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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.'"
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.
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.
flinging poop since 1969
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!
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.
You can't handle the truth.
I suggest creating a facebook group and tying a coloured ribbon around the antennae of your car. This is what we do in Canada.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
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.
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...
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!
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
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.
In other news, RIAA navy seals under cover of night parachute into Swedish prison and with 4 well placed shots.....
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.
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.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Do you pay Time-Warner when you sing "Happy Birthday to you" in public,
or do you steal/pirate it?
Shame on you.
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.....
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!
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.
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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Apparently not. Not if those works happen to inform you about other people who are offering copyrighted material.
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.
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)
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
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.
Vice Chairman Piratpartiet
Candidate for the European Parliament
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
I meant they could try voting for a different party. What do you suggest anyway? An armed rebellion?
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.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I hear Somalia is more receptive to piracy.
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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
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!
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?
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>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
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.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
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