In the late 1700s, the United Kingdom was the empire that established laws on the globe. The United States was still largely a colony – even if not formally so, it was referred to as such in the civilized world, meaning France and the United Kingdom.

The UK had a strictly protectionist view of trade: all raw materials must come to England, and all luxury goods must be made from those materials while in the UK, to be exported to the rest of the world. Long story short, the UK was where the value was to be created.

Laws were written to lock in this effect. Bringing the ability to refine materials somewhere else, the mere knowledge, was illegal. “Illegal copying”, more precisely.

Let’s look at a particularly horrible criminal from that time, Samuel Slater. In the UK, he was even known as “Slater the Traitor”. His crime was to memorize the drawings of a British textile mill, move to New York, and copy the whole of the British textile mill from memory – something very illegal. For this criminal act, building the so-called Slater Mill, he was hailed as “the father of the American Industrial Revolution” by those who would later displace the dominance of the UK – namely the United States. This copy-criminal also has a whole town named after him.

Copying brings jobs and prosperity. Copying has always brought jobs and prosperity. It is those who don’t want to compete who try to legislate a right to rest on their laurels and outlaw copying. It never works.

We can take a look at the early film industry as well. That industry was bogged down with patent monopolies from one of the worst monopolists through industrial history, Thomas Edison and his Western Electric. He essentially killed off any film company that started in or at New York, where the film industry was based at the time. A few of the nascent film companies – Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, MGM – therefore chose to settle as far from this monopolist as possible, and went across the entire country, to a small unexploited suburb outside of Los Angeles, California, which was known as “Hollywoodland” and had a huge sign to that effect. There, they would be safe from Edison’s patent enforcement, merely through taking out enough distance between themselves and him.

Yes, you read that right – the entire modern film industry was founded on piracy. Which, again, lead to jobs and prosperity.

The heart of the problem is this: those who decide what is “illegal” to copy do so from a basis of not wanting to get outcompeted, and never from any kind of moral high ground. It’s just pure industrial protectionism. Neo-mercantilism, if you prefer. Copying always brings jobs and prosperity. Therefore, voluntarily agreeing to the terms of the incumbent industries, terms which are specifically written to keep everybody else unprosperous, is astoundingly bad business and policy.

I’d happily go as far as to say there is a moral imperative to disobey any laws against copying. History will always put you in the right, as was the case with Samuel Slater, for example.

For a more modern example, you have Japan. When I grew up in the 1980s, Japanese industry was known for cheap knock-off goods. They copied everything shamelessly, and never got quality right. But they knew something that the West didn’t: copying brings prosperity. When you copy well enough, you learn at a staggering pace, and you eventually come out as the R&D leader, the innovation leader, building on that incremental innovation you initially copied. Today, Japan builds the best quality stuff available in any category.

The Japanese knew and understand that it takes three generations of copying and an enormous work discipline to become the best in the world in any industry. Recently, to my huge astonishment, they even overtook the Scottish as masters of whisky. (As I am a very avid fan of Scottish whisky, this was a personal source of confusion for me, even though I know things work this way on a rational level.)

At the personal level, pretty much every good software developer I know learned their craft by copying other people’s code. Copying brings prosperity at the national and the individual levels. Those who would seek to outlaw it, or obey such unjust bans against copying, have no moral high ground whatsoever – and frankly, I think people who voluntarily choose to obey such unjust laws deserve to stay unprosperous, and fall with their incumbent master when that time comes.

Nobody ever took the lead by voluntarily walking behind somebody else, after all. The rest of us copy, share, and innovate, and we wait for nobody who tries to legislate their way to competitiveness.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Today whistleblower outfit Wikileaks sheds some light on the ongoing negotiations by leaking a new draft of the agreement’s controversial intellectual property chapter.

The draft dates back to May 2014 and although it’s far from final, some significant progress has been made since the first leak during August last year.

For example, the countries have now agreed that a new copyright term will be set in the agreement. No decision has been made on a final term but options currently on the table are life of the author plus 50, 70 or 100 years.

The proposal to add criminal sanctions for non-commercial copyright infringement, which is currently not the case in many countries, also remains in play.

The leak further reveals a new section on ISP liability. This includes a proposal to make it mandatory for ISPs to alert customers who stand accused of downloading copyrighted material, similar to the requirement under the U.S. DMCA.

Alberto Cerda of Georgetown University Law Center points out that some of the proposals in the ISP liability section go above and beyond the DMCA.

