Finnish record industry's regrettable new anti-piracy mascot

The Finnish record industry lobby has produced a series of excruciatingly bad videos to educate the general populace about the evils of piracy. Starring "Captain Nation," they combine moralizing, crummy CGI, bad irony, and worse music.

WIDE NATION - Episodi 1 (Thanks, Morris!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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bshock

This is a joke, right? The Finnish anti-piracy superhero is an apparently apathetic, slightly overweight guy who can’t sing?
Anonymous

Dude looks like Todd Palin.
Anonymous

Ok, im from Finland and have not much bad to say from my country, but this is something biggest shit from Finland ever…
Peter

This video is deep in Tim & Eric territory.
Anonymous

This requires a delicate sense of irony even in Finnish, so perhaps it’s not wise to judge the episode when you don’t understand what’s being said?

I think this is witty and fresh. Perhaps even too witty, I’m afraid.
Anonymous

All I can think is Star Wreck http://www.starwreck.com
pepsiman

I don’t get it. This is what most modern media looks like to me anyway.
Anonymous

It makes me want to pirate all the more.
Anonymous

haha! And i thought the gay porn ‘PSA’ against piracy on youtube made a poor case!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoWMe3Nze0c
Paul Coleman

I’d like to think that the wormhole he’s travelling through is the colon of the music industry. That puts it all in perspective.
regeya

How hung over is THAT guy? LOL!
loonquawl

Your Finnish is probably better than mine – could you share some of the moralizing stuff?
Pantograph

He looks like Hitler without his moustache.
ma6ic

Don’t Copy That Floppy still dominates my poorly thought-through and produced anti-piracy videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk&feature=related
certron

In the mirror, the C on his microphone becomes a copy-left. “Load it down”? Then, before I know it, the clip is over. Wow.
thekinginyellow

wow…that’s horrible…or maybe i just don’t understand. to add to the hitler remark above…i thought that he looked a bit like hitler, too and thought he was saying “white nation” until i saw the tag url.

i still think the best anti-piracy ad is from ‘the IT crowd’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wRxfz_6E7o

moss and the german…what’s going on with this post and the racial themed coincidences?
- Anonymous
  
  I follow that youtube link for the IT crowd anti-piracy ad, and see the message “This video contains content from Fremantle International, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”
  
  Laugh or cry?
Anonymous

The Finnish music industry are going to seed incorrectly named files across the Finnterweb. Download a file expecting some cheery Scando folk metal, get this.

“You’ve have been warned, oh ye thieves of the electroways!” ;)
weatherman

I’d say someone at the ad agency that cooked this up wanted it to be parodied.
angrydroid

Isn’t that the “kaiser scream” @ 2:13?
Anonymous

The point of these videos is to ironically show how low would the quality of entertainment be if piracy was a norm and all music, movies and media would succumb to DIY-level semi-professionalism.

Also, in case someone does not realise this is a humorous campaign, even though the message could have been lost in translation for some.
arkizzle / Moderator

“..crummy CGI, bad irony, and worse music.”

Looks pretty intentional though. It’s not as if the commissioner asked for the current state-of-the-art, hippest stuff, and got this.

It’s tongue-in-cheek, surely.
Anonymous

Also, this campaign is at least partially funded by the Finnish education ministry so there we go, tax money being used for recording industry propaganda campaigns. At least they mock the “you wouldn’t steal a car” type ads in this one.
eagleapex

Rule 34 on Captain Nation!
Snig

Hey kids, do you wannah be like Captain Jack Sparrow, or the really cool new hero with the duct tape pants!
sergeirichard

I know enough Finnish to say with a high degree of certainty that this is definitely in Finnish. Beyond that I’m pretty much at a loss, but I’m inclined to think irony has to be working on some level.
2HourHiatus

Captain Nation looks like he’s already ungracefully entered middle age.
a.bomb

yup it’s Finnish allright. Greetings from the Northâ€¦ can’t believe this shit either.
Anonymous

There is the full list of notorious sites that should be avoided.

http://riknik.weebly.com/1/post/2010/05/list-of-notorious-websites.html
markbellis

Say, Ms. Abreu’s T-Shirt seems a little different from the real Abercrombie and Fitch item here: http://www.newabercrombie.com/abercrombie-womens-tshirt-york-1892-pi-235.html – hope it’s not a pirated version…..
Anonymous

As a local, and someone who’s involved in the copyright/copyfight business, this is Finnish all right. As for irony… well, I’ve been talking about these… things with many people and not single one has been sure if this is trying to be serious, a satire of the worst possible copyright propaganda crap, or something else. If there’s irony, it’s mangled beyond recognition and what’s left is a horrible feeling of embarrassment about everything you are seeing in here.

In the later episodes you can see artists who are clearly uncomfortable being part of this crap and they are not hiding it, openly insulting the host.

All in all, a terrible FAIL. One which our minister of culture is applauding, though, because it’s engaging the young people. And you know that when a middle aged minister of culture applauds anything to do with copyrights or the internet: http://www.courtneyhoskins.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/DoubleFacePalm.jpg
Anonymous

Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh Nn jeh !!
Anonymous

1. http://yle.fi/uutiset/viihde/2010/05/nettipiratismi_aiheuttaa_suomessa_jattitappiot_1708634.html
(URL title: Internet piracy causes huge losses in Finland)

This is where this all started now on May 25th, once again. I haven’t seen it on *ANY* english pages of any outlet yet.
LYHTY (registered association, just like most of the IP alley dogs barking here in .fi, but for some reason they’re allowed to have lots of publicity AND influence when making the laws)
ordered a questionnaire from “Taloustutkimus” about intellectual property, who then asked 3000 people, from 15 to 79 years.
This was posted verbatim on most, if not all newspapers and www news outlets in the country.

