Apr 09
30
The Danger of Social Computing or Publishing Maps
On Neil Diamonds Album, Hot August Night, he calls out… Hello
out there Tree People…..
His words – which impressed me over thirty years ago are
obviously an acknowledgement by Neil, that even the non-paying tree people had
a value, by adding to the carnival atmosphere of the concert and were therefore worthy of
his recognition.
He didn’t chastise them for being free-loaders – everyone knew
they were freeloading. He merely acknowledged them warmly.
Could it be that part of the reason for his success was his treatment of the freeloaders and the subsequent public understanding of his comment to the the tree people?
However it was also those words that in my mind justified
the actions of myself and three friends jumping the fence at the Western Springs
Stadium in Auckland New Zealand a few years later to
watch Led Zeppelin.
Did we break the law, obviously, so why did we do it ?
Well at the time – we were poor starving students that couldn’t
afford the $7.00 concert entry ticket price.
Shit, for me, $7.00 equaled 2 loaves of bread, 2 dozen eggs,
a ½ pound of butter and a jar of coffee
and bag of sugar for two weeks (Basically I lived on a variation of poached egg
on toast for breakfast lunch and tea). In other words – the price of the concert
tickets was two weeks food bill but I had serious conflict. From a higher power
than that which employed the security guards around the Western Springs venue -
my girlfriend wanted to see “Stairway to Heaven“ being performed live.
Can you imagine me saying no? (Especially when we were
staying at digs only 800 meters from the Western Springs Stadium fence-line.)
The peer pressure was to jump the fence.
Now imagine if we had been strangers to the area and the
four of us had driven there by car and stopped to ask a lone walker for
directions to the Concert.
Hi, can you give us directions to the Zep concert please.
Sure, the average citizen would answer – and then they would
proceed to give directions.
Then we would proceed to jump the fence and enjoy the
concert for free.
Can you imagine the following Newspaper story in 1976 …..
Individual giving directions to Rock and Roll concert freeloaders
gets 12 months Jail and $50,000 fine.
No you can’t because in 1976 – jumping the fence wasn’t much
of a crime.
The judges would have laughed it out of the court…. And on
the question of jailing the signpost, the directions giver, the guidebook, the
UBD map, the community pin board, the search engine;
well I think on that question, thirty years ago, our Judiciary
would have said – no – that’s quite impossible.
Giving directions to people that you suspect might jump the
fence is certainly not a crime.
So – tell me. Am I growing crazy or did we with the Pirate
Bay case just see the Convention
for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms get overturned
in Stockholm.
What happened to the right to give directions without being
automatically associated as a criminal?
Here’s the link to the Translation of the Courts ruling in
the Pirate Bay Case – now translated to English http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/04/piratebayverdicts.pdf
Here’s the Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. I challenge anyone
to find a reference to “jail term” as a remedy recommended by the convention.
If the Swedish courts don’t fix their own mistake – the European
International Court has no choice but to intervene.
Article 1 – Obligation to
respect human rights
The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within
their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this
Convention.
Article 6 – Right to a fair
trial
- In the determination of his
civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him,
everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time
by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment
shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from
all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or
national security in a democratic society, where the interests of
juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require,
or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special
circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
Pirate Bay Judge Conflict of Interest?
Well I'm pretty sure the entire case was about publicity….. so the quesiton remains – did the Pirate Boys have a chance of a fair trial ?
We at Perceptric would opine – no, they did not.