Watch out Your Member of Parliament Maybe a Person of Interest.

This is an updated verion of an article originally published by Tom Koltai at 01:54PM (EST) on October 6, 2009

Man is a competitive member of the animal kingdom.

Our nature is to compete with one another for food, shelter, mates and attention. Attention? Well yes, the more attention you get the better your prospects of :

Obtaining a mate and earning money.

So Koltai, the attention seekers are the most likely candidates for Presidential election?

Well think about it. Imagine being a 17 year old pimply faced boy.

How often would he get laid? (Whatever your answer, the 17 year old would say – “Not enough”…..)

Now imagine if the pimply faced boy were President of the USA?

How often would the President of the USA get laid? OK – I’ll say “could” for the benefit of the female married audience.

So Koltai you blog because you want attention and want to get laid?

No, I don’t want attention for moi, I want attention drawn to the plight of the world that all seems to stem from four main issues. (As for the other – I’m starting to get a bit long in the tooth for that.)

Problem with the World ISSUE #1

Commercial interests have turned amoral. They are unable to distinguish the difference between making a profit and killing large chunks of the world population [through “designer” pigs, corn et al, that are unable to reproduce,] by controlling their products through international trade agreements like ACTA.

So ACTA is an excuse for Genocide.

Yes. But unfortunately it’s been prettied up to be about Internet file-sharing.

Problem with the World ISSUE #2

The Federal Reserve Bank of the USA has devised a securitization methodology of building an economy based on future Debt.

Other Governments have followed the lead of the Federal Reserve as being an ideal model to create an economy around that benefits those at the top.

It would appear to benefit all mankind, being able to live in a nice house, being able to drive a late model car and having a 50” LCD cinema in the lounge room.

But unfortunately, all of these “trimmings” are essentially a result of consumer programming.

You are successful if you drive a Mercedes.

You can only be successful if you take holidays first class.

You must wear Armani to be considered for the top job, top earning boyfriend etc etc.

The majority of the world can’t afford Armani. But armed with a credit card, they forget this.

Most of us don’t drive Mercedes cars… or live in Belair Cote de Zur or Double Bay.

But Koltai isn’t it fair to reward the achievers?

Yes I think it is.

But not by creating funny money that then bites the entire world in it’s arse.

Problem with the World, ISSUE #3

Lying to the population.

Advertising has always about getting the public to buy something that commercial interests need you to buy so they can buy their new house on the cote d’azur.

They are not really objects without which man couldn’t survive.

This brings us to the great equalizer. The Internet.

The Internet has enabled the world – i.e. those that are not living in Double Bay, Cote d’azur or Beverley Hills to talk about the unfairness of certain policies deemed by the population to be unfair, unjust or lacking in moral fibre.

(No, no examples – go and read some blogs.)

Problem with the World ISSUE #4

Expressing Dissatisfaction with any element of officialdom on the Blog-sphere, Twitter and Facebook.

Those that speak of any of these topics out loud are branded “insurgent, trouble maker, activist, investigative journalist, commie, revolutionary”.

In other words, the official documentation of the worlds law enforcement officials are sending free speech underground, forcing people to hide their commentaries behind pseudonym user names like the now renowned/infamous Anonymous.

The recent Wikileaks leak of the UK Government secret internal document on how to manage leaks made me realise that the Governments of the world don’t really want free speech. They preach it, but then instruct their minions to stamp it out. To place those who practice it on watch lists as “enemies of the state”.

From Wikileaks: "2389 classified pages on how the UK stop leaks"

This significant, previously unpublished document (classified "RESTRICTED", 2389 pages), is the UK military protocol for security operations, including counter-intelligence.

The document includes instructions on dealing with leaks, investigative journalists, Parliamentarians, foreign agents, terrorists & criminals, sexual entrapments in Russia and China, diplomatic pouches, allies, classified documents & codewords, compromising radio and audio emissions, computer hackers.and many other related issues.

The document, known in the services as the "JSP 440" ("Joint Services Protocol 440"), was referenced by the RAF Digby investigation team as the protocol justification for the monitoring Wikileaks, as mentioned in "UK Ministry of Defence continually monitors WikiLeaks: eight reports into classified UK leaks, 29 Sep 2009".

Example excerpts (WikiLeaks, [see http://bit.ly/CgxBY], "D Def Sy" means Directorate of Defence Security):

"Non-traditional threats

The main threats of this type are posed by investigative journalists, pressure groups, investigation agencies, criminal elements, disaffected staff, dishonest staff and computer hackers. The types of threat from these sources can be categorized in six broad groups: a. Confidentiality. Compromise of politically sensitive information. This threat is presented by: (1) Pressure groups and investigative journalists attempting to obtain sensitive information. (2) Unauthorized disclosure of official in formation (leaks)..."

