Ask the UK Pirate Party's Andrew Robinson About the Issues

VJ42 writes "With the 2010 UK general election fast approaching, the Pirate Party of the United Kingdom will be fielding elections for the first time. The Digital Economy bill and ACTA are hot topics for UK geeks, and the Pirate Party is looking to pick up some votes. Their leader, Andrew Robinson, has agreed to answer your questions. Normal Slashdot interview rules apply."

Comments

Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[sopssa]

It seems Pirate Party UK's one of the core policies is reformin copyright and patent law so that non-commercial file sharing would be legalized. While certainly a noble goal, shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?

This is not only limited to music, movies or other kind of entertainment - among other things, it also affects open source coders who release their code under GPL. If there weren't copyrights, there couldn't be GPL either, nor Creative Commons Attribution, No Derivative Works and Share Alike licenses. In this exact case copyright is used to allow the author to make sure he is attributed and his work isn't misused.

Wouldn't the world be less controlling if the authors actually had some saying over their works instead of being forced to lose control over their work?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe the policy is more about the shock value than a serious policy to be implemented verbatim. It is basically the polar opposite of current copyright use where it is used primarily for control until death and then some 70 years. I'd say it's easier to come to the table with the direct opposite to come to some middle ground than it is to make concessions from the beginning, no?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Locklin]

I bet you would find a rather large number of people who think that, for example, making a mix tape is entirely ethical and should be legal. Lots of people don't agree that artists should have ultimate control over their work. Also, who is being *forced*? not giving artists the privilege of ultimate control over the use of their published creations is not *forcing* them to do anything.

I hate that GPL argument. Sure it's technically correct, but the GPL was written with the intent of subverting copyright using it's own rules. The GPL would be unnecessary, and would most definitely not be common had the copyright system been much more lax during the last few decades.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[FeepingCreature]

No.

:)

Basically, I disagree with everything you said. No, you shouldn't be able to retain permanent control over an idea. No, saving the GPL is not worth perpetuating our current broken copyright. And no, a world with drastically reduced creator control over their "intellectual property" would be on the whole far less controlling, instead of more.

Besides, how often does the GPL come up in non-commercial cases?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

If they shorten copyright term to 5 or 3 years, it won't affect anything: who in the GPL land hasn't *changed* the code for that long? You can have the old version all you like.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[MichaelSmith]

The GPL would be unnecessary, and would most definitely not be common had the copyright system been much more lax during the last few decades.

With weaker copyright the GPL would certainly be less beneficial because the GPL relies on strong copyright. Without that we might not have the benefit of good GPL licensed projects like the linux kernel and the GNU userland.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[marcansoft]

Here's how it (roughly) works over here (Spain):
- Audiovisual works can be shared noncommercially, but we pay levies on all kinds of media and copying devices (CD/DVD-Rs, hard drives, media players, cellphones)
- Software is protected and P2P sharing of software is not legal

Now, there's a huge SNAFU going on here with our RIAA-equivalent (the SGAE), who are lying bastards and cheaters, the levy system isn't ideal (many people get charged who don't use P2P, and the devices/consumables that get levies are just stupid - I think it'd be better to charge levies on internet connections instead of consumables and devices), and the way the levies are distributed is completely backwards (SGAE execs have been known to use some privately, transparency is nil, and small artists get squat). Nonetheless, the basic premise isnt all that bad: legalize audio/video/book file sharing, but impose some reasonable sort of cash stream from the people very likely to use P2P to the people who very likely have their works shared.

You also need to realize that legalizing file sharing does not imply removing all copyright. All it says is that sharing copyrighted files is fine (authors have less control over how their work is distributed noncommercially), but it doesn't imply licenses are invalid: You still can't produce a GPL'd derivative work and not provide source, you still can't violate the attribution/share-alike/non-commercial provisions of Creative Commons, etc. I don't think anyone is seriously arguing that copyright should be abolished - there's a huge difference between that and just making the usual P2P scenarios legal.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not surprising you have no idea why the GPL exists. The GPL opposes copyright using the tools of copyright. Without copyright, we have no need of the GPL.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[sopssa]

All it says is that sharing copyrighted files is fine (authors have less control over how their work is distributed noncommercially), but it doesn't imply licenses are invalid: You still can't produce a GPL'd derivative work and not provide source, you still can't violate the attribution/share-alike/non-commercial provisions of Creative Commons, etc.

If it wouldn't affect licenses at all, wouldn't EULA's then just state that to legally run the program or game you need to have a license which is only obtainable via proper channels (ie. buy the product)?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[damburger]

The PPUK has actually worked on its policies to make sure they wouldn't be a threat to GPL. I believe Mr. Robinson has spoken to Richard Stallman himself on the matter.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[sopssa]

I think BSD license would be a lot closer in subverting copyrights using it's own rules. GPL clearly states that if you GPL'd code, along with the binaries you need to make your own source code available too. Having the source code available is something the author wanted and is using his right over his work. Without copyrights anyone could take anyones code and never release the modifications or even relicense it under non-compliant license like BSD license.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[AuMatar]

Why do artists get to control their creation after they sell it? Manufacturers don't. Crafts makers don't. If I sell you a car I can't tell you how fast to drive it, where to drive it, or what brand of oil you can use for oil changes. Just because something is "artistic" or "creative" (a property that is ill defined and could apply to anything) should not give you special rights. You made something, you sold it, they can now do whatever they want with it.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mpe]

I hate that GPL argument. Sure it's technically correct, but the GPL was written with the intent of subverting copyright using it's own rules.

"Subverting" in this context meaning more of "back to basics". Considering that it originated from the US and the US Constitution is quite specific on what "copyright type" things are ment to do.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[marcansoft]

No, because audiovisual works don't have EULAs, and even if they forced them upon buyers, a clause preventing you from legally sharing it noncommercially would probably not be enforceable.

As a copyrighted work, software is considerably different from just media.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[icebraining]

Unless every piece of software is open source, which is the goal of the Gnu project. Then copyright would be meaningless.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[SharpFang]

Libraries, recording radio music etc aren't illegal and neither do they ruin the industry.
If there is an "anti-piracy tax", let that tax cover the perceived losses and let it go at this. I pay tax for purchasing a blank CD, to cover damages to the music industry for pirated songs I'm going to put on that CD. So why I still can't legally put the songs on the CD, if I paid that tax? The music industry is getting paid twice, once in my tax and once as damages from lawsuit against me...

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[erroneus]

Should creators have rights over their work? Yes. For a limited time. The problem is that the time is no longer limited and it is not the creators who are asserting rights, but huge third parties who are small in number. Small numbers of players in a marketplace means the consumer is screwed.

Mickey Mouse should have been free LONG LONG ago but is not. Much very old music such as "happy birthday" is still being used as a weapon against people everywhere instead of being released to the public as it should have been long ago.

The problem isn't that authors are being forced to lose control of their work -- it's that they are not. Worse, the authors ARE being forced into losing control of their work in favor of large copyright publishers.

Your idealism in in some of the right places, but to see the problems, you have to first see reality as it is practiced.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[AmonTheMetalhead]

We have those levies in Belgium too, that's why i refuse to buy media & devices in Belgium anymore, sucks for the local distributors, but I'm NOT going to contribute to the 'artist most likely to have their work shared'.

I buy Cd's, i have over 600 at last count, and none of those are from 'mainstream' artists (whom tend to suck badly anyway), if they insist on those levies, i want to be able to bring in my legal purchases as a reduction against those levies (hell, they'd owe *me* money that way) when i decide to buy a new memory card for my camera, and if that's impossible I'd at least appreciate having a say as to what artist gets my 'contribution', crap artists like 50cent and Britney Spears have no right to my money.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[icebraining]

Killing copyright is not enough, because companies would just release binaries which would effectively be useless to the community. You need to enforce the release of the source code when binaries are released, which is the whole point of the GPL.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mpe]

Now, there's a huge SNAFU going on here with our RIAA-equivalent (the SGAE), who are lying bastards and cheaters,

Isn't that a required "qualification" for such positions?

the levy system isn't ideal (many people get charged who don't use P2P, and the devices/consumables that get levies are just stupid - I think it'd be better to charge levies on internet connections instead of consumables and devices),

Which is still going to be just as unfair the only change is that it might be different people who are paying for nothing.

and the way the levies are distributed is completely backwards (SGAE execs have been known to use some privately, transparency is nil, and small artists get squat).

In other words the people distributing the money are completly corrupt.

Nonetheless, the basic premise isnt all that bad: legalize audio/video/book file sharing, but impose some reasonable sort of cash stream from the people very likely to use P2P to the people who very likely have their works shared.

You might just as well pay "artists" X amount of money from general taxation. If nothing else the people involved in paying out the money are likely to be more efficent and less corrupt.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Ihmhi]

The levy system is not ideal, but it's the best thing we have. As far as I hear, Canada likes it.

Frankly, if I had to pay an extra $1 on a spindle of CDs or an extra $10 on an iPod and in exchange get the right to download whatever the hell media I want, I (as an American) would gladly take that option.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Seyedkevin]

On the contrary, I think that in our current situation, shortening copyright term would only make things worse for the GPL. Think of it this way, the GPL was designed to keep software from going proprietary, and once the work has been out for 5 years or whatever, it'd be in the public domain. That means a company like Microsoft can just paste GPLed code in. Yes, the code may not be the most up-to-date version, but the initial release is probably all the company needs--patching up the program themselves to suit their needs is not that big of a deal. Plus, after that, you get patches going into the public domain on a daily basis. Also, what if they infringe upon the GPL and use works before it goes into public domain? It's difficult to tell if the company wrote the feature or if they used a patch illegally, and there's a good chance that the work will have gone to public domain before legal threat is over as long as it's not a really new feature.

On the other hand, proprietary vendors do not release sourcecode so we'll never see sourcecode, ever. Even if it goes in the public domain. In addition, they still have other terms we have to agree to like EULAs and terms of use. At the end of the day, I think a proprietary vendor being forced to give up their object code in the public domain does not actually hurt them but does hurt the GPL.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[marcansoft]

Which is still going to be just as unfair the only change is that it might be different people who are paying for nothing.

I submit that making ISPs pay the levy is fairer, as 1) they are the ones who profit directly from downloads, 2) people connecting to the Internet are more likely to correlate to people who download (especially with higher-speed connections, which are marketed quite blatantly as being for faster downloads), at least more so than levies on blank media. Blank media isn't a good match because many people download onto their computer's master hard drive (which isn't levied), many people require mass storage for things other than downloaded media (including companies), and blank media producers don't necessarily profit from downloads, at least not nearly as much.

Nothing will ever be 100% fair, because the premise is that you just cannot control distribution of audiovisual works. This is why the levies were introduced, back in the day when the government realized that they couldn't do anything against people copying music on cassette tapes, and instead levied the blank tapes.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I use 3-4 years to learn an instrument, 1 year to write songs, 2 months and 10 000$ to rent a studio and record an album, I should only get paid 20$ for one CD which the buyer then can copy and sell as many times as he wants?

The difference between music/movies/books and almost all other merchandise, is how easily it can be copied and distributed in an unlimited amount. In the case of a Car, the only thing copyrighted/trademarked is the design, because that is the only thing that can be copied an unlimited number of times for a small price. If I had made a car and you bought one, copied it several times and sold the copies, you would still have to spend money on buying materials, pay people to assemble the car, run commercials and the like. You would therefore have to charge a prize that would allow you to cover your costs, and I would be able to compete on a relatively equal basis.

If on the other hand you bought my CD, ripped it and sold it online, you would be able to charge much less than me, because you would not have to pay for musicians, studio time, advertisement, etc. etc.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Nazlfrag]

The GPL is an anomaly caused by strong copyright. If it was easier to merely contribute to the public domain and copyright had realistic fair use then the GPL would be unnecessary.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Wildclaw]

shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?

It is important to separate copyright into commercial and moral rights. It is very possible to want to give copyright holders less commercial rights, while keeping or even strengthening the moral rights such as the right to be recognized as the creator of a work. In my opinion, moral rights should also not be for sale. (from my understanding, they aren't here in Sweden)

If there weren't copyrights, there couldn't be GPL either, nor Creative Commons Attribution, No Derivative Works and Share Alike licenses.

This falls under the discussion of what kind of moral rights a creator should have to restrict a work from being used for specific purposes. I personally feel that GPL/Share Alike are too far reaching. If the author should have rights to restrict the active reusage of a work, it needs to be fairly limited. But this is something that is always up for debate.

Wouldn't the world be less controlling if the authors actually had some saying over their works instead of being forced to lose control over their work?

As authors generally sell the commercial rights, the only control they have in the first place is through moral rights. But more generally. Why is it considered less controlling when author stops someone from making a derivative work?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mdwh2]

I agree - politics basically works by middle ground. In many cases, it's an argument to moderation fallacy, and it's poor for many reasons (including the fact that it rewards people for taking extreme positions), but despite being a fallacy, it's how politics works.

If some people say "Copyright should be life plus 70 years, be extended whenever Mickey Mouse might become public domain, we should have laws criminalising telling people how to circumvent protections even if you legally bought the material, and anyone suspected of downloading should be banned from the Internet", and on the other hand you have an already compromising and reasonable stance, say, "Copyright should last 50 years, and maybe some of these other laws are too strict", what will happen? We won't get "Ah yes, the latter guy talks sense", instead at best will be a compromise between those two positions.

Also it's worth remembering that even the Pirate party's "extreme" position still believes in copyright for commercial use (IIRC, 10 years for the UK party?) The OP refers to the GPL, but most outrages of GPL violations seem to be about commercial use, in my experience.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mdwh2]

making a mix tape is entirely ethical and should be legal

Indeed, take for example UK artist Lily Allen - she believes that people who download are thieves, and was a vocal support of UK plans to disconnect people suspected of downloading. But even she seems to think it's fine to distribute mix tapes, on her record company's website, using other artists' material, in order to promote her own commercial material...

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[init100]

it also affects open source coders who release their code under GPL. If there weren't copyrights, there couldn't be GPL either, nor Creative Commons Attribution, No Derivative Works and Share Alike licenses.

Yes, that is technically correct, but the non-confrontational attitude* of open source people hints that the increasingly aggressive copyright laws of today are not what they are asking for. I think that few open source developers/artists/etc would have any problems with reasonable term lengths (e.g. 10-20 years after creating a work) and lax enforcement w.r.t. non-commercial private use.

* = i.e. try to work out a solution first, only go to court if an offender fails to rectify problems after several attempts to raise awareness of a problem, and only ask the court to stop infringement - i.e. usually no damages are asked for.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mdwh2]

In addition, they still have other terms we have to agree to like EULAs and terms of use.

The only plausible argument for EULs being a valid contract is based on copyright: namely, you need permission to even copy it from disk to memory, so you'll be committing copyright infringement if you don't accept the licence.

So if it was no longer copyrighted, you could simply use it without accepting the licence.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[RichardJenkins]

The GPL would be unnecessary, and would most definitely not be common had the copyright system been much more lax during the last few decades.

Completely disagree with that. The purpose of the GPL is to allow me to release my project out to the world for people to play with/change/learn from however they see fit while preventing people from changing it then releasing an improved version without the same freedoms I originally gave.

It was originally created by RMS after he released a version of emacs to a company who modified it, then released their own version but refused to give out the source code, and absolutely requires copyright laws in place to be able to do that.

If people could distribute derivatives non-commercially without the source code, I suspect this would still be an issue for many FOSS advocates.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mdwh2]

which the buyer then can copy and sell as many times as he wants

No, that wouldn't come under non-commercial.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Gavagai80]

If you take such an extreme view, it makes it easier for opponents to dismiss your group as dangerous extremists and prevent you from getting invited to the table at all.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[init100]

With weaker copyright the GPL would certainly be less beneficial because the GPL relies on strong copyright.

Why? I cannot see why the GPL would benefit more from the excessively strong copyright law of today compared to a sane copyright law with a term length of maybe 20 years, and no DMCA-style rules such as the notice and takedown system, anti-circumvention provisions, statutory damages of 150,000 USD per infringement, etc. Name one case where any open source developer has sent a DMCA takedown request to an infringer, or an open source developer suing a grandma for 150,000 USD because of license infringement.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[pv2b]

The Free Software Foundation's goals isn't to oppose copyright per se, it is to promote free software.

Anything that weakens the GPL may well weaken free software - in the way that code from free software could be used to create more non-free software. Under the PPUK proposed reform, it's not like you can take components from five-year old Windows and copy-paste them into Linux, and still have the result be free software. Binary blobs aren't free software, even if they're in the public domain, since there's no source code. This is the same reason freeware isn't the same thing as free software.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Richard_at_work]

Both libraries and radio music have inherent limitations built in that have the potential to make an individual purchase more appealing to some - a library has to actually purchase (or otherwise acquire a legal copy) before they can lend, and they can only lend that copy out to one person at a time. Recording radio means you have to wait around for the next song you want to appear on the play list, and play lists are rarely advertised anywhere in full so you again have to listen to the show (or record the entire show, and edit it).

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[pv2b]

Actually, people using peer-to-peer software to get their media impose more load on an Internet Service Provider's network than a customer using one of the official/legitimate download sites.

Of course, peer-to-peer also drives people to get faster Internet connections and pay more. But that's also a matter of competition which doesn't directly benefit the provider - they just need to stay at the same level as everyone else.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

That's missing the point that the opposition is taking the opposite extreme view already, and they're not only at, but very much controlling the table.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[init100]

Frankly, if I had to pay an extra $1 on a spindle of CDs or an extra $10 on an iPod and in exchange get the right to download whatever the hell media I want, I (as an American) would gladly take that option.

In Sweden, we have a levy system, but non-commercial sharing is still illegal, except in a very narrow set of your closest friends and family, where enforcement would be very hard. So you cannot download from people you don't know, but you still pay a levy on blank CDs, DVDs, portable audio players, etc. In addition, you cannot legally get a copy from someone who doesn't have the original.

When this point is brought up, it is excused with the levy being compensation for the copying between family members and very close friends. If the levy meant that you could download all you wanted, I think far fewer people would have any problem with it (given that it isn't also raised significantly.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

...shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?

You're blurring the boundary between information and object here. Anyone producing something has a right to their work. Anyone producing a copy of that work, has a right to the copy. Copyright was never about an inherent right to control reproduction of your work - it just applies such a concept in order to encourage the creation of more works.

In this exact case copyright is used to allow the author to make sure he is attributed and his work isn't misused.

Actually, I do have a question about this corner of it. If they support the right to freely share works non-commercially, would they also support a caveat that such works must be correctly attributed? I can't imagine that any file-sharers would object to that.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[SharpFang]

...so a valid compromise could be found between free distribution and legal sales. Currently one side doesn't even want to hear about such a compromise, ranting and raving about thievery, losses and control, and the other side ignores the first one, and circumvents new barriers as they appear, making illegal digital distribution more appealing and better in all respects from traditional channels.

It's not impossible, it just requires a good slap to the media industry to shut up and try to find an actual -solution- and -compromise- instead of trying to impose more impotent restrictions.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Philip_the_physicist]

You could do a work-around for the GPL argument by making agreeing to a contract functionally identical to the licence a pre-condition for accessing the program. The only problem with that is that it raises questions of liability for bugs.

Anyway, the first paragraph of your post didn't relate to GPL infringements, because mostly GPL authors don't care about non-commercial infringement, because it doesn't really matter. Commercial infringement would still be illegal, so the problematic infringements are not affected.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[JasterBobaMereel]

Creators currently mostly do not have any rights over their work ....

      If I create software, my company owns the copyright not me ..., If I publish a song, then the record company will have control of the copyright even if it is nominally in my name..., If I have any creative ideas it is likely that someone else will have more control than I as the author have .... this is the reality

    Even if I have control over my work, (software I wrote at home, self published books, songs uploaded to the internet) I would have little chance of enforcing the copyright since I have little money and no expensive lawyer ...

      The real point is why should I have control anyway? Do you have any control over the work you did for a company a year ago ..? If I take a picture why should I be able to charge people to make copies, or stop them if I don't like what they want to do with it .... the original I understand, but why are copies protected in this unique way ?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[biryokumaru]

In the US, you can either thump the Bible or the Constitution, but not both.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[IBBoard]

I hate that GPL argument. Sure it's technically correct, but the GPL was written with the intent of subverting copyright using it's own rules. The GPL would be unnecessary, and would most definitely not be common had the copyright system been much more lax during the last few decades.

And I hate the anti-GPL copyright argument. Sure it looks correct, but the GPL was written to ensure that source code remains free by using copyright's own rules. The GPL would be unnecessarily compromised, and would most definitely still be common had the copyright system been much more lax during the last few decades.

Without copyright then the BSD/MIT license would still be about functional ("anyone can use our code, including closing it off") but there'd be a question over attribution requirements. Without copyright the GPL would be screwed for any way to say "...and you must make the source of distributed versions and modifications available under the same or similar license".

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[FriendlyLurker]

shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?

A loaded question. Of course they should have a right to their work - that is not the question. The real question is: should media content producers have the right to profit off the artificial scarcity of digital goods?
When the cost to copy digital content is fixed, why should they have the right to charge for each digital copy as if it is a scarce item at many thousands of percent markup over the price to copy that item?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[biryokumaru]

Couldn't you write a Facebook-like P2P program that just copied files from people you knew personally, or if they didn't have it, sort of copied from someone they knew to them, then to you?

Like, I don't know Dorothy, but I know Alex. And Alex knows Bill who knows Carrie who knows Dorothy. Alex and Bill and Carrie don't have Timberlake's "Motherlover" (Low quality, non-hulu link) song, but Dorothy does. She sends it to her friend, Carrie, who sends it to her friend, Bill, who sends it to my friend, Alex. Now I can get it, and all the sharing has been perfectly legal.

