Swedish Pirate Party Gains 3000 Members In 7 Hours

An anonymous reader writes "Due to outrage over the verdict in The Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than 7 hours. It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament. 'Ruling means that our political work must now be stepped up. We want to ensure that the Pirate Bay activities — to link people and information — is clearly lawful. And we want to do it for all people in Sweden, Europe and the world, continues Rick Falk Vinge. We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.'"

Comments

Wow....

[Mia'cova]

Wow. I honestly didn't think TPB broke any swedish laws. The name is cute but the site doesn't favor pirated content over legal content. I don't get it.

Re:Wow....

[rackserverdeals]

The name might just be in reference to TPB.

Unfortunately, even though they got 3,000 members, 90% of them are leachers.

Re:Wow....

[harlows_monkeys]

The name is cute but the site doesn't favor pirated content over legal content

That's like saying a beer and cigarette store across the street from an elementary school, that sells to anyone regardless of age, is not favoring selling beer and cigarettes to kids--they are open to anyone--and so should be OK.

TPB's reason for existence is to promote pirated content. Their business model depends on it (their ad revenue would plummet if all they linked to was legal content).

It doesn't help them that they are scum, either, as the Arboga autopsy photos showed.

Re:Wow....

[h4rr4r]

You realize that they, like slashdot, are not responsible for what people post?

At least in the sense that they let you post anything, much like slashdot.

Re:Wow....

[againjj]

3000 MORE members, for a total of 17,799.

Re:Wow....

[Goblez]

Hahahaha. The truth is that most of these supporters probably are 'leachers', unwilling to actually expend their own effort to support it. But hey, isn't that 95% of America's political party 'supporters' as well?

Re:Wow....

[Shakrai]

You realize that they, like slashdot, are not responsible for what people post?

For better or worse (my vote) history suggests otherwise.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

For better, GNAA posts are removed too.

Re:Wow....

[h4rr4r]

Seems like they were not held responsible at all, they just removed it and replaced it with more information rather than fight about it.

Re:Wow....

[cortesoft]

To try to better fit your analogy, wouldn't this case be more like, say, holding the phone company responsible for the alcohol-to-kids store because they listed their telephone number and address? We all agree that this selling-to-anyone store is breaking the law... we just don't think telling people where the store is and what the store sells is illegal.

I apologize for not making this a car analogy.. I will try harder next time.

Re:Wow....

[cbiltcliffe]

As much as the DMCA sucks, I don't agree with your comment.

Slashdot wasn't responsible for what the commenter posted, otherwise the CoS would have been able to sue slashdot and win, regardless of whether the comment was taken down or not.

The fact that you have to comply with a DMCA takedown doesn't mean that you're responsible for the comment.
It means you're responsible for the comment, only if you ignore the takedown notice.

In practice, the comment is gone either way, so it doesn't make much difference to freedom of speech, but you aren't legally (read: financially) responsible.

Re:Wow....

[Microlith]

If true, it'd be apt for what probably amounts to a congregation of warez fiends.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

If that had happened within the last few years, that removed comment would've been posted to everything. Not just slashdot, but on every site. Friggin' scientologists.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a supporter means that you're paying subs. Even if they can't be arsed to go out and do any campaigning they're making a difference by giving money plus they're likely to talk about issues that the party raises in their newsletters.

As someone who is a member of a minority party (in the UK) I'd be very happy if we got 3,000 fee paying members all of a sudden. That kind of money and mind-share is what can lead to electoral victory.

Re:Wow....

[mdwh2]

Indeed - as much as the DMCA sucks, it does at least provide a way for websites to run legally. Sites like Slashdot or Youtube don't have to worry about copyright infringement in material that's posted, so long as they take it down when asked.

So how does this work for site like TPB, that contain links to Torrents? Put it another way - if I wanted to run a legal bittorrent search engine (because there are after all legal uses), how could I go about it?

Was the problem in TPB case that they failed to remove links when asked? Or is any bittorrent site at risk of prosecution? (Of course I realise that Swedish law is different to the US, but I'd be curious to know how this might work in either country.)

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Alcoholic you insensitive clod!

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to vote on the pirate party to make it effective. The fact that the party has 17000 members might make the other parties act in their stead in fear of loosing votes in the next election.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Now 19854... I hope this reach 30.000 by Monday

Re:Wow....

[Gerzel]

However while DMCA does handle one side of the equation it does not handle the wrongful use of DMCA notices taking down stuff that is legal. There are no anti-DMCA notices.

There needs to be a system to report on and have abuses checked and punished.

Re:Wow....

[The Empiricist]

The fact that you have to comply with a DMCA takedown doesn't mean that you're responsible for the comment. It means you're responsible for the comment, only if you ignore the takedown notice.

That's not quite accurate. If you comply with a DMCA takedown notice, it means you are protected from monetary damages, even if you put the work back up because of a counternotice provided by the user. If you do not comply with a DMCA takedown notice (e.g., if you are one of the countless service providers that has not designated an agent to receive a DMCA takedown notice), then you are no longer protected from monetary damages by the DMCA safe harbors. But, that doesn't mean that you are responsible for the user data either.

If there is no infringement, you are in the clear (unless you get sued but don't defend yourself). If there is infringement, then your liability could depend on factors such as whether you exercise control over what your site publishes, whether you had knowledge of the infringement, whether you promoted use of your site as a place for infringement, and whether you benefit as a result of the infringement.

Service providers did not want to face the uncertainty of whether the courts would find them liable for their users' content and what factors would affect the outcome of trial. I believe that they were the biggest supporters of the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA. The rights of users and the desire to avoid stiflement of free speech led to the counternotice-and-putback part of the safe harbor provisions (a provision sadly missing in the DMCA safe habor counterparts in parts of the world such as the European Union).

Unfortunately, the anonymous reader who posted Church of Scientology material (see grandparent comment) did so, well, anonymously. Thus, there was never an opportunity for a counternotice to be submitted by the user who posted the material. Perhaps someone could have claimed responsibility for having posted it and submitted a counternotice. But, that would mean providing a name, address, and telephone number, then consenting to the jurisdiction of U.S. Federal Courts.

Of course, Slashdot could have ignored the original notice and tried to face down a potential lawsuit from the Church of Scientology (not that I blame them for not wanting to go through that). But, Slashdot would have faced such as threat regardless of the DMCA safe habor provisions. At least the DMCA safe habor provisions meant that there was no need for Slashdot people (or scripts) to scan comments for potentially instances of infringement. And the DMCA counternotice-and-putback provision provided an opportunity for someone else to take on the monetary risks of possible infringement.

If Slashdot did not take advantage of the DMCA safe habor, or if there were no DMCA safe habors, that would not meant that Slashdot would be liable in court. It would just mean that Slashdot would have one affirmative defense fewer to hide behind and that the question of responsibility would be an open one for the courts to decide.

Re:Wow....

[shutdown -p now]

However while DMCA does handle one side of the equation it does not handle the wrongful use of DMCA notices taking down stuff that is legal. There are no anti-DMCA notices.

But there are - that's the whole point of DMCA take-down process! Here's how it works:

User X publishes some material using service provider P. Company Y sends P a DMCA take-down notice, claiming the ownership of said material. At this point P must take the materials down, or accept responsibility for copyright infringement (if Y can later prove in court that the material was indeed infringing).

You assume that it stops here, but in practice, it doesn't. Here's what follows.

When P takes down the materials, it notifies X. X can now in turn claim that claims put forward by Y are themselves wrong - and at that point P can put the content back online, without assuming responsibility (it now fully rests with X). Note, this is precisely your "anti-DMCA notice". If Y is willing to stick to their claim, they sue X, and then the court figures out who's wrong and who's right; if the court finds out that the material was indeed infringing, then P finally takes down the material for good, and X (but not P) pays out the damages to Y.

The reason why counterclaims are very rare in practice is because 1) most material removed under DMCA take-down notices is, indeed, infringing, and the poster knows it very well, so they don't challenge it, and 2) in remaining cases, if people are uncertain about the status, they are often afraid and/or don't have the money to go to court. #1 needs no further elaboration, while #2 is a deficiency with the American justice system in general, not with DMCA.

Aside from that, it's actually a very reasonable process that results in minimal headache for the service providers, gives content owners a quick way to remove content which is clearly illegal without going to the court for each and every case, and yet allows content posters to defend their rights in the court if they believe they are in the right.

Re:Wow....

[AI0867]

You may want to look into DMCA counter-notices.

Re:Wow....

[bonch]

The name is cute but the site doesn't favor pirated content over legal content. I don't get it.

You seriously can't be this naive. I can't read your post without picturing you winking and nudging me. It's called PirateBay, their logo is a pirate ship, they have the support of a "Pirate Party," and they run a tracker server that facilitates the exchange of copyrighted materials.

Come on. This "outrage" over the verdict is stupid. PirateBay was ripping artists off. People only want to support it because they don't want to lose their free ride. It has nothing to do with "linking people and information." PirateBay could have done that without posting torrents for copyrighted materials.

Get real, Slashdot.

Re:Wow....

[bonch]

If Slashdot wasn't responsible for the comments that are posted on their servers, they wouldn't have been forced to remove a comment in the past due to legal threat from the Church of Scientology.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

good to know i can post whatever i want

Re:Wow....

[CarpetShark]

I don't get it.

Big Media = Big Money. TPB = The Piggy Bank.

What's not to get?

Re:Wow....

[pwizard2]

PirateBay was ripping artists off.

If you had substituted "labels" for "artists", I might have agreed with you. Most artists are lucky if they make any real money on CD sales anyway with the contracts they have to sign, so this ultimately comes down to a Big Content vs. everyone else situation.

Re:Wow....

[thinkloop]

The law, like life, is very nuanced. If you have one bad phone number in a big phonebook, its ok. But if your entire phonebook is full of drug dealers and prostitutes, AND you're making money advertising, the law provides mechanisms to differentiate the two. (disclaimer: I am a drug dealer and prostitute.)

Re:Wow....

[Dun Malg]

Still not illegal. Have you never been to the Las Vegas strip? The "escort service" fliers are all over the place.

Re:Wow....

[Handlarn]

It has everything to do with linking people and information, since hyperlinking copyrighted material is not considered a crime in Sweden.

Until now, because torrents are technically not much more than a file with links.

Of course there's an outrage. Linking copyrighted material is LEGAL in Sweden. Hosting copyrighted material for unlawful distribution is illegal. It is obvious that The Pirate Bay have not been involved in the latter.

They got a one-year prison sentence and 30 million SEK in fines for something that is legal.

Re:Wow....

[Shizawana]

The total is 20009 as of now, and saying "they got 3000 members" suggests that they received NEW members, where as the phrase "they've got 3000 members" would suggest that which you obviously interpreted. Your correction is erroneously.

Re:Wow....

[n00854180t]

Too bad the DMCA isn't a Swedish law.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Wow. I honestly didn't think TPB broke any swedish laws.

The problem is that that question had nothing to do with the ruling. The Swedish government has been put under pressure by multinational corporations and politicians in foreign countries. A verdict like this was practically a given. But did you notice? The Pirate Bay is still there. The website is still there. It didn't go down...

Anyhow, minor things like legality don't stop those people. They send people to prison when they want to, and they avoid prison when they do illegal things (e.g. the whole spying thing).

But you know something else? No matter how much they play whack-a-mole, they can't stop file sharing.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the DMCA isn't a Swedish law.

Irony : If the parent comment is marked off-topic.

Re:Wow....

[cbiltcliffe]

We're talking about a comment posted on /. at the moment - not TPB. /. is a US site, run by a US company.

Re:Wow....

[thinkloop]

The "escort service" fliers are all over the place.

Finding out whether an escort service is an "escort service" or not, is a costly and time consuming business. They get busted all the time, but the cops can't do 'em all. And by the time they finish busting one, two more pop up ready to take its place. Sound familiar?

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that this is a verdict in the lowest court out of three levels. And as this has turned out to be a highly politically motivated case, it's quite misleading putting any value into the verdict. This is a farce, let's just hope the higher courts will show more sense.

These guys might have been going against the essence of the copyright law, but not the technicalities. Also the fact that all four of them got the same sentence (for quite different involvement in TPB) hints that this is just a desperate reaction rather than a rationally based conclution.

Re:Wow....

[Repossessed]

You are mostly correct. Mostly is the key word here, most DMCA notices are not legitimate. From an earlier /. article:

In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.

(yes that adds up to over 100%, there is overlap)

There is, mostly, no penalty for sending fake notices, so people do it all the time. There needs to be statutory damages for sending invalid claims even when the claim is in good faith, and even when no financial damage is done to the victim, to combat this. In cases where the claim is actively malicious, the perjury clause needs to be enforced.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Math. I don't understand yours.

Re:Wow....

[guruevi]

Well, let me give you a comment on that. This is a quote from L. Ron Hubbard's OT3 with my comments interwoven:

1. Check for any BTs (E-meter, theta perceptics, intention, pressure areas, telepathy is HOW) on and in:

Body surface (WHERE)
Body inside
In thetan's space (Approx. 40' X 60')
On thetan
2. Run Incident 2, then Incident 1, until BT(s) have gone and are released. Then, check for additional Incidents 1's and 2's until dry (on the meter).

-- Is there any scientific proof that this e-meter actually works? Is there any independent study that proves these claims? How do I build an e-meter?

3. Return to Step 2, to find new ones to run. Use ruds while running if necessary. There is an effort to stop and hurry on Incident 1.

-- This doesn't even make sense. Is it asking you to keep repeating the same procedure? If you're charging for it isn't it just a matter of having to keep paying them. How come the first run doesn't just work? Is the Step 2 flawed in some way?

4. When complete, exact date and run both of the incidents on self.

-- It seems to be infectious (whatever the problem might be). Again, is there some way you can test the passing over of the problem from the one being administered to the one administering.

5. If a bog, do Millazo Pack. Write down some 'mutual associations'. Re each one on this list, FIND THE INCIDENT THAT MADE THEM ONE, and run that. Then, run OT III, Incident 2 and 1 after that cluster is broken up. Occasionally, BTs will have an incident that made them one other then Incident 2, thus this action.

INCIDENT 2: Dates approx. 75 million years ago, earth years, location, Earth, named TEEGEEACK at that time (meaning planet of sorrow), involved 33 planets of this sector, each with populations of 80 - 200 BILLION PER PLANET. XENU, the ruler, and 'Renegades' decided to solve overpopulation as follows, but was halted and XENU placed in a mountain trap after over 5 years of war.

Incident 2 Patter: DETERMINE IF A LOYAL OFFICER, RESIDENT OF EARTH, or FROM ANOTHER PLANET. If the latter two, start at their being picked up and shot and if from another planet, frozen in an ice cube, transported (flying saucer), taken to mountain, a volcano always, H BOMB EXPLOSION, TERRIFIC WINDS, EFFORT TO ORIENT, MAGNETIC STRIP UP FROM CENTER OF VOLCANO OR DOWN FROM AN AIRPLANE, EFFORT TO GET OFF AND FIND REST OF SELF, PROTEST, BEING PULLED ON STRIP, VISUAL DISPLAY OF INSTRUCTION BY A 'GO TO THE PILOT', WHO SAYS 'HE'S MOCKING IT UP'.

-- Is it difficult to write continuous, understandable English or what? Even so, how does this measure up against other theories that say that residents from other planets might not ever be able to reach us?

Incident 1: Dates 4 QUADRILLION YEARS AGO (which is 15 zeros or 4,000 trillion years ago).

-- According to nuclear physics, wouldn't all matter have decayed by then? At least the sun would've died out several times.

Incident 1 Patter: LOUD SNAP, WAVES OF LIGHT, HORSES DRAWING CHARIOT RIGHT TO LEFT, CHERUB COMES OUT, BLOWS HORN, COMES CLOSE, SHATTERING SERIES OF SNAPS, CHERUB FADES, RETREATS, BLACK MASS IS DUMPED ON THE THETAN.

-- This sounds very apocalyptic. Is it possible that the one experiencing it might have other issues like multiple personalities? I believe this is all very weird to me. It's hardly understandable to the one that wrote it. It's like writing code without any comments.

Volcano List

Note: These were the most common locations. 600 other volcanoes did and do exist, which I did not list.

You clear up that a BT is a body thetan, The instructions are self explanatory, Basically, the reason they are doing this is to where they won't be confused with hundreds of different thoughts so that they can have some peace and quiet, and so they won't be other-determined. After they have run all these remnants of folks out by telepathic auditing on them, they attain the state of freedom from overwhelm and a return of full self determinism. One cleans off those 4 ar

Re:Wow....

[Repossessed]

Yes, I totally botched the math.

Re:Wow....

[Jurily]

Hahahaha. The truth is that most of these supporters probably are 'leachers', unwilling to actually expend their own effort to support it.

If the fact that they expressed their opinion by joining a political party doesn't send a strong enough message, only a revolution will. Especially if you consider how many are also outraged but don't want to join.

Re:Wow....

[49152]

This all assumes the service provider knows how to contact X.

What about anonymous speech?

The way you describe it, the DMCA can easily be misused to sensor anonymous free speech with bogus copyright claims.

The Scientology church just to name one example is known to have used questionable copyright claims on numerous occasions to suppress critics.

The possibility for anonymous speech is also vitally important to expose the misdeeds of miscreants like the Scientology church less they harass their critics in any imaginable way legal or otherwise.

Re:Wow....

[ElectricTurtle]

Moderated down and removed are not the same thing.

Re:Wow....

[Toonol]

That's like saying Google exists to provide porn!

Oh, wait... that's pretty much why it exists...

Re:Wow....

[frostband]

You give 4.99% far too much credit

Re:Wow....

[shutdown -p now]

This all assumes the service provider knows how to contact X.

What about anonymous speech?

I've always been wondering about that. After all, even with non-anonymous speech, usually when you post something, the service provider at best has a nickname and an email. If, then, after a take-down, someone writes from that same email (which is obviously easy to forge) challenging it, how does it work?

I'm not sure how DMCA works in practice, but in theory I don't see it as a problem for this kind of approach - the only thing we really need to do is to let anyone challenge takedowns, not just the original poster (but, of course, if you do challenge, then you accept responsibility, with all that entails - such as possibly getting sued and paying out damages).

The Scientology church just to name one example is known to have used questionable copyright claims on numerous occasions to suppress critics.

I'm not sure Scientologists are a good example here. I personally hate that scam with a passion, and they certainly do abuse copyright from an ethical standpoint, but technically they are in their right to do what they do (i.e. forbid you from spreading their texts). If a DMCA-like law makes it impossible to do so, I would find it a pity (just because I want CoS to suffer), but it's not a defect in the law itself. It's not supposed to make illegal acts easier.

Re:Wow....

[Dan541]

They didn't.

You don't need to break the law to goto Jail, just piss off someone with money.

Re:Wow....

[Dan541]

The name is cute but the site doesn't favor pirated content over legal content

That's like saying a beer and cigarette store across the street from an elementary school, that sells to anyone regardless of age, is not favoring selling beer and cigarettes to kids--

It's not their job to parent another persons child. Anyway a sale is a sale.

Re:Wow....

[49152]

You are not allowed to spread their complete text, that is correct.

But in most civilized countries fair use clauses in the copyright laws or specific case law allows you to quote from their text in order to discuss it publicly.

The Scientology church does not respect fair use of copyrighted material (neither does many commercial entities, Mattel comes to mind).

I do agree it would be better if anyone could counter claim DMCA take downs but this would not be good enough because who in their right mind would chance being identified (by a court order for instance) by organizations like the Scientology church who has deep pockets and armies of lawyers.

BTW: I strongly believe Scientologists are an excellent example because when considering strength and weaknesses in law you have to consider worst case scenarios. Because there will always be someone sleazy enough to use the loopholes if there are any at all.

Re:Wow....

[Dan541]

The Cult don't like their shit being published.

Especially this one: http://danscomp.net/scientology-ot-levels.pdf

Re:Wow....

