May 19, 2025
The end of fileswappers
Different diseconomies
By Dan Poster, ASP
Scholars have found the reasons for the demise of the media industry in the early 21st century. It had to do with the prison terms for murder.
According to researchers from Xinghua University at Harvard Campus who have finally decrypted old files associated with the "content revolution" years, the industry started exacting enormous fines and trying to impose harsh prison terms to anyone caught sharing files or downloading them. Thanks to their political clout and a friendly government, these terms were easily enforced, thus resulting in a lockdown that paralleled the drug war.
"No to piracy" was a popular rally in the early 2000s, and one that resulted in thousands of incarcerated "fileswappers", as they were known then. With a government that depended absolutely on the media and the big content distribution companies, this was almost inevitable.
The problem with this scenario is what economists called an asymmetry: the prison term for copying files was significantly higher than that for killing a human being.
So, the mafia started offering protection schemes: if you received a cease and desist or similar, it was easy to go to the local padrino, and have him (it was almost always a man) threaten the poor paralegal that actually folded the letter that you received. That paralegal would then proceed to lose your case among the thousands of old files a large firm usually had, and everybody would be happy. If the paralegal refused, they died. Simply as that.
Of course, the firms had more mechanisms to ensure that the letters reached their destination, and the more prominent lawyers had protection, but the paralegals were the crucial interface, and easy targets at that.
The economics of filesharing were cruelly simple: Download a song, go to jail for five years. Kill the paralegal, go to jail for one year.
After a few years of this the industry transformed itself, and content became free and easily distributed, but all in all it has been estimated that there were at least two thousand deaths stemming from this "content revolution", and among its effects were the demise of the big media companies that didn’t adjust their business model as well as the party in power at the time.
That was also the origin of Killer Records, the biggest production and recording company, which proudly boasts about its dark origins.
Posted by Camilo at 9:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 17, 2025
Technological freedom
By Esteban KrRasnowski
At last the courageous men and women that demanded a government hearing for their abuses could make their voices heard.
But this time it was achieved through the use of more subtle means. As your probably know from our previous news, the last three marches all have ended in massive arrests, and numerous and grave injuries to all present there. The brutal riot police and their tactics, including noise cannons and a mild version of mustard gas have all taken their toll, resulting even in deaths. Naturally, mainstream media has kept quiet.
This morning, though, the amassed group "Health and Liberty" had the use of specially nanofactured armored suits, that allowed the group to march even after the infamous noise guns went into full blast attack.
These nanosuits, which some sources say come from El Salvador, are distributedly encrypted and maintain integrity even when separated from the main group. The participants slap a two kilo past on their backs, and pretty soon the are completely protected from noise, gases and blasts, up to and including rifle fire, as the astounded police discovered this morning.
This nanotech is only one of the examples of the benefits for the people that the government of the USA is keeping away from the people. Luckily for us, there are other places where to get those suits.
Today there were no arrests, and more important, no injuries. Tomorrow, we will have the liberties that our forefathers included in their social contract. No more hiding behind closed doors. No more fear of beatings. Free expression!
Life to the Republic!
Posted by Camilo at 2:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Riot at Sentry Park
Matthew Smith, APS
Today, at eight am. we were witnesses to one of the latests crazy riots that are plaguing the city as of lately. A throng of protesters violently attacked the platoon of Riot Control Patrolmen that were dispatched to make sure the day's celebrations were in order. MAny of these Patrolmen were injured in the clash, and about a third of the protesters, 105 in all, were arrested.
What distinguish this confrontation from others in the last weeks is the massive use of illegal nanoarmour. The protesters, all suited up in nanoarmor, were pressing on the Patrolmen, whoi, despite their efforts, could do nothing to keep the mass of the mobilization at bay. All in all more than forty of our brave Patrolmen were injured, and the Rights Protector was pressing charges to al of the arrested subversives.
This was Matthew Smith, reporting from the Sentry Plaza, May 17 2015.
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