Of course, the natural result here would be that everyone and their sister would either a) have a copy of every single piece of media on the internet, or b) be constantly downloading/uploading/deleting tons and tons of data. But it'd be legal.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mpe]

If it wouldn't affect licenses at all, wouldn't EULA's then just state that to legally run the program or game you need to have a license which is only obtainable via proper channels (ie. buy the product)?

EULAs are a completly different kind of entity from the GPL, Creative Commons, etc in the first place.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[monkeythug]

Enforcement isn't necessary as the market will do that for you.

If it is impossible to sell binaries the proprietary software companies will be forced to use the same services/support business model that current OSS software companies do. With everyone using the same business model, those also giving the source away will quickly gain a commercial advantage, thus forcing everyone else to do the same.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[bws111]

This is nonsense. The GPL exists to keep open source open. Without copyright, that is not possible. Without copyright, I could take your source code, make my changes to it, stick that source code in a vault, just release the binaries, and there is nothing you can do about it. Or do you think that without copyright all source code just magically appears?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[init100]

She sends it to her friend, Carrie, who sends it to her friend, Bill, who sends it to my friend, Alex. Now I can get it, and all the sharing has been perfectly legal.

No, that wouldn't be legal in Sweden, since each recipient must get their copy directly from someone who owns an original (i.e. one they bought in a store).

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[JAlexoi]

FYI: GPL covers only and only distribution. So GPL was only to make sure that copyright stays lax.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[biryokumaru]

Darn. I like that song.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mdwh2]

Oh sorry, I've been told wrong by the mod. Apparently, selling now counts as non-commercial. Brilliant!

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[skine]

Mickey Mouse should not be free, as it is a trademark.

Steamboat Willie should be able to be copied freely, as it is a copyright issue.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Fri13]

GPL would not be unnecessary at all then. Because the copyright being only 10 (or less) years, it would make all available open source code as public domain and you can close it and never show the source to anyone.

GPL is demanding that the software user who gets the binary, gets the sources as well by some way.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html

We can not throw away all the copyrights. There are many situations that you need to maintain the copyright. In one case 5 years is enough, but some cases over 50 years is enough.

And why we are always fighting with copyright laws in US or GB? There are lots of countries where are sane laws about copyright.

Example Finland. If you buy a CD or DVD (or Blu-ray) you have rights to make few copies of it for your own personal use or to your closest friends and family. Few means here 3-10. And those who gets copies, can not copy or deliver them to any other. So you can make your backups and copies to car, MP3-player, to summer house etc.

You can even break the encryption to see or listen video/music what you bought and translate the music to format what fits to you.

But you can not sell or share the mixed version of the copyrighted material what you have. No one can not stop you to mix it for yourself such thing but not to share it. If you mix music and you actually create something new what is not the original or similar, you can share it and you have the copyright for it.
But that line is very thin and very hard to say when you step over that so you can do it.

U.S and GB and many of their old ruled countries has a common law and it allows them to have very stupid laws in place. In other germanic countries there are laws but you always need to understand what is the reason why something has be done and judge it by moral and wisdom.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Linus could always change the license of Linux OS to anything other than GPL for future versions. GNU can not say anything about that because GNU has nothing to do with the Linux OS. They have their own Hurd OS with GNU Mach microkernel what they could change from GPL away if needed.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Fri13]

And how you would ensure that the code stays open without copyright?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[petermgreen]

If linus had written all of linux that would be true but he didn't not by a long way.

So unless linus had a policy of getting either permission to relicense the code or a copyright assignment from each and every contributor (afaict some opensource projects do this but linux isn't one of them) then he can't relicense it without a heck of a lot of work to

1: work out who wrote each line of code
2: contact all those authors to get permission
3: rewrite any code which the authors refuse to give permission to relicense.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Stormwatch]

Decompilation.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Stormwatch]

So if I use 3-4 years to learn an instrument, 1 year to write songs, 2 months and 10 000$ to rent a studio and record an album, I should only get paid 20$ for one CD which the buyer then can copy and sell as many times as he wants?

Why am I supposed to give up a freedom to make sure your choice of business model remains profitable? Also: nowadays, the album is no longer the product. It is the advertisement. Concerts are the product, adjust your business model accordingly!

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wouldn't the world be less controlling if the authors actually had some saying over their works instead of being forced to lose control over their work?"

Should plummers charge you montly fee for their copyrighted arrangement of your pipes? That's how stupid most intellectual property arguments are, maybe we should copyright our jobs too, because "we own" our jobs, that physical location on the planet too?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[bzipitidoo]

I find it useful to distinguish between different things. Copyright infringement, theft, and plagiarism are all different. The first action is only that-- making a copy of something that you do not have the "right" to copy. The third one is claiming to be the author of someone else's work, something that few pirates attempt or trouble to attempt as in most cases it would be a ludicrously obvious lie.

Many people seem to think that copyright laws are necessary to stop all sorts of other things. They aren't. Some of these related activities we want to prevent, such as plagiarism and "mod withholding". Others we want allowed, such as reverse engineering, mixes, mashups, parodies, critical commentaries and analyses. For these other purposes, copyright is a blunt instrument with many other undesirable consequences. This business of having to ask for permission is a killer. You never have to ask for permission to cite or quote small bits someone else's work, but much more than that and you run into a swamp. The cover of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album is a great example. Should the Beatles have had to ask for dozens of permissions for that? All part of the climate created by this extreme IP regime.

This particular act of making a few minor changes and then refusing to share them isn't exactly plagiarism, or exactly a copyright violation either. But as the GPL shows, it is possible to stretch copyright to cover this situation. So it is also possible to stretch a hypothetical anti-plagiarism law to cover it. We have such terms as "shareware", "crippleware", "nagware". Even "software" is a relatively new word. Better that this anti-social act have its own name, maybe "mod withholding" or "tweak hoarding" or "secretmodware", so it can be explicitly reasoned about in regulations. Gets tiresome having to continually deal with intentional inappropriate conflation, like the equating of copyright infringement with stealing. Let's not cling to copyright for the sake of the GPL. We don't need copyright to achieve the sharing that the GPL intends. Maybe we need something, some law, but it doesn't have to be copyright.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[IAmAI]

In my opinion it does not matter whether or not content creators should have a right to control their work. Assuming that they should have the right to control their work, it is not possible to enforce this against individuals in a way that would not violate more fundamental rights such as Privacy, Freedom of Speech and Presumption of Innocence. It is my opinion that an individual's right to Privacy, Freedom of Speech and Presumption of Innocence are more important that copyright, therefore copyright should be changed to respect those rights. I'm not against copyright, as it stands at present, being enforced against commercial entities as I don't think the concepts of Privacy and Freedom of Speech should not apply to commercial entities (although Presumption of Innocence should).

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[rhyder128k]

"[...] but why are copies protected in this unique way ?" To provide an incentive for creators.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Grumbleduke]

It seems Pirate Party UK's one of the core policies is reforming copyright and patent law so that non-commercial file sharing would be legalized.

For the record, the PPUK's policies aren't fixed yet. Voting is going on at the moment and there is an interesting debate on whether or not non-commercial file sharing should be legalised. Personally, I am on the unlawful side, but there are good arguments either way.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cowbutt]

How do "realistic fair use" provisions in copyright law and practice help you gain access to the (trade secret, unpublished) source code for a proprietary application so you can fix a bug or enhance it?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[MarkvW]

Bilski is a good example for you.

The "appropriator" sued the originator of the work, and the originator was able to use the copyright law to make a successful counterattack.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cpt kangarooski]

It seems Pirate Party UK's one of the core policies is reformin copyright and patent law so that non-commercial file sharing would be legalized. While certainly a noble goal, shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?

That's certainly possible, and I'm open to the idea. However, that raises additional questions: What rights should they have? Should these rights be subject to any exceptions or limitations? For how long should they last? Against whom should they be enforceable? What remedies should be available if the rights are infringed upon? Should there be any prerequisites in order to acquire and/or enforce these rights?

And above all else, is the public left better off under such a regime, as opposed to not granting such rights, and if so, are there any other rights regimes that would produce a still better public outcome? If not, why should such a regime be tolerated?

In this exact case copyright is used to allow the author to make sure he is attributed and his work isn't misused.

Well, reasonable people can differ over whether it is worthwhile to have such rights, but assuming that we were to have them, how does that conflict with allowing non-commercial file sharing without authorization or payment? So long as the torrent indicates that the mp3 is a song performed by Alice, and written by Bob, and given that mere file sharing doesn't 'misuse' a work (although I'm baffled as to how a work could ever be misused, given that it can't be used up in the process), there should be no problem.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cpt kangarooski]

It is important to separate copyright into commercial and moral rights. It is very possible to want to give copyright holders less commercial rights, while keeping or even strengthening the moral rights such as the right to be recognized as the creator of a work. In my opinion, moral rights should also not be for sale. (from my understanding, they aren't here in Sweden)

Sure. But the underlying utilitarian question doesn't change. Why is the public better off granting moral rights than not granting moral rights? In the US, we didn't even recognize the validity of the concept for ages, and even now we only grant them for treaty compliance, and do it in a carefully half-assed way so that they're essentially unavailable. But this has never seemed to harm our authors or industries. So what's in it for us? How would it result in having more works created, and published, with as few restrictions as possible, for as little time as possible?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Blakey Rat]

Putting a levy on the sale of blank CDs and DVDs, even for people who never intend to copy music/movies is about the most un-American thing I can think of. The fact that the levy doesn't even go to the artists that people are copying is just icing on the un-American cake.

If they passed that, I think it would be time for a Boston CD-R Party.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[b4upoo]

First copyright laws need to be altered to deal with different media or objects. The same laws that protect a computer program should not apply to a photo of a bridge or the appearance of a building after it is sold.
                    Next, when violations do occur any penalties should reflect the actual harm done. This is very complex as there are situations where piracy has led to greater sales due to an "advertising" effect. Often the owner of content has no real knowledge of whether piracy has helped or harmed him financially.
                    And above all the impossible nature of what to do about indirect piracy that crosses international lines needs to be solved. For example if a person downloads an item which is legal in Canada and then that person sends it to a PC in America where stealing the item would be illegal whose laws apply and since the American never stole anything but got it from a "legal" friend in Canada how can we declare guilt. Worse yet nations such as France have all kinds of laws that are absurd by our standards. Should Americans suffer the force of French law?
                    Then we have the tax payer problem. All court actions cost the tax payer money. Pornography has probably eaten billions in tax dollars in the never ending court cases about porn. We do not need tens of thousands of copyright violation cases clogging the courts and eating tax resources. Frankly the law simply can not function and cover issues like this. We can't even stop people from murdering each other. How much can we afford to spend enforcing copyright laws?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[icebraining]

Well, I guess there are three ways:

One would be relying on OSS technical merits, like the OSI does. Develop enough free software that is better or equivalent to proprietary, so the latter becomes useless.

Another would be changing the way people view the issue, making proprietary software generally viewed as unethical. This is the GNU way.

A third would be imposing it like any other consumer rights law, e.g. warranty.

The problem is that I find 1 and 2 unfeasible, and I'm not very comfortable with 3.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

And invite competitors? I thought not.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cpt kangarooski]

So if I use 3-4 years to learn an instrument, 1 year to write songs, 2 months and 10 000$ to rent a studio and record an album, I should only get paid 20$ for one CD which the buyer then can copy and sell as many times as he wants?

Of course, if you spend several years to learn how to play music, you spend a year writing music, you spend months and money recording music and making copies to sell, you very well might only sell one CD to a reviewer who tells everyone that you suck, and not sell any more copies beyond that.

The mere fact that you invested in an enterprise does not entitle you to make a return on that investment, or to have laws set up which even permit you to make a return on that investment.

What you need to do is to convince other people why it is in their best interest to set up laws that at least permit you to turn a profit, provided that your product is any good. It isn't hard, but the burden falls on you. And of course, there's a whole range of possible laws to choose from. It could be that the public at large would feel that their needs are best served by copyright laws which give authors some incentive to create and publish, but not as much as other laws, while restricting the public, but not as much as other laws (e.g. allowing non-commercial copying, etc., but not the scenario you describe).

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cpt kangarooski]

Also, what if they infringe upon the GPL and use works before it goes into public domain? It's difficult to tell if the company wrote the feature or if they used a patch illegally, and there's a good chance that the work will have gone to public domain before legal threat is over as long as it's not a really new feature.

1) Mandate that for all works that include software where a copyright is sought, the author has to deposit a complete copy of the software -- including such supplementary information as the Copyright Office deems necessary in order that other people having skill in the field can reasonably understand and make use of it -- at the Library of Congress.

In practice, this would mean commented source code, instructions as to the intended platform, compiler, etc. Like anything else, it would be available to read through at all times. But, during the copyright term, it would be infringing to copy it, etc. Basically, it'd be just like a book; being allowed to read it and learn from it doesn't allow you to start printing it yourself. Think 'inspectable source' rather than open source.

2) If an infringement occurs -- obviously before the copyright is terminated -- a lawsuit can still be brought even if the copyright expires during the course of litigation. No one is going to get thrown out of court for that, it just means that you probably wouldn't bother asking for a permanent injunction or anything. This is no big deal.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mhajicek]

In most cases it isn't the creator that retains control anyway, it's the publisher. I don't feel much sympathy for publishers, they're mostly just worried about becoming obsolete and unnecessary.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mhajicek]

But the software could refer you to a friend of a friend who has the media you're looking for and you could get it straight from them. You'd have to maintain two folders, one for media you bought, and one for media you got from someone else. Or have an attribute flag for bought vs shared.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[presidenteloco]

I'm not actually opposed to your view, but I'm curious if you've thought through...

How will people whose productive output is something like a work of art (e.g. a novel, a movie, a new software program)
earn their food and lodging?

We have a pretty brutal capitalistic society most places these days, and pretty pathetic welfare support in all
but a few Skandinavian countries.

So what should we do about it to allow those who can't do anything useful except create new cool stuff survive
and thrive. An open challenge. Any ideas?

One idea I personally can't tolerate (in the software realm) is to say: You can earn money on support or customizations:
That just promotes the creation of crap dysfunctional and over-complex software that needs lots of support.

Another argument that doesn't work is to say: Allow people to download and use the digital product, because
then they will buy the CD/DVD/whatever. If ever there was a doomed, transitional business model, that's it.
Those artifacts won't exist soon. You won't even own a digital copy of something. You will just stream it or
cache it in near real time from some distributed "noplace" in the cloud.

So any other ideas? Is "streetcorner beggar donationware" the only solution? Will that work? Distributed patronage based
on the good will of the masses?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[monkeythug]

Any competitors would have to both improve the software and release the source of the improvements to compete effectively.

At which point you can take the improved source back again and improve it further.

Which results in a much more vibrant marketplace based on constant innovation and this benefits the consumer and boosts the economy. See the fashion industry for an example of how this works.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I follow. How do I make more money from giving away clues on how to use software that I am being paid to teach you how to use? Better yet, I can turn around and sell "Source Disclosure" services to businesses that really want to create derivative works of my software. (Not having copyright doesn't prevent that, it only means other people can reverse-engineer the software and offer the same services as the company that developed the software).

The only profitable way of adding features to your software would be to ask for compensation for feature development, to assure that your company offers the most cutting edge support, and to prevent competing software products from making your support irrelevant.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not about being "invited" to the table by the establishment, it is about getting a place at the table by means of public vote.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, I disagree with everything you said. No, you shouldn't be able to retain permanent control over an idea.

There's a middle ground, probably a healthy middle ground between permanent control and no control. You know, like the time limited exclusive rights granted to patents and (historically) to artistic endeavors, such that the creator can share them with the world without negating its value. Right now, the pendulum is a little far towards permanent control. The happy medium lets artists or companies, or whomever recoup costs proportional to the effort of creation without unduly hampering society.

No, saving the GPL is not worth perpetuating our current broken copyright.

If there's a clear path towards reward, then people can realistically work on creative projects like software. Man's gotta eat, you know. That doesn't mean artists and software developers are entitled to a profit, it means that if they can see a path to reward, they might spend more of their time on the project. Maybe even quit their job at Denny's to focus on that software and make it really good. GPL allows the reward to be service to the community rather than cash. Most importantly: there will always be bad actors. People who will poison the community by taking just as much as they can without giving anything back. Laws are written for those people. Supposed to be written for those people, even if it seems they're currently being written by those people.

And no, a world with drastically reduced creator control over their "intellectual property" would be on the whole far less controlling, instead of more.

Without copyright, there would be nothing to stop Major Record Label from recording every appearance of an artist and selling those recordings without any compensation or recognition of the artist. Those groups control large distribution and advertising networks. If Major Label offered you a one-stop shop with a fresh, hot, new song of your favorite genre every day for $0.50 or $1, what's your motivation to go digging through the hundreds of self-recorded artists' facebook pages looking for something good? Copyright is being abused by the labels, but it's the one piece of leverage the artists have against even worse abuses. See the point above about bad actors.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[monkeythug]

I'm not sure I follow. How do I make more money from giving away clues on how to use software that I am being paid to teach you how to use?

Well, I'm not sure how much having the source helps the average user learn how to use a program.

In the case of support generally, if you make the source available you can justify charging a higher rate for support - in effect you are turning the fact that your customer has the option to go elsewhere for support into a selling point.

In fact, people won't usually go elsewhere without a good reason - they tend to appreciate that the company that created a product is the best place to get support.

Better yet, I can turn around and sell "Source Disclosure" services to businesses that really want to create derivative works of my software. (Not having copyright doesn't prevent that, it only means other people can reverse-engineer the software and offer the same services as the company that developed the software).

Well, that's true only as long as everyone else is doing the same. Even in a situation where everyone starts out doing this, it only takes one company to start giving away the source for free and you quickly find everyone else has to do so to remain competitive.

Of course since there are already open-source based companies, in reality you wouldn't even get this starting point.

The only profitable way of adding features to your software would be to ask for compensation for feature development, to assure that your company offers the most cutting edge support, and to prevent competing software products from making your support irrelevant.

Indeed part of the OSS model is to write customisations to clients (you can even make the source for these available since no-one else will want exactly the same implementation - it's custom after all)

As for your other points, it's true that it could be much more challenging to compete in a market without copyright. However I have difficulty believing that the current system that makes it relatively easy for companies but at the expense of the consumer and the economy is the better system.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[sopssa]

It wouldn't count as "close friend or family member", especially if using system like that.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[mjwx]

shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?

Shouldn't they?

Under the current system they, for the most part have no rights as to what they can do with their work. The rights are sold to the media cartels in exchange for predatory loans and one sided contracts. Take a look at the "artist formerly known as prince", he was not even permitted to keep his stage name after leaving contract, nor was he entitled to perform any of his previous work (some may consider this a public service, it was terrible even for the early 90's but a great example of how the record industry works).

You are making the critical and wrong assumption that artist and creators benefit under the current copyright system. If copyright was abolished 90% of musicians and actors would be unaffected as they make their money not through copyrights but through performance. Actors are paid per contracts, not on sales and musicians make all of their money by touring, they do not see a red cent of the album sales until it has sold millions of copies.

So I have to ask your question, do creators and performers deserve to benefit from their work and if so, why should we support a system that is actively working against this goal.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[c6gunner]

Why do artists get to control their creation after they sell it? Manufacturers don't. Crafts makers don't. If I sell you a car I can't tell you how fast to drive it, where to drive it, or what brand of oil you can use for oil changes.

No, but you certainly can tell me that I can't make a duplicate copy and sell it as the genuine article. Your analogy sucks.

Just because something is "artistic" or "creative" (a property that is ill defined and could apply to anything) should not give you special rights.

You're absolutely right there, but not for the reason you think. These rights apply to all patented/copyrighted works, within a certain time frame. Being "creative" has nothing to do with it.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[akonbrew]

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Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[init100]

Sopssa is right. If you did that, you would fall foul of the "family member or close personal friend" clause.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[sopssa]

It's all within their possibility. No one forces them to go with larger organizations, but they see more value in it. That's how it should be - not forcing anything, but having the right to choose what they do with their work. Even if it is giving their copyrights to labels in exchange for money for studio time, equipment, marketing and distribution.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Ihmhi]

Yeah, just like all those people who pay towards unemployment benefits and are never out of a job. Thiefs!

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Blakey Rat]

Guess what? I don't agree with that either. If you're trying to make me look like a hypocrite, you just failed.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[professionalfurryele]

"shouldn't content producers, artists, programmers, and basically anyone producing something have a right to their work?"

No. You cant own an idea. This is why patents and copyrights are social contracts and not natural rights. The purpose of copyright is to provide precisely enough incentive to get creative types to produce works of art, no more. As a form of government intervention it is highly inefficient and we can see this in various places. For a start, sports stars. Does anyone think that without copyright sports stars would be paid the astronomical wages they are? This comes in part from sponsorship which is driven by exclusive broadcast rights which stem from copyright.

Now I have no objection to government intervention in the market, but don't dress up a social contract which causes serious inefficiency as 'protecting' artists rights. This is an area of industry in dire need of being opened up to competition. If you want to retain control over a work of art, don't publish it. Once you publish something it has entered the collective culture and isn't yours any more. No one is forcing anyone to lose control over their work. If they keep it secret they can have as much control over it as they like.

As for software, this presents a unique problem. It is of a completely different character to any other medium in that if I have a book I can replicate the book on any platform I want with minimal effort, similarly film and music. Not so with software. This gives producers of content in this realm the ability to circumvent the social contract by releasing locked up versions of their work. A similar problem exists with DRM except with DRM the violation of the spirit of the social contract is deliberate . If you release a piece of software and want it to be protected by copyright then releasing the source code after the copyright expires should be a matter of course, perhaps by means of a centrally operated repository.

