Piaracy or FREEDOM ?

[Abarbarian]

No Starch Press and Wired’s news editor Leander Kahney have released free copies of “The Cult of Mac” and “The Cult of iPod” on the Pirate Bay. Publishing music, movies and books on BitTorrent seems to be becoming a trend, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

http://torrentfreak.com/mac-book-on-bittorrent-080320/

What Coelho quickly discovered was that the more his book was available for free, the more sales of the actual book increased. As an example, he cites the Russian translation of his book, where it went from only 1,000 sales to well over 100,000 in a period of two years, and has only continued to grow since then.

http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/paulo-coelho-free-books-online-alchemy

http://www.paulocoelho.com/engl/dow.shtml#ingles

NineInchNails give away free album.

“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Rob Sheridan added. Many sites, too are willing to work with artists with programs such as Mininova’s content distribution platform and What.cd’s ‘Vanity House’.

http://torrentfreak.com/nin-confirms-bittorrent-uploads-080305/

It is a bit of an awkward, and perhaps even a suggestive name, but LegalTorrents.com reopens today as a community driven BitTorrent site where users and publishers are able to share Creative Commons licensed content.

http://torrentfreak.com/legaltorrents-reopens-080331/

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference is one of the biggest and most popular music festivals in the United States. For the third year in a row now, SXSW released a DRM-less collection of songs that can be downloaded for free with your favorite BitTorrent client.

http://torrentfreak.com/sxsw-2007-embraces-bittorrent-over-700-free-mp3s/

http://torrentfreak.com/sxsw-2008-music-torrent-080222/

When Nine Inch Nails decided to give away their latest album for free, the news soon spread all over the Internet. However, NiN was not the first, nor will they be the last. Tens and thousands of artists share their music on Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and other BitTorrent sites. We got in touch with one of them to find out why.

Xihilisk: 5 years? What music industry? Hopefully, there will only be music.

The Internet is rapidly leveling the playing field for all musicians. I’d like to see it where all money hungry labels go out of business, and a true DIY ethic takes over. You want to get your band noticed? Make really good music and the internet will do the rest. You want to make money? Play a load of gigs or forget it.

http://torrentfreak.com/artist-releases-album-exclusively-on-demonoid-080607/

FREEDOM thats what I keep harping on about.

As previously shown, BitTorrent can be a boon to the independent film-maker. Usually a lack of money restricts the distribution of a film, but occasionally the content works against it. As well as the promotion of new, aspiring talent, torrents can be used to spread films which may be politically discouraged from more usual methods.

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-uncensoring-to-independent-filmmakers-080109/

The award winning Canadian documentary ‘The Corporation’ has been released on BitTorrent for free. Filmmaker Mark Achbar just released an updated “official” torrent of it. Everyone is free to download, watch, discuss, and share it.

http://torrentfreak.com/sundance-winner-the-corporation-released-for-free-on-bittorrent/

You can make money by giving stuff away for free.

This one is for Urmas.

Star Wreck, a movie directed by Timo Vuorensola backed up by a crew of independent film makers became a great success thanks to BitTorrent. The Star Trek parody, released under a Creative Commons lisence has been downloaded millions of times. The movie became Finland’s most popular movie within just a couple of months, and is [...]

According to Timo they sold over 5,000 DVD’s, bringing in more than 120,000$ while the cost to make the movie were less than 16,000$ .

http://torrentfreak.com/star-wreck-owes-its-success-to-bittorrent/

Here is what several famous artists have to say.

They are quite rare events but on occasion, artists actually encourage fans to share their music online. Singer Joss Stone has no problem doing so at all. In fact, after a recent concert in Argentina she said that piracy is “brilliant”.

“It’s ok, if one person buys it, it’s totally cool, burn it up, share it with your friends, I don’t care. I don’t care how you hear it as long as you hear it. As long as you come to my show, and have a great time listening to the live show it’s totally cool. I don’t mind. I’m happy that they hear it.”

http://torrentfreak.com/joss-stone-piracy-is-brilliant-080625/

One of the big breakthrough acts of the last year has joined the increasing ranks of artists who don’t mind if people share their music. Duffy, the million-selling 24 year-old vocalist and winner of this year’s MOJO Song of the Year Award has been downloading for a couple of years. “It’s amazing,” she said.