“The most worrying proposal on the matter is that one that would extend the scope of the provisions from companies that provide Internet services to any person who provides online services,” Cerda told TorrentFreak.

This means that anyone who passes on Internet traffic could be held liable for the copyright infringements of others. This could include the local coffeehouse that offers free wifi, or even someone’s own Internet connection if it’s shared with others.

The leaked draft also adds a provision that would allow ISPs to spy on their own users to catch those who download infringing content. This is another concern, according to the law Professor.

“From a human rights viewpoint, that should be expressly limited to exceptional circumstances,” Cerda says.

It’s clear that the ISP liability section mimicks the DMCA. In fact, throughout the TPP chapter the most draconian proposals often originate from the United States.

Law Professor Michael Geist notes that Canada has been the leading opponent of many of the U.S. proposals, which often go against the country’s recently revamped copyright law. Geist warns that the TPP may eventually lead to tougher local laws as U.S. pressure continues.

“As the treaty negotiations continue, the pressure to cave to U.S. pressure will no doubt increase, raising serious concerns about whether the TPP will force the Canadian government to overhaul recently enacted legislation,” Geist writes.

Compared to the previous draft that leaked last year there are also some positive developments to report.

For example, Canada put forward a proposal that permits countries to allow exceptions to technological protection measures. This would makes it possible to classify DRM-circumvention as fair use, for example. A refreshing proposal, but one that’s unlikely to be approved by the U.S.

If anything, the leaked TPP chapter shows once again that there is still a very long way to go before a final draft is ready. After more than three years of negotiating many of the proposals are still heavily debated and could go in multiple directions.

That is, if an agreement is ever reached.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Those carrying out the attacks have a variety of motives, from extortion and blackmail to “the lulz“, and a dozen reasons in between. Often the reasons are never discovered.

During the past few days several sites involved in the unauthorized sharing of anime have been targeted by DDoS-style attacks. Swaps4 reported that Haruhichan, Tokyo Toshokan and AnimeTake were under assault from assailants unknown, although all now appear to be back online.

A far more serious situation has played out at NYAA.se, however. The site is probably the largest public dedicated anime torrent index around and after being hit with an attack last weekend it remains offline today. The attack on NYAA had wider effects too.

NYAA and leading fan-subbing site HorribleSubs reportedly shared the same hosting infrastructure so the DDoS attack took down both sites. That’s significant, not least since at the end of August HorribleSubs reported that their titles had been downloaded half a billion times.

As the image above shows it now appears that HorribleSubs has recovered (and added torrent magnet links) but the same cannot be said about NYAA. The site’s extended downtime continues with no apparent end in sight. This has resulted in a backlash from the site’s fans and somewhat inevitably accusatory fingers are being pointed at potential DDoS suspects.

As far-fetched as it might sound, one of the early suspects was the Japanese government itself. The launch of a brand new anti-piracy campaign last month in partnership with 15 producers certainly provided a motive, but a nation carrying out this kind of assault seems unlikely in the extreme.

Quickly, however, an announcement from HorribleSubs turned attentions elsewhere.

“Chill down. It’s not just us. Every famous anime sites [are] getting DDoS attacks, but that doesn’t mean this is the end,” the site’s operator wrote on Facebook.

“We have located where DDoS are coming from. It’s from ‪#‎Crunchyroll‬ and ‪#‎Funimation‬ Employees.”

Update: HorribleSubs inform TF that the Facebook page listed is “in no way managed nor affiliated with HorribleSubs and as such all opinions and views expressed on that page does not reflect the views and opinions of the HorribleSubs management.”

Funimation is an US television and film production company best known for its distribution of anime while Crunchyroll is a website and community focused on, among other things, Asian anime and manga. While both could at least have a motive to carry out a DDoS, no evidence has been produced to back up the HorribleSubs claims. That said, HorribleSubs admits that its key motivation is to annoy Crunchyroll.

“We do not translate our own shows because we rip from Crunchyroll, FUNimation, Hulu, The Anime Network, Niconico, and Daisuki,” the site’s about page reads, adding: “We aren’t doing this for e-penis but for the sole reason of pissing off Crunchyroll.”

Shortly after, attention turned to anti-piracy outfit Remove Your Media (RYM). The company works with anime companies Funimation and Viz Media, which includes the sending of millions of DMCA notices to Google. The spark came when the company published a tweet (now removed) which threatened to send “thousands” of warning letters to NYAA users once the site was back online.