Artists have no more right to control what is done with their work that plane designers have deciding what altitude the planes they design should fly at.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Locklin]

Complilation != encryption. If decompilation, modification and redistribution were legal it would be trivial to locate the sources of any common proprietary application. There would be plenty of other problems, but availability of source and fixing a bug wouldn't be one of them.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Ihmhi]

No, I'm trying to point out that for pretty much any levy or form of taxation you're inevitably paying for stuff that you won't necessarily be using.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Nazlfrag]

Legal reverse engineering as fair use, that's how.

How does the GPL help you gain access to the (trade secret, unpublished) source code for a proprietary application so you can fix a bug or enhance it?

I don't propose to solve the issue of proprietary source, just that the Open Source/Free Software movement would still be known as the Public Domain movement if our laws weren't so screwed.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cowbutt]

Ugh. I've done that, and I'd rather have the original source, thanks. Have you?

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cowbutt]

How does the GPL help you gain access to the (trade secret, unpublished) source code for a proprietary application so you can fix a bug or enhance it?

By spotting that they've linked against or included GPL-licensed code, forcing them to stop distributing their binaries, re-write using GPL-free code, or release their own source code. Or, simply by setting an example and creating a community that they feel like contributing to and working with.

I don't propose to solve the issue of proprietary source, just that the Open Source/Free Software movement would still be known as the Public Domain movement if our laws weren't so screwed.

Sure, but by focussing on fair-use of binaries and eliminating copyright protection of GPL and similar licenses makes it possible for proprietary creators to incorporate GPLed code with impunity (which in turn will probably erode the community that developers Free software), whilst not enabling users of proprietary binaries to obtain the source for the applications they use and make use of them in the ways they wish. In other words, it'll make the current situation worse not better. Thankfully, PPUK leadership seem to understand this, these days, but it doesn't stop some of their supporters focussing solely on getting their warez without the risk of prosecution.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Nazlfrag]

By spotting that they've linked against or included GPL-licensed code, forcing them to stop distributing their binaries, re-write using GPL-free code, or release their own source code. Or, simply by setting an example and creating a community that they feel like contributing to and working with.

Nowhere in your reply does it address the fact that I was talking about NON-GPL'd proprietary code. If they havent used any GPL code there's not a thing you can do to get your source level access yet if copyright wasn't so strict you could. The BSD style licenses allow people to include code with imnpunity, yet the model works just as intended for open source. The point of the GPL evaporates the weaker copyright gets.

Advocating strong copyright because it helps the GPL is contrary to the entire spirit of open source.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[cowbutt]

I don't advocate Open Source. I advocate Free Software.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[b4upoo]

Thank God there is a Pirate Party and people trying to keep the flow of information free.
                  To me most artists surrender their work to middle men and thus really lose all hope of control. And sadly those rats in the middle take the money and throw scraps at the artists as a rule. These very men in the middle are the ones tossing cash around and trying to buy laws that offer them unusual and immoral levels of protection.
                  I think we need to define real commercial distribution and protect a recording artist from someone who sets up to actually directly sell copies of their work. But not file sharing among friends where money does not change hands. And none of this nonsense about indirectly profiting from file sharing should be heard by any court either.Books fall into the same slot. Software should be protected for a very short time. Two years ought to do it.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[L4t3r4lu5]

Because for some reason, creators are under the impression that they should be able to sell the original for multiple thousands of $currency, and that it's a god-given right that it's the case.

Art used to be created because it was commissioned by a wealthy person for their own enjoyment, or it was performed live to a crowd in a venue (if popular) or on the street (busking). Money was made by selling tickets to performances or as small tokens of appreciation given to buskers. It was a living, but not a millionaire-making position. Now that this artwork can be captured and replicated without cost, that model is out of date. One performance is shown worldwide without any benefit to the artist. Only those doing commissioned work will benefit by the old model.

The new way is to give your artwork away and to receive tokens, much like the busker, but from a much larger audience than you could fit into any theatre. One artist on Jamendo with 50k listeners giving £5 each will pay a band of 5 £50k EACH. That's a very decent wage.

The trick is to get everyone out of the mindset of buying media and sharing it for free; Get them into this system instead.

Oh, and sell merchandise and do live gigs to improve donations. I'd write more but my attention span is limited. I hope you get the idea.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[LinuxAndLube]

Amen.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[Nemyst]

Lily Allen, and unfortunately many other artists like her, often appear to be mere puppets used by the record companies to further their own goals. They either don't know or don't care about what they're saying and only say it because their label told them to. It's fairly easy to manipulate people who are clueless about a subject of choice.

Re:Forcing authors to lose rights over work

[junjie_1024]

Hundreds of fabulous girls from forty different countries kicked off Teen Vogue’s annual Fashion University with Juicy Couture.The launch cocktail party was hosted by Juicy at their 5th Ave Flagship in New York City. The energy in the line outside the party was an indication of what was to come and that excitement exploded when the Girls hit the store floor. They sipped on smoothies and pink lemonade, devoured treats from silver platters all as they experienced the colorful and insanely fun world of Juicy Couture bags. There was a DJ spinning and NY band Lion of Ido added to the frenzy. All had an amazing NY night, meeting new friends, taking photos, exchanging emails and of course a little retail therapy. Juicy was thrilled to be host to these up and coming trendsetters that will surely make up the next generation of fashion mavens.

Cooperation

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the UK Pirate Party collaborate with pirate parties from other countries? If so - which ones?

Re:Cooperation

[disi]

yupp, they are well organized and there will be a meeting held by all leaders of the pirate parties in europe afaik
http://www.pp-international.net/

The only question...

[Jojoba86]

The only thing I want to know is whether or not there are going to be some candidates standing for the pirate party in the general election, and if so in what seats? It'd be interesting to see how well they do.

Re:The only question...

[VJ42]

The only thing I want to know is whether or not there are going to be some candidates standing for the pirate party in the general election, and if so in what seats? It'd be interesting to see how well they do.

yes, Andy is standing himself (I believe it's Worcester, but don't quote me); IIRC there's also another candidate confirmed to be standing, but I can't remember where apart from "up North" ;p

We're also hoping to field candidates in the local elections on May 6th

Re:The only question...

[AmiMoJo]

More importantly, why should I vote for a one-issue party in an election that is so closely run it could go Labour, Tory or hung parliament?

I'm afraid that other matters like the economy are more pressing at this time, as they almost always are. Realistically the Pirate Party has very little chance of getting a single MP, let alone having anything to do with the future government. Given the current system, is a political party the best way to go? Why not form a pressure group or thinktank?

Re:The only question...

[VJ42]

Why not form a pressure group or thinktank?

You mean like the Open rights group (who we're developing close links with)? Or perhaps the business coalitionCoadec? Don't worry, the pressure and lobby groups are there as well.

Re:The only question...

[AmiMoJo]

Doesn't answer the main question though. Yes, the system is shitty, but it's the one I have to deal with come May. I get one X. Much as I would love to support your policies, you are a one issue party and there is a recession on. I'm trying to start a business so economy is top priority.

Even at the European elections I think I am better off voting Green. They have some MEPs already, have policies on everything and are for copyright and patent reform.

Re:The only question...

[VJ42]

Doesn't answer the main question though. Yes, the system is shitty, but it's the one I have to deal with come May. I get one X. Much as I would love to support your policies, you are a one issue party and there is a recession on. I'm trying to start a business so economy is top priority.

We freely admit that we're highly unlikely to win a single seat let alone form a government; our aim is to get enough votes to make the 'big' parties to take a look at our policies.

Even at the European elections I think I am better off voting Green. They have some MEPs already, have policies on everything and are for copyright and patent reform.

Go ahead & vote for them; sure I'd prefer you to vote PPUK but anyone who supports our platform is good too. We're not in it for the power, just for the policy change.

Re:The only question...

[xaxa]

Be careful with the Greens. I voted for them last election (I was only 18), and again for the European and London Assembly elections, but I'm going to be more careful this time, especially since they won't get an MP so I can pick between any of the small parties for my "protest". The Green Party had some bad policies on science, healthcare etc -- for instance, supporting homeopathy and not stem cell research. I understand that this is changing, and may no longer be the case, but I haven't checked for myself yet.

In Principle vs. Practical

[Zombie Ryushu]

In Principle I really support what the Pirate party works. But in practical sense, there is a left-of-center ground for compromise. Copyright probably needs to go back to what it was around 130 years ago when it was a sane compromise. Now that ever happening in the western world is next to impossible unless there are large scale changes in governments. I'm sorta in favor of the idea that Copyright be fair, not non-existent. And not perpetual, and not in favor of massive IP holder trusts.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Twinbee]

I'm sorta in favor of the idea that Copyright be fair, not non-existent.

Interesting, I didn't realize there was a middleground - I thought one had to be either one extreme or the other.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[91degrees]

The pirate part is never going to get a seat in a British election (without major electoral reform). They know this. Single policy parties exist because of the spoiler effect. The people who think copyright reform is the single most important issue will vote Pirate. It's up to the other parties to soften their stance a little to make this more palatable to the voters.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[icebraining]

Which is one of the problems of a representative democracy, especially those with only two or three parties. If you agree with one party in some major issues, and with another in other issues, who do you vote for?

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Anonymous Coward]

You prioritize, same as you do in all other aspects of life where conflicts arise. Shit, if you think voting is hard, wait until you have to decide who to marry.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[daveime]

The one who promises the biggest tax cut for your income bracket of course !

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[91degrees]

Yes, but the problem with the alternative is that most people (including me) are stupid. Everyone wants lower taxes and more spending.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[t0p]

The candidate with the biggest tits?

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[delinear]

In a marginal seat, even a reasonable minority of people voting for these issues could be enough to get them on the agenda of the big parties (after all, telling people you're going to soften your stance on copyright isn't likely to lose you votes, it might lose you some financial support but if the result is a couple of extra seats in parliament then they might consider it worth the hit).

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[dotKuro]

Although I agree with Zombie Ryushu in that in principle the PP's ideals are far better than in practice, I do not agree that copyright should "go back to what it was around 130 years ago". Instead, copyright should be entirely optional. Indeed, perhaps copyright could be sold by the govt; if the creator of something wishes to copyright it, he must make a one-time payment to the govt, and perhaps they could sell the copyrighting rights for certain things to private bodies as well. That way, copyright would exist but most things would not be copyrighted and the state would keep money, and so the country would prosper.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Cederic]

Particularly when a hung parliament is a serious consideration.

Those swing seats are prime single-issue playgrounds right now.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Thnurg]

We don't expect to get a seat in this election. It is enough that we get publicity. However in 2011 we have the Scottish Parliament election. This election is a proportional representation system. Us pirates in Scotland plan to fight this one hard.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[tomtomtom]

The pirate part is never going to get a seat in a British election (without major electoral reform). They know this. Single policy parties exist because of the spoiler effect. The people who think copyright reform is the single most important issue will vote Pirate. It's up to the other parties to soften their stance a little to make this more palatable to the voters.

Indeed, they can have a significant influence on policy. For example, although the Referendum Party failed to win a single seat in an election, they still achieved their goal as they more or less forced the major parties to adopt their only policy.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Yvanhoe]

I only know the official positions of the Swedish and French Pirate Party but what they propose is :
- A 5 years period, running from the first publication, copyright granting exclusive commercial rights
- Legalizing sharing of copies with no commercial goal, even during the 5 years period
- Extend the period for 5 years for every of these clauses the author adds : free to modify non commercially, free to use commercially, free to modify and use commercially (in the latter the author still is the recognize author with all the moral rights it encompasses, after this period it goes into public domain)

It may seem extreme to some but it looks quite fair to me.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[icebraining]

Since they tend to be males, you mean the fattest? I find that a disturbing metric...

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Kethinov]

This is a common sentiment, but it completely fails to address the real problem.

Even if copyright lasted only one year, piracy would still be rampant. The only answer is to legalize noncommercial copyright infringement (which is what the Pirate Party is campaigning for) and focus on restructuring business models to compete with noncommercial sharing rather than try and pretend that it doesn't exist or matter.

If we can do that, then the length of copyright terms won't matter.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[Petrushka]

Copyright probably needs to go back to what it was around 130 years ago when it was a sane compromise.

In 1880 copyright in the UK extended for 42 years or life-plus-7 (that's 7, not 70), whichever was longer. That's according to someone on Wikipedia, mind, so take it with a pinch of salt.

In my view that's still too long. Personally I see no public benefit in tying copyright to an author's lifespan at all.

Re:In Principle vs. Practical

[mjwx]

In Principle I really support what the Pirate party works. But in practical sense, there is a left-of-center ground for compromise. Copyright probably needs to go back to what it was around 130 years ago when it was a sane compromise.

I'm a supporter (paying member) of the Pirate Party AU, I dont support the abolishment of copyright but it needs to be fixed and fixed as soon as possible. Most people would feel the same as you about copyright. My personal agenda is:
1. Copyrights terms are reduced to reasonable limits (5-10 years IMO)
2. Personal infringement is immune from prosecution. Commercial infringement carries the same punishment as today (this is why copyright infringement punishments are so harsh, a dodgy CD pressing operation makes a lot of money and does deprive legitimate businesses (I just threw up a bit in my mouth) of revenue where as personal infringement does not equate to a sale).
3. Creator retains rights to their work. exclusive or non exclusive, time limited distribution rights may be granted by the artist.
4. No infringement charges can be laid if the work is unavailable/not distributed (as no sale could have possibly been lost).

Knocking it back to the Berne Treaty would be a great start but we'd still have problems as 50 years is too long for works these days when most media is only expected to sell for six months and then removed from distribution.

Money

[Alistair Hutton]

In a world with no copyright for "non commercial" distribution of work how is anyone who creates a non subscription fee based computer game or e-book supposed to make money given that the work will be freely available on file sharing sites?

Re:Money

[damburger]

Why do they have an a priori right to make money in this way?

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy to answer. Content creators will be paid for the work they are actually doing at the time of content creation, not for the work they have done 20 years ago. The people that need the content---be it music, software, news or books---will pay the content creators. How this works in the detail depends on the domain. Most musicians, for example, already today live off teaching and giving concerts, so for them the changes will not be very huge. Journals and news items will probably become subscription-based and hand-tailored to the interests of the customers. How it affects the book market I personally cannot imagine, but since the vast majority of authors cannot make a living out of their books right now either, the changes will be much smaller than you might expect. I suppose the selling of physical items will become more important, so e.g. things like the quality of the print and typesetting of a book will matter more than now. Textbooks will be written by university staff and made available for free, which is already getting more and more common without changes in copyright law. All in all, the changes will be smaller than people might expect. However, there will be less crappy pop music, because wannabe musicians will no longer be able to compete against the professionals who have studied their instruments when their most important source of income is from live music and teaching.

Re:Money

[AllyGreen]

Why would they make the work in the first place then?

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

Because I like new games that require a team of 100 and millions of dollars to produce?

Of course there is no a priori right to make money from an activity but what's the a priori right behind property laws (one man's property is another indigenous people's theft) or earning a wage for any job? Copyright has allowed us to move beyond the creative tyranny of patronage to an explosion of independent creation and allowing the investment of ridiculous sums of money into creative works.

Sure the setup we've got now is tilted incorrectly but the correct solution is reform not to burn the whole edifice to the ground.

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

Lets not go down a silly goose route. Lots of people create works for the fun of creating works, without copyright there would still be creative works but:

• There would not be the variety as certain types of creative works would be totally unfeasible to create.
• People would not have the opportunity to make a living from their creative works thus limiting the number that a person could produce
• Large corporation would be easily able to 'wait out' the little man to then exploit popular creative works (for T-shirt designs and other tat) as the Pirate party "commercial" copyright lasts only 5 years.
• We'd move back to a system of patronage for large works which relies on the edification of donors for the creation of work.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

And how much will they be paid? The Standard Rate as defined by government? So, you're basically advocating communism.

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

How does a computer game get funded under this system?

Re:Money

[itsdapead]

In a world with no copyright for "non commercial" distribution of work how is anyone who creates a non subscription fee based computer game or e-book supposed to make money given that the work will be freely available on file sharing sites?

Ask for donations? It seemed to go OK for Radiohead, provided you don't use RIAA fantasy accounting to count every non-payer as a $20 loss. (I also know of one independent band who successfully financed their last several albums by getting fans to pay over the odds, in advance for "limited edition" CDs. It worked, because fans wanted to support the band).

Get a day job and treat writing/making music as an enjoyable hobby? Accept that the technology that enables you to produce and distribute studio quality music or camera-ready publications for a fraction of the historical cost also has a downside? Heck, you might even make money from t-shirts and souvenir signed copies (sorry if you can't afford the trophy wife/husband and have to drive a car that can pass over speed humps).

Free software seems to have a pretty workable business model but, admittedly, its harder to sell support and consultancy for "art" like a music album, a novel or even a game...

Last time I looked, however, most of the Arts relied pretty heavily on subsidies (be it from Government or from private philanthropists). Why should music and literature be a cash cow?

Meanwhile, the flipside of the problem is that the status quo - strong copyright - is also in danger of stifling the arts (if artists can't take inspiration from earlier works without awakening copyright trolls, what then?) Current status in the UK, by the way, is that ripping a legally-bought CD to your own iPod is illegal - although that is rarely, if ever enforced.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I like new games that require a team of 100 and millions of dollars to produce?

Copyright has allowed us to move beyond the creative tyranny of patronage to

the tyranny of corporate control of all works.

This is not an improvement. Corporations don't get old and start worrying about their legacy.

Re:Money

[pv2b]

How would you suggest copyright be reformed?

This is the UK pirate party's stance on copyrights, as from their front page:

Reform copyright [...] law. We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing and reduce the excessive length of copyright protection, while ensuring that when creative works are sold, it's the artists who benefit, not monopoly rights holders. [...]

Do you have another suggestion as for how the copyright system should be reformed that would be more moderate and still effective? Or are you just agreeing with the UK PP without knowing that you are? :-)

The concept that the pirate party movement wants to dismantle any and all copyright law is a wide-spread misconception. The stance (at least for the UK and Swedish pirate parties) is more moderate than the name might suggest.

Re:Money

[Targon]

Copyright is more than just some corporate entity making money for 30+ years based on the work of someone else. Copyright is there so that those who make popular works can thrive, and so, make more popular books/programs. So, without copyright, authors, movie studios, and recording artists would not bring in enough money doing what they do to afford to live a comfortable lifestyle.

When it comes to movies, how many people does it take to make a movie, and how much money does it cost just to pay the actors, directors, writers, etc...? The initial box office sales may not be enough to even get back what went in to make the movie, so DVD/BluRay sales also help. And, the studios who make the movies also need enough extra money to be available to make other movies too, it's not just about making money on one movie, it is about having enough cash to survive if one or more movies do not do well(meaning they lose money for the studio).

Music recordings on the other hand are a much smaller operation, since you have the music artist(s), and then you only have the sound rooms and equipment for the recording process. The actual process to get music from the artist to the public does not take nearly as many people, and the actual costs for production are almost insignificant compared to the cost to make a movie, so the record labels and RIAA make far more profit on the sale of music than the movie studios and MPAA make.

You can argue that copyright may last far too long in the current system, but remember, people need to make a living. If you want talented people to continue making good music or movies, then you have to let them make a profit so they can live comfortably enough to continue making good products. There is also the idea that others should not profit off your work without your permission. So, if you make something, you don't want it stolen, even if you can make that "thing" again. Why should others gain from ANYTHING you make or do without YOUR permission? This is where agreements come into play, because when you work for someone else, there is a contract involved in most cases that says that what you do is owned by your employer. Those who create things can always demand that there is a non-transferable right to certain things as well, so your boss can't sell the rights to your work to someone else if such a contract were to be in place.

So, just think in these terms. Copyright may seem broken to those who simply want to download a song to listen to, but that is because the value of the recordings is overly inflated by the record labels and RIAA. The actual value of one recording should be on the order of $0.05(5 cents), with extra fees for the system of getting the music to you. The actual value of a movie is another story, because $20 for a legal copy of a movie may not be that far off. $20 for an audio CD vs. $20 for a BluRay movie....what is wrong with that picture?

Re:Money

[VJ42]

And how much will they be paid? The Standard Rate as defined by government? So, you're basically advocating communism.

Imagine I'm a talented writer or painter. If you want a picture or literary work, pay me and I'll make you one. No government involvement needed.

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

"Legalise non-commercial file sharing"

Is this same as burning it to the ground. Legalised non-commercial file sharing is so close to not having copyright you may as well come out and say it in an honest manner.

This is a free cake policy.

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

I was generally agreeing with them, I felt though that their statement was a touch hyperbolic. Plenty of works are produced for free now and they would still be in the future if copyright was to disappear (which is what the PP, for all their verbal stutter stepping, are proposing). I feel that the counter arguments to the Pirate Party's ridiculous copyright position must be moderate and consistent so I was combining a mild rebuke with a demonstration of the vast swathes of work that would be lost by adopting the PP's policies.

Re:Money

[delinear]

We're already in that world - people already can get anything they want freely from file sharing sites, but they still buy and games, etc are still made. The reasons for this are numerous - maybe a small percentage are people who are scared of being sued, but many more are likely people who want to show their support for a product, or who like the convenience. The middle approach is to prosecute the companies who profit from file sharing, not the end users who are likely your fan base.

Go after the big file sharing sites, play whack a mole, make it painful for them if you want, they're the ones making money from other people's hard work, but stop suing the little guy and everyone wins. Those who are time rich but cash poor still get to enjoy your product, and you get to enjoy the massive goodwill they'll spread to their friends and relatives who are working and will give you money. Instead we have a horrible mess of artists suing their fans, angering the fans and making the artists look like scum, while everyone loses out because of crappy DRM (which probably drives as many people too file sharing sites as the threat of legal action drives away).

