Oh look. Another bandwagon.
The leaders of the Labour Party protest vociferously against ACTA and in favour of their right to download stuff without paying for it (a la Labour)
This was my column in The Malta Independent yesterday.
It is more than a little bit trying to see the Labour Party hop aboard yet another vote-catching bandwagon instead of trying to tackle matters responsibly.
I’m speaking of the issue-flavour of the month, ACTA, which is designed to cut down on copyright theft but has been turned into an anarchists’ cause celebre.
It has now become impossible to discuss ACTA and its implications with anything approaching a rational tone of voice because the hysterics immediately hit the red button and begin spewing stories of governments rifling around in our private in-boxes or planting spying devices in our laptops.
This, if you please, from the sort of people who happily, willingly and without a qualm upload their entire lives’ details to Facebook and Tweet the world about what they’ve had for breakfast, where they are sitting now, what they’re drinking and where they’re going to next.
They even upload status updates to Facebook using their smart-phones, so that the status update shows up with their current location and this by default.
All this suggests an element of protesting too much. But the Labour Party, ever with its eye to the main chance, has seen the anger and rubbed its hands together, recognising the opportunity for a bit of vote-catching. Because you know how it is: you majtezwel vote Labour because of ACTA and damn everything else for the next five years after that.
Speaking for myself, I find it difficult to take the Labour Party seriously on freedom of expression issues. So Joe Grima, Anglu Farrugia, Toni Abela, Karmenu Vella, Alex Sceberras Trigona, and Brontosaurus Bazwa are now paladins of free speech, are they? Gosh. Don’t blame me for being ever so slightly unimpressed.
And Joseph Muscat, who so believes in freedom that he worked his guts out to prevent us from holding a European Union passport, is suddenly making himself out to be the paragon of liberty, including the liberty to steal other people’s copyrighted property at will, just because it’s on the internet and the internet should be outside the law.
You can’t go into a shop and steal a pair of jeans, but the way these people talk, it’s perfectly all right to steal somebody else’s film or music. The name Kim Dotcom means nothing to Joseph Muscat or his current sidekick Edward Scicluna, who is now being wheeled out so often that he is in serious danger of wearing out his knee cartilage.
In word association games, I would never link ‘Labour’ with ‘liberty’, but there you go. Maybe it’s just me. Either way, I’d have had more respect for this lorry-load of opportunistic irritants if they had said that they support this and that aspect of ACTA but are against this particular other aspect because of XYZ.
A blanket objection just puts the Labour Party at the intellectual level of a recent school-leaver who has watched too many YouTube videos by conspiracy theory groups calling themselves Anonymous. And that makes the rest of us very nervous.
THE YAWN-MAKER
Perhaps it’s time that The Times understood how its coverage of Franco Debono, who is invariably described as a prominent criminal lawyer despite his not having featured in many jury trials that I can recall, and whose speech, behaviour and ideas are called ‘passionate’ when the more accurate word is obsessive or irrational, has become just as yawn-makingly tedious as its months-long droning about Arriva this and Arriva that.
Also, that coverage is detached from the context of reality and is precisely what newspaper reporting should not be. You can’t turn somebody into a hero just by writing him up as one, when people out here feel very differently.
True, diehard Labour supporters are enjoying his tedious performances even if they do think he’s not worth much as an individual and is a bit of a jerk. But everybody else wishes he would just shut up and let us get on with the business of going about our work with a relative measure of peace of mind.
It’s all right for him, of course. There will always be football hooligans beating up police officers at the stadium, which football hooligans then ask him to defend them in court (his most recently reported brief). That the man who bangs on about democracy, the separation of powers, the police and the administration of justice should break off from his rants to defend two women accused of assaulting a police officer, off whom they had to be physically removed by another police officer, is not in his world view a conflict of interest or even marginally ironic.
After all, this is the man who took up Cyrus Engerer’s brief when they were both still very much involved with the Nationalist Party and were hiding the information about Engerer’s behaviour, police interrogation and prosecution from their party leader.
If we need heroes, and I agree that we do, then surely The Times and certain members of its news staff can find somebody more impressive to look up to than – and here I suppress a very wide yawn – Franco Debono.
Malta has very low standards in many things. We don’t have to extend our poor standards to our choice of heroes too.
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This bandwagon-jumping behaviour is all the more evident when one considers that this agreement was up for consultation by Meusac last summer.
Not a single murmur, especially from the Labour Party. But now, since the signing of ACTA has hit the blogosphere by storm, they’re posing as “defenders of freedom”. If they truly believed in the perils of ACTA, they should have twigged to it 7 months ago.
Could it be that they are more worried about not being able to access x Hamster and similar perv xxx sites without looking over their shoulder, than of being unable to download for free the ”Complete works of Shakespeare” or St Augustine’s “Confessions”?
You can get the Confessions for free anyway. St Augustine has been dead more than 50 years.
@ Reuben… Dang! I hadn’t even heard he was poorly.
@Mr Scicluna,
sarcasm is wasted on some , it would seem.
@ Dee
So is humour, apparently.
And I suppose that all these thousands of surfers, downloaders, pirates or whatever, regularly visit Meusac to see what is going on, yes?
When the government wants to promote a spin, there is plenty of publicity, unlike when they want something to go through unnoticed.
The users no, but the labour spokesman on ICT should not have been asleep at the wheel and waking up seven months later. That’s my whole point.
Here’s the bombshell: Germany now has reservations about ACTA and has decided to put the signing on hold.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/02/10/germany-wont-sign-acta-at-least-not-yet/
I’m sure the German government is not “in favour of the right to download stuff without paying for it”, but it is listening to its people and willing to reconsider a law that many think is a step in the wrong direction. We need to keep in mind that the end does not justify the means, and while protecting the rights if content creators is a great idea, it must be done in a way that does not affect the rights and freedoms of the people.
If the copyright holders i.e the music, movie, software and video game industry didn’t rip people off with excessive overpricing of their products maybe just maybe more people would be against piracy.
At the end of the day its much easier and faster to download whatever you want, and its free. No waiting and no going out of the house to buy it.
Do you know that the average Xbox 360 game costs between 50-60 euro? A blank dual-layer dvd disc only costs 1 or 2 euro.
You obviously have no idea what it takes to produce a new game. The number of programmers, artists, technicians, engineers, marketing people, producers etc that are involved for months on end to produce just one game (which might turn out to be a success but could also result in a flop).
If everyone paid for the games they played, then the price might go down for everybody. People who buy the games are paying for those countless others who are not. How is that fair?
