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Young Pirates Evicted From Festival For Giving Out Free Waffles

Well, here’s a story we’ve heard before in a flavor we haven’t. The Swedish Young Pirates association had a tent at a local municipal festival, and were handing out free waffles as an attraction. They were targeted with eviction from the festival, not because they weren’t allowed to make food or give things away (they were), but because the traditional festival waffle makers couldn’t get paid anymore.

It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t.

As described by Gustav Nipe, chairman of Young Pirate and one of the people giving out waffles at the festival.

“Today a lady walked by and complained that we give our waffles away. Apparently, that is horrible behavior, as people are trying to sell waffles at the festival, and how could they get paid if there are free waffles?”

Instead of selling the waffles for 25 Swedish kroner [about 2.75 euros], the Young Pirates were sharing them for free.

In the minutes that followed the situation escalated quickly. Nipe tweeted, in sequence:

“… Status update on waffles: the giveaway continues. The responsible manager at the festival is busy and doesn’t have time to speak to us.”

“… Young Pirate is now being evicted from the festival. Security guards are on location, as well as the manager who has ordered the eviction.”

“… We called the police. The security guards are pulling back. No waffles being made right now. Our tent remains.”

“… Young Pirate is now making waffles again!”

Local media (in Swedish, linked above) picked up on the event rather quickly. But I think this serves as an excellent example of what’s happening in the world at large right now, even if this was a conflict over waffles in the remote parts of a frozen country the size of a shoebox on the Arctic Circle.

Guards and police are called in by businesses when there is a social or legal disturbance, on the assumption that maintaining the momentum of the economy is more important than people’s freedom to cause disruptions. But something interesting has happened lately.

The social norms have changed so much with the Internet, that business rules have changed unrecognizably for those who have run their businesses the same way for decades.

People are being pushed – no, shoved – out of their comfort zones. The waffle makers at this festival obviously viewed these youth (not of their social group) who were giving out free waffles as a social problem, for which security guards could be involved, and not a business problem, which would be their own failure:

The social norms have changed so quickly, that the forces upholding order in society have lost their ability to tell a social disturbance from a business disturbance.

The parallels to file-sharing are strong and present. If you can’t compete with the “free” that file-sharing offers, you can’t compete, period… but distribution executives around the world in monopolized copyright industries are trying to portray file sharing as a social disturbance to be dealt with forcefully, rather than a business failure.

In this, copyright industry lawyers and executives are no different from the sorry waffle sellers at this local festival who tried to get a political youth organization evicted for giving waffles to the festival visitors.

About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

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  • Anon1

    This is quite an interesting parallel, Rick. Just goes to show how outdated the MAFIAA’s business model is.

    • Lord of the Files

      Next up, local restaurants ask authorities to shut down soup kitchens because they’re having a negative impact on the restaurants profits. /s

      • Rzrtrek

         ..an excellent point! GOD DAMN MONEYMAKERS!!

        • Asdf

           just to elaborate, get your airhead out of your comfort pillow and think like the waffle sellers: “well, if some upper middle class pretentious hipster kids can mount a tent right across mine and give waffles away for free while I’m here working hard trying to sell mine, I can call unfair competition and have something done about it”. I’m certain if YOU owned an average restaurant and saw a soup kitchen open right across the street you’d want to do something about it. don’t say you wouldn’t, you’ll sound like a hypocrite

        • Anyone

          of course it sucks to have competition (at least if you are losing the competition)

          but if you just bitch and moan and try to destroy the competition with unfair methods you are simply an asshole
          you might have the law on your side in some cases, but that doesn’t make you any less of an asshole

        • Guest

          @2b03046569e9e5cdae10d79d01c19ecb:disqus I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not. If not, are you out of your mind? You can hate your competition as much as you want but you can’t just unlawfully evict them just because they are doing business in your area and killing your profit. If you can’t compete, then I am afraid you should pack your bags and go out of business.

        • Lord of the Files

          Off course I’d want to do something about it, Asdf. It would start with figuring out what changes I need to make to my business model so I can successfully compete with them. Sticking my head in the sand (i.e. the denial you mention) would just be dumb and I would deserve to go out of business if I did that. If someone creates a better business model which revolves around giving something away for free and as a result is a huge success, they deserve praise, not an attack by the so called authorities. It’s a free market and a big part of that is risk. There are no guarantees when it comes to running a business, not even if I somehow manage to get laws passed that grant me a monopoly and outlaw any form of competition I don’t agree with. It’s not hard at all to see how those two things are wrong and truly “unfair” as you put it.

        • disquscansuckmydick

           asdf here, my OP got erased for some reason and I couldn’t repost it no matter what, so my post may seem out of context, but fuck it. about the post that got through, Anyone seems to have understood somewhat what I meant, but Guest and Lord of the Flies seem to live in their mothers’ basements, where everyone (their mother) is nice and fair and assholes seem to only exist in internet forums. sorry to break it to you, but your mothers lied. santa doesn’t exist and there are assholes everywhere you look in the real world. WELL, now that you know, do you really think those little pirates were playing nice and fun games just because they like to share? I’m almost complely sure those waffle sellers thought they were being the assholes, mounting their little tent across and completely destroying any chance of earning money they might have had. I hope the little hipster pirates learned their lesson, that just because you’re a pretty cool guy who likes to share things won’t make you look like an asshole to others, especially when you could well be destroying their livelihood. now Guest and Lord of the Flies, stay in your basement, the world has ugly truths you don’t want to know about.

        • ghjk

          @2b03046569e9e5cdae10d79d01c19ecb:disqus  I would try making my waffles tastier and more mouth watering. I wouldn’t mind paying 3 times the price for a hard to resist waffle

        • http://twitter.com/bacon_frazzle Bacon Frazzle

          disquscansuckmydick/asdf

          Don’t talk such a load of old balls.

          If I want to give a product away for free, whilst footing the bill for the manufacture/provision of said product, then it’s entirely up to me !!!!!

          If you don’t like it then that’s tough titty i’m afraid – there is no law against giving stuff away for free, and if the other wafflers are uncompetitive in comparison then that’s their problem – maybe they should have researched their market/competition properly before committing to the event ………

          How hard you are working is neither here nor there, how you adapt your sales pitch to overcome your lack of competitiveness is your own business.

        • Lord of the Files

          asdf/disquscansuckmydick: Most of your reply is an angry, childish rant that is rather pointless all in all, so I’m not going to respond to that part. I will say that Bacon Frazzle has the right of it though. He/she is dead on. Consumers don’t owe any business a living and neither does anyone willing to give away their product for free at their own expense. You can believe what you want, but like you said life is unfair. Those who adapt are the smart ones and have a chance at continued success. Those who stamp their feet angrily, whine like a spoiled child, spout rhetoric (just like you did!) and attempt to use dirty tactics to protect their business will find themselves bankrupt in short order. This is just the way life is. Suck it up and deal with it.

        • Someone

          Asdf – Are you kidding me? It says in the article that they were handing them out as an attraction. I have no doubts that it was just a way to get attention for their association and maybe get new members. Groups do that sort of thing all the time in order to get attention and make you actually stop and take a look at a booth. I doubt they were aware beforehand they would be directly across from the waffle sellers.

    • http://otester.myopenid.com/ PiRat

      It’s not outdated, it’s serving its purpose of getting people ready for political censorship and the necessary laws in place.

    • Anyone

      this article kind of ironically also explains why the porn industry is screwed (pun intended). Problem’s not piracy, but the DIY approach of millions of people – for free

      • http://fennecweb.net/ Alexander ypema

        I’m gonna sue you for having sex with your married partner! They should make laws against this, it’s simply unfair that whores can’t compete with an actual partner!

        • CW

          you should be in the QI book of witty banter

    • Breasts.

      It would be a more apt parallel if the entrepreneurs featured in the article had bought a waffle from one of their competitors, had somehow cloned that waffle a couple hundred thousand times and started passing the cloned waffles out for free, then had stuck a few billboards in front of their waffle stand and sold the ad space. Suddenly they would kind of seem like dicks, wouldn’t they?

  • OccamsKatana

    And to think they weren’t even taking the other waffle makers waffles, but creating their very own waffles with their very own ingredients. Not even copying….  creating and providing for free. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1498149995 Mary Ellen Mimi Byrne-Spauldin

       absotootenlootley!!!! ; love love love your take on it; it’s right on point…

    • BootyTape.Com

        Look you give the Waffles away for free, but charge for the powdered sugar and syrup. Now that’s all it really takes to change the business model, just do slight alterations.

      • OccamsKatana

        Exactly. I had FREE all-you-can-eat chicken wings at my restaurant. You HAD to eat them there. If you wanted them cooked, that was 50 cents a wing!!! 

      • P3

         Yea! Smart loophole, but still, they need a permit from the “carneval” to do this, also they would probably have to pay a sum FOR this “bussiness-Venture”. But as a possibility to show the insanity of the system its GRRREAT !  (Could not log in through FaceBook – Allan Petree3)

        • Gear Mentation

           They paid essentially for advertising, which is a good which people regularly pay for.  If it disturbed the waffle makers, that’s tough.

    • Simmen

      Compare the costs of making wffles to the cost of renting a sever and domain (for example TPB), then look for incomme trough comercials at the stand (as TPB does), and suddently, you might have a viable business idea if you can get enough money from ads.

    • greenlight

      Maybe the other waffle stands had PATENTED the recipe for waffles?

    • disquscansuckmydick

      I for one hope the little pirates have learned their lesson, that sharing isn’t always caring, especially when they’re hurting some honest, hardworking people’s livelihood (assuming those waffles sellers were such). and before you start saying I’m doing some MAFIAA eulogy, consider what you’d say if those waffle sellers were some indie band instead, whose livelihood was hurt by dumbass pirate fans who can’t tell their left from their right. you leftard hipsters with your socialist wet dreams are a joke, do you even remember you live in the real world like everyone else? well, considering you probably live in your mother’s basement, I suppose not.

      • Anyone

        if you can’t compete on the free market you simply suck and deserve no sympathy whatsoever

        adapt or die

        • idris83

           This is just such a bizarre response. The pirates weren’t participating in any kind of market. They weren’t doing business. They were performing a generous act. There is plenty of room in the world for charity, but suggesting that this could replace business is just stupid. Do you really think a few middle class Swedish brats spending their pocket money to try to make a political point could provide the whole world with waffles for free? If they could, and somehow keep their “business” (parents’ bank balances) afloat – then great! More power to them; and traditional waffle sellers had better pack up their bags and find another business model. But that is not what was happening here, at all.

          Comparing it to soup kitchens is also bogus. Who do you think pays for soup kitchens? Charities, religions, and the state. Do you really think these groups would be happy to pay for all food for all people? No, they provide for the needy. No restaurant would worry about a soup kitchen opening nearby. It’s not what soup kitchens are for.

          FWIW, I’m as much a freetard as anyone. I abhor the RIAA/MPAA’s immoral attempts to preserve their racket. And the waffle house had no place calling the police. But to say things like “adapt or die” as if this is business, when instead it’s just brats making a nonsensical political point, it really makes the whole intellectual property reform movement look like a bunch of dribbling idiots.