"Investigative journalists have exploited personal tax information; they also target commercial and financial information as do criminal elements seeking financial advantage. "

Continues....... At http://tinyurl.com/wlmod

As the reader can see, the document attempts to smear investigative journalists and members of the public by associating them in the same sentences as foreign agents, terrorists & criminals, sexual entrapments and; GASP…. Parliamentarians those most despicable of people – our elected representatives and their staffers.

I always thought that when the Military attacked the Head of State that was termed Revolution; however it would seem that in the UK it’s just normal business.

I would say this is the biggest problem in the world.

Although in Australia we seem to be inventing our own version of of unattainable orwellian control devices...
Problem with the World ISSUE #5

Inteligent men whom unfortunately don't understand the Internet, thinking they can halt the digital tide and implent outmoded concepts of "content classification"  (like Australia's proposed rabbit proof Internet filter).

Rabbit proof ?

Koltai joke. It has as much chance of keeping back the hoards of rabbits as the internet filter has of keeping back just .0001% of the words unsavoury websites.

So why are the Australian politicians introducing a filter?

To satisfy the 20,000 christian lobyists who voted 93% in favour of it.

Koltai, you said "problem for the world", but that filter is only for Australia.

So it is. So tell me that you don't think that other countries will look at the level headed, friendly Aussies and calculate that the benefit to them of implementing a filter also? Politcally, a filter in Australia is a perfect "first step" in implementing a 1984 world globally.
As I have suggesteed before, Politicians and magicians have a lot in common; "Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and grls, now watch this hand waving in the air....... " and then implementing an unexpected magic trick (with the other hand) that either gets them applause/re-election, or not.

So what are we left with ?

A world where persons expressing themselves can automatically land themselves on “terrorist suspect lists” just for speaking their mind.

Didn’t we pass some laws a while back allowing freedom of speech?

Oh, not in the UK.

Oh, and not in Australia.

I guess it’s probably too late for me to start blogging as “anonymous”.

I blog under my own name because I think the world would be a far better place if more people stood up to be counted.

Lets Talk about P2P Damages, Coffee and Bulldust

by Tom Koltai at 02:16PM (EST) on April 21, 2009

Last Friday in a Swedish Court, the four pirates were awarded four years of jail time and financial damages against them (for running a Google search engine) of over three million dollars.

In February three Thai CD Pirates were handed out jail sentences under a year each and fined $14,200 each for pressing 306 CD-Roms per minute of pirated content for the last three years and selling them into the black-markets as originals . (See references below)

In other words for distributing over thirty million pirated CD’s these Thailand based pirates got a sentence that looks like a joke when compared to the Pirate Bay lads - who essentially, let me repeat myself - ran a SEARCH engine.

Of course this inequality in sentencing is essentially the PR machine at work to justify the passing of legislation designed to curtail human basic rights. (ACTA)

IPFI, MIPI, AFACTS, RIAA, MPAA all take delight in reporting the damages awards handed by the courts in various file sharing cases.
The majority of these claims are based on the premise that the downloader/uploader made “n” pieces of content available on the internet for free that would have sold for “o” dollars retail or “p” dollars wholesale and therefore depriving the content creators of {N x O} or {N x P}, “whatever your Honour thinks is fair.”.

Unfortunately, that is not quite how this works. In real life, it works something like this…..

A movie on the big cinema screen is a different experience to watching the same on a laptop or mobile phone screen.
The special Dolby surround sound effects can not be “felt” when you are peering intently at a 7” or 2” screen listening hard to the 8 ohm quasi stereo “speakers”.
There are no fresh popcorn smells – nor are there any Jaffas to roll down the stalls – and of course there is no way two people could watch such a small screen together so the “arm-over” maneuver doesn’t work outside the cinema.

All of these elements combine together to create a unique "experience value" that economists like to call the Hedonic value.

The basics of Hedonic value are in the measurement of consumer self justification value for the  payment of an item of perceived need. (Usually driven by advertising, marketing and lately more by social networks and peer to peer interaction.)

The hedonic value of watching a presentation on a big screen at the movie theatre is vastly superior to reviewing the same movie on a micro computing device. Especially if there is a couple involved. It’s a bit like the difference between a Starbucks Coffee or, a home made powdered, instant coffee.

I’m a coffee addict. I drink between thirty and forty cups of coffee per day.

At select establishments around the world, an Americano (long black) coffee costs $3.75 for the small cup.
If I were to use the content industries argument, my addiction is equal to a $150.00 per day habit.