[Dan541]

It means you're responsible for the comment, only if you ignore the takedown notice.

and that's what makes DMCA utter bullshit.

Who am I to remove a users comment? If I give people the right to post whatever they want on my site it just seems wrong to delete the post. Any lawsuits are between the user posting the comment and the plaintiff.

Re:Wow....

[Dan541]

That's why the system is so flawed.

Y should have to prove infringement against X before P is required to take any action. P should never be held accountable for the actions of X unless Y has proven X guilty in court and P still allows the content to be uploaded.

There should always be a court order before anything is taken offline.

Re:Wow....

[daveime]

And has been pointed out by the Pirate Bay admins themselves, American DMCA laws do NOT apply in Sweden.

YouTube, Google et al, have very heavy investment in the US, and hence have to keep the peace and respect US laws for those services hosted in US.

But as has been pointed out many times, Google and YouTube are opt-out ... if dodgy content is found, you have to issue a DMCA takedown to get it removed ... by then it's possibly TOO late, the content has already been disseminated. And for every takedown done, 10 more copies of the exact same thing will spring up and get indexed within the next 24 hours anyway, so the whole exercise is futile.

PirateBay was in essence opt-in, i.e. someonw had to upload the torrent file at some point, but as it's kind of difficult to sue everyone in the world (especially when you have no real concept of what a torrent file even IS), they went after the easy target.

I wonder how long it'll be before they go after Mininova, Isohunt and all the others ... probably never, just like Napster, the PirateBay is a flagship "victory" for the ??IA, while at the same time not making a damn of difference in the long run.

Re:Wow....

[daveime]

but the cops can't do 'em all

So many hookers, so little time. Wish I was a cop in Lag Vegas.

Re:Wow....

[ishobo]

There are some minor points that need correcting. P has to wait 14 days after they send Y the counter notice from X before they are allowed to restore X's material. It is within that time period that Y must file a suit in federal district court to keep the material offline. If Y does file, the material stays down pending the outcome.

Re:Wow....

[ubernostrum]

To try to better fit your analogy, wouldn't this case be more like, say, holding the phone company responsible for the alcohol-to-kids store because they listed their telephone number and address? We all agree that this selling-to-anyone store is breaking the law... we just don't think telling people where the store is and what the store sells is illegal.

Well, actually you're making an important mistake by using an incorrect analogy.

If the phone book changed its title to "The Underage Alcohol Hookup Bay", changed its listings to a bunch of messages saying "ALCOHOL SOLD 2 N E 1 NO ID REQUIRED UNDER AGE A-OK!!!!!", etc., and then put a little label on the front saying "you kids be good and behave yourselves, we don't want any law-breaking in here", would they have any reasonable case for claiming innocence in any resulting underage alcohol acquisitions? Or would a judge say that they clearly intended to to facilitate such acquisitions? What if there were a law stating that giving a child instructions on how to obtain alcohol was, while not the same as providing that child with alcohol, still a crime? Such laws do exist in many countries with regard to copyright infringement, after all...

Re:Wow....

[arkhan_jg]

The other reason is that service providers are under no obligation to put material back up when served with a counter-notice - often, they just delete it completely, and sometimes cancel the account entirely. If the original poster wants it back up, they need to repost it from scratch, sometimes with a new account.

Even if the work would be defensible under fair use (incidental snippet of background music in a video, some building background in a photo), people don't bother because it wasn't that important to them anyway, and it's certainly not worth going to court over. They will however, feel contrained from posting new material in case they get slapped down again. Others who hear about the slapdowns will refrain from posting things that, while perfectly legal, might incur DMCA notices and account terminations.

This is the chilling effect of DMCA notices, because it's biased towards taking material down, even if it's not infringing. There's no penalty for issuing DMCA notices for stuff you know damn well isn't infringing (such as it only shares a few letters in common in the filename!), only for misrepresenting yourself as the copyright owner or his agent of the work you actually claim is infringed.

The DMCA assumes notices will only be issued for items that are clearly infringing with no fair use defence, to save companies having to go to court over cases they'd surely win.

Instead, it's turned into a free-for-all where the copyright cartels are slapping down anything that even vaguely sounds similar to their works, and having defacto lost, people generally aren't prepared to fight over it, especially if it means going to court with a multi-billion company over some youtube video.

The only people likely to send a counter-notice are those who have a vested interest in their material staying up, i.e. other authors selling material mistakenly flagged.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

The total is 20009 as of now, and saying "they got 3000 members" suggests that they received NEW members, where as the phrase "they've got 3000 members" would suggest that which you obviously interpreted.

Your correction is erroneously.

And your "correction" doesn't even parse. Please leave linguistic pedantry to professionals/native speakers, because you're obviously neither.

Thanks!

Re:Wow....

[trickyD1ck]

yeah, guys here on slashdot know what is better for everyone including artists. if artist were so fascinated of this whole torrent thing, why would they sign contracts with labels? why don't they release their contents directly on torrents instead of the iTunes store? also could it be that people here on slashdot are predominantly socialists/commies/leftists?

Re:Wow....

[Zibri]

Micro howto for signing up in the swedish Piratpartiet:
1. Go to piratpartiet.se
2. Sign up as a member
3. Done.

So, they are definitly not "paying supporters", and most probably won't lift a finger for "The Cause" (???). I'd probably guess that most are 18yrs, so they can't even vote in the upcoming election for the EU parlament.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that there is no real ramifications for frivolous litigation in America and your chances of getting sued are 9x greater than you going to the hospital. It's a crock.

I'm involved in BS lawsuit that's been going on for 5 years and after a 130k in defense I'm broke and they're going to win because I ran out of money. we have this rule here in FL 57.105 basically putting the attorney on notice that he will be responsible for 50% of the fees and the client for the remainder for bringing frivolous cases to court. So you need to sue an attorney who is capable of defending himself and spend more money. So once you over come that then you have to deal with every judge was once an attorney and they don't like to enforce it because they were in those shoes at some point.

It's kind of like how we'll never get congress to reverse a law that gives its constituents the peak of their last 5 years salary tax free for life when their service is over. We can't afford social security and we pay them gobs for their ignorant BS.

we need to start our own country...

Re:Wow....

[Zibri]

it should be below 18 yrs, ofc. /. doesn't like lesser than signs.

Re:Wow....

[mdwh2]

Well YouTube is "opt-in" too in the sense that someone has to upload the file, but with both YouTube and TPB, it wasn't the copyright owner who opted in. So the more useful thing from the copyright owner's point of view is being able to opt out.

I know that Swedish law is different to US law - but I'm curious how one could run a legal bittorrent site at all, either in Sweden after this ruling, or in the US under the DMCA.

Is the problem simply that TPB ignored "opt-out" requests (I don't know if they did or not) (in which case, it wouldn't be so bad if a site could be ran legally so long as you honoured those requests - as you note, the takedown notices would be of little use, and this would be especially true on bittorrent - people downloading TV shows soon after they air would still do so before they probably get round to issuing a request, not to mention that the torrent file would propagate to other sites). But if any torrent site would be ruled illegal in Sweden, even if they honoured takedown requests, I think that's an even more worrying thing.

Re:Wow....

[pbhj]

Linking copyrighted material is LEGAL in Sweden. Hosting copyrighted material for unlawful distribution is illegal.

Is there any [other?] court in the world that has ruled that providing a link to a work is an infringement of copyright? Google is in trouble if this is the case, they provide rather a lot of links to rather a lot of copyright works.

Oh of course, "common carrier" exclusions - if you're a big corporation you can do it but not if you're an SME or a private individual?

Strictly speaking providing a [html anchor] link is probably contributory infringement in the UK. But then making backups of your DVDs is illegal here as is watching a show you recorded from the TV more than once, or with a friend.

Re:Wow....

[commodore64_love]

>>>"they got 3000 members" suggests that they received NEW members

No it doesn't. The sentence means they have exactly 3000 members. The sentence is factually incorrect therefore Againjj corrected it.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

57+37=94
Just thought you should know.

Re:Wow....

[commodore64_love]

>>>If you had substituted "labels" for "artists".

Also labels are ripping-off customers. There's no such thing as "satisfaction guaranteed". When my teenaged niece bought me Jonas Brothers (who are okay but I really don't like), I tried to return the unopened CD. The store refused. I contacted the record company; they also refused.

It's all about the money with the labels, and they are using the power of the government to extort that money, such that artists and customers have little protection (copyright laws, no-return policy, a mere 5 cents per CD for the singers, and direct threatening letters from RIAA). When government and corporations collude, individual liberty dies.

Places like piratebay or demonoid help customers regain some of that power, through a "try before you buy" paradigm.

Re:Wow....

[beav007]

Copyright lawyers are just a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Re:Wow....

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Pirate bay users would think that swarming in greater numbers will push their cause faster, wouldn't they? Typical.

Re:Wow....

[Snaller]

Copyright is theft.

Re:Wow....

[Snaller]

"They got a one-year prison sentence and 30 million SEK in fines for something that is legal."

Clearly not, they got a fine for something illegal. You must be mistaken.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess:
- they'll appeal and will probably not be convicted. Following this, the powers that be, will initiate a court case relating to the revenue received by TPB. Using the "general clause" under Swedish tax law, virtually everyone could be considered a criminal, which should facilitate a conviction somewhat.

I don't have a doubt that they will pay a heavy personal price for this, irrespective if they have broken the law or not.

Re:Wow....

[gringofrijolero]

Alcohol, Cars...close enough...You could say the manufacturer of the car you used to drive to the liquor store is aiding and abetting illegal activity under these insane laws. It all makes me wonder if some governments aren't trying to provoke armed resistance. Let's charge the politicians with inciting a riot if it happens.

Re:Wow....

[Keeper Of Keys]

If I understand the verdict correctly, the DMCA did play a part, in that Swedish law requires compliance with applicable copyright laws. And the DMCA takedown notices served against TPB were judged to have been applicable. I would imagine this interpretation of the law will form part of TPB's appeal.

Re:Wow....

[Keeper Of Keys]

The rush to join the Pirate Party would seem less a protest about a miscarriage of justice than a push to change the law.

Re:Wow....

[suffe]

They might not be "paying supporters", but if I don't remember it completely wrong, parties large enough are entitled to state funds and these contributions are calculated on the numbers of members. I know their youth party section receives quite a large ammount due to this. They are in fact the largest political youth section in the country.

So, for all intents and purpouses, they might as well be called 'paying' members.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there's an outrage. Linking copyrighted material is LEGAL in Sweden. Hosting copyrighted material for unlawful distribution is illegal. It is obvious that The Pirate Bay have not been involved in the latter.

They got a one-year prison sentence and 30 million SEK in fines for something that is legal.

So if I have a directory containing ripped ogg files of my cd:s wich is legal and open that directory up to the internet, it is illegal, but if i instead use ln -s to create a softlink to that directory and then open up the softlink to the internet, then it is legal?

Re:Wow....

[daveime]

Yes, but therein lies the crux of the matter ... the Swedish admins weren't obliged to takedown ANYTHING, as what they were doing was (and as far as I know, still IS), legal under Swedish law.

Now obviously sticking two fingers up at requests was possibly not the best way to handle things, a more gentile "please refer to Swedish law 123.456" might have been better suited to handle takedown notices.

But at the end of the day, they haven't actually broken any Swedish laws about copyrighted material, simply because they didn't copy any. This "aiding and abetting copyright infringement", whether you like the name of the website or what it stands for, is as I see no more insidious than Google's "spider everything and wait till we get a takedown notice", because for every 1 item that gets taken down, another 20 are left behind.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is though. Joining the Pirate Party is FREE. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna vote for them in June, but you have to keep things like this in mind when looking at the member-numbers

Arghhhh Cap'n

[howman]

A party it will be.... Just hope it doesn't end up some sophomoric anger fest and the spokespeople have a solid message and play by the rules.

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[JCSoRocks]

"Why is the rum always gone?"
- Cap'n Jack

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[Chabo]

Anyone want to start a Pirate Party in the US?

I realize that the chance of a small party grabbing any meaningful power is smaller in a Constitutional Republic than a Parliamentary system, but it's still worth a shot, right? ;)

Maybe we can win some local elections and gain some notoriety?

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[the_one(2)]

There is a pirate party in the US. http://www.pirate-party.us/

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[Darkness404]

There is an active Pirate Party in the USA at the moment however it is not formally recognized (yet)

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pirate-party.us/ has been around a couple of years...

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[lilomar]

A day late and a dollar short...

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[lilomar]

See for yourself. They've been around since '84, I'd say that the message is pretty solidified by now.

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[Gerzel]

Hey those anger-fests are for people of all ages and academic levels!

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[Anonymous Coward]

IP law is sadly national, so local elections won't help too much. Otoh, internet traffic is global, so we don't need the US. It seems best supporting pro-pirate nations like Sweden.

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[ZOmegaZ]

I've been endorsed by said party to run for Congress in Tennessee's fifth district. Check the sig.

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[mach1980]

If you want to make a difference in the US, support EFF (www.eff.com)

I live in Sweden and support EFF because looking at track records show that Electronic Frontier Foundation has done a heck of a lot more for freedom of speech in my home country than the Pirate Party. Swedish judges rely heavily on examples from the US (just look at the TPB trial).

Re:Arghhhh Cap'n

[Ezel]

I give approx 10usd to both EFF and the swedish Pirateparty every month. I can afford both. And both matters a great deal!

Limewire, LOL!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do what you want, 'cause a pirate is free,
YOU ARE A PIRATE!
Yar har, fiddle di dee,
Being a pirate is alright to be,
Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free,
You are a pirate!

(spoken)You are a pirate!
(crowd)Yay!

We've got us a map, (a map!)
To lead us to a hidden box,
That's all locked up with locks! (with locks!)
And buried deep away!

We'll dig up the box, (the box!)
We know it's full of precious booty!
Burst open the locks!
And then we'll say hooray!

Re:Limewire, LOL!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for fuck's sake. Now it's in my head :-/

Re:Limewire, LOL!!!!!

[Chabo]

How is this off-topic?

It's the PIRATE SONG!

Geez, must be someone who hates LazyTown.

Re:Limewire, LOL!!!!!

[Quothz]

We'll dig up the box, (the box!)

We know it's full of precious booty!

I don't like it.

You don't want no treasurin', eh?

I don't want it.

And you probably don't want no groggin' and revelin' and wrenchin' and rummin' either, I s'pose?

Well... deep down? You want to know the truth? It's not me. I don't want it.

Well, what do you want?

I want to... sing and dance, and --

I know, I know, and wear your tight little shiny pants. Ugh! Okay. We'll all sing... and dance. (Grumbling from pirates) I SAID, WE'LL ALL SING AND DANCE OR YOU'LL WALK THE PLANK! A'one, a'two, free!

(chorus)

I want to sing and dance,

I want to sing and dance

I want to be a pirate in the Pirates of Penzance.

Wear me silver-buckled slippers and me tight shiny pants...

I want to sing and dance!

Re:Limewire, LOL!!!!!

[Hurricane78]

Geez, must be someone who hates LazyTown.

And that's rare how?
From what I know, kids hate LazyTown, but Pedobear seems to approve.

Re:Limewire, LOL!!!!!

[Chabo]

Nothing like that for me, I just think the music is catchy!

nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[roman_mir]

so what we have here is a possibility that in the future a 'pirate' party controls the government maybe? Would Obama with his RIAA lawyer friends declare Sweden to be part of axis of evil and will actually bomb them to bring in the democracy US style (where only 2 parties are really allowed to hold the government in practice).

That bunker, that one of their ISP has may just come in handy.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[richie2000]

That bunker, that one of their ISP has may just come in handy.

Actually, that ISP is one of our best supporters and we have all of our Pirate Party servers in that bunker. ;-)

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Qzukk]

we have all of our Pirate Party servers in that bunker

Target acquired

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

I really hope that this Pirate party gets elected to power in Sweden and abolish the copyright laws. The economic chaos that would ensue and the ridicule that that country would be subjected to worldwide would hopefully make even the most pea brained anti-copyright wannabe crusader realize what a stupid and childish idea that is.

But then there are still socialists around even after miserable failures that system brought to every country where it was tried so I guess some people just can't be convinced.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Ralish]

You don't need to get into government to affect the political process; rather, you need enough seats to be able to have a significant impact on the likelihood of legislation getting through the parliament. I suspect this is what they are aiming for. I'm not sure what the composition is of the American parliament, for instance, but many countries have minor parties with significant representation.

For example, here in Australia the Greens have several seats in the Senate, enough in fact, that the Government can't pass legislation without their support (assuming they don't have the support of the opposition). This usually isn't a problem, as the Greens will generally go along with most of the government legislation. But, for certain pieces, for example, the government is forced to make concessions to appease the Greens if they wish to get the legislation through.

The point being, if you need the support of a party in order to get more controversial legislation through, you may well find you need to make concessions to other parties in areas that aren't core to your political ideology in order to advance your main cause. I suspect this is what The Pirate Party would like to achieve. No real aspirations for government, just enough representation to change the law in the areas they really care about.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Fnordulicious]

I don't know what universe you hail from, but most European countries are unarguably socialist to some degree and are doing pretty well for themselves. Have you confused socialism with Soviet-style communism?

Or perhaps you're just trolling and I've been caught.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Heddahenrik]

I don't know about your culture, but here in Sweden we stop calling ideas "childish" before the end of the primary school. You argue like a little kid. An annoying one too.

For you others: The cost of creating artificial monopolies like a copy monopoly or a patent monopoly is way larger than simply tax people and give the creators money. You all know this (unless you're stupid like clarkkent09), but for some odd reason you're fooled to think that a total forbidding of copying is less bad than a tax that at least makes it possible, even though more expensive.

Then I really wonder why on Earth should Metallica, Madonna and Abba get loads of more money even if they don't work anymore? Stealing from common people and giving to the rich, while forbidding the poor to take part of the culture. Why should the government help with that? It sure as hell don't give us better, more or cheaper music.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright is actually anti-democratic, as it promotes a small minority at the expense of the vast majority.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[mdwh2]

Well, all countries - even the US - are socialist "to some degree", as they have things such as welfare, and Government funded services such defence, education, transport and in some cases health.

But I wouldn't refer to European countries as socialist, anymore than I would say the US is a socialist country.

(Not that I agree with the OP in any way.)

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Narpak]

Have you confused socialism with Soviet-style communism?

There seems to be a lot of that going around. People seem to wilfully ignore the fact that there are so many brands of socialism that it almost render the term meaningless. Saying or implying that it is absolutely inevitable that implementing some economical control or oversight will lead to a totalitarian regime.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Kjella]

so what we have here is a possibility that in the future a 'pirate' party controls the government maybe?

Control? No. Influence? Yes. Like most countries, there are two definitive left-right blocks in Sweden, the difference being ~3-4% at the moment. The general idea is to get the Pirate Party past the 4% minimum in the 2010 parliament elections, then use that +/-4% = 8% swing to demand concessions from both blocks for the Pirate Party's support. That is for next year though, right now it's all about the June 2009 European Parliament elections.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

And that article undoes the fact that most of the civilised world is run via social democracy...how, exactly?

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

I don't know about your culture, but here in Sweden we stop calling ideas "childish" before the end of the primary school.

Why? Sometimes they are.

You argue like a little kid.

Because the argument in question is so ridiculous that it hardly deserves a serious rebuttal other than ridicule.

For you others: The cost of creating artificial monopolies like a copy monopoly or a patent monopoly is way larger than simply tax people and give the creators money. You all know this (unless you're stupid like clarkkent09), but for some odd reason you're fooled to think that a total forbidding of copying is less bad than a tax that at least makes it possible, even though more expensive.

If I understand correctly, you are proposing to tax everybody and pass on the money to the artists, i.e. creating a complete state control over culture. Who will decide which artists get the money and which other unfortunate ones will be taxed in order to finance the chosen ones? Why should people who passionately dislike certain artists be forced to finance them? If you have evidence that the cost of enforcing copyright is greater than the total profits on the copyrighted works please present it. It seems extremely unlikely. Btw, what do patents have to do with anything? You want to abolish them too?

