I also really love record stores, there are fantastic record stores around my city, run by people that really care about music and especially local bands. I want to support them, and the bands they’re supporting.

Instead perhaps, don’t buy recorded music from crappy record labels, but all recorded music? No thanks I want to support the artists and record labels that sell music in ethical way, thank you very much.

My media budget is pretty big, but on occasion I turned to nzbmatrix to fill a need that the media industry was neglecting. Rather than address that need, they stomped out the only technology still catering to it. I find it odd that people still talk about torrents, they’re an inferior and insecure method to usenet, which up until last week, was better in every possible way. Now it’s as good as gone.

I just wish big media would realise that in this process they’re not thwarting a pirate, they pissing off a customer – a customer that represents a large group of people that are steadily forming a new demographic that despises them.

That’s not very smart business – I just wish someone would hurry up and offer an alternative.

Simple question: Is that true? And what does “seeking legal undertakings” mean in British law? Did they sue them personally or just had a lawyer write a stern letter? Is there a legal reason why it couldn’t have been adressed at the party itself?

The remaining shell of Usenix found use for piracy for a decade thereafter, but as a conversational media it was killed not by the RIAA/MPAA, but simple neglect and competition.

And furthermore, don’t steal or pirate either. There are so many artists out there who are not a part of this kind of activity that you can easily have something to listen to every minute of every day for the rest of your life without ever even trying to listen to the artists who are produced by the major labels. Let them fade away. Let them go out of business, not because of piracy but because of irrelevance.

On the other hand, we can (and should) scoriate the BPI all we like for jumping straight to legal action without having a dialogue first, if that’s indeed what happened. If the conversation went “We demand that you stop doing this thing!” ‘Let’s talk about it, ok?’ “We demand that you stop doing this thing!” ‘Can’t we please just talk about it?’ “We’re suing you!” then that’s just dumb. The court is supposed to be a last resort, not the first place you turn when someone’s doing something that makes you unhappy. 

Clearly, there is an actual organisation, and the BPI knew who to contact if they’d wanted to make any attempt to resolve this.  That they begin negotiations with massive personal lawsuits is in itself wrong.  (They could just have easily, and more cheaply, opened an actual negotiation with the people they’re suing… if they can be sued as legal individuals, they could sign contracts as legal individuals.  The BPI’s claim that it had ‘no choice’ simply doesn’t hold up.)

They’ve now effectively killed both Torrent and Usenet for much of the world – this is a real ‘win’ for them. Something I’d like to see discussed.

Is the problem that Usenet has so successfully stayed under the radar that most people haven’t noticed that the media mafia have killed it?

If only they put as much energy and resources into providing their content to people as they did at fighting piracy.

If your local gaming group isn’t a body corporate of some sort, you cannot sign a contract with it.  You might very well be signing a contract with the other members of the group – but you can’t with the group itself, because, according to most legal systems it just doesn’t exist.  See here for more info:http://www.netlawman.co.uk/info/unincorporated-associations.php

Of course, I’m not saying that the Pirates Party are unincorporated, or that the BPI’s actions are right – I’ve no idea on either of those points.  It is a very easy fix for the Pirates Party – setting up a ltd company is cheap and easy and could actually help protect their leadership from liability in future…

I think not.  The Pirate Party is a legal political party; it has officers, a treasurer, and an appointed leader.  The claim that it was ‘impossible’ to form a contract with it is a silly claim, intended to distract attention from the fact that the BPI had no intention of trying.  My local gaming group isn’t a corporation either, but it would be pretty easy to sign a contract with – the club where we meet has one.

The BPI’s position would be more plausible if they had made some kind of effort.

People who stand behind this kind of sham should be publicly named and shamed. They deserve the angry emails and twitter blocks. And they should know that doing stupid things is a career limiting choice.

That’s some cold-ass scathing wordsmithing you’ve done there.
You just ripped out Adam Liversage’s soul and wiped your ass with it.
Pointing out a mans mistakes or shortcomings is one thing, but by pointing out his actions, reducing him to nothing more than a laughing stock in the international forum of public opinion, cementing his legacy for eternity as such in the never forgetting archives that is the modern internet, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for him.

You have painted this man as an ignorant fool who tried to talk his way out of responsibility of his own actions as he possibly might done in his own mind a thousand times over to justify who he is and what he does for a living. I’m sure he’s a good person on other ways not mentioned here, no doubt his family love him, his friends enjoy his company on the weekends, perhaps he hosts barbecue in the summer, lovingly makes miniature doll house furniture for his daughters birthday, volunteers at the homeless shelter at Christmas.Yes, perhaps overall it balances out and Adam Liversage is really an ok guy, forced to do an amoral, indecent job that scrapes the bounds of common human decency, yet barely remains within a strict definition of law.

I hope you’re proud of yourself Doctorow, Adam Liversage way well have been the greatest among us all, the worlds white knight, a real life Harvey Dent, a man of true good and a beacon of love and kindness in this world. and you, like the Joker, you just couldn’t let it be. you had to bring him down to our level by exposing and exasperating his inherent weakness as a mere fallible human being. You have reduced him from a successful, confidant, proud PR professional, into a weeping, shivering shell of a man, eating raw cookie dough, crouched in the corner of his shower stall, washing, washing, but never clean. The taste of tears, combined with despair and sugary dough paste is sickly sweet one to swallow.

Shame on you Cory Doctorow.

Fuck those guys.  Seriously.  Fuck them.

A proxy is not illegal. Your parents having sex should have been.