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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.'"
It sounds promising that we now have a "Pirate Party" in the UK who will stand up on copyright issues, but I suspect they'll take it too far. It makes sense to decrease the legislation that is heavily in favour of the company rather than the consumer (things like making it illegal to make personal backups or making fines for infringement hugely out of proportion) but if they get to complete freedom to pirate everything then they've taken it too far the other way and the economy will falter again.
People need the right to own what they've bought, but people don't need the right to own everything for free that's digital.
If you don't work towards change, you may as well accelerate the speed with which you go into a nasty future
The UK political scene is completely stagnant, and will remain so regardless of any new political parties. Having taken public choice theory as license to be as corrupt as they like, politicians have given up any pretense of public service and now do what they are told for money. Simple as that. Because this same money controls the public discourse through the media, nobody who doesn't play this game has a chance.
The system is set up to resist any change to the social order. Class mobility has collapsed, wages are down and unemployment is up. Life is increasingly wretched for the poorest whilst being increasingly comfortable for millionaires in the City. Minor political parties are not going to change any of this.
Change will not come to the UK through elections, protests or revolutions. It will come through stagnation and then collapse
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The concern is about how much the media owners and government have the "right" to monitor what you're doing. If you stipulate that the government should prevent copyright infridgement, it's not a big leap to say that they should monitor people to check that they're not breaking the law and punish those that do. Which is fine, until you realise that you've just said that the government should monitor all your communications, and the public shouldn't have the right to have private communications that the Powers In Charge don't read.
Now, I'm not overly worried about this in the UK right now with our current government (who, let's face it, are under the thumb of the press and more likely to try and waste taxpayers money to clean their private moats than oppress the masses), but if history has shown us anything preventing citizens from being able to privately critique government bodies without those bodies being able to read all the criticisms is not a good thing... I'm not really sure where the line between upholding the law and curtailing the citizen is drawn - and it's not just on this issue that it's worth thinking about, but it is, at least, worth thinking about. So I welcome the discussion.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
You mean like the "make us and our friends rich" basis for the other two parties in the UK?
Very few people want "no copyright" but an awful lot of them want "less government"
No sig today...
The UK has a two party system, just like the USA. For this reason, new parties, almost make no chance to get any political power. This is due to the district system, in which it is not true that all votes are equal. Because you need to gain majority in a sector to get someone in the parlement. People are not inclined to vote on a small party if it is almost sure that they will not get any significant representation in the parlement.
If such a party would be established here in the Netherlands, it might make a better chance of getting at least a few representatives in the parlement because we do not have a district system and each vote has the same weight.
Maybe the should also include the abolishment of the district system as a part of their program.
All the other parties are useless anyway:
Labour (Sorry, New Labour) is just a conservative in sheeps clothing, spend too much on public services that then go cut those services...ABC Bin collection in point, my bin is emptied every 2 weeks...My babies nappies and the flies are horrendous
Conservative are just out to enrich their own pockets (well, so are labour TBH) and make rich people richer and support companies.
Liberal Democrats have some really odd policies and I don't believe they have the strength to be a valid ruling party.
UKIP/NBP etc - racist, facist bigots that I would rather fight than have these people in power.
The rest (Pirate party included) - Too small to make a difference.
At least the Pirate party has a policy that I AM interested in...
Having said all that, I don't believe that people should have a free reign of music, games and other works of art...Companies will just stop producing...However, I believe that I should be able to copy, transform and move between devices that I own for my or my familys consumption...Soon they will require a purchase for each member of the family that will watch a DVD because in fact you ARE broadcasting to the rest of your family...
Patents, copyright and trademarking all need an overhaul...If that's what the pirate party are suggesting, or at least make one of the major parties take note, then I will look at voting for them...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
You mean like making sure we have an environment where business can innovate and thrive (as opposed to suing each other lots), where culture is owned by society and not business (hint: you can't sing "Happy Birthday" in the UK without paying a license fee). You mean like making sure we have some modicum of privacy in our lives? Yeah, pretty shallow stuff.
Does "politics" == "American politics" as far as Slashdot is concerned?
Rob.
The extremes of the pirate party are worth supporting, in the interest of a reasonable compromise.
Even if I don't agree with 5-year copyright terms, I agree with them a lot more than I do unlimited copyright.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
This would be the conservative party that used soldiers dressed up as policemen to crush the miners strike? The same one that abolished the right to silence? Don't believe the hype.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
European elections are proportional representation, not first past the post, and it is Europe where most of the changes need to be made with regards to copyright. Even if the Pirate Party did win the next Westminster election, they couldn't do much about copyright or patent law, because it is set at EU level. They could change encryption and spying laws because they are set at UK level. They would have some influence over the amount of law enforcement resources employed on copyright issues, but it is mostly local council trading standards departments that do that, and they tend to focus on commercial copying.
They'll just steal votes from the Liberal Democrat party, which is (shock!) actually both pro Liberty and pro Democracy. It's also not a major threat at the national level to the two sock puppets of right wing corporate interests ("Labour" and "Conservative"), and having its vote watered down even further will just empower both of them to get on with making everything either mandatory or prohibited.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I'm only casual because I see a tendency for hyperbole on slashdot, whereby people jump straight to extremes, comparing anything to a much more extreme regime (typically, Hitler's Germany, China or North Korea). This, while causing the sensation a sensational comment it meant to provoke, doesn't actually leave much room for reasoned discussion. This is not to say I've not been deeply concerned by actions of our government and I'm casual to the real dangers if left to linger, and the danger of not keeping a watchful eye on the watchers.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
[...] Even if the Pirate Party did win the next Westminster election, they couldn't do much about copyright or patent law, because it is set at EU level. [...]
