'Stuff must be FREE, except when it's MINE! Yarr!' - top German pirate A senior German Pirate Party executive who once described intellectual property as "disgusting" has resorted to the DMCA to thwart pirates. Executive board member Julia Schramm [bio] has written diatribes against what she calls "the content mafia". That was before she snagged a €100,000 book deal with Random House, the publisher …
"My name is Julia and I live on the internet. I'm pretty happy, have friends that I know and can only digitally off whenever I want. I can be anything on the Internet: Mafia boss, Barbie, Hitler, owner and a little green crocodile. On the computer I am God. And I feel great - great evil, cold and calculating. From a young age, at 13 or 14, I was aware of the seemingly endless possibilities for constructing identity. The Internet was the place where I saw everything for the first time: love, sex and betrayal. Enlightenment, freedom and politics. There, talk, laugh, cry and think I do. For I am a child of the digital age, I am the one that comes from the Internet. And that's my story. "
Sounds like a load of tedious, self-indulgent shite to me. She certainly shouldn't worry about people stealing it.
She certainly shouldn't worry about people stealing it.
I noticed quite a few people on the TorrentFreak forum who said they planned to download and seed the torrent, but didn't intend to read the book. This could end up on the top of the download charts, as well as winning top place for the least read.
Something tells me that Mr. Orlowski didn't pick the best part of the book to quote. Far be it from me to suggest that he would do something like search for the absolute worst bit he could find, but I suspect that he searched for the absolute worst bit he could find.
And I wouldn't put it past, er, the media, to yank something out of context entirely - for instance, a character within a book can be self-indulgent and full of shit without the book being so. Shocker, I know.
Additionally, judging a book based on a cherry-picked, one-paragraph, automatically-translated excerpt consisting of a single quote from a character is possibly - actually, almost certainly - even worse than judging it by its cover.
Would you slate a movie after watching five seconds of one of its characters say something stupid - via a "DO NOT WANT"-quality subtitle? Perhaps you would, if you personally disliked the director, but that doesn't mean it's at all a reasonable thing to do.
The difference between Mr. Orlowski and me is that I make no claim to know the quality of the book in question; the similarity between us is that neither of us have any knowledge on which to base an opinion.
Plus, I find it rather strange for someone to whine about the hypocrisy of an author who disavows copyright and then benefits from it, only to then imply that such copyright shouldn't apply anyway because the work is lousy. Which is it, then? Are you in favor of copyright or not? Or do you think that only things you consider worthwhile should be copyrighted?
Or do you just not particularly care as long as you have a whipping boy to help justify your haughtiness?
She is 27 and comes from the "it's not fair" generation.
She has a degree in Political Theory.
Malcolm Tucker: Oh, it's make-your-mind-up time, Ollie! I mean, what do you want to be? Do you want to be a prick that works here for a year, then goes away and joins a think-tank to write "oh, on one hand this and on the other hand that", or do you want to be a soldier?
She is Think Tank fodder.
Gentlemen (I assume),
I have noticed that, unsurprisingly, a significant number of comments here contain personal attacks and disparaging remarks against the lady in question.
Chances are you had never even heard of her before, let alone actually met her, and all you've got to go by is a biased article from some journo who writes *opinion* articles in an IT red top.
In light of that, what sort of contribution to any kind of discussion is a comment such as the above ("snot nosed little child", "GROW UP BITCH!", etc.) supposed to make?
And incidentally, €100K is rather a lot of money for a book and not the sort of figure I would expect a non-celebrity, non-established author to make. What is the source for that number again, please?
Thank you.