This doesn’t seem like an idle threat. A few weeks ago the company posted a screenshot on Twitter containing an unredacted list of Comcast, Charter and CenturyLink IP addresses said to have been monitored infringing copyright. Due to the NYAA downtime, RYM later indicated it had switched to warning users of Kickass.to.

This involvement with anime companies combined with the warning notice statement led to DDoS accusations being directed at RYM. TorrentFreak spoke to the company’s Eric Green and asked if they knew anything about the attacks.

“The short answer is No. In fact we were waiting for [NYAA] to go back
online to begin monitoring illegal transfers again. Sorry to disappoint but we
had no involvement,” Green told TF.

Just a couple of hours ago RYM made a new announcement on Twitter, stating that the original tweet had been removed due to false accusations.

“Nyaa post deleted due to all the Ddos libel directed at this account. Infringement notices continue to ISPs, for piracy, regardless of tracker,” they conclude.

Although it’s impossible to say who is behind the attacks, it does seem improbable that an anti-piracy company getting paid to send notices would do something that is a) seriously illegal and b) counter-productive to getting paid for sending notices.

That said, it seems likely that someone who doesn’t appreciate unofficial anime sites operating smoothly is behind the attack. Who that might be will remain a mystery, at least for now.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Traditionally these efforts have focused on the United States where ISPs are required to forward takedown notices to their account holders.

A recent trend has seen these notices become more than mere warnings. Companies such as CEG TEK and Rightscorp also tag on settlement requests, hoping to recoup some of the damages allegedly caused by file-sharers.

Since these requests are sent as DMCA notices, copyright holders do not have to involve the courts. Nonetheless, the ‘fines’ can be as high as several hundred dollars per shared file. Thus far these “automated fines” have been limited to the United States, but soon they will expand to Japan, with Australia and Canada next on the list.

TorrentFreak spoke with CEG TEK’s Kyle Reed who confirmed that they will soon start their piracy monetization service in Japan. At the same time the company will run various tests to see how Aussie and Canadian Internet providers respond to their notices.

“Increased coverage for our monetization clients in additional countries has always been top of mind. We have a base of international clients, some of which call these countries home,” Reed tells TorrentFreak

“Canada and Australia are both hot topics with rights owners and the market conditions afford us the opportunity to initiate ISP compliance testing,” Reed adds.

If the notice forwarding goes well with the ISPs, and there are decent response rates, the company will also begin sending out settlement requests in Australia and Canada.

Internet providers have to be tested in advance, because the settlement scheme fails if ISPs ignore or modify the notices. For example, in the U.S. many of the larger ISPs forward the notice without the actual settlement offer.

CEG TEK is not the only piracy monetization service to consider international expansion. Previously Rightscorp announced that it was interested in offering its services in Canada.

Whether Internet providers in Australia and Canada are willing to cooperate has yet to be seen. In Canada there is currently no legal obligation for ISPs to cooperate, although this will change soon. Australia has a notice and takedown policy but this doesn’t require ISPs to forward the settlement requests.

According to CEG TEK their settlement services are superior to traditional anti-piracy warnings since they stop more unauthorized transfers while making money in the process.

“In the United States and around the world, traditional peer-to-peer anti-piracy methods have proved to be largely ineffective. We have the only peer-to-peer solution shown to decrease infringements and repeat offenders, as well as return monetary settlements to rightful copyright owners,” Reed says.

The irony is of course that these companies will render themselves obsolete if they become too effective, but for now there are still plenty of pirates around.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

“We’re about to take the biggest step in our history,” says TPB in a blog post that went out earlier than expected.

In addition to changing the look of its frontpage the site has renamed itself to ‘The Virtual Bay’ to celebrate a new partnership with neuroscientists from Russia, Israel and Japan. The goal is to build a next generation virtual reality device that will change the way people interact with the site and the pirated media it offers.

“As piracy is about to change from sharing of files into the sharing of everything, we’re planning our departure from this earthly form. Preparing our final ascension into the transcendence. The final conflux,” the TPB team notes.

Traditional media companies are resisting change and have been slow to pick up on virtual reality, but The Pirate Bay is jumping in to fill this void. When the site’s device is ready, Pirate Bay users will be able to actively participate in the games and videos downloaded from the site.

“Using a simple plugin into the brain, you will no longer only be able to see and hear a movie, a game or whatever it is you want. You’ll be able to live it. Play the main character. Tweak any story in any way you want,” TPB writes.