Stealing from common people and giving to the rich, while forbidding the poor to take part of the culture.

Calm down Lenin, you are getting carried away. Please think about each part of that sentence for a minute and then go back to your igloo to cool down a bit.

Let me ask you something. If there were no legal and technical hurdles to file sharing, there would be some sort of "freeamazon.com" where all current music, books and software in the world can be downloaded for free, right? After all, with all that traffic, the owners of that site would make a killing, and there would be no legal problem in simply ripping each new release that comes out and posting it there. Wouldn't that mean that the people who write those books, companies that create all those applications, games etc and artists and recording companies who write and produce all that music, and studios who make all those movies would be out of business instantly? How would they justify the investment in money, time and work that they made if only one copy will ever be sold?

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

Most of the "civilized" world is run by a watered down version of free-market capitalism with social services thrown in. Even Labour party in UK have realized that private capital is the most effective driving force of an economy ever known and so have most of the other former left wing parties out there. Nobody serious is promoting state ownership of industry as was the case all over the Europe just a few decades ago.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Gerzel]

France is a Massive Failure?
England is a Massive Failure?
Canada is a Massive Failure?

MOST OF THE FIRST WORLD NATIONS are massive failures?

I don't think Massive Failure means what you think it means.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[B1oodAnge1]

Wouldn't that mean that the people who write those books, companies that create all those applications, games etc and artists and recording companies who write and produce all that music, and studios who make all those movies would be out of business instantly? How would they justify the investment in money, time and work that they made if only one copy will ever be sold?

They'd only be out of business if their work sucked. People, in general, support things they like.

Not to mention all the added value inherent in buying (DRM free) physical media, and the monetization opportunities for the actual artists when their fans have free access to their work.

I would suggest you look at the business model that Trent Reznor is creating, in my opinion he is years ahead of the rest of the industry.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[colinrichardday]

Does Australia have proportional representation, or do MP's represent districts? The US has the latter, and the Greens can't even get a seat from San Francisco (try unseating Speaker Pelosi).

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

They'd only be out of business if their work sucked. People, in general, support things they like.

So people will pay for something they like and if they don't like it they won't pay for it? How is that any different from the current situation. Seems like you are only adding an option to legally get it for free as well. Why?

Not to mention all the added value inherent in buying (DRM free) physical media, and the monetization opportunities for the actual artists when their fans have free access to their work.I would suggest you look at the business model that Trent Reznor is creating, in my opinion he is years ahead of the rest of the industry.

That might apply to musicians (concerts etc) but how does it apply to writers? How do they make money if their books are free. Same for software and movie companies.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

I don't think socialism means what you think it means. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1203171&cid=27621599

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is copyright reform socialist? Is it because it's not a 500 year old idea so it cant be right wing?

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, dumbass. People have been creating Content for millenia. It worked out just damn fine even when there weren't laws to protect copyrights. Don't be such a fucking tard to say it's not possible when there are fucking CENTURIES OF HUMAN HISTORY that prove otherwise.

People buy things they like. They go to concerts, buy t-shirts, go to book readings and book signings. They buy Photoshop at work even if they pirate it at home. They go see The Dark Knight with their friends even if they pirated it a month before. The internet has not changed that. Now go fucking troll somewhere else, you worthless piece of shit.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, we don't have a parliament. We only have a tyranny of the majority.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[cortesoft]

What part of being anti-copyright is anti capitalist? You can have capitalism without draconian copyright laws, and you can have strict copyright laws in a socialist state.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

They supported and endorsed Obama
1: who still thinks wiretapping americans is okay
2 who put bunch of RIAA lawyers on his team

  any questions?

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

First of all, I would advise you to seriously think about why are you getting so vicious over an issue like this. Maybe time to contact a mental health professional if you haven't already before you get physically violent with someone. Or perhaps you are one of those quiet types who puts up with shit all day and then vents all the pent up anger online. posting as nonymous coward of all things?

Anyway, people have been creating content for millenia, but never on anywhere near scale of today. Not by a factor of 100. The reason for that is that due to copyright protection, artists, writers, musicians etc can for the first time in history make a good living out of their talent and not depend on pity of some "patron" like some of the greatest musicians in history had to.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[clarkkent09]

I didn't say it was, the whole socialism thing just came up separately. I took die-hard socialists simply as an example of people who won't listen to reason and people seem to have taken an issue with that, hence this thread.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Chosen Reject]

You haven't looked much into what Trent Reznor is doing have you? He's making lots of money of concerts for sure, but that is hardly what the GP is referring to. He's trying a bunch of different models, even some that would work for other forms of entertainment, including books, movies, and games. And to be certain, he's not the only one. Jill Sobule raised over $75,000 in less than two months to finance her next album. That is, fans gave her money for an album she hadn't even made yet. I bet if Asimov were still around, and he asked his fans for $75,000 to fund his next book, he'd have it in less time than that.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Dun Malg]

I really hope that this Pirate party gets elected to power in Sweden and abolish the copyright laws. The economic chaos that would ensue and the ridicule that that country would be subjected to worldwide would hopefully make even the most pea brained anti-copyright wannabe crusader realize what a stupid and childish idea that is.

Actually, what's childish is your over-the-top strawman argument. If you'd bothered to check out their web site, you'd see that they're for copyright reform, not abolition. Go back and study your subject, ignorant child.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Wildclaw]

Wouldn't that mean that the people who write those books, companies that create all those applications, games etc and artists and recording companies who write and produce all that music, and studios who make all those movies would be out of business instantly?

If they can't manage to convince people to pay for their services, yes.

Of course, you can find many examples of people who manage to make money even for the IP they use is free. And if a good deal of the IP industry goes away, the remaining part should have an easier time to find people willing to pay.

Everything will end up in a new equilibrium. But one thing is clear, the total consumption/usage of information will be higher, because everyone will be able to afford it. It will be about as cheap as air literally, to take another zero margin cost product.

The price of copyright is always that the total spread of the information decreases. That is the simple economic nature of it. There is nothing you can do to change that.

How would they justify the investment in money, time and work that they made if only one copy will ever be sold?

If they can't, they shouldn't. There is obviously enough cheaper material on the market to satisfy everyone. The market is better served by people who see business opportunities.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

China is pretty serious...

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[bzipitidoo]

If I understand correctly, you are proposing to tax everybody and pass on the money to the artists

You sound as if you think that's a bad idea. And, that's only one way to compensate artists. Nor does it have to be the government. There are many non-government organizations in control of many aspects of our lives. For instance, standards bodies such as ISO, groups that test products for safety such as the UL. There are hundreds of charities, religious organizations, and other NGOs.

i.e. creating a complete state control over culture.

Complete? Stop being dramatic. No way will any organization, however powerful, be able to ram bad entertainment down unwilling throats. No one can stop you from singing anything you want in the shower. And there's no reason for it. In contrast, as we have seen, private entities have powerful motivation to manipulate us. It is private enterprise that brought us the horrors of Payola and Clear Channel. An example of another system in which governments are intimately involved is highway systems. Yet the government does not dictate what sort of cars people drive, so that people who feel their needs are best served by a large pickup or wagon can have them, and without having to justify it to anyone.

And, need I remind you, you and I and everyone else are the state? You do get to vote on things. You can write letters to your representatives, and, amazingly, they will sometimes be read and even acted on! Stop talking as if the the government and you are "ships in the night".

Why should people who passionately dislike certain artists be forced to finance them?

This tired argument again. As if that doesn't happen under the current system. Or wouldn't happen under any other system you can think of. A rising tide lifts all boats. Patronizing any musician helps all musicians.

If there were no legal and technical hurdles to file sharing

There aren't. The legal hurdles are almost totally ineffective. Nor is there any way for a legal approach to be effective. Yes, they killed Napster. But they couldn't kill file sharing. As to technical hurdles, it's hard to say what the ultimate limits of networking, digital storage and such might be. Artificial limitations are bypassed and ignored at will. DRM is a sad joke.

there would be some sort of "freeamazon.com" where all current music, books and software in the world can be downloaded for free, right?

There are many such. Usenet. Lots of encrypted anonymizing ones such as Tor. The ones we've all heard of such as BitTorrent, Napster, Kazaa, etc. They don't have quite everything in the world of course, but they have lots more than the lame local bricks and mortar places, and more than Amazon, since Amazon actually has far less on hand than they list. Really weak when you want something obscure and Amazon needs weeks for physical media to wend its way through a backordering process, if they can get it at all, compared to just being able to get it right now through P2P.

Wouldn't that mean that the people who write those books, companies that create all those applications, games etc and artists and recording companies who write and produce all that music, and studios who make all those movies would be out of business instantly?

No. Since when is copyright some kind of holy, blessed thing that is the only righteous and known way to earn a living from art? There are many other ways. Better ways. I don't know what it will take to persuade people like you to stop clinging to what you think is customary, traditional, and effective, when it has been so warped and beaten as to be none of those. Maybe if you read enough Slashdot, you'll eventually have a change of heart? It is hearing of the extreme and unfair measures of the enter

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Ralish]

At the federal level we have two voting systems.

The House of Representatives uses the preferential voting system, which tends to favour major parties.

The Senate uses the proportional representation system, which as you indicated, is far more friendly to minor parties.

The result being the Senate tends to have a more diverse selection of political parties than the HoR.

It is a shame the US's electoral system isn't more friendly to minor parties; I think having a broader variety of views represented in parliament tends to ultimately benefit all.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they'll do the same as they did to Russia in the case of allofmp3.com - Sweden will be kicked out of the WTO and if they want to come back in, they have to submit.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Cathbard]

The House Of Representatives is elected by electorates. The Senate is elected by proportional representation on a state per state basis with an equal split coming from all states plus some representation from territories. The Green seats he is referring to are Senate seats. The Australian system is a cross between the Westminster system and the US system. Read the links below, it's too complex to fully explain in a /. post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Senate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_House_of_Representatives

On a side note - voting is compulsory so it is quite difficult for an overzealous minority to stack the election (like the American Religious Right do for example). That means that for a minor party to gain a seat they really do have to sway a large section of the population rather than just convincing all their followers to vote. Of course to get into the Senate it is far easier for them to concentrate their efforts in the smaller states. They do of course still have to convince a large section of that state to choose them.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[MaxVT]

It is so obvious that you have no idea how artists actually earn money. A tiny percentage of artists who become huge hits, actually earn excellent dough - think JK Rowling, Madonna, Metallica, Britney, etc. But most books, for example, sell so few copies that authors never get more than an advance payment. Most music is made by the bands you will never hear about.

And if you think that an advance payment is $millions, then you're Steven King. A typical Joe, if his book pitch is even accepted, will get $5-10k and will have to write for a year. Well, maybe it's a good living if you work part-time in McDonalds and live in your car; but otherwise, it's not even minimum wage.

Finally, the reason for big creation of content is the amount of free time we have. First time in history, we have 2% of population (or less) providing all the food our civilization needs, and shelter is relatively affordable, so people can pick up the things that interest them - e.g. art, or ranting on Slashdot. When people had to work in the fields for most of every day to have anything to eat in the winter, and had to swap a chicken for every nail (or a piece of paper, or a pencil), they didn't have time to practice the fiddle with their band. And the closest "concert organizer" was probably a few days away by horse.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[richie2000]

we have all of our Pirate Party servers in that bunker

Target acquired

Bring it on. Atleast the main webserver isn't in my garage anymore. :-P

(No, I'm not kidding, it actually was in my garage, on a 10mbps fiber, until late last summer)

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Jaazaniah]

You may be right on capitalism being a good driving force of economies, the problem is min/maxing.

Think about it this way: without [crock]"socialist"[/crock] services like minimum wage, minimizing help to the people that run your industry and maximizing personal gain leads to tipping points like the riots of the 1920s. Industry leaders were dead set against minimum wage, if anyone recalls, and they still cry when it goes up to (hardly) match cost of living increases. You can't have a single blind pipe-vision concept of wealth concentration run amok without its weakness becoming so glaring that peasants can stop it.

To those who would argue otherwise, I say we're all in this together, and though some may know how to make people do work, they themselves would be worthless if their deeds pushed all their allies away. So suck it up, personal gain isn't the only thing you have to worry about.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Andtalath]

It's even less then that actually.
PP only cares about it's two core issues (integrity and lessening patents/copyright), it's third core principle is "nothing else".

They whole point is that the other parties are too alike, this is the one party who actually says something different (barring the other up-comer, which is a racist party, literally), the differences are too minor to care about.
So, they will give full support to whatever constellation of parties agree to make the most concessions to them.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

That might apply to musicians (concerts etc) but how does it apply to writers? How do they make money if their books are free. Same for software and movie companies.

http://craphound.com/index.php?cat=5

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[ultranova]

Anyway, people have been creating content for millenia, but never on anywhere near scale of today. Not by a factor of 100. The reason for that is that due to copyright protection, artists, writers, musicians etc can for the first time in history make a good living out of their talent and not depend on pity of some "patron" like some of the greatest musicians in history had to.

This is untrue. Not only is the majority of content nowadays created without profit motive - amateur artists, writers and whatever outnumber the professional ones by a huge amount - but things like Kafka's writings were created without any. The only thing that has changed is that amateurs can nowadays publish their work easily and cheaply on the Internet.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

/---/ to bring in the democracy US style (where only 2 parties are really allowed to hold the government in practice). /---/

The reason that I as a Swede only consider US a semi-democracy isn't because you have a two party system, have mostly politic positions that are, more or less, inherited inside a few families, that you are unable to separate regulatory power from executive power (ministerstyre ) or that US foreign policy is clearly fascist and not democratic at all. Those things are very bad for democracy, but they are not vital.

The reason that I think USA is only semi-democratic is that your government are allowed to conceal information from you. That's actually why I think all countries (that I know of) outside the Scandinavian political tradition are at best semi-democratic. If voters don't know what the people in power is doing or why(*), or can't verify how a government institution is run(+), then the actual voting process is just for show.

(*) In Sweden, unlike EU or USA, all political processes (eg minutes and meetings) are open by default. If necessary they can be classified, but the classification itself is an open document and subject to public/media attention.
(+) In Sweden, I can go in to any government institution and demand any information they have (with a few exceptions, like another persons medical records in a hospital or weapons blueprints) and they are bound to give me that information, free at cost except a small copying fee for the paper or CD it is delivered on, and if they ask any question, or by other means try to find out, about who I am or what I will do with that information, they face jail time (but in order to prosecute them I must give up my privacy). If there isn't any good reason not to (but there usually is: like infection risk in a hospital or personal integrity in a social security office), I'm also free to wander about inside any institution. This don't apply only to government institutions, but also to many private institutions that has been deemed as "myndigheter" (literary translation: authorities, today about 550 institutions).

And yes, it used to be better before we joined EU (where everything is concealed by default and many policy decisions are made by people who isn't put in power by a democratic process) and from time to time important decisions have taken place away from the public eye even in Sweden (like Olof Palmes underhanded deals with CIA, were he sold out information about active communists (at that time many Swedes were changing their votes from the Social Democratic Party to different Communist Parties) and Vietnam war deserters), but it is still much, much harder to conceal political dealings from the public in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries then it is in the US.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[roman_mir]

If I understand correctly, you are proposing to tax everybody and pass on the money to the artists

You sound as if you think that's a bad idea.

I don't care about the rest of the discussion in this thread, but this particular idea is terrible from my perspective. I don't listen to music (really, even when I listen to AM radio it's for talk shows, but never music), the only movies I watch are those I buy on DVDs.

From my POV any tax on me is a terrible idea because I never ever use these stupid products. It's bad enough there are income and property taxes, where I already have to pay for services I never ever use, what the hell is this shit?

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[giorgiofr]

[...] it is absolutely inevitable that implementing some economical control or oversight will lead to a totalitarian regime.

And that's 100% correct. It is, indeed, inevitable. Witness the mess we're currently in ("we" as in, "humankind")

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[I cant believe its n]

"The Bunker guys", the ISP Bahnhof have actually done a great thing. They have pointed to an older (but still valid) law which states that telcos and ISP's should save as little information about their customers communication as possible, meaning ISP's are allowed and supposed to delete logs when not needed anymore.

The new IPRED law states that ISP's have to give out logs to the RIAA etc. after a court ruling. They do not need to give them out if they dont have them, so amazingly Bahnhof is an ISP that is actually looking out for their own customers.

Support the good guys, support Bahnhof.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh i do hope you are kidding?! Setting aside the socialism/capitalism argument for a moment - i really hope you're not hailing the destruction of our public services as a good thing?

Train routes that cost 3-4 times as much as they used to (inflation accounted for) because the buggers are running less trains - failing to see any benefit there?!

Entire cities suffering under a monopoly of local public transport (i.e. buses, First Buses to be precise) with outrageous prices and once again fuck all services outwith peak hours - there's no point in privatising when there's no sodding competition. Keep in mind that unlike the yanks, we actually use our public transport, some of us even relying on it solely.

I don't think its even necessary to explain the idiocy of partial privately funded schools. Our school received some private funding in the form of books - both text books and jotters etc. Every single one of the text books was branded with logo's and less than subtle product placements. Every jotter handed out from my 3rd year onwards (when they had finally run out of their stockpile of normal ones) had a front and back cover that was nothing more than a giant Walkers crisp packet. Students had become walking Walkers advertisements and were themselves a captive audience to whatever our 'sponsor' felt like shoving down our throats.

I'll work with the assumption that you're not mad enough to suggest that the gradual privatization of the health service has benefited anybody bar the drug companies.

Its not even possible to hope that this destruction of services has resulted in saving public money - as any savings that were made have been funneled back to subsidize the bloody companies that are screwing us thanks to New sodding Labour.

The really sad part of this is it makes people wonder why we even ditched the Tories in the first place... At least they looked you in the eyes as they fucked you.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[pbhj]

Even Labour party in UK have realized that private capital is #1 so have most of the other former left wing parties out there. Nobody #2 is promoting state ownership of industry as was the case all over the Europe just a few decades ago.

#1 What they really care about most, not people, and
#2 rich/power-hungry

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Except in Spain, but I guess it doesn't count as the "civilized" world. :(

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[bentcd]

They supported and endorsed Obama
1: who still thinks wiretapping americans is okay
2 who put bunch of RIAA lawyers on his team

    any questions?

What was the alternative like?

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[tmosley]

Write us back in six months when half of your economies have collapsed and tell us how you're doing. In the meantime, how's Iceland these days? Ireland and Spain are said to be on the verge of collapse as well.

There are no free markets in a world where all currencies are issued at will by central banks. Any nation with a central bank is destined for hyperinflation and eventual collapse so long as they rely on that bank for their currency.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Snaller]

Most Americans doesn't seem to have a clue, except socialism is oh so dangerous. Probably a bad educational system.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Snaller]

"Even Labour party in UK have realized that private capital is the most effective driving force of an economy ever known"

At the expensive of humanity.

In the human body, constant growth is called cancer - so it is in society.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Snaller]

Of course thats not what they want. But it should be abolished, all over the world.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

I would advise you to seriously think about why are you getting so vicious over an issue like this

This from the guy who started out with cynical prophesies and argumentative gems such as "most pea brained" and "stupid and childish idea".

people have been creating content for millenia, but never on anywhere near scale of today. Not by a factor of 100.

And look at all the great art these artists who are primarily in it for the money are producing! Because, you know, it's not like the money has turned the whole art sector into a big marketing machine.

Do you understand that this system makes it inevitable that the art itself becomes less and less important as opposed to the looks of the "artist", faux scandals like upskirt shots, boob slips, fake marriages and breakups, shootings etc.; further product packaging, rotation on MTV, other presentation and really just all of the general advertising that's got nothing to do with the product, art?

You're not propagating art, you're trying to defend pig trough feeding.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Mirrors ready.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[VJ42]

If I understand correctly, you are proposing to tax everybody and pass on the money to the artists

You sound as if you think that's a bad idea.

