenment mainly perpetuated by french thinkers and writers in 18th century, had mounted a fully armed rebellion, at a time when their oppressor was weak due to a long 6 year war with its arch enemy. and even in that case, the people who were desirous of the freedom on the ideals you speak of, were few compared to the mass of the population. so much that even at the start of the resistance, it was about taxes, and majority of people had no ideas about country without a king. people like thomas paine, whom the very people he woke up the freedom, were the ones who advocated the idea, even though ironically being effectively excommunicated from their own country by their countrymen, because of increasing regressionism and conservatism. u.s. revolution ended up the way it did, is due to a small minority among the rebels acting smart and moving towards a certain ideal. some of which were already revealed to us as wanderers, by the way.

.....................

the monster becomes unstoppable, when you fail to see it around the corner. because, by the time you reach the corner, the monster headbutts into you. in the above situations, those people you are giving examples of, did the right things, at the right time, in the right way. they knew what they were against, they didnt just sit it out by being optimistic, and just hoping, and just underestimating the desires and capability of those they were against. instead, they have moved consciously, totally aware of the situation, and didnt leave anything to chance. this even includes the founding fathers you speak of, extensively petitioning and procuring the support of a country, france, which had a monarchy much more strict and autocratic than britain, in all respects. had french navy not been sitting just to the west of the colonies and fighting british navy at every opportunity and halting them, things would turn out to be different.

money = power when normal people dont stand up for their own interests, and, the private interests you underestimate are much more aware about this than you, or any of those normal people. this is precisely why the parent corporations of a few media studios in united states totally own news distribution in united states http://pineight.com/mw/index.php?title=MPAA_news

have you heard about acta before ? i guess not. but maybe, being active on the internet, you had. however, majority of masses in america, STILL has no idea about the existence of acta, leave aside what it means for their own daily lives, despite their government is the one trying to push it onto entire world, including their own citizens.

the sole reason being the news channels never mentioning existence of it. its as simple as that.

and the sole reason why copying their daughter's birthday video to cd wont become a copyright infringement or a no-no in a few months, is that, the people in europe did not do the same - they did not wait and hope, or just expect the 'normal people' to stand up to private interests, but moved to protect themselves. a small contingent of aware people from sweden and a number of other small countries have alerted entire european parliament to what the usa was trying to do so effectively that, the parliament have passed a resolution effectively killing acta in essence, from the very points which the private interests were going to grope entire world from. the vote was adopted with 630 over 660 parliamentarians or something, a whopping majority, indicative of strong message. that being said, usa is STILL trying to push it, and trying to get whatever it can, even if it is a few small stuff at the expense of people's freedoms.

the above didnt happen by just sitting and expecting 'normal people to stand up'. normal people cant stand up to something they dont know that exists. normal people cant stand up to something, they have been conditioned to not to stand up to. that had only happened because people who were aware of the situation, a small minority, have worked to protect others. it didnt happen by just sitting and expecting 'everything is going to be alright'.

none of the freedoms you are enjoying today were acquired just like that and protected, just like that, by hoping and expecting. doing as such, is just deferring responsibility of protecting the good things into the hands of some 'other' people. its as simple as that.

at this state, european union have saved the world. because, usa's plan was to push it to any country other than russia, china, and then through the combined pressure, push it to them too. with eu blocking it off for close to a billion people, the treaty now is as good as dead. so basically, eu have taken over defending and protecting freedoms and liberties of people, including the american public, who are STILL unaware of what is happening, even as of now.

had people been more sensitive, and took more responsibility, maybe more in usa would be aware of what was going on too.

[unity100]

Aaaand lo.

They didnt even wait coica, or acta, or anything else.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/11/26/1450257

"This morning, visitors to the Torrent-Finder.com site are greeted with an ominous graphic which indicates that ICE has seized the site's domain. 'My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!' the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning. 'I firstly had DNS downtime. While I was contacting GoDaddy, I noticed the DNS had changed. GoDaddy had no idea what was going on and until now they do not understand the situation and they say it was totally from ICANN,' he explained. Aside from the fact that domains are being seized seemingly at will, there is a very serious problem with the action against Torrent-Finder. Not only does the site not host or even link to any torrents whatsoever, it actually only returns searches through embedded iframes which display other sites that are not under the control of the Torrent-Finder owner."

[Ali Quadir]

read all the comments.

As usual don't uncritically believe the first reports.

