Pirate Party Wins At Least One European Parliament Seat

reeeh2000 writes "According to TorrentFreak, with half of polling stations now closed in Sweden, the Pirate Party has at least one guaranteed seat in the EU Parliament. Currently, the party is sitting with 7% of the vote. Depending on how the remaining districts voted, the Pirate Party could win another seat, for a total of two." Reader lordholm adds a link to an article about exit polls in Sweden (link in Swedish) indicating that the Pirate Party will score two seats, writing "According to the polls, the pirate party is the largest party in the 18-30 year age category of voters. The final counting of votes (including around a million postal votes) will not be done until later next week."

Comments

Bravo!

[siloko]

A fantastic result. It seems that democratic representation means something even to filesharers! Who would have thought that they're not all teenage hoodies checking out of society!

Re:Bravo!

[Markspark]

actually a lot of people voted on the pirate party to protect civil liberties and personal rights. (I did for an example)

Re:Bravo!

[AliasMarlowe]

18-30 year-olds? So in the next EP election, the PP will be the favoured party of 18-35 year-olds. That should give more than just one or two seats.

Re:Bravo!

[alexhard]

I think that in the next 5 years the PP will focus more on presenting these issues to older people, as well. Singing to the choir will only get you so far..

I think this has a lot to do with the way the party is represented by the media: when older people hear that the PP is "for the legalization of file sharing", they obviously don't think this is an important issue. If they knew the extent of the damage being done to personal liberties and privacy, they would be more willing to vote for the pirates.

Re:Bravo!

[Darkness404]

Sure, but the point of the party isn't really to become a "real" party but to force other parties into taking strong stances in making copyright weaker, protecting the fair use and the right to personal filesharing along with actually giving a crap about privacy. Perhaps it will take more than one or two elections, but 30-40 years down the road, the Pirate Party will most likely become obsolete as the other more "mainstream" parties will have taken up the pirate cause and then people will vote based on the economy, etc. because everyone will care about allowing filesharing and increasing privacy.

Re:Bravo!

[fishbowl]

>18-30 year-olds? So in the next EP election, the PP will be the favoured party of 18-35 year-olds.

No, once they are over 30 something clicks and they become more interested in preserving their own wealth than in idealism, so they become conservatives.

You would think that the counterculture generation of the 1960s would behave differently now that they are the dominant force in government and business, but look at the reality.

Re:Bravo!

[cliffski]

I agree 100%, but you are already moderated troll.

I'd be happier if the pirate party re-branded itself the 'lets kill off the digital entertainment industry' party, because that is the upshot of their 'policies'.
I'm a very liberal voter who supports freedom of information, and strong consumer and individual rights and freedoms and privacy...

However, I can't possibly equate that with some crap about 'copyright being evil'. Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy. An attempt to wrap up the 'lets all take stuff for free' ideology with some cuddly stuff about privacy is simplistic and silly. It's sad so many people fall for it.

Re:Bravo!

[hanssprudel]

The current Swedish government has rushed through a number of privacy encroaching laws regarding the Internet, which have been deeply unpopular with a large part of the population, and yet have had the support of all the mainstream parties. These have included:

- Unlimited wiretapping with court order of all International data traffic for the intelligence services (and remember that in a country of 9 million, a lot more traffic is international than say in the US - in fact a lot of domestic traffic is routed internationally!)

- Forced data retention laws for ISPs, forcing them to keep information about all incoming/outgoing email as well as TCP connections.

- Laws enacted to help the music/movie industry allowing them to demand ISPs reveal the identity of Internet users with little court oversight.

These things, much more than the takedown of the pirate bay, has influenced people to vote for the Pirate Party, who have presented the only political opposition to them.

In fact, my 58 year old mother just called me to tell me she voted for PP (and I didn't even ask her to). I promise that she has never torrented anything in her life - yet she doesn't like the government spying on her more than anybody else.

Re:Bravo!

[HappySmileMan]

This is such a joke. What civil liberties and personal rights are you voting to protect?

Well stuff like net neutrality and the right to privacy for one. Perhaps you should go read their views on various issues, I think you'll find there's a bit more to it that "LOL I WANT NEW TOM CROOSE MOOVIES".

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

I'd be happier if the pirate party re-branded itself the 'lets kill off the digital entertainment industry' party, because that is the upshot of their 'policies'.

That's a pretty ignorant interpretation of their policies. The digital entertainment industry in its current form might depend on copyright, but abolishing copyright would result in a new digital entertainment industry that separates producing content (their job) from making copies (not their job).

I'm a very liberal voter who supports freedom of information

But not, apparently, the freedom to share information. So what "freedom of information" are you talking about -- the freedom for information to exist? The freedom to own information and stifle the speech and actions of anyone else who wishes to use or share it?

Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.

Only if your definition of "freedom" excludes freedom of speech.

Re:Bravo!

[Swizec]

How about my right to fucking run a game on a new computer when I purchase it? Or my right to fucking play a movie on a computer as well as on a Playstation? Or my fucking right to not be put in jail for 8 years like I'd murdered someone when I share a song with a friend? Or my fucking right to lend someone a music CD I'd bought? Or my fucking right to not have every action on the internet monitored like I was molesting little children for lunch?

Re:Bravo!

[skrolle2]

What civil liberties and personal rights are you voting to protect?

The right to not have my traffic snooped on by the government as the FRA law in Sweden allows.

The right to not end up in a logfile whenever I send an email or visit a webpage, as the EU data retention directive wants.

The right to not have my internet cut off on the say-so of big copyright holding companies, as the French three-strikes law allows.

The right to not have my home searched and my assets seized on the say-so of copyright holders, as the Swedish IPRED law allows.

These things are important, not only for me, not only for those who download illegally, but for everyone who uses the internet. It is absolutely essential that civil liberties are respected on the internet and in real life. I didn't vote for the PirateParty so people can download stuff for free, I voted for them to stop the draconian surveillance bullshit that's being pushed in the name of stopping terrorism, child porn and illegal filesharing, but which in reality accomplishes nothing of the sort, it only lessens my right and my liberties.

Re:Bravo!

[darkmasterchief]

Remember kiddos, it's not just about the privacy issues that we have here in America. Look at what the other countries are having to deal with now, their privacy is being completely violated in one way or another. The implementation of cameras, people tracking, and other types of identification systems are being misused; in no time they'll be dealing with zealous institutions who are willing to undermine the average citizen to "make" the world a better place.
 

Re:Bravo!

[rohan972]

No, once they are over 30 something clicks and they become more interested in preserving their own wealth than in idealism, so they become conservatives.

As an over 30 conservative in favour of copyright reform, I don't see a problem with that. I see the effects of copyright on education and business as much more important than the effects on the entertainment industries (referring to the use of written works in business, not the sale of written works as business, eg operating systems, productivity software, accounting software). If you look at the cost to society of paying copyright levies for textbooks that teach material that has been known for hundreds of years (basic mathematics for example) it seems to me that the compulsory purchase via copyright of information that should have long been in the public domain is a dead weight on our economies.

Copyright reform is not a conservative vs radical issue, it's an informed vs uninformed issue.

You would think that the counterculture generation of the 1960s would behave differently now that they are the dominant force in government and business, but look at the reality.

That generation has certainly moved towards conservatism but they did make some fairly big changes. There is a degree to which conservatism is based on experience of reality. If at age >30 you still have the same outlook as you did at 18, you were either an exceptionally wise 18 year old or a very stupid 30 year old. Personally, I've found through experience that some of the ideals I had at 18 were not workable. Discarding/modifying those ideals in favour of proven workable systems (ie becoming more conservative) isn't "selling out", it's growing up.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

In other news, car-jacking is to be called 'motor-car scrumping', hence making it seem socially acceptable.

If "scrumping" means making a copy of a car while leaving the original untouched and fully functional, then it already is socially acceptable (it's just not possible). If you manage to invent a device that makes "scrumping" as easy as copying songs, you'll win a Nobel Prize and put an end to poverty and hunger.

I won't hold my breath, though, since if you can't even imagine a business model that doesn't depend on copyright, I doubt you're going to be coming up with any revolutionary technology anytime soon.

Re:Bravo!

[Repossessed]

Something is very wrong with the Swedish political system.

Don't they know the opposition party is supposed to claim they oppose unpopular laws like those then do nothing about them once they're voted into power.

Re:Bravo!

[lupis42]

Right... just like mix tapes were theft, and recording tv shows was theft.

I admire the efforts you made to reach out to the people pirating your games, and (hopefully) reminding the people who download whatever, whenever, that someone put effort into creating it, and that someone does deserve some kind of reward.

But File-sharing does not mean theft, it means exchanging files. Every computer I own is running at least one piece of software which I obtained from P2P sites at the direction of the copyright holder. They do this because it saves them distribution costs, which is very important when you aren't charging for it.

Equating file-sharing with car-jacking is exactly the attitude that makes people decide that the pro-copyright side of this debate are a bunch of idiots, and the perpetual insistence that each and every copy should be a sale doesn't help credibility either.

If you believe that Life + 70 years is a reasonable term for copyrights, that the patent system works perfectly, or that privacy is not a right, than you are disagreeing with the pirate party (Their statement of principals can be found here: http://www.piratpartiet.se/documents/Principles%203.2.pdf). If you continue to approach the copyright debate by calling everyone who disagrees with you "nothing more than a bunch of college kids who want shit for free" than you shouldn't be too surprised if you find yourself pushing people who might otherwise defend copyright away.

I support the right of creators to get paid for what they produce. I don't pirate games, but I do give old ones that I no longer play to friends, and accept their old games in return. When you insist that I am a "teenage hoodie checking out of society", and that "violating artist rights is what the PIRATE Party wants", you tell me that you do not support my rights to content that I have obtained legally. That's not helping your case that other people should support your ownership rights.

