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Pirate Party Comes to the U.S.

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the emo-kids-want-their-free-tunes dept.

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."

6 of 543 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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."

  3. 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
  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.