Re:Money

[JasterBobaMereel]

By the same logic that mime artist who performs on the high street has a right to be paid by everyone who sees his act .... ...You have two options
      hire a venue, charge people to watch your act, and hope they come...
      perform in public, and hope they pay...

Published works should be the same : give me something physical and hope I am willing to pay for it, or give it away and ask for payment if they like it...

The current copyright system works on the principle of selling something that people are forced to pay for when they don't need to ...

Re:Money

[delinear]

While I don't take a hardline stance that all copyright should be eradicated, playing devil's advocate for a moment, you can't say that artists wouldn't produce worthwhile work in the absence of copyright, because we already know that for hundreds of years they did just that. Some of them did very well for themselves, too.

Charging for performances (for music artists, gigs, for movies, make the cinema experience actually something worthwhile to compete with the home cinema experience, for painters, exhibitions, etc); patronage (actually corporate sponsorship in this day and age would be more likely, and we've already seen how lucrative that can be for artists); asking your fans for donations (much easier now than ever where anyone can set up a page on the internet to accept donations and can use blogging/micro blogging tools to get their message out).

Removing copyright would, of course, mean that artists had to survive on merit rather than having a god-given right to make money, but I honestly can't see how that would be a bad thing. If the ones who don't care passionately about what they do just slink off into the night, has society been cheapened by their loss? Maybe not so many artists will be able to live the millionaire lifestyle, but again, the ones who are only in it for the money are probably not a great loss (and nobody guarantees the rest of society to live a "comfortable" lifestyle but they seem to still turn up for work every day...).

Re:Money

[IBBoard]

Why do you have an a priori right to take, use and enjoy their work without compensating them?

In the time of Beethoven then music couldn't easily be copied and so some benefactor would pay for its creation or performance - the people responsible got paid for the creation of entertainment. Now that it is easily copyable, people assume that they have some all-powerful right to take whatever they want for no particular reason and with no compensation, and I've yet to see any sensible reason why that doesn't devolve to "because I can and because I want everything for free".

Re:Money

[mpe]

In a world with no copyright for "non commercial" distribution of work how is anyone who creates a non subscription fee based computer game or e-book supposed to make money given that the work will be freely available on file sharing sites?

Even with copyright there is no guarentee that you will make money. At least in a "capitalist" economy. The other thing is that plenty of people "give away" plenty of stuff right now. Sometimes without expecting any financial reward, sometimes asking for donations, sometimes to encourage sales of something else (even the same content in a different form).

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

The current copyright system works on the principle of selling something that people are forced to pay for when they don't need to ...

Really? This is really your argument? What things are there that you're being forced to purchase?

And just to address the rest of your argument, the mime artist has explicitly chosen to give away their performance. Producers of digital works, for example computer games, don't have the option of private performances in your model, are you saying their only option is donation-ware?

Re:Money

[schon]

Why do you have an a priori right to take, use and enjoy their work without compensating them?

Mu. Nobody's talking about taking anything from them.

For the other two - why do you have the right to read my post without compensating me? You're doing it right now.

Re:Money

[JasterBobaMereel]

...Really?

So the computer game manufacturer cannot, make a machine that can only be sold wholesale (Games arcades), or force me to be connected to their server all the time to enable the game to play, or force me to download a copy each time?

Instead they allow me to download a copy, which I could copy from elsewhere, and I have to pay them for the priviledge of playing legally, this would be considered demanding money with menaces if it were not government sanctioned

What is the difference between a legal copy of software and a "pirate" copy, nothing...

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

you don't have to buy any of those things. I honestly have no idea what yo are trying to say.

Re:Money

[Philip_the_physicist]

It is already freely available on the net, and everyone knows that. Where I am, the penalty of non-commercial downloading is less than the retail price of the product, and yet people still buy software, films, CDs, and so on.

Everyone knows that paper books end up on the net pretty quickly, especially university textbooks and so on, yet people still write and sell them. E-books aren't going to be much worse, and at least there's less overhead to produce an e-book only edition.

Re:Money

[Targon]

The issue of needing copyright today is caused by how easy it is to duplicate things today compared to how things were in the past. Prior to the printing press for example, a duplicate needed to be done by hand, which would take a lot of time. In that situation where a lot of time would be needed to copy a printed work, there would be less concern.

The printing press then came on the scene, and suddenly, it opened the door to some problems. Still, the idea of an author earning credit for their work had to be there. Also, the printing press itself, and the work to print something wasn't terribly easy. Due to the difficulty to make a book, those investing in the printing equipment started to get some rights if they were paying the author for the publishing rights.

And, how much paper does it take, and how much cost was there. The original author still deserved SOMETHING...the idea that others should be able to make money on the work of someone else is what copyright is all about. The author writes something, and no matter how far down the line something goes, the author should always get SOME portion of the profits.

And that is really what is going on today, who makes money on the work of others? Pirated music, or movies gives nothing back to the people who have made them, and there is no skill required to duplicate ANYTHING anymore.

So, back to some of the things you have said...

Artists would need to survive on merit...does that mean that they would need to keep performing concerts, while their songs are sold in a store for a profit for the rest of eternity? So, other people keep making money on a recording the original artist made, and that artist is expected not to make money on that same recording? If the world can enjoy listening to a recorded track for all eternity, shouldn't the original recording artist also deserve SOMETHING for each copy since people still listen to it?

An artist who makes one song that does not sell well doesn't deserve to just get money for nothing, but if you like a song enough to keep listening to it, shouldn't the artist who performed get something? Basically, it should be up to the artist to decide the reproduction rules on their work since skill isn't needed for reproduction of music.

Basically, I am an advocate of those who create things getting paid for what they have made, and I am against corporate entities who make money off artists and don't give the artists their fair share of the proceeds. For music, if 10,000,000 people want to download a music track at $1 per copy, at least 10 cents of each dollar should go to the artist. For movies, it is a bit tough, since the cost to make a movie is so high, it may take 10,000,000 sales at $20 each just to break even on the production costs. At that point, can you say that any illegal copies are acceptable if something you enjoy ended up causing a net loss to make it?

Things would be a bit different if it cost $1000 for the equipment needed to do reproductions plus a lot more for materials and such, but let's face it, technology has allowed for cheap reproduction, and those who create WOULD be screwed without some protections in place to make sure they get properly compensated.

Re:Money

[bws111]

How exactly is copyright not merit based? Here is my offering - if you want it, pay me. What could be more merit based than that? Where does the god-given right to make money come from? If there is such an automatic right granted by copyright, why aren't you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams? After all, all you need to do is slap a copyright on something, and you can make a fortune.

Re:Money

[MaXimillion]

The same way they do right now? The situation you describe is already reality.

Re:Money

[mpe]

you can't say that artists wouldn't produce worthwhile work in the absence of copyright, because we already know that for hundreds of years they did just that.

More like tens of thousands of years. Copyright is a quite modern concept.

Re:Money

[bws111]

OK, so you make ME one. How does the rest of the world benefit from that? Do you think that only people who can afford to pay the full cost of production for something are entitled to it? Or am I somehow bound to release it to the rest of the world (for free)? Or are you free to give the work that I paid for to the rest of the world?

Re:Money

[DAldredge]

"why do you have the right to read my post without compensating me" Because you agreed to let people do that when you clicked the submit button.

Re:Money

[IBBoard]

Mu. Nobody's talking about taking anything from them.

Even if you don't remove the item from their possession and deprive them of it, you're still "taking" a copy of their work, using it and enjoying it (presumably).

For the other two - why do you have the right to read my post without compensating me? You're doing it right now.

Because you posted it to a place where the purpose is for other people to read the content and comments for free.

My example was of writing and publishing a book or music through retail channels then finding people are getting it without compensating you. Yours is like writing a story and posting it to FanFiction.net or any other "free to read" Internet archive and then asking why you aren't getting compensated.

Re:Money

[VJ42]

Or are you free to give the work that I paid for to the rest of the world?

After 10 years (PPUKs proposed maximum copyright period), then yes, I am free to give it away. You are also free to share and\or sell it (or copies of it) as soon as you buy it from me.

Re:Money

[Targon]

The ability to duplicate a printed work in minutes, rather than days/weeks/months is also a modern concept. Think about it, before the printing press, it took a lot of effort to duplicate a printed work, then the printing press allowed a single setup to make as many copies as desired, but after the fact, for someone else to make a copy would require the configuration work on a new printing press to make multiple copies. And now, with photocopier technology, you can take the work of others and just read it into a computer, and then make as many as you want from there.

And that is where the need for copyright comes from, the EASY duplication of the work of others. If it takes an author a year to write a book, and a publisher several months to prepare and print, how long would it take for someone who buys just one copy of a book to reproduce all that effort by others?

Re:Money

[Wildclaw]

What right do you have to impose restrict laws that decrease the wealth of the entire society, all while using lierspeak by equalizing copying with taking?

Re:Money

[Yvanhoe]

Some ideas :
* Subscription-based a la WoW
* Ransom model ("Here is the first level, I'll release the second one when the $10,000 mark will be reached)
* Donation model (Dwarf Fortress works like that, they make $1000-$2000 a month IIRC)
* For all the rest, there is (or will be) Flattr. Brought to you by The Pirate Bay creators, because the entertainment industries specialists were too dumb to figure it by themselves.

There is one thing to repeat over and over and over : retribution of the artist cannot come anymore from the control of the distribution chain of copies. This time is OVER. Any music/movie/video game enthusiast is aware that such a retribution is important. And that is why we are hostile to the **AA crowd : they can't get a good one, despite it being their damn (overpaid) job.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

oh for fucks sake.
The most popular movie on earth right now is AVATAR.
Given that tens of millions of people paid money to see it. we can extrapolate that this is the sort of movie people enjoy.
And without copyright

It

Would

Not

get

Made

And yet slashdot piracy loving fucktards still think the world would be a better place.

What a bunch of fucking morons.
The pirate party should fucking grow up and get jobs.

Re:Money

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't say that artists wouldn't produce worthwhile work in the absence of copyright, because we already know that for hundreds of years they did just that.

Under very different conditions. Under the patronage system, the patron received fairly exclusive access to the artist's product. The musician or playwright in house; the sculpture or painting retained by the patron; writings difficult to reproduce. People just don't pay for something unless they perceive the scarcity of that thing, and electronic duplication completely separates the false scarcity of duplication from the real scarcity of creation.

The scarcity of creation is hard for people to see. Think about this, though: anyone can play "Chopsticks;" many people can play the Emperor Concerto; a few people can play it well, but only Beethoven could write it. Beethoven only published 140 works during his life (produced maybe 400); a modern musician puts out 1-2 albums a year, maybe 4 really good tracks and another 25 filler. If the creativity were free, wouldn't they produce songs faster than 2 weeks, or produce nothing but good stuff?

Maybe the electronic tip jar will be an effective substitute for the medieval patron. Maybe the young generation really does understand that the cost of art is more than the cost of the media. I know there's a few artists who've tried 'pay what you want' download schemes, although my impression is this only works once they're big stars. I want musicians better than street-corner acts and I want games better than Tux Racer.

Re:Money

[pv2b]

Copyright is a lot more than criminalizing non-commercial copying.

It's about not having mere printers or publishers make a buck off you by selling copies just above cost - exploiting your work commercially.

It's about being recognised as the author of your work.

It's should be about being able to have a monopoly to exploit your work - in a commercial fashion - not as a license to dig into private communications to make sure that you're not swapping "the wrong bits".

You didn't answer my last question though. You think copyright law should be reformed. In what way?

Re:Money

[cpt kangarooski]

In a world with no copyright for "non commercial" distribution of work how is anyone who creates a non subscription fee based computer game or e-book supposed to make money given that the work will be freely available on file sharing sites?

But wait, we already have non-subscription fee-based computer games and e-books that are freely available on file sharing sites. That world you mention was Earth all along! You maniacs!

Really though, the trick is 1) making commercial resellers more attractive than their non-commercial competitors; 2) keeping a very close eye on the non-commercial sites, which presumably couldn't have ads, couldn't solicit donations, couldn't have upload/download ratios, etc.; 3) if all else fails, making different kinds of works or accepting that there will be less money flowing in. No one ever said that certain art forms would be permanently viable. Vaudeville should teach us that.

Re:Money

[Alistair Hutton]

Yes, but they're not legal.

You're argument is akin to me going, "making murder legal would increase murders and decrease the numbers of alive people" and you saying, "but people can murder all ready, get with the times".

Yes, I analogised copyright infringement to murder. I went there.

Re:Money

[IBBoard]

What makes a story or a song the wealth of the entire society? Why should a craftsman of (for example) a chair be paid hundreds of [insert currency] for a chair but the craftsman of a story or song be paid 99 [insert fractions of currencies] for the same amount of hours work put in before everyone decides they have some inherent right to copy it for free?

As for "lierspeak"[sic], fine, replace it with whatever you want that doesn't imply consumption of a resource. I use "take" in a non-depriving manner for "take a copy" or "take a photo". If you're particularly upset about that then the question still stands while using a less 'contentious' phrase.

I agree that copying is not theft (despite what the media companies say), but copying not being theft doesn't make it an instantly and undeniably good thing for the cultural world if everyone is free to copy everything.

Re:Money

[cpt kangarooski]

In the time of Beethoven then music couldn't easily be copied

Yes it could; there was a well-known system of notation, and plenty of printers who could print more copies of sheet music. It might not have been as easy as it is now, but there were pirate printers. (Although to be fair, the market for regular books was bigger, so it had more pirates) Sound recordings couldn't be made at all yet, but that only helped to keep performers in business, not composers. And Beethoven himself had to put up with pirates and such.

Ease of copying is really a red herring. You think copying is easy now, but I'm sure that someday there will be technologies that make it even more effortless, and the people living then will think that we had a hard time of it with our primitive Internet and puny computers.

At any point in time you care to name, legitimate and illegitimate publishers have enjoyed either a parity in technology (whether that technology is quill pens, or movable type, or CD presses), or the legitimate publishers have enjoyed an advantage due to their being able to operate more openly, being able to raise and spend more money, having first mover advantage, etc.

There is no technological reason why the RIAA, MPAA, etc. cannot use P2P file sharing in order to distribute their goods. Pirates have no advantage here. In fact, the industry could probably even get better equipment and network connections than people working out of their parents' basements.

They just can't figure out how to make money doing it. It's a business problem, not a technological one.

Now that it is easily copyable, people assume that they have some all-powerful right to take whatever they want for no particular reason and with no compensation, and I've yet to see any sensible reason why that doesn't devolve to "because I can and because I want everything for free".

People have always thought that. And frankly, you nailed the sensible reason. 'Because I can, and because I want things for free (i.e. I want to profit the most from the least investment)' is a perfectly sensible reason.

I mean, what did you think copyright was? Copyright attempts to encourage authors to create and publish works, by providing a purely economic incentive. A copyright won't confer fame, or help an artist create for art's sake. Rather, a copyright is a way for authors to prohibit other people from competing with them for identical, commodity goods. It only appeals to an author's desire to profit the most from the least investment.

Authors and pirates have exactly the same motives. Neither side is more righteous than the other. It's all just self-interest: The self-interest of the public is to get more creative works at the least cost. This is done by appealing to the self-interest of authors to get more money, which they'll do at the least cost to themselves. Frankly, if one or both sides were not so greedy, copyright either wouldn't be useful, or wouldn't function.

Re:Money

[sopssa]

If I get what you're saying correctly is, you want more DRM on games like the newest Ubisoft's be-always-connected-to-their-servers-to-play? Or encrypted and locked down game consoles? Is this really the route you want to go?

Re:Money

[cpt kangarooski]

Nevertheless, file sharing is rampant, and has been for over a decade (I can't believe how long it's been since Napster came out and was shut down). If it was so terrifically deadly to the industry, why haven't we seen various major companies go out of business as a direct result?

And, even if file sharing could bring down the likes of Sony, or EMI, and would reduce the number of works created and published, the question remains as to whether or not the public would be better off with fewer works, but more freedom as to those works, or more works, but less freedom as to them. My feeling is that the former is the way to go. I don't think there would be a significant reduction in the number of works, but there would be a far greater increase in our ability to enjoy works.

Plus, laws should generally reflect our social norms. If a law is contrary to how we generally behave when we feel we're doing the right thing, then it should be looked at critically. This is appropriate in a democratically-based country, where the government receives its legitimacy on the basis of the consent of the people. In some cases the law can be justified because it useful to society, even though it is not obviously so; in other cases, it might be important to protect unpopular minorities or civil liberties exercised in unpopular ways. For example, most people speed, and no one likes getting a speeding ticket, even if it is deserved, but most people would agree that posting and enforcing speed limits is important for safety. Prohibition was quite popular in its day, and people honestly thought it was for the best, but everyone flaunted it, and the disrespect for that law resulted in widespread corruption, violence, and strengthened organized crime. But as the federal government pursued desegregation, contrary to the wishes of very many people, they acted correctly.

If copyright laws are being widely ignored, we had better examine them. Do people think the laws are appropriate, but everyone hopes to get away with breaking them, as with speed limits? Do people lack respect for these particular laws (though perhaps not some alternative copyright law that was more in line with our norms), with the danger that such disrespect could bleed over into more important areas? Or is the law as it is more important than what people feel the law ought to be, leading to it being enforced on a society that largely rejects it?

Personally, I think that copyright ought to be respected, but it must first be deserving of respect. If it is going to be broken, it should be like speeding tickets, where people might try to sneak under the radar for their own convenience, but do sometimes get caught, and don't reject the concept behind the law, or the law itself. But right now it is like Prohibition, and is far stronger than it really ought to be. It's not like civil liberties, as it just isn't that important.

Re:Money

[IBBoard]

Yes it could; there was a well-known system of notation, and plenty of printers who could print more copies of sheet music. It might not have been as easy as it is now, but there were pirate printers. (Although to be fair, the market for regular books was bigger, so it had more pirates) Sound recordings couldn't be made at all yet, but that only helped to keep performers in business, not composers. And Beethoven himself had to put up with pirates and such.

However 1) Beethoven would probably have got paid an awful lot more for his work before it got copied and 2) having the sheet music (which needs a skilled group to play it) is nowhere near the same as having a perfect copy of the artist's performance - it is more like getting some 16Kbps MP3 of a drunk singing notes in the bath and claiming "I've got Beethoven's music for free".

There is no technological reason why the RIAA, MPAA, etc. cannot use P2P file sharing in order to distribute their goods. Pirates have no advantage here.

True enough - the BBC even does it itself in the form of the BBC iPlayer. If you're not careful and don't realise it then the damned thing chews through your monthly bandwidth allowance even when you aren't running it so that they can share their programmes without everyone having to flood out a collection of BBC servers. Not ideal when it is not obvious that it does it, but certainly useful from the BBC's point of view.

People have always thought that. And frankly, you nailed the sensible reason. 'Because I can, and because I want things for free (i.e. I want to profit the most from the least investment)' is a perfectly sensible reason.

"Sensible" as in "completely short-sighted and self-serving", yes. But not "sensible" as in "has some kind of logical basis that isn't to the detriment of the people putting in the work".

Rather, a copyright is a way for authors to prohibit other people from competing with them for identical, commodity goods. It only appeals to an author's desire to profit the most from the least investment.

So the pro-copying people say, but my wife is an amateur author and wouldn't want to try to publish her books if everyone was free to copy it, and I'm a programmer with apps released under the GPL and I wouldn't bother with any of those projects if it wasn't for copyright. If I want to put in my time and effort to write a program to help people, and as 'payment' I want people to contribute changes back when they distribute (a requirement that can only really happen under copyright, since EULAs are void in many nations and dubious in others) but I can't guarantee that then I wouldn't bother with the apps and I'd just waste away my time on more private hobbies that don't involve me distributing things.

Authors and pirates have different motives. Authors (in general) want to publish for people's enjoyment and to be recompensed for their work and effort (since it often involves effort that would otherwise have gone in to a job, leaving them requiring some form of 'wage' or else a) they wouldn't live or b) they've had to get a different job and so wouldn't be able to write). Pirates, on the other hand, want to get enjoy other people's work for zero effort on their part (unless you count "finding a torrent" as effort).

Re:Money

[cpt kangarooski]

However 1) Beethoven would probably have got paid an awful lot more for his work before it got copied

Probably not; everyone knew it would be copied if it was any good, so the only premium would be based on a first mover advantage, or being able to claim that it was an authorized edition. Beethoven did make some money by having copies of his music sold, but he also made money as a performer, and through patronage.

2) having the sheet music (which needs a skilled group to play it) is nowhere near the same as having a perfect copy of the artist's performance

Sure, but even Beethoven himself didn't have perfect copies of his own performances. Sound recording technology didn't exist at the time.

"Sensible" as in "completely short-sighted and self-serving", yes. But not "sensible" as in "has some kind of logical basis that isn't to the detriment of the people putting in the work".

Well, it's cleary not short-sighted. Copyright can yield a greater payoff to the public than not having copyright at all, but it forces you to wait, and it isn't a terribly obvious way of doing things (although it is fairly elegant). Copyright is self-serving on the part of the public, but this is to be expected, and is perfectly reasonable. Why should the public do something that would be utterly contrary to their self-interest, after all? Why should the government be in the business of doing things that are completely against the good of the people? That's not why we empower them to govern. Even the ludicrous financial industry bailout of late has had to be justified with claims that it would ultimately benefit everyone more than not doing it, and it's a pretty naked example of corruption, in the opinion of many people.

Authors aren't special little snowflakes who, merely by virtue of their existence, deserve special rights that can be exercised against the world. How arrogant and appalling that would be. We grant authors copyrights because it is a means of exploiting them for the overall public benefit, even after taking into account the cost of copyright borne by the public. Think of a farmer getting a donkey to pull a cart, by dangling a carrot in front of its nose. The farmer might spend the cost of a single carrot in the process, but he gets to sell the rest of the cartload once the donkey gets him to market. Both sides benefit, but the farmer benefits more; that's copyright.