Re:Bravo!

[rawler]

The Pirate Party is nothing more than a bunch of college kids who want shit for free.

Interesting. Looking at their top 10 candidates for national government a few years back, you'll find that their average age is 38, and that 7/10 is 40 or older.

Among their top active public members, can be found an author, a musician, several with years of background in it consulting, one with a former background as director of a book publishing company, one with a background in national politics and a few with active backgrounds in other larger political parties.

So while some of the members are certainly cheap greedy kids as you describe them, clearly that does not constitute the entire party.

Re:Bravo!

[Demonantis]

This site is as much pro-piracy as a site demanding the closure of Guantanamo bay is a pro-terrorism site.

Re:Bravo!

[Opportunist]

Why does this work in Sweden, or rather, why not in the rest of Europe?

You have the same privacy-eliminating laws all over the EU, mainly because they are largely EU mandated, yet in most other countries, right-wing parties that call for even tighter monitoring and regulation won across the board.

I'm kinda sickened by my (and most other) countries here. Or rather, the sheep here following whoever blows the loudest xenophobic horn.

Why is it that Swedes take governmental spying serious, while the rest of Europe seems to be too busy hating $minority_group_or_foreigner?

Re:Bravo!

[AlexBirch]

In the USA, the opposition party usually passes more laws EXACTLY like the unpopular ones.
Look at the GOP holding legislative sessions to keep Terri Schiavo connected to a machine.

Re:Bravo!

[hanssprudel]

Something is very wrong with the Swedish political system.

Don't they know the opposition party is supposed to claim they oppose unpopular laws like those then do nothing about them once they're voted into power.

Yes, they did exactly that, but unfortunately for them there was a power change in Sweden a few years ago, and it became clear that many of unpopular laws being passed by this government had actually been drafted by the last one.

Re:Bravo!

[etnoy]

I think that in the next 5 years the PP will focus more on presenting these issues to older people, as well. Singing to the choir will only get you so far..

Very true. The issues that PP attacks don't just concern youngsters, more and more people here in Sweden are raising their voices against the stupid laws that have been introduced.

On another note, my old grandmother told me she had voted for the pirates today. I've never spoken to her about politics before, but apparently she found out about the party on her own and sympathised with their agenda (she's 77!).

The pirate movement has reached critical mass and is now entering the large political arenas. Let's see what rhetoric the MAFIAA and IPFI will use now. We can safely say that less people will be fooled by their lies from this day.

Re:Bravo!

[Hurricane78]

Simple. There are two factors:
1) The party was founded there. Give it some time in other countries. (At least we have 0.9% here in Germany. Which means they get the campaign money back.)
2) Education. The Nordic countries are known for their high education and open-mindedness. (Add Estonia to that group too.)

Here in Germany, people like to talk about "stupid Americans" or British. But in fact, we're nearly as stupid. And it gets worse every day.
Being dumb has kind of a "cool" and "you have to respect me" touch here. People nearly brag about their stupidity.
Which does not surprise me at all, with our drone promoting school system and the B-vitamin killing stuff that most people eat.

Re:Bravo!

[schon]

And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free?

How about payment for work done? You know, like nearly every other industry. Or should plumbers demand a payment every time you have guest use your toilet?

Just hope for donations? There's a guy with a guitar on the corner of my street who does that. It doesn't seem to be working all that well for him.

Interesting conclusion you've drawn there - if it wasn't working all that well for him, why does he keep doing it? Have you tried asking him, instead of drawing illogical conclusions?

You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?

Mu. This is an old argument, and regardless of how much you want it to be so, sharing is not stealing.

Perhaps you should do some reading - freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of original speech. Think about this: it's possible for copyright to prevent you from (or possibly punish you for) criticizing the government.

Copyright is the antithesis of free speech.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

For people who supposedly pride themselves rational thought, have you ever taken a step back to look at your own views?

Absolutely. The position I'm putting forth here isn't something I slapped together in five minutes, it's something I've put a lot of thought into over several years -- unlike the objections of those people who think it can't work because it isn't exactly the same as the status quo.

And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free? Just hope for donations?

No. Creating content is a service, and they can get paid the same way as anyone else who performs a service: by charging for the work they do.

A professional barber doesn't cut hair unless someone is paying him for a haircut. Why should a professional musician write or record songs if no one is paying him to do it?

How about the freedom of matters of fact? For example, we should have the freedom to know how our tax dollars are spent.

OK, let's see how dedicated you really are to "freedom of matters of fact".

I have a book open right now, and it's a matter of fact that the first word in the first chapter is "Simply". It's also a fact that the second word is "stated". Here are some more facts about that book: the third word is "animation", the fourth word is "is", the fifth word is "a".

I could keep going, but I think you get the picture. These are all matters of fact about a book that I own, and there are hundreds of thousands more facts I could tell you about it, but thanks to copyright law, it'd be illegal for me to share all those facts with you. And even if I did share those facts with you, it'd probably be illegal for you to write them down.

So, if you're in favor of "freedom of matters of fact", would you support a change in the law that made it legal for anyone to share as many facts about their own property as they'd like with anyone else who cared to know them?

That doesn't mean Microsoft should have the freedom to steal the code for Firefox, slap an IE-logo on it, and call it their own.

No, of course not. That would be fraud.

I do, however, believe that Microsoft should have the freedom to take the code for Firefox, slap an IE logo on it, and call it the next version of Internet Explorer as long as they told the truth: that the code was written by the Firefox team, not Microsoft.

You've got to be kidding. You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?

No. But I do really think that "freedom of speech" means "the freedom to speak", not "the freedom to criticize government policies" -- it shouldn't matter whether I'm speaking an anti-government manifesto or the text of a copyrighted book.

I'm willing to make an exception in cases where speech poses a direct threat, such as fraudulent advertising, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or leaking nuclear launch codes to the Commies. But I believe freedom of speech is too important to be restricted when the only reason to do so is to create a market for that speech. And in general, I believe we should not forbid the majority from doing something (like selling copies of a book) just to let a minority command a higher price for doing the same thing.

Re:Bravo!

[Ethanol-fueled]

Okay, I'll bite.

Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.

But the overzealous enforcement of copyright issues will inevitable lead to erosions of freedom and privacy. Hyperbolic hypothetical example: In your country, the leadership criminalizes small-time copyright infriengement and delegates its enforcement to a government law-enforcement agency. They find that your 17-year old daughter has been downloading the latest pop hits from TPB and so they will have the authorization to hack into her box to see what else they can find. They find her nude pictures and maybe even a nude webcam video she made for her boyfriend. In addition to copyright infringement, she will also charged with child pornography and subject to excessive punishment.

In short, content providers(among other corporations) get greedy and fuck things up for everyone. They've been inflating prices and riding a gravy train for years. Now that technology's levelling the playing field, they just try to throw money at lobbyists and enact insane law instead of implementing realistic business models. Adapt or die.

Re:Bravo!

[Hurricane78]

Well, ask FOX. ^^

In other FOX news, if you disagree with them, you are a pedophile. (Think of the children! No not that way, pervert! ^^)

Re:Bravo!

[lupis42]

I'd be happier if the Democrats and Republicans re-branded themselves as Mommy Government and Daddy Government, but they aren't going to because they (as far as I know) actually believe that there exist issues in this country and in public policy, and they have ideas about how to solve them. I think many of their ideas are stupid and wrong, and I disagree with their solutions, but they are attempting to resolve social issues.
So is the pirate party. The issues they are attacking start with copyright, and include along with that consumers rights, privacy, and patents. If you have better ideas, let's hear them, this is a discussion forum. If you don't think copyright needs any reform, can you make a case for that?
The digital entertainment industry only needs copyright for the business model "produce something, and then sell copies". WoW doesn't really need copyright to survive, musicians have been around for several millenia before copyright, and there are more examples. Would it affect digital entertainment negatively if copyright disappeared? I'm sure it would, just as I'm sure it would put a dent in novel sales. Would digital entertainment survive if copies were only valuable for 5 years and there was no effective way to prevent people violating that copyright? Almost certainly, after all that isn't that different from the way things are now, although I would be able to get copies of a bunch of old games that are copyrighted but not for sale anymore.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

No, it's informed speculation. ;)

In every other market, where you have (1) people who are willing to perform a service in exchange for money and (2) people who are willing to pay for that service, those people manage to come together and exchange money for services in a way that benefits both parties. Even when the law explicitly forbids it (drugs, prostitution, assassination), the market still operates.

So if you're claiming that this won't happen with "digital entertainment", which is perfectly legal and for which supply and demand are well-established, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why it's an exception.

What makes you think the same market forces that successfully provide every other service will fail when applied to creating music, movies, software, or other intellectual works?

Re:Bravo!

[turbidostato]

" For people who supposedly pride themselves rational thought, have you ever taken a step back to look at your own views?"

Yes.

"And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free?"

By-Some-Other-Means.

Yes: it's as simply as that. It is on the side of the one that want to make some money the burden of finding the ways of it, nobody else's.

But if you want some examples, Michelangello produced some nice forms of art. How? By finding someone wanting to pay him for that. But, hey, maybe you don't think that example to be representative since Michelangello didn't produce music. So be it. J.S. Bach, maybe you heard about him, made a live out of composing and playing music. How was that possible? Well, by finding someone wanting to pay him for that. What would have happened if nobody wanted to pay Bach? He simply would have find another way to earn for a living. If distributing media is a bussiness no more, just find a different bussiness.

As simply as that. Really.

"You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?
You're acting like a child."

Crab mentality... Humm, I think I like that concept.

Re:Bravo!

[brit74]

And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free?

How about payment for work done? You know, like nearly every other industry. Or should plumbers demand a payment every time you have guest use your toilet?