Cost does not justify theft, ever. If you cannot afford it, tough luck. Work harder, get a better job or don’t whine when you get caught.
It is unfortunate, albeit inevitable, that ACTA has become politicised by the Labour Party. Should PL win the election, they would have no say, whatsoever, on the issue anyway.
@Daphne – it is also unfair to lump some of us in the anarchist corner. I am not against copyright protection. I am, however, against a vaguely written treaty that might indirectly (through market forces) flip the old adage “Innocent until proven guilty” on its head.
Ultimately, it is not a reason to vote Labour – come to think of it, there is not one reason to vote Labour especially the current one with its track record.
Twisted, socialist mentality. And you think it cost them nothing to design, develop and market it?
Let me have a guess here – you’re one of those who rants on about the Euro 500 increase to ministers and that you only got the measly Euro 2. You should thank your lucky stars you got something for doing nothing; typically labour.
Is he for real?
You can buy music/software without going out of the house too you know. If your credit card details are already in a store such as iTunes all you have to do is search for it within the store and download it. iTunes also gives you the option of dowloading the specific songs from a particular album – something you can’t do from a store.
Do you have any idea know how many people (and families) are involved in producing an Xbox 360 game?
Piracy is not only illegal but a selfish act that is detrimental to all those individuals whose living is directly linked to the concerned industries, be it music, software or video games.
“Do you know that the average Xbox 360 game costs between 50-60 euro? A blank dual-layer dvd disc only costs 1 or 2 euro.”
Don’t be ridiculous. A sheet of metal costs a couple of Euros, but if I work and machine it and my end product is a BMW 7 series, than I guess I have every right to charge more than the few Euros the base material cost me. Work, development and production has gone into the product that I am selling.
People like you are ACTA’S pin up poster.
Sorry, you are not making any sense at all! So if an Xbox game is 50 – 60 euros, and a blank DVD disc costs 1 or 2 euro , buy the blank one. No one is forcing you to buy the game.
Yes, a blank dual-layer dvd disc does cost 1or 2 euros.But creating a video game does not.
First they have to come up with an idea that works, is enjoyable and most of all will be welcomed by gamers. This is not as easy as you’d think. Coming up with 100% original ideas for a game doesn’t happen over a cup of coffee.
Then they have to plan the whole game out. What happens when your character dies at this point, what happens if you chose this option etc. They have to sit down with the whole game planned out and preempt every choice a player might make and come up with what happens at each point. Once again it doesn’t happen over night.
Then once all that work is done, they have to create the actual game, drawing the characters, landscape, sounds, and points of view etc.
In the mean time, they have another team of people working round the clock to come up with ways of improving graphics of the game’s previous edition.
Then they spend god knows how long putting it all together.
Then they have to play it, testing whether or not all their programming works, see if it is actually a game that can be played ( as in not impossible to win), and most of all they need to see if it is actually fun.
Then they need to market it, package it, sort out logistics and storage.
On top of that, you need to take into account the stores that are going to sell them, because they need to make a profit in order to provide you with a place to buy the game.
Perhaps the process doesn’t happen in that order, but it is what has to happen for a game to be created.
If you want your Xbox games then you will have to pay 50-60 euros for it. If you want your games and pay only 2 euros for it then buy a blank dual layer dvd disc and write one yourself.
And who might you be to judge how much should software or music sell for?
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, these people have to factor in the selling price the rampant theft that every Tom and his neighbour seems to be publicly in favour of lately?
One cannot easily copy a manufactured product and this is why you don’t see Johnny Hawker up in arms against legislators enacting patent laws protecting ideas and development effort behind manufactured products. You don’t see endless blog inches and Facebook groups protesting against overpriced car engines, or a €10-too-expensive-kettle for that matter.
So the only concern that the inventor of a product has is mostly with other manufacturers, and need hardly ever be concerned about the end-users copying his or her brilliant ideas.
But those who venture to sell their music or software art are faced with potentially every single end-user copying their hard work by a simple twitch of the index finger, with their next finger metaphorically or physically rising in isolation as a sign of gratitude to the artist.
Anyone complaining about over-priced software and music should be at the forefront promoting ACTA and similar legislation protecting the intellectual property of the artists thus ensuring a decent return for their efforts, for this is only way to encourage lower pricing.
C. Mifsud – Did it ever occur to you that software is developed and not just written to ‘1 or 2 euro DVD media’ as you seem to be suggesting?
If your argument had to hold water then you shouldn’t be charging your employer for your labour as it only costs you 1 or 2 euro to get to work.
Mr. Mifsud,
While I do agree that 50-60EUR is a tad excessive, I find your argument fallacious. Yes, the storage medium is cheap, but they’re not selling us blank disks are they?
Please appreciate the months of work, sweat and tears development studios put into their games. We’re talking about a team of artists, programmers, animators, musicians, voice actors and testers.
I’m personally hoping to become a game developer, so I find this mentality rather unnerving.
Furthermore, not all games are expensive. Independent developers offer amazing games for modest prices. Take Minecraft for example. (People still pirate that though).
What does the price of blank DVDs have to do with Xbox games?
That’s like saying the price of the paper bag is relevant to the cost of the tomatoes inside it.
I am totally against ACTA because of the stealth it is now associated with, but have you any idea how many million have to be invested to produce a viable computer game? From what you say, I seriously doubt it. And there are no guarantees that there will be a return either.
If you don’t want to pay for the petrol, don’t buy a car.
If you don’t want to buy the games, don’t buy the Xbox.
There’s plenty more to do with your computer than to play stupid games anyway.
Try http://www.miniclip.com where the games are free.
You’re right about the huge costs of software, for example, though in some countries you can buy second-hand software (reconditioned DVDs and CDs and Blue Rays) for a fraction of the cost.
That’s what I do when buying games for my son who, once played, tires of them, and we resell them or exchange them for a new game. On the other hand you can download music and pay for it at a fraction of the cost. This entitles you to burn your CDs with the tracks bought as long as it remains personal.
The argument that a blank dual layer disc costs less than 2 Euros does not hold ground. Reasoning like that is very dangerous. It’s like saying it’s all right to go robbing because you cannot afford your brand clothing and you’d expect to be allowed to do precisely that.
Often it’s a mentality problem. Do you expect to get whatever you want without paying for it?
On the other hand, suppose you’re asked to work on a project, would you do it for free? Like hell!
You’d definitely fight for your rights until you get up to the last cent. It’s the same with software, music and film industries. Behind each project or program or album lie weeks, months, even years of work. These industries employ people and they have to get their profit from sales, something which piracy kills.