[unity100]

read the following comments. there was a confusion at the start regarding the seizure because not all people's isps have updated the dns records. when the dns records propagated it became clear what has happened.

this is not the first domain by the way. there are around 20 more like that seized recently.

[Ali Quadir]

IMHO the confusion still exists. This is not guaranteed to be a government action. In fact theres a good chance that it's someones idea of a publicity stunt.. This happens. I'm waiting it out but I would be really surprised if it turns out that this is for real..

.org is also a us domain... so wikileaks could be pulled down and for national security reasons that argument is much stronger.... Instead they pull a domain which belongs to a second rate piracy site which doesn't even have it's own trackers but directly inlines other pages.

I don't believe this just yet it makes no sense, and I've seen this before.

[seejay21]

Why should I be concerned about some seemingly sts web ring of websites that help pirate copyrighted work of others? Seems to me their karma is being rendered. Maybe i'd be alarmed if they weren't up to their necks in theft. Don't confuse justice with some made up illuminati conspiracy.

[Ali Quadir]

Justice means laws are followed. If there is no judge involved we are not talking justice.

[seejay21]

Really? in my experience, justice and the law/court have little in common, and only occassionaly resonate together. Justice is the morality of rendering rightousness. Judges don't do that. I have witnessed judges scorning the victor in court as immoral unrightous individuals and nothing for the law to do about it. Judges do not serve justice, they serve the letter of the law.

[Ali Quadir]

Laws are merely agreed upon ethics. Ethics are not absolute. I personally don't believe in these types of copyright even though I am a programmer. There are different models we can follow.

i personally believe in the copyright laws as defined in France a long time ago.

Did you know mickey mouse was not invented by disney? Disney took him, and then insisted on copyright.

[Crimson]

Laws are merely agreed upon ethics. Ethics are not absolute. I personally don't believe in these types of copyright even though I am a programmer. There are different models we can follow.

i personally believe in the copyright laws as defined in France a long time ago.

Did you know mickey mouse was not invented by disney? Disney took him, and then insisted on copyright.

There is no "Justice" when the system is run mainly by an elite. Many laws are created precisely to support this system and protect the elite. A large population in jails is completely innocent. A large segment of criminals are not in jails (see latest bailout...). This a density of choice and the ethics are pretty straight forward unless a Wanderer has different issues to "solve".

Copyright laws, by the way, does not lead to a soul memory complex. Sooner or later, if appropriate, they get absorbed by big corporations (do you think Bill Gates created by himself the Microsoft giant? I think he was "allowed" to be become that). An easy way to have a huge Trojan at your disposal if needed.

[seejay21]

I suppose the copyright matters to the copyright holder. If I were to publish a free copy of "the wanderers handbook" in pdf form and posted a link to it on this forum, how long do you think my post with the link would last? If I posted the link on other websites, how long would it take for me to get a letter from Carla's lawyer? When the fbi gets involved (because I told the lawyer to go pound sand) would you say I'm being censored and my rights have been violated when they (fbi) take over my website?

I have little sympathy for folks that steal from others without prejiduce under the guise of vigalantism.

[unity100]

Why should I be concerned about some seemingly sts web ring of websites that help pirate copyrighted work of others? Seems to me their karma is being rendered. Maybe i'd be alarmed if they weren't up to their necks in theft. Don't confuse justice with some made up illuminati conspiracy.

let me see. lets do this :

let me amass big capital by selling you various stuff.

then, let me start pressurizing all the potential creators of that kind of thing, into contracting me, through my ownership of big media and distribution network, effectively ending in total domination of the market.

then let me even go a bit further - since i have big clout in this, allow me to sign on aspiring bands on lease contracts, giving them a modest loan money for start and then requiring them to sign off everything to me, ending up with me giving them 1 to 3 cents over a $20 cd/dvd sold. and let me force them to going to concerts to earn any money.

but at the same time, allow me to continually build up on that initial loan and interest i gave to that band at the start, so that, even if the band is moderately successful, it will still OWE me money. to the extent that only a few VERY successful ones, names on the level of madonna, clapton, negotiate their way out of this and actually make real money over what they sell. (that is if they are smart enough to do that)

so, let me have a total domination of creative arts scene, in this way. so that i will dictate all prices to the market, and, the equivalent of a cd/dvd will still sell for roughly the price level at which the hard to produce and distribute early records were sold at the turn of the century.

then, say, a new tech like cd, or internet comes up.