Yeah, and those guys who rent places - they demand to get paid every month! What a racket!

Seriously, though - when people create copyrighted material, they sell it for FAR less than the production cost. There might be hundreds of thousands of man-hours put into a project. Then, they turn around and sell it for $10 or $50 or $100. You're paying a small fraction of the actual development cost. Hopefully, the [Profit Per Sale * Number Of Customers] is larger than [Development Costs] for them, or else they're going bankrupt.

So, would you rather make $40,000 / year (up front), or spend a year creating something that has a market for 5 years and earns $20 per day (supported by copyright)? You might argue that you can sell your copyrighted material an infinite number of times (theoretically). But, the reality is that you can't. The reality is that $20 / day * 5 years works out to only $36,500. You'd be better-off getting your money upfront, despite your assumption that copyright = cash cow. Copyright allows us to earn a living, and it's not some rich crazy amount of money we're earning.

Re:Bravo!

[turbidostato]

"without copyrights, there would never had been either Casablanca nor the Beatles."

And that you know... exactly how?

Without copyrights there is Illiad, Oddissey, Eneid and all ancient literature. Theater never needed copyright to work out, nor novels by chapters like those of Dumas.

Films during the 30's, 40's, 50's... still needed complex infrastructures in place for delivering and show so I don't see why couldn't Warner produce Casablanca in order to show it on Warner's cinemas all over the country and protect the reels not by copyright but by simple physical means: no other cinema could get a decent copy of Casablanca unless they bougth to Warner or steal (which is punible by itself) from it.

And what about the Beatles? Do they need any copyright to protect their ability to play their songs in concerts? Certainly others could play their songs but others are *not* The Beatles (The Real Thing TM). And certainly it was not copyright what gave us Bach, Vivaldi or Mozart.

The world being the way it is doesn't mean that's the only way the world could be.

Re:Bravo!

[Opportunist]

I blame day time TV ("afternoon talkshows", the celebration of loudmouth stupidity) paired with evening shows showing that being a disfunctional family and generally unfit to live a social life earns you a slot in a "reality show", from TV sponsored parenting councelers to family swapping shows that also seem to pick the stupidest of the herd (or maybe you have to be really stupid to participate in something like this altogether).

I give you, though, that closed-mindedness is treated like a virtue here. Else our right wing populists wouldn't be so insanely successful. It kinda saddens me to see a party historically backed by large corporations and big money managed to become the spokesperson for the proverbial "little guy"... or rather, that they managed to tell the little guy that they were, and he belived it.

Re:Bravo!

[Ethanol-fueled]

Every Slashdotter, deep inside, knows that piracy is wrong and that it screws hard-working people over.

Metallica spend an hour recording tracks for their latest album. Then they leave and go out for hookers and blow while sound engineers spend the next 2 weeks cutting, pasting, and pro-tooling the hell out of the riffs and the cobbling the mess into something which resembles an album. Profit.

"Hard-working" may have been true 20 or even 10 years ago, but piracy caught on just as quality and craft of Big-label music took a nosedive. If I were an actually hard-working and gigging artist then I'd encourage so-called piracy of my tracks and make money selling CD's. I've frequently seen local bands in different cities give away stickers and CDs just to get their name known.

Shit, was I just troll'd? ;)

Re:Bravo!

[superwiz]

Because it's as stupid as saying you own a thought.

Native American's who "sold" Manhattan to Europeans had the same idea about land. How can one "own" land?

"Ownership" is the right to deny use. Everything else is semantics. And just we have a legal procedure of establishing ownership of land (through deeds), we have a legal procedure for establishing ownership of certain types of ideas (through copyrights and patents).

I think what you are trying to get at is that ideas can be shared without incurring physical cost (something that isn't true with tangible property). Which is precisely why intellectual property rights must exist for a short period of time.

That's why the rest of your arguments are wrong. They are based on this faulty base of **AA FUD.

Well, I once again, don't think you fully thought through what it meant to "own" something. As for calling it "fud"... They spread a lot of misinformation. It hardly rises to the level of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.

Re:Bravo!

[superwiz]

And that you know... exactly how?

Because they were produced by for-profit corporations whose business models relied on copyrights. I am not saying that other artistic forms would not have existed. Just these particular ones -- the ones that were distributed by for-profit corporations. There is plenty of good indie bands out there. Beatles were before cassette tapes. I simply don't see how they could have risen to the same level of popularity (through what mechanism) other than a mass-distribution chain that studios provided. I am not saying other methods of sponsoring arts don't exist (they do, in fact... through direct sponsorship, for one... as was the case with most classical musicians). I am simply saying that this is one of them. And this is only one that gives artists ownership of their art. I think this is just an outgrowth of general dislike for the excessive power of corporations. Well, that's a different issue and shouldn't be mixed with basic ideas of what it means to "own" something.

Re:Bravo!

[brit74]

Paying directly for production would end up working the same way in most cases. Instead of finding one customer to pay you $40,000 for a project, you'd more likely find a thousand customers who each pay $40.

That simply doesn't work for any project with a large number of users. Further, there are all kinds of problems with the "pay up front" model - it takes years before you get your product, you don't know what the quality will be (it could be a total lemon), the creator will only get a small fraction of the people to pay, people will have an incentive to not join in paying for something (choosing, instead, to freeload after its release). Do you think that you could get millions of people to pay up-front for the production of X-Men 4 even though it won't come out for years? How would you even organize such a thing? And Windows Vista? I'm glad I didn't have to pay up-front because once I saw the reviews I didn't want it. So, I don't have to pay. I don't even want to think about trying to make a first product - nobody knows who you are, or whether you create good software. You don't have the money to spam millions of people who *might* be interested in what you are creating.

The difference is that you don't have to "hope" that your gross revenue is greater than your development costs. Your gross revenue is set by you as an asking price, and you don't incur any development costs until you already have customers lined up to pay for development. So if there isn't enough interest in your project for it to be profitable, you can spend your time on something else.

That wouldn't work. First of all, let's say that you want to make a product. You think about 1 million Americans would be interested in this product. You spam everyone you can possibly find. About 1/300 people who hear about your product think it's a good idea and agree to buy-in. If you could contact all 300 million Americans, you could get your 1 million customers. But, you can't. You only contact a million people (and that was expensive and difficult). So, you've got only 3,333 customers. Nowhere even close to 1 million. Now, you just give up because you can't make the funding work -- even though, theoretically, it could work.

Copyright solves all kinds of these problems. I really don't think we should try to go back to a pre-modern method of funding things because we'll be taking a big step backwards.

Abolishing copyright is a big step backwards.

Re:Bravo!

[superwiz]

Let me clarify why economic incentive arguments completely miss the point. Because those who argue that their actions are more profitable for musicians substitute their choice for that of the musicians in deciding what is best for the musicians. They are acting as a collective big brother towards the musicians. We can adapt the same attitude towards tangible property. As a matter of fact, eminent domain does just that. It's a concept that the government can take away your land and compensate you for it if it can make better use of the land. Well, it takes ownership rights away and substitutes it for the right to profit off of the land. Just as you claim that the musician has no right to own his music but only has the right to profit off of it.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

That simply doesn't work for any project with a large number of users. [...] You think about 1 million Americans would be interested in this product. You spam everyone you can possibly find. About 1/300 people who hear about your product think it's a good idea and agree to buy-in. If you could contact all 300 million Americans, you could get your 1 million customers. But, you can't.

You seem to be assuming that the artist is on his own here. But lone artists can hardly expect success under the current model either! You can't single-handedly get a CD (or any other product) into every retail store in the country; that's why you have an arrangement with a distributor.

Likewise, if you want to sell your services to a million customers, don't try to contact them all yourself. Make an arrangement with someone else who'll help with promotion, handle the transactions, and deal with customer support in exchange for a cut.

Further, there are all kinds of problems with the "pay up front" model - [1] it takes years before you get your product, [2] you don't know what the quality will be (it could be a total lemon), [3] the creator will only get a small fraction of the people to pay, [4] people will have an incentive to not join in paying for something (choosing, instead, to freeload after its release).

1. This is true, and it may lead to a shift in the type of works that are produced. If that means fewer Duke Nukem Forevers, I don't think we'll miss much. But on the other hand, I don't think it's impossible to convince people to pay for something to be delivered a couple years later -- you just have to use a different marketing style.

2. This same issue exists with any other service, and it's a non-issue. You don't know what the quality of your auto repair, landscaping, or surgery will be until it's been performed either, yet people pay for these services all the time. They agree on the service to be performed beforehand, and if the result is unacceptable, they take their dispute to one of the well-established venues (complaints, bad reviews, chargebacks, small claims court, etc.).

3. The proportion of end users who pay is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the person performing the service receives enough money to make it worth his time.

4. Again, as long as enough people pay, this is no problem. If enough people aren't paying, that means there isn't sufficient demand: every person who chooses to wait instead of paying is gambling (taking the risk that the work will never be made in exchange for saving some money), and that means they don't really care about your work anyway, right?

Copyright solves all kinds of these problems.

Well, yes and no. Copyright is only effective to the extent that the author can actually control the flow of copies, and as we've seen, the era of authors being able to do that is rapidly fading. If you're doing the work for free, hoping to recoup your costs by selling copies, and then pirates cut you out of the loop by satisfying the demand for copies without you, copyright hasn't solved anything -- it's made the situation worse by enticing you to work for free in the first place.

Copyright is not free. We pay the cost in lost freedoms, foregone innovations, restricted access to past works, and limits on technology, as well as the monetary cost of law enforcement and courts. I don't believe the it provides nearly enough benefit to offset the huge costs.

Re:Bravo!

[shutdown -p now]

Paying directly for production would end up working the same way in most cases. Instead of finding one customer to pay you $40,000 for a project, you'd more likely find a thousand customers who each pay $40.

