Many may not agree with me on this one, and my co-editor may even have a thing or two to say about intellectual property rights, however given the Pirate Bay's recent announcements that it is;
The market is dictating, from the bottom up, how it wants content and how much it wants to pay. The answer is, in many cases, the big bupkis. But as Radiohead displayed with the InRainbows experiment, there is not just one model to approach the consumer with. The 'experimental rock' giants offered a variety of different methods of purchase, beginning with the free distribution of the album, or choice for the consumer to purchase the collectors box set at £40. Some did the former, some did the latter and some paid 'what they thought it was worth'. The average figures on the last point vary from £2 - £5 per album, but an array of reports suggest that in excess of £10m was made on the album. Of this, the artist should be ready to negotiate heavily with the record label (but that's another issue).
But wait, I hear you cry, "That's all well and good for a band with a following such as Radiohead, but what about the up and coming artists?"
Well, no doubt we wouldn't want to stop anyone making money from their art- the point of the Pirate Bay is liberalisation of the market, if not entire anarcho-capitalisation. If this can go viral, then anything can. Anyone with one iota of marketing sense can capitalise on 4 million plus hits, and if you can't- then that my friends, is survival of the fittest. It's safe to say that labels should be taking risks on artists who are seen to be making waves- they have the cash to front, after all.
Lastly, it's worth mentioning that to rid our radios, and specfically my ear drums of some of this babbling nonsense you hear nowadays, a bit of a more difficult market entry might be just the trick. Artists would make it on merit, not on the back of what they want you to listen to, and let's not forget it was only in 2005 that Sony, Warner and Universal settled out of court to the tune of over $20m (with EMI soon to follow) for payola-type bribery.
The music and film industry are by no means clean. Don't let them paint themselves as the victims here.
So the Institute for Public Policy Research wants us to believe that during a time of growing global instability, rising unemployment and foreign threats, we should slash our defence budget and scrap Trident, the UK's nuclear deterrent?
Well, you read my view on this in the title of this post. What a bunch of bloody buffoons.
Not happy with Brown's acheivements thus far in discrediting the United Kingdon and it's economy (read: our financial crisis, the FSA and the gold reserves, his inability to handle parliament and not forgetting of course, his face) the IPPR now seeks for the UK to hand over its sovereignty, urging, "a broader appeal for Britain to do more to co-operate with Europe and stop relying on the US when it comes to security."
Way to throw it in the face of our special and enduring relationship, boys. If you want to steer the UK toward Europe, you'll need a hell of a bigger ore than that.
In launching the new, centre-right eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists this month, the Conservatives have received an awful lot of flak from the left-wing. We're allying ourselves to fascists (a lie), who celebrate the Waffen SS (a lie), who hate minorities (a lie), and who are alienating us from our moderate allies in Europe.
Well, the last point perhaps held a grain of truth. But Dan Hannan debunked the greater part of the myth that the European People's Party (EPP) that we were leaving (and Hannan had already left!) were moderates, including, as they do, Mussolini's Duce-worshipping grand-daughter, apologists for Austro-fascism and Anschluss, and Spanish Francoists. In essence, they aren't afraid to embrace fascism, so long as the fascists support EU integration.
Wartime animosity between Poland and Germany could resurface after a new election manifesto published by the [German governing EPP-leading euro-fanatical] Christian Democratic Union (CDU) pledged to promote the cause of those expelled. In 1945 millions of ethnic Germans were forced from their homes after a redrawing of the border resulted in their lands becoming part of Poland. ... Erika Steinbach, the leader of the German expellees' movement and an influential CDU politician, has become a hate-figure in Poland, especially after it became known that her family had moved to Polish lands annexed by the Third Reich following its 1939 invasion.
Finally, the BBC have lifted their ban on any story non-MJ related. Now we can more easily find out what's going on in the rest of the world, as told by lefty-expense-claiming-hacks. Joy.
Alan Milburn will step down as an MP at the next General Election. Shocking that another Labour MP has lost complete faith in the direction of the party. (Ed: The party has a direction?)
As Tory Bear has reported already on this, KRO will keep it brief.