But if you don’t have the cash for the album, don’t worry - Duffy is pretty forward thinking when it comes to ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ downloads: “Somebody asked me the other day what I thought of illegal downloading, and I thought, ‘You know what? I don’t care,’ because I think the majority are kids and as they get old and get more income they’ll probably buy records. It’s just making music a part of everyone’s lives.”

http://torrentfreak.com/song-of-the-year-winner-says-file-sharing-is-amazing-080803/

But what does Noel think of other people sharing music via P2P?

“If people are willing to have faceless CDs like that in their collection, good for them. It would be absolutely ludicrous for a rock-star to demand that people pay money for albums because the kids haven’t got that much money to pay for an album, so if they can find it for free, go ahead! But don’t do it on Oasis records though - because that’s against the law.”


http://torrentfreak.com/noel-gallagher-of-oasis-speaks-out-on-piracy-080822

Jamendo.com offers over 4000 free music albums, all published under a Creative Commons license. The albums are available in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis format, free of DRM of course.

http://torrentfreak.com/jamendo-download-thousands-of-free-and-legal-music-albums-070831/

http://www.jamendo.com/en/

The Canadian government and otheres have used torrent to offer free and legal downloads aswell.

This campaign on torrents is not about illegal downloads. It is about the fight for freedom. Say no to the facists who wish to control every aspect of your lives. Fight for it or loose it.

 

[Urmas]

Star Wreck, a movie directed by Timo Vuorensola backed up by a crew of independent film makers became a great success thanks to BitTorrent. The Star Trek parody, released under a Creative Commons lisence has been downloaded millions of times. The movie became Finland’s most popular movie within just a couple of months, and is [...]

According to Timo they sold over 5,000 DVD’s, bringing in more than 120,000$ while the cost to make the movie were less than 16,000$ .

http://torrentfreak.com/star-wreck-owes-its-success-to-bittorrent/

Yup. A "community based" net success.

http://www.starwreck.com/

How it was made: http://www.starwreck.com/tech.php

Q: You've just spent seven years of your life making Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning - and now you're giving it away for free! What's the point?

A: This movie was never intended to be a money-making machine. We've had over three hundred people working for this project for free over the last few years - so we also wanted to offer it for free to watch.

Q: Well, what took you so long? Seven years is a long time...

A: Because we never had an actual idea what we were doing - we had to learn everything from scratch, banging our heads against a stone wall and see which one would be the first to give.

http://www.starwreck.com/faq.php

 

[floppybootstomp]

I got both the NIN and new Charlatans album for free - legally - recently.

They're both pretty good too.

Lots of bands make the bulk of their income now from touring with the way things have changed, noticed how much more expensive concert tickets are now?

Once, a band would tour to sell the album, now, the opposite is true.

Odd.

 

[Madxgraphics]

I got both the NIN and new Charlatans album for free - legally - recently.

They're both pretty good too.

What ya mean "They're both pretty good." NIN are awesome..I have seen them a good few times and even had the pleasure of attending a NIN after party...

 

[floppybootstomp]

What ya mean "They're both pretty good." NIN are awesome..I have seen them a good few times and even had the pleasure of attending a NIN after party...

Quit yer whingeing I could have said it was crap...

Actually playing it as I type this.

Did you know Trent Reznor made the sound track for the original Quake PC Game?

 

[Madxgraphics]

Quit yer whingeing I could have said it was crap...

Actually playing it as I type this.

Did you know Trent Reznor made the sound track for the original Quake PC Game?

Yes you could have, but as you have good taste in music you didn't...

Listening to "With Teeth" album as I type this...I had heard that about Quake, but never followed it up..