A serious question, and not an attempt to troll: has anyone actually done it that way, successfully? I keep hearing about this approach, and it sounds like it might work... or it might not. At the same time, nothing in the existing laws forbid people from taking this approach, so surely someone had tried already? If they did, and it was a success, then why don't we hear about it more? If it wasn't a success, then, again, it would be interesting to hear what went wrong. If no-one tried, then why? and shouldn't one of the anti-copyright people do it if only to make a point that it's possible?

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

Um - what? Lots of people create things with the anticipation or hope that someone will pay for it once it's created.

Please make up your mind. Are you talking about the world as it exists today, where copyright law makes it illegal to sell someone else's content without permission, or a hypothetical world with no copyright, where there's no incentive to work for free anyway?

Your objection seems to be that with no copyright, people would still create works for free and then get exploited, but that's utterly irrational. Why would anyone write a book for free, hoping to sell it to a publisher, when he knows that there's no reason for anyone to buy publishing rights?

Different incentives lead to different behavior. With no copyright, the behavior of working for free would not be rewarded, and thus would not occur except when money isn't a motivating factor anyway.

How is the artist being "smarter than you give them credit for" going to stop Walmart from printing up copies of music, books, games, and software?

Because those music, books, games, and software don't exist until someone writes them, and a sensible person wouldn't write them for free if he's expecting to get paid for his writing.

You seem to think artists will create all that stuff for free, and then be surprised at the last second when Walmart sells copies without paying them. In other words, you seem to think artists are incapable of planning ahead or predicting how other people will react. I disagree.

Re:Bravo!

[erroneus]

I think you seriously misunderstand what "the Pirate party" is really all about. The name itself is merely a persistence of the misnomer that copyright infringement was given by copyright interests in order to make their case more dramatic. But lately, it is more than just copying things. There is a great deal of injustice going on surrounding the issue of copyright and government laws and action put into place as a result. It has gone too far and has harmed many innocent people.

Furthermore, many copyrighted works that would have, and should have, been in public domain and in the hands of the people have instead disappeared without a trace simply because the holders of the copyright or those licensed to publish aren't interested in making more copies for distribution. And keep in mind the agreement behind copyright is that eventually, the content would be released into the public domain but the copyright interests have managed to extend the term of copyright to virtually indefinite terms and have locked up content inside the media it is distributed in to prevent people from moving the content into storage that will stand the test of time and remain accessible if and when it EVER becomes public domain. It represents a breech of that agreement to have extended copyright beyond the original duration. And it is simply obscene that they do so 70 years after the death of the creators? If the creator is a corporation, then what? "FOREVER?" It is completely unreasonable.

This has never been about artists. Artists have invariably suffered at the hands of publishers and their deals. The artists who have done well, whether musical or otherwise, are the ones who have managed to operate independently and create their own labels and publishing.

Re:Bravo!

[shentino]

Crab mentality is merely a lack of trust that the other guy will share.

It still produces no gain because one cannot battle the selfishness of others and expect to win.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

A serious question, and not an attempt to troll: has anyone actually done it that way, successfully?

Sellaband implements a model that's similar, but not quite the same. On their store page, it looks like there have been 21 albums produced with their model so far.

What I like most about Sellaband is that it's a social, community-oriented site. It's not just a place to type in your credit card number (like Fundable), it's a place for fans to discover new music and artists to connect with their fans.

What I don't like is that they're only using fan funding to pay for album production costs (at a fixed price of $50k or $100k), rather than including profit. Artists are still expected to make their profit by selling copies (only one track per album is free). There's no room on Sellaband for an artist who has a guitar and a laptop, doesn't need to rent a studio, doesn't have 13 tracks in mind, but wants to make a couple hundred bucks by recording one or two songs.

My dream site would look a lot like Sellaband, except (1) the artist would choose his own price and project format, (2) the artist would have the option of doing his own production and keeping the money, (3) the finished tracks would all be released for free public download, and if the artist wants more money he can sell merchandise, request donations, or start a new project.

Still, even though the model is slightly different, I think the fact that they've gotten fans to fund album production to the tune of over a million dollars (plus whatever they've collected for artists that haven't yet met the goal) is strong evidence that an up-front funding model can work.

Re:Bravo!

[shentino]

Digital works are a lot like pharmeceuticals.

Massive capital expenditure, minimal marginal cost.

And if the RIAA gets its way, soon to be intertwined with government regulation.

Re:Bravo!

[JohnBailey]

ThePirateBay is owned by a right wing racist millionaire. You think pirateparty voters are freedom loving? ha!

Walt Disney owns the Pirate Bay? You astound me..

Re:Bravo!

[init100]

No, a right wing racist millionaire made a donation to the site several years ago.

No, he owned a company that provided colocation space and internet access to The Pirate Bay, at a reduced fee.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

The quality of trolling on this site has really taken a nosedive over the last few years...

I'll say. The old "misunderstand your opponent's position and harangue him for something he never posted" troll is so passe. Try to be more original next time. ;)

WTF are you talking about? The way the content industry works is you create content and then you sell copies of it for profit. If everybody copies your work and distributes it for free, which is the way you seem to be suggesting the content industry should be working, there is no profit and hence no money to pay people for work done.

You're mistaken: he isn't suggesting what you think he's suggesting (nor am I). That would indeed be silly. Let me break it down for you in the traditional Slashdot business-model format.

The current model:

1. Artist makes content for free.
2. Artist sells copies of content.
3. Profit!

What you seem to think we're suggesting:

1. Artist makes content for free.
2. Artist gives away copies of content.
3. ???
4. Profit?

What we're actually suggesting:

1. Artist finds people who want content made.
2. Artist makes content in exchange for money.
3. Profit!
4. Artist gives away copies of content.

Notice that money changes hands -- or at least, an agreement is signed -- before any content is available to the public. By the time anyone has a chance to copy it, the artist has already been paid.

So if we had king sized Star Trek type replicators [...] to, say... replicate cars, car manufacturer's coffers would still be filling up to the brim with all the imaginary goodwill dollars they'd be getting from all you and all the other people who pirate-copied their cars in these replicators without paying real world money for the privilege?

Not quite. Car manufacturers would be obsolete, because manufacturing would be something anyone could do at home, without needing a factory.

Car designers, on the other hand, would still earn a living as long as the public still wanted new car designs. That's because you can't manufacture a new kind of car until someone designs it, and if the designer says "I'm not designing anything until you pay me", your only choices are to pay him or to keep using the old designs.

In other words, cheap replicator technology would force the auto industry to separate design/engineering (their job) from manufacturing (not their job), just like P2P will force artists to separate creation (their job) from making copies (not their job).

Re:Bravo!

[bzipitidoo]

Your arguments have a few problems. Seems you haven't fully appreciated the difference between tangible goods and ideas. And you might be confusing copying with plagiarism.

I think what you are trying to get at is that ideas can be shared without incurring physical cost (something that isn't true with tangible property)

This is exactly what we are getting at. Sharing an idea is very different from sharing a tool such as a shovel. As Jefferson put it, "he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

The law should not treat ideas as if they were physical goods, and we shouldn't allow these foolish self-interested conglomerates to trick, brainwash, bully, and push us into such a stance. Every time someone sincerely uses "stealing" to describe sharing, is another small victory for those who wish to turn our civilization into a narrow, mean, petty ownership society where anything of any value whatever is treated as property and assigned to some owner, where charity will be suspect, where no one will believe altruism makes any sense.

Ideas are far more flexible than that. We only hurt ourselves and severely limit our potential when we try to treat them like physical property. We may never know how many answers to how many problems were buried and left to rot thanks to arguments over "property" rights, and how many people that killed. We do know many people have died of AIDS who need not have, thanks to the greed of Big Pharma. One of those people could have been the next Einstein. We'll never know. Hundreds of disparate groups could be, and probably are, sitting on a pile of patents that collectively cover every aspect of dozens of pieces that are all needed to realize a new and far more efficient transportation system, one that could replace the automobile and thereby save our civilization from Global Warming. But out of a practically religious devotion to property rights, we will not be able to put it all together and use it and may not even learn of it until it is too late.

These are the kinds of dangers I see. Alarmist, perhaps? Unlikely, maybe? Improbable that any stance whatever on what might seem a relatively minor issue could have such a huge impact? Our excessive devotion to intellectual property rights weakens us. So long as we don't face any test that requires all our strength, we will be fine, and we can afford this foolishness. Maybe Global Warming isn't as dire as feared, or maybe we will be able to solve that despite being weakened over intellectual property red tape. But if we are faced with some overriding, all-consuming problem that we just might be able to solve only if we all pull together, it would be criminal if we failed because we couldn't resolve our issues over how to treat ideas.

What problems might we face? If not Global Warming, perhaps an asteroid strike. Or there is intelligent life out there, and these aliens at last choose to interact with us. Can you imagine beaming a book to aliens and telling them they aren't allowed to copy it? They might think we are insane! And if they feel that the galaxy is a better place without insane intelligences running amok....

But without copyright any film operator could have secretly made a copy and sell it to a competing studio.

No. That could be plagiarism. Your example isn't clear. Do you mean that the film operator attempting to sell to a rival studio is trying to claim that he is the author? Or that the rival studio is willing to pay for material they know must be plagiarized? Or is willing to commit plagiarism themselves and try to sell copies of that copy as their own work? With a decent digital notary system, it's really quite easy to prove plagiarism. No copyright is needed for that.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

What if the RIAA or other interests used fraud laws in distribution. "In reciting these words, I am {Corporation X}" or embedding a snippet of text "In distributing this file, I am {Corporation X}". This would work for Itunes (Apple) or Amazon or Corporation X, or Money Grubbing Individual Y.

Interesting thought, but it's been tried before.