I don't care about the rest of the discussion in this thread, but this particular idea is terrible from my perspective. I don't listen to music (really, even when I listen to AM radio it's for talk shows, but never music), the only movies I watch are those I buy on DVDs.

From my POV any tax on me is a terrible idea because I never ever use these stupid products. It's bad enough there are income and property taxes, where I already have to pay for services I never ever use, what the hell is this shit?

I don't really agree with the idea either, but it could be implemented as a tax on media, so you only pay it when you buy those DVDs or that CD (even if you're only buying blank ones). I think Canada has something similar to this.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[VJ42]

But then there are still socialists around even after miserable failures that system brought to every country where it was tried so I guess some people just can't be convinced.

In the states "Socialist" might be an insult. Here in the EU it's the name of the second largest grouping in the Europian parliament. I don't support their ideology, but I find it hard to call them "massive failures".

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[sudog]

Right. And what about the cyclists who don't use highways and thus don't want to pay taxes to support them?

Or, a closer analogy might be childless couples: why should they have to pay taxes to fund schools?

It's the same thing, and this sort of argument just displays ignorance of the topic. Canada currently has a tax on blank media: this is a directed tax which is then forwarded on to copyright conglomerates who them redistribute the monies to artists. Taxes don't have to be universal..

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[roman_mir]

Right. And what about the cyclists who don't use highways and thus don't want to pay taxes to support them?

- I am against all taxes at all times.

Or, a closer analogy might be childless couples: why should they have to pay taxes to fund schools?

- I disagree with it and talked about it earlier.

It's the same thing, and this sort of argument just displays ignorance of the topic. Canada currently has a tax on blank media: this is a directed tax which is then forwarded on to copyright conglomerates who them redistribute the monies to artists. Taxes don't have to be universal..

- I know about this, I live in Toronto most of the time, I disagree with it too.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[bzipitidoo]

You speak of efficiency. Sure, bureaucratic or any other kind of waste is unwanted. And, yes, any sort of uncompetitive operation tends to be more wasteful, monopolies by definition have no competition, and governments by their nature are monopolies.

There are other places inefficiencies lurk. No holds barred competition (war) is very destructive. For your Utopian vision, the amount of information gathering and revenue collection required to approach perfection in taxing people only for what they use in the exact amounts they use, or for the wear and tear they cause, would impose a huge overhead. Have you considered those costs? Or, if you would have no taxes at all, then other ways, most likely far more costly ways, must be found to pay for infrastructure-- unless you'd like to try living without.

An example is the way mail order businesses and shippers handle shipping. Some charge a simple flat rate. Some use a very rough measure of distance, and have 3 or 5 or so tiers. What is best? And consider how packages are shipped. The most efficient system possible if distance is the only item considered in all the costs would send every package by air on a great circle route direct from sender to receiver. As soon as another element is considered, that shipping in bulk is much cheaper, the direct shipping solution is quickly seen to be terrible. Then there's the issue of how long a delivery should take.

In short, optimization problems are complex and difficult. We lose a great deal simply because so many of our systems and models of systems are poor, and we can't think how to do better, can't agree on what avenues to explore, or even sometimes that there are problems and there could be better ways.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

Or economic chaos didn't break out and it showed what archaic dinosaurs those anti-free market monopolists are.

What the hell does this have to do with socialism by the way? This is exactly the opposite.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to check the history of central banks and why they exist. There was a central bank since 1791 but Andrew Jackson shut it down which was then followed by one of the worst recessions in that century. The current US Federal Reserve system was created because of an economic collapse in 1907 where banks panicked and held onto their funds causing the economy to cave in. It was only the intense pressure of super rich financier JP Morgan who strongarmed the bankers into releasing funds that things started to recover. The government realized it couldn't depend on the largesse of individuals to control the economy (not a good thing in a democracy) so the current Federal Reserve system was created.

Your comment claiming the opposite efect flies in the face of the historical record.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[tmosley]

You might want to check YOUR history. The recession that followed the closing of the SECOND central bank (in 1836) was a result of the end of the business cycle caused by that very same central bank. If GW had shut down the Fed last year, this recession still would have happened, it just wouldn't have been as long and severe as it is going to be.

The panic of 1907 was primarily caused by government interference in the markets, IE the Hepburn Act of 1906, which set a cap on railroad rates, causing shortages of freight cars, meaning that many farmers couldn't get their goods to market, thus disrupting the largely agriculture dependent economy. This was on top of an attempt to corner the market in copper (similar attempts still occur with central banks).

You also fail to mention that all of those Panics that occurred without a central bank never hit main street, or if they did, the effects lasted a year or two at most. With the Fed in charge of banking, they took the end of a stock market bubble and turned it into a decade long Depression that caused the starvation of millions in the breadbasket of the world. To this day, farmers are paid not to farm, and perverse incentives have now worked their way into the system such that fantastic risks are rewarded if they succeed, where they are bailed out if they fail.

Bubbles and corrections happen. When the government gets involved things only get worse, because they muddy the waters and introduce enormous amounts of waste. They also bring the effects of the panics to main street by bailing out these foolish companies with taxpayer money, or worse, destroy the value of the dollar by printing money. In any event, you still need to look at your history, as EVERY FIAT CURRENCY in the history of the world has failed, ending in hyperinflation. The United States has managed to fend it off for almost 40 years by exporting our inflation to other countries, but that is very risky, as all those dollars are still lurking out there, waiting for a crisis of confidence to flood back into this country and buy up every durable good in sight, bidding up the price of everything, until one day we wake up penniless paupers with wheelbarrows full of dollars, and nothing to spend it on.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[sudog]

How amusing.

You think you are capable of determining in precise and specific amounts every benefit you receive as a result of living in a society.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[roman_mir]

I know specifically how much society is taking away from me and I know that I am not getting much for this contribution back at all. I know that the way the current system is set up it is not possible to measure the output per dollar spent because there is so much corruption and overhead and I am proposing methodology, which if implemented would allow such measurements to be made.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hope that this Pirate party gets elected to power in Sweden and abolish the copyright laws. The economic chaos that would ensue and the ridicule that that country would be subjected to worldwide would hopefully make even the most pea brained anti-copyright wannabe crusader realize what a stupid and childish idea that is.

But then there are still socialists around even after miserable failures that system brought to every country where it was tried so I guess some people just can't be convinced.

I'm doing alright by socialism buddy - a master's degree level education, completely gratis (low income people are actually paid to go to college), a $1000/month if I'm ever unemployed (min, no strings attached, no time limits, not including rent paid), free medical/dental cover, a low-crime, peaceful society, yup, I'll take socialism any day.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[B1oodAnge1]

So people will pay for something they like and if they don't like it they won't pay for it? How is that any different from the current situation. Seems like you are only adding an option to legally get it for free as well. Why?

Because, simply put, there is no other way to actually know what they like.

The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if you want to steal... people do that every day.

But don't think your "pirate" bullshit comes off as anything other than stealing.

Re:The Thief Party

[erroneus]

So it is just fine that copyright, the agreement between "the people" and the creators (actually, the publishers who buy up the content for exclusive distribution and control), has been abused and distorted to the point that works that would be public domain have how completely fallen off the face of the earth? The notion of copyright has been completely twisted to become a control on all entertainment. That was NOT its intent. "The people" were not represented when these changes were imposed and "the people" will have to take it back. In the mean time, civil disobedience is what we are doing -- taking freely as we please in spite of bad law.

It's not stealing. That's why they use the word "infringement." Stealing is depriving others of their property. That isn't what is happening.

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking idiot. I bet you didn't know. We do though. It's pretty obvious actually.

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you pay Time-Warner when you sing "Happy Birthday to you" in public,
or do you steal/pirate it?
Shame on you.

Re:The Thief Party

[DirtyCanuck]

Freedom to do what with media as you please. I think of them as freedom fighters. Without them these media companies would keep infringing on peoples rights. Having legitimately bought cd's upload DRM to a users computer without them knowing is the exact sort of sh!t that makes this evermore important for the majority of consumers. I personally think unknowingly hacking mass amounts of computers is worse then downloading a safe alternative. You can go to jail quite readily for hacking a computer, stealing a CD not so much. The RIAA cases are a clear example as to why these media corporations are as evil as any pirate, viking or Persian. At the end of the day we might see more bands (NIN RADIOHEAD) move towards a distribution model that puts them in control. This movement can only help everybody except the sleezy middle men that have been dictating trends and prices for decades. The fact that people have created there own distribution model and it's working better then the old one shows the futility in the now obsolete model of the past. I would love to see these media companies walk the plank.....

Re:The Thief Party

[Presto Vivace]

check out John Stewart's crack about illegal downloading.

Re:The Thief Party

[migla]

First of all, it's not stealing, it's copying. It's like when Jesus copied the fish and bread and fed all those people. Maybe some bakers and fishermen were pissed back then, but you know, it was for the common good. Copying was obviously the right thing to do then and it's obviously the right thing to do today.

(ps. Whether or not Jesus actually had star trek gear or it is a made up story, is irrelevant)

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

".... We are stealing ...."

You are stealing, despite your bullshit names and excuses.

You may fool a couple dipshit moderators and the nerd herd that infests this forum, but you don't fool me.

Re:The Thief Party

[init100]

You are stealing, despite your bullshit names and excuses.

It isn't just his names, its the name used by the legal systems of most civilized countries in the world. Tell me, if infringement equals stealing, why wouldn't the law just call it that? Why invent a new term? It obviously hasn't occurred to you that there is a difference, you just don't want to see it.

Calling it stealing is nothing less than propaganda from the media industry.

Re:The Thief Party

[petermgreen]

At the end of the day we might see more bands (NIN RADIOHEAD) move towards a distribution model that puts them in control. This movement can only help everybody except the sleezy middle men that have been dictating trends and prices for decades. The fact that people have created there own distribution model and it's working better then the old one shows the futility in the now obsolete model of the past.
The fact that some bands who have managed to go through the system and come out the other side (something very few bands manage to stay relevent long enough to do) have started selling direct proves very little. It's nothing new either, the beatles set up thier own record company for instance.

Re:The Thief Party

[brit74]

So it is just fine that copyright, the agreement between "the people" and the creators ... civil disobedience is what we are doing -- taking freely as we please in spite of bad law ... It's not stealing. That's why they use the word "infringement." Stealing is depriving others of their property. That isn't what is happening.

Really what's going on here is that both sides are demanding more control. Don't pretend that pirates would respect "reasonable" copyright laws. If copyright was reduced to 5 years, pirates would still ignore it entirely. In fact, you admit as much when you say, "It's not stealing... Stealing is depriving others of their property."

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Stealing is depriving others of their property. That isn't what is happening.

Yes, it is.

Did you miss the part about the fine? Blatantly stealing from TPB's operators.

Re:The Thief Party

[brit74]

"Calling it stealing is nothing less than propaganda"

You mean like "sharing"?

Re:The Thief Party

[erroneus]

That argument is irrelevant and also rather wrong. What is likely to happen is that while some people would persist in their normal activities, but many would begin waiting those few years and frankly, if they were suddenly all this stuff available in the public domain, we would be so saturated in $1 DVDs in discount stores that the flood would make the whole situation unpredictable in terms of how things would balance out. But frankly, it would be the only sane approach. As it is, technological control measures and current methods of storage and encoding will make access to those expired works very unlikely. The greater good should be served. The media people will definitely make less money and so sad for that. Copyright is supposed to be for creators, not publishers! (Okay, that point is debatable, but every time we hear complaints, the "starving artists" are always being cited as the cause. And we know that media people would never lie to the government or to us... right?

Buying needs to be easier than infringement. That is the ultimate solution for everyone and the market will be allowed to do its job.

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

I just have to reply to your sig...

[Piracy is] so bad that some Chinese artists have announced they have stopped recording b/c it has become unprofitable.

GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE!!!

Re:The Thief Party

[DirtyCanuck]

The Beatles were bigger than Jesus. The internet allows for new indie bands to make a name for themselves without having to shell out mad cash. These bands can also retain the image that THEY feel they want to portray rather then what a producer dictates. Selling direct is new in the sense that the internet is breaking new ground.

Just look no further then the pirate radio movement for insight as to the need for more open free access to bands that are not regulated by a major label. The same goes for documentaries and films. Technology is now at the point where amateurs can produce a really polished product without having to take another mortgage out on there house(s).

Bands indie movie makers and even game developers (world of goo anyone) would rather give the product away for free in the name of creating recognition for talent. This model is better because it has less start up costs and potential for even higher earnings in the long run. When people realize a game or movie was awesome and got it for free they may be inclined to send a few bucks out of respect. Making people pay up front only to be pissed that the product sucks is a dated and failing model.

I downloaded the Radiohead album, digged it but not as much as I did after realizing it was what I listened to more than anything else in my car (given the choice). After a month of having the album I sent them a few bucks.

Re:The Thief Party

[shutdown -p now]

So it is just fine that copyright, the agreement between "the people" and the creators

Copyright as a social contract is a U.S.-specific feature. In European countries, it is usually viewed differently, from the perspective of "authors' moral rights".

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never seen a Neil Young immitation band.

It's just that you can't sing his songs and sell them to make money

Re:The Thief Party

[RealGrouchy]

Do you pay Time-Warner when you sing "Happy Birthday to you" in public,
or do you steal/pirate it?

The multiphonic version most often heard at birthday parties, which starts out sung simultaneously in six dissonant keys and ends in five completely different ones, qualifies as a creative adaptation not subject to copyright.

Any lawyer with the balls to replay a recording of this version in court should get charged with contempt for assaulting the ears of the court.

- RG>

Re:The Thief Party

[7 digits]

> we would be so saturated in $1 DVDs in discount stores

I hope not. I hope we would be saturated with 20c legal downloads of good quality DiVX. Or 3$/month all-five-year-old-movies-you-can see subscription plans.

It would be so easy to find interesting stuff that nobody would even bother to "pirate" anymore. Fan of 50's SciFi movies ? Here are a few thousands, for your viewing pleasure. Fan of wildlife documentaries ? Here a few other thousands.

You would not pay for the privilege of downloading, but for the privilege of not having to mess around with files, and stuff. Just point, click and watch. Right now, I know many people that download because they have no other way to get their hands on new material that they may or may not like.

In such an ecosystem, new work could be available on some sort of premium plans, but, as it will have to compete with older good stuff, it would have to be reasonably priced. And yes, it means that it'll start to be thought to make 300M$ movies. But it'll be easier to make 1M$ ones.

Of course, there is zero chance to ever see such thing implemented: first the copyright of the stuff since 1923 will not retroactively expire. Second, the morons hijacking the culture in the name of "entertainment industry" are currently selling mp3 songs at 1.29$, which should be the digital price of the whole album.

Re:The Thief Party

[brit74]

That argument is irrelevant and also rather wrong.

In what way is it irrelevant and wrong? You claimed that pirates were principled activists reacting against unfair copyright. My point is simple: if copyright was "reasonable", or if copyright length hadn't been changed at all in the last 100 years, it would have zero effect on piracy - which goes to show that pirates aren't principled activists against unfair copyright. That's very relevant.

Stop pretending this is "civil disobedience".

Actually, I'd be 100 times more impressed with pirates if they made statements like "copyright should only exist for a reasonable amount of time; 20 years is a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, I refuse to honor copyright past 20 years, but fully respect copyright of all works less than 20 years old." The way things are right now is a bit like saying, "I don't like the way Walmart does business. Therefore, I'm practicing 'civil disobedience' when I steal this big-screen TV from Walmart." That raises the question: are you being principled, or are you merely using that as cover to get free stuff. The *right* way to protest is to boycott Walmart by not buying (or stealing). That shows that your protest isn't simply self-interest and greed masquerading as principles. Similarly, if you want to protest copyright, then you should neither buy nor pirate. When Black Americans in Georgia were angry with the segregated bus system, what did they do? They boycotted the bus-system and they *walked*. That was a principled boycott. They made their own lives harder to bring attention to the situation. Pirating is NOT making your own life harder, it's making it easier. Industries involved in copyright have zero reason to trust that your behavior will change even if copyright were "reasonable". Thus, they have very little impetus to change anything.

"Copyright is supposed to be for creators, not publishers!"
I think you'd be surprised by the number of creators who do keep their copyrights. Further, who owns the copyright seems to be irrelevant to pirates, anyway. I highly doubt any pirates could tell you whether a specific song, movie, or software was owned by the creator or the publisher. They just pirate it all with no regard for that question.

In the end, it sound more like excuses for piracy than any real argument; even if all of these things changed to meet your criteria, I highly doubt it would make much of a dent in piracy at all.

Buying needs to be easier than infringement.
How can buying ever be easier than copyright infringement? For one thing, copyright infringement means never having to pay money, and never having to type your credit card number into a form on the internet. That means pirating always has an inherent advantage over "paying for stuff".

Re:The Thief Party

[tepples]

Do you pay Time-Warner when you sing "Happy Birthday to you" in public,

Time Warner sold Warner Music Group to Edgar Bronfman in 2004.

Re:The Thief Party

[erroneus]

There is not one group of people and I don't claim they people who infringe on copyright are principled activitsts. There are MANY types of people and many different reasons for doing what they do. But the one thing they all have in common is that it is more convenience for them to do what they do than it is to buy it. People will ALWAYS do what people do. People have attempted legislation against homosexuality and it changed nothing -- some people are straight and some are gay. No amount of legislation will change what people do because it is who they are. Ultimately, the whole notion of copyright is fighting nature and nature only loses on small scales. (For example, you can build a building to keep out the rain, but you can change the weather... and no building ever stays up forever.)

"Civil disobedience" is motivated by a multitude of reasons and does not mean an organized effort. Civil disobedience is what people naturally do in the face of bad law. The fact that you seem to have read in "principled activists" into what I said shows that you are not arguing on what people say, but rather what people didn't say.

Your arguments are irrelevant largely because you read more than what is said in almost everything you post. You are quite the troll based on your comment history. I say that copyright (and indeed, intellectual property law in general... Mickey Mouse was supposed to be public domain by now!) goes too far and you say that nothing will stop pirates from "stealing." It is irrelevant. The reason why is because it is completely different from the argument I was making. There will ALWAYS be some copying and sharing. The industry and the legislators need to accept it. A proper balance should be found and supported so that the system is of benefit to both sides of the problem. As it stands, publishers are making MORE than enough profit from what they are doing and they were making lots of profit before all these draconian laws and technologies were introduced. The simple problem I see is excessive greed and abuse on the publisher's side.

Sometimes buying is more convenient than acquiring by other means. But acquiring entertainment media by other means doesn't mean it won't be bought later. For example, the more recent trand of putting out popular TV series out on DVD has led to my buying those TV series when they are available on DVD. In the mean time, those TV series are on my hard drive until such a time that they are available at stores... and are affordable. (For example, the short-lived series "Star Trek Enterprise" was initially put out as a DVD set that cost $100 per season!! WAY too much. It is now around $50 per season which sounds more affordable but still a bit prohibitive... I only have like two seasons so far...) Another reason I might download movies is the fact that they are otherwise not available to me in any other way. Take for example, the Disney Classic "The Song of the South." Disney will no longer publish the work and actively seeks its removal from public hands. Another example is foreign films which I would certainly have no problem buying from foreign suppliers except for the asinine price-control mechanism known as "region coding." So I can't get movies from Japan without a lot of work to make use of it. Buying would be a LOT more convenient if only it were made available. But one reality is that I cannot speak for everyone that copies content any more than anyone else. But I can claim that my position is one held by quite a few others and I wouldn't be surprised if that group were the majority of consumers.

I might guess that you are directly involved in an intellectual property oriented business given your history of comments and so it it would make sense that you might find the majority of the consumer side of things rather annoying. (I would guess perhaps you are in the software development business?) But the fact is you can't change the majority of people and you certainly can't fight them and expect to win. The more push giv

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

A++, would read again!

