Николай Делчев

The recent scandals concerning the bonuses that were awarded to some members of the state administration and then returned, provoked me to write the following:

I am FOR state administration officials to receive clearly regulated by law bonuses. However, there needs to be an absolutely clear and transparent scheme for their distribution, and not  to be done by “party line” or “because I worked a lot and I deserve the bonus.” On the other hand of course, there is no way to stimulate and retain skilled people in administrative positions than by money. Regardless of the specific criteria: volume of work done, hours worked, projects, etc..,  this stimulation is necessary to avoid the abuse of position and thus state employees bringing in illegal incomes. Here the second  and most important question about corruption arises.

Corruption is one of the most dangerous and complex issues in politics. Extremely convenient for any opposition, but it inevitably leads to the scheme:

You steal! -> You steal more! -> Everybody steals  and politics and governing are all about stealing!

Frequent repetition and dissemination of these statements lead  to two consequences:

1. The voices of freedom and honor and common good   muffle in front of the overall howl and insult, and hence – differences in political positions and their importance to the community are being blurred.

2. A total demoralization in society occurs, the honest are beginning  to look like fools, and the resistance of many people against temptation decreases significantly.

Much can be told and written on how to combat corruption or at least reduce it. But surely one of the reasons for its occurrence (especially in Bulgaria) is the state administration. In ‘normal’ countries civil servants are a few but very well paid. The fowl tradition inherited from communism that public administration is used used as a means of reducing unemployment is counterproductive and creates corruption.

As one of the measures which I think must be taken is precisely the reduction of the administration. Leaving only the most skilled and hard working  people by certain criteria, by holding, lets say, an examination of some sort.  The next step should be to also increase the salaries of  these remaining employees. Because whatever the case   any state employee with 400lv.(200Euros) gross monthly salary can not help being tempted by the ‘opportunities’ that his service provides. Therefore, implementation of this type of ‘downsizing’ will lead to better service and will dramatically reduce the corruption.

But then again, whatever measures are being taken, it all comes down to mentality and a certain level of morality, but in this case, as we all know, in Bulgaria morality is very low. All we can do is to try and change this trend.

During the past  few months the discussions regarding SOPA, PIPA and ACTA became quite popular amongst internet users. That is why I decided that it is time to say in my own words how I understand  ‘what is intellectual property’, ‘who it benefits’ and ‘how internet “changed the rules of the game” ’.

In the beginning let us observe and analyze three cases:

The first – a man goes to a bookshop, sees a book, which interests him, hides in under his clothes and walks out. Here the man commits a criminal act and harms at least 3 sides – the bookstore, the merchant and the publishers.

The second – a man sees a book at his  friends’ place, asks him if he can give it to him so he can read it. He takes the book and walks out. Here the man harms the publishers, because he does not pay although he is using (reading) the product.

The third – a man goes to a library, he sees a book which interests him he takes the book, registers and walks out. The man harms no one’s interests because the publishers free of charge have deposited the book in the library, the man has followed the rules and is one of, let’s say, one hundred  people which have read the book for free.

What is the common thing between these three hypothetical cases?

That’s right, the author does not get his reward for the copyrights. And this is not something from yesterday or the day before, this has been so since the dawn of printed books and readers. When talking about intellectual products (books, music, movies, etc.) two things come to mind. The wish to get familiar with them and the wish to own them. To make a fuss about something and cause interest in something is not very difficult. But to convince people to give money for it, you have to have created something really good.

The internet has just made this tendency  more visible, most of all by numbers – in the bookstore none can tell you how many times one book has been viewed by customers and what percentage of them have bought it. But in the internet you can see the counter on how many people have downloaded files or count how many times videos have been watched.

Whose videos are most watched, let’s say on YouTube, and whose songs are the most downloaded in torrent trackers – the most successful and rich artists. There isn’t a single artist with a million (free!) views who does not make successful tours, concerts with millions in profit.

The internet set new rules for the business. And the real paradox is that the wish to hear a song, read a book, see a movie the more popular it gets, more people want to own it, and the more people that own it the more popular it gets… Everything is changing now, publishers try to keep up by releasing free parts of books for download and review. iTunes  created a new way of buying music – instead of a whole album you can download only the songs you like, at a reasonable price. The HBO channel also set a tone for a new practice, for a small fee you can now watch relatively new movies.

There will always be a need for legal regulation of copyright. Artists must have legal protection, but it must not be built on ridiculous rules that ultimately no matter how ridiculous, do not defend him as an artist, but the rights holders who have bought them from him.  So, we as artists, creators and consumers of intellectual products must protect our rights to equitable remuneration of labor. But on the other hand we must decisively stop any attempts by certain lobbies in the name of supposedly noble goals to monopolize in their benefit the right of access to these products.

Let us not forget one thing – no offline company, bookstore or video store can compete with the internet and its endless possibilities.  The real revolution is yet to come.

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“Bulgaria among Unhappiest Nations in the World”. This title can often be read in online and print media. The simple truth is that not everyone can be happy. People are not and will not be equal in their abilities, but also in their luck. Misery and failure are part of life and one of the inalienable human rights is the right to fail. Among all human beings, people who by definition should have refused to lie down on such obvious truths are politicians. Their commitment to the nations is to try every reasonable opportunity to make the right to seek happiness (but not happiness itself) more accessible to as many people as possible. What should be the goal of Bulgarian democracy and democracy as a whole? People to live better, to be richer, having more opportunities to seek happiness. Not to prove to people that they are no good for one thing or another, but to increase their ability to cope in life. It is a pity that most of the people in governing position do not realize that.

“Българите – най-недоволни от живота си от всички в ЕС”. Това заглавие все по-често може да бъде прочетено в интернет и печатните медии. Истината е, че не всеки може да бъде щастлив. Хората не са и няма да бъдат равни в своите способности, а и в късмета си. Нещастието и неуспеха са част от живота и  едно от  неотменимите човешки права  е и правото на провал. Измежду всички човешки същества обаче хората, които по дефиниция трябва да са се отказали да лежат върху подобни очевидни истини са политиците. read more »