Don't Panic Media, whoever they are- have a shoddy excuse for journalism in this video about the "New Young Conservatives". The questions must be asked;
- Why were these hacks allowed to roam free with the camera and microphone at social events? - Why do we tolerate some of the silly things being said by CF members?
Nevertheless, it gives us a good introspective insight into how CF members act and in a few cases, why they think of themselves and 'Young Conservatives'. Things like this can do a great deal of damage to both CF and to the party. KeepRightOnline believes in the right to free speech and free media, but the point is the second event shown in the video was inevitably supposed to be a 'lash up'- having 'reporters' there (for lack of a more derogatory term) is not wise.
KeepRightOnline is proud to say that although they interviewed our editor extensively- he obviously didn't give anything juicy away enough to be featured. No news is good news, eh?
[caption id="attachment_445" align="aligncenter" width="437" caption="John Bercow in front of the Lords"][/caption]
The Commons yesterday appointed John Bercow, known Labour-panderer and socialist-coddler to be the Speaker of the House of Commons. Tory Bear says it best in his snippet from the Standard piece, "New Speaker, New Danger". The Labour Party have decided to play partisan politics with a real chance to refresh the House of Commons, and for this they will go down as perverters of democracy (even further than they currently will).
The row over public expenditure has been hotting up lately, and KeepRightOnline has been KeepingOurMouthsShut until something more evident came to light about Brown's lies. Well, Fraser Nelson delivers a blow to Browns Lies today, in actually costing the cuts.
The fact is that while Gordy B talks a big game about Labour having raised the top rate of tax to avoid public spending cuts, the figures he spouted at PMQs recently just don't add up.
You cannot keep lying to the voters, Brown. I hear in the not too distant future, the public bellowing that terse mantra attributed to your dear chum Sir Alan.
The Young Conservative has a cracking story today about how one of George 'the cat' 'Hussein' Galloway submitted an expense claim on a Back Boris receipt, as distributed by Conservative Future activists during the London Mayoral campaign.
KeepRightOnline don't mean to be akin to salmon on this issue, but it's becoming clearer by day that as far as we have stuck our (the public's) noses into the MP 'Expenses Scandal' (for want of a more recognisable term), what on Earth is coming of it?
The main media organisations are blowing things like black marks well out of proportion. I'm not saying there aren't real stories in this, or that this whole issue is irrelevant (although maybe we wish to consider the outcomes in relation to public sector expenditure on the whole- read: £586.25bn budget in 2008) but the real stories are ones like this, where parties are shown to be clearly fleecing the taxpayers.
The expenses debate may easily have been a stepping stone in evaluating public spending as a whole, and really creating an efficienct government economy, but at the moment, we're still more concerned about duck houses and magazines.
Last night, with millions of others, I gleefully updated my iPhone 3G with the latest 3.0 software, featuring the long awaited Spotlight, Copy/Paste, MMS, Tethering and FindMyiPhone (MobileMe required) features. While many of these are underwhelming (and yes, wait a minute, this is NOT a tech blog)- the FindMyiPhone feature is particularly scary.
Of course unless you're the epitome of naive, you know that cellular phone signals can be tracked anywhere, for the most part- but to show me and map it in Google Maps lends a new and chilling ease to the invasion. I wouldn't be so fussed, as through MobileMe, only I can really access this feature- however the software showed me where I was BEFORE I updated my iPhone last night (on the Euston Road, as above) even though Apple informed me this was not possible as the functionality was not enabled on the previous iPhone 3G software.
So basically... then always have known where I am. It's probably time to stop visiting those bordellos.
Apologies for being MIA recently, for the most part, things are getting very hectic around here.
While many issues spring to mind, the foremost are: a) How the BNP do not matter b) How protests and dispute does notmean that Ahmadinejad didn't win the Iranian Elections
So what'll it be? KRO will tackle these issues as you decide... vote now (and please, no protests!)
So this weekend's flown by and KRO apologises for the lack of any 'general bloggerizing' over the course.
In the realm of UK politics, things are very much the same- we are still held hostage to a shabby and shortfalling Labour government, at which revelations this week proved Peter Mandelson is holding together with no less than a few pills to ease the pain.
