Popular torrent site uploader Will1869, known for releases tagged as 'COLLECTiVE', has been arrested by police in the UK. He specialized in distributing recent movies that were typically sourced elsewhere. COLLECTiVE torrents were shared on public portals including 1337x and also appeared on the home site, Laidbackmanor, which was also shut down by police.

Torrent site uploaders come in various shapes and sizes. Only a few become so popular that their ‘brand’ is widely recognized by online pirates.

COLLECTiVE falls into the latter category. The uploader operating under this tag, Will1869, shared many high-profile titles, mostly films. He purportedly operated as a one-man team.

These releases appeared on major torrent sites including 1337x and the recently defunct TorrentGalaxy. COLLECTiVE reportedly ran a small torrent portal, Laidbackmanor, where these releases often appeared first.

Unlike regular release groups, which are often the origin of leaks, Will1869 (as COLLECTiVE) typically sourced his releases from elsewhere. This included cams with embedded ads that were carefully stripped before they were shared further.

UK Police Arrest Will1869, Shut Down Laidbackmanor
For a long time, COLLECTiVE uploads appeared at a steady pace, but that changed at the end of last month, when they suddenly stopped. At the same time, the Laidbackmanor site was taken offline and redirected to a GoDaddy landing page.

In the immediate wake of these events, rumors started to spread that Will1869, a.k.a. COLLECTiVE, had been arrested. This was reported by several unconfirmed sources and corroborated by a message sent through his website hours before it disappeared.

After reaching out to a trusted source, who asked to remain anonymous, we can now report that UK police arrested Will1869 at the end of April. He has since been released on bail but remains under investigation.

At this point, no further information on the case is available, but we are informed that additional details are expected to be released in due course. What is clear, however, is that the arrest effectively means the end for COLLECTiVE and the associated website.

It’s unknown how the authorities eventually pinpointed Will1869, but his operation under the COLLECTiVE tag has been a high-profile target for a while, as its releases have been downloaded through pirate sites many millions of times.

In January, COLLECTiVE made headlines when two Oscar-nominated screeners started to leak across various torrent sites. The most popular releases were tagged by COLLECTiVE but Will1869 wasn’t the original source. Instead, the leaks were obtained elsewhere on the open web.

These pass-through releases were typical of how COLLECTiVE operated. Instead of ripping content directly, Will1869 picked up other releases which, after some ‘improvements’, were uploaded to the public.

The arrest of Will1869 by UK police effectively puts an end to this stream of uploads.

May 4, 1886
Albert Parsons was the leader of the American branch of the International Working People's Association (I.W.P.A.), an anarchist group whose stated goal was to engineer a social revolution that would empower the working class. Parsons himself was a paradox: a Confederate soldier who became a Radical Republican after the Civil War and married a former slave.

August Spies was the editor of the English-language anarchist newspaper, The Alarm. Together, Parsons and Spies addressed the working class German community of Chicago, calling for demonstrations and organizing parades. The I.W.P.A. had, at most, only five thousand members, but its tactics were so confrontational that it had an undue influence.

Demonstrators would snake by the clubs and homes of the elite, or around the Chicago Board of Trade, shouting slogans and waving fists. Articles in the anarchist newspapers explained how to make bombs with dynamite, and editorials supported the assassination of public officials in Europe. On his desk, Spies kept a length of pipe that he claimed was a bomb.

Dynamite had just been invented, and its properties were both exaggerated and feared. It "made one man the equal or an army." Bombs "could be carried around in one's pocket with perfect safety." Many Chicago capitalists anticipated an armed revolution.

In 1886, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions organized a May Day general strike to demand an eight-hour day. The anarchists saw an opportunity to increase membership and joined the event. Because Chicago had a sympathetic mayor in Carter Harrison, the nationwide movement focused on that city. On May 1st, 80,000 workers lay down their tools and marched up Michigan Avenue behind Spies. Hundreds of private security and militia groups monitored the march, but the day ended peacefully.

Meanwhile, a strike was on at the McCormick Reaper Works. On May 3, strikers attacked scabs leaving the McCormick building. Immediately, two hundred policemen led by Captain "Black Jack" Bonfield attacked the crowd, swinging nightsticks and firing their guns. Two workers were killed.

The anarchists called for a rally the next night at Haymarket Square to protest the deaths. Mayor Harrison had Bonfield and his men stand by, a block from the square. Harrison himself was in the crowd, making himself as conspicuous as possible: "I want the people to know their mayor is here." After Spies and Parsons spoke, rain began to fall, dispersing the crowd. Harrison left the rally, stopping by Bonfield to let him know that the meeting posed no threat.

After Harrison left, however, Bonfield sent in his troops. From somewhere in the crowd, a bomb was thrown in front of the columns of police. When the dust settled, seven police officers were dead and sixty were injured, many of them hit by wild shots from fellow policemen. A like number of civilians were killed and injured, although the number is uncertain because few would admit to being at the rally.

The police rounded up suspicious foreign workers and anarchist leaders. Seven men stood trial for murder. On June 21, they were joined by an eighth — Parsons himself. He had fled the city after the bombing, but turned himself in to be tried with his comrades. No one had been identified as the bomber, but the eight defendants were tried as accessories to murder based on their inflammatory speeches.

The judge, Joseph E. Gary, allowed men who had already decided on a guilty verdict to sit on the jury.

