…And Justice for All


(Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett)

Justice Is Lost
Justice Is Raped
Justice Is Gone
Pulling Your Strings
Justice Is Done
Seeking No Truth
Winning Is All
Find it So Grim
So True
So Real

I must admit that I probably look for the opportunities where I can use Metallica lyrics to express something but this time I think it is quite appropriate. While I am against piracy I must say that I value democracy, freedom of speech, and just legal system over the commercial interests of a reactionary industry. Recently, it seems the commercial values of the movie and music industry is more valuable than a just legal system. Legal companies here in Norway are pushing to get sensitive information (IP, names, addresses etc) from the Internet Service Providers about “suspected” pirates. The attorneys are in other words trying to do the police’s work. Do we really want to privatize the police? I don’t think so.

However, it seems the Norwegian courts are bending over for the movie and music industry. A recent verdict about whether or not a Norwegian ISP has to hand over the identity of a suspected pirate to the attorneys, was today kept secret from the public. I agree with Atle, WTF? How is it possible to keep a verdict which concerns the whole legal system, secret? If private companies are allowed to act as police I would like to know about it.

If the movie and music industry feel the police are not doing enough to solve their cases maybe they have to realize that there are other cirmes (murder, rape, child molestation, trafficing and so on) which are way worse than illegal distribution of music and movies. Second, maybe they should try to deal with this politically like the rest of us. If they are not happy with the way the police is spending their resources maybe should start their own political party and change the way the country is run. Third, why don’t the industry start providing the services we want? How hard can it be? There are plenty of alternatives of people who have understood how to use technology propperly to distribute digital content: NRKbeta, SteamMetallica (of course), and a whole lot of others.

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4 Comments

  1. I just don’t see any reason why they should keep the verdict secret. As if the guy who shared the Max Manus movie has not done everything he can to delete any trace of his crime already.

  2. Good summary. And I agree, the person who released this movie is likely to have done all in his or her power to erase the tracks already.

  3. I can’t see what kind of evidence they are going to find now, several months after the movie was released. Besides if they could I still think having an open democratic legal system is more important than catching one guy who shared a movie.

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