Modest Proposal: Going Piracy Neutral

from the this-post-is-a-test-of-your-sense-of-humor dept

Here's an amusing one out of the UK. Nick Henderson has created something of a Swiftian "modest proposal" for people who feel guilty about infringement. Modeled after the idea of carbon offsets to become "carbon neutral," he suggests a process for becoming "piracy neutral," which is that if you happen to infringe by downloading an unauthorized song, you should freely release a track of your own composition into the world without restrictions.
Henderson truly is trying to give back to the world, because he recorded some basic stems that he's put together and is offering up as the "piracy neutral fun pack", such that you can remix them yourself to create your own new music in an effort to become "piracy neutral."

And, because people who angrily write comments on this site rarely read to the end of the post, I'll just point out that this is a joke, not anything even remotely serious. Laughter is good.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: modest proposal, nick henderson, piracy neutral


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    apauld (profile), 22 May 2013 @ 8:02pm

    Jeez Mike

    You do realize your asking the idiot squad to actually read three whole paragraphs, don't you?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      apauld (profile), 22 May 2013 @ 8:05pm

      Re: Jeez Mike

      BTW, it is very cool.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Hollywood, 22 May 2013 @ 8:48pm

        Sends DMCA Takedown

        This video and the music therein violates copyright law and must be taken down.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
      identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 11:12pm

      Pirate the Beatles, Upload Crap of Your Own... Awesome...

      facepalm... how about you upload a song of equal demand as the one you stole. you know, a song people might actually want as opposed to farting into a kazoo to replace a beatles song?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Anonymous Howard (profile), 22 May 2013 @ 11:57pm

        Re: Pirate the Beatles, Upload Crap of Your Own... Awesome...

        *Whooosh*
        What was that sound? Right, the point flying over your head..

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 12:14am

        Re: Pirate the Beatles, Upload Crap of Your Own... Awesome...

        Double facepalm!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        JamesF (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 12:57am

        Re: Pirate the Beatles, Upload Crap of Your Own... Awesome...

        You notice how these guys trot out the same crap every time. Wouldn't it be nice if all the copyright trolls all agreed to bugger off and sue each other to death for 'stealing' each others 'arguments'?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    horse with no name, 22 May 2013 @ 8:38pm

    whatever

    And, because people who angrily write comments on this site rarely read to the end of the post, I'll just point out that this is a joke, not anything even remotely serious. Laughter is good

    Stupidity is stupidity, even if you think there is a laugh in it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 8:44pm

      Re: whatever

      This is true. All the laughs in the world can't resolve the fact that you're stupid.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
        identicon
        horse with no name, 22 May 2013 @ 10:53pm

        Re: Re: whatever

        It took you 8 minutes to come up with that? How classy!

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 12:14am

          Re: Re: Re: whatever

          How do you know how long it took?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 12:55am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: whatever

            Never mind that, even his math is off. The timestamps say it took me 6 minutes.

            RIAA mathematics, ladies and gentlemen!

            link to this | view in chronology ]

            • icon
              The Groove Tiger (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 8:18am

              Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: whatever

              Actually, with RIAA math, you have to recoup 5000 hours, so it took you zero minutes to come up with it.

              link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 6:54am

          Re: Re: Re: whatever

          And it took you 7 minutes to incorrectly get 8 from 44-38.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Minimum Waged Shill, 22 May 2013 @ 8:43pm

    See Mike, you are promoting piracy!!! Techdirt should be shut down for intentionally encouraging unlawful behavior!!!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 22 May 2013 @ 8:56pm

    That's assuming pirates could make anywhere near equal value.

    But if you could, you'd be keenly protective of it just like the "copyright maximalists"! You may give away your garage band tracks or silly little Youtubery, but if you'd scraped up $100M, coordinated hundreds of talented people, and worked thousands of hours to make a movie, you'd have entirely different opinion about it being "shared" for free. You might even be worried about recovering "sunk (or fixed) costs". Your notions simply don't scale.