at this point allow me to start blabbering, flapping my arms and yelling about doing propaganda on how that new medium will 'kill music'. let me deceive a lot of fools in the society through my grasp on mass media and marketing channels.

so that, i can still sell something from $20, despite i am able to reproduce and sell it to BILLIONS, from a few cents cost apiece - the initial production cost of the album included. (generally a few million tops).

then, allow me to merge this with my money, and lobby the government for for preventing anything that will upset my own business model, and my power to dictate prices to the market.

and, if, as a result of what im doing above, some upstarts like these 'pirates' come up, or, people copy casette tapes to each other at home, or, copy cds at home, let me declare them criminals, and have my henchmen in the government send NATIONAL SECURITY related agencies after them, instead of chasing terrorists in middle east ....

......................

this is the summary of the situation here.

ah, by the way, the thing i told about how the big labels are doing 'loan contracts' with the aspiring bands, is a recent and hard reality. if you are a musician or you have any friends who are aspiring to be musicians, bend their ear on that one. they should NEVER do such a contract. ever. the internet is filled with horror stories on that issue.

I suppose the copyright matters to the copyright holder. If I were to publish a free copy of "the wanderers handbook" in pdf form and posted a link to it on this forum, how long do you think my post with the link would last? If I posted the link on other websites, how long would it take for me to get a letter from Carla's lawyer? When the fbi gets involved (because I told the lawyer to go pound sand) would you say I'm being censored and my rights have been violated when they (fbi) take over my website?

the above acts that would be taken against you all would be legal in this world's societal biases, laws and rules.

the above acts that would be taken against you would all be wrong, in regard to the positive path of spiritual evolution that this octave employs in between 3th and early 6th densities.

I have little sympathy for folks that steal from others without prejiduce under the guise of vigalantism.

yes. instead, we should all accept the existing social order and its rules. definitely never disobey, because, it would be wrong.

that being said, there would be no american or french revolution and we would still be living under feudalism, with the above logic. because, by then, all lands legally belonged to feudal lords, not only legally actually but also traditionally and morally.

---

in addition to the above,

child pornography, 'protecting the children' were initial excuses to censor and control internet. that, failed a few years ago. people didnt care much.

currently, it is copyright/intellectual property. they are pushing from that respect to pass laws that would effectually put power of censorship at the hands of private isps, leave aside governments.

naturally, the actual target is, preventing any idea undesirable from propagating around the internet. there are some companies which are already using copyright excuses to issue dmca takedowns against sites that propagate anything that is harmful to their private interests. that may include activism, whistleblowing, horror stories that may expose shady practices - anything.

if, these people have their way, there will be no end to those 'rightful' prosecutions.

---

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/11/27/1910232

it wasnt a hoax.

Many readers have sent in an update to yesterday's story about the Department of Homeland Security's seizure of torrent-finder.com, a domain they believe to be involved in online piracy. As it turns out, this was just one of dozens of websites that were targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "In announcing that operation, John T. Morton, the assistant secretary of ICE, and representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America called it a long-term effort against online piracy, and said that suspected criminals would be pursued anywhere in the world. 'American business is under assault from counterfeiters and pirates every day, seven days a week,' Mr. Morton said. 'Criminals are stealing American ideas and products and distributing them over the Internet.'" The TorrentFreak article we discussed yesterday has been updated with a list of the blocked sites.

department of homeland security, is actually prosecuting torrent sites ... 'homeland security'.

[seejay21]

Intersting comments. Why is it the "have nots" think it is their right to steal from the "haves"? Somehow they feel justified in their coveting of them, and stealing from them if only they can tell themselves that the "haves" don't deserve their rewards. Self talk of hatred for anothers accomplishment. Loathing someone for having more than you. It isn't just the big bad "man" in america that seeks copyright protection. I wonder if anyone here advocating stealing copyright material actually have any of their own.

In regards to justice, I was once in the usmc, and participated in operation restore hope in 1992/1993. We went to a small village called baidoa. There had been gangs of thugs extorting the town for its resources, and not just money, food and water. They were raping the women, and stealing their possesions, what little they had. They terrorised the town because they felt they deserved. One of the things the thugs would do is fire a recoilless rifle (a kind of artillery) into the town and kill innocent children until their demands were met.

To say it nicely, we marines put an end to this terror, and we were just. Justice was served. I don't think the thugs saw it the same way. To them, they deserved to get what they stole. They had delusions of rightousness even to the point in which they were willing to kill innocent people. They coveted to the point until they justified to themselves, murder.

