ACAPOR's President wants to silence people... forever

Remember Fran Nevrkla, Chairman and CEO of Phonographic Performance Ltd, a UK music industry association, that wanted death penalty for those who download copyright material from the Internet without the authors' consent?

It is possible that in Portugal we now have a radical of that kind. Someone saying he is Nuno Pereira from ACAPOR left a comment in the Portuguese newspaper Público (check out the first chronological comment) asking the Government to "eradicate pirate parties, Tugaleaks, Anonymous of every ages, Paula's somethings and filthy Ludwig's, whose minds only serve to destabilize our very fragile society, since they are the mentors for the computer criminality that terrorizes our country".

In parts:

Nuno Pereira, whom I've criticized before, is ACAPOR's President. ACAPOR, whom I've criticized before, is the Portuguese association of movie rental stores. You might remember them from the news, since they were hacked by Anonymous during Operation Payback.

Pirate Parties... Well, you know who they are, even if their target is the Portuguese Pirate Party, who have presented criminal charges against ACAPOR in the past, since ACAPOR has violated privacy laws.

Tugaleaks is a Portuguese website inspired on Wikileaks, who's aim is to do the same as Wikileaks but on a local (Portuguese) level. Unsurprisingly, they've also been vocally critical of ACAPOR.

Anonymous... well, not only I'm sure you've heard about them, but I also already told you about them hacking ACAPOR (defacing their website and leaking 650Mb of e-mails). This is Anonymous message to ACAPOR.

Finally... Ludwig and Paula: they're both Portuguese researchers, and both are bloggers. In their blogs, both Ludwig and Paula wrote more than once criticizing ACAPOR and their attempts to restrict free speech amongst other things. Of course, the name Paula might ring a bell if you're a reader of this blog: after all I'm married with her (and I have no wish to see her eradicated, mind you!). Why them? Well... There was a Portuguese Conference on "Pirate Culture" previously this year, and both the Nuno Pereira, the Portuguese Pirate Party, Ludwig and Paula were there doing presentations and debating.

And maybe those "minds only serve to destabilize our very fragile society, since they are the mentors for the computer criminality that terrorizes our country", since if you see the videos from the event (link above) you'll start thinking that Paula, Ludwig and André from the Pirate Party make sense, while ACAPOR's points of view seem more of those of some lunatic. Of course, the "fragile society" in question isn't "our society" but ACAPOR's association. And the "computer criminality that terrorizes our country" that they talk about is the fact that they "use computers to show their points of view in such a well-structured way that ACAPOR doesn't have arguments against them". Free speech, you know?

What scares me is that this guy is doing this kind of thing long enough to prove he's serious about it. And it scares me because he was there, face to face with Paula and Ludwig, debating issues on which they have different positions, but an... "wealthy debate", I guess I can say. And then, each of them went home... and one of them is crying out loud asking for the others to be eradicated.

A long needed blog post

I should have written lot's of things on this blog that I've been delaying for a long time... And accumulating issues. Here's a short summary, so I can throw this behind my back:

Activism

ANSOL, the Portuguese FSFE sister association "Associação Nacional para o Software Livre" (National Association for Free Software) is being revitalized, and I am now its direction's Vice-President for the years 2011-2012. If you wondered why I seemed with even less time this last few months, this is probably one of the reasons for it. We've been doing lot's of things, lately organizing the Portuguese event for Software Freedom Day or participating in a Public Consultation on which Open Formats should the country's computer systems use. Today isn't really a "good news" day regarding Free Software in Portugal, since the two parties now in the Government changed their minds since last year (when they were opposition) and decided to reject a proposal that would make the country spend 50% less in Software Licenses by using Free Software.

Music

I've been more silent in 2011, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working. In fact several cool things happened: in March I've released a new album, for the first time in vinyl. A release party was held, here's a small fan-made video of the show:

In August, the latest Merankorii album, "Alain", was released in both cassette tape or tape + CD editions. Here's one of its tracks:

Merankorii - Intermezzo by A Beard of Snails Records

And for December there are also news - some things I'm not yet well sure to publicly state, but one is for sure: I'll be playing live in Lisbon at the 20th, and you're invited to go. Feel free to RSVP in one of the several places where the concert is announced:

• Reverbnation
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Facebook

I've also participated in various compilations, but let me highlight two of them, because not only (in one case) it has Merankorii, but because both feature new tracks from Kokori, my industrial duo, that spent the year writing what's going to be, eventually, the best album ever: Necktar 2017 Volume 3 and Icaro I. Here's Kokori's track on Icaro I:

What Else? Well... lot's of things, really ;-), but I guess this blog post is already long enough for a "catch up". I intend to do more of these, but this is not a promise ;-)

The "Music Industry" does it again

It never ends, the tactics are old but they keep using them - oddly enough they keep working next to politicians.

The sales of music in Portugal fell 40% in the first semester of 2011, comparing to the same period of 2010, according to the Portuguese Phonographic Association (AFP).[1]

They attribute this fall to so-called "piracy" (the unauthorized copy of copyrighted material), failing to explain how to they infer the correlation, and ignoring the studies that suggest exactly the opposite. Worse: still according to them, "this is the hugest fall in a total of 50 different markets in the world", and those include countries with both a bigger and a smaller piracy rate, suggesting that actually there's no relation at all.

But why do they want to suggest such a relationship? Well, AFP requested a meeting with the Culture State Secretary, where they intend to ask the Government to introduce a gradual response law[2] in order to "stop piracy". Such a law would make people considered guilt without the right to a fair trial, take the right to privacy to every citizen, make people pay for a (private) service they can't use, and take off Internet access to an whole family because one of its members was simply accused of doing "piracy" (all together ignoring the fact that Europe is opposed to such kind of laws[3]).

Also interesting to see is that AFP doesn't really care that much into actually doing what they can - without any law changes - to reduce piracy: take for instance into consideration the research[4] that concludes that dumping DRM has both the effect of increasing sales and of reducing piracy, and compare it with the pro-DRM stance they have.

All in all, and to sum up, the answer politicians must give to this kinds of tactics of requests is really simple. AFP's Eduardo Simões stated that piracy destroys the income of musicians, authors, artists and record producers. The answer to such an allegation can only be: "Where's proof?"

[1] http://blitz.aeiou.pt/=f77109

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_response

[3] http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.17/3strikes-opposed-isoc-europe

[4] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/a-game-we-all-win-dumping-drm-can-increase-sales-while-reducing-piracy.ars