The dictum is always the same (and it also happens to be one of my favourite Rush songs): You don’t get something for nothing.
It might cost 50-60 euros to buy. The question you should be asking is how much does cost to produce? I am quite certain that much more went into the research and development and creation of the games along with the technology behind it than just the blank dual-layer DVD.
Only then can you assert whether the consumer is being overcharged.
To all, I never said that the games should be free or cost next to nothing and I do appreciate all the work, time and money it costs to develop and market the games.
Despite all of this I will never ever justify the fact that once the game makes it to the retailers it is priced in the 50-60 euro bracket which is excessive.
Now music and movies are priced much more reasonably but again especially when it comes to movies or television series’s there is another factor to consider. That factor is that a movie or series is released in the United States weeks if not months in some cases before they are released in Europe. To avoid having to wait people opt to download them instead.
If video game companies charged more reasonable prices and movies/series DVD’s were released worldwide at the same time piracy would be probably be reduced.
To Charles Darwin, I have never voted Labour and I would never vote Labour, ever. I would not even vote for them if they had a good track record let alone. If labour get elected and do an excellent job I still would not vote for them.
If you cannot afford it, do not buy it.
What is it these days that people feel entitled to whatever takes their fancy whether it is within their reach or not? The usual (tiresome) line of reasoning goes – I cannot afford it so I steal it, and moreover I do not care about the money, effort and work that went into developing whatever it is that I cannot afford but still want. Nice.
Tomorrow’s protest against ACTA has nothing to do with ACTA.
Following the no confidence vote which they lost in Parliament, labourites need to relieve themselves from the frustration that has built up during the last few weeks.
They cannot protest (like other countries) against the government’s economic polices, so any excuse will do.
ACTA just happens to be the right excuse and as you rightly said, a possible vote catcher.
You talk rubbish, xmun. I do not care if political parties take part or not in the ACTA protest. ACTA is about big business screwing more the ordinary man or woman. My hope is that this country will not be a partner to it. As it happens MZPN are taking part in it.
Making the rich richer and the relatively poor poorer; that’s all the raison d’etre behind ACTA, maybe Grace Borg didn’t find her true home in PL after all. Because, yes PL believes that the rich shouldn’t be rich by exploiting the poor. End of story……unlike PN
And how exactly will that happen?
Oh, why am I asking, it’s not that you ever engage brain before engaging mouth, come to think of it, I’m sure your gearbox is missing a few cogs, so no surprises there.
Wrong.
The PL raison d’etre: Stay at home, buddy. We’ll force those who work to earn a living to share some of their daily catch with you.
The PN raison d’etre: Here’s your fishing rod. Get off your arse and we’ll force those who work to earn a living to share some of their money to help you learn how to use it. Then go do your own goddam fishing.
Guess which one I chose to bring up my kids in.
OK it is not fair and moral to steal copyright material, but then how come that one buys software for 3000 euro and if an upgrade is available one has to buy the new software for a higher price?
Getting the message “unknown error” and the software writers have no idea how to sort it out?
Buying software from USA, which one cannot use in MALTA, for $780 and in MALTA it will cost you over 1500 euro?
Simple mathematics: economies of scale.
If you can’t figure that one out, then you may want to set up your own software business – you’ll get it from the word “go”.
I disagree FP. Its not economy of scales, why do you think companies like Microsoft and Oracle are so huge?
Because cikku and peppi buys Windows 7 and Oracle database? Wrong wrong wrong….
Its B2B that generates the bulk of their income. Its certification programs and training programs that rake in the real money. Its companies who buy expensive licenses to install/upgrade OSs to thousands and thousands of computers…
The closest thing what you’re talking about is Apples model. Lock everything down and charge a high price for aesthetics. And trust me economies of scales don’t make a difference to them… Buy the equivalent Windows hardware and software and it comes down to half the price of what Apple charges.
Another thing, companies that do not buy software are in for a big surprise, because they actually check up on that stuff in Malta and the fines are huge. Think of an Architect office and the expensive software (eg: Autodesk products) they have to use to generate 3d models of buildings.
AutoCad 2012 starts from $4000. Do you expect Architecture students to each shell out $4000 to learn their profession when they can pirate it for free and pay for it later when they’re actually earning money of it?
Steam sold games for a fraction of the price and they made long time pirates (like me) paying customers overnight. Its the companies that need to take the initiative to improve their service and not the customers.
Lastly why should someone like me or you buy software like Adobe CS4 when we’re not earning money for it? I use it maybe once a year, when people who buy it use it every day and earn hundreds of euros for their work. If I couldn’t pirate Photoshop I would use a free program like Paint.Net or Gimp…and so would many others. Who is going to pay thousands of euros for something they’re going to use to touch up a friends photo for free?
The sole reason people pirate is because its easy. Its still illegal yet people still do it… making it ‘more illegal’ won’t make a difference. If companies like Adobe want casual users to pay for their products then they cannot charge them B2B prices…yet they still do so it is THEIR business model that is wrong.
Morally speaking, pirating from a consumer point of view is simply neither wrong nor right, because they are simply making a copy of something that exists. They are not depriving the company of anything, because they simply wouldn’t buy it in the first place.
I want a Ferrari and if I could download one I would, but I can’t so I just LIVE WITHOUT IT. The same would hold for software and this is what people need to understand.
Economies of scale does not come into it really because there is only one internet and it’s global.
@ il-Ginger, very well said
@Ginger: sorry buddy. You’re preaching to the converted.
But Joseph Borg’s reference to “software writers” and “cannot use in Malta” and $780 as opposed to €1500 led me to assume that he’s talking about business software written in Malta for the Maltese market, and not resale of commercial software written in the US.
The ability for the software writer in Malta to market their software beyond our shores depends on their resources – it’s not a simple upload and hope that people notice you and trust that your software is better and more reliable than an already-proven off-the-shelf solution, and that you have the right resources to support your users.
So yes, economies of scale still have a bearing on local software pricing.
@Peppi iehor: they do. Having an internet connection and some software to sell does not automatically make you a software house.
@ FP
I have reservations on that argument because the scale of the market remains the same even if a garage outlet is not as big and lacks the marketing clout of the big software houses.
I would argue that economy of scale depends on consumption potential not marketing prowess.
On consumption potential?
How can I cost a product based on consumption potential if my limited marketing prowess limits my sales potential?
They want the internet to be outside the law, but they are desperate to “jghalqu blokk ta’ dik”!!!
Edward Scicluna was disastrous yesterday on Bondi +.