I agree with most of what you say but 27 years old is NOT a kid. I know people of 21 who are far more mature and rigorous in their thinking than this. B17 or 18, you start to lose the excuse of being a kid for your views. There are people with intelligent views under that too, but that's the cut off limit where you can say "X is a kid, it's understandable". Indulgence past that point is just going to spoil someone.
h4rm0ny, actually, the amygdala - the portion of your brain required for understanding and acting on long-term consequences to actions, among other things - isn't fully-formed until one's late 20s. 18 isn't a magic number of maturity that government miraculously glommed on to when deciding when people instantly become mature (eg, taking racy pictures of 17.99999-year-old = pedophilia and instant horrible death; taking racy pictures of 18.0000-year-old = good on ya mate and awesome business!). And cherry-picking cases of 17-year-olds who are mature is farcical; just because I can point out a 12-year-old who makes mature decisions doesn't mean that 13-year-olds are almost entirely immature idiots.
like a proper interview with this p... p.... Damn, this filthy "p-word" can't translate between my brain (brian?) cell (uno) and my keyboard-connected fingers. Cenzorship, ja!
P... P... PIRATE, there, I said it!!!!
but hey, seriously, I mean, why don't you, in the spirit of Investigative IT Journalism, try to contact her and ask for an interview perhaps? And please don't forget to ask her to clear up the meaning of this pussythingy, for the record.
> describes Schramm as ... post-gender feminist
Okaaaaay, feminist I get, post-gender I sort-of understand - but both together? it sounds a bit like the conflicts you'd get with a "vegetarian" ham sandwich.
If this description was merely meant as a collection of right-on buzzwords to press the buttons of the terminally trendy ("I live on the internet" - good grief), I could see the point of it. Maybe she's just having a laugh at everyone's expense, but it's lost something in translation.
Yes, that's where I cam across the concept. One sandwich shop I used to frequent sliced their ham so thin you could see through it. I presume the place was run by the sorts who believe in homeopathy - so the thinner the ham, the tastier it would be. Though the question then has to be asked: why didn't my ham sandwich have an overwhelming taste of tuna?
I guess we'll just have to wait for some native German speaker to rock up and provide us with a translation from the orginal that hasn't been garbledgoogled to find out what it really means.
I'm guessing something like "pampered kitten".......
Hmm, need a "Tower of Babel" icon?
I'm assuming that poor translation also explains:
"have friends that I know and can only digitally off whenever I want"
I tried to parse it and ended up with someone who was only capable of digitally offing herself, but could do so at any time. Maybe if you are a privileges pussy you get nine offs before losing your privileges.
You must be new here. As soon as I saw "by Andrew Orlowski" I already knew exactly what the piece would say. He actually surprised me and was more restrained than usual.
.... Although the cory reference was a bit weak, considering BoingBoing is US based and can make use of 17USC107 for news reporting, while the DM is UK based and there's NO such provision there for any kind of fair use
... of a pirate: Check that your publisher aren't too infringement notice-happy.
The blurb introduces the book as about as interesting as a zuckbook page. But! As a book! In the digital age! Mustabeen one heck of an elevator pitch. On the other hand, she did get paid for it. The title reminds me of cow clicker somehow.
Except apparently a normal, morally-sound human being. Nice one, kid.
Which is why I can't be arsed with aliases these days. I don't want to be Hitler or a little green crocodile when I'm online - it's enough trouble keeping one head going, without inventing new heads to put on! So I don't need anonymity, bcos there's nothing I'd say which I'd be ashamed of having quoted back at me.
Really good point.
Also, for anything you say that is really contentious, people will make it their mission to expose the real person behind "littlegreencrocodile27@hotmail.com", so you might as well just use your real name and stand behind what you say.
The only exception to this is if you go up against people who will try to hurt you in real life, but that requires a whole other level of commitment to maintaining a separate online identity. Whimsical mask wearing isn't much help at that point.
the orignial german "Privilegienmuschi" does indeed somewhat translate to priviledged pussy
she explains what she means here: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://juliaschramm.de/2011/10/30/wahrheit-und-normen/ (in short: she's from a financially secure, western, heterosexual, white background; so she was set from the beginning to have it easy)
Either that, or break the contract with her publisher. (Which would cost her quite a bit.) Both should be prefaced with a public apology; the current situation is a disaster to the cause she supposedly works for.