So the pro-copying people say, but my wife is an amateur author and wouldn't want to try to publish her books if everyone was free to copy it

Okay, why? It can't be that she's afraid of how it might be received, as a book can be a success or a failure regardless of copyright. It can't be that her muse would leave her if she published her work; the creative impulse isn't lessened by sharing a work.

And copyright seeks to have authors publish their work. While some protection might be appropriate for an unfinished work, or unpublished work, provided that the author didn't abandon it, the ultimate goal of copyright is to increase the number of works in the public domain. If a work is kept under lock and key with no intention of ever being published, it is contrary to good copyright policy to grant the author a copyright. So while she could be concerned about it becoming published at all, there's no reason for us to enable her. In fact, the hunger for more works being what it is, having the MS pirated would be better in that case.

So why, if not for an economic reason?

'm a programmer with apps released under the GPL and I wouldn't bother with any of those projects if it wasn't for copyright. If I want to put in my time and effort to write a program to help people, and as 'payment' I want people to contribute changes back when they distribute (a requirement that can only really happen under copyright, since EULAs are void in many nations and dubious in others) but I can't guarantee that then I wouldn't bother with the apps and I'd just waste away my time on more private hobbie

Re:Money

[L4t3r4lu5]

Why can't they benefit from other works by the same person?

Remember that an original is not the same as a print or a photograph, or the Mona Lisa would be worthless by now.

Re:Money

[bky1701]

Here's a shocker: if the government handed out billions to movie production companies, we could have even "BETTER" movies than Avatar!...

This is more or less what copyright does, except less obviously. Instead of handing out money, it hands out little monopolies which get used to abuse others to the point of extortion. In neither case is it right simply because the product you get out of it has some sort of perceived value.

Also, expectations increase as the products increase. When it was released, Star Wars has the best special effects anyone ever saw - now it is almost laughable. You aren't getting anything better, just a new coat of paint and a vague feeling of progress, which I find hardly worth sacrificing the possibilities of true freedom of communication for.

Not to mention, you don't know that those projects are actually impossible without copyright. Equally impressive works of art (in terms of difficulty) were created long before copyright existed. Architecture, for one, has been around a very long time, and media is becoming more and more like it every day. You simply cannot know what is and is not possible without copyright; claiming you do just shows you are full of shit.

PPAU apathy

[acehole]

I'm wondering if you had any trouble getting members for the party as opposed to what is happening in Australia. The pirate party here is suffering from member apathy, no one is going as far to fill out the paper work in order to help the party get the numbers needed to register as a political party. Has the UK pirate party had any similar issues?

Re:PPAU apathy

[mpe]

I'm wondering if you had any trouble getting members for the party as opposed to what is happening in Australia. The pirate party here is suffering from member apathy, no one is going as far to fill out the paper work in order to help the party get the numbers needed to register as a political party. Has the UK pirate party had any similar issues?

In the UK political parties are entirely private entities. It's perfectly possible to have one of only one member. It's also possible for someone to be a member of more than one political party.

Re:PPAU apathy

[Yvanhoe]

Advice here from the PP-fr : the PP is an internet-based movement. Compared to a physical world movement it means that it will be easier to hear from friendly people but also that the proportion of friendly people you heard from that are actually enthusiastic enough to spend time helping/work for you is quite small. If you need to gather 20 people, better have 1000 people in your network as opposed to the 50/60 you would require in the physical-world case.

I can't say for sure this is your case but don't misunderstand that phenomenon for apathy. It is quite natural and quite positive but can give wrong expectations in terms of active membership.

Re:PPAU apathy

[Anonymous Coward]

Advice here from the PP-fr : the PP is an internet-based movement... If you need to gather 20 people, better have 1000 people in your network as opposed to the 50/60 you would require in the physical-world case

True. I did not understand why the PPAU website started asking for non internet based communication. e.g:

Applying is very easy. Simply get the PDF from here, fill in the form, print it out, sign it and mail it to:...

WTF? Your dealing with internauts running on info overload already - who are used to clicking around and at most, a few paragraphs of IM/email now and then. Make all your correspondence, registration processes quick, easy and most importantly internet based. Requiring printing and snail mailing means your just turning away your potential members and missing out on the network effect that they bring. Also, most of your young internet users are not even registered to vote and do not believe it makes any difference, let alone willing to print and mail stuff to you. Where are all your "How and why to register to vote", "Motivation to vote" type tutorials and educational articles? It appeared to me that the PPAU does not understand its potential support base - and if it is starting to cry "Member Apathy" without even trying to reach out to its potential support base, then it is lost before it even tried...

Re:PPAU apathy

[bbqsrc]

PPUK only needed 150 while PPAU needs 500. Different political structure, different society.

Bring in a 3 strikes law

[Xest]

Can we have a 3 strikes for politicians so that when they've been caught with red handed with their hand in the checkout 3 times they're jailed and banned from ever entering politics again so that the likes of Mandelson would never have got to a position where he could single-handedly manipulate the Digital Economy Bill in the first place?

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[sakdoctor]

3 strikes? What about zero tolerance?

Politicians are placed in an elevated position of trust, and need to be bludgeoned by the ban hammer for the slightest indiscretion.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[abigsmurf]

I enjoy having a parliament which actually has people in it.

Everyone makes mistakes, even the most pure and honest people and the rules for MPs are mind bogglingly complex. Do we really want a situation where someone has been in politics for 30 years, has helped move the country into a new age of prosperity, suddenly gets sacked and loses his pension because he ate a cookie a little girl baked for him as thanks for keeping their school open (accepting a bribe/not declaring a gift)?

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[VJ42]

Can we have a 3 strikes for politicians so that when they've been caught with red handed with their hand in the checkout 3 times they're jailed and banned from ever entering politics again so that the likes of Mandelson would never have got to a position where he could single-handedly manipulate the Digital Economy Bill in the first place?

You joke, but our draft manifesto addresses transparency in government: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Drafts:Manifesto_Proposal#We_want_increased_government_transparency_and_accountability it's being voted on as I speak.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[t0p]

Sure, people make mistakes. But sometimes the "mistakes" are anything but. Look at the British MPs who were found to have fiddled the expenses system. Each and every one of them said their over-claiming was a "mistake". If you get nicked for fraud and tell the court that it was all a "mistake", the jury or judges will consider your explanation before deciding whether you're guilty or not. We need to have a similar system to deal with parliamentary misconduct. An adjudication panel that listens to an errant MP's explanation, considers it, then makes a ruling of guilt or innocence. If the MP is found to have made an honest mistake, he just repays the money and all is well. If the panel decides that the MP is a lying fraudster, he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And the law should demand extremely serious punishment. Disqualification from political office in the future should be a given. I don't think that prison should be discounted either. Betraying the trust of the electorate is a heinous act and should be punished accordingly. Some people claim that such draconian measures would deter would-be politicians from ever standing for election. I disagree: the only ones to be deterred would be those who were planning to defraud the system. Scrupulously honest would-be candidates will have nothing to fear.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[JasterBobaMereel]

That would be Lord Mandelson ... not an MP, not elected, not prime minister.. and so cannot single handedly do anything without the consent of his colleagues ...

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[delinear]

The rules that MPs have to stop them lining their own pockets are mind-bogglingly complex purely because MPs have proven so creative at finding new ways to do so. However, to not fall foul of the rules is relatively simple, don't try and get away with as much as possible within the rules, remember why you're meant to be there in the first place (to promote the best interests of your constituents) and stop trying to game the system. So many MPs came out and said they didn't technically break the rules on expenses, or they didn't know they were falling foul of the complex expenses rules in the first place, but the fact is if they'd not been trying to get something for nothing they would have been in zero danger of breaking the rules.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[advocate_one]

I'm convinced that Mandelson has some serious "dirt" on key members of the Labour party... nothing else explains how he has been able to stage so many comebacks after scandals. He also must have some pretty serious dirt over key members of the establishment & media as well for there not to have been such a stink over it. "Dirt" that may be photos of Tony Blair in flagrante delicto with other males. Who knows, Cherie might be Tony's "beard" to enable him to appear normal.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[Xest]

I like to start gently, 3 strikes would be enough to get rid of the majority of them.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[mpe]

Can we have a 3 strikes for politicians so that when they've been caught with red handed with their hand in the checkout 3 times

That shouldn't leave many.

they're jailed

What spend more public money of these parasites? Far better to conscript them to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. Deport the "Nom doms" too.

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[Xest]

You apparently know absolutely nothing about British politics. Mandelson has a massive amount of power both official and unofficial. This is precisely why he is a Lord, why he keeps turning back up in government despite repeatedly getting caught red handed in some scheme of corruption or another.

Unofficially, he's one of the most powerful people in the Labour party, and in fact, is the only reason Gordon Brown is still running the party, Brown made Mandelson a Lord and gave him a position on cabinet (more on that later), in return, Mandelson has protected Brown's position as PM. Further, Labour has had a decent jump in the polls since Mandelson was brought back, part of this is the fact Cameron is finally actually unveiling some policies which make the Tories less popular, but part of it is also again down to the fact that Mandelson is if nothing else, skilled at helping sway voter opinion.

If you do live in the UK, here's an exercise for you, go and find a few clips of Brown in public on the news and such, and count how many times Mandelson is less than a few metres from him.

But of course, his unofficial power is unofficial and as such, is open to dispute, even though it's commonly accepted amongst just about all political analysts that Mandelson has a massive amount of unofficial power. There's also his official power though, he is part of the cabinet, he is secretary of state for business, innovation and skills. In this position he was able to unilaterally ensure the return of the possibility of disconnection of repeated file sharers into the bill. Further, he later added clause 17, which would have given him full power to control copyright law enforcement without having to consult parliament, thankfully this was defeated in the Lords.

Combined, the claim that Mandelson has no power to act unilaterally to his interests is ludicrous. He's in a position to construct the bills relevant to his department, and amend as he sees fit and at his will. The Lords is a stumbling point for him because he has less power there, but ultimately if it passes through the Lords, then he has a free run in the commons because Labour has a majority of over 60% such that with the massive amount of power Mandelson holds unofficially within the party, getting laws that have made it through the Lords passed in the commons is, well, a piece of cake for him.

Perhaps the most prominent example since his return to power, is that the government had decided completely and utterly against the idea of 3 strikes, and disconnections for downloading copyright content illegaly, that is until, Mandelson went on holiday with one of Hollywood's richest players:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6797844.ece

A day or so later it was rumoured, a few days later it was confirmed, Mandelson after a meeting with Geffen, had decided to bring back the threat of disconnection. This threat now looks to have made it through the Lords, and is now in with a good chance of being passed before the election. This is a pretty blatant example, of Mandelson managing to get his policy through that until that point, the majority of Labour, and certainly the majority of MPs, simply did not want.

Make no mistake, Mandelson certainly can act unilaterally, and that, coupled with the fact he has been caught in dodgy deal multiple times is why he is so very very dangerous. You might be right that technically he needs the consent of his colleagues, but getting their consent is hardly a difficult task when they're either given incentives of future positions in the cabinet, or disincentives to vote otherwise such as being shunned indefinetely by the party. So, even if he does require their consent, he doesn't have any problem getting it, even if their consent goes against what they actually believe in- if you want a couple of examples, check the opinions of Stephen Timms, and David Lammy, both prior to

Re:Bring in a 3 strikes law

[Xest]

See my post here:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1574328&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=31399694#31400386

The issue with Mandelson is not so much dirt (although I suspect also that that has at least a little bit of play in it) but that as much as I despise him, he's one of the big boys when it comes to politics- for all the things one can hate him for, his ability to manipulate the political landscape would be quite admirable if it wasn't simultaneously so evil.

He just has the support of the right people (i.e. the Blairites) and the contacts in the right places. Brown needed him back because he was the only person that could keep Brown in power, and as I said in my post above- next time you see Brown on the news, have a look for Mandelson, he's never far away, often right next to him in fact. Mandelson is the one manufacturing Labour's rise in the polls such that they're now only 7 points behind the Tories (they were only as far behind as 2 points a few days ago for a little while!) up from as low as 17 points at the start of the expenses scandal last year.

Re:Legitimacy of the Pirate Party?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Mayor, I have a question for you.....what if YOU came home one night to find your family tied up and gagged, with SOCKS in their mouths. They're screaming. You’re trying to get in but there's too much BLOOD on the knob...

Re:Legitimacy of the Pirate Party?

[damburger]

Passive aggressive troll is passive aggressive. Don't put your idiotic opinion into the mouths of anonymous 'pundits and critics'

Maybe when you are all grown up you will learn how to hold a proper argument.

Priorities for spending of funds

[jez9999]

Why does your treasurer and campaigns officer, apparently under heavy pressure from the likes of Eric Priezkalns, feel that spending almost all of the party funds on the upcoming general election is the right way to go, given that, realistically, the PPUK will not make much of an impact in these elections? Don't you think that the better approach is a long-term one, and blowing all the money available to the party right now on the upcoming elections would be resources badly spent, when they could be better used to garner long-term widespread support/publicity, and apply long-term pressure?

Re:Priorities for spending of funds

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it make sense to spend whatever money they have on this, and raise new money for later? I can't imagine they are sitting on a fortune anyway. Since PPUK is currently rather small they should take this chance to get out there.

Diluting possible change

[TDyl]

Given that we have issues of such national and international importance do you not feel that another party, campaigning on such a narrow platform will only dilute the real change that is needed which is the ousting of labour and the restoration of faith in the institution of parliament and the fact that it should be working for the whole population of the UK and not the vested interests of politicians?

Re:Diluting possible change

[VJ42]

Given that we have issues of such national and international importance do you not feel that another party, campaigning on such a narrow platform will only dilute the real change that is needed which is the ousting of labour and the restoration of faith in the institution of parliament and the fact that it should be working for the whole population of the UK and not the vested interests of politicians?

We're not fielding enough candidates at this election to have a big enough impact to either help or hinder the Labour government. It's a non-issue.

Re:Diluting possible change

[Toy G]

Nice little bit of Tory propaganda there. I doubt "ousting Labour" would magically solve all problems with the UK parliamentary system... especially if it means voting in the British equivalent of George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism", a bunch of aristocrats bankrolled by a millionaire living abroad (i.e. the Tories).

Re:Diluting possible change

[JasterBobaMereel]

Labour : Want copyright strictly enforced
Conservative : Want copyright strictly enforced
LibDems : Want copyright strictly enforced

Labour : Caught fiddling expenses
Conservative : Caught fiddling expenses
LibDems : Caught fiddling expenses

Which of the above do I vote for to inspire faith in parliament, and not vote in people who want strong copyright laws for their friends in the media industry?

Re:Diluting possible change

[TDyl]

I don't know what makes you think I'm Tory - I'm just completely fed-up with the pillocks we currently have "representing" us. We have seen so many of our rights eroded since 1997 that almost any change would be better than allowing Brown et al to continue for another term. I will support whoever gets in if they restore public confidence in parliament, drop the fascist ID card idea, return the NHS to the fantastic organisation it once was, stop lying in public inquiries and committees and realise that we are not still a empire and adjust foreign policy accordingly.

Re:Diluting possible change

[TDyl]

Why don't you stand as an indy? If enough of us did we could make one hell of a difference.

Re:Diluting possible change

[Xest]

That's not fair and it's not the first time I've seen this sort of response on Slashdot, in fact, I've had the same response to an anti-Labour post I made in the past.

Please don't assume that people attacking Labour are pro-Tory, I would hope you were able to realise it is possible to hate Labour AND the Tories just as much as each other. It is this attitude of "you're either Tory, or you're Labour" that is precisely what is wrong with British politics today. People treat politics like a football match, they support red and the other guys must support blue or vice versa. There's an awful lot of parties out there- sure there's the Tories and Labour, but there are the Lib Dems, the Greens, The Pirate Party, The Liberal Party, and unfortunately the far right like UKIP and the BNP.

Hating Labour, does not equal liking Conservatives, please keep that in mind when responding to people in future.

Re:Diluting possible change

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, yeah! In fact, why don't those of us who hold similar views on say, Copyright Reform, all come together as a group so we can better express our shared views on certain subjects?

Re:Diluting possible change

[TDyl]

How enlightening and eminently sensible!

Surely being an indy would set you apart from being a member of a group?

There was once a Bristolian politician, a member of the Whigs, that after being voted in to parliament he continuously went against the party whip and voted for what his constituents wanted; this man, Edmund Burke, broke with so many party political traditions he became a hero to many in Bristol (which also happens to be my birth and home town).

Re:Diluting possible change

[TDyl]

Of course this is an issue.

If the climate of politics needs to change in this country then it has to start with anyone assuming they have a right or need to represent the population - if you are willing to butt in here and negate questions prior to them being asked of the interviewee then you are no better than the incumbents.

Re:Diluting possible change

[VJ42]

I'm just a PPUK member giving my opinion

If the climate of politics needs to change in this country then it has to start with anyone assuming they have a right or need to represent the population

Isn't that exactly what we in the PPUK are doing?

- if you are willing to butt in here and negate questions prior to them being asked of the interviewee then you are no better than the incumbents.

I'm not negating anything, just disagreeing.

Re:Diluting possible change

[TDyl]

Nicely put, thank you.

Is that comment copyright because I'd love to be able to use it in some other fora in which I comment ;)

Re:Diluting possible change

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the OP would say you should vote Conservative. ;P

Re:Diluting possible change

[Xest]

You're welcome to use it all you want!

Re:Diluting possible change

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely being an indy would set you apart from being a member of a group?

Perhaps, but my point is that being an independent simply for the sake of "being independent" is a waste of potential. A Tory or Labour candidate will get more coverage from the average independent, baring the odd "shock" indy.

Bristol (which also happens to be my birth and home town).

Oddly enough...same here. If I remember correctly there is a rather nice statue of Edward Burke in the centre.

Since when is autorship transferrable?

[Errol backfiring]

Why do people believe that I can give the fact that I wrote a story or a song away? Shouldn't the first issue in any copyright negotiations be that the author's right is non-transferable?

If author's rights are transferable, the "new author" (a publisher, for example) will not write the sequel to the original book, nor write the next song of the original author. In fact, the author is only discouraged to write anything if somebody else can steal his rights.

Re:Since when is autorship transferrable?

[LordLucless]

The moral right to be identified as the author of a work is non-transferrable. But if you're going to have distribution rights at all, then you need to make them transferrable. Otherwise any author that wishes to distribute would somehow have to finance the purchase of printing machinery and international distribution channels themselves. Given that that's not feasible, they instead sell their rights to those that do have that capacity.

Re:Since when is autorship transferrable?

[wrook]

It is quite common in the financial world to sell an asset early for a smaller sum rather than wait for its full value to appreciate. There are several benefits to this. The first is that you get the money now. You may need the money to pay for things like rent and food. A million dollars ten years from now does me no good if I starve to death today. The second (and more important) is that you can offload risk to another person. Your song/book/software *might* be worth millions or it might be worth nothing. Sometimes it is better to opt for the security of a real paycheck rather than hope you will strike it rich sometime in the future.

As an author of software I have never regretted having the option to transfer my work to others in exchange for money. Although I made much more money for others than I made for myself, I don't think I was financially taken advantage of. The security of the paycheck was well worth it. These days I wouldn't transfer my copyright simply for money, but that's more an issue of control than anything else. I was never happy with *how* my work was used and how the customer was treated. By retaining the copyright I have more control. But I also don't make any money doing it ;-)

Re:Since when is autorship transferrable?

[delinear]

That makes no sense - why do you need to own the rights in order to produce copies of the work with the consent of the true rights holder? The only thing that prevents every company out there legitimately copying and sellings copyrighted works is the threat of legal action from the rights holder, and this should be enough to ensure that the author's own distribution channel follows his rules when they reproduce his works, no need for any transfer of rights (otherwise technically the guy who hits the big PRINT button on a book run would need to own the rights to the work to prevent the company that employs him from suing him for infringement).

Re:Since when is autorship transferrable?

[LordLucless]

What incentive does a distribution channel have for producing/marketing/shipping/promoting/selling an author's work? Either the author needs to be independantly wealthy enough to finance the whole operation (ok, they can hire it, they don't need to outright purchase the machinery as I posted above), or they need to convince someone to invest in/speculate on their work. Whoever does the speculation is going to require some stake in the work being produced. This stake is generally the exclusive right to distribute the work. If you don't let authors transfer this right, you take away anything they have to offer investors, and essentially require any prospective authors to have the funds to do it all themselves.

Even so, I'm not sure what parent poster is complaining about. Having the ability to sell distribution rights doesn't mean the original author no longer has any incentive to create sequels. They still own the copyright. They still own the rights to all their characters. And they want to create another work so they can sell the rights again, and buy another few meals.

Re:Since when is autorship transferrable?

[Errol backfiring]

What incentive does a distribution channel have for producing/marketing/shipping/promoting/selling an author's work?

Other than just doing their business? If the distributor cannot make a business without stealing the author's rights, why are they in business? If the publisher cannot make a profit and pay the author his share, then why are they in the publishing business?

Furthermore, an exclusivity agreement is something quite different than handing any future revenue to the publisher.

If the author's only revenue is something to sell to the party that gets the real revenue, then the copyright laws are basically flawed. They promote the "rights holder" and therefore NOT the author. If the copyright laws are about promoting art, they should reward the artist. Full stop.

What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK?

[SharpFang]

What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK? Will your party only follow the path of Intellectual Property rights, or do you plan to fight for freedom of speech, against invasion of privacy online and in daily life, censorship and other vital freedom-related problems.

Naming Rights

[Inda]

My mother would never vote for a party called "The Pirate party". An image of Captain Pugwash springs to her mind every time I mention the word.