      • Alyssa Blindy

        It is the words of people like you that make me wonder, what is this world coming to? If I am working my behind off to make waffles and some person comes along and starts giving those away for free, then they can stay there. It is my job to either come up with some incentive like buy one waffle and get two free or buy lemonade and get a waffle free, or I can change my location. The person who came and started giving away waffles for free has the right to keep doing that. Big government has no right to come in and make regulations against the person who is making free waffles. Have you ever heard of laissez-faire? Let it be, let the person giving away free waffles do whatever they want. Don’t whine like a government dependent, “oh, I need the government to come and regulate competition because I can’t stand it.”

        Now look whose the “socialist” who wants the government to regulate and control everything, giving everyone the right to ban competition to make money.

        Lol.

        • OccamsKatana

          I think he was deeply confused……..  LOL!!

      • OccamsKatana

        Hmmm, not a fan of the free market and fair competition huh?  Lets say the Young Pirates sold their waffles for 1 Swedish Kroner less. Would that be cool? Now, this being a free market, the other people decided to sell THEIRS for 1 less than that. Cut to the end. The Young Pirates kept undercutting the others and ended up giving theirs away for free. How is that wrong? The others had a choice to compete or throw in the towel. They couldn’t compete and enjoyed their monopoly so had the Young Pirates evicted (or tried to). Still seem fair?

        Ok, let’s look at the Indie band. How the fuck do most Indie bands gain a fan base?  BY GIVING IT AWAY!  FREE!!!!!   I’ll send you my email address, you can mail me a cheque since you’re so righteous and in a hurry to throw your cash around. Fucktard.

        Have you ever been in business? How do you compete? How do you make a name for yourself? I suppose you start off by pricing your equal service or product ABOVE that of your competitors to get your foot in the door? I think it’s time for you to get out of YOUR basement and smell the coffee. Oh, which by the way, is cheaper if you go to other than Starfucks. Mickie D’s was even giving it away for free… 

        Explain please, how that is leftard hipster and a socialist wet dream? I think free market is capitalist, not socialist, sunshine. You’re talking more socialist, but thinking all entities should price fix for the greater good of all (except the consumer!!!!). 

        Nice attack on my character by suggesting I live in my mother basement, as you can’t carry your argument on logic and knowledge…  Rest assured, I moved out from my mothers house 28 years ago. C’mon, you can do better than that. Your true colours are showing…….  Fucktard.

      • Pros

        The funny thing is that other youth partys give away coffee and cake for free, no one complains, only that waffel merchant run to the festival bord and cry like a littel girl.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Petar-Vojinovic/1174549724 Petar Vojinovic

         Just judging by your nickname I can pretty much understand what type of person, better to say kid, you are. Attention-whoring at it’s best.

        Lemme give you a hint. The world is what we make it to be – not what you think it is. So stop being an egoist and understand that people like them who live their ideas is the only moving force that can/will stop this world of ours from destroying itself.

        And you’re free to gt*o from here now, take your insults and your attention needs to some place else.

      • http://twitter.com/bacon_frazzle Bacon Frazzle

        Oh please do stop talking out of your bumhole pal – you are crying like a spoilt little bitch!

        My waffles, I do with them exactly as i like – be that sell them, eat them or give them away.

        Your waffles, do with them exactly as you like – if you try to sell em and can’t turn a profit then that’s nobody elses problem but your own.

        What you are basically trying to say is that prices should be fixed in favour of the seller not the consumer, there is legislation in many, many countries to stop businesses carrying on in that way.

        Oh, don’t try to imply i live in mummys cellar – i’m probably old enough to be your dad!

      • watfordjc

        Starbucks called the police yesterday because a Nescafé rep was giving away free coffee outside Tesco.

        Nope, that didn’t happen. Probably because in the UK businesses don’t complain about coffee, tea, hot chocolate, soup, chocolate, doughnuts, balloons, pens, t-shirts, or anything else being thrown at customers outside supermarkets at the weekends.

        Hardworking people’s livelihoods? I assume you don’t sweep the pavement outside your house, clean your toilet, windows, hoovering and dusting, or the gardening. If you do, how DARE you not pay 5 hardworking people to do their jobs.

        A trillionaire can’t give a million to each passer-by (as well as cover the taxes) because that could mean a million people might give up working.

        A billionaire can’t give Mars bars away because that might damage Kraft.

        A millionaire musician can’t hold a free concert because that will damage other musicians.

        I can’t put a slush machine outside my house because there is a milkshake shop down the road.

        A singer can’t sing her own songs in a lift because that might put the muzak people out of business.

        That Nescafé rep wasn’t there today. What a shock! You’d think they’d at least give away free coffee all year round. Perhaps they’ll do free coffee at a festival. If it puts someone with a big urn out of business, good – relying solely on selling one product at one place for only one weekend a year is a failed business waiting to happen.

      • Erk

        The good ol’ ad hominem huh? Good job.

      • TF Reader

        What’s with all the cracks about living in mothers’ basements? The number of times you keep repeating this tells me you have a deep-seated complex about your current living conditions. Methinks you need to get out more…

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Frank-White/100002970542124 Frank White

        This doesn’t make a lot of sense. How about asking instead: what if the guys who were giving their waffles away for free were an Indie Band playing for free, while on the other side of the Festival somewhere another band was charging for tickets to see them play? That would be a more apt analogy, wouldn’t it? They’re both playing music. Would the Indie band playing for free be “ripping off” the other band charging for tickets, because maybe some of the people who might have otherwise paid for tickets instead chose to see the Indie band for free?

    • mystrdat

      Love your nickname.

  • Jeff Bekcer

    “If you can’t compete with free, you can’t compete period”

    Quote Saved.

  • Marcy

    The fact of the matter is that if you’re going to give stuff away for free, you’re putting a lot of workers out of jobs. You’re doing it for free so everyone’s going to come to you. If your stuff is half-decent, the “better quality” argument completely falls apart.

    People don’t pay more for quality if the quality of the free product is comparable.

    And so, the payed model goes out of business and millions lose their jobs, all for your perceived idea of freedom.

    And that’s no exaggeration. You want it to be an exaggeration, but it isn’t one.

    • http://profiles.google.com/pianogamer Knut Harald

       People whose job were made obsolete must find another job if they want money… there’s no entitlement to a business opportunity’s existence.

      • Guest

        How do the new waffle makers make money if they are giving their product away for free?

        • McCheezits

          They sell a manual with the waffle, and they also charge for help services. There’s also corporate clients who would pay for the rights to sell the waffles elsewhere.

          This whole thing is a fucking joke XD

        • aidanjt

          They don’t?  Or maybe they have a sponsorship of some kind?  However they cover their costs and make a living is their business.

        • OccamsKatana

          Totally missing the point. Marketing 101. Look up LOSS LEADER, and then think of how that would bring attention to their cause.

          How do REAL Pirates make money? The don’t. Sharing is caring. But in the waffles case, they weren’t even photocopying the waffles, but making them with their own recipe, with their own ingredients, with their own time and equipment…  While you’re busy looking things up on the interwebs, look up CHARITY.  Ahhh, to be edumacated….

        • liveoutloud91

           Like McCheezits said. Just look at Canonical with Ubuntu: Canonical provides a free operating system and brings in revenue with customer support and relies on the community to support Ubuntu (operating system).

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

          “how do new buggy whip makers sell buggy whips?” 

          they don’t, they learn to build cars instead.  the world doesn’t owe you a living.

        • Asdf

           sell hot air balloons and give the waffles as a gift to the buyers

        • McCheezits

          I’ve got another example. As well as selling help services with the free waffle, they could also sell soda from a soda fountain and earn a healthy profit margin through that. Or they could give out the waffle for free, but charge for the toppings.

          I may not be an economics whizz, but I still have a better economics sense than that of most people.

        • qwerty

          @2b03046569e9e5cdae10d79d01c19ecb:disqus  Sell waffles and give away dvds for free :)

        • tetridae

           That is just the same issue that all the worlds restaurants are having when people cook their food at home. How can you compete with free?? Clearly they should have police spying into peoples kitchen to protect the interests of the restaurants, riight? I mean hobby cooking clearly hurts the income of professional restaurants and fast food services!

    • DavidXanatos

      and thats good, the more people loose thair work, the nerer we are on a society, where work is optinal, and not an obligation

      • Anonymous

        And how, exactly, do you intend to eat if you don’t work in some way?

        Either you earn money to buy food, or you grow it yourself.  If you grow it yourself, that’s work.

        • http://twitter.com/RyanfaeScotland RyanfaeScotland

          Pretty sure he meant ‘work’ in the traditional ‘paid by someone to do something’ kinda way.

        • Mr_Phaedrus

          Automated food production wouldn’t be that complicated to create.

        • http://twitter.com/7daykatie katie anderson

          In this day and age, a single person can do enough work to feed many, many people.  We have a huge per worker productive surplus.  In fact we had a surplus when nearly half of the human race traditionally did not engage in paid work for most of their lives and were supported by someone else’s for pay work most of their lives. 

          Since those days, not so long ago, technology has greatly increased productivity per worker, while most women now spend a significant portion of their lives in the “for pay” workforce, rather than primarily or exclusively being supported by someone else’s for pay work.  At same time, the number of children per household has dropped over this time period.

          Oddly, this increase in productivity and approximate doubling of the “for pay” work done by the adults in a two adult household has left more households hugely indebted and living hand to mouth than was the case at the dawn of the two-workder household, even with the number of children being supported per household plummeting at the same time.

          There is plenty of work going on.  Most households have nearly twice as much for pay work, and each worker is more productive than a generation ago.  Households are supporting less children per working pair than was the norm when only one parent worked.  Yet households as an aggragate are more indebted than ever.

          What’s up with that and is it related to this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097 ?  Nah, it’s probably the folk giving away waffles at a small festival thing in Sweden.

        • gorbachev

          You go queue up for free waffles.

          Sorry, couldn’t resist.

        • Anonymous

          Free waffles? There’s a whole article up there in case you missed it.

        • Anon

          You’re out of work because someone is giving out free waffles, and that put your former company out of business. So how you’re going to eat, you ask ?! Really?! Just go to the free waffles stand! Duh!

        • LeftHomeAndGrewUp

          :)

          If awards were given for lame replies, I’d vote for yours. His argument applies to all. Sooner or later, even free waffle piptards must eat.

    • aidanjt

      They’re perfectly free to find work elsewhere.

    • cgimusic

      So what? Are we just supposed to give something artificial value just so the person creating it can get paid. If someone is giving waffles away for free you have two options: sell something other than waffles or also give waffles away for free and find a way to make money off it. Why would you want to waste money on paying people to do a job no-one wants done?

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1382589190 Jesiel Luis Ternero

         If this kind of action was legal big companies would use it in order to
        crash small ones. They can afford the price to give free things for a
        moment until competition crashes and then they would be able to
        monopolize the market.

        • Anyone

          it is legal
          it’s just not very profitable, that’s why corporations don’t do it

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/WWIRZTQGTOH5NDND2IUQRJIVR4 Verbal

          the irony is, its the BIG BIG corporations who WON’T ever do this. period.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

          you think they don’t?  ask wal-mart where all the other stores went.