In addition, the virtual reality component will store the entire Pirate Bay ecosystem in people’s minds, making it accessible instantaneously, faster than ever before, and impossible to shut down. In other words, the people will become The Pirate Bay and take the site to a new dimension.

“Using your brain power and nervous system, we will be able to speed things up. Every part of The Pirate Bay will be stored within you and everyone else that dares to participate in this step into the future. The more we are, the faster everything will be.

“Our scientists calculate that if we become at least 1,333,337 nodes, everything will be shared instantaneously,” the TPB team adds.

More details about this prestigious project are expected to come out later today, or tomorrow, depending on your time zone. Stay tuned.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The first big crackdown followed in February 2013, when police carried out searches on 124 locations and arrested 27 people suspected of sharing music, movies, TV shows, games and software without permission.

Now, almost exactly a year later, authorities have been flexing their muscles again, this time in pursuit of those sharing videos online.

According to Anime News Network, between February 25-27 police raided 123 locations across the country searching for 24 anime pirates using sharing software including Cabos, Share, Perfect Dark and the infamous Winny.

As of last Friday, police had arrested 19 suspects including a 51-year-old company man said to have uploaded several anime videos without permission.

Although P2P file-sharing use is reportedly on a downward trend, figures released last year by the Recording Industry Association of Japan suggested that the country’s tough legislation had done nothing to boost music sales.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In today’s file-sharing world we might think in terms of Kim Dotcom against the U.S. Government or The Pirate Bay v Hollywood, but these copyright-related rivalries mean very little in the East. Indeed, today they have a much bigger battle to contend with. It seems that in the land of the rising sun the players in an anti-piracy campaign run by the movie industry have grown so popular that they have shifted into popular culture.

NO MORE 映画泥棒 (NO MORE Movie Thief) is an anti-piracy ad played in Japanese theaters to advise against the illegal camming of movies. Since its launch in 2007 it has featured two main characters. The first is Camera Otoko (Camera Man), a guy in a black suit with his head replaced by a camcorder. The second, Patrol Lamp Otoko (Patrol Lamp Man), is a blue-suited gentleman with a red flashing police light for a head.

Somewhat unexpectedly (or perhaps not) the odd duo have proven a hit with the Japanese. In addition to inspiring hundreds of pieces of neat and sometimes unsettling artwork they are appearing more and more in popular culture. Even the vibrant Japanese cosplay scene is feeding on their inspiration.

But now, thanks to a great spot by ITMedia.co.jp, the latest wave in the NO MORE craze is about to hit the streets. To commemorate the camming phenomenon both characters have been turned into action figurines by toy giant Bandai, each designed to be worn as accessories.

Currently Bandai are offering several different designs for 3024 yen ($28.99) a set, a steal for those with a deep desire to outwardly depict the camming of a movie and ultimately the arrest and imprisonment of the perpetrator. According to Google Translate, they also come with a snack that looks like gum, perfect for those on a diet looking to cut down on theater food bills.

Up next week, Bandai releases action figures of the entire original Pirate Bay crew and a double pack featuring Kim Dotcom versus Chris Dodd. We wish…..

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In psychology it’s called ‘reactance’ and is something which occurs when we believe that someone’s orders, mechanisms, rules or regulations are about to narrow our options or limit our behavioral freedoms.

I love incredibly hot sauce (such as Dave’s Insanity Ghost Pepper Sauce) even though it leaves me bent up in pain if I have too much, which incidentally is anything more than a few drops. On the label of these sauces it often orders you NEVER, EVER under ANY circumstances to consume the sauce neat.

Yeah, right.

The problem is that there is something inherently annoying about someone we don’t know trying to impose their will on us when we are perfectly capable of making our own decisions. Not only do we inexplicably want the forbidden item even more than before, we kick back and build up resentment against those attempting to restrict our freedoms.

For example, I’ve never commented on a YouTube video before but the idea that Google wants to force Plus down our necks in order for us to do so fills me with rage, to the point where i’ve even signed the petition.

All kinds of Internet restriction has this effect on me. Every time news breaks that another site has been blocked I have an overwhelming desire to make sure I can still access it, even though I may never have visited it in the past and have no intention of doing so in the future.

That said, once the “This Site Has Been Blocked” message appears there’s nothing more immediately satisfying than unblocking it, a feeling that parallels the challenging of “don’t touch, wet paint” when it turns out to be dry after all.