He might not be a great, cheap by the dozen, politician but he is a damned good economist.
Scicluna is a very good economist but that doesn’t necessarily make him a good politician. He is now trying to be a politician at the expense of his economist side.
I think he should have remained where he clearly belongs.
And the Labour Party has the audacity of accusing the NP of fear-mongering!
Now, in this instance (and several others before this) it is clear that even the big cheeses at the (M)LP have difficulty reading and understanding plain English (and sometimes Maltese as well).
They go to Parliament debates and time and time again they demonstrate that they still have not mastered the art of obtaining information from EU sources and our own government releases, from local press or from the Internet.
All the nonsense about the government hiding this and hiding that and that the EU is not transparent is now reaching nauseating proportions. When caught with their pants down, they promptly twist the truth, turning it to fat lies and try to convince the voters that their version is right.
They do have their own version of the truth and conveniently so, depending on a particular circumstance and vote getting opportunity.
The mere possibility of the (M)LP forming the next government is fear itself and we do not need the NP to tell us. The (M)LP are doing a fine job themselves especially since it is unsure whether they truly want us to forget the 70s and 80s, while at the same time they keep referring to that vindictive era as ‘the golden years’.
…since they are unsure….
They protest against something that they have not even had the decency to read.
The question is ‘can they read?’.
@ C Mifsud
Do you know how many people are involved in the creation of a PC or console game – people who all need to be paid for their work?
Do you even know the amount of development that goes into a game? An average development budget for a multiplatform game is US$18-28M, with high-profile games often exceeding more than $40M.
Do you appreciate the fact that if piracy increases, software houses will not find it viable to produce games?
Downloading copyrighted material is theft – just as stealing a game from a shop is theft.
How would you like to be robbed of what’s yours?
Maybe you are one of those persons who believe no one should make money if you aren’t.
Re Dr. D. being a ‘prominent criminal lawyer’ – indeed the description is correct:
1) He’s a democratically elected MP, no less. So due to his elevated position in society, he is ‘prominent’. Granted.
2) He is, by profession, a criminal lawyer……..
OK Daphne, you know where I’m going wih this one!
Daphne, I am extremely surprised by your reaction to ACTA. Your blog is a perfect example of how ACTA will restrict freedom of expression.
[Daphne – Really? How so? I have not written about my reaction to ACTA, largely because I don’t have one. So far, my only reaction has been to those who have had a knee-jerk reaction to it. I find their hysterical response far, far more fascinating than the document itself (which they have not read).]
You are a private individual who likes to share her thoughts with an audience. You set up a blog for fun. You don’t do it for the money. There are no direct financial gains for you as you do not write advertorials promoting a particular brand. Now that we have established that you are a private citizen with no commercial interest, I will move on to explain how ACTA will restrict your freedom of expression.
There are times when you share some YouTube videos (funny videos or music) with your audience. Once again, I reiterate that you don’t upload these videos to earn money. You don’t ask people to deposit money through their PayPal account in order to watch the clip. It’s just a communicator sharing a joke/a trip down memory lane with an audience. There is no way in hell you will be able to do this once ACTA is in force.
[Daphne – Very dogmatic. And also untrue. And if I am not allowed to share YouTube videos in the current format, justifiable reasons having been given for this, so damned what. I’ll just post a link. And life goes on.]
It gets worse. You have been pointing out how the PL is desperately seeking (not so) subtle ways of gagging you. ACTA will provide them the perfect tools to do so. The minute you will refer to an article uploaded on Maltastar, the minute you will upload a snapshot from someone’s Facebook (yes, even though FB is a VERY public domain), the minute you will include a clip from One News to further illustrate a point, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks claiming that you are using copyrighted material without their permission.
[Daphne – AS IF. You have clearly understood NOTHING. There is already a clear distinction between reproducing articles and posting links. Organisations already have the right to hit you with lawyers if you reproduce an article without permission. They cannot do this if you post a link only. They will not be able to do it even post ACTA if you post a link only. If you reproduce an article and the original publisher is against it, then though. You shouldn’t reproduce it – YOU CAN’T DO IT EVEN NOW, WITHOUT ACTA. If you reproduce even one paragraph an article in The Times (London), lawyers come swarming in immediately. People who run websites like this just have to be more responsible, that’s all. It’s not a free for all, so tough. Get used to it. I’m actually going to be the last to complain if people don’t want their stuff reproduced on other people’s websites. Obviously.]
Even if the intentions behind ACTA are noble and morally right, I have no doubt in my mind that the Franco Debonos of this world (just look at his cases related to the legal loophole concerning legal advice prior to interrogation) will twist and turn every clause to restrict our freedom of expression. I suspect that ACTA is the (various) governments’ reaction to Wikileaks (another source of information for a number of postings on this blog), and the influence of the social media in general.
It is widely acknowledged that the North African revolution would have never reached those proportions without Facebook. In fact, some people refer to it as the “Facebook Revolution”.
The sites that have revolutionised our world in recent years (Wikipedia, Wikileaks, YouTube, Facebook, etc) will never be the same after ACTA. I suspect that the authorities are not pleased with the way we can film, upload and share information, and ACTA is the tool to stop us from doing so.
[Daphne – That’s rubbish, and in your heart, you know it. ‘The authorities’ – who are they, incidentally? – are as dependent on the internet and social media as the rest of us are. Well, not me, where social media are concerned, but you get my drift.]
I do not wish to underestimate’s Labour’s campaign to appear as a liberal party by alarming people against ACTA.
Personally, I still do not have an informed view about the subject, and, from what I read, a vote is to be taken about ACTA in the European Parliament later this year. If the EP votes against ACTA, it will be dead.
However, I suspect that Labour is only driving at a national level the campaign that the PES (Party of European Socialists) is pushing at the EP level. In other words, the position of the PL is not a position studied and decided locally but just the position taken by the PES.
The attempt by the PL to make us believe that it is the local party leadership that is taking a stand on this matter is just ridiculous.
Why I am in favor of ACTA
Producing films, songs, games etc costs a lot of time and energy and money. People don’t just wake up one morning with a script in their hands, waltz over to a producer, get some actors in and make the film over the weekend. It costs millions of pounds, years, yes years, of work, stress, and above all a huge amount of risk.
Therefore, when people decide to cash in on work and effort that was not theirs and copy other people’s work and sell it they are delivering a huge slap in the face of all the people who actually put in the effort to give you something to enjoy. It is not your right to watch films and play on your Xbox, but it is someone’s right to be paid for their efforts and talent should always be honored.