        • Guest

          Whoever told you its not legal? It IS legal. If a big company chooses to give their product away for free for a period of time, its their prerogative and nobody can stop them from doing so.

        • puddipuddi

          microsoft did it with ie… but I still think you should be aloud to give away waffles for free.  Businesses with their entitlement issues these days.  Someone beat your business model, move along please.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          I’m reminded of when Japan took over the electronics market. The corporations manufacturing color TV’s took massive loans and started selling their TV’s at a loss. The US manufacturer’s were undercut. In ten years time the japanese had tuned their manufacturing processes/cutting costs to start making gains even with the lower prices and effectively owned the market.

          You could call this “anticompetitive”…or you could realize that the US companies had the option of doing exactly the same, but didn’t.

          Point is, what you describe has happened. And if the competition wasn’t savvy enough to adapt, the strategy was a success.

        • https://profiles.google.com/110312119315800975509 doc

          Price dumping strategies are prohibited all over europe in most industry sectors to prevent monopolization.
          That’s why Wall Mart never could gain ground in germany.

          In this case this is not aplicable though. Those guys never intended to earn money or “monopolize the waffle market” at any point.
          It was an aggressive advertising campaign, nothing more.

          Then again one could argue if it isn’t the right of the organizers to decide who has the right to participate at the festival.
          Nevertheless the pirates definitely prove their point with this action as intended.

        • Phc

          they do, just not to that extent. why do you think places like wall mart are so cheep? or when most people think of a hardware store its either lowes or home depot? 

    • http://twitter.com/7daykatie katie anderson

      I lolled. 

      They just magicked the waffles into existence did they?  No raw materials were involved, and even worse, their tent was made from leaves they gathered in the wild?  Will no one think of the jobs of the tent makers?

      The money that was not spent on someone else’s waffles then just disappeared from the pockets of the free-waffle eaters so it cannot be spent supporting some other jobs? 

      Is logic “a thing” in your odd little world? 

    • rs

      What a stupid idea to prop up un-needed enterprises with money. If you’re going to throw money at people just so they can buy food, for pete’s sake don’t make them waste their time doing something nobody needs to earn it!

      Just give them the money and leave it at that. 90% will enjoy the free time; 10% will go do something actually useful, and there’s your huge win. Same money spent, but 10% of the people do something that’s actually useful.

    • Fred

      And as smoking is slowly banned in public places throughout Europe, what of the manufactures of ashtrays, and cigarette vending machines? And the engineers who service these machines? 
      All people who have had their business’ wiped out at a stroke of the legislative pen.
      TIMES CHANGE and business has to adapt or die. If the “paid model” is superseded, then it’s superseded. 

    • Guest

      “People don’t pay more for quality if the quality of the free product is comparable.”

      Make the quality of the non-free product significantly higher than the quality of the free one. Problem solved.

      If the free waffles were mediocre while the 2.75 euro ones were good to great, then I’d happily drop the money for them. 2.75 euros is like the change you find behind your fuckin’ couch cushions, in otherwords, not a high price to pay for a better product. 

      You know what isn’t like the change you find behind your fuckin’ couch cushions? 15+ euro CDs and DVDs, 25+ euro BluRays, or 40+ euro games. See the difference? See the problem? 

      “And so, the payed model goes out of business and millions lose their jobs”

      That must be why piracy has caused the payed model to go out of business and millions to lose their jobs. Oh wait, no it hasn’t. But it should have according to your logic, right? Please explain this discrepancy. 

      “And that’s no exaggeration.”

      Could’ve fooled me.

      • P3

         You write too complicated for people to reply to. Be more direct to the point ! Of course you are right !  The media hasnt gone out of bussiness. On the contrary I think that GOOD media always is worth paying for, and the posibility to get a “sneak preview” of even the “bad”, will give people  a choice ! Then its the matter of HOW much to pay. Compared to livingcosts, its not worth it to pay 19 Euro for a DVD film !

      • Techanon

        Actually a business doesn’t need a diference in product quality to compete with free. A comparable product with a clearly better service built around the product also works to draw in customers.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Not even that – there is no discernible difference between most tap water in many western countries and bottled water these days.

          What sells is Brand & convenience. Aftermarket service is a great motivator but generally speaking you will always choose to purchase a waffle for money if you get it within five minutes if the alternative is to stand in line for half an hour to get your free one.

          There are more ways to market your product successfully than you can shake a stick at. In the above example, the waffle sellers only managed to demonstrate a total and utter market incompetence.

      • Guest

         ”Make the quality of the non-free product significantly higher than the quality of the free one. Problem solved.”

        How could someone do this with a digital good? Any higher quality digital good that is sold can simply be pirated just like a lower quality digital good, How could this be a solution to the problem of piracy.

        • Guest

          The problem can be solved by providing better service. It has been said time and again that piracy is a service issue. 

          => Make High Quality BluRays available for download or streaming legally on release day of a movie or on the same day a TV show episode airs. => The content should be available for download irrespective of which country you belong to.=> Content should be playable in all types of device and not locked or DRM’ed.=> Charge a flat monthly membership fee like the cyberlockers. People will gladly pay up for such convenience. Infact such a LEGAL service will put most cyberlockers out of business.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Bottled water is usually of exactly the same quality as tap water, in many countries.

          And yet people are purchasing it at 2€ per half liter bottle.

          The answer is “Brand”.

        • Gusset

          “How could someone do this with a digital good? Any higher quality digital good that is sold can simply be pirated just like a lower quality digital good, How could this be a solution to the problem of piracy.”

          Ummm, I dunno – better ask Apple why iTunes Music Store is such an outstanding success in the face of the exact same content being widely available for free all over the internet? Oh wait, maybe perceived convenience and ease-of-use is a key factor here – you know, a service issue. /sarcasm ;p

    • Gr_cheesebxp2

      Your understanding of the economy is extremely lacking.

      If a service or product can be given out for free sustainably then it SHOULD be given out for free sustainably. Businesses only exists for us to provide services for us. Charging for a free service is just bullshit, whoever is currently being employed by this deserves to go out of business as their “business” is nothing more than a scam.

      #sellingdehydratedwater5$each

      You talk as if the >paid no shower -> no hygiene), their presence would degrade any decent restaurant past the point of no return.

      The restaurant and the soup kitchen do not have overlapping clientele. If someone who can afford a restaurant is cheap enough to go to a soup kitchen then chances are they’re cheap enough to go to a different soup kitchen or point blank rip the restaurant off.

      • Whogivesa

         ”Piracy is a natural response in markets when customers demand a change in service and the market refuses to comply.”

        That is indeed what’s happening. In relation to file-sharing I don’t think anyone wants to put the artists out of business by copying their copies for free. However heads will roll and it’s those of the middlemen i.e. promoters, labels etc. Why’s that so? Because the web’s replaced their service. The funny thing is that they provide a service to the artists, not to the end consumers. The situation there is that file-sharing doesn’t push the artists to change their service providers (labels marketing and promoting) to change, but rather to push ‘em out of business. How so? Well before technology allowed for easy and quick replication of CDs music files, these CDs, cassettes or vinyls (and even the artists themselves) were goods that could be sold (and therefore promoted). But times change: as far as labels and artists are concerned, these goods are now the material to promote the artists (seems like one of these two is redundant, anyone? anyone?…) and get people interested to pay for an actual service also provided by the artists (and entourage): concerts.

        As for other media such as films and tv shows, it’s probably a bit more complicated given the involvement of so many people. Fact is, business models need to adapt as well…do we need $x billion movies? Not so sure about that. If you start to make a $billion movie and you’re aware of the fact that a lot of people will get it for free, then you probably have to reconsider the amount you’re prepared to spend on the making of a film. Or how about asking people who are interested in seeing the project being made for financial help (à la kickstarter) as opposed to look for investors that are solely interested in profits being made? That means you need good ideas translated into good scripts which will become your means to promote your project.

        In the end, i think the businesses that will prevail are not the ones the promise huge profits to investors who don’t give a rat’s a$$ about the content itself (a.k.a the gamble business model), but those that seek out their actual content customers for help in that they come up with ideas that appeal to people and that they would wish to being created in the first place (e.g. by contributing financially etc.). This type of investor’s payment are not the profits the project generates but rather that the project actually sees daylight. That way the creative challenge would be how to come up with a good product, not how to save a potentially crappy one from not making any profits.

        • Guest

          No film in the world costs a billion dollars to make. The budget gets inflated to such insane figures only because of the salary of the actors and actresses and of course the fat cat executives, producers and directors, many of them who get upwards of 20 million $ a movie. Are you saying this is a fair? Most of us don’t earn that much in our lifetime. 

          If by pirating, the studios are forced to cut costs and pay lower salary to these actors, then we are actually doing something good. But I don’t see anyone getting paid any less even to this day even though piracy has existed since time immemorial. Budgets keep increasing every year, salaries keep increasing, profits keep increasing. So who exactly are we hurting again?

    • Guest

      If somebody can make your business model obsolete by giving your product away for free or at a substantially lower price, then it means your product is no longer worth paying the money that you are charging. You will have to go out of business or do one better than them to stay competitive. That’s business for you and not everyone is successful at it.

      Yes, millions of people will lose their jobs too but that’s natural since they are no longer doing a job or providing a service deemed worth paying for by society. They will have to adapt and acquire some other skill or die. As Ender Wiggin rightly said, the world doesn’t owe you a living!

    • Alyssa Blindy

      Honestly, if I was giving away waffles for free, and someone went out of business and went crying to me, I would say to them, “I am really sorry. Would you like me to give you half of the money I make from selling these waffles? Oh wait, you won’t anything because they are free. Would you please get your big nose away from me, unless you would like a waffle?”

      And that applies to anyone who complains that the “paid business model” is going out of business due to people giving things away for free.

    • Belstain

      The actual quality doesn’t really matter in a case like this, only the APPEARANCE of quality matters. In a permanent location that relies on repeat traffic then quality matters, but for a temporary booth where it is unlikely that anyone  will come back again, all you really need is a way to give the impression that “our waffles taste better than theirs and are worth paying for.” Not all that hard an argument to make against someone giving it away for free. 
      At a certain point, just the fact that your line is shorter will convince people to pay your asking price.

    • GUEST

       Marcy, adapt or die.

      You are clearly one of those tard-heads from the Entertainment Industry…Not much to say to you but try get with times. Just like the VCR and DVD made you crap your pants.

    • Validemail

      Holy fuckshit, fuck you.  Capitalism is about producing the best product for the least amount of money.  ”Free” is the least amount of money.  If those assholes can’t compete, fuck them.  They don’t deserve a job, they’re a bunch of anticapitalist bastard assholes, just like you.

  • http://cheapassfiction.com/ AeliusBlythe

    Wait…. waffles??  Seriously?

    Are you 100% certain this isn’t a joke?  

    I don’t even…  this can’t possibly be serious.  I don’t even know what to say to this…. Just the gigantic, incoherent WHAT? that is my brain’s reaction to this news.   (Or really late April Fool’s.  Whichever.)

    • http://alllen.tumblr.com/ allen

       were you born this stupid or did you have to work on it?

      have you ever been to a festival? they serve food at festivals, and this particular one some vendors were selling waffles.

