P2P file sharing in anti-poverty war
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Finally, corporate entertainment industry lies can help someone, somewhere.
The venal movie and music companies, personified by their MPAA and RIAA, try to claim files shared equal sales lost.
The assertion is behind their grotesque sue ‘em all campaign, which in turn hides their real goal: to gain complete control of how ‘product’ is distributed online, and who distributes it.
But, suggests Ernesto on TorrentFreak, pretend just for a moment the claim is true — that a download equals a lost sale.
OK? Then what?
Here’s what.
TorrentFreak and p2pnet are among the many sites registered with Blog Action Day, “an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day,” the aim being to, “raise awareness and trigger a global discussion”.
“One Issue, Thousands of Voices”
Only thousands? 
And Ernesto’s plan is to use the ridiculous corporate movie and music industry lies to help people.
“First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion,” says the Blog Action Day site, going on »»»
We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue.
By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.
Out of this discussion naturally flow actions, advice, ideas, plans, and empowerment. In 2007 on the theme of the Environment, we saw bloggers running environmental experiments, detailing innovative ideas on creating sustainable practices and focusing audience’s attentions on organizations and companies promoting green agendas. In 2008 we aim to again focus the blogging community’s energies and passions, this time on the mammoth issue of global poverty.
Mass ParticipationFrom the smallest online journals, to huge online magazines, to EU ministers, to professionals and amateurs, Blog Action Day is about mass participation. Anyone is free to join in on Blog Action Day and there is no limit on the number of posts, the type of posts or the direction of thoughts and opinions.
Back to Ernesto’s suggestion, “The idea is to calculate how much you have ’saved’ in the past week by downloading copyrighted content,” he posts, continuing »»»
If you haven’t downloaded anything, just pretend you have, we’re trying to raise money here.
In the interests of grossly inflating the figures and therefore raising as much money for charity as possible, just like the MPAA and RIAA we’re going to assume that one pirated copy equals one lost sale. We decided not to include software, because things can get a little out of hand for those who downloaded Photoshop.
1 music track = $1
1 music album = $10
1 movie = $10
1 TV-show = $5
1 book = $10Now, calculate your savings based on the example above (you are allowed to show off in the comments) and donate this amount to a project that aims to reduce poverty.
Brilliant, Ernesto. Excellent idea.
If you want to help but you can’t think of somewhere to send your ’savings,’ Just key ‘anti-poverty’ into your favourite search engine and go from there.
Cheers!
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Los Angeles Times – , October , 2008
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October 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Because the owner of an IP address is sued and not the actual down loader, the lawsuit makes a false claim against the IP address owner. The justice system is responsible for protecting people against such false claims. The RIAA has a lot of money to litigate compared to the people they sue. The disparity here is much like Ghandi against the English rule. In the RIAA cases many innocent people pay the RIAA because they cannot attain there day in court. Because Justice has decided not to protect people falsely accused, people have to decide not to protect justice. Juror Nullification or Juror activism is one way to cast your vote against Justice just as Justice cast there vote not to protect the innocent in these cases. Juror is passive resistance just as practiced by Gandhi. Passive resistance is the only way when the forces you are up against cannot be over come.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:02 am
I wonder if p2pnet qualifies? I bet things must be getting tight since all those corporate p2p advertising sponsors have fallen on hard times. (I see Blubster is still there, but their days are numbered.)