You may have noticed today that Wikipedia is blacked out to protest SOPA. I cannot accurately express in words how proud I am of the Wikipedia Foundation for taking part in this protest, but I’ll try: Very to the power of one billion. But I think it’s even more than that.

If you haven’t already heard of SOPA and you don’t know what it is, it stands for “Stop Online Piracy Act” and it is a law that certain politicians are trying to get passed in the US to allegedly prevent copyright infringement online.

That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? In fact, as a film-maker and multimedia content producer, this sounds like good news. And it would be if the law wasn’t what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has called “a poorly thought out law” which has the potential to destroy the free and open Internet that we all know and love. And on top of that, it is unlikely that it would even achieve the objective it is aimed at achieving.

If you’re wondering why, Mashable has written a far better explanation of why SOPA is dangerous than I ever could. I recommend you read it.

Like Wikipedia, Facebook, Google, WordPress and countless other massive online properties, I am against SOPA. And yet I do believe that downloading movies and music for free is a crime that should be punishable somehow. If there was a law that would prevent that and only that, I would be in favour of it. But a law that pretty much gives the US government the power to block any site they deem to be infringing copyright either knowingly or unknowingly basically boils down to a law which allows one thing: censorship.

I am against SOPA because there are better, smarter, fairer ways to achieve what SOPA claims to want to achieve. The “Nuke The Web” approach that SOPA takes is destructive to the Internet and everything that the internet supports – free speech and innovation to name but a couple of things.

Yes, the problem of copyright infringement online does need to be solved for the sake of the future of the music and film industries, particularly the smaller record labels and independent film producers. But this is definitely NOT the way to do it.

Does The Entertainment Industry Have A Point?

Well, yes. I have long been a campaigner against deliberate digital copyright theft. Before I get misquoted let me qualify that. As a film-maker I do think that it is wrong for people to go to their favourite torrent site and be able to download movies that in some cases aren’t even in cinemas yet.

This type of behaviour has gone unpoliced and unchecked for too long. Ten years ago it was a problem. But at that time it was mainly something that the geek elite did and students who were savvy enough with the fast evolving technological world to know about things like this. But now it’s ten years later and those students are now the young adults in their late twenties and early thirties who are still doing it. And of course the students of today are doing it too. So the number of people illegally downloading music and movies is growing.

The thought process that makes people think of downloading a movie before they think of buying a cinema ticket has got to go. But how exactly to get rid of it is still a highly controversial issue.

Should Google be forced to block sites that are clearly designed for this purpose? In a way, I think they should. From personal experience running one of the UK’s magic shops which deals primarily in a particular type of intellectual property, I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when Google considers a bit torrent search engine’s illegal download page for a DVD Rip of one of my products more relevant to the search term than many of ten or fifteen online stores legitimately selling the product.

Example:

This is page one of Google for the term “13 Steps To Mentalism”, a land mark publication in magic. It’s a 6 DVD box set which teaches how to create the illusion of mind reading. But that’s beside the point. The point is that thepiratebay.org’s download page for this search term is ranked third. How are legitimate businesses every going to sell any product when Google is presenting searchers with results like this?

What We Need Instead Of SOPA

SOPA is only the latest act to try and tackle the problems that the entertainment industry is facing as a result of the ease with which intellectual property can now be shared and mass distributed between millions of people. A couple of years ago there was the Net Neutrality Act which proposed to treat different types of data differently in order to prevent sites from loading which hosted controversial or illegal content. But, it was seen as the first step on a ladder that eventually would lead to the end of the free and open Internet. And rightly so.

It’s only a question of time before politicians eventually reach a status quo with the online world and an act which addresses the issues and comfortably combats those issues and only those issues needs to be reached.

First, I think the act that is eventually passed, needs to be written by a person or group of people who understand the Internet. SOPA, if you care to read it, has clearly not been written by anybody who is familiar with the online world or digital culture. This is perhaps most prominently evidenced by it’s proposal to make site owners liable for anything that is hosted on their sites, even in the world of Web 2.0 where up to 90% of some websites’ content is contributed by its’ user base.

Second, I think we need a new definition of copyright infringement that is suitable for the online world.

Pictures and videos are shared every day as a form of self expression, and it’s high time the entertainment industry came to realize that. Music is  a part of our culture. Current copyright laws make it ridiculously easy to find yourself in breach of them and I think this needs to be thought out better.

While, yes, I would say that websites designed specifically for the deliberate mass distribution of copyrighted material like The Pirate Bay should face some sort of legal action, other websites, like personal blogs that happen to feature a clip recorded from TV the previous night cannot be charged with copyright violation. It is madness.

If these laws are passed, it could mean the end of Facebook, Youtube & Wikipedia to name just a few – all the websites that we know and love. And that’s where the lasting damage of this bill we be – preventing us from posting content on YouTube and Facebook. Not preventing online piracy. We’ll virtually have to hire a lawyer before we can send a Tweet, which will essentially devolve the internet from being the powerful knowledge sharing tool that it is today into a consumption-only entity, much like a library.