Us nerds and geeks get it, but how does The Pirate Party aim to convince normal people that this political party is more than a modern Monster Raving Looney Party?

Re:Naming Rights

[Glorat]

Second this

Re:Naming Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make it "TPP" then.
Barely anyone out on the streets knows or cares about, what the other parties abbreviations actually mean.

Re:Naming Rights

[DMoylan]

explain that the name tory comes from the irish for outlaw?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory#History_of_the_term

she can vote for pirates or outlaws. :-) isn't history fun!

Re:Naming Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

The man has a point. Pirates were a derogatory term for people who violate copyrights. It is an awful name to create a party around.

Might as well call yourselves the Imaginary party or the Intellectual party since yer all about changing IP laws.

Re:Naming Rights

[Jeek Elemental]

You have a point but they get a lot of free press simply for having that name.

Id say thats worth more than the extremely slim chance some old people will change their vote from the last 30 years.

Help for British copyright holders

[Andy Smith]

I work hard to produce quality photographs for British newspapers and British news web sites. A major American company recently published several of my photos on their web site without permission. The company acknowledges that the photos are mine but refuses to pay, and says that I must file a complaint under the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act if I want them to stop using the photographs. What could the Pirate Party do to help British copyright holders in situations such as this?

Re:Help for British copyright holders

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing they could do even if they ran the government and the PM was your Tuesday golf buddy. Last I checked UKGov don't have a say in the US legislative process by constitutional decree.

Also the DMCA notice is almost identical to the demand letter you would send to a British publication doing the same thing so writing it shouldn't really be an issue to write it. The fact they wont pull it without the DMCA, unlike British counterparts, is to protect themselves from civil liability - pulling it without one could be viewed as an admission of guilt by courts.

Re:Help for British copyright holders

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, other than to laugh at them and then scan the negatives onto Flickr at 2400dpi?

Not a great deal, I suspect.

Re:Help for British copyright holders

[monkeythug]

Presumably you have already been paid by one of the aforementioned British newspapers/sites in exchange for your time and effort in producing these photographs?

Why do you feel you deserve to be paid a second time for the same piece of work, even though you have put in no additional time or effort?

Authors would NOT be forced to lose their rights!

[sigmundur]

"Forcing authors to lose rights" - NO! A common misconception. *Some* rights maybe, but only to guarantee the rights of the public!

This is the central question in all authorship legislature and morale: how to balance the rights of the public and the rights of an author?

Author should receive all attribution and credit, and certainly has the right to that. He also should have the right to forbid this attribution if parts of this information are used inappropriately (e.g. pasting a face into a pornographic image, or farting a sonnet); he should, however, be able to forbid the public of composing and publicizing the inappropriacies.

Public should receive the right to enjoy the work, spread it and re-use it, in the name of productivity in an information society. Out of pragmatic point of view, information is only useful when it's used, i.e., copied, spread and applied (or enjoyed).

Freedom of information (or freedom of speech, if you will) must go before the freedom of men to do what they please. The first is feasible, the latter is not.

Swedish Pirate Party equivalent

[Fross]

What steps/actions are you going to take, to ensure the UK Pirate Party can emulate the success of the swedish Pirate Party? Have you been in touch with them to discuss their approach, how they gained exposure, and how they managed to rally so many voters to their cause?

Good luck!

Re:Swedish Pirate Party equivalent

[muffen]

In Sweden I think they got the support they did for a number of reasons.

1) The Pirate Party got the votes in the EU elections, not the national one. The Swedish national elections are coming up too and they don't even show up in the polls yet (meaning they have less than one percent). Basically, it seems like people in Sweden do not care about the EU elections that much, or alternatively they believe copyright is a European issue and not a national one.

2)There is a history of personal freedom where people believe that private citizens should not be monitored unless deemed absolutely necessary for criminal reasons. In the span of a few month, ThePirateBay was sued and in the media it appeared to be a result of pressure from the US. Also, ThePirateBay's servers were seized together with the servers of a number of companies, who made the only "mistake" of putting their servers next to thepiratebay's servers, most likely this was done unknowingly. Furthermore, laws were being discussed that would further reduce personal freedom and allow mass monitoring of the population. Stories were written in media and people got annoyed and began loosing trust in the authorities which resulted in more votes for the PP. Basically, they got votes from unhappy people.

If current polls are an indication, the PP is unlikely to have any impact on the national elections in Sweden. Instead, Sweden is jumping on the European extreme-right bandwagon.
We were unhappy with copyright laws, now we are unhappy with immigrants. My current prediction is that in 2014, we will have anti-dolphin parties (dolphins creep me out).

Re:Swedish Pirate Party equivalent

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Robinson and I have been in touch extensively from time to time when I have visited the UK.

  / Rick Falkvinge (leader of the Swedish PP)

The Pirate Party

[onion2k]

While there's nothing wrong with standing on a single issue 'point of principle', and it's admirable that you've been able to raise money enough to stump up the deposit(s) required and you're willing to give up your own time and energy to further the cause, isn't it moronically stupid to then torpedo* your chances running under a banner that will conjure such negative associations for most of the electorate?

In my opinion "Fair Use" copyright infringement should not be a crime, and those who do it should not be labelled criminals. So don't call them pirates. Pirates are criminals.

* Pun not really intended but what the hell, it's Monday morning.

Why MUST they be allowed those rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why MUST they be allowed those rights? What do you mean by "a right to their work"? They have a right to who they give their work to, but why must they have the right to what happens to the work given to someone else? Even if I loan my car to a friend, I do not have the right to demand control of what he does in it.

Britis helection system is the biggest barrier

[Teun]

Although I'm glad the Pirate Party is drawing attention to these very important but under exposed issues I feel the UK electoral system is an insurmountable barrier to a party with little more than a single issue.

Is reform from the present first-past-the-post system to for example the more democratic representative system maybe part of the Pirate party's program?

Monster Raving Loony Party

[GuyFawkes]

(for the yanks, it was and is a genuine political party)

Knew all the old crew (Sutch, Hope, et al) well, great social events and parties, no hope of ever actually winning, just thumbing your nose at the system.

Why is the UK Pirate party any different, apart from the lack of great social events and satirical candidate names? Oh, and the lack of any other decent policies to counter the insanity worked by the likes of Harman etc.

Whereas a vote for the BNP (British National Party, often called British Nazi Party) really would be a protest vote, as more than a handful of seats might actually go to them, and NOTHING would shock british politics more than a notable proportion of the population electing wannabe Hitlers to the House of Commons.

This is not a troll, this is a serious question.

Re:Monster Raving Loony Party

[Rogerborg]

Seconded, wish I had mod points. The Pirate Party UK comes across as earnest and angry. Since it's a tiny insignificant protest party, that's a rather risible position to take. If you don't develop some levity, shouldn't you expect to be mocked?

Why not (and this is also a serious question) lighten up and try and project a fun, positive message, rather than just impotently bitching and moaning?

Re:Monster Raving Loony Party

[VJ42]

Why is the UK Pirate party any different, apart from the lack of great social events and satirical candidate names?

Because we have some actual principles? If you believe in IP reform, greater individual privacy & more freedom of speech, we're the only party to vote for.

Re:Monster Raving Loony Party

[mdwh2]

I think you're missing the point - some people might vote for this party as a protest vote, but they do have some policies (you know, the ones about copyright law), so aren't comparable to the MRLP in that sense, and aren't a duplication of any existing party.

And perhaps some people might want a protest vote without voting for racists. I don't understand your reasoning - just because something is a "shock" doesn't make it a good shock. If the main parties do feel they have to change their stance in response to BNP members being elected, how do you think that work? Do you think they'll go "Oh yes, we better stop with those draconian three strikes laws etc"? Or do you think there'll be more likely to be xenophobic and anti-immigration policies, in order to cater to those voters?

Re:Monster Raving Loony Party

[L4t3r4lu5]

Voting for the BNP / UKIP / any other far right / left party is not a protest, it's an extremely dangerous decision. They often have so few broad policies, or any agenda outside of their own little niche, that any power given to them would be detrimental to the rest of the country. I don't mean that only their supporters would benefit, but that anything they haven't considered or aren't up to speed on will stagnate and turn gangrenous under their rule.

Could you imaging UKIP healthcare policy? How about fiscal planning and taxation? Oh, no, they only want us to be out of Europe.

Re:Monster Raving Loony Party

[Cederic]

UKIP are not a far right or far left party. They are (as you highlight) a single issue party.

I'll happily vote UKIP, and I'll happily take up arms against the BNP. Putting them both in the same category is naive and/or disingenuous.

Re:Monster Raving Loony Party

[barrkel]

UKIP are isolationist reactionaries, better suited to the early 20th century. Imperial measures? Closer ties to the commonwealth? What do they think they have, an Empire? Lower inheritance taxes? Flat income taxes???

It reads like an imperial / aristocratic daydreamer wishlist.

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[VJ42]

What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK? Will your party only follow the path of Intellectual Property rights, or do you plan to fight for freedom of speech, against invasion of privacy online and in daily life, censorship and other vital freedom-related problems.

We campaign on all three issues: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/

Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

There was recently a debate on the blog of the leader of the UK Libertarian Party (Chris Mounsey - http://devilskitchen.me.uk/) which was engaged in by several important members of your party. I followed this with interest but there were a few areas I felt were not well answered well which I am requesting you do so now.

1. Irrespective of if your candidates are representing at a local or national level they will be involved in policy decisions far outside intellectual property which, given the lack of any party policy beyond IP reform, is of some concern to me. Will your candidates participate in government policy decisions going beyond IP reform or will they be entirely focused on the IP reforms and recuse themselves from any other form of policy participation? If they will participate what platform will they work towards? If they will not participate what measures will you be putting in place to ensure they don't participate in any other policy decisions?

2. Assuming they don't participate outside of IP policy then how does your party differ from a lobby group other then trying to get someone in to office yourselves? Do you appreciate the danger of single issue parties entering either the local or national legislature in terms of dilution of representative policy decisions, EG a smaller number of legislators voting on policy decisions due to members recusing themselves as the issue is "not part of their parties platform"? If so what approach do you plan to undertake to address this issue?

3. The single issue your party is based upon is extremely "fluffy" in your parties manifesto. While I have read your forum and appreciate this is being worked on it seems to still lack any significant content in terms of planned measures and rather focuses on statements to the effect of "We will make IP more fair". Based on this fact how could people justify voting for your party when all we basically have is a statement of intent rather than implementable policy?

4. The majority of what appears to be your parties platform is already represented by the LPUK and has for a number of years. Why has another party been started further diluting the liberty focused parties in the UK rather than simply acting as an IP reform caucus within the LPUK?

On an O/T issue I am extremely encouraged that parties like the LP & PP are springing up in the UK, we might actually have a chance of getting some form of political reform going now rather then relying on Blair clones to further restrict our liberty. Even if I decide not to support the PP, assuming candidate availability in my county, I do hope you guys make some magic happen even if to only make people aware parties do exist outside the big three.

Re:Questions

[Dunbal]

More importantly, how good of a job have the "other" parties done to address your areas of concern? Obviously not so well, since they are STILL problems that you see as needing a fix.

Your kind of thinking is what keeps democracy enslaved in a useless two-party system where both parties do an absolutely terrible job at everything. Why don't you take a chance for once and assume that a new guy might do no worse than predecessors on all the "other" issues but at least do a damned good job within one special area?

Re:Questions

[VJ42]

The single issue your party is based upon is extremely "fluffy" in your parties manifesto. While I have read your forum and appreciate this is being worked on it seems to still lack any significant content in terms of planned measures and rather focuses on statements to the effect of "We will make IP more fair". Based on this fact how could people justify voting for your party when all we basically have is a statement of intent rather than implementable policy?

The final draft manifesto: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Drafts:Manifesto_Proposal is far more concrete; it's being put to a party vote right now.

Re:Questions

[mdwh2]

I see the point you're making - but most of those questions are only relevant for a party forming a Government.

There's no chance of that happening here - I don't mean that in a "they won't get that many votes" sense, but I mean in the sense that they don't have enough people even standing for election. So such a thing is impossible.

It's still important I think to have policies on a wide range of issues, because if you had one as your MP, you'd still want to write to him, and hope he has an opinion on more than a single issue, and such things would be voted on in the Commons.

But let's be fair - individual MPs are not expected to come up with solutions to the economy, or immigration problems. (As an aside, I'm not sure what uncontrolled problem you are referring to - although I appreciate that these might be questions asked by your typical Daily Mail reader, so it's useful to have responses to them.)

Re:Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Now now, what the hell do you think you are doing. This is Slashdot, GPL and Linux are all we know and are therefore the only things that are important to a society. Please leave my basement before mom gets home and go out back in the real world, thank you.

Re:Questions

[biryokumaru]

5. Do you have any plans to control anti social behaviour?

Only in the UK...

Re:Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

whilst still making sure that the 2 years+ unemployed bloke next door can come up a new idea and use it to get out of the rut that he's currently stuck in?

Generally, if he's so unemployable, he's not coming up with an idea that's going to net him millions, no matter the copyright laws.

To answer your other questions: You can't without more money, you can't have a war on a concept, the government has little effect on the economy, not build a fucking wall, when did it become the government's job to make sure your kid doesn't grow up to be an asshole?

Re:Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

You are implying that an unemployed bloke next door gets out of ruts based on patents and copyrights now.

Re:Questions

[Karem Lore]

Party response:

1. By enabling free and uncostly access to software without the huge costs, thereby saving millions of £ that can be pumped back into getting more drugs.
2. Free software would save costs for software so our troops can be paid better.
3. By making software copyright free, inventors will have a ball and chain lifted from fear of the courts, thereby stimulating the economy with cutting edge new inventions.
4. By making software free, the border guards will save millions in yearly software costs that they can re-introduce into more guards, boats etc. Same with DSS, they would be able to afford to change the system.
5. Giving youngsters access to free music, free software and the ability to invent without risk of being prosecuted would be a great first step into giving kids from falling foul of laws governing the restriction of such material. Imaging what they could do with it...DJing, Discos, net tournaments, backroom electronics...Oh year, and the savings in costs to the police could be re-introduced to the system to allow the police force to increase their beat numbers.

(ditto)

4432. Dunno.

Re:Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

No! surely not!

schools hospitals blah blah not much difference whoever you vote in.

But for the future of society we need someone, even just one mp from the ppuk, to stand up and question policies and laws that threaten our freedom.

Re:Questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh how smart of you! To spot that a new political party based on a single issue doesn't address other issues. You should host a political programme on ITV.

They aren't angling to run the country just yet. They are attempting to get a small influence in the political process so the issues they deem important get addressed instead of steamrolled over by lobbying groups. Like the Green party being focused on the environment before getting large/popular enough to warrant having other policies.

Re:Questions

[Shemmie]

Do you actively encourage pissing up walls where you're from?

Re:Questions

[Shemmie]

I'm a member of the PP UK, and I couldn't agree with you more, tbh. It's all well and good saying where the party stands on copyright law... but prospective voters would also be kinda interested in plans for dealing with the economy, how the public sector will be handled, taxes, education, etc. And as someone I believe jokingly put, that does not mean turning every answer into a copyright-slanted argument. "Education? We would propose Open Source software for all students!"... ok, but would you continue to build Academies, consider Grammar Schools, etc? If it's going to be taken seriously, it needs serious policies, across the board.

Re:Questions

[Shemmie]

Agreed - it's only a problem if you're forming a Government. However, if you're trying to interest prospective voters, they tend to be the questions you get asked. It doesn't have to be a comprehensive budget breakdown of how we'd be lifted out of the economic downturn if the Pirate Party come to power, but just "where does your party stand on...?". If you can't answer a few of these generic "Where does the party stand on education, taxation, etc", the pool of prospective voters will remain tiny and geekie.

Re:Questions

[M2Ys4U]

The party _doesn't_ have an opinion on those things. That's left to the individual candidates, only the core policies are whipped.

Same way as a book.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same way as a book. It will be different, but not a lot.

Re:Same way as a book.

[Alistair Hutton]

Hurgle wurgle?

A Booker prize winning book requires one guy to spend his evenings for a year writing. A AAA computer game involves a hunderd people working full time for 3 years costing millions upon millions of dollars.

They are pretty much not comparable as a creative endeavor.

Re:Same way as a book.

[daveime]

A computer game these days seems to consist of some newly colored uniforms, some new league fixtures, and another 80 dollars for Madden 2011.

Re:Same way as a book.

[Richard_at_work]

Yes, because all games released these days are nothing more than reskinned sports games. Discussion over, your point is far too strong to argue against...

Re:Same way as a book.

[IndustrialComplex]

A computer game these days seems to consist of some newly colored uniforms, some new league fixtures, and another 80 dollars for Madden 2011.

So it's turtles all the way down? There was no 'original' game?

Re:Same way as a book.

[Toy G]

A Booker prize winning book requires one guy to spend his evenings for a year writing.

... plus a few millions to print, distribute and sell the thing, plus marketing, plus lobbying the Booker jury, plus plus plus...

And this if we assume the author was not paid some sort of advance, which is not going to be the case. That's quite a few thousand pounds right there (up to a few cool millions if you happen to be a public figure like Tony Blair or Peter Andre).

Re:Same way as a book.

[Alistair Hutton]

I'm down with that, actually distributing the book gets all kind of capital concerns but actually producing the work can be done "for free" (note the air quotes there). On the other hand a AAA computer game requires massive up front investment before the finished work is produced (and then all the money for distribution post creation phase).

Typo

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

"Fielding candidates" not "Fielding elections".

Re:Typo

[VJ42]

Yeah, I noticed that after I hit "submit" (I was doing about 10 things at the time) I was hoping the editors would fix it.

Re:Typo

[thisisntme]

I was hoping the editors would fix it.

You must be new here.

Re:Typo

[VJ42]

You must be new here.

No, just forever an optimist ;p

Re:Typo

[Philip_the_physicist]

YMBNH.

One-issue party ?

[vikingpower]

Sir,

Up to what degree should I consider, or not, the Pirate Party a one-issue party ? When I cast my vote for anyone or any party, I also take into consideration how they think about such varying and various issues as there are: economics, defence, justice, external relations. Do not take me wrong: I WOULD vote for the Pirate Party if and when they could convince me of having coherent stances on these topics. Thank you.

Re:One-issue party ?

[What the Frag]

I'm a pirate in Germany and I've heard this here too a lot. With now almost 12k members the number of issues addressed increases quickly now.

I don't think the UK pirate party does have a lot of members yet. That means they probably don't have competence in other areas so they don't serve you something that they can't to right.

If you want to do something, you can join the party and create those issues you want to have addressed.

At least for Germany I can say - I don't trust any other party anymore because they are all buyable. I don't believe that's completely different in the UK.

Re:One-issue party ?

[M2Ys4U]

We don't whip our candidates on issues other than our core policies. Everything else is down to them, which is hopefully what their constituents want.

Any chance of a complete programme?

[hughbar]

I'm both a green-supporter, leftish libertarian and (actually) a supporter of anything that will break the mould in decaying world of political 'brands'. Thus, I look with some favour on Pirate Party etc. etc.

But (you heard that coming, right?) there isn't a complete programme, a problem also for many green parties. Do you intend to do serious policy research and formulation and evolve a complete coherent position that would enable you to govern? When?

Re:Any chance of a complete programme?

[VJ42]

I'm both a green-supporter, leftish libertarian and (actually) a supporter of anything that will break the mould in decaying world of political 'brands'. Thus, I look with some favour on Pirate Party etc. etc. But (you heard that coming, right?) there isn't a complete programme, a problem also for many green parties. Do you intend to do serious policy research and formulation and evolve a complete coherent position that would enable you to govern? When?

As a party we are only about 7 months old, and currently only have somewhere between 600 & 700 members; IMO only once the party is big enough would it be worth formulating policies outside our core areas.

Re:Any chance of a complete programme?

[AmElder]

The party is young and may not have a full party platform yet, but how are you coming on identifying who the party is? In order to contest an election you have to identify who you're speaking for. Who are the Pirate Party's core constituency? Who can you rely on to spread the word and give you money? Is it just file sharers or do you think you represent the interests of a larger part of the population? It clearly doesn't include publishers, proprietary software companies, or the film industry. Who does it include?

I'm posting this as a response, because it relates to the posts above and I like joining an existing conversation, but I mean this as a question for Andrew Robinson.

Just a metter of time

[RotateLeftByte]

until the car makers say

- What make of tyres
- What brand of oil
- what brand of fuel
- what type of windscreen cleaner to use

Otherwise you will void any warranty whatsoever (akin to the Microsoft EULA where they disclaim any liability whatsoever)

The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[eldavojohn]

You've quickly gone from forum member to party leader in about half a year. It appears your background is graphic arts and music, not politics. How do you plan to convince your voters that you are competent and qualified? On top of that, your site only lists three core policies. Voting (to me) shows more than support. It shows I am confident in that person or group as leader of my country. As if by voting for you, I genuinely hope you are to be the next Prime Ministers, replacing Gordon Brown. Right now, privacy and copyright are important issues but possibly more important are things like foreign policy that might govern how you feel about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars or about the social programs in the UK. Could you extrapolate on your core issues to give us an idea of how you stand on the other major issues that will be debated among the more popular parties? I agree with you on your stated issues but being a one issue voter can result in disaster for the whole country, do you mind giving yourself more depth than just privacy and copyright?

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[JasterBobaMereel]

...do not matter because they have no hope of being elected, and even if they get MP's they will not get enough to have any noticeable influence of the party of government ...

However if enough people vote for them then whoever gets in will at least be aware they are issue people care about

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[Cederic]

Your question appears to be based on a flawed premise.

Do not vote on who you want to be the Prime Minister. Vote on who you want to represent your interests in parliament.

Yes, it's useful if that representative doesn't present views with which you agree on broader issues (foreign policy, education, healthcare, taxation being the usual suspects) but in reality a PPUK vote isn't even voting in a candidate; it's voting for a given issue ahead of the others.

