Election 2010: The sillier options With the UK general election upon us, the chances are that you have already decided how to vote. But if – like almost 40 per cent of the electorate, according to some current polls – you still haven’t made up your mind, here are a few more tools to help you decide. We have already looked in some detail at the manifestos of the …
The Pirate Party just wants stuff to be free - destroying the livelihoods of creators. They call this a human right. Not very good for the individuals who suffer.
Their policy on copyright is "balanced" in the way demanding free sweets or free beer is balanced, or a human right. Jane Fae Ozimek's livelihood depends on strong copyright but s(he) hasn't thought this one through.
This is a Logical Fallacy that violates the rebuttal criterion. The rebuttal criterion requires that one who presents an argument for or against a position should attempt to provide an effective rebuttal to all serious challenges to the argument or the position it supports and to the strongest arguments for viable alternative positions. Fallacies such as red herring, straw man, and poisoning the well fail to meet this criterion because they attack the arguer rather than the argument or use argumentative devices that divert attention away from the issue at stake.
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacking_Faulty_Reasoning
But then BPI/RIAA don't represent the Meeja Creators they represent the the Meeja Suppliers. And they certainly don't support the Creators.
Why not meet somewhere in the middle and maybe give a few away things like Ringtones or when you buy a DVD you can get a free Soundtrack? Or even cut the Price of New Meeja?
On No Pirate alert!! Pirate alert!! FreeTard FreeTurd Kill'em all...... So that's all your insults out of the way, why not engage in honest discussion about the issues rather than doing on-yacht deals with corrupt politicians.
I don't buy new meeja anymore. Its the only way to hurt them. Hit them in their pockets its all they care about.
"But then BPI/RIAA don't represent the Meeja Creators they represent the the Meeja Suppliers. And they certainly don't support the Creators."
The BPI and RIAA are lobby groups, not suppliers, but you're too Freetarded to notice the difference. Neighboring rights from copyright, which the Pirates want to limit, actually reward the creators.
"doing on-yacht deals with corrupt politicians."
Yeah, those corrupt politicians - how dare they support home grown creative industries? Don't they realise property is theft?
Nurse will see you now, Mr Donkey.
"Yeah, those corrupt politicians - how dare they support home grown creative industries?"
Had the "home grown creative industries" actually bothered to innovate instead of dipping into the Chancellor's wallet, they'd be worth keeping around. Instead, they seriously expected that everyone in the country would still be listening in the year 2050, mouths ajar, to the UK Top Twenty narrated by some smug "DJ" on Radio 1 giving free advertising to the businesses of a bunch of rich people while the public picks up the tab.
I don't want copyright to be abolished, but if a bunch of corporations blanket the broadcast media with apparently free stuff and then find that everyone treats those wares as zero-cost items, then whose fault is it? It'd be like Xerox using their brand name as a verb everywhere and then claiming they can't uphold the trademark any more. If it suits you to ram your wares down everyone's ears (while double- or triple-dipping on broadcast fees, of course), then it had better suit you when people expect to get more of the same for nothing. If anything, the big labels are *themselves* responsible for the lack of popular awareness of copyright and why it matters.
And spare us the "big labels nurture new talent" nonsense. There's a poster boy for the corrupt *misapplication* of copyright advocated by the media dinosaurs: Cliff Richard. Every year added to the copyright term is probably another million in Sir Cliff's bank account and a few pennies thrown in the direction of the people who did the hard studio work (held in a fund by a collecting agency until the end of time, of course). If EMI and pals wanted government hand-outs, they should have been running a bank or, better yet, a defence company. Their gravy train has long since run out of track.
Nobody wants copyrighted material to be free. The Pirate Party wants copyright to be FAIR, as it was when it was first introduced; TO PROTECT THE *RIGHT* TO *COPY*.