The Last Word

The Internet is a beautiful thing. And the Internet as we know it is under threat. While I do think it is important that we find some way of preventing deliberate intellectual property theft and mass distribution of copyrighted material such as sites like ThePirateBay.org, under no circumstances should this affect the fundamental nature of the Internet.

New Year’s Resolutions are a nice idea – they indicate making solid, positive and lasting changes to our lives and how can self improvement be bad? But the bad news is that the vast majority of people that make New Year’s Resolutions just don’t stick to them for longer than a week or so. Here are 4 common reasons why: Continue reading “4 Reasons Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work And How To Fix Them” »

So, in 2012, I, Adam Patel, resolve to…

#1. Get Up Earlier (at 7am every day including weekends -well, possibly not Sundays)

Being honest, I hate waking up early. Up to now, my definition of freedom has somewhere included the words “man should have the right to wake up naturally”. And this was all well and good until two things changed: First, I could not ignore the correlation between life success and early rising and this seemed like one of the simplest life changes I could make that would increase my momentum; and second… I got a girlfriend who wasn’t such a big fan of my getting up at close to noon or beyond on a Saturday. But I’m doing this because I want to and not because she wants me to. And it’s important that she, and everybody else, knows that. If I can succeed at this goal, it should lead to a great deal more productivity by adding an estimated 300 additional hours to the year.

The goal: Gradually adjust my sleeping pattern such that I can comfortably wake up at 7am every morning in a fit state of mind to get things done.

#2. Write, Produce & Direct My First Feature Film

After a rather unplanned entry into what I guess could be called my film career in 2011, in 2012 I aim to begin making a film of my own. This is a life time dream of mine and one that I have obstinately refused to allow to die since I was 10 years old.

I know for a fact this will not be easy and will probably be very hard work. It’s also an enormous financial risk and I could list 10 reasons right off the cuff why this could very easily go wrong. But some dreams you just can’t give up on. And if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

The goal: To initiate production of a feature film with the intention of it being commercially successful either by cinema release (quite unlikely) or straight to DVD (more likely). Whether the film gets released in 2012 or 2013, we must reasonably believe by the end of 2012, that it will be finished.

Follow blog tag blockbuster or visit and follow the Mogul Films Blog for news of progress on this.

#3. Continue To Hone My Share Trading Skills And Become A Better Investor

One of my greatest achievements in 2011 has been to master the basics of stock trading, a field and subject that I previously did not even understand let alone attempt to dabble in. My success during 2011 has allowed me to grow my capital by an inflation beating 9%. What this means to the layman is that my investment portfolio, to put it simply, made me the same amount of money as a savings account that paid 9% interest would have, if such a thing existed, which it doesn’t.

In fact, no other venture I have involved myself with – and there have been a good few by now – has ever proved so profitable so quickly.

The goal: To grow my capital by 10% (after tax) on the balance at the close of 2011. Providing I don’t do anything stupid and another European country doesn’t need a bail out, this shouldn’t be too difficult.

Follow blog tag investing

#4. Start Doing Magic Again

Prior to starting my degree, magic was a very big part of my life. But as life changed and I reluctantly grew up, there were certain inevitable casualties. Magic was one of them. While I continued to manage and run MagicMegaStore.co.uk, my own skills as a performer atrophied to near extinction. This year I aim to revive the skills I once had and start performing again. As I remember, I used to enjoy it.

The goal: Start performing to actual people again.

#5. And This Year’s New Skill….. Learn To Draw

For the past couple of years, every year I have made an effort to learn a new skill. I think this is something everybody should do because it keeps life fresh. Learning also continues your individual evolution into a more rounded person. If is my belief that if your brain isn’t learning then it is dying.

This year I decided to learn to draw. I’m sure I’ll be posting my attempts on my blog as I go.

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I’ll end by wishing you all a happy, productive and prosperous New Year.

It is an annual ritual for me, during the week between Christmas and New Year, to relive the year I’ve just lived through, take stock of the lessons that can be learned from my mistakes and celebrate my achievements and triumphs. And thanks to Facebook’s new Timeline profiles, we are living the most heavily documented lives that any human beings have ever lived in history.

January 24th – Did my first stock trade. Bought shares in Centamin Egypt and made a profit of around £50 in 3 hours without doing anything. It was to be the first of many.

March 28th – Learned to ski in Italy. Very, very enjoyable week.

May 19th to 22nd – Went to New York City for the first time. Enjoyed it.

June 11th – Got my first acting credit in the Superman fan film Superman: Requiem. First time on a film set too. Lot of fun.

June 18th – Went to Film School at the Hollywood Film Institute’s London boot camp.

August 7th – Asked my girlfriend out. She said yes.

August 18th – Went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the first time. Was a barrel of laughs. Enjoyed very much.

