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Pirate Party Comes to the U.S.

Spy der Mann writes "Wired news has published an interview with the Pirate Party of the U.S., which was formed a week after the raid on Pirate Bay. The group patterns itself after Piratpartiet, the Swedish political party associated with The Pirate Bay, and says it wants to reform intellectual property and privacy laws."

16 of 543 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too bad it's futile by govtpiggy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Third parties tend to seem futile at the time but it isn't surprising to see the major parties slowly adopt the major parts of the third parties platform given time. We saw it years ago with the Populist Party and I wouldn't be surprised to see bits and pieces of Green or Libertarian Party philosophy emerging from the Democrats and Republicans in a few decades.

    --
    do you know squarepusher?
  2. Re:I'll have to look into a donation... by blackmonday · · Score: 4, Informative

    I agree wholeheartedly, but one correction. Its not the character of Mickey Mouse that would become Public Domain, it's "Steamboat Willie" - the cartoon in which Mickey first appeared. Important Distinction.

  3. Re:Guantanamo beckons... by Ossifer · · Score: 2, Informative

    The US already holds a Swedish citizen at Guantanamo, in violation of US and international law...

  4. Re:I'll have to look into a donation... by Meagermanx · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, they want to open up the pharmaceutical patents and expand the privacy of Americans, too. So that's "healthcare wants to be less expensive" and "ourinformation wants to be private."

  5. Re:Too bad it's futile by thebdj · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually not quite true. While we have not seen it happen on a national scale yet, it is not unknown for independents or third parties to win seats in the House or Senate. Also, look at past presidential elections and you will see 3rd parties stealing electoral votes in certain states. Another person gave you a few examples of independents, there is also a former governor from Minnesota that no one would've predicted.

    This is especially true during times of "fierce social change." See the election just before the US Civil War (1860) and the elections during the Civil Rights Movement. You will see other parties winning states beyond just the normal two. While the two party system seems dominant, it would not be unheard of for a new third party to move in and take a few seats in congress, or maybe even win a few states in a Presidential election.

    --
    "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
  6. Re:I'll have to look into a donation... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    As a registered trademark, the mouse would still not be free game - except as pertains to images of him used in steamboat willie, which could be utilized with impunity, as could the entirety of the film itself.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Libertarians have been saying this for decades by Bob_Robertson · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.fff.org/comment/com0603e.asp The New Mercantilism

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy17.html Patently Absurd

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/sapienza/sapienza36.htm l The Fraud of Intellectual Property

    http://www.mises.org/blog/archives/002935.asp Mises Economics Blog: Bill Gates: Anti-IP Movement Is Communist

    I wish the Pirate party far better success than the Libertarians have had. It is surprising that the message of Liberty does not resonate in the United States.

    Bob-

    --
    The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
  8. Approval Voting by samtihen · · Score: 3, Informative

    And this is where Approval Voting comes into play.

    Basically, the idea is that you may vote for as many of the candidates as you approve of.

    For instance, a good chunk of people enjoy many of the ideas that the Libertarian party believes in. This same chunk of people often has to make a choice between voting for a democrat or a republican, because everyone knows third parties stand no chance here.

    Now, under the Approval voting system, you could vote for both the Libertarian candidate and the party you would have ended up voting for had you no choice.

    Now, I do not believe that the Libertarian party would win. What I do believe is that they would receive a much larger number of votes, and many of the idea would be much harder for the main two parties to ignore.

    The same, of course, would happen to the Pirate Party. They are not going to win, let's face it. But, if they were to receive a vote from 15-30% of the population (a reasonable goal), the major parties could not ignore that.

    What makes this system so great, however, is the incredible ease of implementation. It isn't complicated for voters to understand, and ballots could already support multiple votes.

  9. Dastar v. 20 Cent Fox by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    The original Mickey Mouse film trilogy was Plane Crazy, Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie. Any traits of the character that appeared in the original trilogy would pass into PD along with the films.

    As a registered trademark, the mouse would still not be free game

    O rly? The Supreme Court ruled the other way in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. , where Justice Scalia wrote that a trademark can't be hacked to extend copyright.

  10. Re:Too bad it's futile by rmgrotkierii · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hey, if the "youth" voted,
    * The drinking age would be 18 again.


    Got that wrong buckwheat. Unfortunately the federal govt. links all sorts of monies including the all important highway money to the drinking age/BAC levels. Which is legal according to the Supreme Court, which ruled in http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=CASE&court=US&vol=483&page=203 South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987) that Congress had engaged in a valid exercise of its power under the Taxing and Spending Clause, and did not violate the Twenty-first Amendment.

    --
    Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
  11. Re:Guantanamo beckons... by brouski · · Score: 2, Informative
    You might want to check with your sources on that, dude.

    He was released in July 2004: http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/4166/nocache/true/a/ 27298/dictionary/true

    --
    Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
  12. Re:As do I. by raddan · · Score: 3, Informative

    You know... that has to be the most insightful, concise thing I've heard said about what's wrong with copyright for a long time.

  13. Re:I'll have to look into a donation... by ElleyKitten · · Score: 2, Informative

    A lot of medical R&D is done by the government, or with government grants. Also, opening up patents is not "stealing from the rich". It allows competition.

    --
    "What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
  14. Re:And this is why they will never succeed... by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 2, Informative
    The entire entertainment industry is only a very small component of the US economy. In all, it's in the same order of magnitude as the sale of sporting goods. Somehow I don't think our economy would collapse if people stopped buying soccer balls and golf clubs, and it's the same for "entertainment content".

    http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_2/odlyzko /

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    -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  15. What? A typo? by NoScreenNamesLeft · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not piratepartiet. It's piratebyran...

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    It is the owner that crashes the system. If you are enough of an idiot to put 50 background processes in Windows you sho
  16. Re:And this is why they will never succeed... by LoveGoblin · · Score: 2, Informative

    Offtopic trivia: Hollywood isn't the biggest industry in California. By far, agriculture is. :)