If you really care strongly about foreign policy then vote for a candidate that will represent your views. If you care about a range of issues, find a candidate that represents you the best across the range.

If you find that the three main parties are all corrupt and pushing broadly the same policies, the Greens have no sense of reality, the BNP are a bunch of racist fuckwits and none of the independent candidates have knocked on your door to tell you what they're standing for, then why not vote for a single issue party. If you hate Europe vote UKIP, if you want greater transparency and online rights then vote PPUK.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[VJ42]

Voting (to me) shows more than support. It shows I am confident in that person or group as leader of my country.

And this is why we're in the mess we're in. Our politicians are meant to be our servants, not our masters; I don't vote for a leader, I vote for a representative that I can hold to account.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[t0p]

I think questions on other issues are irrelevant. As far as I can tell, PPUK will not be fielding enough candidates to win a majority in the Commons even if all their candidates were elected. Voting for a PPUK candidate would be similar to voting for a so-called "single issue" independent politician like former MP Martin Bell. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with recent British political history: Martin Bell was a well-known war reporter who resigned from the BBC and stood for election on an anti-"sleaze" platform. Of course it was extremely improbable that Bell might become a member of the government with any real influence on government policy. But enough voters in the Tatton constituency voted for him to become their MP. In effect it was a protest vote to show the government that the electorate was unhappy about "sleaze"; and the government introduced stricter parliamentary rules to try and cut the extent of corruption in Parliament. So a vote for a PPUK candidate in this year's election would not be an attempt to get a PPUK government installed. But the election of any PPUK candidates would be a clear signal to the next government that there is widespread unhappiness about copyright/intellectual property policies. The more PPUK candidates that win, the bigger the signal. Voting for the PPUK is something we can do to show the government we want the system to change. A vote for the PPUK would not be a wasted vote.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[gsslay]

As if by voting for you, I genuinely hope you are to be the next Prime Ministers, replacing Gordon Brown.

Well this is clearly not going to happen. What would be a far likelier outcome, although still not going to happen, is that a Pirate Party candidate becomes your local MP. In which case you should be asking yourself; does this person understand the many and varied wishes of voters in my constituency, and are they capable of representing them in Parliament? There are plenty of small party or independent candidates that could do this, but they usually have extensive grounding in local politics and/or are driven by issues that have particular local significance. You cannot say this of Pirate Party candidates.

I can think of few better ways of wasting a vote that voting for a single issue, no-hope candidate.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[gsslay]

In effect it was a protest vote to show the government that the electorate was unhappy about "sleaze"

That's your interpretation. I'd say it was more to do with unhappiness with their current MP and a lack of any other real alternative. You can't call it much of a 'protest vote' when the other main parties withdrew from the contest in collusion with Bell. But in this case the issues that got Bell into Parliament had very real local relevancy, i.e. to remove the particularly sleezy Neil Hamilton MP. That is why Bell chose to contest that seat. I cannot see any of the issues put forward by the PPUK having the same localised significance anywhere.

A vote for the PPUK would not be a wasted vote.

Only if you believe that the PPUK's pathetically slim manifesto addresses the most pressing issues facing the country.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, because, demonstrably, the best MPs have been those who studied politics at university, went straight to work in "politics" and shortly after that became an MP. MPs with real world experience should be encouraged.

Obviously, they're not expecting, hoping or even trying to run the country. That would be incredibly stupid. They, like the greens, just need a few seats so they can lobby, vote and introduce bills.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[Anonymous Coward]

.It appears your background is [...] not politics.

To me, that's a point in favour.

Re:The Rest of Your Views & Stances

[Anonymous Coward]

Your question appears to be based on a flawed premise.

Do not vote on who you want to be the Prime Minister. Vote on who you want to represent your interests in parliament.

Yes, it's useful if that representative doesn't present views with which you agree on broader issues (foreign policy, education, healthcare, taxation being the usual suspects) but in reality a PPUK vote isn't even voting in a candidate; it's voting for a given issue ahead of the others.

If you really care strongly about foreign policy then vote for a candidate that will represent your views. If you care about a range of issues, find a candidate that represents you the best across the range.

If you find that the three main parties are all corrupt and pushing broadly the same policies, the Greens have no sense of reality, the BNP are a bunch of racist fuckwits and none of the independent candidates have knocked on your door to tell you what they're standing for, then why not vote for a single issue party. If you hate Europe vote UKIP, if you want greater transparency and online rights then vote PPUK.

As a member of the PPUK who cannot be bothered to log in and join in the 'debate' anymore, I can tell you that if you want greater transparency then you should look anywhere but the PPUK.
The leadership closed off a good portion of the forums and most poilitcal debate and mass deleted posts in order to trim away what they did not wish to see all in the name of the 'silent majority' who supported their actions.

My Question for Andrew is this, in the digital era when its so easy to open out and discuss issues with anyone, why is PPUK hiding away its debate from those who are interested but haven't paid their :tenbux: yet?

Questions

[Rik Sweeney]

(In order of importance)

1. How are you going to improve our Schools and Hospitals?
2. What is your stance on the "War on Terror"?
3. The economy is facing another nosedive before the end of the year, how are you preparing for it?
4. How are you going to tackle the uncontrolled immigration problem?
5. Do you have any plans to control anti social behaviour?

(loads of other more important questions later)

4432. What will you change in copyright law, whilst still making sure that the 2 years+ unemployed bloke next door can come up a new idea and use it to get out of the rut that he's currently stuck in?

Re:Authors would NOT be forced to lose their right

[sigmundur]

A slight mistake there... "he should, however, be able to forbid" > "he should, however, not be able to forbid"

Economy

[mrthoughtful]

What the UK population is most concerned about is a sustained, healthy economy (with continued free quality healthcare, education and welfare at the point of delivery).

How will the Pirate Party's policies demonstrate that a sustainable healthy economy is a necessary outcome of degrading the copyright and patent laws?

Re:Economy

[JasterBobaMereel]

The world currently most successful economy, showing the most growth even in an economic downturn.... mostly ignores copyrights and patents (China)

Re:Economy

[Xest]

Interestingly Canada has one of the most liberal policies on copyright enforcement when it comes to individuals in the West also, and has for many years been the fastest growing economy in the G7 and is the only country in the G7 that did not have to bail out it's banks. The parent misses the point that economic woes will not be helped by keeping or increase reliance on industries that fiddle with imaginary property (banks and the creative industries), but will in fact be helped by reducing reliance on these industries and having a stronger manufacturing, services, and research base- again, manufacturing particularly is why Germany pulled out of recession 6 months before us, and much stronger than us, even though they went a little deeper in at the worst point. As you say, China is also a great example- it's not struggled to grow because it's manufacturing based and produces real, physical products.

Re:Authors would NOT be forced to lose their right

[delinear]

"Forcing authors to lose rights" - NO! A common misconception. *Some* rights maybe, but only to guarantee the rights of the public!

What these "artists" (and I use the term loosely, as this mainly seems to be driven by the labels and many artists actually oppose the labels' standpoint) always seem to gloss over when they talk about "losing rights" is that these aren't some kind of natural, inalienable rights, they're rights specifically granted to them by the public. If the public feel that they are abusing those rights or taking them to the extreme then it's perfectly justifiable to reign them in or remove them completely. What the governments continually forget is that they're meant to serve the will of the people, not the will of the labels.

Open Source

[Elektroschock]

What role for open source policies in the public sector, vendor neutrality and open standards?

Pirate Party of the United Kingdom

[Anonymous Coward]

My questions:

1. Are you going to attack French ships?
2. Does the Queen pay a bounty?
3. Will you leave American ships alone?
4. Will you be in the Caribbean?
5. How much experience will you require to be a captain?
6. Is Jack Sparrow taken by any chance?
7. How about Errol Flynn?
8. Do you honestly think people will take you seriously?

Re:Pirate Party of the United Kingdom

[biryokumaru]

Oh, they are definitely a serious organization. I hear they want to change the British National Anthem to this.

Re:Pirate Party of the United Kingdom

[mjwx]

Are you going to attack French ships?

Any vessel flying frog colours is a viable target.

Does the Queen pay a bounty?

Nay, tis the admiralty that pays the bounty.

Will you leave American ships alone?

Run up the colours men.

Will you be in the Caribbean?

We be in many ports, depending on the winds.

How much experience will you require to be a captain?

Assuming you are currently a midshipman and serving on a 40 gun frigate, at least 5 leftenants and 1 captain have to die before such a promotion becomes available. This differs based on ship size and crew complements.

Is Jack Sparrow taken by any chance?

I understand he's be taken by many a boatswains mate before.

How about Errol Flynn?

Same story as Jack, except with the gunners mate.

Do you honestly think people will take you seriously?

When you're driving along the M25 and we fire a cannon ball into your car, would you take us seriously.

Let's ask the important stuff!

[muckracer]

Pirates versus Ninjas...who'll win??

Re:Let's ask the important stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is a Ninja party, I've never heard of... oh.. They're good.

Re:Let's ask the important stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

ninja

Which constituencies will you challenge?

[Toy G]

Did you consider concentrating efforts in one or two "marginal" constituencies in order to "spoil it" for one of the major parties ?
It might end up doing more for the debate than a simple (unwinnable) nationwide challenge, don't you think?

Re:Which constituencies will you challenge?

[VJ42]

Did you consider concentrating efforts in one or two "marginal" constituencies in order to "spoil it" for one of the major parties ? It might end up doing more for the debate than a simple (unwinnable) nationwide challenge, don't you think?

That's exactly our strategy. We're going to stand in just a couple of constituencies; they're all marginal ones with student populations this should ensure we maximise our vote without spreading ourselves too thin.

Re:Which constituencies will you challenge?

[Philip_the_physicist]

They only have 2 candidates so far, I don't know if they are in marginals or not.

Appeal to younger voters

[Aceticon]

Younger voters have much more experience in average with new technologies including the Internet. Also, at the moment, they vote in lower numbers - possibly because of disapointment with traditional parties. Finally, many have a lot of experience in casually copying digitally stored data be it copyrighted or not.

While making up only 12% percent of the UK populations (18-20 and 20-25 age groups as per the 2001 census), they seem to be a natural constituency for the UK Pirate Party (beyond it's core of IP law-aware technology savy people) and do form a significant minority.

What is the UK Pirate Party doing to engage those potential voters?

Value

[janap]

Mr Robinson - please define the term "value".

Is fielding candidates the best course?

[AxeTheMax]

Is fielding candidates the best course, for a single issue group like yours? I am in agreement with you on this subject. However I have multiple other concerns, including the economy, equalities issues, environmental issues, foreign relations. Are you going to address these, and if you do, what are the chances that I will still be in agreement? It seems to me that a better course would be to form a pressure group to exert influence on copyright and related matters, on all politicians. As it is, the likely poor showing you will get will enable politicians to say that your concerns have been rejected by the electorate.

Re:Is fielding candidates the best course?

[Cederic]

That pressure group already exists, has done for a couple of years now, and does some excellent work.

http://openrightsgroup.org/

Why repeat that organisation's activities instead of doing something else, such as giving the disenfranchised population the chance to vote against the mainstream parties?

Re:Is fielding candidates the best course?

[VJ42]

Is fielding candidates the best course, for a single issue group like yours?

As well as the PPUK there is a lobby group: Open rights group & a business coalition: Coadec. To change policy we need to work through all these channels.

Re:Is fielding candidates the best course?

[AxeTheMax]

Acknowledged; I did know that, even though it had slipped my mind. However, let's not fragment opposition more than is needed. I have previously voted Green and intend to do that again, because of their other policies. I understand that not everyone who agrees with me on open rights will want to vote that way.

It's not that I disagree with the policies as such

[ContractualObligatio]

Most of all, I'm hugely in favour of anyone voting for any party other than Conservative or Labour. The two party state approach we have in the UK is causing huge amounts of damage. Voter apathy is completely understandable - I didn't vote last time myself - but let's face it, apathy is never impressive. Vote if you can, there is a genuine opportunity to shake up the established, economy-and-freedom destroying order of things.

Second, I'm broadly in favour of the policies of the Pirate Party.

But third - if you vote Pirate Party, I would wonder if you're handling the whole process of being a grown adult particularly well.

The driving force behind the party seems to me to be selfishness. They seem to desire these freedoms not because of the bad things that happen, but what they get out of it. Primarily filesharing because you might get free music and movies, and surveillance and freedom of speech concerns because they directly support that primary goal - with the added benefit of giving you the appearance of some moral high ground.

Rendition, torture, police using CCTV footage for blackmail? All genuine problems. What's the kind of thing that worries the Pirate Party? Not getting their wi-fi access: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2010/feb/28/digital-economy-bill-will-kill-wifi-hotspots/.

Nothing about financial reform, war or the economy. Nothing about the environment, taxes or the spending thereof. It might even just be people starting a political party as an egotistical exercise. I can't say I'm inspired. I know they have graphic designers and programmers as leaders, but wonder if they are employed on a work-for-hire basis. Nothing wrong with that - but it does mean that while you are a creative person, your income is not dependent on the actual creative industries, or even copyright law to a large extent. So their professed support for the creative industry is no more credible than their support for freedom of speech.

Still, copyright definitely needs to be severely reformed, and reducing it to 5 years is exactly the right degree to take reform to. And I'm definitely all for voting for smaller, even single-issue parties as a way of voting for something you believe in. Voting for the Green Party, for instance, is a vote that won't win but I can respect (in those constituencies where it has a chance - vote Green!). Voting Pirate Party however is self-interest plus silliness, at a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see the established duopoly hurting : temptingly fertile grounds for taking the piss down the pub.

Voting for the BNP is an extremist vote

[fantomas]

Voting for the BNP is not a "protest vote" - this is not a warm and cuddly hippy protest option like voting for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Voting for the BNP is voting for an extremist party, a party that grew out of the National Front (look all these up on wikipedia) and until they were forced to change by European law this year had as part of their constitution a ban on people that weren't "white" from joining the party membership.

To my mind that's quite an extreme position for a party to take if it declares its goal to be getting political power, ruling over people of a variety of different ethnic groups. I think voting for the BNP is a dangerous way of expressing your protest at the current political system. The BNP is serious about some of its extreme politics, and is likely to get some seats and have real influence in UK politics if people start voting for them in the misguided belief that they are just offering up a protest to the system.

Re:Voting for the BNP is an extremist vote

[turing_m]

Voting for the BNP is not a "protest vote" - this is not a warm and cuddly hippy protest option like voting for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

The alternatives aren't very warm and cuddly either. Having no say in your immigration policy for half a century - that's real warm and cuddly. Having said immigration policy be irreversible once demographic change tips the balance past 50%, and no guaranteed say in anything else for that matter, that's real warm and cuddly too. Discriminatory ethnic quotas for good jobs and university degrees that will secure said jobs, gotta love those too.

The BNP is no less warm and cuddly than the Indian National Congress or the African National Congress. It would be a world first that a people allow themselves to be willingly herded into a reservation. It is always resisted.

Re:Voting for the BNP is an extremist vote

[VJ42]

Having said immigration policy be irreversible once demographic change tips the balance past 50%, and no guaranteed say in anything else for that matter, that's real warm and cuddly too.

The BME population in the UK is around 8%. Yes eight. It's no where near 50%, and doesn't look like getting there any time soon.

Discriminatory ethnic quotas for good jobs and university degrees that will secure said jobs, gotta love those too.

That would be against UK law (so called 'positive' discrimination is against the race relations act). If you have proof of this happening report it to your local police.

The BNP is no less warm and cuddly than the Indian National Congress or the African National Congress. It would be a world first that a people allow themselves to be willingly herded into a reservation. It is always resisted.

What on earth are you on about? Seriously if you really believe that the white population of the UK is about to be rounded up & put on reservations then you need to see a mental health professional about your paranoia.

Candidates

[He who knows]

Are you going to field a candidate in each constituency.

Re:Candidates

[M2Ys4U]

The Pirate Party just doesn't have the funds to do that.

Re:Candidates

[VJ42]

Are you going to field a candidate in each constituency.

We have no where near enough money to do that.

Re:Legitimacy of the Pirate Party?

[mpe]

Do you deny that choosing the name "Pirate Party" is a deliberate attempt to pander to a generation of mouth-breathing, spoiled shut-ins who have never done an honest day's work in their life?

Sounds like a good description of the majority of existing MPs :)

Cooperation with the Green Party

[bongomanaic]

Since your core policies are very similar to those of the Green Party on these issues, will you be supporting the Green Party in their target seats?

Stop the sherade

[paxcoder]

Torrent is a sort of a link, but that doesn't mean you should get votes over someone with real political plans.

Forcing Artifical Scarcity into Digital Works

[Anonymous Coward]

This question is loaded, and very misleading.Why should authors be allowed to profit off Artificial Scarcity? - that is, why should society allow copyright holders to make unlimited copies at zero/fixed cost, but charge for each digital copy as if it is scarce? Nobody disagrees that Artists should be remunerated for their works, but as the reference points out: forcing artificial scarcity into the digital medium via Law is morally questionable, and very different to the question of whether Artists should be paid for their work.

Re:Forcing Artifical Scarcity into Digital Works

[s73v3r]

How do you propose to separate creation with packaging/distribution in a digital world? In other words, how do you propose that artists are compensated fairly, yet price digital copies of works taking into account that, since there are in effect infinity copies of that work, the price per copy rapidly approaches zero?

Re:Forcing Artifical Scarcity into Digital Works

[Anonymous Coward]

The other side of your question: How do you propose that other professions such as mechanics, teaches, pilots etc are compensated fairly, when they currently are unable to make unlimited digital copies of their work? In other words, if some professions are unable to make unlimited copies of their work and sell each copy at a profit, why should a small subset of professions feel they have a legal right to do it? Other professions appear to manage.

Re:Authors would NOT be forced to lose their right

[mpe]

What these "artists" (and I use the term loosely, as this mainly seems to be driven by the labels and many artists actually oppose the labels' standpoint) always seem to gloss over when they talk about "losing rights" is that these aren't some kind of natural, inalienable rights, they're rights specifically granted to them by the public.

In some places, such as the USA, they are intended entirely as a means to an end. Something which is often overlooked.

If the public feel that they are abusing those rights or taking them to the extreme

Or that these "rights" are somehow obsolete or that a different set of rights (e.g. "moral rights") are a better choice.

hen it's perfectly justifiable to reign them in or remove them completely.

Or otherwise modify them.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[VJ42]

Rendition, torture, police using CCTV footage for blackmail? All genuine problems. What's the kind of thing that worries the Pirate Party? Not getting their wi-fi access: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2010/feb/28/digital-economy-bill-will-kill-wifi-hotspots/

This is a story that happens to be in the news at the moment; we need to react to things like this to raise our profile. Check our draft manifesto for our Privacy & Freedom of speech policies: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Drafts:Manifesto_Proposal

Nothing about financial reform, war or the economy. Nothing about the environment, taxes or the spending thereof. It might even just be people starting a political party as an egotistical exercise.

We're not about to form a government, nor do we expect to.for a start we're not fielding enough candidates. At the moment there's no point straying out of our core areas; our aim is to pick up enough votes so that the bigger parties pick up our policies. You mention the Green party, in the same way all the major parties now try to be Green (despite the Greens never having an MP), we want them to also be Pirates.

Why are you participating in a flawed system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you participating in a flawed system?
First past the post, one vote every five years; do you really think you have a hope in hell of getting anywhere with such odds stacked against you? Wouldn't your efforts be better spent in other ways, taking more direct action rather than attempting to use our sham of a "democratic process" to achieve anything?

Monsanto and their genetically modified seeds

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the party's stance on patents on genetics? Take, for example, Monsanto (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto), who has patents on genetically modified seeds. They can sue farmers for patent infringement even if the farmers never bought Monsanto seeds. Farmers caught with hybrid crops can be sued into bankruptcy, even if they unwillingly and unknowingly had Monsanto seeds; Monsanto has even sued farmers in Canada, thanks to the Canadian Supreme Court. I think Mexican farmers have had trouble with Monsanto and their team of lawyers (but I currently do not have a source).

My Q.

[AP31R0N]

Will you please stop calling yourselves pirates and a party?

Calling copyright infringement buys into your opponent's myth that sharing a song is just like shoplifting or ship-to-ship armed robbery and kidnapping. It makes light of the murderous thugs from Somalia and what their victims have suffered.

If your group doesn't have a stance on abortion, gun control, taxation, environment vs. industry and all the other things actual parties address, call yourselves what you are; an advocacy group or special interest. If your platform on those issues matches that of an existing party, then join your efforts with them instead of siphoning their efforts. Being a non-party is fine. You can champion your cause without being a party. Single issue parties are notorious for messing up elections and generally being useless. There's no need or advantage to being a party.

All that said, please keep up the good work of helping the world get real about copyright. /won't be reading replies

Re:My Q.

[VJ42]

Single issue parties are notorious for messing up elections

If we can "mess up" the election for one of the big parties, we'll be very happy, thank you.

Falkvinge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden's PP is the biggest in the world and Sweden's elections are coming up too. Why aren't you interviewing him?

Re:Falkvinge?

[VJ42]

Sweden's PP is the biggest in the world and Sweden's elections are coming up too. Why aren't you interviewing him?

Has a Swedish PP member put a /. submission in? This interview was brought about by a regular user submission; mine. I contacted Andy he said he didn't mind, so I submitted it through the normal process. Remember /. runs on submissions, it doesn't go looking for stories.

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[AmElder]

On the Free Speech part of the party platform, what's your Pirate Party definition of freedom? Give us some concrete examples. There have been a whole bunch high profile public debates in the UK recent years that could be approached from a free speech point of view. Give us the party line on some of them. For example what's the party's stand on software as protected speech? Inflammatory cartoons? Wearing religious symbols in public facing jobs? Teachers wearing veils in school? Libel laws? The monarchy's place in public life (Prince Charles and his public statements)? What does freedom mean to a pirate?

