Pirate or Privateer?

Pirates are the scourge of modern civilization, robbers of digital media, or so big media would have us believe. Yet the biggest problem big media has with Pirates is that the Pirates are not on the side of the big media companies. Pirates, Bootleggers, smugglers are usually on the side of the little guy.

Irresponsible claptrap?

No quite, some the wealthiest families have dodgy pasts, they made their money illegally and then pulled up the rope ladder to stop anyone following and complain if someone dears to do what they did. Looking back at the past of western world we see that much of our power came from control of the seas via naval power and 'Pirates' relabelled and rebranded as Privateers, which is nothing more that an legal Pirate!

So what's the difference?

Not much, except one is on side the side of a government (Privateer) and one is not (Pirate). They do much the same thing, in much the same way and have similar reputations to those of other countries (who think Privateers are Pirates!). In same cases the Privateers even did a little Piracy off the cards, so to speak, often to harass other countries shipping to gain leverage for their governments future negotiations (the black ops of their day).

Modern day
So why can't a modern day digital media Pirate become Privateer?

They can!

If you are a Pirate, support the Artists Unchained initiative. It's that simple. Become an AUP (Artists Unchained Privateer*) and fly the flag of freedom. The only real difference is that the media you share is legal, and your crew is the whole of fandom, your 'captains' are crazed artists, the government (in a regulator sense) is the Artists Unchained initiative, the legal team is the Creative Commons. Sail the digital ether sea and join the first 'virtual country' in existence, a country named freedom (I may have gone a little too far on the melodrama on that last bit!)

The more artists that jump ship, the better. Time to build an armada and slay the big media Kraken.

PS: * AUP is also an acronym for 'Acceptable Use Policy' :p

Page Template

Google Page example
This is an example of a download page made using Google Pages;

Artist's download page template

No hosting costs
The idea is that the download page should cost you (the artist) nothing to host. The page also allows you (should you so wish) to host 'Google ads' to gain a secondary income stream.

Metalinks
This download page would only serve as a place for fans to find the artist's official P2P metalinks. However, Google pages allows you to create a whole website should you wish to.

No bandwidth costs
As all the media is distributed via P2P it is stored on your fan's hard drives; so it costs you nothing in storage or bandwidth. This is also an important consideration as many free hosts (And free website via your ISP) have bandwidth limits. Excessive bandwidth use can get a page taken down, but with P2P handling the download side of things - this should never happen.

Even fans who do not donate money are helping by hosting your zip files (providing P2P hosting services - i.e. they are running a P2P 'Art-Server'.)

Freedom for all
The concept behind this, is that any artist, no matter where they are in the world can get their media out into the wild and earn money from the global community. Using systems like Pay Pal, even those in poor areas who are denied banking facilities can gain funds.