I would like to dispute that. Seeing how EU regulations in the past have been drafted and negotiated in closed circles comprised of national representatives, lobbyists and general morons, and combining that with the EP's rather limited ability to interfere with said process I am willing to bet that any member state has more leverage to get their will than parliament.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Well the European Parliament did an excellent job of stopping software patents in Europe.
People need the right to own what they've bought, but people don't need the right to own everything for free that's digital.
I think "need" is probably the wrong word---I think this is about what people want combined with what's economically feasible. But the choice of words is the least concern.
People want culture (music, film, literature), preferably well-made items of culture. They also want things to be cheap (preferably free). And they also want to obey the law. Those who make culture want to make money doing so (preferably more than less, but some are content with no money).
How they value each of those in relation to one another varies from person to person. Some prefer stuff with expensive (and maybe even good :D) production for free over obeying the law. Some prefer stuff that's free and obeying the law over expensive production. Some prefer expensive production and obeying the law over stuff that's free.
If a change to the copyright law, any change (including allowing redistribution for private purposes, or complete abolishment) gives the people as a whole something more valuable than what the current regime does, why shouldn't we make that change?
Your statement leaves me to conclude that you think allowing free redistribution of copyrighted stuff doesn't give people what they want (presumably due to the removed profit incentive on the producer side of the equation). Why do you think this?
I think it's an empirical question what the effect of changing copyright law would be. Would people stop making music? Probably not, but the amount and quality would probably decline. How about movies? They're much more expensive, so maybe we'd only have short films by film students posted on youtube. How happy or unhappy would people be about this? I think that's something we should measure (or at least approximate) rather than guesstimate.
Do you agree? If not, why not?
Yes, and it's worth pointing out that the Swedish Pirate Party already have on MEP, and a second "pending" (Pending ratification of Lisbon, that is). So it would appear that Pirate Parties in the EU are going to be capable of getting elected representatives into places where they matter.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
The Pirate Party isn't going out to _win_ elections. They aren't going out to be a major force and overthrow anyone or anything. The whole point of the Party is to show the other candidates another set of opinions and viewpoints. They are going out to show them that Copyright reform is something worth talking about. That all the laws that have been enacted to thwart copyright infringement matter to the people.
So what is in the name? To me, Pirate Party does almost sound self defeating. But what does the general population know and understand? If they were the "Copyright Reform Party" would the average citizen really know what that means? Heck, I know people that still think copyrights are only the things that stop you from photocopying books and using slogans from major corporations ads. When they think of how it applies to music/movies/games/digital anything they think of the word Pirate, not Copyright. You also have to figure that when the Pirate Party makes news of some sort, the name alone will make people ask questions. It is intriguing at the very least and may cause people to read up on it and find out what it is about.
Also, with Pirate having a negative connotation associated with it, if enough votes go _to_ the "Pirates" the powers that be (or are trying to be) will realize that hell, maybe there really are enough people out there that don't agree with the laws and maybe I should do something about that.
So in short, the Pirate Party isn't trying to win the election, they are just trying to mold the people who will win into something more rational (at least in their view). Part of making big enough waves to make a difference is to have a provocative name that makes people ask questions and learn something new. Otherwise, if they didn't cause people to at least ask questions, what could they ever hope to accomplish?
This idiotic hatred of politicians as a class must go.
There are good politicians and bad politicians, painting them all with the same brush discourages the good ones.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Many parties that changed whole countries were started in a bedroom between a few friends and relatives, against the ruling class and their cronies.
Somebody like you certainly will change nothing, because to affect change the necessary requisite is conviction.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I agree that the current social system(s) need to collapse to enable real reform. My counterpoint is that elections can BE the collapsing point. Revolutions certainly are, and civil war more so.
So, a new party that the people chooses because it will make "the change" happen, if voted strongly enough, can mark the collapse of an old social order, without bloody insurrection. 20th century example: the "Quiet Revolution" in the province of Quebec(Canada) provoked enormous changes in social and economic ordrer (including the nationalization of all electric power companies) and all started with the ouster of the established political party.
Money currently supports power, but if the gap between haves and have-nots widens too much, it loses any power it has. We have a saying here: "nothing is more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose".
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
This party is, as far as I can see, yet another special interest party. They seem to pop up every now and again, and then they die out because they don't really have a policy about other things. That is why we still, after so many years of democracy, only have a small handful of political parties; there are only so many clearly defined, general ideologies out there - in fact, it is hard to really imagine more than two, isn't it?
So what is this Pirate Party about? Well, freedom of speech - or Freedom of Speech, but it doesn't really become any more general by capitalising the letters. What has Freedom of Speech to say about the financial crisis, unemployment, EU and the military budget? You have be more than a one-trick-pony to tackle real life; it is amazing just how irrelevant the right to make a copy of a DVD is, when you look at the big picture - just about anything is more important.
The importance of Freedom of Speech was perhaps a bit clearer at a time when you could be hanged for treason if you turned your stamp upside-down on a letter, or later, when you could go to prison for organising a strike against the horrenduous working conditions during the industrial revolution, or for talking about voting rights for women. I think talking about big, fundamental human rights, when it really is about nothing more than wanting to distribute copied games and CDs, serves only to devaluate the important of the fundamental rights.