[unity100]

Intersting comments. Why is it the "have nots" think it is their right to steal from the "haves"? Somehow they feel justified in their coveting of them, and stealing from them if only they can tell themselves that the "haves" don't deserve their rewards. Self talk of hatred for anothers accomplishment. Loathing someone for having more than you.

why did the french citizens have to steal from king's potato fields at night back in 1780s ?

to survive.

the above happens whenever there is a social situation in which some have more than others and others do not have any means or opportunities to have whatever others have.

in an ideal situation, that would lead to sharing, and everyone would be able to have a minimum amount of resources and amenities, and the society would act harmoniously.

in not ideal situations, a number of the entities piss their territory like a 2d entity indigenous to this planet does, and call whatever resource/amenity 'their own', and prevent others from having/using them, or decide how others may have/use it. this may happen due to any justification or excuse.

in more advanced cases, these justifications and excuses are made into societal biases, and then to rules and laws. after a while, all the society comes to accept those things as 'the way of life' or 'the right way to do things'.

just like how people in france had lived for close a thousand year, being properties of their lords, rightfully and god-givenly, until they started to experience widespread famine and awakened to the situation thanks to a multitude of philosophers and writers (most probably wanderers by the way) near end of 18th century.

.............

It isn't just the big bad "man" in america that seeks copyright protection. I wonder if anyone here advocating stealing copyright material actually have any of their own.

no it is the big bad man in america that makes use of and pursues copyright and patent protections. and abuses them.

for all others, small people like you and me, enforcement costs, time and effort involved and whatnot are too high. so, just like the legal system, the big corporations make the best use of them.

In regards to justice, I was once in the usmc, and participated in operation restore hope in 1992/1993. We went to a small village called baidoa. There had been gangs of thugs extorting the town for its resources, and not just money, food and water. They were raping the women, and stealing their possesions, what little they had. They terrorised the town because they felt they deserved. One of the things the thugs would do is fire a recoilless rifle (a kind of artillery) into the town and kill innocent children until their demands were met.

To say it nicely, we marines put an end to this terror, and we were just. Justice was served. I don't think the thugs saw it the same way. To them, they deserved to get what they stole. They had delusions of rightousness even to the point in which they were willing to kill innocent people. They coveted to the point until they justified to themselves, murder.

yes.

now, imagine that the above exploitation, raping, extortion were all done legally, through innumerable private ownerships, interests and laws protecting them.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1885...d=34357950

http://www.google.com/search?q=bp+oil+sp...=firefox-a

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=...21/2125231

[Crimson]

Intersting comments. Why is it the "have nots" think it is their right to steal from the "haves"? Somehow they feel justified in their coveting of them, and stealing from them if only they can tell themselves that the "haves" don't deserve their rewards. Self talk of hatred for anothers accomplishment. Loathing someone for having more than you. It isn't just the big bad "man" in america that seeks copyright protection. I wonder if anyone here advocating stealing copyright material actually have any of their own.

In regards to justice, I was once in the usmc, and participated in operation restore hope in 1992/1993. We went to a small village called baidoa. There had been gangs of thugs extorting the town for its resources, and not just money, food and water. They were raping the women, and stealing their possesions, what little they had. They terrorised the town because they felt they deserved. One of the things the thugs would do is fire a recoilless rifle (a kind of artillery) into the town and kill innocent children until their demands were met.

To say it nicely, we marines put an end to this terror, and we were just. Justice was served. I don't think the thugs saw it the same way. To them, they deserved to get what they stole. They had delusions of rightousness even to the point in which they were willing to kill innocent people. They coveted to the point until they justified to themselves, murder.

This has little relevance. Negative factions fight against each other, sometimes doing something positive is in their favor in the overall situation. But ask yourself: why/how this situation (its origin) was created in the first place? Colonialism, poverty? Look at the history. The have vs have nots has deeper implications than the ones you have expressed here. The copyright issues mostly occur in this situation between the haves and the other haves... but still has general implications. Microsoft approach was encouraged while open source was discouraged by the elite (yes, THE HAVES).

The issue at hand is that these laws are being used to mitigate any spiritual longing for freedom, sharing and forming a positive 4d consciousness. Even though at the same time polarizes negative factions towards the negative.

I understand it is hard to see from a 3d world based on private property anything different. Obviously, is the capacity to share what is at stake here.