Also, it's great that of all people it's artists from the one nation the Russians refused selling their bombers because they were afraid the Chinese would copy them. Gotta love that.

Re:The Thief Party

[brit74]

Civil disobedience is what people naturally do in the face of bad law. The fact that you seem to have read in "principled activists" into what I said shows that you are not arguing on what people say, but rather what people didn't say.
Well, I don't understand your distinction between "civil disobedience" and "principled activist". It seems to me that you were trying to cast piracy into a lofty light, and I know pirates deserve to get knocked off their high-horse.

You are quite the troll based on your comment history.
If by "troll" you mean I say things that you disagree with, and I like to point out that pirates don't have high-minded intellectual or philosophical reasons for piracy - despite their efforts to cast themselves in a positive light, then, yes, I am a "troll". One of my biggest gripes is with pirates who like to claim they have legitimacy. At least if you're going to pirate something, have the decency to feel guilty about it.

I say that copyright (and indeed, intellectual property law in general... Mickey Mouse was supposed to be public domain by now!) goes too far
Okay, copyright goes too far. It's the next step you take that I disagree with.

nothing will stop pirates from "stealing." It is irrelevant. The reason why is because it is completely different from the argument I was making. There will ALWAYS be some copying and sharing. The industry and the legislators need to accept it.
I think there's a big gap between "I gave this copy to my friend" and "I shared this copy with a million anonymous people on the internet". From a practical standpoint, the second one is far more damaging to creators.

As it stands, publishers are making MORE than enough profit from what they are doing and they were making lots of profit before all these draconian laws and technologies were introduced. The simple problem I see is excessive greed and abuse on the publisher's side.
I've seen lots of publishers and IP-based companies go bankrupt. Further, companies want to get paid "what they're worth". Copyright law sets up an agreement between the creator and producer - the consumer has two choices: (1) Pay for this content and get a copy, or (2) don't pay for this content and don't get a copy. If the consumer decides the content is more valuable than the money they'll pay for it, then they buy it. The consumer and the creator both win. Piracy says, "Getting the content is no longer contingent on paying for it". As a result, lots of people benefit from the content without paying the creator. The creator now feels slighted for not getting paid "what he's worth". If the creator is making a ton of money, then the market dictates that it will attract competition (because if you're making $10 off of every $1 you invest, everyone will want to jump in and make the same kind of profit). Competition then drives down costs.

Another reason I might download movies is the fact that they are otherwise not available to me in any other way. Take for example, the Disney Classic "The Song of the South." Disney will no longer publish the work and actively seeks its removal from public hands. Another example is foreign films which I would certainly have no problem buying from foreign suppliers except for the asinine price-control mechanism known as "region coding." So I can't get movies from Japan without a lot of work to make use of it.

Honestly, I'm not going to be all that judgmental over that kind of piracy. The problem is that I don't think most piracy falls into that category.

To be clear and exact, "pirating" media means making illegal copies for SALE to others. Without that profit motive, there is no piracy.

Changing definitions of words in the middle of a thread seems like an evasive tactic. Besides, if piracy is "illegal copies for SALE", then why do you think "Pirate Bay" and "Pirate Party" have the word "Pirate" in their names? Are they advocating the selling of copyrigh

I suggest

[BigJClark]

I suggest creating a facebook group and tying a coloured ribbon around the antennae of your car. This is what we do in Canada.

Re:I suggest

[Anonymous Coward]

In America, we can't figure out how to do anything requiring skill like tying a ribbon, so we just buy a magnet shaped like a ribbon, and slap it on the car.

Re:I suggest

[Hottie Parms]

I suggest creating a facebook group and tying a coloured ribbon around the antennae of your car. This is what we do in Canada.

Modded insightful? No offense, but how is this insightful? I find it more humorous or ironic than Insightful.

Not saying it shouldn't be modded up, just the "insightful part".

Re:I suggest

[Qubit]

I suggest creating a facebook group and tying a coloured ribbon around the antennae of your car. This is what we do in Canada.

I dunno -- pirates with colored ribbons? I don't think it'll catch on very well.

I'd suggest that you tie an appropriate flag on there instead.

Re:I suggest

[smeppi]

It's also informative I suppose. Canada's culture has always been quite.. interesting..

Re:I suggest

[Anonymous Coward]

In Europe, we do have ready-made ribbons, but we cannot afford them, so we buy them imported from the Chinese and still lack the skill of tying a ribbon. The world's a sad place, unless you're Chinese. That doesn't make any sense at all, though, so forget that you read this post.

Re:I suggest

[Obyron]

Because +1 Funny mods do not give karma. People will sometimes mod funny posts as interesting or insightful so the poster can get karma for their post.

And just to be on topic: ...in much the same way that pirating can lead to legitimate sales that would not have happened otherwise.

Re:I suggest

[Hottie Parms]

I did not know that. So, all those hilarious comments I leave to get me karma are for nothing?

Damn, now I have to find some intelligent stuff to plagiarize.

Re:I suggest

[DirtyCanuck]

Modded insightful? No offense, but how is this insightful? I find it more humorous or ironic than Insightful.

Not saying it shouldn't be modded up, just the "insightful part"

And that makes your post even more pointless now does it not? Hardly informative if you ask me..... :O

Re:I suggest

[Hurricane78]

So you lack sense-making too? ^^

Seriously guys, where did the days go, where there were noble Englishmen, proud Scots, genius Germans, free Americans, legendary Chinese, (please add your country,) etc.?
Because I know they existed once.

Re:I suggest

[ultranova]

In Europe, we do have ready-made ribbons, but we cannot afford them, so we buy them imported from the Chinese and still lack the skill of tying a ribbon. The world's a sad place, unless you're Chinese.

But if you're Chinese, you work 14 hours a day tying ribbons for 12 euros a month and require a permission slip (for which there are 1 per 100 workers) to go to bathroom. The worlds a sad place, unless you're rich and powerful. Which is idiotic, because even if we take for granted that the rich care nothing for anything except themselves, we are currently producing so much that giving decent living conditions for everyone wouldn't affect the lifestyle of our overlords at all. The first billion in the bank makes you part of the elite, everything after that makes no difference whatsoever.

It's nowadays not even greed but some kind of sick obsession with numbers that's making the world such a nasty place. Maybe we should simply switch accounts to report their balance using a new monetary unit monthly, where the new unit is worth one half the previous, so someone obsessed with numbers would see the number indicating their balance double monthly? It would only take a few lines of code in the viewer algorithm, and would be well worth it if it satisfied these rich neurotics so they wouldn't feel the need to fuck with everyone else anymore.

Re:I suggest

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia the party chooses US and then ties us to their cars with a ribbon, so we don't have to do anything at all. You see the superiority of communism now, don't you?

Re:I suggest

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the color of piracy, anyhow? The only one that i can think of is brown, and that doesn't seem to be incredibly flattering.

Are there any pirate party members in office?

[erroneus]

A political party is worthless if it doesn't have any card-carrying members in office legislating, judiciating or executing... (that doesn't quite sound right, but okay... you get the idea)

When is the next election cycle? THAT is when things really get shaken up.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Hottie Parms]

A political party is worthless if it doesn't have any card-carrying members in office

Look at the Canadian Green party.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Darkness404]

Its in 2010, and back in 2006 (coincidently right after another unpopular ruling by Sweden against TPB) they managed to have a very good showing and were only a few members shy of getting government funds for advertising, etc.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[amilo100]

They do not have any cabinet members, but they do have several people in correctional services.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[mazarin5]

executing... (that doesn't quite sound right, but okay... you get the idea)

In America, at least, we usually just keep adding syllables until it not only sound right, but it makes us sound super smart.

Try "executivizing"

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU parliament election is in a little more than _one_ month. Election day's 7th of june in .se...

So, the conviction and the new members comes quite timely.

Btw, we're up to 5000 new members today.. And our poor webserver's done a tremendous job :P

Vote for Internet freedom - vote Pirate in the upcoming EU parliament election.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Ibn al-Hazardous]

There is an election to the European parliament this year too. There are not so many representatives to elect, but there is usually a much smaller participation. So, if you want to cause a stir, the EP election is a better bet.

And then there's always the church election come fall... ;)

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Kjella]

they managed to have a very good showing and were only a few members shy of getting government funds for advertising, etc.

Uhhh.. yeah.

They got 0.63% of the votes.
1,0% would have given them economic support for printing ballots
2,5% would have given them economic support for advertising
4,0% would have given them seats in parliament

They were young, they were small and while they did make a good splash they weren't even close. The current Pirate Party is a completely different beast in pretty much every sense possible.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Missing_dc]

Count me in.

I'd like to nominate myself to lead the "Executing" branch.

Please supply me a list of primary offenders and their addresses. ;) /sarcasm -- probably

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[sootman]

Sweden has Pirates, Australia has Jedi... and I'm stuck in stupid boring America. :-(

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[Anonymous Coward]

Elections for the EU-parliament is on the 7:th of june this year.

Re:Are there any pirate party members in office?

[ultranova]

Sweden has Pirates, Australia has Jedi... and I'm stuck in stupid boring America. :-(

Land of the Free Speech Zones, home of the Bold (but sadly, not so Brave).

Oh NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden is getting feisty.

Re:Oh NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Figures that Sweden would take this long to upgrade from Edgy.

Re:Oh NO!

[dev_s3d]

OMG, that was funny. And they didn't even choose an LTS release.

as I said before, winning in the court of law

[Presto Vivace]

and losing in the court of public opinion.

Here we go again...

[mIESvANdEROE]

isn't it any wonder that this verdict is so provocative? There's an elephant in the room, and this is just the sort of news that could make people take a second look. We all know that copying in an age of information abundance is inevitable. And so is the martyrdom of the TPB founders. All power to their elbows. Shame it didn't happen just before Easter...

Re:Here we go again...

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news is: they won't get prison raped by niggers and spics. The bad news is: they will get prison raped by muslims.

Re:Here we go again...

[mIESvANdEROE]

The reality is: Swedish prison is slightly less stressful than a US fat camp.

Here is the theme...

[GPLDAN]

Are You Ready Swedes?
Aye Aye Captain
I Can't Hear You
AYE AYE CAPTAIN
OHHHHHH
Who lives in a datacenter under the sea?
computer vetenskapsman!
Absorbant and yellow and porous are we?
computer vetenskapsman!
Who's nautical nonsense be something you wish?
computer vetenskapsman!
So drop on the deck and flop like a fish! computer vetenskapsman!
Ready?
computer vetenskapsman!
computer vetenskapsman!
computer vetenskapsman!
computer vetenskapsman!

Re:Here is the theme...

[Archangel Michael]

Naaah
=======

We are the pirates
who steal everything
we just tunnel in
and steal tv
and if you ask us
if we steal anything,
we'll just tell you
infringment aint stealing

Re:Here is the theme...

[TheGratefulNet]

and when the laws were about to let disney films FINALLY enter public domain, who STOLE them back?

hmmmm?

people (or corps) in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Re:Here is the theme...

[Chabo]

This gets modded up, and LazyTown's "Pirate Song" gets modded down?

Re:Here is the theme...

[multipartmixed]

Oh, God, that was funny.

Don't know why you're not +5 funny. I guess /.ers don't have the whole "laugh at yourself" thing downpat yet.

Re:Here is the theme...

[who knows my name]

Yarr!

Re:Here is the theme...

[lilomar]

Well I wouldn't steal a car and I wouldn't steal a handbag.
And I wouldn't steal a cd from a brick'n'mortar stall.
But I'd still download music from a pirate torrent tracker.
(And I've never been to Boston in the fall!)

Re:Here is the theme...

[WilyCoder]

that was the funniest shit I've read in a long, long time ^_^

Re:Here is the theme...

[msuarezalvarez]

What a dumb signature...

Another /. signature addresses your first silly point: atheism is a religion in the same way as not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Re:Here is the theme...

[who knows my name]

not quite. I'm pretty sure that there is a lot more evidence for the existence of stamps, which trivialises the decision...

What I am trying to say is that the analogy fails because it implies atheism requires inaction or no thought. At some point an atheist has concluded that the evidence for atheism is great enough to accept it as their current paradigm (or that all other evidence for contrary paradigms is weak enough).

So I would suggest that agnosticism is closer to 'not collecting stamps' and atheism is more like collecting something else, or perhaps burning stamps.

Re:Here is the theme...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a dumb signature...

Another /. signature addresses your first silly point: atheism is a religion in the same way as not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Excellent! Please make sure all your fellow athiests get the memo and stop trying to convert everyone just like the adherents of any other religion.

Re:Here is the theme...

[stephanruby]

What I am trying to say is that the analogy fails because it implies atheism requires inaction or no thought. At some point an atheist has concluded that the evidence for atheism is great enough to accept it as their current paradigm (or that all other evidence for contrary paradigms is weak enough).

The English word "Atheism" comes from a French word (of Greek origin). As a French guy (born and educated in France, but currently living in the United States), I do believe I know a little more French than you do (or even a little more Greek for that matter).

Atheism(e) means "without god" (or "godless"). There is no talk of proof, or evidence, it's not like one can prove a negative anyway. At least, "without god" is what it used to mean, and it still means that in France right now. And fine, I understand that language evolves, and language changes over time, especially in America or with English. That said, there is still a large section (if not most) of American atheists who still use that word in its original sense. So if you or your church are going to change the meaning of the English language, that's fine, feel free to call us anything you want, or explain it however you want. After all this is not France/French, it's not like you're going to have the language police, or some historical society, show up angrily on your doorsteps. So call us agnostics, no-gnostics, anti-god, infidels, assholes, idiots, or whatever... just don't expect all of us to agree to it (or use it on ourselves, although some of us may -- many of us just won't).

Re:Here is the theme...

[who knows my name]

Well, for starters I would have thought it obvious from the statement I was making (and my signature) that I consider myself agnostic. I mean agnostic in the sense coined by Thomas Huxley, that is I believe in the fundamental lack of evidence for a deity (strong agnosticism) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_agnosticism .

If there really were no talk of proof or evidence then you really are as fundamentally unsound as any other religion. I mainly mean by atheism, what seems to be the most outspoken version at the moment, strong athiesm. i.e. the assertion that deities do not exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_atheism. Anything else seems to be a weaker version of that viewpoint, or a dishonest dressing up of weak agnosticism.

  Even the original greek word atheos, came to mean something like atheistic in the modern interpretation.

Re:Here is the theme...

[stephanruby]

Excellent! Please make sure all your fellow athiests get the memo and stop trying to convert everyone just like the adherents of any other religion.

Sure. I'll let them know about the new policy. Between our atheist pope, our atheists bishops, our atheist priests, and the fact that most atheists love the chain of command, think alike, and respect authority -- that memo will be disseminated super quickly.

Let me be the first to say:

[Qbertino]

Har Har!

Swedish Pirate Party

[omar.sahal]

We needed to protect the free and open society, and we needed to assure that the future of culture in people's hands instead of in the hands of media companies who want to bring culture lovers in prison.

This is taken from the automaticly translated article.
If these guys are genuine that may be something. By genuine I mean fight intellectual property nonsense, not nut jobs who believe that it is ok to just take others work. They don't sound genuine, however.
I said this before but I say it again. I think business is good in general, a chronic lack of wealth has a negative effect on sociality. However large corporations (I believe this started in the eighties) now think that to protect their profits they must control a market. This is done through laws that where instituted by means of lobbying, or the extension of laws to areas where they were never meant for. Its OK if there are three or so other big players, then you cant be called a monopoly and be broken up. These people (like banks) have a short term view of things and can harm the competitiveness of the western world.
You can see this in music, with fees for sampling music. There even a role over rate involved so if an artist has success they pay more for the samples per song, which consumes most of your profit. (the four) Big companies in music are the ones who profit while every one pays out. IP also plays a apart in IT as well, with the added negative (from our view) that companies don't even have to have a strong case, you cant afford 5 million in court fees so you must settle

Re:Swedish Pirate Party

[wootest]

"By genuine I mean fight intellectual property nonsense, not nut jobs who believe that it is ok to just take others work. They don't sound genuine, however. "

They are genuine. They've been trying to save our privacy for the past three years, but the only time anyone notices is when TPB gets in the news internationally.

They have a plan to eliminate medicine patents and replace them with (existing) centralized funding; the overall pile of money involved at different stages of the mutually assured destruction-like patent market would go down, and R&D could focus on R&D.

They want to shorten the lifespan of Copyright dramatically - I think the plan is for 5 years. (This comes out of a continuous discussion between different fields, where every field believes 5 or 10 years is a great duration for every field but their own, because they have to continue making money; thus the only way out besides continuing the stalemate is to just set a new figure across the board.) They also want non-commercial "infringement" even within the short period to always be legal as an extension of the library concept, where public culture is made available for every citizen.

They've been against the law allowing the Swedish Military Radio Institute to tap any Internet traffic crossing the border to listen for weakly defined "outer threats". Not only is it impossible from within Sweden to tell what'll cross the border or not and easy for actual terrorists (or what have you) to route around or use encryption, in order for them to be able to tap *some* traffic, they must be able to filter *all* traffic. Which means that every byte of Internet traffic inside Sweden (including this reply) passes through a supercomputer scanning for dangerous packets, violating the privacy of everyone and using military resources against its own citizen.

They're also against the implementation of the IPRED directive. This is so horrible it won't fit in a paragraph, and I advice you to google it for more information, but suffice it to say that in the process of the media industry prosecuting alleged file sharers (and the evidence could easily be fraudulent) they get to take your house in custody, search it, keep all your digital storage for evidence, slap you with (explicitly allowed) out-of-proportion fines, place the burden on you in civil court to prove that you didn't do anything and force you to take out a magazine ad proclaiming your conviction.

The Pirate Party is easily played as a bunch of schmucks that just want things for free. I can't rule out that such people are members, but it's not the strategy of the party itself, which is canny to a number of issues related to privacy and baby/bathwater situations. As far as piracy goes, though, I'm personally a member who, thanks to the large scale abolishment of music DRM as of late, download from TPB only what I can't get from iTunes otherwise, which is sadly still rather a lot. Although if they get to twist the courts into assuming guilt or causality, I'm not sure why I should be so eager to indirectly support this kind of behavior at all.

Re:Swedish Pirate Party

[Wildclaw]

a chronic lack of wealth has a negative effect on sociality

The pirate bay alone distributes millions of works of art daily. And at a damn low cost. If that isn't creating wealth, I don't know what is.

Of course, you will not see it directly in the GDP, because things that can be produced for free isn't worth anything economically, which goes to show just how messed up the subject of economics really is. Introduce replicators into a country and watch the GDP collapse as noone is willing to pay for expensive goods produced by factories, nor for shopkeepers that just distribute factory goods.

What really happens economically speaking is that the relative economic value of a product decreases as production effectivity increases while the real value remains the same. You can generally compensate for such changes by using product baskets to compare economies (although that has its own problems). But if the margin cost of a goods suddenly drops to near zero you'll start to see that goods disappearing completly from the economy, because it is no longer worth making actual transactions with the product. People will just trade it for free on the side. Does that mean that the society is worse off? Of course, not.

Re:Swedish Pirate Party

[Pentium100]

Introduce replicators into a country and...

get sued by factories because your product helps others "steal" their products.

Re:Swedish Pirate Party

[Dtyst]

I you really want to know what Pirate Party is about check Rick Falkwinges tech talk at Google HQ in 2007. Very interesting, and he exposes many flaws with current copyright laws.

So what?

[rm999]

Sweden has 10 million peoeple - 3000 isn't that many. This is like saying "Alaska's secessionist party has 150 more people because Palin lost!" To play a real part in politics they'll need at least 10x as many people.

More importantly, this case is giving the issue a lot of renewed attention. I'm happy about that.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

voters > party members

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of voters will be more than the number of members. Far from everyone who votes for a party is a card carrying member.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, registered party affiliation in sweden isn't that big, compared to the other parties they already have more registered members than three of the established government parties and they are coming close to beating a fourth. Also, the youth movement of the pirate-party is actually the largest political youth group in sweden at the moment...