I do quite often go out and have a long black coffee when chatting with friends or holding a business meeting, however that would not be more than three or four times a week and my total tab for that would not exceed $20-$30 all up.
The rest of the time, I drink instant coffee. The Germans have a good word for instant coffee, “ersatz kafe”, which means “pretend coffee” or fake coffee.

I use Nescafe Expresso coffee which sells retail for a 350 gm jar for $9.00 (sometimes $7.00 on sale). I buy a 2 kg bag of sugar for $1.65. The coffee and the sugar last me for approximately ten days,
I drink 245 cups of pretend coffee a week interspersed with about five – seven real coffees. My total coffee budget is therefore approximately $31.00 per week; not the $1050.00 that the content industry think I should pay them.

What is different, is the price I am prepared to pay for each alternative product. The instant cup of coffee 2 minutes after I wake up in the morning is worth far more than the Starbucks Americana that I have to cross the road for in a driving hail storm to get – but its hedonic value is enhanced by the fact that I can have that ersatz coffee without shaving, dressing or going out into the weather.

That first cup of coffee doesn’t in any way replace the desire or need to have the real thing later in the day, surrounded by my peers or colleagues in nice surroundings.

The two are separate, disparate and totally unrelated experiences and worth two totally different values.
It can be argued by coffee aficionados that ersatz coffee is a temporary fix only – a prelude to the real thing, a stop-gap, an emergency standby, the free taste. It can equally be argued that the world would not function as well without the ersatz coffees, which in reality actually make the real coffee taste so much better by comparison.

The same can be argued successfully for movies shared on the Internet. The “free taste” actually enhances the hedonic value of the movie experience and leads to more movie admissions at higher prices.

Cinema attendance figures for the last two years indicate that more people are going to the cinema than at any time in the last sixty years.  Yep –  records are being broken, daily.

According to a recent report by Price Waterhouse, the Ancillary markets and new technologies have revolutionized profit potential. Over the last decade, ancillary markets have grown by over 30%. The home video market alone has grown over 200%. The combined worldwide filmed entertainment market will achieve sales of $118.9 billion in 2009, a 7.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Source: Price Waterhouse Cooper.

There are very few industries that can claim a 7.1% compound annual growth. (Then again, there are very few industries that have millions of PR people working for them for free, downloading files like mad for the ersatz taste.)

The hedonic value for consumers of attending a cinema screening is being proven daily at the Box office in leading file sharing countries like :

Headline: Slovakia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Russia were the top performing European countries for cinema attendance growth in 2008.

Russia saw the largest amount of increased ticket sales, 124 million, up 16% from 107 million in 2008. Turkey, however posted a jump of almost 27%, with 38.5 million admissions.
Across Central Europe, Slovakia stood out with an 18.2% gain, to 3.3 million admissions, but still down compared to a strong 2006, with 3.4 million admissions.
Bulgarians were back up to 2.8 million admissions, a 12.1% increase, but below a five year high of 3.1 million admissions in 2004.
Poland's 3.4% rise brought a five-year high of  almost 34 million admissions

...and:

Headline: Box office goes boom
According to Box Office Mojo, an online site that crunches movie revenue data, February admissions were up more than 10 per cent over last year, and that came on the heels of the first-ever billion-dollar January. Compared to previous annual revenues, 2009 is tracking as Hollywood's most lucrative year ever, with the current year-to-date box-office standing at about $1.8 billion US -- as much as a 20-per-cent increase over same-period totals from the past three years.

In summary, the Content Industries claims that file sharing carried out on P2P technologies and networks is damaging their bottom line is sheer and utter  (warning – expletive forthcoming) bullshit.

It is akin to claiming that file sharing is stopping young couples from going to the cinema and the lack of “over the shoulder arm maneuvers” is leading to negative population growth.

In closing – if the industry’s claims that file sharing is hurting their bottom line is based on fact, rather than self creative litigation justification, then why during a depression are more people going to the movies than file sharing for free ?

My answer is that consumers are a lot more discerning than Hollywood and can actually taste the difference between instant coffee and real coffee.

The attention that Governments and the Courts should give the content industry about these claims is the same attention that Starbucks gives to Coles when the price of Nescafe in Coles drops down to $7.00 during sales. Nothing.

References
Three CD pirates jailed in Thailand
http://www.ifpi.com/content/section_news/20090225.html

Passion Helps Record Year At Global Box-office
http://www.zeeks.com/wirestory/?story=0fc3m7kv

Box office, admissions rise in 2006
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117960597.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

Box office goes boom
http://www.vancouversun.com/Cars/office+goes+boom/1364236/story.html

European cinema bounces back in 2006
http://www.obs.coe.int/about/oea/pr/mif2007.html

Weekend box office figures
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/weekendboxoffice


Keywords:  damages, bull, box office, PR, Hedonic Value, Dolby, coffee