We’re All The Pirate Bay

from http://thepiratebay.org/special/2009mmtpb.php

The Swedish artist Montt Mardié thought The Pirate Bay needed an theme song, an anthem. So he created one!

We like it a lot and hope you like it too. You can download the torrent here, and watch the video as well.

We also got the audio files so all you TPB fans can make your own version, your own remix!
It would also be cool if you did your own version of the video and post as a video response on youtube. As Montt Mardié put it: “To show the world, that we’re all The Pirate Bay…”

Here’s Monty’s coments about it all:

An artist has got to make a living just like everybody else, there’s no doubt about it. And these are tough times, believe me I know. The thing is though, if I were to go back in time, 10 years or so, and tell the 15-year-old version of myself that over a night, 60 000 people had heard one of my songs, the first question I’d throw back at myself wouldn’t be “how much money did I make?”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love money and I want to make a lot of it. Bathe in it just like Uncle Scrooge. But money isn’t the main reason why I write songs. First and foremost I want people to hear them.
Times are so strange at the moment and a lot of people are angry and upset. Still, for each day that goes by I get more and more convinced that we shouldn’t try to fight the future, we should embrace it. Try to see opportunities instead of catastrophys.

I’ve written a song. I call it “We’re All The Pirate Bay”. It’s free and nobody will ever have to pay for it, though if you incist you are welcome to make a donation!

Take care, Monty

More Montt Mardié at
www.monttmardie.com
www.myspace.com/monttmardie
www.hybrism.com

Donate: paypal account: monttmardie@hybrism.com

Download, re-mix, re-make, re-download!, re-seed, re-edit, re-enjoy!

Download:
Montt Mardie – We’re all The Pirate Bay (single)
Montt Mardie – We’re all The Pirate Bay (Remixkit!)

When you need a little ideology…

Sometimes you just need a simple and comprehensive ideology that will give you the answer to the meaning of life, and make you feel all happy and content inside. But how to choose what pseudo-useful gibberish to erect as a pillar of your existence? Well, fear no more, because I bring you the Ism-Generator Public Beta Technology Preview Release Candidate 1. This nifty little piece of software will have you living strictly within your own unique and personally generated ideology in no time! Go ahead now, I know you want to…

It’s made in Processing by the way, and it’s Creative Commons as everything else I spit out here, so go ahead and modify it. But if you make something cool, please show me. I like new toys.

An example of open culture

One of the stupidest mis-conceptions of our time is, in my opinion, that if copyright laws and the like don’t let innovators claim total and restrictive ownership over their creations, people will simply stop creating. Of course this isn’t true, people have been creating and sharing long before copyright and intellectual property became a reality, and will continue to do so long after these things are abolished. Big Buck Bunny, an animation short is a beautiful example of just this. It’s an animation short, licensed under the most unrestrictive Creative Commons license, meaning the work can be freely shared, remixed and distributed. You can watch it here:

http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/

Some myths about intellectual property

This is a public domain text I found on the internet that clearly sums up some points about intellectual property. A very good read indeed.

Intellectual property is a hot-button issue these days, and for good reason. In the heat of debate, however, it can become easy for dogmatic assertions to stamp out complex truths. In order to fairly consider intellectual property, it is important that our discussions not be clouded by misconceptions; for this reason, a number of false statements about intellectual property are here listed and rebutted.

Intellectual property is an ancient principle.
Not true. Intellectual property is an explicitly modern notion, having made its debut quite recently. The first patent law was enacted in 1623, and the precursor of modern copyright – the Statute of Anne – came into being in 1710. These early laws were limited in scope and restricted to only a few types of information; the broader interperatation of these principles used today in the western world is quite modern, certain elements having been added only within the last few years.

Intellectual property is recognized worldwide.
As the US’s recent standoff with China demonstrates, intellectual property is not a concept which has worldwide acceptance. Indeed, a major foreign policy objective of the United States has been to force other nations to comply with its own intellectual property agenda – an unwelcome form of intellectual imperialism which is all too frequently ignored by watchdog groups.

Without intellectual property, no one will produce original work.
Given that intellectual property law made its debut in 1623, we may correctly consider any work produced before this time to dispell the myth. Man created for millenia before the advent of intellectual property; he will create for many more millenia after it is abandoned.

Intellectual property is necessary to create incentives for the production of original works.
This intellectual property myth has become the mantra of IP supporters. Often repeated, never questioned, the idea that creativity depends on a government granted monopoly needs no justification in the minds of most IP boosters. Sadly, however, they are mistaken: intellectual property “rights” are not essential to creation, and in some circumstances even deter it. Consider, for instance, the software industry. Free for years from the limitations of intellectual property, the industry flourished, becoming by all accounts one of the most creative of environments in the modern world. With the recent introduction of patent law into computing, however, many individual programmers live in fear of lawsuits from large corporations who claim “ownership” of techniques such as the scroll-buffer. Who benefits from this? Certainly not the creator! Intellectual property law, from its inception, has been about publishers and other powerful firms as much as it has been about creative individuals; the latter often find their interests poorly defended by IP.

Even if people DID create works without intellectual property protections, the quality of these works would be substandard.
Only if “Julius Caesar”, Plutarch’s “Lives”, “The Last Supper”, and Handel’s “Messiah” are “substandard”! All of these, including such pivotal creations as the Bible, the Koran, and the hundreds of Sutras were created in a world without intellectual property. IP boosters claim that weakening intellectual property law means giving up great literature, music, and art; in fact, history shows us that this is not the case.