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually 4000 now. ;)

They have more members than the Liberal People's Party which got 7.54% of the votes in the last elections giving them 28 seats. That means that unless the Pirate Party loses a lot of support before the election (and it currently appears to be gaining more support for the moment), they will probably get seats in Parliament.

Re:So what?

[MortimerV]

They gained 3000 members. Sounds like they're around the 18,000 member mark at the moment.

TFA: "A few minutes ago passed the Pirate Party membership People's Party 17 799 members."

Re:So what?

[Kjella]

Sweden has 10 million peoeple - 3000 isn't that many. This is like saying "Alaska's secessionist party has 150 more people because Palin lost!" To play a real part in politics they'll need at least 10x as many people.

I'm sure the three parties with less members will love to hear they're utterly insignificant, being in parliament and all. How many third parties are in the US Congress? Senate? Oh, right. Also, the actual figure as of this moment is over 5000 new members today alone. Let me now give you Swedens biggest parties by current memberships compared to percentage in last election.

Socialdemokraterna (s) 100639 members - 2006 elections: 1,942,625 votes - 34.99% - 130 seats
Moderaterna (m) 54858 members - 2006 elections: 1,456,014 votes - 26.23% - 97 seats
Centern (c) 47866 members - 2006 elections: 437,389 votes - 7.88% - 29 seats
Kristdemokraterna (kd) 22919 members - 2006 elections: 365,998 votes - 6.59% - 24 seats
Piratpartiet (pp) 19693 members - 2006 elections: 34,918 votes - 0.63% - 0 seats
Folkpartiet (fp) 17799 members - 2006 elections: 418,395 votes - 7.54% - 28 seats
Vänsterpartiet (v) 10700 members - 2006 elections: 324,722 votes - 5.85% - 22 seats
Miljöpartiet (mp) 9110 members - 2006 elections: 291,121 votes - 5.24% - 19 seats

I think you can safely say the Pirate Party will do a lot better election next year than 2006. Also this year in June it's election for EU parliament, where they also stand very good chances now.

Oh yeah, and did you know what is now Swedens biggest youth party?

Ung Pirat (up) 9400
Moderata ungdomsförbundet (muf) 9153
Sveriges socialdemokratiska ungdomsförbund (ssu) 5431

That's right, "Young Pirate" now has more members than the youth organization of Moderaterna and Socialdemokraterna - Swedens biggest parties. Yeah, politically insignificant. Right.

Re:So what?

[dHagger]

The stats from midnight (yes, it's just turned saturday here in Sweden) shows they now have 19693 members - a gain of 4868 members in 12 hours - almost 33%! That makes them the fifth largest party in Sweden, only 3226 members from number four - and almost 1/5 the size of the largest party (Socialdemokraterna) who has 100639 members. Adding to that, their youth organization is now the largest political youth group in Sweden with 9397 members ("Moderata ungdomsfÃrbundet" is second with 9153 members).

So what the numbers themselves are not that huge, but in relation to the numbers from the major parties - they become significant. Get the snowball rolling and the other parties might have to watch out.

It is starting to look like the conviction was the best thing that could have happened - a lot of people are upset and are doing what they can to change things!

Note: all numbers are from the pirate party webpage

Re:So what?

[TheRaven64]

Assuming, of course, that members translates in a roughly linear way to votes. In general, more extreme parties and single-issue parties tend to get a much higher ratio of members to voters than mainstream parties.

Re:So what?

[Celc]

You should be ashamed for modding parent up as he clearly is clueless about what it takes to be real party in a country with more than two parties.

The pirate party has more members than three parties that currently has seats in parliament and might by the the end of the weekend have more than four of the seven. That's with a fair margin too as they got twise as many people as of two of them while *only* having 19,790 members in total. 3000 members out of 19,790 is quite a lot.

Also due to the low voter turnout for the EU election the pirate party would need about 100,000 votes to get a mandate and I'm quite confident the 20,000 party members who care enough to take stand on the issue can bring those numbers in.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Norway ( next to Sweden on not the capital of Sweden as "some" in the US might think) a comedian almost made it as a politician, just based on some comments some years back, I would send money to the Swedish Pirate Party even though I don't live in Sweden just to bring down the multinational organizations ruled by stock holders that has brought down the world economy. This will be my fight against the Man.

I am not a terrorist, not religious, just someone that's had enough of crap from the man.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

They _added_ 3000 new members for a current total of 17000 members. Estimate 9 supporters (voters) for every member you get ~ 170.000 voters - thats a rather conservative guess. Of the 10 million people maybe 5 million are allowed to vote (because of age etc.) and maybe 3 million actually turn up to vote. 5% of the votes isnt too bad (if the legislation is not as braindead as in the UK/US).

Re:So what?

[DerekLyons]

The pirate party has more members than three parties that currently has seats in parliament and might by the the end of the weekend have more than four of the seven.

And by the end of the month, the trend followers and the ADD fashionistas will have moved on to something else... And the Pirate Party will have great numbers on paper only.

Re:So what?

[nbates]

I would be interested to see the number of votes in 2006 vs number of members in the same year.

Also, it would be interesting to see the same stats you are showing but also for other parties that don't have seats.

Re:So what?

[the_one(2)]

I thought this was an interesting question so I looked up. The number of members in 2006 was 9154 (source: http://forum.piratpartiet.se/FindPost138694.aspx (In Swedish I'm afraid)
Sverigedemokraterna 3627 members (April 2009) 162,463 votes - 2,93%
Feministiskt Initiativ 1700 members (December 2006) 37954 votes - 0,68%

Those two are the only parties that got more votes than the pirate party that didn't make into the Riksdag. It would seem that the membership count in pp has doubled since the election.

Re:So what?

[the_one(2)]

Found a page where you can check the number of members at any date. https://pirateweb.net/Pages/Public/Data/MemberCountHistory.aspx

Re:So what?

[MisterCIA]

The largest political party in sweden (The Social Democrats) reported having just north of 100'000 members on december 31 2008. The Pirate Party as of writing has over 20'000 members.

Re:So what?

[blind biker]

I was following the numbers on that page, and now when I checked, I see that the numbers are all wrong: I remember that the membership number was about 20500 last time I checked, and rising - but now it's 19999. What the heck is going on, do you have any idea?

Re:So what?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Looks to me like the Pirate Party has a horrible vote vs party membership ratio. It's shockingly pathetic. So what will 5000 more members mean? 10000 more votes? Big deal.

BTW, yes the Pirate Party is utterly insignificant politically. Or do you think that zero seats is significant?

Re:So what?

[nbates]

Which means they had 3.8 votes per member. I think that's gives us a better indication of how many votes they will have on the next election. Being that they now have 30896 members, we can estimate they can be closer to 118,000 votes, ranking much lower on the chart the parent posted.

Would they get any seats with about 120k votes? (I hope so)

Re:So what?

[the_one(2)]

It depends on the voter turnout but if the same number of voters who voted last time votes this year ~100k votes are needed. Also the pirate party is a much more mature party this election so I think they will have a slightly higher member to voter ratio. Of course on the flipside I think there might be a higher turnout in the EU election as well since some people might have started realizing how much power EU has.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how many people took part in the Boston Tea Party, 1773? (hint: between 30-100).
What happened? (hint: the American Rev...)

Call in the seals

[DirtyCanuck]

In other news, RIAA navy seals under cover of night parachute into Swedish prison and with 4 well placed shots.....

Re:Call in the seals

[Anonymous Coward]

where's me club, b'ys ?

Re:Call in the seals

[maugle]

In other news, RIAA navy seals under cover of night parachute into Swedish prison and with 4 well placed shots.....

...shoot themselves in the foot, if the RIAA's tactics remain consistent.

Re:Call in the seals

[Anonymous Coward]

4? u mean 400?

Election results?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament.

That's nice. When is the next election and how many candidates will they be able to field, exactly?

Difference with the US

[Richard W.M. Jones]

It's interesting the difference with the US. "Kids" in Sweden are engaging properly in the political process, forming a party and making (real) change happen. Rather than just rolling over and accepting the situation with "nothing we can do" and "who can we vote for, they're all the same".

Rich.

Re:Difference with the US

[h4rr4r]

Perhaps because the Swedes have a system that allows for multiple parties?
Our system insures third parties never get anywhere.

Re:Difference with the US

[IsaacD]

Yes, exactly what we need - a bunch of self-important nerds whose first priority is theft. Oh wait, sounds a lot like the administration of a certain superpower.

Re:Difference with the US

[Anonymous Coward]

A major difference is that Sweden has a proportional representation system which allows more than two parties to be meaningful. To get meaningful competition in the US system, the system needs to be fixed first (use IRV or some other ranked voting method, weaken the federal government so the meaningful policies are all at the state level where people can actually talk to their representatives). Until that happens, a third party is unelectable in the US, so there is no point in trying to get one elected.

Re:Difference with the US

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Our system insures third parties never get anywhere.

I wasn't aware that voting for a third party in the US was illegal ... Oh wait, it isn't illegal. You're just enunciating the "nothing we can do" argument.

Rich.

Re:Difference with the US

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well some of us whippersnappers in the U.S. tried to institute a shift in ideals during the last election with Ron Paul. Unfortunately our hopes were squelched effectively when the mainstream media made a point to shoot Ron Paul's election bid in the face before it had a chance to be recognized. It's hard to inspire motivation in a generation of U.S. citizens that has been consistently reminded that no matter how hard we kick and scream or what kind of political ruckus we make, there is always and over-aggressive government and ignorant/biased media to put us back in 'our place.'

Couple this with the fact that all of us youngin's found a newfound breathe of fresh air and freedom in the internet, but now the government and media are also going through consistently more aggressive means to regulate and control this frontier and what we have is a general feeling of bleak hoplessness conquering us all. Yay!

Re:Difference with the US

[Aladrin]

It's not our system that ensures that, it's the attitude of the people that ensures it. The system is quite well set up to handle as many parties as we want. People just only -want- 2.

My pet theory on that is that people want a simple choice, one or the other. When you give them a complex choice, they get frustrated.

Re:Difference with the US

[MobyDisk]

He didn't say it was illegal. He said third parties never get anywhere. His statement is a mathematical fact because the US has a plurality system with no run-off. In that system, any vote for anyone other than the top two candidates does not impact the election. In other systems that is not the case. Hence, those systems are more open to third parties.

Re:Difference with the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you can get somewhere anyway, you don't have to gather more voters than any of the other parties.
All you have to do is to gather just enough voters so that each of the parties can se that you will become a serious problem if you vote for the other party.

Another method is to collect voters into a "third party" where you decide to keep voting for the ones you used to vote for utnil there are enough of you.

Re:Difference with the US

[Anonymous Coward]

It really isn't you know. You need proportional representation, not first-past-the-post. It's no accident that the worst one-party-with-two-heads systems are in the UK and USA.

Re:Difference with the US

[Richard W.M. Jones]

First of all, even parties which don't get seats can have influence beyond their representation. Look at the influence of the Green Party and green politics in Europe through the 80s and 90s to see this. The mainstream parties literally got scared that they might lose seats (they didn't) and changed their policies radically in response.

But OK, you want to get seats. The situation now is that you don't like either main party. Each is as bad as the other. In that case, using your vote for the two main parties is a waste (because you don't want to help either one), and not using it is also a waste. So clearly you should vote for a third party, since you're not doing any worse than wasting the vote, it might have an effect on the main parties, and if everyone does the same, the third party will gain some seats.

Now all you need is a third party to vote for. I'm sure there are some you like already, but if not, start one.

Rich.

Re:Difference with the US

[h4rr4r]

I am just pointing out a mathematical fact. In our winner take all system even if a third party got 20% of the vote in every state they would get 0 representation.

Re:Difference with the US

[h4rr4r]

That and the fact that ron paul was not a third party candidate in any real sense of the term.

Re:Difference with the US

[h4rr4r]

No the issue is I would like to vote for a third party but by doing so I will not be voting for one of the two parties that I don't totally loathe. So to ensure that the party I do hate does not win I am forced to vote for the other main party.

Only a runoff or direct percentage system would allow me to not worry about this.

Re:Difference with the US

[mdwh2]

FPTP is inherently flawed, and leads to people just voting for one of the two popular choices. In Sweden however, they use a system of proportional representation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_allocation

There are many different voting systems, all with different advantages and disadvantage, and almost all of them are far superior to FPTP that is sadly used in most countries.

My pet theory on that is that people want a simple choice, one or the other. When you give them a complex choice, they get frustrated.

I don't know if that's true or not, but the problem is that FPTP voting is inherently flawed with more than two choices. It's got nothing to do with the mindset of the voter.

For example, if I ask what people's favourite music is, and the poll options and results are:

* Electronic music : 35%
* Heavy metal : 25%
* Death metal : 20%
* Thrash metal : 20%

Then under FPTP, electronic music wins. But clearly, people favour metal to electronic by 65% to 35%! The problem is that if there are multiple similar options, the vote gets split between them.

There are many other kinds of flaws that can occur in different systems - e.g., take a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Criteria_in_evaluating_single_winner_voting_systems .

Re:Difference with the US

[Sabriel]

In that [the US] system, any vote for anyone other than the top two candidates does not impact the election.

Until the third candidate gets enough votes to become one of the top two.

Re:Difference with the US

[prefec2]

There are different ways to change the political mainstream. Chomsky has some nice points on this subject. One important one is, that lies and manipulation through media can be circumvented by a constant effort to inform the public with real facts. With the Internet this is getting easier. However, you need a lot of time to do so.

Another important thing is, that change can happend through just doing it. For example, if you are convinced that conventional food is neither good for you nor good for the environment, and then you take action to consum only organic food, and you then tell people that you switched for a reason then this makes a change. A small one, but a convicing one. In the end more people will pick up this direction.

In Germany the market for organic food was growing over the past few years now by 6 to 10% each year, because the people did exactly that.

The same thing can be done in other areas. For example, propagating Open Source and free documents, music and videos, than this will change things as well. Remember the media industry needs to grow every year or they collapse. So if you can slow their growth and build a parallel model for arts, than the media industry will collapse.

Re:Difference with the US

[maxume]

Except Ron Paul is a loon. The Department of Education may very well be unconstitutional, but saying that you will abolish it isn't going to win you popular support (No, really, it won't), especially when you would never get Congress to go along with it (how hilarious would it be if the House and Senate had both just voted through a budget using veto override?).

Re:Difference with the US

[init100]

My pet theory on that is that people want a simple choice, one or the other. When you give them a complex choice, they get frustrated.

It's funny how the citizens of what some call the most advanced nation in the world can be so lazy and unable to make choices between more than two alternatives.

Re:Difference with the US

[shutdown -p now]

Well some of us whippersnappers in the U.S. tried to institute a shift in ideals during the last election with Ron Paul.

That was a bad idea, because equally many people rightly consider him too extreme.

If you really want change in the U.S., there's one and only one issue you should concentrate on: voting system reform. You should get rid of first-past-the-post for the Congress at any cost, and replace it with any reasonable system that ensures proper proportional representation. It's also much easier to rally very diverse groups of people behind this single idea, then if you present a complete political platform to which only a few can subscribe even in part (such as Ron Paul's conservative libertarianism). On the other hand, you can have all minor parties unite behind voting reform alone, from communists to greens to libertarians to Nazis; and it is far easier to convince the general public that it is a good idea (because it is very easy to demonstrate the difference in "fairness", and there really aren't any good arguments against), then when you focus, on, say, State rights.

Re:Difference with the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there are two states in the US with Run-off elections, Georgia and Louisiana.

And you could argue that the bastardized system that involves the US president has some provision for run-offs, even if there hasn't been any call for it since what, 1824?

Re:Difference with the US

[Threni]

> The mainstream parties literally got scared that they might lose seats (they didn't) and changed their policies radically in response.

That's not what happens. Neither of the main parties in the UK are remotely concerned that the Green party will get voted into power. They already have a third party which is much bigger than the Greens, and which always comes third.

What happens is that the big parties see that this or that single-issue party gets attention/votes, and tries to capture those votes by making noises that sound like they're paying attention and adapting, without actually doing very much at all. In the case of the Green party, they hear discussion of increasing car/fuel taxes, spending money on renewable resources etc, and it makes them spend millions on advertising recycling bins and talking about banning free carrier bags in supermarkets, although they're too far in the pocket of huge supermarkets like Tescos to actually get around to doing it.

Re:Difference with the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's a good point. It's not like we Americans have had any profound societal changes thanks to the actions of young people...

Oh, wait...

-Fartnog Buttstinkle

Re:Difference with the US

[nathan.fulton]

"Look at the influence of the Green Party and green politics in Europe through the 80s and 90s to see this."

The parent: "...In other systems that is not the case. Hence, those systems are more open to third parties." I think the parent completely agrees that the European system allows for third parties. I think the parent also explains that comparing the United States to Europe in this case is comparing apples and oranges.
The fact that European third parties have been effective only goes to show that not only is the American system flawed, but there are also working alternatives we are rejecting in favor of the current system.

Re:Difference with the US

[nathan.fulton]

It's not our system that ensures that, it's the attitude of the people that ensures it.
Which came first -- the chicken or the egg? The attitude of the people is as such because, time and time again, third parties do nothing but harm the candidate closest to their ideology.

Also, our system really isn't set up to jive with a multi-party system unless you end up with regional divisions (which, historically, is the only time that more than two parties have garnered large amounts of votes.) And because geography is playing an increasingly small role in American politics, third parties end up playing increasingly smaller roles. As long as " plurality of state X means 0 votes" remains true, the system can't really support more than two parties.

Re:Difference with the US

[Peter La Casse]

So to ensure that the party I do hate does not win I am forced to vote for the other main party.

Judging by the last five years, voting for your second least favorite party hasn't ensured anything.

Don't expect change to come from the establishment. Revolution is not an AOL keyword. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

"Hate" is too strong a word to use against a political party. They're at least as incompetent and ignorant as they are evil (and I don't even have to know which party is your least favorite to know that.)

Re:Difference with the US

[Peter La Casse]

Unfortunately our hopes were squelched effectively when the mainstream media made a point to shoot Ron Paul's election bid in the face before it had a chance to be recognized.

Fortunately the mainstream media is hemorrhaging customers and market share like a three legged whorehouse made of bricks. Er, something like that.

Re:Difference with the US

[DerekLyons]

Well some of us whippersnappers in the U.S. tried to institute a shift in ideals during the last election with Ron Paul. Unfortunately our hopes were squelched effectively when the mainstream media made a point to shoot Ron Paul's election bid in the face before it had a chance to be recognized. It's hard to inspire motivation in a generation of U.S. citizens that has been consistently reminded that no matter how hard we kick and scream or what kind of political ruckus we make, there is always and over-aggressive government and ignorant/biased media to put us back in 'our place.'

Well, it's the kicking and screaming that's the problem. The 'whippersnappers' still behave like children trying to be the center of attention and blame what happened on others rather than like responsible adults trying to create change.
 
 

Couple this with the fact that all of us youngin's found a newfound breathe of fresh air and freedom in the internet, but now the government and media are also going through consistently more aggressive means to regulate and control this frontier and what we have is a general feeling of bleak hoplessness conquering us all. Yay!

You took advantage of the freedom like a teenager whose parents left town for the weekend and left the liquor cabinet unlocked. With the mound of beer bottles in the living room, the broken door to the back porch, and the police explaining to your parents why they impounded their car after you spun doughnuts in the grass at the local park... Is it any wonder you're being grounded?
 
You want to be taken seriously, act like an adult. But don't blame others for treating you like a child when you act like a child.

Re:Difference with the US

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Apart from the fact that the UK has a Secretary of State for the Environment and a Minister for climate change, and the Tories cancelled a £ multi-billion road-building scheme.

I can assure you these things were unthinkable 20 years ago.

Rich.

Re:Difference with the US

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I would give you mod points if I had them ...