    How's this for a remix? Just shorten "And, because people who angrily write comments on this site rarely read to the end of the post, I'll just point out that this is a joke, not anything even remotely serious." down to This site is a joke, not anything even remotely serious.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      AC Unknown, 22 May 2013 @ 9:12pm

      Re: That's assuming pirates could make anywhere near equal value.

      Are you prattling on about your $100,000,000 movie again. OOTB? Get over it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 1:23am

      Re: That's assuming pirates could make anywhere near equal value.

      Yeah, if I made a movie like that I'd never let it get broadcast..

      Blue even when you try to re-frame the issue you do it wrong.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    the other rob, 22 May 2013 @ 9:13pm

    It's actually a better joke than one might have thought...

    ... because the whole "track for a track" idea denigrates the concept of some works having more value than others and reduces artistic expression to fungible commodity.

    That's probably the only thing that the proponents of compulsory licensing and the major record labels agree on.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 7:36am

      Re: It's actually a better joke than one might have thought...

      Now wait a minute. I submit that any music, artwork, video, fiction that I might post as a replacement will be SO bad that they will happily give me ALL of their content just to make me go away. Yeah! Tell me there's no value in bad.

      /s

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 10:54pm

    Laughter is good

    Of course it is.

    And believe me, Mike, people laugh at you all the time.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 12:17am

      Re:

      Only a few people laugh compared to the hundreds that agree with him. Please escort OOTB back to your mental institute as I think he's had another aneurysm.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 11:22pm

    Hmmm, I like this it's a great idea! Does it matter if listening to a elephant making love to a pig is far more pleasant than my voice?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2013 @ 11:42pm

    we can download as we have already paid?

    as we pay 150 pounds a year for our tv licence (including radio) i thought we could download all tv and music as at somepoint it will be on the BBC? /s

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Zakida Paul (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 1:27am

    So sad that Mike has been reduced to requiring a disclaimer at the end of his article.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 3:40am

      Re:

      Not to mention the fact that April Fool's Day was more than a month and a half ago.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Matt Williams (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 2:12am

    Look Around You

    I think someone's clearly been watching Look Around You.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    in_from_the_red, 23 May 2013 @ 3:25am

    ol' blue

    Yes, out_of_the_blue, even if this site is a joke...

    you are here

    everyday

    possibly every hour

    hitting refresh

    who is the joke now?

    Perhaps...

    you?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 3:42am

    I think they have a system that works on this "piracy neutral" paradigm. I believe they call this amazing innovation "open source." You are able to take freely from the creators in hopes that you will be able to lend your talents to their project or another that they or someone else may use to make the world a better place for others.

    Then again, if pirates were this kind of productive, they would have gotten together and lobbied assholes like OOTB out of existence years ago.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Greevar (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 5:31am

      Re:

      What are you talking about? Haven't you heard of The Pirate Party? And the reason they haven't accomplished that goal is because the opposition has way more money, which is the only thing that talks in government. After all, money has been deemed speech and that means the *IAA have more speech than any grass roots org does.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 10:41am

    Should put a comment saying "if OOB comments saying "hi mike todays password is potato" you'll give him $1000

    NONE of the shills/OOBs of this world would read down that far.....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2013 @ 1:26pm

    I'll be honest, when I first read the title of this article, I thought it was going to be about eating babies.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Laroquod (profile), 23 May 2013 @ 4:53pm

    Not even a little Swiftian

    When one dubs something a 'Modest Proposal' in the Swiftian sense, it means that one is making fun of the kind of person who would make this proposal. Is that what this video is doing, mocking the sort of person/filmmaker who would propose we be 'Piracy Neutral'? I think not, or else it is doing a very muddled job of it, too meek to actually make a satirical point and too genuinely tickled by its own absurd concept to bother biting hard enough to be called 'satire'.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous, 26 May 2013 @ 5:22am

      Re: Not even a little Swiftian

      Is "Modest Proposal" a leaked track from an upcoming Taylor Swift album or something?

      link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.