      • http://cheapassfiction.com/ AeliusBlythe

        What?  

        Food…. at festivals?   No, can’t be.  I don’t think…  must be some crazy European shit.  

        ……

        Yeah, troll, they have food at festivals.  They also have giveaways at festivals.  And it’s not okay to tell someone they can’t give away THEIR OWN sht because someone else wants to make money.  

        Was that really that difficult to understand?  

        • Timo

          Don’t bother.. if he didn’t get it the first time, what made you think that he can get it the second time?

      • Kharos

         You numb nuts allen.
        Your comment made me laugh, for that and only that, thankyou

  • Kanzakignt

    Could it be more of a hygiene concern by the authorities?

    • cgimusic

      Yes, because free waffles are so much less sanitary than ones you pay for.

      • Dennis Jakobsen

         Yeah, cause you get like a napkin with the expensive waffles and the free ones you have to eat with your urine soaked festival fingers! but we’re drunk at festivals and drink heineken which tastes like piss anyway! so we don’t care :)

    • Drottningsylt

      Hmm. I wonder. The Free Waffles might even be more hygienic. If they are free, the giver and recipient dont have to put their hands on those small pieces of metal and those small pieces of paper that have travelled through the country in hundreds or thousands of different peoples pockets and god knows where.
      ;)

    • http://twitter.com/RyanfaeScotland RyanfaeScotland

      This would most likely be the reason given by the authorities for shutting it down. It would of course be bullshit.

  • Violated0

    Any real business would just let them do their thing for free. Sure it can lower your waffle sales but that is why a business should diversify into other products. The important point here is that no business can keep providing free goods forever and all the time they don’t sell they don’t have money to pay employees, to pay overheads or to have funds to expand.

    So it is only a freebie plan that would not last too long without creating a drain on those involved. Other waffle sellers then have little to fear and they can always vary their designs and toppings to create something unique that can still be sold.

    • rs

      Unless, of course, the citizens of the country vote to fund “free” waffles for everyone from taxes. This model is actually pretty popular in some places for some goods; consider the absolutely free public transport in Hasselt in Belgium.

      • Anonymous

        Come to think of it, I’d rather our government fund free waffles than fund obsolete industries.

      • ScrewEwe2

        Didn’t the Belgians invent Waffles? Now I’m hungry for some Belgian Waffles with a scoop of home made vanilla ice cream, hot chocolate sauce, maple syrup and caramel sauce with crumbled bacon on top.

        Here’s an example of fine American cuisine:
        Burger Kings Bacon Sundae
        http://www.bk.com/en/us/menu-nutrition/lunch-and-dinner-menu-202/desserts-226/bacon-sundae-m2574/index.html

        This is probably part of the reason why too many Americans are obese.

        • Gusset

          “This is probably part of the reason why too many Americans are obese.”

          Actually, the obesity problem is mainly because of the Corn Syrup as an artificial sweetener in most products these days. If sugar was used, as it used to be, then the same problem wouldn’t exist because it contains fewer calories for the same volume consumed and the human body metabolises it in a completely different way. This is why the obesity epidemic is now spreading to Europe as we adopt the cheap corn-syrup sweetener additives more and more. Witness the current situation in Britain – we’re about 10 years behind the US, but the pattern is identical.

  • Brian

     It’s a funny publicity stunt but they’re doing the wrong thing in this instance. There’s a lot of grey area with pure information which is what a music file floating in cyberspace is, basically. By likening information to a tangible good, they are arguing their case on their detractor’s terms while harming the livelyhoods of the people making and selling food at the festival. Unless they’ve found a way to produce waffles or replicate existing ones for free, forever, there’s not much merit to this. They could have at least picked a food that wasn’t already on sale at the festival.

    • Tommy Karlsson

       Why should they pick another food?
      Most off the other political partys on the same festival where giving away hotdogs and cupcakes which also had vendors selling them.
      But no one complained about them only when it comes to the pirate party they complain.

      So again WHY should one political party not be allowed to give away food when others are?

      • Fredrika

        > “Most off the other political partys on the same festival where giving away hotdogs and cupcakes which also had vendors selling them.
        But no one complained about them only when it comes to the pirate party they complain.”

        It’s not the first time that the Pirate Party or it’s youth section has been treated differently from other political parties at big events.

        http://torrentfreak.com/too-controversial-pirate-party-banned-from-gaming-exhibition-111105/

    • rs

      I like to think of this as a publicity stunt in favour of ideas like basic income, rather than sharing. It may not have been meant that way, but maybe it was; basic income is certainly a top agenda item for the German pirate party.

    • Early Grayce

      I watch free shows on the internet that are created by the distributers and paid for using advertising. Revision3
      I do not pay to watch shows on the internet. iView/Zune.
      Should the first group of content distributors be forced to shut down because the others are not able to sell content to me?

  • Bluewaffle_google.me

    This is the only topic by Rick that I have actually found interesting. Banned for giving away free food. LOL.

  • McCheezits

    Let’s equate this waffle business with office software (MS Office, Libreoffice, etc.)

    There are people giving away their software for free, like OOo and Libreoffice. And there’s people who are giving away their software at a cost, like Microsoft and Corel.
    I don’t see Microsoft or Corel losing too much money because their competitors are giving away a better product for free.

    tl;dr the argument about the waffles is that the people who are selling waffles think they are entitled to people’s money, even if they don’t want to purchase a waffle.

    • Erthwjim

      I don’t know if I’d say that LibreOffice and OOo are better than MS Office, as there is functionality found in MS that you can’t find in the others unless you download add-ons. Free is always better when it comes to price but whether the price tag on the MS Office products is too much is another question, I usually buy it on a University discount which knocks the price way down, so for me forking out a few bucks is worth it. 

      Now when it comes to the majority of users, they may be no difference in functionality,and differences may be in how tasks are accomplished, but most users don’t use the products to their maximum capabilities, and that’s where you start seeing the real differences, once you get into the advanced functions, specifically I gather in the excel vs calc comparisons. 

      • PasserBy

        I think you completely missed the point.
        He was stating that similar or same products that are being sold can also be given out freely by other vendors and the other vendors that are selling the product dont usually complain and dont have a right to complain about the free products.

        vendor being developers/authors/distributors/publishers in this example.

        excuse my grammar i hate typing/writing.

  • Freja

    @All of you who critisize the USA in connection with copyright:

    Be aware that the USA is just as much of a self serving tyrant in the
    area of foreign politics. Find out the truth about big ongoing
    conflicts like Syria, what happened in Libya the buildup towards action
    against Iran and various ongoing propaganda wars.

    I recommend RT.com as a
    good alternative source of news, or even PressTV for the diametrically
    opposed worldview to what’s getting served up on Fox News, Sky and the
    BBC.

    Being a pirate is all about free access to information, power to the
    people and getting at the truth. There is more to it than just hating
    those who try to stop you from downloading what you want.
     

    • McCheezits

      Noted. Thanks for the tip.

    • IvAnn

       Oh yes! What a LOVELY place!  Zip right on over to RT.com!  LOL Who cares about the articles!  It’s the comments that are more entertaining than the SyFy channel!  You can make really good drinking games out of particularly feisty articles pathetic comments – picking out things like how many times words like HAARP or chemtrails or Zionists, come up… Because you will never find a bigger bunch of paranoid schizophrenic, American and Jewish hating racists as you will at RT.com.  And the conspiracy theories there make the X-files seem like Dora the Explorer just trying to find her lost churro.

  • Anonymous

    just think of the social and economic catastrophe that the giving waffles away for free caused. think of the far ranging effects on other industries and other countries, nay, the world, had this disgraceful practice not been nipped in the bud!

    but all will be forgiven if a license is obtained and the copyright given to the entertainment industries so the free waffles can be given away for a profit!

    and i thought so much more of Sweden. what the hell has the world come to?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1498149995 Mary Ellen Mimi Byrne-Spauldin

    absotootinlutley….what is this world coming to????? it’s scary isn’t it???

  • Pingback: Media börjar snappa upp #Wafflegate | Pirat-Jonas

  • John Space

    Waffles? Sweden? I need to watch Blue in the Face again!

  • DavidXanatos

    iirc. there was some voices from the US for some time now to attempt to outlaw free software cause it is destroying US jobs.
    This attitude is very common in the in the busyness world, if they could charge you for breathing they would.

    David X.

    • Anyone

      google has been successfully sued in France because google maps was free

  • QueensGambit

    I wonder if the WIAA (Waffle Industry Association of America) is gonna sue because of the possible infringement of waffles made. 

    • cgimusic

      Because this is not an American issue I think the Waffles Including Pancakes Organisation (WIPO) will have to impose sanctions. 

      • McCheezits

        Oh noes, we’re gonna have the Federal Breakfast Investigation squad on our heels if we don’t stop giving out free waffles.

      • IvAnn

         IHOP might have to get involved… They’re “International” ya know!  They’re like the Interpol of breakfast foods! 

  • harry krishna

    reminds me of the advent of linux

    • Darkhog

      Which one, there were quite some of them…

      • Anon

        Huh? There is only one Linux.

        • Anyone

          there are lots of different flavours of Linux
          it’s like icecream

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      You mean the way SCO tried to get Open Source banned as “unconstitutional” because it was free?

      Or the way Microsoft decided to make a comparison between Linux and Cancer?

      Yes indeed, the waffle sale example in the article actually paints a pretty good comparison to how companies act on the market, given a chance.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/J2QISSISU4SFVZA4TDXMGHWKCI Katie

    This is the only topic by Rick that I have actually found interesting. Banned for giving away free food. LOL.

  • Loihgiuo

    Good thing Jesus isn’t around anymore huh?

    The guy was giving for FREE Bread and Fish!!

    Imagine the amount of lawsuits he would get from the assclowns of this era!

    • Mr. M

       He wasn’t just giving it away for free, he was pirating it! The maker of the original bread should have sued him!

      • Moose

        His dad made them.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Mr. Christos was pretty lucky his dad wasn’t affiliated with a guild then.

    • Mr Waffle

       How!? How will the Bakers and Fishermen get paid? Jesus!

    • Guest

      Anyone who comes out and claims to be Jesus today will more than likely end up being committed to a Psychiatrict hospital than to be sued.

    • gusmelo

      You really think the whole cross thing was about some religious dispute? It was the merchants guild paying off the gov’t to get rid of the guy before he destroyed their profits!

  • Anyone

    this right there is perfect PR for the Pirate Movement
    excellent

    also, I miss the waffles fm

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YS5XN7FK42DRWTGIVFTACYU6EA Sean A

    I want to know which side had the real maple syrup, and which side had the fake stuff.

  • Mr Waffle

    I just love how this Wafflegate has started discussions about much larger things.
    Thanks for sharing this story Rick.

  • Anonymous

    “The parallels to file-sharing are strong and present. If you can’t compete with the “free” that file-sharing offers, you can’t compete, period”

    Flawed analogy is flawed.

    File sharing, by most accepted definitions, means copying something that someone else made.  This situation is completely different.  It’s the creator-owner giving away their own work.

    That said, the idea of content creators sharing (giving away) their work is both admirable and noble, and ‘sharing’ is a cost-effective distribution mechanism suitable for both free and commercial content.