Re:Difference with the US

[ZarathustraDK]

In a parliamentary democracy system like Swedens or Denmarks, third parties have a huge influence on politics as the two main-parties usually have about equal representation in parliament. This enables the third party to broker deals with each of the main-parties in exchange for their supporting vote in other matters.

Re:Difference with the US

[endymion.nz]

Couple this with the fact that all of us youngin's found a newfound breathe of fresh air and freedom in the internet, but now the government and media are also going through consistently more aggressive means to regulate and control this frontier and what we have is a general feeling of bleak hoplessness conquering us all. Yay!

You took advantage of the freedom like a teenager whose parents left town for the weekend and left the liquor cabinet unlocked. With the mound of beer bottles in the living room, the broken door to the back porch, and the police explaining to your parents why they impounded their car after you spun doughnuts in the grass at the local park... Is it any wonder you're being grounded? You want to be taken seriously, act like an adult. But don't blame others for treating you like a child when you act like a child.

I suppose you're out there burning books because people use a printing press like children, producing content you don't think is suitable? The internet is far more capable of disseminating information than the printing press could ever have hoped to be. Are you a luddite? Are you jealous of the kids today that haven't known a world without the internet and cellphones? Are you just an ass hole looking for an argument on the internet?

Re:Difference with the US

[DerekLyons]

You haven't a fucking clue.

Re:Difference with the US

[endymion.nz]

Well if you had a better clue on how to illustrate your point, maybe you wouldn't have come off as a deadweight conservative technophobe.

Re:Difference with the US

[MobyDisk]

Let me fix that for you:

Until enough people think that the third candidate gets enough votes to become one of the top two.

The problem is that even if 90% of America wants to vote for the third-party, they think that the third-party will lose, so they don't vote for that person. Which causes that person to lose, confirming their suspicion, so then they don't vote for that third-party the next time around either. And the cycle continues.

If they could vote for the third party, but be assured that if that person does not win, their vote goes to their second pick, then the problem is eliminated.

Re:Difference with the US

[Sabriel]

If 90% of America is indeed that stupid, I don't think you're likely to see them finding the will to change to a runoff-voting system any time soon.

It's sadly funny. All those "checks and balances" everywhere else, and they forget about the voting system. Oops.

Not much of a Geek, are you?

[Talkischeap]

You know, I LOVE Canada 'n all, and my Grandpa was from Prince Edward Island, but colored ribbons on the antenna?

Apparently you're no Geek.

I suggest a small cycling multicolored LED, glued to a battery and rare earth magnet attached to one's antenna, as a way to show solidarity.

One could even make an inductive charger for it, so it could be removed at night, and recharged.

Re:Not much of a Geek, are you?

[ultranova]

I suggest a small cycling multicolored LED, glued to a battery and rare earth magnet attached to one's antenna, as a way to show solidarity.

One could even make an inductive charger for it, so it could be removed at night, and recharged.

Couldn't you simply power it through the antenna? AC, at sufficiently low power, should be filtered out by the radio's tuner, and be easily usable by a simple electric circuit.

But anyway, I'm such a traditionalist that I'll go with Jolly Roger, or Jolly Cassette as the case may be.

Hold on a second.

[Microlith]

We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.
They can. Just not the works of people who haven't given them permission. They're TOTALLY free to create works and release them for distribution under whatever terms they want.

Somehow I don't think they'd have been going after TPB if all the works on the site were legitimately being shared. But then, I suspect, if they were then no one would be after them.

Re:Hold on a second.

[Microlith]

And I screw up my blockquote hardcore. Go me. Corrected:

We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.

They can. Just not the works of people who haven't given them permission. They're TOTALLY free to create works and release them for distribution under whatever terms they want.

Somehow I don't think they'd have been going after TPB if all the works on the site were legitimately being shared. But then, I suspect, if they were then no one would be after them.

Re:Hold on a second.

[h4rr4r]

So when do you suggest we send the google folks to jail?
Type:

filetype:torrent harry potter

In google search and you will see that google profits from linking people to illegal content in much the same way.

TPB hosted the .torrent files of anything, including many popular linux distros.

Re:Hold on a second.

[MoellerPlesset2]

They can. Just not the works of people who haven't given them permission. They're TOTALLY free to create works and release them for distribution under whatever terms they want.

Apparently not. Not if those works happen to inform you about other people who are offering copyrighted material.

Somehow I don't think they'd have been going after TPB if all the works on the site were legitimately being shared.

All the works on their site were being shared legitimately. No copyright holders of any .torrent files were represented at the trial. They were not found guilty of actual copyright infringement.

Re:Hold on a second.

[Microlith]

TPB hosted the .torrents and provided tracking services. It also limited its scope to .torrents. And yes, many popular distros were up on there but I'd probably not be far off in guessing that the majority of the traffic went not to the legitimately shared content but the real popular stuff like movies and music published by the majors.

Google hosts no content aside from HTML duplicates of the original page, and does so indiscriminately.

TPB was not a generic search engine. It had a very, very specific purpose.

Re:Hold on a second.

[Microlith]

Not if those works happen to inform you about other people who are offering copyrighted material.

My comment was with regards to the way I read their statement, that basically implied that you could not share ANYTHING online without a risk of getting sued.

Re:Hold on a second.

[jc42]

In google search and you will see that google profits from linking people to illegal content in much the same way.

I can vouch for that. I've found that the fastest way to find a torrent is to simply google it. That works a lot better than using any of the torrent sites' search functions, in my experience.

TPB hosted the .torrent files of anything, including many popular linux distros.

Well, that about sums it up, doesn't it? We all know, from the many professional analyses done by the top people in the computing industry's market leader(s), that linux is a socialist (i.e., communist) conspiracy to undermine the leadership position of those very market leaders. That's gotta be illegal, right? At least here in the US. I even read a report that linux was actually built in one of those Socialist Scandinavian countries.

So when will we be reading about TPB being taken to court for aiding and abetting the distribution of linux and other so-called "free" software?

(Hmmm ... This might be too subtle for the /. moderators. Maybe I need a smiley here? Nah ...)

Re:Hold on a second.

[mdwh2]

Which copyrighted works did TPB guys distribute, OOI?

Somehow I don't think they'd have been going after TPB if all the works on the site were legitimately being shared.

Leaving aside the issue that no works were "on the site", what proportion has to be legitmate to be legal? There's a lot of copyrighted material on YouTube, but I doubt the owners are at risk of prison sentences.

Re:Hold on a second.

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely too subtle. I think I feel a downmod coming on... :)

Re:Hold on a second.

[daveime]

Nope sorry.

Google converts PDF, Powerpoint and Word Docs into HTML, and creates thumbnails of images scraped etc, (all format shifting without even the consent of the original owner). It does not simply host copies of HTML by a long shot.

Re:Hold on a second.

[IamTheRealMike]

Torrents or TPB aren't copyrightable works, they are statements of fact and facts cannot be copyrighted. Nice try though.

Re:Hold on a second.

[ultranova]

I can vouch for that. I've found that the fastest way to find a torrent is to simply google it. That works a lot better than using any of the torrent sites' search functions, in my experience.

And now you go to jail for helping any readers with copyright infringement. You felon, you!

Do you have to Swedish?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have to Swedish to donate to the party? I'd love to send them some cash for being the heroes they are.

I'd love to see copyright brought down to about 5 years, where the creator has a chance to be recompensed for their work, but dirty leeches like the RIAA won't have room to exist.

Re:Do you have to Swedish?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our *AA overlords will probably have you brought up on treason charges.

Re:Do you have to Swedish?

[Bragador]

You can support your own pirate party. It is now an international organisation. If you want to donate to the swedish pirate party, go here http://www.piratpartiet.se/donera

Outside of Sweden, pirate parties have been started in several countries, inspired by the Swedish initiative. Officially registered pirate parties exist in Spain, Austria, Germany and Poland, while those in the USA, France, Argentina, Finland, and Australia are currently unregistered, but active.

In June 2007 different members of international pirate parties met in Vienna, Austria to discuss the future of the movement. The conference was called "Next Step Politics!? Pirates to Brussels in 2009!?". The event was organized by the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts and activist groups such as monochrom and transforming freedom.

In 2008, the German Pirate Party became the second Pirate Party to contest an election, in the Hesse state election, 2008, and received 0.3% of valid votes. Additionally, there are discussions on Pirate Party International about forming parties in the Netherlands, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Serbia, Romania, Republic of Ireland and a letter of notification that a party is forming in Peru.

It's not a local phenomenon.

The ruling has already made waves in Denmark too

[brucmack]

I was pleasantly suprised to read a story about the ruling on the Danish public service channel's homepage today. The Danish advokatrådet (council of solicitors) has pointed out that the decision could have consequences for other sites that merely link to illegal files, like Google, and have encouraged the responsible minister to take preventative action. So here's hoping the ruling will end up helping us get some reasonable legislation passed!

"Linking People to Information?"

[RobotRunAmok]

And that information wants to be "Free," I suppose...?

That's fine. Of course, if all TPB was "link people to information," they would not be in this mess. What they did, was link people to *entertainment*, which I understand wants to be paid for, more times than not.

Re:"Linking People to Information?"

[Anonymous Coward]

TPB hosted torrent files, which are essentially instructions on how to download something (games, movies, and music being the most common on their site presumably).

Should it be breaking the law for me to tell you how to commit a crime? Go to a gun store, buy a gun, load it, aim it at someone, and pull the trigger. Oh no! Now I'm guilty of murder or assault with a deadly weapon!

Re:"Linking People to Information?"

[Gerzel]

No but in your example the person buying the gun also is the one loading aiming it.

TPB is selling the gun loaded and already aimed at a specific illegal act.

Re:"Linking People to Information?"

[KingKiki217]

It seems to me that they're not selling a whole package. You need to already have your own gun, the client, and you get the ammo from your peers in the swarm when they fire it at you (okay, so the analogy is a little stretched at this point). The only thing you're getting from TPB is directions as to where to point your bit torrent client.

Re:"Linking People to Information?"

[Dan541]

The phone company links drug dealers together.

The city planners link rapists to their victims.
and it goes on.....

Re:"Linking People to Information?"

[MisterCIA]

Which is still not illegal. You still have to pull the trigger.

What this means

[Qbertino]

We have similar situations all over the world and in Germany too. Legislatory and Courts not understanding the concepts in Network technology and that they require a whole new different approach and perspective for reasonable legislation and judgement. At the same time IT is growing so fast and becoming a central part of our lives that the people affected are a significant political force. I think this is sort of a generation problem too. What I find interesting is that more and more the effect of IT on our lives - and thus on politics aswell - is growing stronger and stronger. I hope this party gains traction in sweden and isn't just a fad.

Re:What this means

[Narpak]

I hope this party gains traction in sweden and isn't just a fad.

If the the economical interests behind many of the anti-piracy actions undertaken continue to push for legislation and convictions in a way that is seen to be unfairly harsh, or cause an unfair invasion of privacy, then it wouldn't surprise me if the party continued to grow.

It would perhaps be advisable to find a better way to combat piracy than simply punishing people and creating "examples". It's a simplistic answer to questions concerning the future of how we distribute, create, sell and buy music, software, movies, literature and other products and services. Parts of the music and movie industry in particular seem to be trying to throw their weight around in a more and more heavy handed manner; in an effort to preserve their revenue stream without trying to adapt properly to the developments in technology.

At least this is how I perceive things to be at the moment. Hopefully at some point we will be effort or accident arrive at a solution that allows artists to benefit and allow customers access to their material in a way that is felt to be fair by both parties, as well as the middle men that help in meaningful ways.

Re:What this means

[adamchou]

Legislatory and Courts not understanding the concepts in Network technology

what I don't understand is why they need to understand network technology. I don't know european law, but I'd imagine that its something similar to the DMCA. I would imagine that the DMCA isn't that ambiguous that you have to understand network technology to interpret it. it seems so basic to me, the site that hosts the content is in violation. are these laws really that convoluted or are we pigeon holing these judges?

Re:What this means

[RAMMS EIN]

``what I don't understand is why they need to understand network technology. I don't know european law, but I'd imagine that its something similar to the DMCA. I would imagine that the DMCA isn't that ambiguous that you have to understand network technology to interpret it. it seems so basic to me, the site that hosts the content is in violation.''

But who is talking about hosting the content?

Re:What this means

[Wildclaw]

"what I don't understand is why they need to understand network technology."

It isn't so much failing to understand the technology itself as failing to understand how society thinks about and uses the technology. The old legislators has proven to be completly oblivious.

When you have the swedish minster of justice, Beatrice Ask, on national television saying "Now the industries and adults will make sure that we get this in order" as a comment on the new IPRED law that basically allows for private police.

Adults? The top EU parliament candidate for the Pirate Party is 48 years old. OK, he is older than the average member. But that isn't really strange, because the internet is used more by the younger generations. The 18-30 bracket is where you will find a huge representation. According to Beatrice Ask, I guess they are all children.

And then you have the prime minister saying "We don't want to criminilize a whole generation" before calmly going on and criminilizing a whole generation.

There is a reason why the Pirate Party is growing rapidly. People are slowly waking up to the hypocrisy. And they are also realizing that the neither of the big parties are to be trusted.

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

This is so true. I'm tired of hearing this generation moaning about the two party system, and then doing nothing about it except not voting. This lazy, apathetic attitude is why nothing ever changes in America. If you don't like the two main parties, then join another, or start your own. I can't remember who said it, but it's truer now than it ever was before: in a democracy, people get exactly the government they deserve.

Re:Mod parent up

[TheGratefulNet]

This is so true. I'm tired of hearing this generation moaning about the two party system, and then doing nothing about it except not voting

lol!

"not voting" - as if voting would FIX things?

my friend, we are WAY beyond using the system to fix the system. where you been, under a rock, the last decade or two?

sire, tell me again how voting for one of the 2 parties HELPS fix the brokenness of a 2 party locked system, again? this new learning amazes me.

Re:Mod parent up

[Darkness404]

In Sweden though, parliamentary representation is based off of % of people voting for your party. So if the equivalent system was placed into the US senate, each 1% would give a seat in the Senate effectively giving third parties a chance. However in the USA today, a third party that gets 40% of the vote does not get that in actual representation.

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant they could try voting for a different party. What do you suggest anyway? An armed rebellion?

Re:Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

A third party that got 40% of the vote would be more like a 2nd party wouldn't they be? :P

Only 60% of the vote left over for the other two parties, one of them's going to have to take 40%.

Re:Mod parent up

[Grave]

A Constitutional convention. New amendments, passed from the ground up, not the top down, are the way to implement sweeping changes that might enable a system that is more mathematically friendly towards other parties.

Re:Mod parent up

[colinrichardday]

Jefferson did say something about that, but it didn't work in the US Civil War.

Re:Mod parent up

[Peter La Casse]

A Constitutional convention. New amendments, passed from the ground up, not the top down, are the way to implement sweeping changes that might enable a system that is more mathematically friendly towards other parties.

I used to think that way, but you know who would make up the delegates to a new constitutional convention? Members of the political class.

A new constitutional convention would not create an elegant set of rules or lay the groundwork for utopia. Instead it would more closely resemble the stimulus bill that just got passed. (We'd be lucky if anybody read it before voting.)

Re:Mod parent up

[Darkness404]

Well, what I was meaning was how lets say each state had ~2% of people who were libertarians and voted libertarian. That number would be too small to elect any representatives for the state, but there are still 2% of people who have no representation in congress. Whereas in Sweden there would be directly 2% of the parliament made up of libertarians.

Rick Falkvinge

[the_one(2)]

It's Rick Falkvinge not Falk Vinge. Trivia: Falkvinge essentially means wing of falcon

Re:Rick Falkvinge

[Anonymous Coward]

And less essentially and more precisely: Falconwing

Re:Rick Falkvinge

[multipartmixed]

> Trivia: Falkvinge essentially means wing of falcon

Did you know that Buffalo wings essentially mean wings of chicken?

I'm still trying to figure that one out.

I wanted to see something Pegabisonian on my plate. You could make shishkebobs out of them with unicorn horns!

Re:Rick Falkvinge

[compro01]

Did you know that Buffalo wings essentially mean wings of chicken?

I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Buffalo is the sauce they put on them.

Re:Rick Falkvinge

[cheros]

"Buffalo is the sauce they put on them."

So the wings are not buffalo meat? Damn.

Daniel NystrÃm, Pirate Party Stockholm

[Anonymous Coward]

Final count... 5000 new members today.

Re:Daniel NystrÃm, Pirate Party Stockholm

[Ortega-Starfire]

Let us know when they go over 9000.

Hello, my name is Godwin

[mangu]

Would Obama with his RIAA lawyer friends declare Sweden to be part of axis of evil and will actually bomb them to bring in the democracy US style

Considering that Hitler was afraid of invading Sweden, Obama should be careful.

I lived in Sweden for a while years ago, and the whole country is a fortress. When you walk in the woods, sometimes you find a little concrete house, surrounded by a barbed wire fence and full of warning signs. Those are elevator shafts that go down to underground military installations.

I wouldn't be surprised if "Sweden" means "land of bunkers" in some old dialect... ;)

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[roman_mir]

you know what 'bunkers' are in military speak, don't you?

Just like tanks they are 'targets'.

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we have shelters for 7,2 million people out of a population of ~9 million. Every man woman and child has a gasmask. Some of our city shelters are near hit nuke safe (they were supposed to be used by people that had to stay in the cities after evacuation).

During the cold war Sweden had an army of ~1 million man and one of the few non super-power countries that had the balls and/or the insanity to consider fighting through RagnarÃk.

Every major harbor, manmade or natural, was guarded by mountain fortresses that could tie up several hundred thousand troops for months. To silence their artillery one would need several "ventilation shaft" hits with tactical nukes (this was before the day of cruise missiles).

There were, and still are, underground naval bases. There also were, and I think is, underground hangars for the airforce (then also the roadbase system made the airforce really hard to kill).

Sweden is also one of the few countries that can build competitive fighter jets, subs or anything else a homicidal maniac might need.

We also had a nuke program that dwarfed the North Korean one. The nuclear reactor under KTH is by rumor (voiced in public television) supposed to be much larger than the North Korean one. It was a political decision to halt the program, but many claim that the know-how and raw-material exists in Sweden for building nukes within a few months.

We also had "readiness stores" capable of fueling our war industry in the case of a prolonged war. Vital industries were themselves protected in underground bunkers.

Considering today's robotization and the amount of heavy trucks Sweden produces, I would claim that Sweden could produce thousands of MBTs a month. The problem is that Sweden does not have enough electronics industry of its own. We have the know-how to make modern microchips etc but not in the volumes needed.

But today, luckily, we have such a weak military that our neighbouring non-allied countries complain that we have too small an army.

So in conclusion, the USA have the capability to invade Sweden. It would only have to be one hell of an surprise attack. Otherwise you should prepare for general conscription, casualties in the size of several hundred thousands and limited nuclear war (then in millions). Luckily both our countries are still democratic, and wars between democracies are not very likely.

Well enough dick measurements :-) Sweden was unique during the cold war. Thanks to that our countryside is digged up like swiss cheese.

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Swedish bedrock is granite. So not even these modern "bunker busters" are able to penetrate to the needed depth (30 m). To be able to take out these bunkers you need to find all WELL CAMOUFLAGED AND VERY SECRET entrances (not just the front one used in peacetime).

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that Hitler was afraid of invading Sweden

Except that he wasn't. We bent over backwards for him to avoid and invasion and he was content with that. It is a shameful part of our history - we let Nazi Germany use our rail network to transport all the military shit they wanted (well, officially we agreed to limited unarmed transports but in practice there were no limits).

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[psycho12345]

Although this is, true, Hitler indeed was fearful of invading Sweden since he depended on Swedish Iron to fuel his war machine. Even today, I doubt anyone could attack and take control of the iron fields before the Swedes could destroy them via sabotage.

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[SanityInAnarchy]

Or a stone burner would do the trick. That would kind of violate the Great Convention, though.

