Entries Tagged 'Work' ↓

Idag har vi på kontoret gjort vår första videopostning via fantastiska bambuser!

Vi kommer göra postningar lite titt som tätt när lusten faller på - vi har planerat 16 avsnitt och i sann datanördanda kommer dom gå från nummer 15 till nummer 0.

Programmen kommer nog handla om nåt aktuellt just nu - och just nu var det fildelning, vårt kontor och sådär.

Gå till We Are Appendix för att se första avsnittet (avsnitt 15)!

I’m looking for someone who can sponsor me with an Amazon Kindle! It’s not possible to buy the device from Europe and it’s super expensive to use mailing dropboxes in the US.

Do anyone wanna help me out? I’m looking to make an interesting service together with some friends in the New Media Market…

Drop me an e-mail if you can help! My e-mail is peter at brokep dot com!

(For a background, please read Martins blog post about the book industry!)

Granted, The Pirate Bay has been initiating a lot of projects that we want to do. The Video Bay, Playble and Secure P2P are all ambitious projects that we’ve embarked upon and still not finished.

To those who complaint - well, fine. Most of the projects are projects that we’ve started, someone from our nearby area has then leaked it and then it’s all over the news. We get pushed to do stuff then instead of doing it for pure fun which is when we work the best together.

We’re only three people doing these projects. Most of the time, we’re actually only two. And we have day jobs as well. And everytime something happens on the Internet, the media requires us to take action or talk about it. I myself would spend around 4-5 hours - daily - to talk to the media about various issues. That’s not a joke, it’s 4-5 hours _daily_ that I spend just talking. It’s hard to keep up your dayjob and also a relationship at that pace.

Playble is still coming along. It hit some barriers with both cooperation within the team and with problems with Stim which I’ve written about before. It’s still on the todo-list. Same thing with The Video Bay - but we decided to put it on hold until there is a good enough p2p-streaming system. We where planning to release it without p2p but decided not to do that since we want it good or not at all. Secure P2P is the project of Tiamo but then we started to talk to BT Inc if they would implement some of the ideas instead and also we’re trying to convince them to put out a license that would prohibit them from making BitTorrent a closed system. That way they would have to stay true to the community, which we found a better idea then re-inventing the wheel all over again.

We’re sorry for being slow - but it’s also that we have lots of ideas and ambitions but we’re too few people. Instead we would love for some actually skilled PHP-coders and webdesigners to join our team. The problem we have is that every time we go look for them, they turn out either to not be flexible our the good ones disappear among the crappy ones. So if you know someone - who is REALLY skilled, and flexible when it comes to payments and who understands IRC - tell him (or preferably her) to talk to us.

Also, I’m working on another system, which is my baby. It’s going to be released soon, actually, as it’s closing to finish. And that’s what’s been stealing most of my working time right now, besides all the ACTA, FRA demonstrations, interviews and legal matters.

To close off - yes, we’re not wearing suits to work, we’re just too in love with the internet and have too little time.

Nu satte jag en chockrubrik. Den stämmer. Stim har som ni alla vet försökt leka “good guys” genom att komma med ett förslag om att man via sitt bredband ska kunna fÃ¥ ladda ner all musik helt lagligt, för en liten kostnad. Det lÃ¥ter ju som en utopi och som nÃ¥got man sÃ¥klart vill göra. Genom säkra källor inom ISP-världen har jag fÃ¥tt reda pÃ¥ att den lilla summan är 40kr per mÃ¥nad, en summa som kan kännas helt ok för dom flesta. Att motsvarande summa förr porr skulle bli 1400kr och i slutändan ha samma möjligheter att bli lagstadgad är nÃ¥got som Stim ocksÃ¥ vägrar att prata om. Och nÃ¥gra andra saker är ocksÃ¥ lite luddiga hos Stim!

För att kunna ladda ner så måste någon dela ut. Det är inget som Stim ens valt att berätta om. Dom har helt enkelt undvikit frågan därför att dom inte vill göra det lagligt att dela ut. Dom vill kringgå lagstiftning för att få betalt och därigenom få 30% av pengarna som dom ju faktiskt tar för hantering av rättigheter - dvs 12kr per månad i detta fallet ska gå direkt till Stims organisation. Men det mest intressanta är ju iallafall vad Rasmus gjorde mig uppmärksam på: Enbart dom artister som själv väljer att vara med i systemet ska man få lov att ladda ner (fortfarande inte dela ut). Kika på länken över, ca 18 minuter in när Kenth Muldin själv uttalar sig om det. Vad är då hela förslaget? Jo, ett monopol på en digital musikbutik där Stim själva kan välja vad som säljs och på vilket sätt. Som dom lurat internetoperatörerna att vara ett bra alternativ till sättet att främja alla artister på genom att kalla det fildelning. Att man är tvungen att gå med i Stim är ju inget som dom sticker under stolen med åtminstone, lite cred ska dom få för det.