 

[Abarbarian]

Yup. A "community based" net success.

http://www.starwreck.com/

How it was made: http://www.starwreck.com/tech.php


http://www.starwreck.com/faq.php

I laughed till I cried when I downloaded this and watched it.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Only other NIN album I have is 'With Teeth' oddly enough.

Also got some vinyl NIN singles I got sent when I was biggin' it up DJ-ing

Quake 1 is possibly me favourite ever computer game, it was/is brilliant.

Close call between that and Return To Castle Wolfenstein.

I shall have to check out Starwreck

Must admit I wasn't impressed with the Star Wars parody that done the rounds recently.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Only other NIN album I have is 'With Teeth' oddly enough.

Also got some vinyl NIN singles I got sent when I was biggin' it up DJ-ing

Quake 1 is possibly me favourite ever computer game, it was/is brilliant.

Close call between that and Return To Castle Wolfenstein.

I shall have to check out Starwreck

Must admit I wasn't impressed with the Star Wars parody that done the rounds recently.

I think I have pretty much everything NIN have ever produced..And quite a bit on Vinyl to..Just love collecting vinyl I suppose..As for Quake, I second that..I think it was one of the first computer games that I had ever played and still do..

 

[Abarbarian]

Only other NIN album I have is 'With Teeth' oddly enough.

Also got some vinyl NIN singles I got sent when I was biggin' it up DJ-ing

Quake 1 is possibly me favourite ever computer game, it was/is brilliant.

Close call between that and Return To Castle Wolfenstein.

I shall have to check out Starwreck

Must admit I wasn't impressed with the Star Wars parody that done the rounds recently.

You have to remember that it was made by total amateurs.

 

[Madxgraphics]

You have to remember that it was made by total amateurs.

What ..? Quake, Starwreck or NIN..???

 

[Abarbarian]

What ..? Quake, Starwreck or NIN..???

Quake ------geniuses

Starwreck --- ameture geniuses

NIN --- escaped madmen.

 

[Urmas]

Oops... we forgot this one:

“The primary intent of the movie was to stimulate the development of open source 3D software” said producer and Institute director Ton Roosendaal, “But the result equals on artistic level as well as on technical ingenuity the quality of what you would expect from large animation studios”.
The movie differentiates itself mostly by its totally open character. Not only open source tools such as the 3D suite ‘Blender’ were used to create the movie, but also the movie itself - including all materials as used in the animation studio - will be freely accessible for everybody to reuse, to learn from it or just to enjoy it.
The promotion of Open Content creation and distribution is one of the main goals of the Creative Commons, the organization that created the 'Creative Commons' licenses, which have been widely adopted by artists, musicians, and other creative individuals who wish to freely share their creative endeavors.
Blender Institute in Amsterdam is one of the first companies worldwide exploiting Open Content professionally and commercially. Currently 14 people are working full-time in the Institute, wrapping up Big Buck Bunny and working on an Open Game based on the characters from the movie.
Big Buck Bunny is a comedy about a well-tempered rabbit “Big Buck”, who finds his day spoiled by the rude actions of the forest bullies, three rodents. In the typical 1950ies cartoon tradition Big Buck then prepares for the rodents a comical revenge.

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

Amazing what you can do with Gimp and Blender, n'est-ce pas?


Which reminds me ... OpenDisc, anyone?

OpenDisc is a high quality collection of open source software (OSS) for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The two main goals of the project are:

• To provide a free alternative to costly software, with equal or often better quality equivalents to proprietary, shareware or freeware software for Microsoft Windows.
• To educate users of Linux as an operating system for home, business and educational use.

http://www.theopendisc.com/programs/

Might be of use if you know folks still on dialup or without a net connection.

 

[Abarbarian]

IDGNS: Can you tell me something about the recent move in Italy to block access to TPB's site? What really happened leading up to when the judge overturned the decision by a lower court to block the site, and what was the ultimate impact from your perspective?

