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Why the UK Needs the Pirate Party
Barence writes "The UK Pirate Party wants to reform copyright and patent laws, abolish the surveillance state and increase our freedom of speech, and it's just been recognized as a political party. In this interview with PC Pro, UK Pirate Party leader Andrew Robinson explains how he's planning to shake up the political landscape. 'What we really want to do is raise awareness, so that the other parties say "bloody hell, they've got seven million votes this time out," or one million votes, or enough votes to make them care and seriously think about these issues.'"
This is great. When do we get one of these in the US?
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
In Germany, a recent poll showed a 2% support rate for the pirate party (Piratenpartei).
And lo and behold! Suddenly, politicians of other parties are discovering their love for the pirates' topics...
(links in German, and I'm too much a of a lazy ass to translate)
It's already working in germany.
The piratenpartei there got just approved to be part of national elections, which will take place in about 2 months in 15 states. After the german government had decided on a stupid domain-blocking scheme against (so they say) child porn, the piratenpartei got 0.7% at the european elections a short while ago.
The Spiegel (an important german weakly) and other media are reporting about the issue and discussion about regulation of the net is starting in the mainstream media and also within the various parties, forcing the parties to develop a clear position on things before election.
Up until recently the issue was not taken seriously by the german parties and security freaks like Wolfgang Schaeuble were allowed to install more and more legislation to control and observe citizens more closely and broadly (his party is actually using the following slogan in it's election campaign: "we're strong enough for both freedom _and_ security", which is of course bullshit, as we all know (Jefferson anyone)).
So yes, what the UK Pirate Party is trying to do is very much viable and makes sense. It'll raise awareness of the political cast to a problem unsolved and to the fact that people will not let their freedom be taken away so easily.
God bless them for trying though, I seem to recall it was the younger voters that helped sweep TB to power. However, in the next election I guess all the pensionless pensioners will be out with their voting knives so the younger vote won't mean as much. Bad timing - although as we're clutching at straws if you get Stephen Fry, Bill Thompson and the other greying-techno leaders talking about it (regardless of their actual support position) the party might just creep into the national conciousness.
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
There is a balance to be struck between extremism and populism. As party leader (yes, that's me being quoted in the article) I'll have an easier job of convincing sceptical voters and politicians that the current copyright term is too long than convincing them that copyright is unneccesary - and course my own view as a hobby musician is that copyright law is actually a good idea, it's jut the current lobbyist-driven draconian implmentation of it that's the problem. ... and now back to watching the server melt :-)
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
As a 'public performance' just means singing Happy Birthday to your friends in public...
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Hardly, since the Pirate Party does not want copyright abolished, but reformed.
We want patents abolished, though.
As party leader, I can promise you that our policies are not more extreme than publically stated, we are well aware that there needs to be balance in copyright law, and that artists need to be financially rewarded when their work is sold... of course even though I've only been a politician for a couple of days you might not trust me, so I'd invite you to head over to our forum and actually take part in our decision making processes. You will of course see views expressed that are both harder and softer than the party's official line, but I hope you'll also see that we are a rational, balanced group of people.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Not the commercial copyright, but all non-commercial use is to be made legal from day one. That's pretty close to abolishing copyright for the masses, with the exception of a few moral rights. It'd make 99% of all file sharing legal, except those sharing really nasty stuff covered by other laws.
The reason for keeping some commercial copyright is simple - if you make money, the original author/artist/whatever should make money. Otherwise for example cinemas could earn money showing movies without paying those that made it anything. As reforms go, it's as big as they come.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
... and we're considering policy to protect FOSS because of that. We're aware of RMS's letter on it.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Canada's pirate party is just starting up. The second monthly meeting is set to take place on the 19th in different venues across the country. I've been reading the above comments and it seems there is scepticism that the political climate in Sweden and the U.K. is such that a third party doesn't really stand a chance. I think in Canada it may, Canada has a cross section of world cultures... with increased freedom of information we might produce results interesting to the world.
:)
Now for my personal vendetta
The Slashcode moderation system has created an enormously powerful and democratic forum for debate. While we have several issues to address one that's of interest is having a decentralized party where open debate is the norm and direct democracy the result.
To this end a modified version of Slashcode is being developed for the public forum.
If you decide to attend the meetings I'd appreciate it if you'd voice support for such a system, I think the idea of information freedom makes the notion of cabinets and party leaders slightly hypocritical, plus we don't need those things to get our message out.
Personally I am optimistic about the overall benefits of a small region where copyright and patents are abolished, this region would create integrated ideas that would be the wonder of the world demonstrating what mankind has accomplished. Black Government research projects probably already work this way, but it would be nice if we got some results for civilian use.