[unity100]

indeed, the negative is polarizing even more and more like the above. recently it is uncanny.

i remember Ra saying in a negative world, those on top would try to use the transparency of thoughts and emotions aspect of 4d into their own profit and control others.

there isnt a thought and emotion transparency in 3d, but, it seems to me like the same thing is happening, despite with a different version, on the internet now.

[unity100]

http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0313.aspx

L: I have a query, Q’uo. If one puts a great deal of work into writing a work of fiction, is it possible that they could create thoughtforms by doing this? And if that is the case, would the writer be responsible for these thoughtforms in any way?

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my sister. Whenever entities create, whether it be melodies or patterns of movement or characters on paper, they are indeed creating or, looked at another way, expressing thoughtforms. We use these terms almost interchangeably because there is nothing new under the sun. Each character that is created by the author, each melody that is created by the composer, each dance that is expressed by a dancer, catches that which was in the universal mind, shall we say, catches that expression …

So very well put by the way.

indeed, the process of creating is only pulling of various thoughts, ideas, unshaped understandings from the subconscious or roots of mind, and then putting that matrix into objects, shaping them, or, into expression.

with that, 'i created this' becomes rather ..... absurd.

[seejay21]

I'm going to see a Band I like play at a local restaurant tonight. They do all original songs. I liked them so much I bought several of their CDs and have given them to friends as gifts. They have other music available on Amazon for download, and I bought all of their songs. I really like these guys. I can't wait to see them tonight. They are up and coming and trying to "make it". They have a lot of good energy. good vibes. They are trying to live the dream. So who am I to steal it from them? Their music is copyrighted, and I can't see how that has anything to do with the world's elite STS entities trying to hold us down in 3D. The band simply wants to take care of their families doing something they enjoy.

Stealing is stealing. I think that justifying it for any reason is certainly negatively polarized. Deeming someone else as unworthy and negative to justify taking something you desire from them, for your own SELFISH reasons, makes my stomach turn. What would your mother say?

Oh.. but don't bring her into it. It has nothing to do with that, right? It is all about stealing from those that deserve to be stolen from. Like a modern day Robin Hood. What are you doing with your stolen goods? Loading them up on your MP3 player I assume. Not very Robin Hoodish.

[unity100]

I'm going to see a Band I like play at a local restaurant tonight. They do all original songs. I liked them so much I bought several of their CDs and have given them to friends as gifts. They have other music available on Amazon for download, and I bought all of their songs. I really like these guys. I can't wait to see them tonight. They are up and coming and trying to "make it". They have a lot of good energy. good vibes. They are trying to live the dream. So who am I to steal it from them? Their music is copyrighted, and I can't see how that has anything to do with the world's elite STS entities trying to hold us down in 3D. The band simply wants to take care of their families doing something they enjoy.

when that band contracts a big label company, they will be just the perpetrators of the system. just like how a crowssbowman was the perpetrator of the feudal system.

as long as your friends to not go about signing themselves off to the ruling cartels, or become cartels themselves, of course you have no reason to 'steal' from them.

the people who 'steal' here, rarely 'steal' such small bands in any case.

......
actually, all of us are perpetrators of the system to a degree.

Stealing is stealing. I think that justifying it for any reason is certainly negatively polarized. Deeming someone else as unworthy and negative to justify taking something you desire from them, for your own SELFISH reasons, makes my stomach turn. What would your mother say?

Oh.. but don't bring her into it. It has nothing to do with that, right? It is all about stealing from those that deserve to be stolen from. Like a modern day Robin Hood. What are you doing with your stolen goods? Loading them up on your MP3 player I assume. Not very Robin Hoodish.

oh, justifying 'stealing' is negatively polarized. and for any reason too !

but, claiming OWNERSHIP of some other part of infinite intelligence, be it a rock, a house, or, a thought form, construct, or an idea, and declaring yourself the sole ruler of what happens to it,

is not ....

the latter is the definition of negative polarity itself, if you have missed.

............

i wonder what you would do in 1785 france, you and your family hungry, and the lord not sharing anything from the fields ....

with your logic, you would to a very fine subservient serf. die in place, if you are not given food.

[seejay21]

Check this out:

http://store.bring4th.org/product_info.p...ucts_id=44

Note it is Copyrighted by L/L Research in 2001, and directly below that it says: "All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage and retrieval systems—without written permission from the copyright holder." Or more to the point "don't steal it".