I'm not holding my breath though...
Except Andrew forgot to mention this isn' the first Pirate book. Nor is she the 'most prominent' pirate to release one.
In January, the US party released No Safe Harbor, which was co-edited by the first head of Pirate Parties International, and the head of the Florida Pirate Party. A few months later, Rick Falkvinge (the founder of the movement) and Christian Engstrom (the first Pirate elected to major office) released their own book.
Both books are available to download for free from the authors, both are released with the ability to remix.
And speaking as a long term pirate, I'd hardly call her 'prominent', because I've certainly never heard of her.
"Pirates think everything should be free but they get upset when I wanna use their home, car, money, TV, PC, etc."
I'm guessing they wouldn't be quite so upset if you laser-scanned their home, car, money, TV, PC, etc, printed your own copies, and used *those*, though.
I mean, Christ, I'm reasonably strongly in favor of copyright - the concept, if not any given implementation - and somehow I managed to figure that out. Lambasting someone else for a lack of self-consistency while utterly failing at some yourself is a kind of double-hypocrisy that has to be seen to be believed.
...she personally gives a flying fuck about this?
All I see is her publisher flapping around because they might lose money. What's that got to do with her?
You lot are full of hot air. She has not made any statement about what the publishers have decided to do, on their own and her behalf.
Get off those high horses ;)
"My name is Julia and I live on the internet." My name is not relevant, I call myself "heyrick" (one of several and they aren't all me) and I inhabit parts of the Internet.
"I'm pretty happy, have friends that I know and can only digitally off whenever I want." I'm happy enough, I have friends I've never actually met and some I have. As for digitally offing, keep that sort of thing to yourself, perv.
"I can be anything on the Internet: Mafia boss, Barbie, Hitler, owner and a little green crocodile." I am quite content to be me. Anything else is too much bullshit and remembering what lie you told to who when. Interesting choices: Mafia boss, Barbie, Hitler, green crocodile. This person is ripe for psychoanalysis dontcha think?
"On the computer I am God." It's called logging in as root. But you want to be a Real God, learn assembler and talk to it on its own terms.
"And I feel great - great evil, cold and calculating." Funny. I am God, I see opportunities and possibilities and there's no evil in sight. Some people are obviously a little screwed up and strayed from the path of enlightenment. I guess that's just the way it is. I'm not trying to preach but I believe I can teach... oh, wait, sorry, wrong song...
"From a young age, at 13 or 14, I was aware of the seemingly endless possibilities for constructing identity." From a younger age, 11 or 12, I saw that the BASIC interpreter on the BBC Micro could do my maths prep (homework) for me. And then I released it could do a hell of a lot else too. I also saw that a person should not be judged by colour (hair or skin), origin, or dress style. Just use the basic criteria of "what the person says and what the person creates". Identity is only of value to those who put value in cultivating identities.
"The Internet was the place where I saw everything for the first time: love, sex and betrayal. Enlightenment, freedom and politics." A young'un. Before the Internet was Fidonet. Before Fidonet was the BBS. Before what was swapping tapes and discs in the back of the classroom. Yeah, those halycon days when people of nerdish persuasion actually used to talk to each other and brag about their Chuckie Egg scores...
"There, talk, laugh, cry and think I do." As like everybody does; why like Yoda writes we? Stupid affectation is.
"For I am a child of the digital age, I am the one that comes from the Internet. And that's my story." No. I am a child of the digital age. This person is just another pretender spat out by the unchecked commercialisation of Web2.0 where anybody can get a box, plug it in, give it a login name/password, and then jack into The Wired and make up whatever crap tickles them. Like "look at me, I'm a mafia boss". Whatever. A real child of the digital age would remember type-in listings, a time when a computer was your best friend, not some fancy appliance sat on the table to be used as a mere interface to somebody else's portal. Anybody that doesn't remember that is just too damn late.
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