Our friends in the Middle-East have had a busy weekend, with the 'shock' result in the Iranian elections (which would have been a shock either way, let's be honest)- and Netanyahu proclaiming that he would support a demilitarised Palestinian state. It's all go.
Sadly, Britain had its first swine flu death, as a 38 year old woman succumbed to the disease, however 'health officials' have insisted that the risk of death from the virus is still very low.
The Tories have outlined their plans for scrapping the primary school SATs and replace them with a Year 7 test, at the beginning of secondary school.
So why all this recapping? Well KeepRightOnline is painting a picture today, of just how ridiculously busy one weekend can be. For those able to keep up with it all, we salute you. More analysis and less re-reporting of new to come... we swear.
Two of the hottest blogs on the block, KeepRightOnline and Sassy Conservative have collaborated on this extra special post-election homage to our beloved David Cameron. Entitled, "True Blue," we hope you enjoy!
The first point to make is that the Conservatives were the only mainstream party to get more votes than last time. The two pro-Brussels parties, Labour and the LibDems, were hammered. Anti-federalist parties won seven out of every ten ballots cast.
Sadly, this news was completely lost in all the noise about the tiny BNP (whose share of the vote, by the way, went down slightly from last time.) Why? Because journalists, like Labour politicians, indulge themselves whenever the BNP comes up. They like to make themselves feel better by ranting about fascism - thereby underlining what nice, caring, anti-racist people they are. The trouble is that, by bigging it up, they give the BNP precisely the disproportionate coverage that brought it its two seats.
By the last week of the campaign, Labour activists had given upon any attempt at positive arguments. Instead, they went around saying: "Vote Labour to stop the BNP". Sadly, their party is so detested that their words had the opposite effect.
Incidentally, I hope Nick Griffin's acceptance speech will finally have driven into the skulls of some BBC reporters that the BNP is not "far Right". The man barely mentioned immigration; instead, he spent all his time excoriating the privatisation of state industries. His is a far Left party: it believes in nationalisation, higher taxes, state subsidies for factories, massive expenditure on the NHS and state pensions and (although it tends to keep quiet about this one) the abolition of the monarchy.
Not that BBC producers care about any of this, of course. For them, "Right-wing" is a handy synonym for "baddie". Anyone who is sufficiently odious - from the revolutionary ayatollahs in Tehran to the Stalinist nostalgics in Russia - is "Right-wing" in the idiom of our state broadcaster. Is Griffin a total arse? Yup. Therefore, to your earnest BBC producer, he must be Right-wing.
Daniel Hannan MEP is a British politician and Member of the European Parliament, representing South East England for the Conservative Party. He presently serves on the Committee on Fisheries and the Delegation for Relations with Afghanistan. Daniel is also a journalist, writing leaders and a blog for the The Daily Telegraph. He has also published several books arguing for radical democratic reform, the most recent being the incredibly sound, "The Plan," which is a KeepRightOnline 'must have'.
It seems everyone's least favourite racist (who's our most favourite? Russell Peters?) was pelted with eggs today by 200+ protestors while giving an interview outside Parliament. I guess the yolk's on him. (Ok, that's enough of that.)
After some hubbub post-election (*sigh*, yes- he was elected to be an MEP) this was always going to be likely, however KeepRightOnline thought perhaps less embryonic ammunition was required. You know... more the kind that does this.
Not that we'd endorse that kind of thing, of course.
This weekend is only going to get more and more interesting. A quick look at the Beeb's Council Election Map tells you one hell of a lot about the current state of this government. It's been a long time since Tories took that many seats, and that many seats in the North, especially. It is a good day.
For all the hoo-hah over the 'other' parties, DC and co. have done extremely well in the UK's local elections this week, and Gordon Brown has shown us yet again why he a sniveling, sorry excuse for a Prime Minister.