Their main site is at http://www.antipiracy.fi/inenglish/ , with participants listed at http://www.antipiracy.fi/lisatietoa/toimijat/
Same bunch of puppets behind the widenation.fi campaign which got mentioned on http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/20/finnish-record-indus.html

They now claim that
a) 33% would have bought music from (internet) shops if there wouldn’t have been a free option
b) 16% of all households download “illegal” files
c) average amount of downloaded music per household was 380 tracks, most done by teens and young adults
d) in households of people over 50 years of age, there’s almost no “illegal” downloading
e) 355 million euros lost annually by downloading – but as usual, there are no details at all how this figure was determined

So now lyhty is trying to drive through a two-stop mechanism in Finland, consisting of a warning letter and then suing to court.

2. http://yle.fi/uutiset/talous_ja_politiikka/2010/05/wallin_lupaa_toimia_nettipiratismin_kitkemiseksi_1710113.html
(URL title: Wallin promises actions to curb internet piracy)

Stefan Wallin is the minister of culture in Finland.

Translation:
Stefan Wallin thinks the “new” information about widespread internet piracy is startling.
Says these show that electronic commerce isn’t in shape in Finland.
He promises to propose an amendment in the law already during this year, which is aimed at making “three strikes”-threats possible.
Of course usual BS about letting parents know about their children pirating on the net is included in the reasoning.

3. http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2010/05/nettikommentoijat_purkivat_nettipiratismin_taustoja_1709933.html
(URL title: Selected comments to previous article)

4. http://www.uusisuomi.fi/kulttuuri/93366-nettilataaja-viimeinen-varoitus-tulossa
(URL title: Internet downloader, your last warning is about to arrive)

Additional info to the above ones:
Amendment to the law is already done in ministry of education and culture, about to be sent into parliament handling!
( http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Tiedotteet/2010/05/wallin_nettipiratismi.html?lang=fi )

5. http://yle.fi/uutiset/kulttuuri/2010/05/tietoliikenneala_hyvaksyy_varoituskirjeet_tietyin_ehdoin_1710867.html
(URL title: FiCom aka Finnish Federation for Communications and Teleinformatics approves warning letters with some conditions)

Reijo Svento from FiCom says: We’re going to live with this new law, in case parliament decides to rubber-stamp on it. He also claims that this is going on worldwide..
It also requires a change into law about electronic privacy, since at the moment ISP’s cannot handle customer records due to piracy suspicions.
FiCom’s conditions:
a) Warning letters must be sent coming from the holder of IP
b) They must also bear the costs
c) ISP’s must not be required to keep records about people who have been suspected for piracy
And a comment from pirate party, see #6.

Suvi LindÃ©n is also mentioned. She’s famous for being minister of communications without a clue how to handle anything regarding to her position.
Read: Whatever IP baddies whisper to her, will happen.

6. http://www.piraattipuolue.fi/ajankohtaista/lehdistoetiedotteet/474-piraattipuolue-ei-halua-uhkailukirjeitae-yhteenkaeaen-kotiin
(URL title: Pirate party doesn’t want threatening letters sent to any homes)

7. http://blog.starwreck.com/2010/05/25/avoin-kirje-ministeri-stefan-wallinille/
(URL title: An open letter to minister Stefan Wallin)

There’s a note in english at the bottom: “This post is in Finnish, an open letter to Finlandâ€™s minister of culture, who is ramping up anti-piracy initiatives in a way we find destructive to the media business.”
They are the makers of Star Wreck movie and currently working on Iron Sky.
Very good and thorough points, like why the effort (and money) isn’t spend on making those ecommerce shops available and good enough instead of threatening the buyers?
Another – would Wallin want to have all the mail examined because of financial crimes?

8. http://blog.piraattipuolue.fi/2010/05/piratismi-tuottaa-kansalle-yli-miljardi-euroa-voittoa-vuodessa/
(URL title: Piracy profits the people with over a billion euros annually)

Comment on the debate from blog of Pirate party.
Anonymous

give me back my tax money. dear lord.
halfsquatch

It’s obviously been created with the intention of being a super-cheesefest.
Ambiguity

For some reason I really want to rip this and put in on BitTorrent.

It wants to be free, I think.
- sergeirichard
  
  I’m now modifying the expression to “Some information needs to be put out of its misery”
Anonymous

I agree with #37 this is pretty delicate. Well done, but at the same time taken so far it’s no wonder most people miss the point while venting their general frustration towards the record industry.
- Anonymous
  
  #42
  
  Yeah, and you should be able to read the social situation and communicate accordingly. Nobody’s interested in seeing more “humorous” and “witty” pro-copyright stuff, people want facts and a honest discourse.
sergeirichard

From antipiracy.fi’s site:

“Captain Nation is a humorous character, whose objective is not to preach but to make the Finns think of these things independently,” says Sanoma Entertainment’s public affairs director Marcus Wiklund.

(Translation by Google, who are getting almost scarily good.)

So, meant to be funny at least.
littlerunninggag

I assumed the intention was to demonstrates the need professionals in IP creation. A scary, “Give us money or all you’ll have is garbage like this!”

I’m convinced. I mean, just look at the guy; no professional would force us to look at anyone that looks like that.
pupdog

Oh, you crazy Finns…

This is my favorite export so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aovaRsVV28

Something tells me Heavy Metal Dinosaurs wouldn’t like Captain Nation so much tho…
not_kevitivity

Something tells me that the people who made this video are new exactly what they were doing…
kmoser

This dude is like a real-life Finnish Max Headroom.
Anonymous

Wilhelm Scream