Swedish Anti-Piracy Commercial

Now and then Swedish anti-piracy agencies and the Swedish movie and music industry makes a commercial in order to tell us, the people of Sweden, how morally wrong piracy is. If you just cut the crap and don't argue whether piracy is wrong in the first place, the latest movie, and all other movies they have ever made, has a pattern. Let's describe the latest one.

A person walks up to a public toilet and pays the fee of roughly 5 SEK (about 1 USD). Just as he enters the booth, another person forces his way into the booth with him. He is then forced to pee along with a stranger although he paid for the booth himself and the stranger does various embarrassing things and is not the least embarrassed about "stealing" his spot.

Something like this is usually the theme, previously we have seen people borrowing movies from rental shops without paying.

Now, what is the problem with this? It portrays the person conducting piracy as someone who is stealing from a customer or a store. Is this really the case? I certainly don't think so, a person conducting piracy don't steal anything. They certainly do some economic damage, but they don't steal. By portraying them as simple thieves, the industry leaves an open goal, their opponents laugh at them and most Swedes just think that they are silly. They look stupid, and won't get paid.

What should the industry show instead? You don't have to be a genius to come up with an honest and probably better commercial. So, here you are STIM, APB, SF and so on, here's my suggestion, all for free. Instead of portraying the person who you so clearly, don't want to continue copying your material, as a thief, which he is not and will never associate himself with and therefore will continue copying your material and you have run down your many million SEK commercial down the drain. Why not show him what he actually does, show him how a movie is made, show him how money spent on a movie get people paid for their hard job, show him the set of actors and so on, showing numbers and faces. Don't go all silly and show sentimental letters, just facts, "When you condone piracy, all these people get nothing and to you, they give you the very best of their efforts". This will work, this is honest, this is what piracy is all about and how you might actually win. Stop acting like idiots with a multi-million SEK budget who are unable to send a message but able to make great movies, albums, etc. It ain't that hard, all you need is the ability to reason.

SvD and the war terrorism

It has been quite some time since I felt the need to comment on a newspaper article but I can't let a thing like this pass uncriticized. SvD writes today as a part of an article on terrorism (translated from Swedish).

"Yesterday in the papers pop singer Dilba was complaining about how she was treated after making a "joke" about blowing up airplanes at Arlanda airport. She had been treated "like a terrorist" and been told that she was not allowed to board her aircraft to the US. Instead she should be thankful that society is taking terrorism seriously. The anti terrorist measures she is complaining about is working."

Then the article proceeds to other matters. Let me first say, what a load of complete crap! Does anyone believe that following up on every clue no matter how trivial, will make us safer? Terrorists are not likely to go up to security guards and tell them that they are carrying a bomb. Let us look at the two parties in this story. Why does Dilba joke about blowing up airplane? She is clearly sarcastic about it. This is probably since she as a customer is annoyed to be searched and thinks that the whole procedure is ridiculous. She is therefore "complaining" in her own way, although it's is a stupid move. The staff on the other hand are acting all jumpy, they hear the word bomb and goes nuts. They know what they are looking for and better safe than sorry right? But acting like this is not to take the threats seriously. It's to take things out of proportion and go paranoid. The companies clearly don't mind security at all, they only care about looking secure. So that they can point out that in fact they are doing something. Real security would involve calm and reasonable employees who upon Dilbas remark says "Really? Well, cut the crap. What are you really going to do on your stay in the US? Did we check her bag?". We should praise real work to prevent terrorism, not silly security acts. Real terrorists are smarter than Dilba and therefore the security staff should be smarter as well.

Link to the article (in Swedish).
Link to the article about Dilba (in Swedish).

The execution of Saddam

I'll try to make this short, I do in no way claim to know the answer to "how do we please those that the bastard made to suffer?".

How do you best bring justice to a man whom has done so much "bad" that all punishments are insufficient? What is it that such a man fear the most? Death? I seriously doubt that Saddam had any real "fear" of death. It would be a quick end for him, and he'd leave a ton of conspiracies and legends for his fanatics to breed on. Killing that man serves his own ends, especially if you make the executioners wear black hoods and look like a bunch of thugs. Is that the look of a just deed?

Now, let's instead focus on what would have been a proper punishment? In my opinion he should be kept locked up, so tight that he couldn't lead any outside movement, face all charges. For who has dealt justice for the Curds? For the people of Iran? The people of Kuwait? And so on. Would you like a serial killer to skip the trials of his later victims? I say not. We should not only have sought to kill Saddam in his physical form, but also the myths surrounding him. So that we made sure that the truth of his reign and his deeds were known and available to his followers and enemies. His black print placed properly and truthfully in history. Since now, they live on. And what better way to punish a man than to face his own deeds? For if there is no god, who will make him face his own deeds but we mortals?