Copyright pirates taste their own medicine

TEE HEE. THE COPYRIGHT PIRATES have been copied. And they are not happy.

You know that group of evil content thieves, er, “nice helpful sharers”, called The Pirate Bay?

For years they’ve been pushing the idea that it’s fine to make whatever use you like of other people’s digital intellectual property.

But it has just been revealed that several mystery people have set up exact copies of The Pirate Bay website and are making money from them.

This is an utterly despicable thing to do, and I wish I had thought of it first.

The original pirates moaned on their site a few days ago: “We've noticed at least three sites that are tricking users to buying access or similar. We do not condone this behavior.”

I wonder if they are going to sue the people copying them? I learned this from a reader who thought it might amuse me, since I have complained in the past about pirates who steal stuff from us hardworking individuals in the creative industries (often known by the technical term “lazy good-for-nothings”).

Oh, but how I would love to be a fly on the wall when the pirates finally approach an intellectual property lawyer to fight back.

PIRATES: “Hi, we’re the guys from The Pirate Bay and we’d like to do something about people ripping off our stuff.”

LAWYER: [FALLS OFF CHAIR].

***

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama and his deputy Joe Biden have both made statements in favor of same-sex marriage in the past week. Clearly a major announcement is in the offing. Poor Michelle. I just hope the guys will be happy together.

***

A TEACHER DUE to be transferred to a new school found a clause in his contract which said he could stay put if he was 40 percent disabled. He promptly announced he was 40 percent deaf.

His bosses were surprised.

PRINCIPAL: “But you’re not deaf.”

TEACHER: “What?”

PRINCIPAL: “I said, you’re not deaf.”

TEACHER: “What?”

Etc.

The ruse worked brilliantly. I was told about this by a reader who knew that I had written about the usefulness of “selective hearing” in the past.

More than 600 teachers in Yavatmal, Maharastra, have now discovered they are 40 percent deaf, the Indian news media reported last week.

Education department officials are furious, while staff groups are congratulating themselves on finding a brilliant new way to control their futures, my reader says.

Mind you, I wouldn’t call selective hearing “new”. Married men have been using this technique for years.

WIFE: “Did you take the garbage out yet?”

HUSBAND: “Hmm? What?”

WIFE: “Are you deaf?”

Husband: “What?”

Etc.

***

FILM DIRECTOR James Cameron is this week working on a sequel to Avatar. Best title suggestion so far: “Avatar Two: N’avi Blue People Meet Their Grandparents The Smurfs.”

***

GLOBAL INVESTMENTS have just been hit by the news that JP Morgan Chase lost US$2 billion in six weeks of bad share market gambles. Bank boss Jamie Dimon needs to be taught a lesson he will never forget. I propose we send him to John Travolta’s house to deliver a massage.

***

TO GO BACK to where we started, copyright piracy, I’m always nervous about saying anything that could be interpreted as negative about people who steal/ duplicate/ copy entire works from the internet. It often results in abuse. It seems to me that there is a giant hysterical teenage nerd mindset that has infected a proportion of the net and goes into furious rants about “freedom” at the first sign of the most basic bit of law enforcement. If they lived in a place like China, which lacks the rule of law, they’d probably realize that law enforcement is a good thing.

Last night we signed off the last corrections on my “the origin of Mr Jam” book and the publisher is just tinkering with the cover. Now I know that anyone who hijacks and distributes the shipment of paper copies will be condemned as a thief. But anyone who does exactly the same thing with the ebook version will be hailed as a hero. Curious.

It’ll be interesting to try to define the parameters of this giant hysterical teenage nerd mind as a first step towards doing something about it. Any ideas?

***