Digital copying made this almost cost-free to achieve in a way never expected when copyright law was envisioned, and needs updating. Implementing a model of artificial scarcity does nothing to detract from the fact that the distribution and duplication of media is now free, and the big media companies are pushing through horrific liberty-reducing laws with huge financial backing to compensate. We need a balance to their input: Public good vs corporate greed.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT MAKING BEER OR SWEETIES FREE. Beer and sweeties have raw ingredients which are required OVER AND OVER AGAIN to make copies. I CAN MAKE A MILLION COPIES OF A SONG AND THE ORIGINAL REMAINS, WITH NO INCREASE IN MATERIAL USAGE OR COSTS INCURRED.
What's so hard to understand? Oh, wait... It's a Coward. Apologies, I'm feeding the trolls.
<<Their policy on copyright is "balanced" in the way demanding free sweets or free beer is balanced, or a human right. Jane Fae Ozimek's livelihood depends on strong copyright but s(he) hasn't thought this one through>>
Actually, they're more concerned with the Fair Use policy being heavily eroded by businesses paying government to erode our rights. It sounds like an oxymoron, but most "pirates" actually are labeled as such not for copying and selling (illegally), but for finding ways around the stupidly designed DRM and locked formats used by the recording, movie and software industry.
If you sat down and thought about it really carefully (and I'm not suggesting you could) , you'd realize that the problem isn't "piracy" - or to be more accurate "contract violation" - but businesses who feel they can remove your rights at a whim just because they have money.
The gaming industry cries and beats it's chest about "piracy" - then promptly goes and makes sure their games are so hobbled by DRM that legal customers have to use "pirated" versions. Oh, and even the most heavily DRM'd game statistically gets pirated within hours of hitting the shelves. Yeah, that really stopped them.
The movie industry is so busy making crap movies that they need something to blame for dropping profits. Dang they even wanted to ban mobile phones - not because of recording, it wasn't really an option at the time - but because viewers were texting their mates telling them what crap such-and-such a movie is.
And last (but not least) the music biz. Yeah, those guys that give their artists a pittance per album, suing grandmothers who don't even have computers for being P2P sharers. Then go on to say that the REAL REASON (tm) they're not making uber profits is because of the "pirating". Yeah, and it's got nothing to do with the rip-off pricing you charge huh? I mean, Sean Combs musta been talking out his o-ring when he said piracy HELPS spread his music. Actually.. strike that. Perhaps that's the problem the recording crew have with "piracy".. it's a free way to get your music into the masses. Something they can't screw over the artist or the public for.
That's not all of them for sure. But just something to start thinking about huh?
Paris. She can pirate me anyday.
What complete and utter bullshit.
You have a choice, you can pay for the game - millions of people do just that. Leeches make it more expensive.
Instead of complaining about DRM or wanking off about Fair Use, why not just you're too much of tightwad to pay for stuff?
Everyone can see that already - you just can't admit it.
all the apologists for copyright are anonymous. Maybe they just don't have the balls to own their own opinions. Well, I'm not anonymous, I don't pirate, and I want to see Pirate Parties gain a useful amount of power in plenty of countries around the world.
The present laws regarding Intellectual Property in general are broken, especially in the US but broken enough in your country and in mine too. The Pirates want to discuss how to fix that in ways that are acceptable to consumers as well as to creators. They don't seem to care much about middlemen, which is fair enough, since the grey middlemen and their lobbyists just want to pull the IP noose tighter and tighter.
It's time for reform.
Unlike you, it seems, I actually bothered to take a look at the Pirate Party's manifesto.
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Manifesto
Whilst I can't say I agree entirely with their proposals, what you are saying severely misrepresents them. Maybe you should buy yourself a fire extinguisher for your undergarments?
You must be a member of the Liberal Party. Oh, wait a minute, they where the party that (after being lobbied by the Music, Film and Media (including magazines and newspapers) industries) wanted to amend the Digital Britain Bill (aka Mandybill) so a Photographer's photographs where free for all.
At least the PP want reform to be discussed - major parties like the Lib Dems just want to quietly agree with whoever can bring the most peer pressure to bear on them.
Fail? Because you haven't bothered to research what you're waffling on about.
This has nothing to do with Grauniad loyalties and everything to do with our crap electoral system.