Playble är väl ungefär det som Stim vill härma, fast samtidigt kunna ta betalt direkt av slutkunderna, vilket inte ska ske på Playble. Kanske är det därför som Stim fortfarande inte har hört av sig, trots upprepade försök till kontakt, både på mail och telefon? Jag mailade mitt förra bloginlägg till min kontaktperson på Stim - och gissa, inte nåt svar på det mailet heller.

There is a lot of talk from people on both sides of the copy fight about flatrate compensation systems.

Canadian songwriters has just proposed to “legalize” P2P with having a flatrate (mind you - P2P isn’t illegal, it just gives you the possibility to infringe on copyright, just like Internet as a whole does. And your friends if you go to their place and copy something). The Danish anti-pirates are also trying to convince the danish government to put a flatrate tax on each Internet connection - 100 DKK (about $15) a month - to legally download what ever music you want. We have the flatrate-supporters in Sweden as well.

Most people respond to the concept with ‘wow, that sounds like a sweet idea!’ and they stop there. But it has a lot of dangerous effects that we need to take in consideration.

The idea of “compensating” an industry is very short-sighted. What the record industry wants us to do is to give them money since their business model is not working anymore.
They want the governments to give them forced customers by law, that have to pay weather we like it or not. A state tax to give to the big companies, without them even having to work for it.
Record companies always say that there will be no quality music made if there’s no money to be made on record sales. They still want to have something as relaxed as a flat rate system where they would essentially get the same amount of money no matter what they produce (if anything). The only thing that it would lead to within the record business would be a lot of people fired to save money and gain even bigger profits.

Let’s go deeper into the idea and focus on the issues;

• There’s no way to say who transfered what song to whom on the Internet. It’s totally impossible both online and offline. So how would we monitor who would get the money?
• There’s no incentive to work for the money for the record companies. The artists will not gain anything from the companies since the whole idea of a company is to make as much money as possible while spending as little as possible.
• We will have to pay this tax even if we trade music made by people that release the music for free. And that’s the current trend, music is defacto free today, and most artists are seeing it as something good as well - the music is to be spread so they can make a name for themselves.
• We’re paying a tax to a system not needed anymore. The record industry is passé and we do not need nor want them anymore.
• The tax is currently only for music.. but what happens when the movie industry wants the same? Movies are more expensive and they would not be satisified by $10 a month. It would be an additional $50 maybe? Or more? Do people even spend that much today in general on media?
• And when the movie- and music industry have their share, what happens when the porn industry joins up? Porn makes up about 60-70% of the total P2P traffic. Do you want a tax that’s spent on porn? And do they not have the same rights as the rest of the industry when it comes to this, because it’s a bit more immoral?
• Why limit ourselves to just pay for the old traditional media? How about bloggers, how about software, how about pictures? They can also be copyrighted and spread using P2P systems. Or just read online. There’s more than the music and movie industry out there.

Flatrate might sound good but as long as it’s not voluntary and as long as the money is not divided by performance the concept is not the solution.

Thinking of how much TPB is in the media all the time just made me realise something. We’re creating jobs. We’re creating tourism. We’re creating an interest for Sweden and Scandinavia.

Just look at these facts!

This year I’ve had at least 25 international journalists visiting me in Sweden or Norway.
They all travel for at least two days to come here, do the interview and go back home.
When they ask for a hotel I give them advice - a nice place I know is central and there for easy to find. It’s reasonably priced as well. I also encourage them to see the local sites, go over to Copenhagen and see that too. Most do.

Other reporters go to Stockholm to see the other guys. It’s probably about 25 there as well.
So let’s say we ourselves get at least 50 international tourists to visit each year (and now I’m not even counting the fact that most come in pairs - one reporter and one photographer). All of them with the intention of writing a story about the thing recognised as the Swedish Pro Piracy. Most of these reporters work for magazines or television channels with at least one million viewers/readers. I know many of them probably overlap, but for the sake of argument, let’s say we get the story and information out to an audience of about 50*1 million. In average, each year.

It’s 50 millions of viewers/readers that get to learn about Sweden, how open the community here is and how beautiful it is! And the 1.5-2 million unique visitors we have each day already know this.

Before launching The Pirate Bay v2.0 some years back, one of the most downloaded torrent was a course in Swedish since TPB was only in Sweden at the time. We get e-mails daily from young people around the globe that never heard of Sweden before and now wants to move here. They download the courses in Swedish they can find and learns the language. We help open the eyes of a lot of people, that Sweden is a country they like and see as something futuristic and great. Sweden is considered cutting edge, technology- and freedom wise.

All over digg.com and other cool social networks there is always the comment “last place on earth with true freedom is Sweden” or “I really want to move to Sweden”.