So I am in favor of any attempt to put an end to this sort of crime.
Why I am against ACTA.
When TV programs and films were broadcast to the masses the media machine had a total monopoly over what and how much people could access their products. But suddenly we got blank tapes and videos, so we could record things. Yes, there were those who copied things and sold them (again I am against that), but people also recorded their favorite songs. Remember the mixed tape? You could get all your favorite songs and put them in the order you want on your own tape, lend it to someone who has the same tastes as you and let them copy it too (for free).
The authorities were against the copying and selling of goods, but since in the latter situation no one was making any money there was no need to put a stop to it.
But the media wasn’t happy with that. They wanted to put an end to both because they just didn’t like that people were making their own. Many efforts were made to put a stop to the mixed tape, but none were successful.
In the meantime technology got better. The internet showed up and with it we got things like myspace and youtube. Now people could do more than just create their own music albums with their favorite songs. Now people could remix the song their own way, use it as a backdrop to a short film they’ve put together using clips from different videos, creating parodies of films, making fun of politicians or just showing their creativity.
The people were no longer simply consuming the media. Now they could take it, make it their own, create and then share with everyone all for free. Fantastic!
But the media machine got even more angry. They didn’t just want to put a stop to the buying and selling of copied products. They wanted to put a stop to their products being available for others to mix and create their own work. No more youtbe, no more playlists, zip.
Why I find it hard to make up my mind.
1)Is ACTA going to put a stop to the creating and sharing?
2) How do they plan to police the internet, a space that is impossible to police without invading people’s privacy? I am looking for an informed reply and not someone screaming big brother to me all the way through. I want to know exactly how the policing will work and until I understand it 100%, to the point were I can explain it to others myself and answer their questions, I will not be satisfied. Nor will I make a decision. So if all you are going to do is scream Big Brother my way please don’t.
3) Is ACTA just another move by media moguls to make more money or is it really about piracy?
@ C Mifsud:
Your arguments don’t really apply, sir/madam.
The cost of blank DVDs does not determine the price of an Xbox game. You wouldn’t buy one for its shiny surface but for what it contains. That’s pretty much the same as the cost of a paper bag not being relative to the price of the tomatoes that it contains.
Your argument suggests that you are not aware what investment it takes to produce a viable computer game; let me just say that it is dauntingly high and that there are no guaranteed returns.
Pirating (ripping) is WRONG… full stop.
But I disapprove of ACTA and its surreptitious conception. ACTA wants to check our underwear because it suspects that some remote rogue has counterfeited a logo and if they check enough people’s underwear, they might (just might) catch somebody actually wearing one.
It is relevant that computer ‘anoraks’ (commonly perceived as pirates) have unrewardedly contributed to the digital revolution that intellectual-property owners benefit from. In simple terms, before the digital age, film makers, for example, had heavier costs editing and delivering their huge 35mm reels. Now, they need less infrastructure and less manpower.
Instead of acknowledging what they save (in logistics for instance), they tell us that piracy costs the economy $58 billion. They don’t say that the purported illicit beneficiaries stimulate global economies by spending those 58 behemoth-ones on something else. Are $58 billion better in circulation or in some mega-rich mogul’s bank account? In that respect, ACTA effects global economies negatively, if anything.
There is also (in my humble opinion) some similarity between the ACTA proposals and a precautionary measure adopted by a local mini-market when, because of a spate of shoplifting, it started to search the handbags of shoppers exiting its premises. It didn’t make sense and customers showed how they felt about privacy. Does a girl want a stranger to see that she has prophylactics in her handbag?
Do moms want to show their pills or tampons to strangers? Ridiculous? The mini-market assumed regnant rights and that is what ACTA proposes to give to IPOs. In that respect, ACTA would adversely effect the massive international ‘gyratory’ economy created by the Internet.
It is one thing to enter Tesco, Ocado, Sainsbury etc knowing that cameras are monitoring potential shirt-stuffers, but quite another to have detectives on every aisle demanding to look inside EVERYBODY’S shirt at whim. If supermarkets don’t want the risk of pilferage, they should go back to selling their goods across the counter and employ an army of servers so that customers do not have the direct access (self-service) that encourages pilfering.
Your interest and habits are already known. Luckily, because of its value, that information is treasured. Have you ever noticed how, if you look at, for example, digital cameras on website “A”, the other websites “B” to “Z” send out information about THEIRS? That’s why applications like Spybot exist.
I think Daphne’s piece is not so much in favour of ACTA as it is against PL pronouncing itself in-sympathy with potentially thousands of voters likely to attend tomorrow’s protest. Well! Every little helps, as the saying goes.
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/21618-l-allemagne-met-en-pause-sa-signature-de-l-acta.html
Wonder what amazing Grace Borg made of dear leader’s stand on ACTA after all her bitching on copyright infringements.
The laws that we need to protect intellectual property are there already. Megaupload was taken down without the need for PIPA, SOPA or ACTA and Grace Borg can still take people to court over copyright infringements.
So if anything it makes you wonder what the point of ACTA really is…
To stop piracy? Oh please, I was ‘stealing’ from the moment I got my first tape recorder. What will ACTA do about that? Throw 9 year olds in jail for being unable to pay a 5 figure fine?
If the entertainment industry could invent a machine that could read our thoughts then they’d lobby for a law which allows them to claim money for playing back their songs in your head. Its ridiculous, you can’t simply throw everyone in jail, because your product is so easy to copy that a 9 year old with a tape recorder could do it.
If the entertainment industry is not viable then free-market capitalism dictates that it should die a natural death. However this is simply untrue, because the entertainment industry has never been bigger, thanks to the internet. Corporations are simply seeking out their own interests, and you can’t blame them for doing so.
Porn is probably the most pirated form of entertainment on the planet. Yet despite the fact that videos are free, available and anyone can make them, it is still roughly worth $13 billion (in USA – not globally).
Here’s something about Tibetan heroes, fresh from the BBC.
Franco Debono, please do not try this at home.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16975739
Heqq, Franco Debono avukat hu. Dik missjoni miskin li jara li l-gustizzja ssir. Ikollu anke jiddefendi lil xi hadd li jkun mar jisloh lil anzjani taparsi f’isem Id-Dar Tal-Providenza. Someone’s got to do it. Dejjem jghid kemm kellu jbati miskin.
eqq, kullhadd irid jiekol hux?
Enjoy, while you can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaDGIPoFXvU
Anonymous is not a conspiracy theory group — it’s a group of hacktivists engaged in defending the openness of the Internet and using the Web to protest against attacks on our freedom by governments and big corporations.