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to know a lot but have evidently missed what leaked out about us from NATO archives a few years ago. NATO (well, the US) had planned that they could easily fly bombing raids to the Soviet Union from bases in Norway over our territory. Their assessment was that it was unlikely that our neutrality would in practice mean that we'd try to stop it and that in any case our air force was so useless that we wouldn't be able to even if we tried.

Now, your estimate of nukes in a few months is pure bs. since even if we had the knowledge (which I doubt), the production process takes longer than that. And have you considered delivery systems at all? Ok, we've shot up a number of rockets from Esrange but the range is a little too short.

Re:Hello, my name is Godwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, you're right that he was afraid of that but that is obviously not the reason the gp implied. That is, he didn't fear any military might of ours but that we might self-destruct anything of value before he manages to invade us. And such a "threat" obviously only works against very limited incentives not to invade us. But this discussion is pretty pointless and hypothetical anyway.

"Knowledge"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how they call what they do "communication", "information" and "knowledge". I suppose they think we should be allowed to walk into bookstores, take items off the shelves and freely walk out without purchasing. You know. To free up the knowledge.

I don't think they have anything worth sharing or learning from in that country anyways.

Re:"Knowledge"?

[Darkness404]

Um, in most bookstores I have been to (including large chain stores like Barnes and Nobel), no one cares if you take a book from the shelf, sit down in one of the comfortable chairs and read as much of the book as you like. It is stealing whenever you take a book out of a bookstore without paying because the store lost a physical book that cost real money to print, etc. What "piracy" is doing is simply reading the book in the store, no loss of the book and someone is perfectly free to read the same book. Only, "piracy" is a bit less damaging because while a bookstore has a finite amount of a certain book, anything digital can make a copy in less than a second with no loss by either side. So not only are you reading a book, but hundreds to millions of others can read the book too.

Re:"Knowledge"?

[sy5t3m]

I suppose they think we should be allowed to walk into bookstores, take items off the shelves and freely walk out without purchasing. You know. To free up the knowledge.

Oh, you mean like a library?

Re:"Knowledge"?

[Kjella]

Um, in most bookstores I have been to (including large chain stores like Barnes and Nobel), no one cares if you take a book from the shelf, sit down in one of the comfortable chairs and read as much of the book as you like. (...) Only, "piracy" is a bit less damaging because while a bookstore has a finite amount of a certain book, anything digital can make a copy in less than a second with no loss by either side.

And if the food store is giving away free samples and you eat ten samples and say "Well that was good but now I don't need to buy any" then that's not stealing either. But you're deliberately confusing a setting that is meant to give most people a sample with the intent of convincing them to purchase with a setting that completely substitutes purchasing. It works for Barnes and Noble because many people actually do make purchases, it works for the food store because many people actually buy food. If Barnes and Noble ended up working like a public library they'd need funding, if the food store ended up like a free dining hall your school/workplace would have to fund it. Your logical extrapolation from free samples to free everything just doesn't make sense.

Re:"Knowledge"?

[nbates]

Not to say we also have... you know... libraries?

Re:"Knowledge"?

[pbhj]

... no one cares if you take a book from the shelf, sit down in one of the comfortable chairs and read as much of the book as you like.

They may let you, but I bet they also care if you do that rather than buy it.

There is a magical mystical place where they not only don't care if you read the books they spend money on getting you to come in and do that. Not only that but they let you take the book home to read, so long as you bring it back soon, all hail the "library".

EU Elections June7

[Christian Engstrom]

The elections for the European Parliament are on June 7.

That's what we're focusing all our efforts on right now. It's an entirely realistic goal, and we're planning to make it.

/Christian Engstrom
Vice Chairman Piratpartiet
Candidate for the European Parliament

Re:EU Elections June7

[petermgreen]

Are you planning to enter european parliment candidates in any other countries and/or do you have affiliated parties in other countries?

Re:EU Elections June7

[Rival]

Good luck! I wish you both success and wisdom.

I, for one, welcome the possibility of seeing the _last_ of our corrupt, litigious, copywrong overlords. I may be hopelessly optimistic, but it is fun.

If you are able to make significant changes, it will give me a little more hope for the U.S. Good luck!

Re:EU Elections June7

[tkasd]

There are currently 7 registered pirate parties in europe, namely in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Poland, Spain and Sweden. Some more are in the process of founding/achieving formal acknowledgement. See http://www.pp-international.net/ or if you prefer a colored map http://piratenpartei.de/navigation/partei/piratenparteien-weltweit (black: formally recognized; blue: active but not yet formally recognized; red: planned)

Re:EU Elections June7

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck sir. You have my support by way of donation.

Re:EU Elections June7

[ManWithIceCream]

Probably the only candidate for the EP on slashdot.

Re:EU Elections June7

[jwkpiano1]

I'm American, but I'll be rooting for you guys in the EP elections. Congratulations on the big membership gains!

MPAA attacks Google next

[williamfrantz]

MPAA, click here: http://google.com/images?q=movie+poster

RIAA, click here: http://google.com/images?q=cd+cover

OMG! Rampant contributory copyright and trademark infringement! Right here in the US by a Fortune 200 company.

(Just thought I'd help you get started on your next case.)

Re:MPAA attacks Google next

[cdrguru]

When the search http://www.google.com/search?q=free+movie+download results in lots of sites really offering free movie downloads, then maybe Google has something to worry about. And I don't mean movies like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1WeU3mmzps, I mean like the Wolverine movie. Or Star Trek (coming soon to Pirate Bay, I'm sure)

Until Google is returning results that actually download the same sorts of movies that Pirate Bay has listed, there is nothing to worry about. So how come they aren't listing every torrent available when I type in "Wolverine" for Google, anyway? Oh wait - the first result in Google for the search keywords "wolverine torrent" gets you ... you guessed it! www.piratebay.org And no, it isn't the torrent file, it is just the page listing the torrent file on Pirate Bay.

So how do you get to the torrent file with Google? Right now, you don't. Maybe that is why Google has nothing to worry about. Should this change and Google starts listing torrent files, then maybe they might have a problem.

Re:MPAA attacks Google next

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?q=wolverine+download

Links to torrents to movies. Same principle, just once removed (remember, you're not downloading the movie directly from TPB either).

So where's the criminal charges and large fine for the owners of Google? Oh, wait, there isn't one because those in charge are too fucking dumb.

The revolution needs to start now. A world wide revolution of ideas and freedom. No one is free anymore, even the countries that maintain the illusion of freedom for its citizens (US). It's time to win back that freedom for ourselves, because the governments will just continue to take it away.

This isn't about piracy or stealing. It's about hypocrisy and the need of the have nots over the excesses of those who have. If that sounds like communism or socialism, so be it. If properly done, it sure works better than the chaos and elitism of capitalism.

 

Re:MPAA attacks Google next

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason four guys who happen to operate TPB have been tried, and not Google, is because those four guys are just random joes with no money : easy targets for the expensive litigation tactics of a wealthy plaintiff, since the defense can't afford a battalion of angry pencil-pushers.

If the MAFIAA went after Google, they'd actually have to put up a real fight, and you can be sure the Google defense attorneys would dig up every shred of fact and argumentative wisdom to defeat and destroy the enemy.

In other words, TPB got sued because of a corrupt legal system that encourages lopsided battles and deters fair ones. It wasn't about copyright, it wasn't even about money, it was about using the cheapest method available to put on a show and make a bold statement. This is why the defendants have dubbed this case the "spectrial". It has no value, no meaning, it's just a bunch of big angry jews flexing their financial muscle to scare off the common man.

Maybe they should just move...

[One Louder]

I hear Somalia is more receptive to piracy.

The Pirate Verdict was...

[Anonymous Coward]

justice served. That will teach them to sieze an American ship and taking its captain hostage!

Suggestion...

[denzacar]

Well I wouldn't steal a car and I wouldn't steal a handbag.
And I wouldn't steal a cd from a brick'n'mortar stall.
But I'd still download music from a pirate torrent tracker.
Because that is copying and not stealing at all.

Re:Suggestion...

[lilomar]

Almost immediately after I posted my version I wanted to change the next to last line to:

But I'd still download music, 'cause that's completely different.

But I have a certain attachment to the 'Boston in the fall' version. ^.^

Re:Suggestion...

[trytoguess]

Ah, but we must be more specific then that. Do you copy files in order to sample them and see what you want to buy, or do you copy files because it's cheaper and easier then buying them? While the former is arguably a legit use of piracy, the latter is functionally no different than stealing. Sure there's no loss of materials in either, but in the second example you're refusing to compensate an artist for entertaining you which not only discourages production, but is an assholish move.

Whose running for government out there then?

[Stauken]

Peter sunde for prime minister? Anyone think the swedes will attempt to ban him from running? Anyone think THAT may lead to a riot? Sweden better not mess this up or may need to figure out how to stop a revolution. :P

Astronomical?

[sverrehu]

Astronomical? Like in millions of millions of stars?

If you compare to Oslo, the capitol of Norway, the closes neighbour to Sweden, the four guys have been sentenced to pay the price of a big house each (that is: four houses in total, in case I get the wording wrong) in the second most expensive part of the city. It's a lot of money (a lot!), but hardly astronomical.

Re:Astronomical?

[nosound]

Well, if three persons cannot pay up the forth person has to pay their share too. In normal cases damages of this size is a life-time sentence to minimal living standards. I'd say the one year in prison seems quite little in comparison to that.

interesting

[Eric-Dcrow]

this was posted by Anonymous Coward at another site today but i thought it would fit nicely here. "As to predictions... Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1841, against the extension of copyright http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_(Macaulay) Only quoting the ending, but the speech as a whole is a very good read "I am so sensible, Sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. If I saw, Sir, any probability that this bill could be so amended in the Committee that my objections might be removed, I would not divide the House in this stage. But I am so fully convinced that no alteration which would not seem insupportable to my honorable and learned friend, could render his measure supportable to me, that I must move, though with regret, that this bill be read a second time this day six months." S!

Re:interesting

[Airw0lf]

That is a remarkably insightful and prescient speech from ~170 years ago that basically explains the problem with DRM today. If copyright is perceived to be enforced unfairly and to the detriment of the end-user then people will work towards undermining it: "Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot." The Pirate Bay is one example of this phenomenon.

Members atm:

[Anonymous Coward]

Members atm:
http://lekstuga.piratpartiet.se/pp-ticker/longpolling/ticker.html
20 000 in a couple of minutes. Makes it a total of roughly 5000 new members today.

Pirates vs Ninja's

[Anonymous Coward]

Next thing you know somebody will be starting the Ninja party.

No, they aren't leeches if they'll vote

[Anonymous Coward]

The difficult last election was that pirate party members didn't talk their friends & family into voting pirate. I think they wanted 3 votes for every member, but they only got about one, not sure.

Next election the pirate party must either get more non-members to vote pirate, or else help members talk non-members into voting for pirate friendly politicians.

You know, you can always send them money even if your not Swedish.

Re:No, they aren't leeches if they'll vote

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather send money to my local pirate party. :)

Well... I won't, really. I'm a student with no money. And despite me being a member of the Pirate Party, I probably will give my vote to the left alliance instead of them. (I feel that they aren't experienced politicians enough to get anywhere and I want to vote someone who I believe will have a real chance to get elected)

However, their existence has already made a difference. I know that the part I will vote for is about to found a workgroup to consider it's relation to the copyright and I believe that this is because of the pirate movement. And I believe the party to be far enough left that the corporate lobbyists won't affect the outcome. ;)

Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

September 11 2007

GNAA Unveils Chufter
Paghtar Agga (Mujahideen Press/GNAP), Jalalabad

GNAA today announced the official launch of Chufter, the web's first officially non-kosher media sharing portal. After six months of rigorous prebeta testing/DDoSing by a select committee of GNAA beta testers/packeteers, the worldwide public holiday of September 11th has been chosen to publicly list Chufter on international stock markets. Despite receiving little or no promotion since it's prebeta debut 6 months ago, Chufter exceeded all market analyst's expectations and has already become the de-facto non-kosher content provider.

CEOs Rucas and pagga explain how Chufter came about: "The initial idea for Chufter came from our personal dissatisfaction with the strict 'kosher-only' content policy of mainstream clip sharing sites such as JewTube", barks Rucas. "Deletion of perfectly acceptable 'non-kosher' content by overzealous Hasidic admins was becoming increasingly commonplace, thus alienating the millions of proud, decent, antizionist gay niggers worldwide. Their rights to freedom of expression were being suppressed by these ZOG-funded sites, but with Chufter we feel we have given these gay niggers their voice back".

In a modern world where traditional, wholesome family content such as maresex, scat, mutilation, death and jihadist propaganda are deemed non-kosher under the Orthodox Hasidic laws that most media sharing sites operate, Chufter comes as a breath of fresh air. "We are excited and proud to be the first to break this Jewish monopoly on content. We hope to set a precedent which will be followed by the other major players within the media industry", says an erect pagga.

Of course, this level of innovation wouldn't be possible without the latest bleeding edge technology. "Chufter is built on proven, scalable enterprise solutions", explains pagga. "Our primary datacenter is located within the GNAA Worldwide Headquarters in California, in contrast with most other media sharing sites which are hosted in Israel. Each layer of the system was built from the ground up with a focus on efficiency, stability and content delivery. As an example of this, we chose MurderFS as the platform's foundation. Due to the the sheer amount of data involved, there was no other serious contender out there". Already in the works is a European mirror hosted Auschwitz, with a Tehran-based middle-eastern node in the pipeline.

After a relatively quiet summer, leading market analysts predict sharp increases in GNAA stock this fall. Since debuting on NIGDAQ this morning, shares in Chufter have already risen by 911 cents at time of going to press with no signs of slowing. In related news, industry insiders are hinting that Barack Osama is currently in discussions with Gary Niger about GNAA handling his 2008 presidential campaign. Watch this space.

About Chufter:

Chufter is a wholly owned subsidiary of GNAA ;]

About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and eas

Re:Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

GNAA join up to be fucked with a broomstick by a guy wearing a sheet.

The Only Flaw In Safe Harbor

[maz2331]

There is one flaw that I see in the Safe Harbor provisions, and that flaw is simply that there is no recourse against a false claim of infringement. Processing these requests does cost time, money, and at least some period where content can be made unavailable.

Perhaps it should be necessary to post a bond for the maximum amount of "claimed damages" prior to sending the notice, just to prevent damage to innocent non-infringers?

Re:The Only Flaw In Safe Harbor

[The Empiricist]

There is one flaw that I see in the Safe Harbor provisions, and that flaw is simply that there is no recourse against a false claim of infringement. Processing these requests does cost time, money, and at least some period where content can be made unavailable.

Au contraire, subsection (f) of the various safe harbors states that:

Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section--
(1) that material or activity is infringing, or
(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.

This provision was used in Online Policy Group v. Diebold in an order finding Diebold liable for misuse of the DMCA (Diebold settled). Then there is the ongoing case of Stephanie Lenz. Last August the court kept her 512(f) claim against Universal open, but it is not clear whether the court will find Universal liable and, if so, for how much.

Perhaps it should be necessary to post a bond for the maximum amount of "claimed damages" prior to sending the notice, just to prevent damage to innocent non-infringers?

It is an interesting idea. Of course, laws generally are supposed to be, and should be, neutral with regards to the parties who bring claims. A bond requirement would probably hurt those with empty pockets more than those with deep pockets. Moreover, if a bond had to be posted for every notice submitted, then all copyright infringers would have to do to multiple the amount of money required up front would be to post the infringed work on many different sites (doing that already has the effect of making it difficult to find all infringing copies of a work).

Scared off my ass

[BountyX]

I operate a tor exit node and must admit that this is scary. I donate my traffic to people in china who have to route around their government's firewall. Some of them, torrent shit, even through port 80. It cannot be helped. I had hope that Sweden would stand up to the media corps, alas, a day may come where I, as a node operator, am sued for routing 'illegal' downloads.

Theft=criminal; (most) infringement=civil

[Geof]

Tell me, if infringement equals stealing, why wouldn't the law just call it that?

Exactly. Legally speaking, theft is criminal. Most copyright infringement is civil. It's not just the terms that differ - these are entirely different classes of law.

Re:Theft=criminal; (most) infringement=civil

[init100]

Copyright infringement is a criminal offense too.

Re:Theft=criminal; (most) infringement=civil

[Geof]

Copyright infringement is a criminal offense too.

Yes, some of it is. Some. That's why I was very careful to say that most infringement is civil (check the post title). The vast majority of infringement is non-commercial distribution - which is, so far as I know (IANAL), a civil offense - not a criminal one. This clearly sets infringement in general, and filesharing in particular, from theft.

Re:Escort Service!

[TaoPhoenix]

Tired of overpriced Vehicle Lots selling nothing but Toyota Pickups that slurp an entire oil field to get to work? Buy a Ford Escort Today!

Economical! Saves Gas! Helps Detroit!

We also run a Cab Fleet. Need a lift?

Where can I show my support?

[Alan R Light]

I'm afraid the NaziS of Fun (as we like to call them) restrict all traffic to The Pirate Bay website, so I can't add a comment on their blog - and there's no other internet service available here.

As it happens, I've never used bit-torrents and I buy my music on CDs and my movies on DVDs, mostly from regular stores (occasionally from Amazon or the like) - but I'd like to register my support for The Pirate Bay and its operators nonetheless. Copyright law is overgrown, and it needs to be cut down to size. Same with the MPAA and the RIAA.

Alan R. Light
Ross Island
Antarctica

Programming techniques

[chrisranjana.com]

As they say there is no news like bad news. But this is very bad news for freedom of the web and file sharing in general

UPDATE: now 20573 members and counting

[I cant believe its n]

The Pirate Party webservers where melting yesterday. Many new members simply could not access the site to register.

UPDATE: 20781 members and counting

[I cant believe its n]

It was impossible to get to their website for a few hours yesterday. More mebers signing up today.

Is it possible to write a song anymore?

[tepples]

They're TOTALLY free to create works and release them for distribution under whatever terms they want.

But is it even possible to write a song without copying part of an existing song?

Inconvenience of commuting to the BN store

[tepples]

Um, in most bookstores I have been to (including large chain stores like Barnes and Nobel), no one cares if you take a book from the shelf, sit down in one of the comfortable chairs and read as much of the book as you like.

But you still have to be inside the store to do this. This means you have to wait for a day when the buses run (not Sundays or major holidays) and the store is open, walk to the bus stop, wait for the bus to come, pay bus fare, wait for the bus to take you to the transfer point, walk to the other bus, wait for the bus to take you to the bus stop by the store, and walk to the store. And then when you're done, you have to walk to the bus stop, wait for the bus to come, pay bus fare, wait for the bus to take you to the transfer point, walk to the other bus, wait for the bus to take you to the bus stop by your home, and walk home. And you still have to schedule all this to finish before the buses stop running each day.

It must be nice

[Beelzebud]

It must be nice to live in a country where the biggest political issue is made by a bunch of people that want to leech free software.

Re:The ruling has already made waves in Denmark to

[Snaller]

Got a link for that?

And judges in Denmark has already punished people who *LINKED* to mp3s from their homepages.

Vote threshold

[tonique]

There is a threshold for getting into the Swedish parliament; Wikipedia says it's 4 percent of the national vote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Sweden#Elections

BTW, thanks for the response

[Geof]

In my local Fair Copyright group we have debated whether it's reasonable to describe a Canadian DMCA as "criminalizing everyday Canadians." In legal jargon, the meaning of the term "criminal" is quite specific, and does not include most copyright infringement. However, in regular English the meaning of "criminal" is broader, including most lawbreaking regardless of whether it is civil or criminal in a legal sense. Lawyers don't get to change the meaning of English words just because they have need of detailed technical jargon. Your response to my argument suggests that this argument holds water. Most people are not lawyers: for them, the legal distinction is irrelevant - criminal simply means illegal. This is something I need to know. I want to make clear and effective arguments without being deceptive.