    • Anyone

      no, the analogy works just fine
      I’m giving away the bits I made with my computer

      and just ask iTunes, Netflix or Steam how it is possible to compete with free
      or the bottled water companies

    • Fredrika

      > “File sharing, by most accepted definitions, means copying something that someone else made.”

      If we should be factual and logical, what filesharing constitutes is the act of manufacturing something with one’s own property, with the help of information describing the patterns of someone else’s property, that he owns, information which that person freely gives to you.

    • http://twitter.com/7daykatie katie anderson

      Thank you Mr Analogy Inspector.  The only problem with your no doubt astute analysis is that not a single analogy is asserted by the article’s author.  A minor detail I am sure.

    • Scary_Devil_Monastery

      Not really flawed, is it? Since it’s almost a given that both parties involved used the same blueprint – a waffle recipe – the one and only difference is that the creation of the “pirate” waffles was as subjected to random variance as those of the other vendor.

      Can you imagine how this would have panned out if both parties had created their waffles with automated assistance?

      Indeed, the example with filesharing is pretty accurate. The only difference is that creating a file would stop at the point where you copied down the waffle recipe.

  • Pingback: Jóvenes Piratas expulsados de un festival por ofrecer gofres gratis [ENG]

  • theonlyone

    This very much sounds like something that could and does happen in the United States.

  • Sharangir

    Implying the ability to compete is supposed to be the epitome of our society.

    The article is great, your conclusion is absolute bogus. I expected better from pirates than spouting right-libertarian nonsense.

  • Pingback: Young Pirates Evicted From Festival For Giving Out Free Waffles

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  • http://twitter.com/RyanfaeScotland RyanfaeScotland

    What would stop the world from working if everything was free? Serious question.

    You want bread, milk, bacon you go to the farmer and he gives you some. You want music you go to the artists and they give you some. They can then in turn come to you, or anyone else, and have some of what they make. As long as you are providing something people want then you can have whatever you want.

    (Land and housing would be a bugger though, and things that take lots of resources like space travel)

    • Guest

      If there was no money in the world people would have to go back to the barter/trade/swap system to get by.

      • McCheezits

        Actually, the financial system of today is technically still bartering. Instead of physical goods being transferred (in most cases), it’s coins (which actually have value) and paper/plastic-coated notes (which have no value in themselves).

        There’s other ways of having a stable economy without money, but we are so used to the system we have, we are not stuffed discovering others.

      • theonlyone

         Hell yeah and then government would become less significant.

    • http://twitter.com/7daykatie katie anderson

      Human nature. 

      This kind of arrangement (or non arrangement) does not work well in a large scale society where people are not closely socially engaged and vetted by the other people.  Some people would cheat under producing and/or taking wastefully, and most people would be convinced everyone else was cheating and many would want to act (or not act) according to their world view that they are being cheated and are being the chump of all the imagined cheaters (ocassionally re-enforced when an actual cheater is identified and highlighted).

      Humans are pro social and naturally share and copy, but these traits have evolved for most of human evolutionary history in the context of small scale group-living and are not ideal for performing the same function when the population scales well beyond everyone’s direct social relationships.

      It’s difficult to achieve the sweet spot where motivation to participate responsibly is high enough to prevent cheating being so rampant it presents an economic risk, without society taking on a dangerously viscious suspicion based, punitive attitude towards anyone they think might cheat (which is literally anyone and everyone else from the point of view of the typical individual).  It may even be impossible without some kind of “tally keeping/rationing” (which is a function of money).

      Then there are the problems you mention of large capital outlay projects.  This is not a minor matter.  We’re a lot poorer than you imagine if we cannot achieve large capital outlay projects because of the implications these projects can have for everyone’s productivity. 

      • GeorgeDWarren

        someone would stockpile eggs, freeze /treat  milk so it would last for months, etc.. then when there is a shortage, they would sell their eggs for a premium, or increase the barter value. it is just human nature and basic demand / supply, and whereas many would say its not fair, you and i know it will happen.

      • http://twitter.com/RyanfaeScotland RyanfaeScotland

        Nice reply thanks.

    • JustJenna

      That is communism and it only works in theory. In practice, it tends to only lead to dictatorship. 

  • More Information

    Firstly, the whole point of the festival is that it will be free for the audience. But it should be able to withdraw their own earnings to improve slightly with more artists, more artists or better range.

    The Pirate Party should know that, You do not go for a festival, and purchasing a site and begin not to prevent that they get a little more artists,or better area for next year’s festival, which is based admission everything should be free.

    If they wanted to Pirate Party evicted, they could have. They followed no hygiene laws and risked food poisoning for visitors. If Pirate Party had been caring had just been a question in advance of the responsibility tent for the festival. If the Pirate Party were appropriately envisioned doing.

    The festival was free and voluntary, and all income goes on to organize the festival. As tents, stage, guards, toilets … The artists play either free or paid for housing expenses and travel. and a nominal fee

    In order to finance the festival site can buy space so they can Anting sell food items, inform policy, distributing condoms and other things.

    Festivale is one of these people who type in the Pirate Party, they find that you can take is strangely dressed, odd and sputtered do not understand what it all comes down to.

    But the Pirate Party wanted some take credit, for the easiest job to exploit others for propaganda for free. While the association which organized the festival with voluntary work had to do the dirty work.

    If the Pirate Party wants to have free live music and media for the visitors, they could have registered as volunteers for the festival

    • Guest

      “If they wanted to Pirate Party evicted, they could have. They followed no hygiene laws and risked food poisoning for visitors.”

      They tried to get the Young Pirates evicted and failed. Please read the article. Also, you’re making up the part about them not following hygiene laws. Please don’t make shit up. 

      • More Information

        Had they really wanted. could they get rid of them. But things take energy from more important things and you have to prioritize. Pirate Party waffles is lesser thing.

        Hygiene laws were not followed. Pirate Party itself has not even looked into what the rules that apply to food handling. The tent they had was a joke tent.

        Only to handle food at festivals, you must register with the livsmedelverket etc. ..
        But all is small insignificant problem, Biggest problem is that the Pirate Party young people whining at the festival that is most equal their policies.

        What did Piratpartiet do to get a better free festival Other than whining ?

        • Guest

          “Had they really wanted. could they get rid of them. ”

          They really wanted to get rid of the Young Pirate’s waffle stand. They put security guards on the YP’s asses to eject them from the festival. But they backed off scared after the YP’s called the cops.

          Do you understand now that it’s in bold? 

          “Hygiene laws were not followed.”

          Made. Up. Shit.

          Stop it.

        • Guest

          What you say below is nothing. It normal. Nothing would happen if they did contenue. Only cost time spend on meningless shit… only a beginner think that i something special.

          Why did you not tell the truth
          The other Waffel seller was another poor voluntary organization (basketball?).
          Who wanted to raise money for their own organization/ sport.
          An you start whining.  How low are you going.

          Cant not made up shit, When I see shit. Compere to all others, Yours was cheap skit.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Why am I smelling the typical false fact-presentation which usually follows by random new nicknames appearing on any forum “nejtillpirater” visits until the moderators start implementing ip-checking?

        • More Information

          Scary_Devil_Monastery 
          It have nothing with pirate to do. Giving out food can every one doo. one of the simpelest thing you can do.

          An idiot can understand that the festival meaning 20 years back is free music and a giving chans to organazion lika pirate party to make ther point of veiw and other volontary organazion.
          If  you have skill and understanding to coperate whit other volontary organazion that i tries to raise money for theirs cause. This in sitution would not come up

          When givin free waffals come more important to build than free music and media. You must question.Then they are no longer pirates only waffels promotors.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/HYF2O74FBT2LQGGMK3FX2WA6JE StephenB

        I got E-Coli from their waffles at this festival. The pirate party are criminals. Someone even said they were injecting their waffles with HIV.

        • JustJenna

          Thats ridiculous. HIV can’t live outside a host for very long at all. 

    • McCheezits

      Please use a credible source for your statistics and information.

      Also, how do you know that the proprietary waffles (ones that aren’t free with the recipe open-source) aren’t a food poisoning risk? Just because they are paid-for doesn’t nessecarily mean the people who own the stall would be following hygiene standards.

      • More Information

        You have rightDid find later

        10 weeks per year can you waffels sell without a permit. Pirate Party Tent 3×3 cheap, dust around, handwashing ? …

        But that is not the problem, The problem is that, a free festival should you cooperate with. And not play some anarki game.

        • Anyone

          what anarchy game?

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  • Jon Kanon

    A few things:
    Those waffles saved some of us from freezing to death the last night of the festival. And the waffle iron kept that little lady pirate warm.

    Overpriced waffles are overpriced. Besides, they were selling other foods too.

    SSU were giving away free cake. I didn’t see anyone complain. I gave my cake to the waffle pirates though. SSU got some love too, I gave them some superior purple pirate pens, because their own red ones sucked!

    • More Information

      Do not understand
      You whining over free food and what food prices that were there. When it is 500 meters from a supermarket where you can purchase food, But the big question you’re sponsored the festival in any way that it can continue next year and make it better.

      • Jon Kanon

         I don’t quite understand your post. I take it your native language is not English. Please try to rephrase that. :)

        • More Information

          ???

          Några saker: De våfflor räddade några av oss från att frysa ihjäl den sista natten av festivalen. Och våffeljärnet höll den lilla damen piraten varm. Overpriced våfflor är overpriced. Dessutom var de sålde andra livsmedel också. SSU var att ge bort gratis kaka. Jag såg inte någon klaga. Jag gav min tårta till våfflan pirater ändå. SSU har lite kärlek också, gav jag dem några överlägsna lila pirat pennor, eftersom deras egna röda sög!

      • ScrewEwe2

        Are you still giving out free purple pirate pencils? I’d rather have a free purple pirate pencil than a free waffle or a red pencil. 

  • http://twitter.com/jesgar Jesús García

    Waffles are analogical devices, they can´t be copied (Do you remember? … It’s not posible to “steal” copyable stuff). Each one must be done from scracth investing ingredients, time … It’s a great fallacy. Real matter is not gifting waffles, is make gifting waffles sustainable! Remember, copy is free but making waffles is not free.

  • LeechcraftMegilp
  • http://twitter.com/jesgar Jesús García

    Waffles are analogical devices, they can´t be copied (Do you remember?
    … It’s not posible to “steal” copyable stuff). Each one must be done
    from scracth investing ingredients, time … It’s a great fallacy. Real
    matter is not gifting waffles, is make gifting waffles sustainable!
    Remember, copy is free but making waffles is not free.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/WWIRZTQGTOH5NDND2IUQRJIVR4 Verbal

     the irony is, its the BIG BIG corporations who WON’T ever do this. period.

