It’s me, live with it

Shamus made a somewhat dark post here. He’s pretty much talking about how future PCs will be equipped with user-hating DRM chips, and how our future computing will be badly ruined by them. Now that I know this, I try to stay calm. And I advise that you do, too.

The reason from my calmness come from, as Shamus pictured, the end of the spectrum. The open source activist, software freedom fighter, Linuxers, and pretty much all open source programmer.

By the time the actual scheme unveiled, I’ll be ready with my OpenSuse/Fedora Install DVD and haul away with Linux to sunset. I might even actually grow a beard.

This, of course, is not a solution to everyone. I still see around 1:20 ratio between Linux and Windows user, counting pirated Windows. And I’m talking about the Information and technology community (my campus). I’m pretty sure the ratio in general public is pretty much the same to worse.

But to people who use computer just for basic task, like browsing, or office work, or even image and music processing, Linux is pretty much ready to accommodate them. It means that most home users can migrate to Linux easily, they just need a little time learning.

Gamers, though, are not that lucky. Most All of the big games are released on Windows platform, maybe Apple sometimes, but Windows nonetheless is still the choice for gamers. Linux games are growing nicely, but it is still far away from actually competing in the same playground with Windows.

Sure, there are Cedega and Crossover in Linux, maybe Wine for those hardcore Linux user, but they are still too buggy to use on regular basis. They are truly nice development steps, though, those who are desperate to play games on Sabayon or something should try them.

All in all, I’m basically ready to avoid the worst when it comes, I’ll just barricade the kitchen, and hide under the table with a loaded shotgun….

Wait, that’s not right.

I mean I’ll just jump into Linux. I’m pretty sure when there are enough gamers making the jump, the gaming part will sort itself.

Friends of TorrentSpy,

We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.

Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown.

It was a wild ride,

The TorrentSpy Team

‘Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order […] and the like.’ - Justice William O. Douglas"

That is the goodbye note written in torrentspy, the page is sadly titled ‘goodbye torrentspy’. I know they shut the site down back in march, I only have the chance to write about it now. if you are interested about the legal history of torrentspy, here it is on Wikipedia.

Torrentspy is not the only one, The Pirate Bay also suffers from the same problem, you can read about it here on their site, and here on Wikipedia. They still survive, though, those Swedish people are real tough nut to crack, fortunately.

This is making me sad. Not just the fact that we lose a very reliable torrent source. What is worse is that those Digital-Copyright-Protectors violates our right to share (we do have that). Besides, In my presonal opinion, DRM is useless.

This can be confusing, stay with me.

Let’s say we have a Joe Singer here (anybody who shares the name, I’m sorry). Let’s say that Joe’s newest albums has sold 1 million copies worldwide not counting people who downloaded his album ilegally or bought a pirated cd. IF there were no piracy in the world, how many album would Joe sell?  My answer: not that different, less, actually.

Imagine Joe Singer lives in Germany. How many German singers (Hasselhoff doesn’t count) do you actually know? One of few ways that his music can make to leave Germany is the internet, and it is a helluva freeway.

Sure, if there were no piracy in the first place, everybody who have joe’s album are legal owners, those who aren’t, doesn’t.

There’s the problem there. If you hadn’t realized it yet, piracy is  one of the best method of promoting something. Music, movies, games, and so on.

People who are not interested in buying the original copies won’t do so, whether there is the pirated version or not. If there is, they will download/buy the cheaper-easier-to-get pirated version. If there aren’t, they won’t buy the original. Trust me, I know.

But for the people who are interested in buying the original, the pirated version will serve them as a demo, whether the item in question are worth buying or not. If they like it, they will buy the original, if they don’t, then well, no.

This is because original copies aren’t cheap. People who get pirated version just don’t want to buy it, or they are trying to justify their purchase.

Coughing US$60 for a good game that you don’t like is a painful experience. and so is US$ 15 for an album, while you only like one of its song.

So let’s continue pirating to help those artists and game designers promoting their product, shall we?