The Sega Genesis would look for the word "SEGA" in cartridge ROM and, if found, show the message "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES LTD"; if the word "SEGA" was not present, the console refused to start the game. Accolade reverse-engineered this system and produced their own games that contained the word and printed the license message, even though Accolade had no license, which meant the statement was false. Their packaging, however, stated the truth: the game was not licensed by Sega.

Sega sued Accolade over this. The first court found in favor of Sega, but Accolade won on appeal. The appeals court found that this was a functional use of Sega's trademark, since there was no apparent way to make a functional game without using Sega's trademark and causing the message to appear. The court ruled that any customer confusion was Sega's fault for imposing this system, not Accolade's fault for doing what they had to for interoperability. (Sega even brought in one of their employees who managed to make a working cartridge that didn't show the message, as evidence that Accolade could've done the same thing. The court wasn't swayed, because there was no industry knowledge of this technique.)

Re:Bravo!

[nausea_malvarma]

It's about controlling what's yours.

Copyright wasn't established to "control whats yours". It was created to encourage creative ideas by allowing people with good ideas to profit off of them. The right to an artificial monopoly on your own creative works is not a natural right.

Re:Bravo!

[nausea_malvarma]

You can do whatever you want with your copy except copy it.

Not any more. Now you can only do what the copyright holders tell you to do with it. See: EULA, DRM, etc.

Re:Bravo!

[Kjella]

Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.

In theory, yes. In practice, no. Between digital media (CD, DVD, BluRay), reproduction (copy-paste) and distribution (Internet) it's trivially easy to share. Have you paid no attention to what the "solutions" copyright holders present? It's either to penalize you without due process aka "graduated response", demand settlements under threat of a 150,000$/song lawsuit or demand that ISPs do mass surveillance. Quite direct threats to your freedom and privacy.

You sound exactly like the discussion was in Sweden five years ago, where copyright was something they argued could be protected by reasonable methods. And each year file sharing grew and each year the countermeasures became more and more unreasonable. Even if it's 'lets all take stuff for free', you can't fight a lesser evil with a greater evil. They're not even remotely close to stopping file sharing and already people refuse to let their rights be violated for the entertainment industry's sake.

What you have not seen is the turn in politics of the other parties. So blatant, so completely void of any other politics like economics, environment, foreign policy and whatnot that the Pirate Party is, those 7% are really only the tip of the iceberg. They're leaders that can rally friends in other parties like greens and liberals and demand change. Right or wrong, the people won't accept the cost of protecting copyright much longer.

Re:Bravo!

[aztektum]

"LOL I WANT NEW TOM CROOSE MOOVIES".

GREAT now that is going to show up in search engines, and some studio asshole will be like "LOOK! The people want more Tom Cruise!" and we're going to get MORE shitty movies with that asshole in them! THINK before you hit the Submit button, man!

Re:Bravo!

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Do I hear the pitter-patter of the Slashdot groupthink? And to think that some people think you have to be an authority figure or a corporation in order to brainwash people...

That's the point. They don't own it. Because there is no such thing as intellectual property.
Because it's as stupid as saying you own a thought. How could you own a thought? As soon as you tell someone that thought, he owns it too. And there is nothing you can do about that.
If you do not tell it to anyone, you can't even prove that you have that thought at all. (Oh, and if then someone else comes up with it, he can claim he was the inventor.)

It all depends on the definition of property. As you pointed out, it makes little sense to define it as simply a person who had that thought at some time or another. Then, as soon as anyone has contact with that piece of property, then they will own it as well, which gives the property no power. It's like, if I loaned you my car, then it suddenly becomes your property as well, free to loan it out to whoever you want. It makes no sense to define it in that way. Thus, we must make intellectual (and physical) property less transferable than the items themselves, i.e. there must be a distinction between possession and property.

But, as you pointed out, we need to be able to tell our property to someone else, but again, make the distinction between them having the idea, and them owning the idea. There are (probably) a few ways we could do this, but essentially, we use the same metric we use for anything to which we start applying property: finders keepers. The first person to have the idea (with some caveats) gets ownership over it.

That, however, poses its own problems. How can we prove person A had an idea before person B? We can't. This, however, turns out not to be much of a problem, because the value of of IP is derived from public distribution. The obvious solution (but is it a correct solution?) to the problem then becomes to grant ownership to whoever publicly displays their idea first.

Again, this potentially causes problems. Person B may have gone through the same thought processes as person A, and some people believe that, as such, person B has just as much right as person A to the idea. Also, there's the problem of what to do when someone decides to take something obvious, something people have collectively discovered and used well before one person took ownership. As one person told me, "you can't own the number 5". It would be like one person in a village declaring that he owned the village well, despite the fact he put no more effort into it than the next man.

Now, from here, we can go in two viable directions. We could either say "tough cookies", and stick to the "finders keepers" policy, making an exception for things already in common use (the "public domain", as I will now call it), or we can do something a little more radical, and allow multiple, independent parties to own the same idea.

The first direction has some advantages, including the fact that it would encourage the publication of ideas, that it preserves extremely efficient and verifiable metric for determining ownership (aside from determining what is public domain), and also that it keeps in line with physical property (which makes it easier to understand and accept among ordinary people). It has the disadvantage of being seen as unfair by many (though, this is a common side effect of new applications of the concept of property), and the concept of public domain requires the courts to decide, which is inefficient and costly.

Before I go into the advantages/disadvantages of the second direction, I'd like to first elaborate on how it would work. Surely this direction doesn't distinguish between possession and property, right? Well, not necessarily. The concept of copying then becomes important. Under the first direction, copying owned ideas is automatically bad, since n

Re:Bravo!

[superwiz]

By the way, this was one of the most disgusting posts I have ever seen on slashdot. It is "big pharma"'s greed that saved the life of everyone who got AIDS and didn't die from it within a short period that the disease kills an untreated person. Pharmaceutical companies are the reason that cancer survival rates went from under 5% in 1960 to over 60% today. Pharmaceutical companies are the reason AIDS is not an automatic death sentence anymore. Pharmaceutical companies find a way to provide employment for the brightest of scientists to produce cures or treatments for disease and conditions that shills like you cannot even name. To use a slur when referring to the best of people is to equate yourself to the worst of people. You, sir, have done just that.

Re:Bravo!

[brit74]

- Not every creator is Metallica. You're argument devolves into "*this* musician makes too much money, therefore, we must eliminate copyright to make sure they (all musicians) make a lot less money". It might "solve" the problem of overpaid musicians, but they're only a small fraction of all the people working.

- Metallica did NOT spend an hour making their latest album. I know people who are musicians. Recording music takes a lot of time. Repeating everything to perfection, laying down multiple tracks, paying to rent the studio, paying people who work there. There's an awful lot of work and effort that goes into it - not only by Metallica - but by a lot of studio people to balance and mix everything together.

- The copyright system doesn't just cover musicians. It covers everyone from software developers to film-makers to artists and photographers.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

And I've already explained that your system is unrealistic.

Apparently you think a new model has to exactly duplicate the status quo in order to be "realistic". I find that unrealistic.

You simply aren't going to be able to find people to pay up front in nearly the numbers that you can find to pay after you complete the project (under a copyright system). I'd be amazed if, for example, Killzone 2 could bring even a fraction of their $70 million development costs before they even began development. ($70 million was their development cost.)

Well, that's a lot of money, but I don't think it's impossible to raise that much up front. Just difficult (especially considering how the first Killzone was received).

But look. Suppose Killzone 2 wouldn't have been made. So what?

The goal isn't to find an alternate way to fund the production of every single thing we see on shelves today, it's to find a way to fund the production of intellectual works that (1) still works in an era where copying is easy, cheap, and unpreventable, (2) doesn't rely on restricting speech or technological innovation. Like the AC said, if you make substantial changes, you'll get a different outcome... but different doesn't mean worse. What we lose in Killzone 2s not made, we gain in new works being made that would be impossible to release today, as well as restored freedoms.

And don't forget, for every project that turns a profit (if indeed Killzone 2 has turned a profit yet, which isn't clear), there are several projects that never recoup their development costs. We don't expect people in other fields to treat their work as a lottery; why should we expect that of artists?

The costs of finding those people in the first place would add millions of dollars to the project (and that's money that has to be paid even if you decide not to do the project at all).

That isn't new overhead, it replaces the corresponding overhead in the copyright model. Putting a game onto thousands of retail shelves isn't free.

It's almost like you're so in love with a copyrightless world that you're willing to go to any length to justify it.

It's almost like you're so in love with a few blockbuster titles like Killzone 2 that you're willing to give up your rights and mine -- as well as all the other titles we'll never see because of copyright, and the technological innovations we'll never see because they offend copyright holders -- in order to get them.

Re:Bravo!

[kamochan]

The Pirate Party registered in Finland last week as an official party. They will be running in the 2011 parliamental elections.

Re:Bravo!

[ppanon]

Digital works are a lot like pharmaceuticals.
Massive capital expenditure, minimal marginal cost.

"Massive capital expenditure"? For creating visual works where customer expectations of resolution and quality is steadily increasing, OK.

For most of the music the RIAA peddles? Fat chance. The advent of the digital computer has placed reasonably good quality recording capabilities at ever lower price points. Many albums now have their audio contents deliberately distorted prior to reproduction because the younger clientele has gotten used to distortion and poor reproduction from low-fidelity MP3s and earbuds. The real "costs" in music production are in marketing and access to the limited and controlled mass media outlets.

The actual creative artists who compose the music an lyrics for songs also need to be compensated for their effort, but they generally get pretty short-changed by the current system in favour of middle men and gatekeepers. Even then, the artist's capital costs are the price of keeping a roof over their head and food in their stomach while they concentrate on being creative. Those costs are significant to the artists because they generally don't make much from performing until they become popular, but compared to any physical product, the costs are really quite low these days.