[Daphne – ‘By governments and big corporations’/ Yawn. Perhaps it might occur to you that some of us find governments and big corporations a lot less scary and threatening than groups of ‘hacktivists’ engaged in whatever they think they’re defending, which certainly is not freedom. People who think that way tend to be more totalitarian than Chairman Mao. All you have to do is listen to them speak.]
OK, the tactics they adopt are sometimes illegal, but in the same way that legal doesn’t necessarily mean right, conversely, illegal doesn’t necessarily mean wrong.
[Daphne – Nice way of looking at things. You’d make a great cult leader – or rather, cult member. Or terrorist.]
Now, regarding ACTA… to be honest, I didn’t read it, and probably I would have a hard time understanding it, but from what I get, the agreement is plagued with vagueness that needs to be clarified before it can be accepted.
[Daphne – Just listen to yourself. I mean, honestly, listen to yourself. Ma tisthix?]
Let’s face it, corporations can be surprisingly vicious and greedy – just look at the recent patent wars among tech giants – so people are right to be suspicious.
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money — Margaret Thatcher
This is an act of mercy aimed at reducing the level of your political ignorance. I suggest you set your minds to a dawra-durella story so as to ease your tension and prevent your predictable knee-jerk reaction to real stories that make little sense in your boxed, cartoon world of soap, gossip and idiocy:
How Ron Paul rocked our family – http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/02/09/how-ron-paul-rocked-our-family
About the author:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/italian/fac-bios/cavallo/faculty.html
If you liked that, here’s another one: http://www.good.is/post/rise-of-the-ronverts-break-up-with-obama-rebound-with-ron-paul/
Dear, oh dear. It seems that you lot have missed the point completely.
The whole crux of ACTA (and unlike what seems to be the majority of you lot here, I did actually bother to read through the text [http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st12/st12196.en11.pdf]
Some particularly worrying articles in it are #6,11, 12, 27:4, 27:6.
Article 11 is very worrying indeed, as there is no longer the cause of plausible denial. Not only that, but forcing the user to yield his passwords must surely be encroaching on some right to privacy.
Article 12 could very easily be abused by a malevolent authority to fabricate false data, as once a system is in their possession, they can do whatever they want with it, and it is then up to the owner to prove his innocence.
Perhaps the most worrying amongst these is 27:4, which seems to be the heart of ACTA, and I quote:
A Party may provide, in accordance with its laws and regulations, its competent authorities
with the authority to order an online service provider to disclose expeditiously to a right holder
information sufficient to identify a subscriber…
There is no other way of doing this than to monitor or install invasive software. (If anyone DOES know how, please do tell me, I’m genuinely curious.). Moreso, I DO have a big issue with my information going directly to the rights holder, who can then use it for blackmail. If anything, it should go to the courts, after all, they ARE forcing a national-level filter on us, where they don’t even need to face us directly in court.
They’ll use the argument “if you have nothing to hide, you won’t be against it.” No, sod you. I have a right to privacy, just as you have the right to be paid for your work. What I do on the internet is my business, and mine alone.
27:6 is pretty annoying because it basically means that any software that I legally own, may not be modified in any way. I’m a big fan of no-cd cracks, which basically make it more convenient for me, as well as ensure disc longevity. With this clause in force, I would be guilty of piracy, if someone went through my system, even though I’d be waving the original disc in their face.
You see, Daphne (et al), the problem is not only that this article is intentionally vague in most places, but that it is incredibly specific and restrictive in others. It was also evidently written by a lot of people who don’t understand jack about computers – it is clearly evident to those that actually DO that it is very powerful.
Will it prevent piracy? Doubtlessly so, only the more reckless will dare engage in that practice. Will it also harm the legitimate user? Yes. Yes. Yes. There is already proof in restrictive DRM software – ubisoft/EA are big examples – where it takes ~5 min to start up a game due to all the logins required. A pirate simply double clicks and is ready to go.
The issue isn’t piracy, Daphne et al. Yes, it’s bad. It is also bad that the people who claim they are being hurt, are not moving to the new model. Steam got it right. They have sales, only one layer of drm (the actual logging in on steam), it’s non intrusive, highly convenient. We are living in a capitalist world now, and like it or not, they HAVE to compete with free. Steam wins by being more convenient than free.
This doesn’t go on to mention the issue with generic medicine being much cheaper than proprietary labels. Sure, there are R&D costs, but is it really necessary to recoup those at such a fast rate? How about pricing stuff in usd=eu? That’s just mean. What about not letting the user pay for stuff because of geography? I’d love to pay for HBO/SKY, but apparently, I cannot. Since there is no lost sale, BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT A SALE, I see no harm in watching their shows for free. They still get the possibility of me buying a box-set even though that brings up the issue of region-locking on hardware I legitimately own, which is something else altogether …
So you see, Daphne (et al), you might want to take a step back from being so vehement (as you’re accusing the anti ACTA people of being) and actually take an honest, objective look at this. Then again, you probably won’t. Please don’t politicise this, for as far as I’m concerned, neither party really knows their way around the block anymore at this point, it’s merely a question of which is the lesser evil.
tl:dr; I’ll be damned if someone gets to monitor my internet logs and makes it illegal for me to attempt to circumvent it. If I wanted that, I’d go to china.
I can’t help thinking that you missed one crucial point about ACTA: it is all about stopping the “proliferation of counterfeit and pirated goods”.
This is key to the whole issue.
Having your own copies of legitimate software you yourself bought, even by breaking copy-protection to make the copies, does not make you party to proliferation of pirated goods.
Downloading of copied material does not make the end-user the party involved in the “production and distribution of counterfeit and pirated goods”. But ACTA provides for better legislation against whoever is concerned with the upload and distribution of the copied material.
Take, as an example, person A uploading a music track, written by person B, on YouTube. Persons C-Z listen to / view / download the music for their free enjoyment. Person B becomes aware of the track on YouTube, and asks YouTube to take it off. YouTube obliges willingly and without much delay. Persons C-Z try to view the track again but now all they get is “This has been removed due to copyright infringement”, not an uncommon sight these days.
If person B wants to take this further, ACTA provides the legal means to force YouTube and ISPs involved to provide any information that may lead to the identification of person A to be taken to court and pay-up for lost revenue due to B.
After all, what would B rather do? One identification exercise and court-case against A and any possible hostile host? Or 24 identification exercises and court-cases against C-Z?
Of course the 1:24 scale in this example is puerile. In practice this is more like 1:millions.