The defense lawyer, William Perkins Black, provided alibis for all eight men. The only two who were at the rally at the time of the bombing had been on stage, in full view of the crowd and police.

The mayor, Carter Harrison, testified that the rally was peaceful and attended by women and children.

The prosecuting attorney, Julius S. Grinnell declared, "Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial... Gentlemen of the jury, convict these men, make examples of them, hang them and you save our institutions, our society."

The jury reached a verdict in three hours: death by hanging for seven of the men, including Parsons and Spies, 15 years in prison for the eighth, August Neebe.

The wives of the defendants immediately initiated the appeal process. Journalist and reformer Henry Demarest Lloyd led a national campaign to grant clemency. Even bankers like Lyman J. Gage favored clemency, believing that moderation would lead to improved relations between capital and labor. Potter Palmer and Charles Hitchinson were inclined to agree, but Marshall Field was not. A number of other men confided to Gage that they were not willing to publicly disagree with Field, the wealthiest and most powerful businessman in Chicago.

Even Judge Gary wrote to the governor on behalf of the two men, Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab, who had asked for mercy. Their sentences were commuted to life in prison. Governor Richard J. Oglesby said that he could only pardon the two because the law required each prisoner to ask for clemency.

One of the prisoners, Louis Lingg, had a dynamite cigar smuggled into his cell. He committed suicide in prison, blowing his face off in the process.

On November 11, 1887, the prisoners were brought out to the hangman's platform. Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, and Adolph Fischer stood before the crowd with hoods covering their faces. And then Spies spoke: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."

The trapdoor opened.

In June 1893, a Haymarket monument was unveiled in Chicago's Waldheim Cemetery. That same month Governor John Altgeld unconditionally pardoned Field, Neebe and Schwab because the trial and the conduct of the judge had been shamefully unjust. Even anarchists "were entitled to a fair trial,"the governor declared, "and no greater damage could possibly threaten our institutions than to have the courts of justice run wild or to give way to popular clamor."

https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1915/0918-debs-schoolformasses.pdf

From the 1984 article:

Amid great fanfare, the 99/4A home computer was born into the aristocratic Texas Instruments family. The year was 1981. The precocious infant grew quickly. But in 1983 it met an untimely end, largely because of the unreasonable demands of its pushy parent.

The Green Party is promising a radical overhaul of the New Zealand tax system, raising $88.2 billion in new revenue and taking the size of the state to over $200b a year.

The party announced its alternative Budget this morning, which was an altered version of its 2023 tax plan — the main differences being this one included two new taxes: an inheritance tax and a tax on private jets.

The plan would reinstate two property taxes: the 10-year bright-line test and banning interest deductions for residential property, which are currently being phased out.

Companies tax would be raised from 28% to 33%, making it one of the highest in the developed world, higher than Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Income tax would be raised for some, with the 39% threshold kicking in at income over $120,000 and a 45% rate applied to income over $180,000.

However, a tax-free threshold would be introduced at $10,000, increasing the after-tax incomes of people earning less than $115,000 — the vast bulk of people, although setting the tax rate that low would begin to capture some professions the Greens are trying to target.

Thanks to a 2023 pay equity settlement, senior nurses had their pay lifted to between $105,704 and $153,060, meaning many would pay higher rates of income tax under this plan.

Mining royalties will be doubled and private jet arrivals and departures to New Zealand will be taxed at a rate of $5,000.

The big income raiser in the plan is the wealth tax, which would raise $72.4b over the four years.

The inheritance tax component of the plan would mean inheritance or gifts would be taxed at 33%, but the tax would only kick in once a lifetime threshold of $1 million had been reached.

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was a “Budget for a country that belongs to and works for New Zealanders”.

“We believe in fairness and common sense. A Green Government will rapidly reduce emissions, reduce the cost of living and improve our quality of life,” she said.

Health

In health, the party proposed introducing free GP and nurse visits nationwide, projected to cost about $8.5b over four years.

It was in addition to the party’s 2023 election campaign commitment to provide free dental care.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson argued the policy would reduce pressure on hospitals and would address health inequities.

As part of the package, the Greens would create “community care clinics” in high need areas like South Auckland.

The budget’s health commitments included building Dunedin Hospital, re-establishing an earlier bowel screening age for Māori and Pasifika, and bringing back the Māori Health Authority.

In childcare, the Greens proposed to expand 20-hours free care per week in early childhood education for children from 6 months up to school age with a cap on fees for hours above the entitlement.

Under the plan, the entitlement would increase to 35 hours in 2029.

The policy was expected to cost almost $5.4b over four years.

It formed part of the Greens’ effort to “wind down subsidies for commercial centres” with the hope of making the sector fully publicly funded.

“These for-profit providers benefit from hundreds of millions in public subsidies while charging high fees and paying low wages to teachers which impacts upon the quality of care,” Davidson said.

“Our budget covers the full cost of delivering quality ECE, ending subsidies to corporations and instead supporting community-based and public centres that prioritise the needs of our kids, not the interests of shareholders.”

Welfare

The budget featured another policy from 2023, introducing an income guarantee for students and the unemployed.

It sought to provide a weekly payment of at least $395 with top-ups of $140 per week for single parents.

The policy included reforming ACC to ensure anyone unemployed due to a health condition or disability was receiving at least 80% of the full-time minimum wage.

The party costed the package in excess of $30b over four years.