Classical music is probably the most significant exception. Keeping an orchestra fed, housed, and clothed is so expensive that receipts from concerts usually don't cover it and donations have to be solicited.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

Yes, and when that "market" consists of people taking and distributing stuff for free, there is no exchange of money. Does your informed speculation take that into account? No, it doesn't.

Actually, it does.

You see, in order to "take and distribute stuff for free", that stuff has to exist first. You can't copy a song that hasn't been recorded; a musician has to create the song before anyone can copy it. And that musician can demand to be paid first.

The "service" you claim people are willing to perform, is seeding a torrent, not producing content.

No, you've misunderstood.

The service that people are willing to perform is producing content. People are, in fact, willing to record songs in exchange for money -- otherwise there would be no "recording industry".

I'm claiming you're dreaming up a magical market solution that lacks the necessary market functions to actually work.

I'm sorry you think that; I know you've had a hard time understanding this proposal. I hope I've clarified it for you. Let me know if you're still having trouble.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

Who is going to pay, and how will they be encouraged to pay?

Anyone who benefits from the existence of new content has an incentive to pay for its creation. Mostly, that means the people who want to watch/play/listen to it: if I'm a gamer, I will derive enjoyment from having a new game to play, and that enjoyment is worth money.

In other words, the lion's share of the money would ultimately come from the same people who provide it today: consumers. And they'd be encouraged by the same thing that encourages them today: access to new content.

In this model, a consumer who doesn't care very much about new content would have the option of holding out to see if other people will fund it. From the creator's perspective, that doesn't matter; all that matters is whether they collect enough money to make it worth their time. But that consumer is taking the risk that other people won't provide the rest of the funding, and thus the new content won't be produced. Whether he actually decides to pay will depend on how much he values having new content.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

And you've thought about this for several years, right?

Yup. Clearly longer than you have, considering the obvious lack of thought put into your objections.

There's little incentive for paying in your model, and even less for taking a risk on unknown talent. Why pay, if the artist isn't capable of producing?

Why hire an electrician, barber, accountant, etc. if they're "unknown talent"?

If services in the real world actually worked the way you seem to think, no one would ever be able to break into any service industry. And yet they do: sometimes by putting together a portfolio to prove their ability, sometimes just by setting their prices lower than established names.

Why pay, if others paying might be enough?

As I said: "But [a consumer who waits for others to pay] is taking the risk that other people won't provide the rest of the funding, and thus the new content won't be produced. Whether he actually decides to pay will depend on how much he values having new content."

The answer to "why pay" is "because that's how you ensure the work will be produced". If you don't care whether or not it's produced, then go ahead and wait. Maybe someone else will care more than you do.

If it turns out that no one really cares whether or not the work is produced, then it won't be. And it shouldn't be, if there's really so little demand for it.

Why pay, if others already have paid enough to make the artist produce?

Yes, why indeed? You shouldn't!

When a mechanic is willing to fix your car for $300, you aren't obligated to give him $600 instead. He set the price, you met it, that's it. If he wanted $600, he could've asked for $600 in the first place -- just like an artist who wants more money can just ask for it. If he's willing to accept $300, then that's what he'll get, just like in any other industry.

Re:Bravo!

[turbidostato]

"So you want back the times where many artists were financed by nobility. Where did that money come from again? Taxes - so you want a music creation tax to pay for your free music. It's as simple as that."

So I want back the times where many artists were financed by rich men. Where did that money come from again? Profit - so I want a music creation payed by those that can allow it. It's as simple as that.

Re:Bravo!

[Mr2001]

Sorry to make it two replies, but your last paragraph can largely apply to zero copyright too (except for more access to past works and fewer court cases).

Er... I think you left something out. How exactly would abolishing copyright result in lost freedoms, foregone innovations, or limits on technology?

The only one of those I can imagine an argument for is foregone innovations, if you think copyright holders produce new things thanks to copyright that wouldn't have been created otherwise -- and that those outweigh the innovations that people are currently unable to pursue because of copyright. But I don't think it's fair to assume people motivated by copyright are any more innovative than people who are paid directly for their work, or people who work for their own reasons without being paid for it.

Your problems seem to have more to do with abusive expansion of copyright law, which I think anyone here has problems with.

No, my objection is to copyright itself. I believe it's fundamentally wrong to tell anyone "you can't say these words, they belong to someone else".

Information doesn't work like physical property; it shouldn't be subject to that sort of ownership at all. And we shouldn't encourage artists to gamble their livelihoods on the fading chance that they can prevent other people from making unauthorized copies.

Nice work RIAA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They couldn't have done it with out you.

Fantastic!

[tindur]

I hope they will bring up for discussion a lot of the concerns of fellow slashdotters.

Re:Fantastic!

[Darkness404]

Content providers are simply middlemen, they are very small in number, do an increasingly useless job, and employ tactics that most of the internet-using population hates to use their unpopular viewpoints. There are a lot of content producers such as artists, writers, etc. that applaud the Pirate Party.

I mean this is the party who seriously proposes replacing pharma patents with all drug R&D being government funded.

In a country with sky-high taxes, government healthcare, etc. that could very well work. Now, in a more capitalist economy such as the USA, it would fail, but in a more socialist economy such as that of Sweeden, it could very well work.

It's just "p2p should be free, drm should be illegal, nobody needs to make money after 5 years anyway".

P2P for non-profit use should be allowed because it eventually helps the content producers. DRM should be perfectly legal to break and should require warning labels when it is used. And really, after 5 years most of the money from most works have dried up (or releasing them to the public domain wouldn't hurt sales), however they could be built upon, expanded and generally contribute more to the world.

Re:Fantastic!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

What concerns exactly? That it's illegal to download copyrighted stuff?

How about the fact that the penalties for "download[ing] copyrighted stuff" (which is not illegal except under specific circumstances; if it were always illegal, then everyone on Slashdot, and in fact almost everyone who uses the internet for anything, would be a criminal) are increasingly absurd and draconian, and in many cases the mere accusation of misconduct is sufficient to cause those penalties to be invoked? If that doesn't concern you, then you're not paying attention.

Re:Fantastic!

[HappySmileMan]

... [snip] .. It's just "[snip] nobody needs to make money after 5 years anyway".

If you quit your job today you'd expect to still be getting paid 5 years from now I assume?

Re:Fantastic!

[cliffski]

I'm a content provider. I make games and sell them. Explain to me how I am an irrlevant middleman.
Who makes my games? pixies from space?

BTW, as a content producer, I disagree that p2p helps me in an way. In fact, I strongly refute that.

But as an angti-piracy poster here, I'll get modded as troll in the hope nobody will read a dissenting view on slashdot.

Re:Fantastic!

[lupis42]

Whining about your impending troll moderation is good way to ensure that it happens.

Not *every* content producer supports p2p, but then, I cannot think of a single social change that was unanimously accepted or rejected. Disagreeing about how the world should be run is one of the all-time most popular human activities.

I'm happy that the pirate party has a parliament seat because I feel that they provide a much needed counterpoint to the notion, widely advocated by large industry groups, that copyrights should last until the end of time, and that in fact they do not sell a product but rather a "license" to view content.

And you may not be a middleman, but may of the copyright based industries contain a large number of businesses whose business model came down to making and distributing copies. These people have aggressively attacked the internet, p2p, and many other technologies, because those technologies would make their services redundant. (A common theme, which can be seen around almost any major technological innovation). Because many of these industry groups (RIAA for example) used to charge both the artists and the consumers quite a bit for the business of making and distributing copies, both artists and consumers are often driven to prefer new technologies (direct internet sales, p2p) which allow them to get this same service for free. You sell content directly over the internet. You might even try distributing demos over p2p, which can save you a meaningful amount of bandwidth and hosting costs. Twenty years ago, you would have had to get a publisher, and give them a substantial fraction of your sale price, so that they could get discs into stores for you. So you *do* benefit from this new technology. You might not be benefiting as much as you could, and the downsides might still outweigh the upsides, but the mere fact that you are still in business and aren't signed to a label/publisher means that you benefit.

Re:Fantastic!

[Darkness404]

I'm a content provider. I make games and sell them.

No, you are a content producer. Two vastly different things. You make games. On the other hand a studio that does nothing but buys the rights of other games, puts them on disks and distributes them are a content provider. They provide content, they do not create it. As another example look at YouTube, YouTube is a content provider, they provide content, however they are not content producers in that they do not make videos for YouTube (well, there are a few, but not very many)

BTW, as a content producer, I disagree that p2p helps me in an way. In fact, I strongly refute that.

Well I suppose you either don't patch your games or require patches to be played as with servers, or have enough money that you can afford bandwidth for how many players you have. Also, have you ever released any of your older games via P2P? Having visited the site in your sig I can say that I have never heard of any of your games (well, save for the link on your sig on your /. posts). I don't know how popular your games now are, but a few good older releases can help people buy into a developer, such as with used games. I buy a used game that 0% of the profits go to the publisher or anyone other than the game store. However, if that game is really amazing, I might tend to buy more games in the future from them (possibly new).

Biggest party in Sweden for voters under 30

[BlackCreek]

http://www.thelocal.se/19928/20090607/

Among voters aged under 30, some 19 percent are believed to have cast a vote for the Pirate Party.

"They are the biggest party among young people, bigger than both the Social Democrats and the Moderates," said politics professor SÃren Holmberg.

As I was just telling my girlfriend, one way or another, it should be the first time the EP gets people who actually understand present day computer technology.

Re:Biggest party in Sweden for voters under 30

[hingo]

Actually, the Europarl is big and there have been people who understand SW patents and copyrights very well, for instance in the Greens and even in the conservative bloc. It's just that for every such MEP there were also those with their hands deep in the RIAA/BSA lobbyists pockets. To have a new party running primarily on this theme will indeed make a difference.