The “best” creators won’t work without intellectual property protections.
Once again, history proves this to be false. Shakespeare, Plato, Confucius, Hero, Chaucer, Handel, and many others of the finest names in world literature, music, art, and invention worked in an environment free of intellectual property restrictions. Clearly, genius does not require copyright to produce!

To take away intellectual property rights is to deny creators the right to profit from their labors.
This myth is based on the idea that the only way to make money off of creation is to “sell” the ideas which are produced. In fact, this is not true. Consulting, support, performance, service: these are all ways in which creators can make money off of their abilities without appealing to intellectual property rights. Even if there were no copyright, a band could still make money by charging for live performances, for instance; an even better example is found in academia, where a great deal of idea production takes place without the ideas being “sold” to the universities which sponsor their creators. Removing intellectual property rights would not deny creators the right to profit from their labors; it would, however, allow all of society to share in the benefits of their work.

Intellectual property follows directly from the notion of physical property.
Physical property rights are derived from the basic fact that a physical object can’t be in two places at once. In order to keep people from squabbling over material objects, we use a system of rights to say “who gets what”. Information, however, differs from physical property in a number of ways, one of which being that it can be in many places at the same time. Let’s say that Fred gives Barney an apple; after this, Fred no longer has the apple. If, on the other hand, Fred TELLS Barney about the apple, Fred STILL knows about the apple. Fred gave the information to Barney, but Fred still has it! Clearly, then, there is no need for Fred and Barney to squabble over who “owns” the information about the apple: to do such would be to try to treat information like an object, an idea which is clearly flawed.

As the debate of over the future of intellectual property unfolds, it will be more important than ever for participants, and bystanders, to have good information concerning the nature of IP. By removing the myths and misconceptions which surround intellectual property, we can make better decisions as to its proper status in our society.

This document should be considered public domain – please distribute freely.

Sometimes you just end up on the wrong shelf

 In a harsh consumerist world, identity crisises can be found everywhere you look.

Something about subcultures

The backside of being in the avant-garde is that, at first the things you treasure are scorned at, until they, almost certainly, at some point are assimilated into pop-culture, and all of a sudden are looked upon as cool or desirable. The next step is when they become cogwheels for commercial consumerism, and the value they once held, is sucked from them and exploited for profit. On the other hand this drives us to a constantly progressing creativity. Whatever is taken from us, we will replace with something better, crazier, sweeter or more enjoyable.

Candy and Mistrust

While riding the bus today, I had a peculiar experience. A man decided to share some candy with the rest of the passengers. He had a pretty large bag of candy, and walked through the bus, offering everyone some of it. Why he did it I don’t know, he probably just realized that he wouldn’t be able to eat all of it himself, and wanted to share it instead of tossing it.

What struck me was the painfully obvious reaction from everyone he offered some of his candy to. Not a single passenger accepted it. It was so bizarre, and yet so predictable. My own first thoughts were also very skeptical and mistrusting, I was tip-toeing into the borderland of disgust when he offered two small girls some of his candy. Maybe it was a natural reaction from my part, triggered by the fear of pedophiles so inherent in the society I live in. Still I am ashamed, this man was not a pedophile, nor did he wish to do any harm to anybody. He just wished to share some of what was in his possession with the people around him. I am so ashamed that I mistrusted him, and initially rejected him. Intuitively I concluded that something must have been wrong with the candy. How deeply terrible this is! How have we come to this far? We are so afraid of our fellow human beings, and so convinced that others want to do us harm, that we, in the face of an open and sincere expression of generosity, reject each other. This man didn’t want anything in return, he just asked me to take a couple of pieces of candy and enjoy them. I am so glad that he continued speaking after I initially rejected him, which gave me a couple of seconds to catch myself, and act consciously instead. I am so glad that I did, because I used a possibility to base my action on faith in another persons goodness, instead of acting out of fear. Still, I truly regret that I didn’t accept what he was offering from the beginning. Instead of doubting him, I should have thanked him deeply for what he was doing. Whether he knew it or not, he wasn’t just sharing some candy, he was challenging one of the most strangely persistent barriers we invent to defend ourselves.

Not so far away

Sometimes, I think about a place, not very different from where I live today.

Some things are different, though. The way we regard each other, for instance, is different. It is different, because the way we regard ourselves is different.

The way we feel love and joy is different, because the way we feel pain and sorrow is different.

It is place where we sing and dance, not for profit or praise, but because we feel like it, enjoy it, and want to share that feeling.

It is a place where we create music, visual splendor, poetry, and all forms of art, not to earn, but simply to give, and to experience the wonder of creating. Sometimes it seems, that this place is not very far away.

And sometimes, I wonder if the only distance I have to travel to experience this place, is the distance of stepping outside, opening my eyes to the blinding sunlight, and letting myself see the world as for the first time.

The loneliest man in the world

Front page of the danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende today. The text reads “The loneliest man in the world. American preisdent George W. Bush is now left all alone with the responsibility for the war in Iraq. With his new war-plan he chooses to wander his own ways. Even one of the presidents closest allies, [danish] prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is abnormally soft-spoken in his support about the decision to send more soldiers to Iraq”.

Miniature of the world

We all, whether we like it or not, share this one planet. It is my belief that we have not even been close to realizing the almost unimaginable potential we bear as humans. This movie portrays the world by showing how it would possibly look like, if it was reduced to a community of one hundred people.
 
The above photo was taken from the Apollo 17 spacecraft, by the end of 1972. The world still faces many of the same problems as then, and a multitude of new ones. Where are we heading? And what is our destination? Are we lost, or are we advancing? Judge for yourself, but please do so honestly. Problems doesn’t go away by dismissing them.