Interview With Pirate Party Leader Rick Falkvinge

mmuch writes "In the wake of the recent copyright debate in Swedish mainstream media, the P2P Consortium has published an interview with Rick Falkvinge, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He comments on the mainstream politicians starting to understand the issues, the interplay between strict copyright enforcement and mass surveillance, and the chances for global copyright reform." Some choice Falkvinge quotes: "What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy — forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance — realized they were under a serious attack... for the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle. And it was... nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is 'thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief'... Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding... When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around."

Comments

Re:Fuck you America

[AdmiralAudio]

It still needed a majority of Americans to think the same way to accomplish this.

Actually it didn't happen that way in the first election, seeing as how Bush won that first election without getting the popular vote. You see, we're not exactly a true democracy. We have an Electoral College system which grants every state a number of votes in proportion to their population, making it possible to win by having a distribution of voters, but not a majority of voters.

Also taking into account the low voter turnout that the States have, it could be that only a minority of Americans supported him, but it's their own damn fault for not voting.

Re:Not if you don't want to

[Kjella]

That's why most people find a way to gently twist the arm of the user and get them to pay a bit. And to find their users, it's perfectly legitimate to infiltrate and poison networks as well as demand goverment filtering and surveilance of all citizens and a express line to disconnect users, right? They're trying to twist the arm of people that they have no business twisting, and which are getting rightously pissed about it.

There are plenty of ways the police are bound with regards to entrapment, search and seizure, warrants, interrogation, holding suspects and so on that all limit their effectiveness. Push too far and the people will simply decide this comes at too high a price.

Imagine you wanted to prohibit gay sex (not that long ago we did), and someone said: "The enforcement of this is ineffective, we need the right to break into people's houses at night and lift the covers". At that point it would hardly matter if you agreed with the law, you'd tell them to stay the fuck out of your bedroom. That is where the RIAA is now, and they're being told to stay the fuck out of people's Internet connection.

Political Support

[mach1980]

To start a revolution you need the support of the masses. 'Piratpartiet' got 0,63 % of the national votes last election (2006).