You could see it on Swedish pre-election TV debates already. The PP wasn't even there (as a non-established party, this is normal) but the established ones (Greens and Left) would argue for essenitally the PP agenda, with the others grudgingly admitting to small pieces.

One seat "only"

[eddy]

It's one seat only for sure, however, it's my understanding that if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified (shudder), this opens up extra seats one of which would go to PP.

One great big..

[castrox]

This is one great big middle finger to the big parties who have ignored the privacy issues. Just this past month it's been very clear that the large parties are trembling because of the massive streams of voters who abandon them for the Pirate Party just because of these important issues. I really hope they will get with the program and realize that they can't dismiss the privacy debate and say that it's just a loud bunch who don't get it (the so called "pirates").

Re:One great big..

[jhol13]

It always amazes me how some people think only the "most pressing issue" may be addressed and others must be ignored.

I do want to sound like a dick as it is a big issue and it is an issue no other party is taking seriously. Like many other electronic freedom issues.

German results

[mseeger]

Hi,

the pirate party reached in germany 0,9%. Concerning lack of attention from the media, nearly non-existent funds and that stupid name, this is a very strong result for them.

CU, Martin

Re:German results

[blind biker]

the pirate party reached in germany 0,9%. Concerning lack of attention from the media, nearly non-existent funds and that stupid name, this is a very strong result for them.

Wow - considering Germany gets 99 seats, just a bit over 1% would have gotten a German PP rep, too!!

When are the new Bundestag elections due, Martin?

Re:German results

[adpe]

Sadly, we germans somehow think it's a good idea to only allow parties who get >=5% of the votes into our (or the european) parliaments. Might be because of our history, but we (the german pirate party, I'm a member), need to gain significant support to actually be allowed to say anything.

Final results.

[Greger47]

The Pirate Party got 7.1% wth 99.9% votes counted. This will give them 1 seat in the current parlament, 2 if the parlament gets extended according to the Lisbon treaty. /greger

Are they a one-issue party?

[e9th]

Does the Pirate Party platform include issues besides copyright/privacy?

Happy and very proud!

[shaka]

As a Swede, I am very proud that Sweden once again leads the way and is the first country to take an important issue seriously - wait until the next election and see Pirate Parties from countries all over Europe!

Arrr!

[mcvos]

Great news! Unfortunately I couldn't vote for them, but just before the elections, I noticed that the number 4 candidate on the list of the Dutch party GroenLinks has practically the same ideas (and priorities) as the Pirate Party. I voted for him, but unfortunately GroenLinks only got 3 seats (which is still a pretty good result).

Of course these parties are still a tiny minority in the Europarliament, but if they can explain to their colleagues what's so wrong about current IP laws, they might end up having some very real impact.

Re:Arrr!

[JaredOfEuropa]

I noticed that the number 4 candidate on the list of the Dutch party GroenLinks has practically the same ideas (and priorities) as the Pirate Party. I voted for him, but unfortunately GroenLinks only got 3 seats (which is still a pretty good result).

Isn't GroenLinks part of a European coalition, though? That's the real question for the Pirate party as well: will they join a coalition? Because as a small party, their influence will be extremely limited, as they will have little time on the Floor of parliament, little access to funds for staff, and they will not be asked to sit in any of the committees that form the heart of the legislative side of Europe, together with the full-time lobbyists wining and dining these committees, of course. Their influence will pretty much be limited to voting Aye or Nay on stuff.

ps. I voted Libertas. I consider the other Dutch parties to be either pet projects of privileged but misguided hobbyists (most left/green parties), part of an established political nomenclatura looking for cushy pre-retirement jobs (most centre/right wing parties), or parties of raving lunies, and not of the funny or harmless variety (you can probably guess one such party, but there are two...). Color me cynical, but I don't think privacy and piracy are really European issues, and Europe as bigger fish to fry, such as transparancy and accountability of government, of which there is precious little currently.

Germany 0.9% for the Pirates

[prefec2]

You need to get at least 0.5% to get money from the state. approx 7 cent per vote. The total results can be found here: http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/europawahlen/EU_BUND_09/ergebnisse/bundesergebnisse/b_tabelle_99.html

Re:Germany 0.9% for the Pirates

[jps25]

It's actually 0.85EUR per vote up to 4 million votes, and 0.70EUR per vote for any additional votes. Check paragraph 18 PartG

Re:Germany 0.9% for the Pirates

[jps25]

If we want to be absolutely accurate then it is yearly:
0.85EUR per vote up to 4 million votes
0.70EUR per vote for any additional votes
0.38EUR per EUR, which the party got through membership fees or donations or member of parliament fee, but only up to 3.300EUR per natural person are considered.

The total may not exceed the sum of:
membership fees
member of parliament fee or similar fees
donations of natural persons
donations of juristic persons
income of corporate activities and investments
income of other assets
income of events, distribution of brochures and publications and other income-related activities

It's all in paragraphs 18(3) PartG, 18(4) PartG, 18(5) PartG and 24(4)(Nr.1-7) PartG.

Pirate party is really Private party

[Bjarne Bula]

It should be noted that although they call themselves the Pirate party, the focus of the party is on questions of privacy and integrity. Issues where voters have been repeatedly ignored and even betrayed by the established parties.

While one of the laws recently shoved down voter's throats, despite promises to the contrary, have been aimed towards curbing piracy, the real outrage has been against the privacy and integrity issues with this and other recently passed laws regarding interception of domestic communications etc. (Well, that, and giving corporations the ability to petition courts to perform searches that, under similar conditions, would not be granted even to the police.)

Re:Pirate party is really Private party

[TeknoHog]

Actually, a government-approved Pirate Party should be called Privateer Party :)

They got one seat

[dastrike]

The 7.1% the Pirate Party got gives them one seat. See http://www.val.se/val/ep2009/valnatt/rike/index.html. It is incredibly unlikely that they'd get another one. Nearly all of the advance votes have already been counted.

The advance votes get sent to the polling station where one would have normally voted on and are counted as part of the normal counting process. See http://www.val.se/in_english/2009_ep_election/index.html. Those advance votes that aren't counted yet are those advance votes that were placed on Sunday, which are relatively few given Sunday was the ordinary election day.

Anyhow the final count will be available on Wednesday.

Re:Are they a one-issue party?

[alexhard]

They also want to reform patent and trademark law, but that's it. However, the issues that they are dealing with, most importantly the right to privacy, are in my mind (and obviously many others) much more important than the issue of whether taxes should be at 31% or 32%.

Re:Nice!

[__aaxwdb6741]

for the lazy

I'm following the elections-2nd seat not likely :(

[blind biker]

At the very beginning I was till hoping the good boys of PP will get the second seat, but by now it's very unlikely.

Still, good initial showing. Congrats! Now time to open a Finnish chapter, as well (we Finns and Swedes always like to argue, but in truth we are very similar).

Great. Anti-swpat MEPs

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

The Pirate Party have policies against software patents, so this is good news also in that respect.

Their voting weight will be small, but they can help make the group dynamics of the European Parliament more favourable to campaigners against software patents (much as the Greens did in 2002-2005, and still do).

More about the Swedish Pirate Party

[TorKlingberg]

The Pirate Party has an English page here that describes the basics. It has gained a lot of support after they, together with bloggers etc, managed to drum up public opposition to a wiretapping law, a law forcing ISPs to store traffic data, new copyright enforcement laws and the Pirate Bay trial. It has been growing since 2006 and spreads internationally, but this is the first parliamentary seat.

Mutiny in the EU.

[ae1294]

Woah... they went from 0 to 100kph in like 1 second. If I was the other parties i'd be taking notice. One seat probably isn't going to change much but it has been amazing to watch this whole thing unfold and the threat it all posses to the other parties if they don't stop taking money and order's from big business/brother...

Re:Mutiny in the EU.

[Opportunist]

It's not so much this one seat, it's the 7% that should shake up other parties. 7% is a lot, especially in Sweden. Hell, it would be a lot in most countries that don't consist of just a two-party system!

7% is something YOU want for YOUR party. And it's not like you have to turn your party upside down to incorporate the issues of what is basically a two-issue party: Privacy and copyright/patent laws.

Those 7% are yours for the taking. Take our privacy and our concern about the harebrained copyright and patent laws serious, and they could be yours!

Re:Mutiny in the EU.

[Kjella]

* only applicable to parties that have credibility left in these matters.

The pirates like FOSS

[CHJacobsen]

It might be interesting for slashdotters to know that the top-candidate of the Pirate Party is a free-software contributor, and has been working a lot previously to establish open standards and to fight software patents.

Their success might turn out to be an asset for free software as well as integrity.

Re:Pirate party for every country!

[Darkness404]

In Europe though, you guys actually have a democratic system that lets you have more than the two government determined choices. There were plenty of parties that shared the Pirate Party agenda, at the very least you could have voted to block the lesser of the two evils like we have to do in the USA.

Two seats, one vote

[rednacid]

They get two seats, but the second seat will be a non-voting seat (She [assuming it is Amelia Andersdotter]) will get the salary, personal staff but no vote until and if the Lisbon treaty passes.

Seems to me like people in Europe enjoy more freed

[melted]

Seems to me like people in Europe enjoy more freedoms than we do here in the US - the self proclaimed "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave".

That's what you get with a single party system, my friends. And no, this is not a typo - Dems and Repubs are pretty much the same party with minor variations. There's nowhere near the diversity of political opinion in the US as what you'd see in Europe. We need a raving, rabid, card carrying socialists to balance the equation somewhat on this side of the pond. All branches of the government have been licking the Big Business' behind for far too long.