  • Mwhahaha

    IDK I just feel a bit sorry for the waffle makers who had to presumably pay for a pitch in advance, then sell enough waffles to recoup that payment, their goods & power needs and come away with a living wage which you’d imagine would be spent on extravagant things such as food, rent and bills for them and possibly their children.
    Let’s say the children need medicine too, and new artificial limbs before winter… We live in a capitalist society, you won’t bring it down with free waffles, sorry but you won’t. We tried that in the 60s with the flowers and now all those flower children have good corporate jobs, an SUV and 2.4 children.Anyway then imagine the waffle makers go bust cos they can’t afford to pay the rental on their waffle iron (you know what I mean), then at the next festival the YPs aren’t there giving out waffles as now they have their publicity and can’t afford all that batter mix for free; and suddenly there’s no waffles at all! The whole festival waffleless, one of the things which make festivals bearable!Now let’s take authors as our target for this analogy.Remove all book sales. Authors can’t get paid. Authors stop writing books. All books look like online story sites, due to lack of editing and professional advice. A part of our cultural heritage could die. But wait… text books are free too, so no one writes text books anymore and everything you have to learn from is sourced off wikipedia. Suddenly people think Hitler was a waffle chef and JFK was pig farmer who got shot in a bay window or something…People are already too fucking dumb & apolitical without risking further deterioration of the global intelligence.Media companies have to take less of a profit and lower prices, but giving everything away for free will not work unless you can pay to fund your largess from now until the end of time. Maybe that $21 Trillion can be found and turned into a world culture fund to pay for it all.Rick never seems to address how all these creative people and presumably free-waffle makers will be able to afford to live without the quality of their work (and waffles) suffering come the IP revolution.So let’s look at the options:Crowd sourcing – fine for big popular things at the moment whilst it’s a new idea. Reduces the chance of giving people time to grow as artists, long term viability uncertain once its faddish appeal dies off. Similar ideas (PBS) have funding issues currently.Giving Stuff Away Free – Work & create simultaneously. Fine for musicians who can gig, TV/Films can use on screen advertising, with potential loss of creative freedom. Other areas – less certain.Ad driven affiliate sites – On the whole these pay worse than major companies /labels in the media sector, especially sites such as grooveshark, MU. These are the future MPAA and they’re even greedier and also hypocritical.Pay what you like – Well Radiohead tried this one, then weirdly didn’t try it again.I’ve yet to see a future funding scenario which really works and isn’t a load of old waffles.Rick, over to you….

    • Mwhahaha

      FFS that FUCKING paragraph issue!

      • Guest

        Uh, yeah, that’s not your only issue.

        All media is already being given away for free courtesy of piracy, but it still sells and the media industries are still booming. So your premise is bullshit.

  • Mwhahaha

    If you want something to care about try this:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore-economy?INTCMP=SRCH 

    Maybe if that lot was shared more evenly we wouldn’t mind playing for our media.

    • Timmy

      not much wrong with offshore tax havens IMO.

      play.com uses offshore banking to dodge tax. not because it wants ever single penny but so they can offer cheap-ass items. I’m glad they do this, as it saves us money and therefore it’s not halming the economy as far as i can tell.

      20% tax in the UK… flipping joke! if it was 12% i’d glady pay… but 20% is utter bull****.

  • Timmy

    In my opinion, selling music CAN compete with free music to some extent. Improving the service they get when they pay would encourage them to pay. Eg; If the waffles looked better and tasted great. I’d pay for them rather than getting free crappy waffles.

    However, with this idea, free waffles can compete with selling waffles if the free waffles were to improve their own service. That would be the downfall of the waffle selling industry. But that’s just business. Don’t like it? Move to China.

    Also, a reason why it’s bad to compare waffles with music is that the waffles were made by the people giving them for free. Piracy is sharing other peoples work and giving it for free. In that regards, strong fans would still pay for the files even if the service was crapper than getting it for free. Also, they’d gain profit from merch, tours etc.

    But these new business models people want to implant; spotify; are crap. Sure, it’s GREAT for the users but the artists require MILLIONS of views to gain a few thousand $$$. the indie artists wont gain more than a cent (sad but true) meaning they’d have to purely rely from donations, merch, tours. so piracy does actually halm indie artists but it also helps them in regards to promotion (I guess we cannot know if it does more halm than good).

  • Ahnon

    L’Eggo my Eggo!

    • McCheezits

      I’ll take some free waffles but I’ll pay for the toppings.

  • Guest

    Another reason why monetary system must disappear.

    • Guest

      If give you an apple if you give me an orange.

      • Mr Waffle

         I will most likely be sued by Apple then.

  • Yes please

    So waffles are copyrighted now?

  • PelouzeTF

    I’m assuming the tent was in a pre-paid vendors spot, and not just randomly set up somewhere ?

    If so, and they abided by all of the organizers vendor rules, I personally, think the free waffle makers should have been able to continue giving away “their” waffles.

    Their ingredients, their time, their expense to be vendors that give everything away.

    Although “The parallels to file-sharing are strong and present”

    they really aren’t Rick.

    • Guest

      Money-makers attempting to evict people giving away the same product for free, who had already performed the necessary procedures to obtain a legal permit for their operations. So, yes. Parallels to file-sharing are present.

      And what’s with the “their”, Pelouze? Can’t stand to attribute content to people who call themselves “pirates”, Mr. “independent producer”?

      • PelouzeTF

        The waffle makers gave away “their own product”, where they had paid for the ingredients ingredients and made. And provided the story was accurate regarding all points (and the ones that were glossed over) those elements was cut and dry.

        They didn’t give away the waffles created by another vendor or have people take waffles from other vendors on their behalf so that they could give them away.

        So no, there is no parallel at all with the waffle story and file-sharing of copyrighted media.

        • Anyone

          I paid for my bits and bytes I give away over the internet with electricity and ISP costs
          if that takes a business that relies on selling those bits and bytes out of business, too bad for them

        • PelouzeTF

          hahaha, so funny to hear peoples justifications, especially when their ludicrous.

          Thanks for the laughs :)

        • Fredrika

          > “hahaha, so funny to here peoples justifications, especially when their ludicrous.”

          He’s not trying to justify anything, because he has no need to? He’s simply stating the fact that he has paid for everything which is involved in his filesharing.

        • Anon

          You are missing the point.

          The waffle makers and sites that perform operations that you don’t like both legally obtained permission and space to perform said operations. Yet, based on the order of people who felt threatened by the possibility of competition, they are under threat of eviction from premises they legally obtained.

          Now the owners of “legacy” corporations or services feel that if anything even remotely smells like competition they should be able to take them down with the full force of law and enforcement, bribed and paid for. When this can even apply to food, of all things, it’s a clear sign that these legacies have become far too ridiculous.

        • PelouzeTF

          That isn’t a point.

          They didn’t create and don’t own the media they are re-distributing.

          Now, if they created all of the media at their own expense that they re-distribute or paid license fee’s for re-distribution, different story but they don’t.

          I can’t miss a point that isn’t there.

        • Fredrika

          > “They didn’t create and don’t own the media they are re-distributing.”

          You seem confused. You can not own media, if you refer to the intellectual work, because it does not constitute property, and can therefore not be owned.

          However, all property that is involved in filesharing has indeed been paid for by the people filesharing, so Anon’s comparison and point is indeed valid.

        • Scary_Devil_Monastery

          Yes there is. Admittedly, the comparison becomes relevant only if you assume that you’d need a license simply in order to copy down the waffle recipe in the first place.

          The specific analogy used in both your arguments is irrelevant as it would have to presume that a copied media file should later have been used in order to make a cover.

          The actual analogy which applies is worse.

        • Anyone

          @PelouzeTF:disqus
          neither the people that sold the waffles nor the young pirates invented the waffles, they just made copies after a recipe

          it’s exactly the same with the MAFIAA and pirates, neither made the music or movies, they just make copies and distribute them

  • JordanKratz

    Call The Waffle Police Now !!!!
    Aaaaargh, I smell a Waffle Pirate.

  • No

    sweden ain’t no shoebox, it’s the fifth largest country in europe. bigger than germany

  • themerryreaper

    Analogies are bad mkay?
    “… We called the police. The security guards are pulling back. No waffles being made right now. Our tent remains.”

    “… Young Pirate is now making waffles again!”
    If only… if only…

    €2.75 for a waffle? Cost is about €0.10… Analogies sometimes make sense…

    Sharing is bad mkay?

    • PelouzeTF

      Id wager the costs for a waffle are low, probably even 0.10 euros.

      That’s not the whole cost though is it……think about all the other costs associated with a business. Why do business owners not charge the cost price for a product they’re selling ?…..obviously because it doesn’t cover anywhere what a business needs to run.

      • themerryreaper

         They charge what a fool will pay… Even if you count in “wages”, tent and location rent you’d be hard pressed to get at €0.50. That’s a monopoly markup aka a ripoff.

        • PelouzeTF

          I’m assuming you’ve operated a catering business. Or any business at all ? And understand how cyclical a business revenue can be over any given tax year ?

          Or is it that you’re just pissed that business owners might want to profit from the risks they take and not operate on a margin 1% over cost ?

        • themerryreaper

          I don’t really mind the asking of stupid prices for non essential stuff, I’m more pissed off at people actually buying at such prices, hence the “…what a fool will pay”. 

          I’m feeding the troll free of charge…

  • Shogunreaper

    Maybe its just me but waffles are kind of a weird food to be eating outside at a festival..

    • Anyone

      have you seen what Swedes eat? (judging from IKEA ;))
      Waffles are a big improvement!

  • Guest

    Generally speaking old businesses thrived thanks to the open and free market that allowed everyone full freedom as long as the intentions were honest and safe for the people.
    But these guys that took advantage of that freedom are now using the power they have to change the rules to sabotage anything they might see as a threat. There isn’t even a debate about these things, morals and ethics are not involved, there’s no scientific analysis, if there’s something judged inconvenient for them they will use the rules to get rid of it without effort.
    So unfair.

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  • RinFooo

    OK now thats messed up man, thats taking things a tad bit too far!
    Anon-Fun.tk

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  • Guest

    There are laws about this stuff that many of you seem to not understand.

    Most countries have ‘fair competition’ laws, that only allow loss leaders for short periods of time under certain circumstances.

    WalMart putting your green grocer out of business by supplying free stuff is definitely NOT legal in most of Europe.

    Your ‘Adapt or Die’, ‘All competition is good’, ‘All markets self regulate’ arguments are unsound and in fact most of the world does not work like this.

    There are no purely capitalistic or purely socialist countries, all have bits of both.

    There is also a monopolies commission etc.

    If the waffle makers followed the rules then they should have been left to give away their waffles. As a one time promotional event this is not anti-competitive and the competition should suck it up.

    Anyone who like films, music or books really should support some level of intellectual property. Broadcast media, the printing press, and the internet has made it possible to distribute peoples work for nothing, this does not mean that the work is worth nothing and they should not get paid or have any ownership.

    The pirates chose to give away their waffles, this is quite different to an author or artist having their waffles stolen.

    I agree the markets are not fair and the prices for the waffles and blue rays are ridiculous in general give the costs and markets involved.

    I actually think computer games are pretty cheap by comparison given the amount of man years involved in making them, the smaller markets compared to film and the number of hours entertainment given.

    • Anon

       Think the other Waffel seller was another poor voluntary organization (basketball?).
      Who wanted to raise money for their own organization/ sport.

