> > Different people in the Free Culture movement will have different ideas > about whether infringement is itself a productive tactic for opposing > draconian anti-sharing regimes. This is simply an old question about > how and when to use civil disobedience as a tactic. >
Hey Karl, I wanted to reply earlier but only now I find the time. For me in this case, its not so much about civil disobedience or using infringement as a tactic, its about having no other option. Let me clarify, I haven’t lived in my own country for some time, and until recently there was no way to watch my football team across the border if not on streaming websites which are often found infringing. I did this as I had no other choice – since a couple of months UEFA allows to stream matches from their site for a small charge(around 2/3 $) and using an account(with positive balance) on a betting site I get to watch Serie A. These services provide the only legal way to actually watch Italian football abroad online. As soon as I discovered this possibility I took it without hesitating, since compensation to content providers is paramount in producing “quality” content and it is a way to tell them: hey, there is a market here! Just create the tools to exploit it. Likewise if RAI – Italian broadcasting TV – had an online portal where I could search their archive and get the clips I mentioned in the original article I would have no problem paying a just amount to enjoy them. The issue is the total lack of an authorized platform for distribution. Instead of spending two years building the case to take down Megavideo, they should have spent that time developing new business models and accepting that the world has changed and they can still monetize their content, they just need to be better organized. Unfortunately as Machiavelli teaches us the one who holds power will use any means, including violence and violations of rights to stay in that position, hence SOPA PIPA ACTA. Against abuse and censorship I say yes to civil disobedience, infringement and protesting – but its not like I wake up in the morning and think: ok today I want to infringe as much as possible. Its like I wake up in the morning and think I will and have to watch this game tonight (I am not conventionally religious but I am a football fan) so I will use any means possible to do it. Similarly watching old 1950’s Italian comedy movies puts me in a good mood when I am sad, so I will watch one. The lack of opportunity for the latter leaves no option than to use services like Megavideo or the like. The answer of vested interests is to persecute, hinder, harass, threaten, arrest, take down and in general, reject change. What I realized is that the more they propose restricting laws and “violent” actions the more people will flood the streets and oppose them. This mobilization is good and I have faith in the importance for millions of people to keep watching that song on YouTube or read that article on Wikipedia. What I see as equally dangerous(or if not dangerous at least unclear and debatable) but not similarly discussed or understood or questioned is the use of fencing techniques in code, such as UltraViolet, Playready, Geofiltering and in general walled gardens. As members of the Free Culture movement we have the duty of evangelizing other people in understanding the importance that writing code in a specific way has on the end software. For as it is easier to stand up and protest against a law censoring the web – but far harder to oppose a function blocking access based on one’s IP address. Again, not saying geofiltering is inherently negative – I believe it only is when it restricts access to material otherwise unobtainable. After the Megavideo takedown I created a small gallery of reactions from my Facebook feed from people across the globe: http://www.studentsforfreeculture.eu/blog/2012/01/on-megavideo-from-around-the-world/ Ciao ciao Andrea
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