The good news is that satisfaction is just a few clicks away for anyone who wants it and it doesn’t have to cost a penny either. Here are a few of the most simple solutions that will take a maximum of five to ten minutes for a novice to setup.

PirateBrowser

PirateBrowser is a simple tool provided by the operators of The Pirate Bay. It allows anyone to quickly and simply circumvent ISP and government web blocking.

The software is Tor-based and includes a version of the popular Firefox browser which should be used when a site needs to be unblocked. By mid October the tool had achieved around one million downloads and according to Alexa is most popular among users in South Korea.

PirateBrowser can be downloaded here

Tor

Tor is perhaps the most famous tool to unblock websites, avoid censorship and maintain privacy. It was originally designed and implemented by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for protecting government communications.

Today it used by people such as whistleblowers, journalists and activists who may need to keep their identities secret. It is also used by those looking to access censored webpages, hence its inclusion in this list.

Tor can be downloaded here

Virtual Private Networks – VPN

A VPN is a group of computers networked over the top of the world’s largest network – the Internet. Communications are encrypted so VPNs are useful for maintaining privacy and, of course, unblocking blocked websites.

There can be no doubt that paying a few dollars per month for a premium account is the best option for those who have the money, but basic and completely free options are available.

Perhaps the most interesting one is offered by the Graduate School of University of Tsukuba, Japan. The VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project launched earlier this year aiming “to expand the knowledge of Global Distributed Public VPN Relay Servers.”

Like all technologies listed in this article, it’s not necessary for beginners to understand how they work, just that they do. Unlike Tor, don’t expect total privacy with VPN Gate but be assured that the service unblocks websites just fine.

VPN Gate can be downloaded here.

Site-Specific Reverse Proxies

In the wake of the censorship of torrent sites in the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark and other countries around Europe, special sites started to appear. Known as ‘reverse proxies’, these webpages access blocked sites and feed the content back to their own pages. To visitors accessing the reverse proxy, the blocked site appears as normal.

There are hundreds of these available, such as the selection available on PirateReverse.info and Come.in. However, some reverse proxies themselves have become subjected to censorship, meaning that they too are blocked at the ISP level, in the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium.

General Web Proxies

General webpage proxies are sites which can unblock most websites online via a simple interface. By simply entering the URL of the blocked website into the search box of the web proxy, the blocked site will become accessible.

There are hundreds of these web-based solutions which can be uncovered by a simple Google search, although some are overloaded with adverts and cluttered interfaces.

On the plus side they’re all free so have a browse around and find one you like. Some are available as a browser extension, which makes them even easier to use.

Conclusion

You are hereby ordered NOT to try any of these solutions – EVER – and if you have any of your own solutions you will REFRAIN from posting them in the comments section below.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The agreement aims to create deep economic ties between a dozen countries – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, United States, Vietnam, Mexico, Canada and New Zealand – by easing trade in goods and services, encouraging investment, and forging understandings across a wide range of policy issues.

Negotiations between the nations have been running for around two and a half years and the TPP agreement itself is now reportedly more than 1,000 pages deep. Overall the negotiations have drawn criticism for their secrecy but today Wikileaks announced that they had obtained a copy of the “most controversial chapter” from the TPP agreement which reveals the negotiation positions for all 12 countries on IP and copyright issues.

Many topics are covered in the chapter including DRM and other ‘technical measures’, extended copyright terms, increased penalties for infringement and ISP liability, the latter with a proposal for “adopting and reasonably implementing a policy that provides for termination in appropriate circumstances of the accounts of repeat infringers.”

Reception to the leaked agreement has so far been highly critical. Knowledge Ecology International notes that the TPP IPR chapter not only proposes the granting of more patents, expansion of rightsholder privileges and increased penalties for infringement, but also plans the creation of intellectual property rights on data.

“The TPP text shrinks the space for exceptions in all types of intellectual property rights. Negotiated in secret, the proposed text is bad for access to knowledge, bad for access to medicine, and profoundly bad for innovation,” KEI concludes.

Burcu Kilic, an intellectual property lawyer with Public Citizen, says that some of the proposals in the text evoke memories of the controversial SOPA legislation in the United States.

“The WikiLeaks text also features Hollywood and recording industry inspired proposals – think about the SOPA debacle – to limit Internet freedom and access to educational materials, to force Internet providers to act as copyright enforcers and to cut off people’s Internet access,” Kilic says.