Robin Hood's lore is that he took from the rich, and gave to the poor. Downloading copyrighted material from a peer-peer or other torrent network is just the "taking from the rich" part.

I don't have to wonder what I would do in France. I have actually been faced with the choice of life or death. I'm hear typing this now, so my choice should be obvious.

Your logic of comparing life and death choices in 18th century France to stealing copyrighted material from the elite on a bit torrent network is not even remotely close to a fair analogy.

[unity100]

Check this out:

http://store.bring4th.org/product_info.p...ucts_id=44

Note it is Copyrighted by L/L Research in 2001, and directly below that it says: "All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage and retrieval systems—without written permission from the copyright holder." Or more to the point "don't steal it".

and ?

Robin Hood's lore is that he took from the rich, and gave to the poor. Downloading copyrighted material from a peer-peer or other torrent network is just the "taking from the rich" part.

the part you miss is that, the poor are the one who are doing the taking here.

according to the below statistic, 80% of, say, america, is poor.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesameric...ealth.html

since, the top 1% in that statistic owns the majority of all goods and services (including arts creation sector) it means that the poor, are 'robin hoods' for themselves.

I don't have to wonder what I would do in France. I have actually been faced with the choice of life or death. I'm hear typing this now, so my choice should be obvious.

so, you would choose life and your family to live, over not 'stealing' from the feudal lord's fields.

Your logic of comparing life and death choices in 18th century France to stealing copyrighted material from the elite on a bit torrent network is not even remotely close to a fair analogy.

that is only because you think that the current conditionings and biases of the society you live in, are right and just.

back in 18th century france, someone could come to you arguing that stealing from the lord's field, is a sin. because it was god given right of the lords to rule, and in addition, it was tradition and law.

today, you are ok with 80-90% of all activities in any field of life being owned by 1% of the population, determining what happens in those aspects of life (leave aside what prices), and considering disobeying that structure, stealing.

the band you speak of, hasnt got any place in that spectrum. it is as nonexistent in the music scene, as a local tools shop owner is nonexistent in wall street.

you are the one taking normal, ordinary people with no feudal lordship powers, and impersonating them in the lords that rule this system.

ah and by the way - you should remember that, the need to laugh, listen to music, entertainment, are also natural needs of entities. allowing them to be monopolized is no different than allowing food to be monopolized in the long run.

...........

that being said, actually there are even people dying of hunger in west. or, dumpster feeding. while million tonnes of grain rot in warehouses, because those who control the market want grain prices up.

[Monica]

Related thread:

Life on Planet Earth > Argh! Is this stealing? Piracy, Ethics, etc.

[turtledude23]

Why should I be concerned about some seemingly sts web ring of websites that help pirate copyrighted work of others? Seems to me their karma is being rendered. Maybe i'd be alarmed if they weren't up to their necks in theft. Don't confuse justice with some made up illuminati conspiracy.

Knowledge and art should be free for everyone. Yes it sucks when small indie bands or authors have their stuff pirated because they may lose some revenue, but most people who want to buy their stuff still will, do not confuse every pirated copy as a loss of revenue, most people who pirate something would not have bought it. In fact some people end up buying something after pirating it because they never would have heard it other. Piracy can actually increase revenue.

Most stuff that is pirated is made by large movie studios, record labels, or television production companies whose executives and artists make ridiculous amounts of profit off low quality media that is often full of brainwashing. There is direct correlation between low quality media and viewiership/purchase, mainstream media companies simply can't afford to make anything of good quality. If they lose money, good, the sooner I see Warner and gang go bankrupt the better.

Piracy is not the exact same thing as theft because with digital media you can have unlimited copies where as theft of something physical is of something scarce, that's what makes theft bad in the first place. If I stole someones car, they don't have a car anymore and need to spend alot of money to buy a new one. That's why stealing something physical (scarce) is bad. If I download an mp3, there's still an infinite amount left of that digital file.

Alot of software is distributed for free and asks only that the user consider donating. This model is hard to apply to movies, music, and television because theyre expensive to make and require the resources of a large studio. So even if an artist wanted their work to be free, they couldn't do that because of the contract they sign with the studio. There are many independant artists now who use the aforementioned donationware model. What if all art was donationware? Then only the truly good quality artists will make a living or a profit off it. Piracy can accomplish that, it sets art and knowledge free and leaves the consumer with the choice of donating.