September 2nd – Turned 26. Had a party. Was nice.

September 22nd – Got another acting credit and did my first fight scene in the short action film “The Extraction” with Tony Cook on location in Essex. More fun times.

October 10th  - Made £1000 profit in 24 hours on the stock market dealing Amazon.com shares.

…And Thank You

To conclude, I’d just like to thank everybody who has contributed to my 2011. It has been an excellent year and I hope 2012 can be even better. Thank you. And God bless.

Ahead of the London premier of the film in early November, Superman Requiem has been featured in December’s edition of Total Film magazine. This is incredibly amazing for two reasons:

Number one: I grew up reading Total Film. I have quite a few issues of Total Film in my collection. Throughout my teenage years it was this magazine that fed my fantasies of making films myself one day. And now I’m directly connected with a film that is mentioned in it. And that’s kind of cool to me.

Total Film is one of the most widely read film magazines in the UK and I dare say that having the film mentioned in there, as well as where people can watch it, has the power to dramatically increase the audience that Superman Requiem is going to get. It could now potentially be watched by hundreds of thousands of people. I, for one, hope so.

Although I won’t see the film until the premier, I have seen the trailer and while I wondered why nobody actually talks in the trailer, the composition of some of the shots looks very professional and given the budget we were working with here, that’s a pretty impressive result.

My next post on Superman Requiem will probably follow the London premier in about a week in Covent Garden when I’ll see the film in its entirety for the first time. I am rather looking forward to it.

Richard Branson has been one of my role models since I first heard of him. In this post he explains what success means to him. And prepare for a surprise. Continue reading “Richard Branson: What Success Means To Me” »

So after more than a year of silence, in mid October, Apple finally released its next generation iPhone, the rather depressing iPhone 4S. Continue reading “Investment Mistakes: How To Lose £2500” »

September, particularly the last couple of weeks, have been a rough time for traders. The Eurozone crisis (it’s Greece’s fault) has caused the entire market to under perform, resulting in a rather dampened set of circumstances in which the NASDAQ and the FTSE have pretty much just fallen consistently for nine days on the trot.

Almost every penny of profit I made during late August and early September was reclaimed by the market.

But to reframe that with an upside, I was fortunate to begin my trading career with such large winnings. Maybe that money is not still in my bank, but it has allowed me to learn some very valuable lessons for close to a net cost of zero. In fact, there’s a chance I still made a few pounds out of it.

What follows are ten lessons I learned from this experience; the education I bought: Continue reading “10 Stock Trading Lessons Learned The Hard Way” »

If you either use, or are thinking of using Halifax Share Dealing to trade shares on the stock market, please heed this warning and think again. Their website has recently become very glitchy, especially when dealing with US stocks, and is making errors worth thousands of pounds with YOUR money.

These are mistakes, which, ultimately, you, like me, may end up paying for.

Take a look at this real life example from August 23rd 2011.

Anybody who has ever used this service will know that when you trade a US stock, this is the screen you see just before you put the order through:

Literally 30 seconds later, the contract note that appears in my account to document the transaction is VASTLY different to the screen I was just shown with “indicative” information:

And now suddenly the exchange rate has DRAMATICALLY changed. The share price has dramatically changed and the amount payable has also dramatically reduced.

When I rang Halifax up about this, I felt I could have had the same quality of conversation if I had substituted the person on the other end of the phone with a brick wall.

All the Halifax intern could say was that the price shown pre-sale is “estimated” and “indicative”  of the price you will get for the sale.

Indicative? In what world is £15000 indicative of £9000, when the traded amount was only around £10 000?

I would have thought indicative in most peoples’ book would have allowed for a couple of percent either side. Apparently in Halifax’s book, a 33% deviation still falls under this definition.

A 30% difference between indicative and actual is not indicative as much as simply inaccurate. But Halifax would not hear it. Despite their website – a bank website – quite obviously screwing up on their maths (in and of itself, pretty disgusting), they refuse to admit any fault and insist that a £15 000 estimate amount for a £9869 actual payment still falls under their definition of indicative.

By the same logic, an actual payment of £20 000 would have been just as indicative to them.

Because of this incident and Halifax’s refusal to be reasonable about it, I have cut all ties with Lloyds Banking Group.

I would also urge others NOT to use a Halifax Share Dealing account. They are crooks.

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Out of interest, I cannot be the first Halifax customer to fall victim to this sort of mistake. If you have suffered similar damage as a result of Halifax’s incompetent website, why not post your story below:

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

My love of magic and illusion has over the years transpired into a love of live entertainment in general. Stand-up comedy inevitably falls under that umbrella.

If you’ve never been to the Fringe and you don’t know what it is, let me explain. It’s a comedy festival primarily, though magic does have a place there. And it’s like having live sky plus available but where every channel is a comedy show. What could be better!? Continue reading “Dave Gorman’s Powerpoint Presentation & Other Edinburgh Fringe 2011 Reviews” »