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.'"

Comments

Sounds promising, but...

[IBBoard]

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.

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[blackraven14250]

Yeah, but the way you get a major party to be moderate on an issue is by having an extreme viewpoint yourself. At least that way the votes get distributed across the spectrum instead of concentrated at one side.

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[damburger]

They do have that right. Any property 'right' that require doors to be busted down and personal encryption keys to be demanded by threat is not a right at all.

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[noundi]

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.

They're supposed to take it too far. Sweden was one of the first countries (if not the first, I'm not sure) to have a pirate party, nowadays with mandate in the European Parliament. The Swedish PP are very down to earth. They openly admit to not having a thorough agenda based on ideologies, such as the traditional party. However their intentions are not to win any election. Their intentions are to raise these questions, and force other parties to take a stance on them. The same year as the Swedish PP was formed many other parties officially took a stance on filesharing, privacy concerns and copyright/patenting. They are just as important for the societies of the modern world, as RMS is for FOSS. We all think RMS takes things a bit far sometimes, but you have to remember that there are far more "extremists" on the other end, those pushing for rights to more intellectual property and patenting. His function is absolutely necessary in order to land somewhere in the reasonable middle. Where producers and consumers get fair terms. Sadly people tend to think in black and white without realising the difference the pirate parties make without ever stepping a foot inside the parliament.

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[Odinlake]

Yup, and I think that if the pirate party of Sweden had taken a more moderate (reasonable) standpoint they would have been boring and quickly forgotten. By being outrageous they are now known by near enough everyone and got 7% or something like that (one seat) in the election to the European parliament. No, I think "outrageous" is just the way to go.

And come on - do you really think by giving them your vote you would risk a sudden abolishment of copyright?!

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[Joce640k]

Would the DMCA have breezed through the congress quite so easily if there were two million votes on the line...?

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[init100]

but I suspect they'll take it too far.

Politics is all about making deals in the middle of two positions. Most copyright proponents are extremists in their position that copyright should last forever, infringement should have harsh penalties, and that government must monitor everyone to ensure compliance. By taking an extreme position in the other direction, the result of political dealing and wrangling is more likely to be the middle road where you really want to be, than if you take that middle road already from the beginning. In the latter case, the end result will be somewhere in the middle between your middle road, and the current copyright maximalists.

Re:Sounds promising, but...

[Husgaard]

You have a good point when you say that allowing all non-commercial use of copyrighted works is almost the same as abandoning copyright for the masses. And this is what the Pirate Party wants.

If we do not allow non-commercial use, somebody has to check all private communication to check if copyrighted works are infringed. Would you like some government entity to eavesdrop your private communication with your local journalist, lawyer, doctor, priest, or secret lover? We pirates think that a society where private communication is impossible cannot stay democratic in the long run.

The alternative - no monitoring of private communication - is almost as bad. This way people can break the law with no risk. Many people have a strong incentive to break the law here: Free access to cultural content. But if a majority of the citizens regularly break the law, they also loose respect for the law. Lack of respect for the law is extremely dangerous for our society, as it is based on people respecting the law.

In many countries there are equivalents to "fair use", allowing non-commercial use of copyrighted works. But these exceptions in copyright law are under attack and almost every adjustment of copyright law these days seem to remove some of the rights to non-commercial use we citizens have.

For example: In my country before 1995 I could legally mail a copyrighted mp3 to a journalist. Today this is illegal. I do not want our government (or anybody else for that matter) to monitor my private communication with journalists. If such communication is monitored, the principle of source confidentiality of journalists would be broken, and nobody would dare to tip journalists about for example government abuse.

Re:Need yes, Succes?

[blackraven14250]

If you don't work towards change, you may as well accelerate the speed with which you go into a nasty future

ïI might vote for them, but it is futile

[damburger]

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

Re:ïI might vote for them, but it is futile

[damburger]

I do not own a TV station or a newspaper, so no matter how I express myself, I simply cannot reach enough people. Its a waste of my energys to engage in something so futile.

Re:ïI might vote for them, but it is futile

[EdgeyEdgey]

Try chaining yourself to some railings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette

Re:The UK already has one dumbass party

[twoshortplanks]

Actually, the Pirate Party, putting all issues about copyright infringement aside, has one proper issue that I think is interesting. It's to do with encryption and privacy.

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.

Re:A big undertaking

[arethuza]

You mean like the "make us and our friends rich" basis for the other two parties in the UK?

Mod parent up

[Joce640k]

Very few people want "no copyright" but an awful lot of them want "less government"

Futile!

[Frans Faase]

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.

Re:Futile!

[Tom]

They can still make a difference, especially in a 2-party system.

Yes, the two major parties will not fear losing to them. But they might fear losing enough votes to the pirates so that the other major party prevails. Once the pirate party gets a considerable number of voters, the other parties will take up their ideas, in order to win back those voters.

Got my vote - maybe

[Karem Lore]

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...

Re:Got my vote - maybe

[damburger]

So what if companies don't output any more shitty movies, music, and games? Society will not collapse. There will still be content produced, but on a much smaller scale. We don't need content.

Re:Got my vote - maybe

[IamTheRealMike]

If it's pure idiocy why did the parties own founder quit after claiming the party was infiltrated by the far right? Why did the UKIP throw out 11 (!) BNP "infiltrators" in 2004? Why do they require all new recruits to state they aren't racist?

Re:A big undertaking

[seifried]

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.

Parochial Slashdot banner graphic?

[ratbag]

Does "politics" == "American politics" as far as Slashdot is concerned?

Rob.

Re:The UK already has one dumbass party

[Lord Bitman]

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.

Re:Need yes, Succes?

[jonbryce]

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.

Re:Need yes, Succes?

[jonbryce]

Well the European Parliament did an excellent job of stopping software patents in Europe.

He is now a career politician.

[jotaeleemeese]

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.

This is nonsense.

[jotaeleemeese]

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.