I used to believe in karma when I believed STO was the only possible path, but now that I know STS is a valid path too karma can't exist because Stalin and Ghengis Khan should have been tortured parapalgeics rather than 'allowed' to be leaders. There's only catalyst. So calling piracy website being censored karma is just disgusting. You actually believe there's a free will infring force that picks and chooses who suffers and who doesn't? Why are oil company CEOs living it up and good hearted nerds being taken to court? Calling piracy STS? I'm offended. What makes an act STS or STO is intention, I have run piracy websites and my intentions were STO: I wanted to share knowledge, art and useful software with whoever wants it. Did people lose money because of my actions? It's possible, but it would be impossible to prove. People might have gaiend money from my actions, as mentioned earlier. Was my intention for them to lose money? No. Will anyone lose their job because of what I did? I sincerely doubt it. Did I bring more convenience and happiness into peoples lives through sharing what I shared? Absolutely.

There is something called due process which needs to be applied for convicting someone of any crime, whether something serious like murder, or something which perhaps shouldn't even be considered a crime like "intellectual property" theft. Did you know that the film industry was founded on piracy? Anyone filming something was supposed to pay Thomas Edison a licensing fee, so people fled to the wild west to escape copyright laws.

There's some beautiful, inspiring, uplifting music I now love which I never could have heard if I hadn't downloaded it for free. I would have been a less happy person overall without music like The Moody Blues and Earth Wind & Fire, bands who's members are already very rich.

In an ideal world every talented artist should be able to make a living off their art, but this world is far from ideal and instead we have lucky few artists (many of whom have little talent and promote STS) making millions, and the vast majority of artists needing a second job. Mainstream media needs a new business model. They have thrived for so long on a closed system of expensive distribution that small artists couldn't realistically compete in, now they're finally losing their monopoly. Piracy will lead to greater quality in all art eventually because only the truly good art will be popular if all art can be obtained for free, and those good artists will receive the most donations.

Not obeying the arbitrarily defined system of acceptable behaviour we call law - which is often put in place by very STS people - is not the same as being a truly moral person. Piracy can change the way art and knowledge is created and distributed for the better and you can't even see that because you falsely believe thats as bad as stealing.

[unity100]

maybe rather unfortunate but, indie bands have little percentage among the content that is pirated.

by the way, how is wanting to gain more money than his/her daily needs, can be a justifiable and non-sts act, beats me.

so, lets say an artist makes millions. but he is saying that his work is being stolen and he is 'losing' money. he should have made tens of millions. im saying an artist, actually studios are the ones getting the money, artists do not get dimes out of 20 bucks a cd. but lets say it was the artist.

how is having millions, but wanting to have tens of millions, is not a sts act in itself ?

[Monica]

by the way, how is wanting to gain more money than his/her daily needs, can be a justifiable and non-sts act, beats me.

If the person earns more than their needs, and gives away the excess to help others, then it becomes an STO act.

[Lavazza]

I have to say I'm enjoying the resurrection of this topic here, as it was about a year ago in my 'Argh!' thead. Enjoying because I am learning quite a bit, but I would please, please ask that before anyone posts again he or she take a deep breath and remember that we are One in the same, and what that One is is Love itself made manifest. Topics like these can lead to anger in a hurry and raise our gentle mind/body/spirit complexes' blood pressure. Just saying... Lets feel some love for each other first and foremost.

i wonder what you would do in 1785 france, you and your family hungry, and the lord not sharing anything from the fields .... with your logic, you would to a very fine subservient serf. die in place, if you are not given food.

Unity, I'm really enjoying your points, but I have to agree with Seejay that this is a pretty bad analogy. Downloading copyrighted material is just too far off from stealing potatoes to feed a starving family for me to make sense of. If you could make another analogy that is closer in comparison I could follow you more closely. But as it is now it doesn't work.

how is having millions, but wanting to have tens of millions, is not a sts act in itself ?

And what of the average Joe seeking to increase his salary from $40k/year to $45k/year? Both sums are viewed as weath beyond imagining to some of the poorest people in the world- the same as how you are viewing the millionaire. With your reasoning Joe would be on the sts path as well as just about everyone. I think that's unsound logic.

Anyways, I don't see resolve to the debate here as I eventually realized it wouldn't happen in my old thread. The best course of action I feel is to follow what you believe is the right thing to do in your heart while at least attempting understanding if not achieving it for those around you who disagree. Much LOVE,

~Lavazza