In first-past-the-post, if you have 25% of the vote nationally and it is spread equally into EVERY constituency in the country - you probably get zero seats. The same national proportion of vote, skewed into just half the seats of the country (so your 25% scores you 50% in every seat you do well in) gets you half the seats.
The Lib Dem vote is widely dispersed. Labour's vote is geographically concentrated (as well as being skewed into smaller constituencies).
As i have written several times recently: to obtain seat parity with Labour, the Lib Dems need to be doing 10% to 12% better than Labour in vote terms.
jane
I didn't realise how bad our electoral system was.
Here's a scenario:
All 3 main parties each get 30% of the vote, with the remaining 10% being split between the smaller parties.
out of ~650 seats you would expect Labour, Conservatives and the Lib Dems to get ~200 seats each.
Under the current system Labour would get ~300, Conservatives ~200 and Lib Dems ~100.
How can a party with 30% of the vote share only get 15% of the seats.
So much for democracy.
I prefer this system since it gives huge country seats with low populations the opportunity to have representation in the House of Commons. If Clegg had his way, all his pussy MPs who only represent the views of pompous right on commies in urban areas would be dictating to rural areas which would have effectively no representation. Keep the system the way it is. At least this way a government can actually have a mandate.
Paris, because she'd vote Clegg.
I'm voting for :-
Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Blackpool Rock Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable Brrroooo Norman Michael (rings bell) (blows whistle) Edward (sounds car horn) (does train impersonation) (sounds buzzer) Thomas Moo... (sings) "We'll keep a welcome in the..." (fires gun) William (makes silly noise) "Raindrops keep falling on my" (weird noise) "Don't sleep in the subway" (cuckoo cuckoo) Naaoooo... Smith.
I now announce the number of votes cast as follows:
Brigadier General Horace Bolsom... Cheap-Royalty-White-Rat-Catching-And-Safe-Sewage Residents Party...
No votes.
Ivor `Jest-ye-not-madam' Biggun... Standing-At-The-Back-Dressed-Stupidly-And-Looking-Stupid Party...
No votes.
Pitt, the Even Younger... Whig...
No votes.
Oh, there's a shock.
Mr. S. Baldrick... Adder Party...
Sixteen thousand, four hundred, and seventy-two.
This post has been deleted by its author
I've been betting on a straight up blue win :
1) Polls are notoriously poor predictors of election outcomes;
2) Everyone always says "oh I'm fed up with Red/Blue so I'm gonna vote Yellow/Green/random" but in the end they get to the booth and think "well I *really* don't want Red to get in, voting Yellow is a waste of a vote so I'll go Blue" (or vice versa)
3) First past the post favours Red/Blue. Yellow vote is too thinly spread outside of the SW.
I'm sure Yellow will get plenty of actual votes, but seats? Alas not. Why do you think they've been pushing for PR for so long?
Agree that UKIP are crazy - have you seen the party leader on the tele? I don't think he is in possession of all 52 cards... Gotta love the "let's leave the EU!!!11!!" argument - guess he never heard of import tariffs? His main argument for leaving the EU appears to be that he hates Turks and Turkey wants to join. Where's Gordon when you need a good insult?...
Try it and see!
OK, so Gordon Brown dies during a visit to Jerusalem and the local political bigwig says to our ambassador;
"OK, we can fly the body home for £1M or bury him here for £100".
The ambassador goes off and consults, then returns with the answer.
"We'll fly him home, if it's all the same to you."
"But why?!?" queries the local bigwig. "£100 seems like such a bargain!"
"Well, there was one such burial of a leader here where he came back to life three days later. We just don't want to take that chance!"
It would appear that the BBC have figured out how to get results from polls carried out tomorrow!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm - see the dates on the 'Show outcomes based on the latest polls', all 3 are dated 6th May at present (being the 5th of May)! Now if only we can trick the website into revealing the election results before the polls close...
Evidence suggests that he's helping the Natural Law Party with their website. Please note the following from the NLP page linked in the article [http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk/misc/m_effect-yogic-flying.htm]:
DiS inT egrated inCohEReNt diSHarmOnioUs SoC iEtY
This is just a glimpse. Full election coverage required from the maestro, I reckon.
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