I don’t want to sound like a patriot, because I’m not. I think there’s a lot wrong with the Scandinavian countries, but to be honest, I can’t find another place I’d rather live. I do travel so I’m not stuck here all the time like a lot of other people, but it makes me realise that we have something good here. And that we’re promoting it.

… so how come we don’t get any recognition for our aid of getting Sweden on the international map? How many other Swedish groups of people can get an audience of 50 million people outside the country to read about the awesome things going on here? I think it’s time the tourism department started working together with us. And maybe invite us over for some food. How about giving us some award or maybe even funds as a recognition for our work?

NB. The picture in this blog entry shows the old Scandinavian tradition of Midsummer. A time when most teenagers get drunk and lose their virginity, a time to celebrate the phallus and a time to behave really badly with no remorse the day after since everybody does the same stupid stuff.

With my good friends in Lamont I took the weekend “off” and went to Siesta! festivalen in Hässleholm.
A lot of good bands, a lot of beer, and even more tacos. In fact, we had to make our own remix of a song just to celebrate the tacos! Mr. Hank did his own version of the taco celebration..
Insteadofgoingintoallthebandsthatplayed (since I was basically backstage the whole time, doh) I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Yesterday I went to Copenhagen and talked with Morten. He’s a really nice guy, I always get really excited when talking to him, it’s like he has the same ideas as me, same values and insight. It’s not many people I feel that way with so I’m happy to work with him in the future! We came up with some cool ventures and I’m confident it will work out!

I had SVT over again. Together with Magnus from PiratbyrÃ¥n they did some small shots and first interviews, rough cuts, for the upcoming documentary. It will be interesting. The new guy from SVT I haven’t met before looked exactly like Bosse Parnevik, just a fun trivia! (He’s not the guy on the pic..)

Today I’m leaving for Aarhus! I’m going to a festival called SPOT and I have no clue on what they want us to do. But it’s probably fun. I’ll hang out with some of the people from Piratgruppen DK so it’s bound to be good!

A lot of Denmark right now - Reboot is on this week!

Oh, and I have a new toy! It’s called NINTENDO WII.. And it’s fucking amazing! I woke up today with pain in my arms since I played so much last night…. that probably speaks for itself.

Ok, so where to begin!

The Pirate Bay got hacked, I talked to a really amazing and beautiful girl that actually gave me some new insight to my life, I have argued with a manager at SONY BMG Music Entertainment that called me crazy things as usual. Some other people I talked to today about Playble seem really enthusiastic about the project, I’m very happy that people understand the concept and realise it’s the future.

I’ve also been sick a whole weekend with The Flu!

On other notes - I’m hiring! I need more people to my crew and we need people that are crazy and interesting! Not the normal types, we need exceptionally cool people with a laid back attitude that can fit with the persons we are in the current crew. Designers are the most needed types right now, we are really swamped with design work and it’s hard to find them. So if you know anyone, contact me!

Tomorrow I’m going to Richard M. Stallmans talk in Gothenburg (Sweden), about how copyright is not fit for todays society. I am guessing it will be a very interesting debate afterwards and that I’m probably going to talk to him alot. Also, I’m very sure that I’m going to hook up with the Creative Commons people that are located there, it will be interesting for sure! I might as well go to Birdie this weekend if I have the time.

Next week, my schedule is just boring besides an interesting meeting with Morten and that I’m very sure I’m going to get a lot of work done! It’s got to get the stuff away from the TODO-list sometimes!

I took a long trip again. Long as in hectic, not really long term nor far away.
Went to Tel Aviv, Israel first for a couple of days.

Met up with some people I work with and had a very productive meeting about company structuring for the future. Interesting and very satisfied with this! It means I can work a bit more focused on the tasks at hand instead of the administration - I don’t do administrative work anymore, it takes too much time and I’m not organized at all. Actually I’m a firm believer in having my work as unstructured chaos to actually be able to commit and execute. Might sound strange, but time has proven the concept to work for me. Just need to have skilled people around me that can help out with the things that doesn’t work under that form of working.

After Israel we took a trip to Salamas beduin camp ‘Sawa’ (which means unity in the language of the Beduins), located in Sinai, on the Aqaba coast of Egypt. This is the third time I’m there and this time I stayed for 3 days and just chilled! I did almost nothing! Just ate, drank fresh juices and I read a danish book called Spin by Per Helge Sørensen - it was quite amusing.

I really enjoy being in Sinai. It’s the one of the most relaxing place in the world for me right now - paralleled only surprisingly by Central Park in New York. Something about that place just takes away all my stress.

After a total of 8 days away I’m now more eager to execute. Especially the Playble-project is getting more and more focus from me. Playble is already getting media attention and I’m afraid it’s getting too much right now - we haven’t really gone out with any press release or anything, I don’t want it to become a hype that noone will care about when it’s actually released. But I guess I will have to control that myself.