  • Jicaracabox

    The waffle paradox, it is a clear image of how low have we reached… we are now at hiting the bottom. Hostages of the contemporary form of fascism, we cant even call it capitalism because its meaning has nothing to do with the system we live in. Sad days..we live.Well the only weapon that we have and that is powerful enough to shake this crap, is a orquestrated movement of withdrawing all our money from the banks… in a syncronized movement that will make all this crap to tremble !!

  • Frotoe12

    mmm waffles o wait i cant have them because there free and i didn’t spend my hole pay check on them

  • Louigi Verona

    Rick, I must say that if we look at things from the point of view of property (as one should) then in this case it could be a legitimate claim – the owner of his physical property, namely festival space, could evict someone.

    The problem we all recognize with IP is that ideas cannot be owned, hence, nobody should have the power to evict people from intellectual space.

    So I truly think your allegory is unjustified and only enforces the link pro-copyright people always make between physical property and IP – a link that does not exist.

  • Goosmoo

    If the waffles were delicious and better than the free waffles, customers likely would have paid.  Same goes for music.  People shouldn’t expect to get paid if what they’re producing is sub-par, regardless of whether it’s music or food.

  • Thunderlungz425

    they should have charged 0.01 so that they were a legitimate competition actually selling a product in a “free market” environment. there is nothing wrong with competitive prices. there is also nothing wrong with giving it away for free.

  • Desu1

    Waffles: SERIOUS BUSINESS!

  • Lololololol002

    I did know Sweden was a totalitarian regime…

    • Desu1

      It’s always been a strict country. 

  • Mike

    Silly, they couldn’t make waffles for free if it was their job to make waffles at festivals. If we would all conspire to give away free stuff at festivals once a year, to compete with regular businesses at festivals, and do that all year long then surely we can be proud to have destroyed some businesses and that we are ‘pirates’

    By the way, pirates gave nothing away for free.

    • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

      Right.

      And what about pirates composing songs and producing million dollar movies for free instead of just “stealing” copies for free?

      It’s so easy to see through the free waffles facade.

      • Fredrika

        > “..instead of just “stealing” copies for free?”

        You seem confused. If someone is giving something to you freely, as with filesharing, it can not be stealing. Secondly, the price can not be anything else than free. Free is the only price possibly when you manufacture something with your own proeprty.

  • Allah Minibar

    Who feeds the young swedish waffle pirates? If they have ordinary jobs I am sure they work for free – just as Falkvinge does… 

    • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

      Falkvinge does not work for free, he’s payed by the Swedish tax payers, including myself unfortunately. Indirectly from European Parliament MEP salaries.

      • Fredrika

        > “Falkvinge does not work for free, he’s payed by the Swedish tax payers, including myself unfortunately.”

        Are you saying that you wish you didn’t pay taxes, or that you weren’t paying Swedish or European taxes? Because that is the literal interpretation of that sentence.

        However, since you often have displayed having huge problems with language and successfully expressing what you actually mean, maybe you are saying that you have a problem with our democratic system where all elected politician from all parties, not just the one you voted for, received salaries and funds which they can hire assistants for?

        That’s a more far fetched interpretation, but you have previously said that you are against the part of the democratic system in which democratically elected politicians receive salaries, instead advocating that those tax money should be given as state funded bailouts to weak failed entrepreneurs* that can’t handle themselves on the free market and sell something, which generally would be an astonishing opinion, but coming from you..

        > “Indirectly from European Parliament MEP salaries”

        Incorrect. Falkvinge is not paid with money from any MEP salary.

        * http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/four-kopimist-sermons/

        • Dirty_Bear

          > “Falkvinge does not work for free, he’s payed by the Swedish tax payers, including myself unfortunately.”

          “Are you saying that you wish you didn’t pay taxes, or that you weren’t paying Swedish or European taxes? Because that is the literal interpretation of that sentence.”

          Um that is certainly an interpretation of what he said.  However, most people would read it as – him wishing that he didn’t have to pay towards Rick Falkvinge salary. 

          “However, since you often have displayed having huge problems with language and successfully expressing what you actually mean.?”

          Oh, the irony.

      • Guest

        Monique Wadstedt did not work for free, she’s paid by tax payers unfortunately.

        • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

          No and so are the defense lawyers Jonas Nilsson, Ola Salomonsson, Peter Althin, Per E. Samuelsson and Stefan Jevinger.

          They are highly paid but money doesn’t help in court if you’re guilty, according to the outcome.

        • Anon

          @nejtillpirater:disqus
          Correction: Money helps you even if you’re found guilty. If you’re a banker who caused international economic meltdowns the best you get is a slap on the wrist, or a fine which is a mere drop in the ocean for your amassed finances.

          If you don’t have money and you get sued for alleged music downloads, good luck paying for the statutory damages (whose existence or basis are never proven) for the rest of your life.

        • Anyone

          @nejtillpirater:disqus
          of course money helps
          just ask the cop that investigated the pirate bay and is now officially working for the MAFIAA, I’m sure he got paid off pretty good
          or the judge that is part of many pro-copyright groups

          money really helps if the facts are not on your side

        • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

          @f05af58b8c10e93b3595bb996aad4e5d:disqus 

          “just ask the cop that investigated the pirate bay and is now officially working for the MAFIAA, I’m sure he got paid off pretty good
          or the judge that is part of many pro-copyright groups”

          He’s actually back working for the police. I expect him to continue doing a great job since he’s paid with tax money.

          And I also expect that a person being a judge in a piracy trial has full knowledge of the developments in copyright.

          I can’t see how a lousy cop or an ignorant judge would benefit justice.

        • Anyone

          @nejtillpirater:disqus
          “I can’t see how a lousy cop or an ignorant judge would benefit justice.”

          exactly, a paid off cop and paid off judge don’t help justice
          but they help getting the verdict that you want

        • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

          @f05af58b8c10e93b3595bb996aad4e5d:disqus 

          “exactly, a paid off cop and paid off judge don’t help justice
          but they help getting the verdict that you want”

          But they weren’t paid off, that has already been settled. You pirates must grow up and face the reality even if it doesn’t look like you want it to.

        • Anyone

          @nejtillpirater:disqus
          of course they have been paid off
          how else do you explain the cop getting a well paid MAFIAA job and the judge being in pro-copyright groups?

          that’s just as much bribery as is lobbying
          it might be legal (because the bribed people made the laws) but it is in no way moral

      • Anyone

        I thought he made money with his speeches
        what official capacity does he have in Sweden?

        • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

          Falkvinge has no formal role in the Swedish Pirate Party anymore. He had to resign as party leader after the epic fail when he said that child porn was to be regarded as information and should be fully legal to possess.

        • Anyone

          @nejtillpirater:disqus
          interesting, I missed that
          depending on the actual wording I might even agree with that, possession of any kind of data should not generally be illegal

        • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

          @f05af58b8c10e93b3595bb996aad4e5d:disqus 

          “interesting, I missed that
          depending on the actual wording I might even agree with that, possession of any kind of data should not generally be illegal”

          The problem is that even if child porn or military classified information can been seen as “just information”, you can’t ignore that they are also child porn or military classified information and not legal to possess in most countries.

          Ignoring this, regarding child porn, Falkvinge had to resign as party leader due to massive protests within the Swedish Pirate Party.

          One of his arguments was that it had been previously allowed to possess child porn, before the law was changed. But that is a lousy argument because then we could revert to old laws against committing suicide, homosexuality, beating children, women’s rights to vote etc. with exactly the same argument. 

        • Fredrika

          > “..what official capacity does he have in Sweden?”

          He’s an employed assistant to Swedish MEP Christian Engström, and his job is mainly to travel and talk to people worldwide, hold keynotes and so on, explaining the Pirate Parties politics and what problems that exist, so that Christian instead of spending his time on that can focus on his job in the EU parliament.

          > “..depending on the actual wording I might even agree with that, possession of any kind of data should not generally be illegal..”

          Of course it shouldn’t, nothing should be illegal unless it can be proven with verifiable documentation that lack of such prohibition constitutes an actual problem to society and that the prohibition solves that problem, and that is not the case with criminalising possession of child porn, so that prohibition is actually made up of illegitimate legislation based purely on emotional irrational feelings and ignorance.

          But when it comes to laws regarding stigmatized topics as sexual abuse of pre-pubertal children and child porn the brains seize to work on most people.

  • AnarchistNoMore

    I’d love to see what kind of stuff you will write 10 years from now, once you’re all grown up.

    • Guest

      You’re the sort of person who frowns at little kids making lemonade stands and giving away lemonade, right? Or selling them at five cents a cup? How dare they give away lemonade cheaper than what bigger retailers are selling!

      • AnarchistNoMore

        You sound like a French socialist…
        Anyway, to answer your question, no, not at all. In fact, I think it was a mistake for the festival authorities to ban the free-waffles concession. In doing that, they added fuel to the fire. Left alone, the pirate party will be gone the way of the dodo and replaced by some other anarchist group, mind you with a cooler name than PP, in no time at all. Anarchists come and anarchists grow up.

        • Guest

          So you think the alternative is to leave everything to the corporations and copyright trolls. Fantastic. I’ll see you when your IP address is pulled out of a random number generator and you become associated with a pornography download lawsuit.

          You thinking that disagreeing with how certain benign, civil things are handled extremely heavy-handedly is equivalent to demanding anarchy is misguided. Sounds like you haven’t grown up at all – you seem rather attached to the milk your Mother Collection Agency gives you.

      • AnarchistNoMore

        Come on. Admit it. You’re French. I thought you guys would have learned your lesson by now.

  • guest

    “if YOU owned an average restaurant and saw a soup kitchen open right across the street you’d want to do something about it”…
    If you had a restaurant and the customer wouldn’t see the difference between you and a soup kitchen, probably you are in the wrong business.

    In first restaurants and soup kitchens do not (should not) cater for the same customers base.Then, most important, the quality of service in a restaurant should be evident to the consumer, so that there is no doubt about the value delivered for the money they pay.

    This is a good comparison with piracy vs legal content.
    Users would pay (as demonstrated by iTune, spotify, etc.) if the quality of service and content is worth the money.Unfortunately most of the legal services are worst than the hassle of searching and downloading pirate content.

    • joexxx

       Very good point. The problem is that these days you can’t tell a “restaurant” from a soup kitchen most of the time!

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  • http://searchmarketingwisdom.com alanbleiweiss

    How much does anyone want to wager that next year the festival organizers are going to come out with new rules.  Which of course will force everyone to give away only products/food not sold by other vendors.  It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, since 20th century dynastic control freaks will always try to circumvent a disruptive business model that isn’t started by one of their own, thus why other parties were able to get away with giving hot dogs and such away but the pirates were a “threat” since the pirates are an outside force operating on their own terms and not within those 20th century norms (now ancient outdated history fighting it’s last dying breaths). 

    Old world bully tactics are pathetic.  I just love how this time it was over waffles.  What a brilliant tactic!

  • Dragonforcehair

    1) if a specialist (and pretty expensive) waffle makers cant compete with free ones thrown together in a tent, they need to get a better business going.

    2) if they had any sense, they’d probably sell more than just waffles, so they’re still making money off whatever else they have.

    the supermarket down my road has cornettos half price atm. there is still an ice-cream van driving around as i speak, because the owner doesn’t depend entirely on cornetto sales. get my point?

