"New Statesman" Pirates Its Own Magazine

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"New Statesman" Pirates Its Own Magazine

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 18, 2012 @12:46AM from the anticipation-defuses-censorship dept.

WebMink writes "Knowing that its explosive special edition on China this week will be blocked by censorship, UK political magazine 'New Statesmen' has taken the unusual step of posting its own torrents of the PDF of the Mandarin edition on the magazine. Looking at the content of the issue they are probably right to expect censorship — there's an article from the former newspaper editor Cheng Yizhong about media censorship, and Ai Weiwei interviews a member of the '50 cent party' — a commenter paid half a dollar every time he derails an online debate in China. 'Essentially, these people are paid internet trolls; their job is to stop any meaningful discussion online about the government.'" Specifically, the magazine has made available this issue as a PDF and also as a torrent (magnet link).

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Torrents != pirating by adnonsense · 2012-10-18 00:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

Who on earth came up with that headline?
1. Re:Torrents != pirating by MickyTheIdiot · 2012-10-18 00:50 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Jack Valenti
2. Re:Torrents != pirating by phayes · 2012-10-18 00:55 · Score: 2
  
  My God, I knew that the RIAA was evil but now they are using the Undead!
  
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  Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
3. Re:Torrents != pirating by Johnny+Fusion · 2012-10-18 00:56 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  If you read the article, the New Statesmen themselves refer to it as "pirated" (in quotes). While one could pay money for the Magazine, those who can read Mandarin can get it for free using pirating methods where the print version will most likely not see the light of day due to state censorship. They are using this technique as its well known "the internet routes around censorship"
  
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  There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
4. Re:Torrents != pirating by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-18 01:05 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Thank god this was derailed quickly. Just imagine how horrible it would have been if people actually discussed something meaningful. After all, its obviously much more important to dissect a headline, of an aggregation site notorious for useless and incorrect headlines, than it is to actually discuss the content on which the article reports.
  Here's a clue. This is not the time for THAT discussion.
  You must be a blast at parties.
5. Re:Torrents != pirating by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-18 01:37 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Pardon, nitpick.
  Chinese is something you read.
  Mandarin is something you speak.
  (Multiple spoken dialects that map to the same unified writing.)
Chinese Edition by donscarletti · 2012-10-18 01:05 · Score: 4, Informative

It should be "Chinese Edition" since it refers to the written language. Mandarin is a spoken dialect of Chinese, roughly equivalent to what "Received Pronunciation" is to English. Chinese can generally understand all Mandarin, though few outside of Beijing can speak it perfectly.
Modern written Chinese borrows heavily from Mandarin grammar and vocabulary, while retaining some conventions from Classical Chinese, the older written form that was pretty much impossible to understand when read aloud.
While it is possible to write in Chinese characters using Cantonese, Minnan or Wu grammar, it's quite rare and considered strange or wrong, even in regions where those dialects are spoken.

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When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Re:Broken PDF link? by WebMink · 2012-10-18 01:06 · Score: 3, Informative

Seems the Slashdot editor has broken the link - the file is easily available from the link in the article.
Re:Broken PDF link? by MarkGriz · 2012-10-18 01:15 · Score: 3, Funny

Can't seem to access the PDF link to read more into it
Perhaps you should pirate it from somewhere

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Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Re:WTF? by Chrisq · 2012-10-18 01:26 · Score: 2

Why in hell should a british newspaper be censored -in Britain?!?- 'cause it reports on China? Doesn'r make sense.
Censored in China? Yes. Censored in UK? No.
They are putting it on torrents so that people in China can read it! ...... Oh wait ... are you being paid 50c to divert the conversation to UK censorship?
Pirating by Taibhsear · 2012-10-18 02:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

You keep using that word. I do no think that word means what you think it means...
Re:Broken PDF link? by NatasRevol · 2012-10-18 02:31 · Score: 2

Kind of like posting on slashdot, at work, for money.
Man, that'd be nice.

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There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Re:Hard times, coming your way by NatasRevol · 2012-10-18 02:35 · Score: 3, Funny

No. With global warming, the land bridge to Asia is closed for repairs.

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There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Re:I wonder if the same thing happens here by jonadab · 2012-10-18 03:07 · Score: 2

Unnecessary. Americans will do it for free, just because they're bored.

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Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.