So ACTA’s bottom line is: enjoy YouTube, and make copies of material you bought. Just don’t distribute them to the detriment of the copyright holder, whether for free or, worse still, for profit.
Post-ACTA, I can visualise YouTube and other such hosts getting cleaned up from illegally uploaded material and end up being a medium for the sharing of personal material as it was originally intended. I’d enjoy the internet much less, but then it wasn’t mine to enjoy in the first place.
It is this last point that people are mostly worried about. They want the status-quo to continue enjoying other people’s hard work for free.
I’m no saint. If the copied material is there, I’ll listen to it, I’ll watch it, I’ll use it. But if ACTA takes all that away and I’ll end up paying my share, I’d do it willingly.
Apologies for the late reply. Nope, you’re wrong. The situation in America and in parts of Europe (and this is what they’re trying to introduce, in a blanket move), is that the rights holder can, and will contact you directly if they think you have pirated material of theirs, to try and settle out of court for a flat fee.
Cease and desist letters are also common from most ISPs (even though these don’t really give a hoot – they want your business, not that of the rights holder).
It is not uncommon for media groups to poison torrents, or post fake ones (tantamount to entrapment), to then hand over IP lists to ISPs and leave it to their legal department. So, you see, you’re wrong.
I agree with piracy and counterfeit, as long as the people buying it know that it is not the real thing. The only thing ACTA will bring about is that some reckless people will start selling, for profit, stuff that others dare not download.
It is a lost war, similar to the war on drugs, yet instead of trying to find a solution, people insist on bulldozing through.
Over the past two days, some more countries have said No to ACTA. Are they doing it wrong? I think they have the guts to do what others dare not – stand up for the rights and freedom of their citizens.
Ironikament l-istess nies li huma kontra l-ACTA iridu jaghlqulek il-blog. Jahasra ukoll.
……….u fl-istess hin jippuzaw li huma l-gellieda ghad-drittijiet tal-artisti u l-awturi.
I know a guy who went protesting in Valletta against ACTA this morning. His grocer’s shop is simply a front for him to make a fortune selling off from under the counter, copies of the latest films and modern music that he downloads for free from the internet on a regular basis.
Ironically ACTA will help him make more business.
Since the dawn of the internet, piracy and file sharing have always been on the top agenda for the music/software/film industries.
Of course instead of fighting the issue most of the music industry has decided to give away the music for free or at a ridiculous price (to be downloaded online) and then make money from concerts and live performances once their music has been downloaded and shared thousands of times.
One can fight the problem or one can adapt and evolve.
If the film industry and software companies reduced their prices and sold their product online at a reasonable fee, one wouldn’t hesitate to purchase the movie/software and download it straight to their computer.
The piracy and file sharing problem is there because of the high prices, and whatever law is passed this issue will never be solved, because many of the coders and programmers who work for the big companies, leak the softwares themselves and if it’s not them then some young freak hacker will take up the challenge and provide the masses with the software. Anonymous has managed to hack several high profile sites including US federal govt. websites, im sure that they will be able to create an IP Scrambler that will bypass any software implied by the EU or local govts, thus allowing users to be transparent to any IP Investigations.
The beauty of the internet is that one is free to browse, download and upload anything imaginable, good or bad that is up to the morals of the user – I think the virtual world is the only place where total freedom is possible, and this shouldn’t change!
‘….because many of the coders and programmers who work for the big companies leak the software themselves and if it’s not them then some young freak hacker will take up the challenge and provide the masses with the software.’
Close, Daniel, you just have to go one step further up the chain to find who was distributing the software:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc
Entrapment?
I can’t help draw parallels with the (our) Greece problem:
Financial institutions inducing and profiting from fraud – not even one conviction – and the plebs are left with the cost of cleaning up. 30 trillion plus and counting, and we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.
Prepare a box of tissues before reading this comment posted by one of Dom Mintoff’s cabinet ministers beneath the timesofmalta.com report on his heart problems.
Dear Dom,
You made us live your dream when we were younger and with you we lived ours. We faced the raging storms and climbed the hills with you. You carved a nation out of a rock and gave our people the dignity they had never had before. You taught us how to fight for our rights and and the same time how important it was to fulful our obligations. You showed the way and we could fulfil our aspirations , live our dreams. Under your guidance the nation prospered because we beleived with you that no one was greater than the nation. To quote your own words that remain etched into our souls, ” This nation is not for sale, Neither for yellow gold nor for black “. To me , a young tyro in politics at the time, that was your greatest moment — the patriot who became my hero and who lives as such in me to this day. For you and for us our country always had to come first .For this and for so much more we thank you, we pray for your safety in this moment of difficulty and hang on to that same spirit of hope that you instilled in us. Get well soon Dom. We are as with you and behind you today as we were so many years ago. Nothing will ever change. Stay with us
Joe Grima
You’ll need another box of tissues for this one:
DR EMMANUEL BEZZINA,MA,MAG.JUR.[EU Law],LL.D.,
Today, 20:09
CRITICIZE HIM OR NOT – GREAT DOM KEEPS MAKING THE NEWS: incidentally I observe none of our so-called TOP BRASS made any visit to him – the hypocresy of the times perhaps ??
Divine Power to YOU GREAT DOM
Hypocresy – damn. Tghallem ikteb, Emmy. Just because you pronounce it that way doesn’t mean that it is written like that.
It must take him five whole minutes to check whether the initials after his name are correct.
Tal-biki.
With due respect, Dr. Bezzina. At the rate things are going we might as well visit him every month. No doubt when he pops off he will have a state funeral – no problem with me on this score. That will be hypocrisy at its best.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120211/local/mintoff-hospitalised-with-heart-problems.406293
There’s hope yet.
Just don’t upload your kid’s birthday party on youtube (copyright protected).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
Well written, Joe Grima. Facts are facts and no spinning will ever change the truth.
We must never forget the good that this man managed to do for his country. I agree that sometimes, actually most of the times, his methods seemed a bit unorthodox, but difficult times call for hard decisions.
[Daphne – Those difficult times need not have been created in the first place. I find it strange that you praise Mintoff for taking ‘hard decisions’ when it was his very actions which necessitated those hard decisions in the first place. Besides, they were not hard decisions for him at all. They were easy decisions because they were what he wanted to do. You are confusing the decision with its consequences. It was the consequences that were hard, not the decisions.]
Why criticise Mintoff’s way of doing things and at the same time support A.Gatt’s brusque methods?