KeepRightOnline maintains that this government's mandate ran out long ago, however for it to keep getting worse, and for them to keep clinging on requires a special kind of selfishness, and a special kind of contempt for the British public. Day after day, and resignation after resignation, the situation worsens for government and for country. Walking through Whitehall yesterday, one couldn't help but turn to face Parliament Square and sigh. A sigh for the British public, a sigh for the Labour government and a sigh to quell the overwhelming urge to storm the Palace and demand Comrade Brown's head on a plate.
Sunday will be especially revealing, as if the past few weeks have not been enough. The reason the public did not punish the Tories for the expenses scandal is that the public were indeed not even outraged by the expenses scandal (that's right, I said it). The public, KeepRightOnline feels, were more concerned with the way they have been governed- backed into a corner, surrounded by databases, stealth taxes and stripped of their liberties. The people know that while the Conservatives were just as guilty regarding the expenses, the party acted swiftly, and were certainly not the ones who have created this god-awful mess over the past twelve years.
Gordon Brown, the people are speaking, and they're speaking in the most eloquent and respectful manner- through the ballot box. Will you not now listen? Will you not now show one iota of democratic decency in stepping down and calling a General Election? Are you this pathologically incapable of seeing the writing on the wall?
This moment in history is staring you dead in the face, Brown- and all you can do is look at your shoes and hope it goes away. It will not. We will not. You are done.
KeepRightOnline would like to take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who went out and did their democratic deed yesterday. You voted. You made a difference. Regardless of who voted for, you did the right thing.
KeepRightOnline encountered far too many non-voters/abstainers/idiots (whatever you want to call them) yesterday and decided that while today will hopefully be a landslide for the Conservatives, and Sunday will knock Labour into fourth- it's about time we highlighted to those who can't be bothered, just why they now have no reason to complain until the next set of elections.
Kudos also to this man, who has said what dozens of Labour MPs have been dying to say.
Full transcript of the letter: Dear Gordon,
We both love the Labour Party. I have worked for it for twenty years and you for far longer. We know we owe it everything and it owes us nothing.
I owe it to our Party to say what I believe no matter how hard that may be. I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely.
That would be disastrous for our country. This moment calls for stronger regulation, an active state, better public services, an open democracy. It calls for a Government that measures itself by how it treats the poorest in society. Those are our values, not David Cameron's.
We therefore owe it to our country to give it a real choice. We need to show that we are prepared to fight to be a credible Government and have the courage to offer an alternative future.
I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our Party a fighting chance of winning. As such I am resigning from Government.
The Party was here long before us, and we want it to be here long after we have gone. We must do the right thing by it.
I am not seeking the leadership, nor acting with anyone else. My actions are my own considered view, nothing more. If the consensus is that you should continue, then I will support the government loyally from the backbenches. But I do believe that this question now needs to be put.
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Ladies and gentleman, fellow countrymen go forth today and do your democratic duty.
Today you have an opportunity for Vote for Change. To vote for the change we all so desperately need, in these times of economic and political instability.
The EU must hear the British public's voice. Let us be loud and let us be firm.
The Guardian has made yet another cheap pop at the Conservatives' new Movement for European Reform allies, the Polish Law and Justice Party. They demonised the entire eurosceptic movement by citing one MEP, Dr Urszula Krupa:
Global warming is a lie, homosexuality is a "pathology" and Europe is becoming a "neo-totalitarian" regime ... [for this] militant Roman Catholic and strong Polish nationalist
They go into depth about her background and associates at a radio station of which she was once editor. All very damning. Just one problem: she's not a member of the Law and Justice Party.
She is, actually, a member of the League of Polish Families, which is a militant traditionalist anti-capitalist Roman Catholic nationalist party. And whilst some of its members are in the same European grouping as Law and Justice - and will, thus, probably sit with the Conservatives - Krupa does not: she sits with UKIP.
The country breathed a sigh of relief today as criminals wondered whether or not they may soon have someone to fear as Home Secretary.
That's right friends, Jacqui Smith aka Little Miss Porn-Allowance (that wasn't as clever as it could have been) has announced she'll giving up stepping down as Home Secretary before Gordon Brown rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic churns out the Labour Cabinet reshuffle.
How embarrassing this must be- but we'll bet this delusional hack thinks she's some kind of Jerry Maguire. The only question left to be answer is...
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