Collectively the items in this version of the leaked draft reveal argument and opposition on dozens if not hundreds of points from one or several countries. In fact while there are many, many proposals, it is striking that there is a clear lack of final agreement across the board on almost all of the issues.

Kilic describes the proposals as having reached a “negotiation stalemate.” His colleague, Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s global access to medicines program, lays the blame for that at the feet of the United States.

“Given how much text remains disputed, the negotiation will be very difficult to conclude,” Maybarduk says. “Much more forward-looking proposals have been advanced by the other parties, but unless the U.S drops its out-there-alone demands, there may be no deal at all.”

The full agreement can be downloaded here (PDF).

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This applies strongly to those copyright industry lobbyists who make a living dismantling our freedoms of speech, assembly, and opinion.

One of the more obscene arguments from the copyright industry lobby is that people who facilitate unlicensed manufacturing of culture and knowledge – breaking the copyright monopoly in the process – make money from facilitating this process, through ads and the like. At the same time, the people of the copyright industry lobby – the Dutch Tim Kuik, the Swedish Henrik Pontén, the Danish “child-porn-is-great” Johan Schlüter (yes, he said that), you all know your local antagonists – are raking in money themselves on introducing censorship, tracking and wiretapping, while somehow claiming it is immoral to do so for those who spread knowledge and culture to humanity. It is sickening, really.

We know that we are winning, only that it takes an enormous amount of time to shift the overall direction of society. We come from the Internet, we’re used to changing the world in a weekend of coding. The nightmare with today’s copyright and patent monopoly laws is that they have their origin in Industrial Protectionism (IP) in the United States directed against Japanese cars in the mid-1970s.

Yes, the anti-liberty, anti-market, and anti-humanity forces have been working for 40 years to take us where we are today. We’ve been making great strides in the past decade, but it’s going to take much more work – not to mention endurance – to save the world from a surveillance society nightmare where the copyright industry determines what we get to know, see, and learn.

The copyright industry has long been working in collusion with the wiretapping industry – the FRA, NSA, GCHQ, etc. – to get laws that enable more tracking, more wiretapping, and more surveillance. This, after all, is the only way the copyright monopoly can be preserved: by eliminating private communications as a concept. But we can turn the tide. Just look at the tipping point in public opinion brought about by Edward Snowden’s leaks, not to mention the outrage from affected politicians.

When activists fought software patent monopolies in Europe just under a decade ago, many of them burned out in the process and suffered from what can only be described as a post-traumatic stress disorder, even though the good side won the legislative process. (Which was immediately ignored by software patent monopoly lawyers, for which they should be sent to prison, but that’s a separate topic.)

That victory night, the activists met with the fell-funded corporate lobbyists where the activists had won, and the lobbyists smiled professionally, raised their glasses, and said “see you in another two years”. The corporate anti-liberty lobbyists, particularly from the copyright industry, will simply never stop. That’s why we need to strike at the root of the problem and work long-term, rather than thinking that a reduction or two in the scope of these monopolies will fix everything.

Christian Engström, one of the activists in that battle who is now an elected Member of the European Parliament, has a particularly good quote: “If you’re getting bitter and burnt out and feel you need to take a break from activism, that is always the right thing to do. There will always be something to do when you come back; you never need to worry about the world running out of evil while you’re away.”

Fortunately, there are small things that each of us can do every day that doesn’t require the exhausting effort of writing long articles or reading complex reports. When hundreds of thousands of people do these small things, it has a tremendous effect:

- Share articles with your social network on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Two kinds of articles are particularly valuable – those that expose the copyright industry’s bottomless cynicism, and those that propose a better alternative.

- Use correct language, and if you have the energy, call people out who don’t. Every time you say “copyright monopoly” instead of just “copyright”, it makes a difference. Every time you say “manufacturing their own copies” and reject “stealing movies”, it makes a difference. Every time you point out that people are manufacturing their own copies using their own property entirely, it makes a difference. Every time you point out that we never determined our freedoms of speech and expression based on who gets to make a profit or not, it makes a difference. See my previous TorrentFreak column on Language Matters.

These two simple actions, when done by tens of thousands, have an immense impact – and can be done even if you’re tired and bitter of fighting what seems like an uphill battle.

I write more about this kind of swarm intelligence in my book Swarmwise, which you can download for free, by the way. If you want more arguments against the copyright monopoly, I recommend the book “The Case for Copyright Reform”, also available for free.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.