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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[kamochan]

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

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!

[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.

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

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.)

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%.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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: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...

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?