[Daphne – Because Austin Gatt is sensible and well-intentioned and his decisions are driven by positive goals. Brusqueness is neither here nor there and brusqueness was not Mintoff’s problem. His problem was bitterness, rage, hatred, negativity and a desire both for revenge and to prove himself. You can’t take good decisions when that is what drives you.]
I must confess I was never a supporter of Mintoff, but today I must admit that along with Borg Olivier, they were the two great statesmen, that our country will forever remember, as the founders of modern Malta.
[Daphne – You’re a great one for swallowing propaganda, Silvio. Over the last few years there has been a concerted effort at ‘rehabilitating’ Mintoff’s image and, more recently under Joseph Muscat, equating him with Borg Olivier as one of Malta’s two great statesmen. This has been done intentionally to: 1. clean up Mintoff’s terrible reputation, and 2. sideline Eddie Fenech Adami, when the fact is that he is by far the most significant prime minister of the last few decades, but too close for comfort for Labour. Besides which, if Joseph Muscat puts Fenech Adami on a pedestal the way he does – conveniently – Borg Olivier, then he will have to admit that his own stance on Europe was very wrong.]
We all, whether P.L. or P.N. supporters, owe these men a lot and we should be careful that what they managed to give with a lot of suffering is not lost by our present, so-called, politicians.
[Daphne – If you think you owe Mintoff a lot, kindly speak for yourself. Most people who weren’t brainwashed from birth and have a reasonable degree of insight understand that far from owing the man anything, we should condemn him to kingdom come for what he took away from us, starting from peace of mind and, in the case of my generation, practically every aspect of normal life outside the Iron Curtain.]
Daphne, I don’t think I deserve the barrage you thought fit to aim at me. I am not trying to glorify Mintoff; I am simple stating that whatever the methods he used, we must admit that some of the things he did were of benifit to our country, and some, if not all, of which,we are still reaping their benifits. I am not going to mention any of them not to annoy your readers.
[Daphne – I think you had better mention some of them, Silvio, so that we know what you are talking about. Because I have thought hard and can’t come up with a single thing for which we should be grateful or from which we are still reaping benefits. On the contrary, I can see a great deal of damage done which we are still trying to overcome. Your reasoning is of the kind which says that if a person walks into your house and wrecks your entire kitchen, you should be grateful for the fact that he washed up first, and remember only that. No thanks.]
You say that what drove him was hate, etc. Couldn’t it have been genuine love for his country?
[Daphne – No, it couldn’t. Negative actions and negative behaviour are the result of negative emotions. Love for your country and its people is a positive emotion and generates positive actions, as we have seen over the last 25 years. Mintoff was driven by anger, bitterness and the desire for revenge on those who he thought sidelined or excluded him, like so many other ‘peasant’ leaders before him, including world-famous ones like Eva Peron. The difference, of course, is that he was not a peasant leader at all. Though his disciples like to say that he grew up poor on the streets of the inner harbour core, the reality is that his family was very comfortably off. His father worked with the navy and his mother ran her own business. You only have to look at the various cousins today to see that the family was not one of street urchins.]
History will judge him, in the meantime, as a Christan, and here I think you will join me in wishing him speedy recovery.
[Daphne – Oh, is he a Christian? I hadn’t known that. And at his age, speedy recoveries are wishful thinking. Even he has probably had enough.]
“We all … owe these men a lot”
Please speak for yourself, why don’t you.
Silvio – I for one do not owe Mintoff anything at all.
To my way of thinking all this man did was hand out money, jobs, houses, etc. to his supporters.
He did not do the most important thing, which was to ensure that people were given the proper education and career opportunities so that they would grow up with the ability to think and fend for themselves and not to get as much money as possible from social services and thinking that they have a right to everything for free.
Nothing comes free in life and this should be drummed down everyone’s throat. One has to work for what one has.
Another huge mistake of Mintoff’s was that he never thought about a successor who could replace him when his time was up. Maybe he thought he was omnipotent and he was the only person who could save Malta.
Look at the plight of the Labour Party today – not having one suitable person for the highest post of head of the party.
Silvio, I remember very well what went on during Mintoff’s era. I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears – things were not at all that good for non-Labour Party supporters, and when you think about it, they weren’t that good for Labour supporters either. They only thought it was because their standards were so very low.
What is worse is that we could not even speak up because we knew what happened to those who even dared point out what was wrong with that government.
Fortunately, we are in an era that everyone can saying anything about government, even to the point of personal insults.
Read today’s editorial in L-Orizzont and you will know what I mean. Leading people to the point of their using their basic instincts of hatred, anger and resentment against all those who, through their own efforts and without the push of a political party got ahead in life.
This is certainly a legacy Mintoff is leaving behind him and unfortunately will remain so until the present generation pops off.
Joe Grima seems to be suffering from amnesia.
Too kind.
Selective amnesia? Or positive dementia?
Ciccio, I can’t for the life of me think how forgetting, whether willingly or because of dementia, what Dom’s reign was like can be even remotely positive. Do you?
For if demented, one’s blurbs about how good the big man was can only be termed positive if they’re locked up in a dark room somewhere where nobody can hear or see them.
ACTA protests around Europe.
http://i.imgur.com/1LRp8.png
“We do not forgive. We do not forget. We don’t need no nation we are from the internet.”
The good die young. Mintoff will live to a 100.
Think Eddie Fenech Adami and so many others, and you’ll soon realise how weak your first statement is.
@ FP
“Only” in front makes all the difference.
Still inaccurate, Pepp.
The civil right for the use of internet – a smart proposal by a clever prime minister.
I’m not sure if this an EU thing or a worldwide effort: I mean do the Americans have their version of ACTA? and if not why are the EU implementing it when the Americans are not?
Yes they do. It is called SOPA and it is far worse. In fact, ACTA seems to be the most realistic option. SOPA, and there is also PIPA, are down right illegal and will effect not just the Americans but the whole world.
When I see people protesting against ACTA it really seems that they have it mixed up with SOPA. SOPA is a real threat. ACTA just needs to answer a few questions first before being written off entirely.
Why revive the horrible Mintoff era? let it rest and if possible let it rot in the black pages of history. The Germans very rarely mention Hitler.
Actually they do. They mention him many times, especially to their children.
I know this because I’ve taught EFL for a while now and all German students that have been in my class have told me that when at school most of their history lessons are about him, and they have school trips to the camps and they are constantly told how terrible it all was and how they should never let it happen again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj_cIiu3hU4&context=C38d4fdfADOEgsToPDskIPlN_BsZzvsCAdsVEeLlkO
All I have to say to you is in this video. We are the only system, Expect Us.