  • Adam

    Well, I like the parallelism. Just one thought: What about the future? How you can run your non-profitable giving free waffle business for long time? Is there a donation? If so, and other sellers will try to compete with you, they for sure will use similar donation. So at the end, customer will pay for his waffles, but the way he pays will be hidden from him. And finaly others (and not you or customer) will controll who can run waffles business and who can not – so no free competition at all.

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  • Marathonrunner4

    There’s a difference between giving away your own waffles and those of someone else, though, surely.  Of course, Young Pirate should be able to make his waffles and give them away.  But should Young Pirate be permitted to take the waffles of competing waffle sellers and give those away?

    • DavidXanatos

      Young Pirate be permittedto buy one waffle of competing, and make copy’s and give those away.

  • Aaa

    Well, that’s simple. You usually have to pay a lot of money in order to get rights for selling stuff on festivals. If they got the licence, then they had every right to sell/give things away. If they did not, they had no rights of selling/giving things away and they should have been arrested.

    • Sskcurapcie

      bullshit!
      Dosnt makr it you think that the thread of police made the festival guards stand down?

      The young pirates clearly head tha law on thair side, otherwise the police would have the opositte effect.

  • SammyB

    Last time I checked waffles aren’t protected under copyright laws. Far stretch at best.

    • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

      No, most people know that. But the Swedish Pirate Party desperately tries to pull stunts like that now and then.

      Sharing is caring if you share something that you own but you definitely don’t own pirate copies and you are not allowed to share them either.

      • Fredrika

        > “But the Swedish Pirate Party desperately tries to pull stunts like that now and then.”

        Stunt like that? Ung Pirat, not the Pirate Party, gave away eatables just as other political parties at the fair, and all of a sudden a weak failed entrepreneur got upset because he couldn’t handle himself on the free market. Exactly how is that a desperate stunt performed by Ung Pirat?

        > “..but you definitely don’t own pirate copies..”

        You seem ignorant regarding the facts of copyright and property laws. Whether or not a person owns the copy in front of himself(for instance a copy on optical media or on a hard drive) is in no way determined by whether or not the manufacturing of that copy constituted a copyright infringement.

        If you manufacture a copy through filesharing, and that act happens to constitute a copyright infringement, you still own that copy afterwards if the copy is manufactured with your property(which it is when you fileshare, provided that you own the computer and hard drive used), and it’s also fully legal to possess that copy. Copyright laws regulate manufacturing and distribution of goods and services, not ownership of property.

        So according to your own statement above, performing a copyright infringement is indeed caring.

        > “..and you are not allowed to share them either.”

        Referencing what a law currently as an attempt at an argument is always circular reasoning, which is a logical fallacy, and therefore not an argument at all. Do you understand the concept of circular reasoning, and why it isn’t an argument in a debate?

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  • Guest

    What Ung Pirat did do was. If you explain in simple and plain text, So people understand situation

    Doctors Without Borders are selling waffles for 25 sek to raise money for their cause.

    Then Ung Pirat starting giving away waffles for their cause, Besides Doctors Without Borders.

    Festival meaing was that the to raise money for free healthcare (music for real)

    What Ung Pirat did do was stupidy and they do not understand that. And
    has nothing to do with he pirate cause. The opposit Ung Pirat starting
    to behave like antipiracy byrå and ifpi themselfes

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  • Non

    I understand what this article is about, but still think it was a bit far fetched in comparison. It’s quite obvious that giving food away for free on a festival where other vendors have to pay for a license – sometimes hefty sums – would create a “business problem”. Naturally the competitors wouldn’t mind if they gave away free food OUTSIDE the festival as this wouldn’t hurt them – ie not being a social problem, nor a business problem. This is about business mechanics and not comfort zones.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/XKKMTSZCAGWAGUKJUPHSYRVBTU Ellen

    Brilliant… ohhh thats  a word who MAFFIA has dificult to understamnd.

  • Georgie433

    I hope a whole bunch of people giving out free food show up next year.

  • Laz0r

    Sharing is caring :D

  • Demonloan

    SHIT…now i really want some waffles…..

  • Jessie1000

    The closure of the kids free waffle tent is rediculous!! No one said that they were actually running a business,,, they were simply just giving away free waffles to fair goers…. it is good to see selflessness in ppl, it shouldnt be beaten out of them…. charity is good for communities!!
    What are they going to do about the red cross and all of the free food marts that are there catering for the underprivilidged ppl out there,, close them down just because some asshole thinks that ppl should spend money at “their” store?  ppl are sick to death of mindless greed and corruption!!!
    It  wouldnt surprise me if the woman that made a big scene about the free waffles was actually related to one of the venders that sell their waffles!
    What are they going to do next? Forbid ppl handing out free second hand clothing, furniture, Bric ‘n’ Brac, and what ever else? all because some idiot up the road wants to make a profit!
    When it comes to the likes of the RIAA and MPAA, are they going to now tell us we aren’t allowed to discard our used dvd’s and cd’s to friends and family when we no longer want them any more!

    • annon

       well the disclaimers at the start of films seem to suggest that if someone doesn’t live at your address then it is a criminal offence and that schools can’t show DVDs to classes of children even if it is for education purposes.

  • Sqqi

     ”Pay as much as you want to if you want to”- works around here if you want to run a voluntary kitchen. Some people don’t pay shait and some do pay more than enough. Usually you en up in the plus side. Well the problem here is that they are a political party so dunno how the donations are looked at. 

  • penguin

    Interesting. I do agree, Look at the recent changes that they have made to convince people to pay for things, like bringing back 3D and iTunes. Some people actually don’t mind paying for music on iTunes because it is easy for them to use etc. Business isn’t a privilege, it is earned.

  • stephenw

    Your comparison is wrong, if the file sharers were giving away their own movies for free then your statement is fair enough but your analogy would have to be that the young pirates waited on the the waffle businesses to make the waffles then took them over to their own stand and gave them away.

    Dont get me wrong, the movie business is in a self made shambles right now and I may have (ahem) watched a few movies for free but I tend to end up buying the blu-ray anyway for movies that I think are worth it. The movie industry needs to get a grip of reality, movies for  download at a reasonable price the week after they are available in the cinema for instance. Anyone desperate enough to see the film in its intended foramt will have been that first week anyway and anyone else would happily wait a week to watch a perfect version for a reasonable fee rather than download it illegally. Its not like the cinema makes much money anyway unless you start buying drinks and food.

    Aside from that good on the young pirates, giving your own shit away for free and getting punished for it….I would have called the police too

  • Alexandre Bernard

    if we don’t like what these companies are doing the majority of us need to stop just commenting and get off their asses and do something about it

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  • Olivier3923

    I used to download pirated games when I was younger. Now that I have money, I buy them on Steam. Even if I was an ass and didn’t care about developpers, it would still be worth the money.

    If those selling waffles would offer better waffles, people would still pay for them.

  • Nathan Nikulla

    They should have just charged 25 cents for the waffles, that way the other waffle makers wouldnt have any leg to stand on. They couldnt say “shut them down, they are cheaper than us”!

    • Drevil

       They could still say the waffles are far below production price of, so it’s false competition.

    • annon

       why should they be forced to charge to give away something they have made just because some corporations don’t like it, I wonder if RIAA and MPAA and other bodies will tell people they need to charge charity shops before donating cds and movies?

  • Howlest

    1) Ad revenues bring in millions, and the more popular the product, the more revenue.  
       (Enough to cover part of the cost of a particular product.)2) The arguments used by people or industries who can’t complete because of     operating, manufacturing or distribution costs have been the same or similar since 
        the industrial revolution.
        (Case in point, IKEA vs Cabinetmakers. Before mass-production, Cabinetmakers 
         made all the cabinets, chairs, tables, wardrobes ect. When mass-production 
         started, most cabinetmakers when broke. However, the finest cabinetmakers still 
         work today, and make extremely high quality furniture for those willing to pay the 
         price. And someone is always willing to pay more to one-up her neighbor.
         The relevance to the waffles is that to the cabinetmakers of yore, the manufactures   
          must have seemed to be “giving away furniture for free”.)

    3) Adapting new business models have been suggested a few times, so here’s one I 
        thought of in the time it took to read a few of the comments;
        a) Have a placard or sign outside your tent advertising free waffles(brings business 
            into your tent, and steals free-pirate competitor customers.)
        b) Then, have another sign in smaller print inside informing where to get the free 
            waffles, and have it written in such a way to imply lower quality (soupkitchen  
            food) and really only meant for the needy who can’t buy the good stuff.
        c) Have staff be super friendly (service with a smile) and being pretty couldn’t hurt.
            Get the staff to enforce the “Soupkitchen free-waffle association) while even 
            offering small free samples.

    With this business model, customers will be drawn into the yummy selling tent, get a choice to get poor quality free waffles or delicious warm waffles that they can see right in front of them.

    Additionally this business model costs next to nothing extra. 

    Thoughts?

  • Louis

    I once worked a bus company that pretty much (and still do) have the monopoly on public transport all across our area. However, a while back a small company saw a whole in their route system and decided to start operating a service. Within a week or two, our boss added a route and deliberately informed us drivers to undercharge the other company and because we had so many vehicles it was not long before the small company gave up because it became a non-cost effective exercise. As soon as they gave up our boss saw that there was a need for the service to continue because it was proven that there was a market for the route but naturally put the prices straight up to a much higher level than they or the small company had been charging before. Those people that used that bus did gain a service but they did lose a much friendlier and cheaper service by taking the short term cheap option and therefore the monopoly was contained.

     I just wonder if one day we will see the same thing happen with the large supermarkets eventually making it virtually impossible for the small shop owner to continue. We are already seeing the large supermarkets bringing in smaller express stores that mimic the corner shops but with cheaper prices. Once all the small fry are eliminated then the big supermarkets then turn on one another and then what?

  • gbsr

    i bet your pardon?

    “remote parts of a frozen country the size of a shoebox on the Arctic Circle.”

    my country is neither frozen, nor the size of a shoebox in the arctic circle.

  • None

    Pretty clear case of waffle infringement.

  • Janelle

    This is a really interesting concept, one I quite like actually. It really makes you think.

    It would be the same thing as Tim Hortons, or Starbucks calling the police because McDonalds is giving away their coffee for free (which they do from time to time), and stealing their customers. Well that would be rediculous, wouldn’t you say?

    Many businesses give away free product for promotional means, like giving away free cake when you come to their booth. You wouldn’t see a bake sale at the same place calling the police. What if that business wasn’t giving away food, lets say they were giving away a promotional frisbee with their logo on it. Do you think a booth that sells beach things would then ask the managers of the convention to ask them to leave? Of course not!

    When it comes to businesses you either adapt, change your business model, or suffer financially. That is why many business fail. Take the restaurant business, which has a high failure rate. If another restaurant opens across the street and takes your business away, because they offer cheaper food, you can’t call the police. You have to increase your advertising, whether that is giving a product for free, or doing some sort of deal (buy one get one free).

    This is how the world truly works.

    Now if you are going to suggest I’m some sort of young person living in my parents basement, let me assure you I am 30 year old female, highly educated Health care professional, who is single and owns her own house and car.

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