Sunde: IFPI [International Federation of the Phonographic Industry] in Italy -- called FIMA, I think -- decided to sue us personally in a country where we do not live or have any connection. That in itself is not a valid thing in Europe, but the judge however decided to let them do it and to let them win. It was quite crazy. We found some really good lawyers afterwards that helped us with the case and we won it quite easily in the higher level of court.

FIMA had a major setback by that, when even the European Union had rules saying that an EU country is not allowed to block access to a system in another country like that. For some stupid reason they refuse to listen to the judge and the laws (the typical IFPI approach) and have now decided to appeal to the supreme court. It's no chance for them to win but they are losing face if they don't appeal. The interesting part is that we have never done anything illegal, not according to Swedish nor European Union laws. Our opponents have broken hundreds of laws in order to get to us.




IDGNS: The recent situation in Sweden involving the pictures from the police case and the interview on Swedish television was obviously an emotional experience. The Pirate Bay has said it believes in free speech without restrictions. At a personal level, did this experience cause you to reconsider your stance on this issue?

Sunde: No, we are very sure of what we do. One of the most impressive things for me about TPB when looking back is our consistency towards our goals and ideals. We've always been true to them, even when the winds have been blowing against us rather than with us. And in the end, that's what makes us what we are -- we're honest and have a good ideology behind us. Compare us to our opponents and see what you get -- hint, it's not honesty and ideals.




http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/152274/exchanging_emails_with_a_pirate.html




Extracts from an interview with one of the top folk at Pirate Bay. So who are the criminals ????

 

[Urmas]

How to make money with free software...

Introduction
The Dutch Ministry of Finance organized an architecture competition for which a selected group of architectural offices (unstudio, nox, ...) and artists were invited, including myself. The goal of the competition was not to design a building, but the new 5 euro commemorative coin with the theme 'Netherlands and Architecture'. The winner will be rewarded with a nice price, but most of all with the honor: his design will be realized and will be a legal coin within the Netherlands.
_______________________________________

Technology
The whole design was done for 100% with free software. The biggest part consists of custom software in Python, of course within the SPE editor. For the visual power I used PIL and pyCairo. From time to time also Gimp, Inkscape and Phatch helped quite a bit. All the developing and processing was done on GNU/Linux machines which were running Ubuntu/Debian. In the end I had to collaborate closely on location together with the technicians of the Royal Dutch Mint (coin factory). So all the last bits were done on my Asus Eee PC. (I am still wondering why Asus doesn't offer Ubuntu on its netbooks.) The Eee laptop took a bit longer (30 seconds instead of 3 seconds to generate a whole coin), but did the job just fine. For looking up the number of hits on the internet, I rediscovered Yahoo, which provides a much better api for automatic querying than its competitors. Of course the jury judged only the design and not the software used as others used Maya, Illustrator, ...

And the winner is...
I am proud to announce that I won the competition! So soon 350.000 Dutch people will use the fruits of free software. I would have loved to release the coin under the GPL, which could maybe solve the financial crisis. However for obvious reasons I was not allowed to do that. There will be also special editions for collectors which can be bought world wide: a massive silver edition for € 30,95 and a massive gold edition for € 194,95. They will be probably sold out quickly as these are real collectors items. The coin is released in all Dutch post offices to the public the same day as the Intrepid Ibex: 30th October 2008.

How to make money with free software...

 

[Abarbarian]

Brilliant find Urmas.

 

[Urmas]

 

[Abarbarian]

Brilliant !

 

[Urmas]

Starwreck --- ameture geniuses

They're on the warpath again: Iron Sky (aka Space Nazis)

Towards the end of World War II the staff of SS officer Hans Kammler made a significant breakthrough in anti-gravity. From a secret base built in the Antarctic, the first Nazi spaceships were launched in late ‘45 to found the military base Schwarze Sonne (Black Sun) on the dark side of the Moon. This base was to build a powerful invasion fleet and return to take over the Earth once the time was right.

Now it’s 2018, the Nazi invasion is on its way and the world is goose-stepping towards its doom.

A HD Teaser available (720P & 1080P).

 

[Abarbarian]

Nice find.