Slashdot Mirror
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."
Don't worry, someone else will pick up the slack. For every person who does it for the money there are several who will do it for the fun.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
My one bit of advice to these folks would be to not make this overtly political. People are going to begin to lose respect for the people behind torrent sites if they start spewing pseudo-Marxist ideas as their defense. Look where it got RMS -- no one takes him seriously anymore and the project that put him on the map clearly considers him irrelevant (linux/gplv3).
People who download music and movies aren't doing it to assert their solidarity with the Sandinistas, they're doing it because they can, and frankly most of us don't have enough cash free to go buy the entire discography of say Miles Davis or Bob Dylan.
Stick to the 'we're not providing content, only torrents' line. I think they'll find a more sympathetic client base.
You're not required to respect me in the slightest, but I think you are jumping to conclusions. We've been discussing this full time for the past three or four years (with the Pirate Party being founded on Jan 1, 2006) -- it's a rare day I get a new question.
:) Which president said "If I knew I would make president, I would have studied harder"?
I've been exposed to pretty much every argument, angle, and corner out there in this debate. Obviously you don't have to respect me for that, but you'd do well to assume that I've seen the pros and cons of most dimensions of this structural shift.
Oh, and as always, if I had known in advance this interview would end up on Slashdot, I would have spent more time on it.
I'd like to express my support for the Mr. Falkvinger. I look forward to the day when musicians will again be forced to perform live fairly frequently to make a living. I've had enough of this overproduced shit with pitch shifted vocals and talentless anti-creative jingle-like songwriting spawned by the music industry. The concept of copyright in music has no moral basis, other than the fact that technology was discovered to record and reproduce music. Well you know what? We've discovered technology to distribute this music -- how that is any less of a moral justification I don't know.
The days of bands releasing a shitty album every 5 years, touring for 6 months then retiring to their mansion in LA are over, and thank God. Will we see less people going into the business? Yes. And again, thank God -- art should be made by people with a passion for the art, not by people with simplistic dreams of fame who will do anything to get publicity.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Here is why we cannot "leave it up to the producers":
One problem is that all you need for a copyright violation to take place (in the USA at least) is for two private parties to exchange some copyrighted information. In order to use the law to stop copyright infringement, one must punish certain kinds of private communication between two parties. Punishing all instances of certain kinds of private communication between two arbitrary parties requires monitoring all private communications. This kind of surveillance is both unacceptable and a necessary condition for enforcing copyright law. Therefore, enforcing copyright law is unacceptable. This, I gather, is the president's argument.
People involved in the Freenet project often make a similar argument that goes something like this: In order to have true free speech, people must be able to speak and listen anonymously so that they cannot be punished for exercising their free speech. Yet, any system that allows for anonymous speaking and listening can be used for copyright infringement. So free speech and copyright are mutually exclusive. Free speech is more important than copyright, so copyright must go.
"Why not leave it up to the producers?" makes about as much sense as "Why not let the slave owners decide on an individual basis whether to own slaves?" Information and people are fundamentally un-ownable for a variety of moral and practical reasons.
RIAA astroturf is flying thick and fast today. A content free propaganda first post mod'ed up to +5 to try to neutralize the article and direct the debate. I wonder how that happened?
Be careful people; there's a lot of astroturf and probably sock puppets on /. these days. It's amazing how every time there's a story with a point of view that the software or media industries don't like you'll get numerous weasels popping up who "just happen" to repeat tired old propaganda we've all heard and dismissed many times before. Treat these lowlifes with the contempt they deserve.
Redundancy and repetition are a strong sign that marketing parasites are involved. They don't care if they waste/steal people's time and attention as long as they achieve mind share at the expense of other points of view.
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Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Live performances, merchandise, nicely packaged albums with some extra value instead of just a combined cover/tracklist leaflet.
A picture of a painting or sculpture enables you to look at the respective artifact mainly for purposes of studying it. Enjoying the art usually does take the real thing.
Take the experience back to the big screen. Home theatres are getting awefully awesome nowadays, so take care real theatres don't lose out on quality aspects and keep up.
Customer interests are shifting. People want to watch whatever they feel like whenever they feel like without interruptions (i.e. ads). deal with it.
Either keep going letting the filmmaker do all the shifting work or explore new venues. Live is big again. People like to pay more and will give up control about time and place for awesome live performances of both music and acting (e.g. theatre, musicals, opera).
Unless absolutely necessary (e.g. reading pre-release versions of new Harry Potter books to have some spoilers ready for launch parties), extremely few people like to read long segments on a screen, so you're fine. Amazon is doing an amazing job with Kindle, others will follow suit. 2008 can be your year of Napster, your opportunity to get a competitive and customer-friendly electronic distribution to work before pirates do. Text can be distributed easily and practically instantaneous without infrastructural issues. Be quick and satisfy the general public before pirates do it -- they will.
For you too, this can be a golden age. Competition is harder than ever; thanks to blogs anybody can be a reporter. Standing out can attract a huge audience quicker and easier than ever. Be a journalist instead of just a reporter, cater to people's interests and a simple blogger account with some googly ads are all you need.
The world is changing. People want comfort and/or an extraordinary experience. Provide one and you're on the winning side. Provide both and you're right on track to greatness.