Re:And Democracy reins... not in the U. S. of A.

[DAldredge]

How does my copyright on the code that I write harm the public, culture and future history?

Re:Seems to me like people in Europe enjoy more fr

[guyminuslife]

Shocking! I've never heard such stunning allegations about the United States before! My good sir, who do you think you are? ;-)

Established parties seems to have dropped the ball

[matsoo]

Seems the other parties completely missed the importance of this issue, the only other party that took this seriously and campaigned for increased protection of personal integrity was the Green Party, and they too seem to have gained an extra mandate from this issue.

The pirate party will most likely send Christian Engström to Brussels, who actively (and successfully) campaigned against software patents in the EU as a member of FFII, so it will be very interesting to see what he can do these next 5 years.

I'm proud today

[Hazelfield]

Sweden has for a long time been known as an advanced IT nation with widespread computer use, broadband connections, IT companies and so on. In the last few years that has come to change with new repressive laws like FRA and IPRED, but today we took back some of our lost pride. It's good to see that we give Europe a voice for a reformed copyright and patent law, free culture, and privacy and democracy on the Internet. Even if it's difficult for this person - most likely Christian Engström - to affect decisions directly among 735 other MPs, his presence will have two important consequences:

1) It gives Brussels some sorely needed competence on these issues to act as a counterweight against lobbyists trying to influence decisions.

2) It sends a message to the other parties that they cannot continue ignoring the rights of their citizens forever.

I voted for the Pirate Party and I hope this result will be the first step towards a European Union that cares more about our rights online.

Do you need 150 years copyright?

[Nicolas MONNET]

Wouldn't a 20 year copyright be more than enough for you, as a game developer? Because that's what the Pirate Party is advocating. Currently, in many countries, copyright extends up to 70 years after the death of the author. What sense is there in that? It's bullshit, plain and simple. And nobody's fighting against this crap in the political arena, nobody but the Pirate Party.

Re:Seems to me like people in Europe enjoy more fr

[Eponymous Crowbar]

Yeah, that's a little deceptive. When is the last time a song was banned in the US? If you are an adult, have you ever had trouble purchasing a violent video game in the US? If you are a member of an extremist group (non-violent, at least), do you need to hide that in the US? Can you buy military style weapons in the US? You may not agree with some of the freedoms we have in the US, but they remain available.

I could come up with a list of things that are more accessible and free in the EU. It's give and take. Each area has advantages when it comes to freedom. I don't think you can make a blanket statement that one area enjoys more freedoms than the other without qualifying which freedoms are most important to you.

I sure hope one seat doesn't matter much

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

While this is obviously a welcome result for those who support The Pirate Party, I think a lot of people posting here over-estimate the influence one MEP is going to have. At least I hope they do, because here in the UK, the British National Party just won a seat as well.

Re:I sure hope one seat doesn't matter much

[skrolle2]

In terms of voting power a single MEP sure doesn't contribute much, but the main benefits of having the Pirate Party represented is that there is now one person on the inside that can report on everything that threatens privacy and integrity or furthers the copyright maximalist agenda. He can expose and bring all those issues to the public eye, where other MEPs may or may not be interested in doing so. The other benefit is that he can talk, build alliances, educate and speak to the other MEPs as an equal, not as an outsider with an agenda, because he now has actual voter mandate to do so. There are also a lot of other MEPs from other parties that care about these issues, and there is now one person whose only job is to bring them all together and drive these issues in the direction we want.

The nationalists may have gotten a few seats, but in this issue most other MEPs are engaged against them, educated about it, and know exactly that they do not want to work with them, so it's much more of an uphill battle for them.

Re:And Democracy reins... not in the U. S. of A.

[Stiletto]

If you quit your job tomorrow, would you keep getting paid until 70 years after your death?

Re:Are they a one-issue party?

[Opportunist]

IIRC they didn't even want to be a "real" party. They basically wanted to get enough votes so other, established, parties would pick up their issues to harvest those votes back.

I forsee the same development we had in the 80s with the Greens all over Europe. Nobody took the "eco-loonies" serious, nobody cared about environment issues, so a party was founded and behold, it was important enough to enough people that some "fluffy treehugger party" gained enough speed to become an established party. The Greens started out as a one-issue party as well: Environment and pollution. Now they're something the "established" old parties have to deal with.

You'd guess they should've learned their lesson from the 80s, that they should pick up other parties' issues before they become strong enough that voters don't consider it a "lost vote" if they cast their vote for them. Appearantly, parties don't learn from history more than the average person does...

Why does that work in Sweden?

[Opportunist]

I'm also from Europe. Sadly, not from Sweden.

When you look at the rest of Europe, right-leaning to right-wing parties won the elections. Meaning, in general, that you may assume privacy will be taking a back seat behind big corporation interests and "protection".

Why not in Sweden? Why are Swedes appearantly inoculated against the fearmongering and scare tactics? And how do we export this to the rest of Europe?

Hey!

[siloko]

people like to talk about "stupid Americans" or British.

Im outa britern an i ain't stoopid. You Germans with your efficient cars and rather wonderful scenery. Oops, can anyone see where I went wrong!?

Re:And Democracy reins... not in the U. S. of A.

[DAldredge]

Since shops use the police and court systems to arrest and prosecute thieves is their business model messed up too?

Good

[shutdown -p now]

I do not agree with many of the Pirate Party proposals, but it's still good to see true, working democracy in action. It's how you change things if you want them changed.

Re:And Democracy reins... not in the U. S. of A.

[erroneus]

"shit for free"? Hardly. I buy quite regularly when it suits my interests. I love the trend of putting TV shows on DVD. I have lots of those series collections. If a movie is good enough, I will buy it and put it on the shelf as well. I don't think there is a single person here who wouldn't prefer to have legitimate copies of their favorite things.

In your Disney example, you suggest that it is reasonable for Disney to have their copyright extended because the MEDIUM has changed or it has been digitally enhanced or some such thing? By that argument, books could also qualify for this by changing the font. Disney made their money and once they have done so, the other side of the copyright agreement should kick in -- it should go to public domain. The first part of the agreement is that the copyright owner and licensed publishers should enjoy protection under law against unauthorized commercial distribution for a limited time. Once that time expires, it's public domain. I'm guessing you don't have a problem with the first part of the agreement. What is your problem with the second? It has been thwarted and prevented at every turn to the detriment of the public. And it's nice that you bring Disney up. The original Mickey Mouse cartoons should now be in public domain. And the politically incorrect "Song of the South" (you know the one with the ever famous Zippidy do dah song?) will NEVER be published again and will be gone forever simply to save Disney's face on the matter. I have unauthorized DVD copies of this famous work simply because it is too good to let it die even if Disney would prefer that it did.

This ability to effectively withdraw a published work from the public and preventing it from ever being available by the time the copyright expires is a feature of copyright that was never intended by the lawmakers since the equitable agreement should be that the works become owned by all. (There is nothing to own if the work has died and ceased circulation some 80+ years prior!) Our very human legacy of art is indeed at risk simply because someone wants to collect money from work that someone else did more than 50 years prior. It's all quite insane when you think about it.

Interesting aside: There was a political parody put out some time ago that used the song "This land is your land, this land is my land" and the political speech was attacked on the grounds that it infringed on copyright. That song had passed into the public domain and yet copyright law was being used to assault political speech -- our most precious first amendment. The government and copyright holders know too well that copyright law is a weapon and that they can, will and have in the past [ab]used it to harm the public.

Yes, the "pirate party" does deserve a place in government to balance out the out of control nonsense that has occurred so far.

Disney doesn't "work" to get copyright extended, by the way... they pay lobbyists who in turn do all sorts of questionable and corrupt things to influence government to do their bidding. But seriously, if you don't see the harm abuse of copyright law is doing, you haven't been paying attention. The Church of Scientology often uses copyright at a weapon against people who criticise what they do. And in my previous example of political speech being threatened using copyright law. There have been innocent people forced into settling with the RIAA because they couldn't afford to defend themselves in court. Teenagers have been forced to quit school due to their practices. (Please, let's not do the guilty until proven innocent crap -- are you American? You can't be stupid enough to believe that simply being innocent is enough of a defense. You have to be able to PAY to defend yourself and average people simply can't afford that kind of "pride.")

Copyright law and especially prosecution was designed to prevent unauthorized publishers and distributors from profiting. It was not designed to attack individual people.

Re:And Democracy reins... not in the U. S. of A.

[walshy007]

I think somewhere in between the realm of 15 to 30 years is more than reasonable. If you have not made money on something by the time your 50 that you made when you were 20 then it is better served for the public good.

Steamboat willie came out in 1928, that that particular cartoon is still in copyright 80 years later is rediculous.

Re:Like Communists

[pimpimpim]

In the last year there was 12 Trillion dollar spent on bailing out banks. By non-communist parties. Again, who actually HAS an understanding of basic economics? Neither the banks nor existing parties in power, apparently. The worst thing is, nobody still knows how this immense amount of bailout money is going to be paid back, everybody is just trying to act as if nothing happened.

Re:Like Communists

[TeknoHog]

What does basic economics tell about digital goods, as they have an infinite supply and a zero marginal cost of production?

Re:And Democracy reins... not in the U. S. of A.

[alexo]

How long do you feel copyright should be?

Let me chip in.
In my opinion, the length of copyrighted should be bounded such that a work will revert to the public domain while it is still somewhat useful and relevant.

For literary works, I would say less than one generation after it was written, 15-20 years sound about right (cf. the Statute of Anne, which "created a 21 year term for all works already in print at the time of its enactment and a 14 year term for all works published subsequently.")

(Note: with the advancements in communication and distribution in the last 300 years, the length of copyright should have decreased instead of increasing.)

For computer programs, at most a "software generation" (to be defined). Probably 10 years or so.