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[Vanders]

police using CCTV footage for blackmail? All genuine problems. What's the kind of thing that worries the Pirate Party?

The Police use of CCTV full stop.

A lot of people in this entire article are apparently wilfully ignorant about the Pirate Party. They are not a single issue party: they are a three issue party. Those issues are Copyright, Privacy and Freedom of Speech. Slashdot, naturally, is focused on the Copyright side of things (& the name of party). People like me are more worried about the other two issues. Issues which you rightly point out, are important to people like yourself.

surveillance and freedom of speech concerns because they directly support that primary goal - with the added benefit of giving you the appearance of some moral high ground.

I can't speak for other members of the PPUK but those issues are certainly important to me, as an individual. I'm not interested in them because they give me any kind of moral high ground, I'm interested in them because they're important subjects which require real debate and preferably real action. If you don't think those subjects are not important then that's fine, but don't degenerate those of us who think they are and are trying to do something about it.

For how long?

[SmallFurryCreature]

For how long does Disney keep the right to its products? Infinity+? You seem not even to consider a limit, says it all for your sort.

Important question...

[Anonymous Coward]

How will you reform Health care? I don't give a flying buffalo about copyrights, and IP theft, and whatnot. It's all a bunch of nerd BS to me. But health care will keep me alive. How will you serve me in that aspect? Or any aspect at all? It really does seem your "party" is as single issue as some of the parties of old which have naturally faded into oblivion.

What else can we get from you?

Re:Important question...

[damburger]

Whats wrong with a single issue party?

Re:Important question...

[VJ42]

How will you reform Health care?

We're going to abolish drug patents making medicine cheaper: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Drafts:Manifesto_Proposal#Where_patents_don.27t_promote_innovation.2C_or_actively_prevent_it.2C_we.27ll_scrap_them

Artifical Digital Scarcity Vs Digital "Pirate"

[FriendlyLurker]

The "Pirate" in The Pirate Party's name implies the duplication of digital information. One side of the "Pirate" argument, mostly being represented by large digital distributors such as the Music Industry and Motion Picture Associations, believe that our society needs strong legislation enforcing Artificial Scarcity into the digital medium via treaties such as ACTA. In other words, they appear to hold the view that only certain rights holders should have exclusive legal right to make and sell unlimited digital copies for fixed cost, just like any physical good for sale. On the other side of the debate we have the "Pirates" who appear to hold the view that digital information should not be treated as a scarce good, that digital distribution is just a natural property of any digital medium and should be available to everyone.

How does the Pirate Party intend to allow those wishing to distribute original creative digital works to make a profit without legislating artificial scarcity into the digital medium?

Re:Artifical Digital Scarcity Vs Digital "Pirate"

[sixsixtysix]

How does the Pirate Party intend to allow those wishing to distribute original creative digital works to make a profit without legislating artificial scarcity into the digital medium?

this is the big question. i guess we can try to put the shoe on the other foot. should a person who makes screws/nails for a living get residuals for anything that the screws/nails are used to build? should architects get a cut every time a building they designed is sold? those sound exactly the same as studio engineer or singer getting a cut every time a song is sold or, if the powers that be have their way, played.


personally, i'd like to see the following added to any future copyright legislation:
1. make available. if you want protection, the work must be made available. in the digital age, nothing should ever go out of print. there is no reason i shouldn't be able to just buy&download the .iso if you won't sell it in stores, but don't price it like there is still a bunch of middlemen.
2. mandatory, global licensing. wasn't the internet supposed to get rid of all these bullshit boundaries/regions/etc. and level the playing field? in this day and age, shouldn't the works be globally and readily available upon creation? additional licensing streams be damned.
3. limited time. let's go back to the 14 +14 scenario. that is more than enough time. it sickens me that nothing made in my lifetime will ever be public domain in my lifetime. i'm surprised they haven't just made them forever by now.
well, those 3 to start.

Re:Artifical Digital Scarcity Vs Digital "Pirate"

[junjie_1024]

The "Pirate" in The Pirate Party's name implies the duplication of digital information. One side of the "Pirate" argument, mostly being represented by large digital distributors such as the Music Industry and Motion Picture Associations, believe that our society needs strong legislation enforcing Artificial Scarcity into the digital medium via treaties such as ACTA. In other words, they appear to hold the view that only certain rights holders should have exclusive legal right to make and sell unlimited digital copies for fixed cost, just like any physical good for sale. On the other side of the debate we have the "Pirates" who appear to hold the view that digital information should not be treated as a scarce good, that digital distribution is just a natural property of any digital medium and should be available to everyone.

How does the Pirate Party intend to allow those wishing to distribute original creative digital works to make a profit without legislating artificial scarcity into the digital medium?

The "Pirate" in The Pirate Party's name implies the duplication of digital information. One side of the "Pirate" argument, mostly being represented by large digital distributors such as the Music Industry and Motion Picture Associations, believe that our society needs strong legislation enforcing Artificial Scarcity into the digital medium via treaties such as ACTA. In other words, they appear to hold the view that only certain rights holders should have exclusive legal right to make and sell unlimited digital copies for fixed cost, just like any physical good for sale. On the other side of the debate we have the "Pirates" who appear to hold the view that digital information should not be treated as a scarce good, that digital distribution is just a natural property of any digital medium and should be available to everyone.

How does the Pirate Party intend to allow those wishing to distribute original creative digital works to make a profit without legislating artificial scarcity into the digital medium?

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"Don't know much about history..."

[westlake]

Considering that it originated from the US and the US Constitution is quite specific on what "copyright type" things are ment to do.

The Statute of Anne was adopted in 1709.

The US Constitution [1789] establised the operational limits and structure of the federal government. The framers were dead against trying to make policy decisions and legislation for future generations:

The Congress shall have Power...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

This is all the Constitution has to say about intellectual property rights.

Re:"Don't know much about history..."

[laughingcoyote]

However, even that establishes a crucial framework. Copyright is not to "protect authors", to "give them rights", or any such thing. It is to promote progress, and it is only justifiable insofar as it actually, realistically does.

So, for example, retroactively extending copyrights was unjustifiable. One cannot promote progress by further locking down things already made. Letting a piece of copyrighted material go to the public domain in a timely manner, while it is still usable, is also crucial for promoting progress.

I also don't think one can realistically argue that today's massive terms do much more for progress than a ten to twenty year term would.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[ContractualObligatio]

Not only am I not wilfully ignorant, if you'd read my post you would notice that I reference all of their three issues. However, seeing as I'm capable of thinking for myself, I'm not obliged to simply accept their assertions. It seems a fair criticism to describe the Pirate Party as a single issue party, only interested in privacy and freedom of speech to the extent that it helps them in their primary goal. The Pirate Party has its roots in individuals making a profit from flouting copyright law, and using privacy and freedom of speech arguments as legal defences.

I don't disagree with their policies. But I don't have to believe they support them beyond their own self-interest, either. I don't think it's any coincidence that a party with a supposed interest in freedom of speech and privacy has nothing other than technology related headlines. If you're more worried about the other two issues, then give your money and support to Liberty, or a serious party. Because how could a party so transparently limited in its outlook have any real influence?

So, to paraphrase you post - if you don't think doing something useful about privacy and freedom of speech is important, then don't degenerate [sic] those of us who genuinely do.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[Vanders]

If you're more worried about the other two issues, then give your money and support to Liberty, or a serious party.

I have serious issues with Liberty as an organisation, and with many of their public policies. That aside, what "serious" parties are there that cover the same policies as PPUK? There simply isn't one. Your assertion that PPUK is simply a "single issue party" is nothing more than that: a personal assertion. The three issues that they are campaigning on are clearly stated on the PPUK website and the official manifesto.

I'm a PPUK member, and I'm a member because Privacy and Freedom of Speech are important to me. Copyright reform is not.

The Pirate Party has its roots in individuals making a profit from flouting copyright law, and using privacy and freedom of speech arguments as legal defences.

That's quite a serious allegation. Could you back up that allegation with some facts?

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[ContractualObligatio]

The problem isn't the wi-fi story - it's the absence of any substantial, non-tech stories that's the problem.

I did read your manifesto. And I still suspect you're nothing but a single issue party whose motivation is based on self-interest (either copyright or ego based, depending on the individual), but with enough smarts to bring other issues to bear try and justify their existence.

It doesn't matter whether you expect to field a candidate, let alone win a seat, let alone form a government. Your policies would have economic impact, and on public spending. Given that these are big topics, and you make no real attempt to address them - well, you just can't be taken seriously, can you?

I guess this all sounds rather harsh, it's just I think you need to be more than a nice enough person with a couple of good ideas to justify asking people for money. I happen to care quite a bit about all three policies and I'd prefer them to be treated seriously. You're more likely to reduce them to laughing stock.

copyright is only a means

[bzipitidoo]

I don't see any reason why copyright must be the only way to get million dollar games created.

The goal is more art and science, is it not? Naturally, compensation encourages such efforts. Copyright tries to enable the movement of money to producers of art and science by creating this artificial "right to copy" and making it transferable. That's hardly the only way to compensate people for their efforts, and it has a lot of very bad problems. Not least is the impossibility of enforcement. There are so many problems, negative consequences, chilling effects, and even results directly opposite to the intent that maybe copyright should be burned to the ground, as you put it.

We'll never know all the treasures that were lost and forgotten thanks to copyright lockdown keeping old, and possibly orphaned and abandoned works confined to a handful of deteriorating copies for years and years. We could better keep our history than we are. Why must libraries be constantly dogged with copyright issues? Nor, at the other end, will we know what we've missed in the way of improvements that never were because the obligation to get permission, pay for it, stifled so many worthy efforts. One huge thing that could be but largely isn't are improvements, such as Star Trek Remastered. There are so many near misses out there, but no one is allowed to improve it, oh no! Holders can demand any price they wish, any price at all, and often demand far too much, or outright refuse to cooperate at all. But that's the peril of granting a monopoly. And that's only if they can be found and contacted. Most of all is the assault on technology. They killed Digital Audio Tape and Napster, and tried to stop AM radio, player pianos, and pretty much every advance in recording and copying technology. They would shut down the Internet if they could. What price these monopolies?

Re:copyright is only a means

[Alistair Hutton]

Could you explain how? What is this alternate mechanism for funding a multi-million dollar game that won't make any money from distribution?

Re:copyright is only a means

[pv2b]

What is this alternate mechanism for funding a multi-million dollar game that won't make any money from distribution?

One example - MMOG's like World of Warcraft, Eve Online et cetera. As in - charge for the game service, not the game itself. People who play games like this will literally pay hundreds of euros in subscription fees over a long time, as long as the game offers enough replay value, and a good community. Which is plenty of money to run the servers and cover any cost of development.

In the case of MMOG's, content is even added on a regular basis.

A game doesn't need to be massively multiplayer for something like that. I always thought it was really backwards back when you paid for the game, but then people and random organisations or even ISPs were expected to run the servers for free, and enthusiasts were expected to fill the gap of user-created levels and mods - like it was for Quake for example.

It's all about adding value beyond the code that you ship to the end user.

Now, granted, I don't like the locked top-down model of World of Warcraft for example, for other reasons, that have nothing to do with how Blizzard funds its development - but that doesn't change the fact that it's a successful business model for creating a multi-million dollar game that does not rely on copyright law to work.

I should point out that there are in fact "private servers" where people can play World of Warcraft, for example, for free. (These servers usually aren't complete when it comes to game mechanics or quests etc.) But for some reason most players actually go on the official servers. I wonder why. Might it be Blizzard actually sells something people want to pay for? *gasp* What a novel concept.

Re:copyright is only a means

[bzipitidoo]

Yes, that's the subscription model. That's one way. And they have made millions doing it. Provide a service on a continuous basis. As well as online games, there are businesses such as Red Hat.

Advertisement revenue is another way. Works for some websites, some TV, radio, and newspapers.

Merchandising is yet another. Sell t-shirts, CDs, music players, and the like. Also, endorsements. Wonder how much Linus or RMS or the Mozilla Foundation could get for endorsing something?

Then there is patronage. Small donations from many people, big donations from a few rich patrons, or even government patronage. Also, there are many non-government foundations and charities devoted to promoting some particular agenda. Really, the main difference between patronage and service might be semantics-- patrons seldom donate to something they dislike or think is a waste.

No reason to be confined to just one of those. Can try to raise millions from all of them combined.

Re:copyright is only a means

[Alistair Hutton]

I did explicitly exclude subscription models from how to pay for games because not everyone wants to pay a on-going cost to play a game. I want to be able to buy a game now and still be able to play it in 1,2,5,10 years time without having to pony up more dough.

Re:copyright is only a means

[pv2b]

There's no reason a subscription model has to be equivalent to monthly payments. You can sell a lifetime* subscription just as well. (And as an uncle post says - subscriptions arent the only way..) Though realistically youd have to expect their servers to go down at some point - at which time - assuming the company is fair - they could offer the community to run the servers or even release the source code (such as id software's older titles).

Of course, you can assume bad faith on part of the companies as well if you like (the servers might just go down leaving your game unplayable) - but the fact is this is the way computer games as increasingly being sold, even in the absence of copyright reform. Keeping game copying illegal isn't going to change the economics of game development.

So, as it is, you seem to be argumenting against certain reforms of copyright law to protect a business model that isn't practically viable anyway - and still stifles creativity and innovation. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.

* lifetime of the game servers, obviously ;-)

Re:copyright is only a means

[disi]

The software can still be created in the basements of the companies and they do not need to open their source and they can still sell this game if they like to.

What we don't want is copyright on things like "double click", "a search engine in the middle of a web page", "a container based document format" to name the big fails of copyright!
Why can www.youtube.com not just switch to another codec?

If you buy a stupid dvd player nowadays 1/4 of the price are actual licences. Who pays for all the licences in the end? Right, it's you going into the shop to buy it.

At least in Germany is the idea of reducing licencing to a very less amount of time. A number of 5 years comes into mind, from then on everybody can use the new technology in their products.

Now comes the music part: After 5 years it could be remastered, mixed and create total new great content without caring about licences. No money flow to the big bosses in the business who hold nearly all of the copyrights.

The guy at home who shares music with his friend shouldn't be brought to court. People always copied stuff, if it was on floppy, cd, mail, p2p or whatever, this became part of our culture. Now you want to punish all the people and ruin their lifes in the name of money?
Bands and musicians could give concerts to get money out of their music. Pulic playing of songs should still pay something back to the author. Additionally we think about a kind of GEMA 2.0 where people with Internet Access pay a little fee, which is used to pay artists on the internet directly and not the labels. And still they could sell their CDs.

If you build up a reputation, people would buy the software or music etc. and probably donate money to keep up the good work.

Two examples:
Every now and then I get a popup when I try to play my Red Alert3 copy, I hate their drm crap and will never buy something again. Back in 2004 or something I thought about buying B&W II but it won't work on my system because I had daemon tools installed. Why does the software care what else I have on the system?!? I didn't buy the copy!

I have all copys of NWN and NWN2 because this game is just awesome and I like it. Guess what, it has just a normal CD-Key and after installation you can even play without CD! What costs additional money is to download more storys from their page after the main story is finished.
On my shelf are about 10 Linux ports of games as well

The same with music, I download quiet a lot from Jamendo and if I like it, I pay for it. The other stuff just gets deleted.

Re:copyright is only a means

[pv2b]

I think you're confusing copyright and patents.

Copyright covers specific works - not an idea or a concept. A patent covers an "invention".

Re:copyright is only a means

[disi]

Oh thanks :)
Anyway, see it as a patent appraoche then for the technical part.

It still applies to the music stuff and "intellectual property" until you die and your grandchildren die and their children etc.

Prohibition 2.0/The War on Drugs

[Mashhaster]

What are your feelings on the current UK drug policy? Do you feel addiction should be treated as a disease or a criminal matter? Do you feel it is time to legalize personal substance use, to stop fighting market forces with paramilitary forces, and to stop giving the Taliban access to a cash crop (poppy)?

Re:Authors would NOT be forced to lose their right

[cpt kangarooski]

Author should receive all attribution and credit, and certainly has the right to that. He also should have the right to forbid this attribution if parts of this information are used inappropriately (e.g. pasting a face into a pornographic image, or farting a sonnet); he should, however, be able to forbid the public of composing and publicizing the inappropriacies.

Why? Would authors refuse to create and publish their works otherwise? If so, why has such a prediction never come to pass in the US?

I wouldn't go so far as to endorse actual fraud (e.g. if you want to buy a book advertised as being written by Alice, but it was actually written by Bob), which is harm caused to the audience more than the author, but otherwise I simply don't see any public benefit from giving authors these rights. If an author disapproves of how his work is used, the better solution is for him to add to the discussion and tell us of his opinion, and why he holds it, and why we should be cross with the other person, rather than to silence someone.

So how should the artists get paid?

[presidenteloco]

Then a key question is: With no scarcity, how do we ensure or make it probable that the artist does get paid?

The only scarcity that would exist then would be the artist - it would have to be an already famous artist (problematic) -
saying: I will hold an auction, and if the collective donation bid reaches $X, I will release my masterpiece
to all the world, otherwise, stuff it, I'm doing a disk-wipe of the original.

Re:So how should the artists get paid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then a key question is: With no scarcity, how do we ensure or make it probable that the artist does get paid?

That is the same question/problem faced by any other profession - mechanics cannot make and sell unlimited copies of their work either.

Re:So how should the artists get paid?

[presidenteloco]

It's a pretty problematic analogy.

The mechanic has entered into a legally binding contract with a person who owns a single physical car. So they get paid for
fixing that one car, and since it is a physical object, it is easy for them to withhold it from the customer if they are not paid.

So the mechanic spends 4 hours working on the car, and gets paid, conservatively, $200 net.
So let's say I write a novel, spend 4 years (say 4,000 hours) producing it.

So let's say my novel is only half as valuable per unit of effort as the car repair.

So I can sell my first copy of it, after which it is unsellable (by me or any other agent/distributor) because it is infinitely copied.

So I have to sell that first copy for, by my calculation, $100,000, and I'm selling it to someone who can get the next
copy (indistinguishable from the original), for free.

Good luck to me I guess.

Seems to me like that would be the end of novel-writing.

Re:So how should the artists get paid?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I have to sell that first copy for, by my calculation, $100,000, and I'm selling it to someone who can get the next copy (indistinguishable from the original), for free.

Good luck to me I guess.

Seems to me like that would be the end of novel-writing.

Not so fast. To bring your novalist analogy into the real world: An example that demonstrates how digital duplication significantly benefits the bottom line of a novelist too small to be carried by large traditional distributors. In stark contrast to your more dramatic theory that it would "be the end of novel-writing"

NEW YORK (Fortune) — In 1999, best-selling author Paulo Coelho, who wrote "The Alchemist", was failing in Russia. That year he sold only about 1,000 books, and his Russian publisher dropped him. But after he found another, Coelho took a radical step. On his own Web site, launched in 1996, he posted a digital Russian copy of "The Alchemist". With no additional promotion, print sales picked up immediately. Within a year he sold 10,000 copies; the next year around 100,000. By 2002 he was selling a total of a million copies of multiple titles. Today, Coelho’s sales in Russian are over 10 million and growing...

Coelho explained why he thinks giving books away online leads to selling more copies in print: "It’s very difficult to read a book on your computer. People start printing out their own copies. But if they like the book, after reading 30-40 pages they just go out and buy it." Intrigued by his growing sales in Russia, Coelho used the Bittorrent site – a favorite for illicit distribution of media – to seek out and download online translations of his books as well as audio versions. By 2006 he was hosting an entire sub-site he called The Pirate Coelho, with links to books in many languages. While he did not play up his own role, he did quietly include a link on his official site. "So you gather together all the stolen digital versions?" I asked him. "You say steal?" he replied. "No. I think it’s a way of sharing." His agent, Monica Antunes, who joined in the interview, chimed in unashamedly, "We don’t own the translation rights to all those editions." By last year Coelho’s total print sales worldwide surpassed 100 million books. "Once we did the Pirate Coelho there was a significant boost," he says.

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2008/02/03/pirate-coelho/

As Mr Coelho demonstrates, artists do not need to be granted artificial scarcity rights in order for those individuals to make a good living. Only the multi billion dollar business models of large distributors are at risk. When the MPA and *IAA's are unable to charge scarce good prices for "distributing" digital copies that they essentially produce for free - more consumer money can flow directly to support artists instead of flowing to the old economy distributors who no longer connect artist's with the masses or add any value to the original/artistic content.

Re:So how should the artists get paid?

[Elektroschock]

Why do artists need to get paid? Do you get paid for your slashdot comments?

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[VJ42]

The problem isn't the wi-fi story - it's the absence of any substantial, non-tech stories that's the problem.

We're only 7 months old, we've only just established a proper press office; until now we've not had a way to respond to news stories.

I did read your manifesto. And I still suspect you're nothing but a single issue party whose motivation is based on self-interest (either copyright or ego based, depending on the individual),

As a PPUK member I can tell you that I believe in all three core ideals.

but with enough smarts to bring other issues to bear try and justify their existence.

It doesn't matter whether you expect to field a candidate, let alone win a seat, let alone form a government. Your policies would have economic impact, and on public spending. Given that these are big topics, and you make no real attempt to address them - well, you just can't be taken seriously, can you?

When we grow, and acquire expertise in those areas, I'm sure the manifesto will address them. As it stands, the IIRC Party membership is 600-700, mostly with knowledge in the area of digital rights. I'm sure that when, say the green party launched they didn't have detailed policy in areas other than green issues. Now, they have a full platform. We'll get there eventually.

I guess this all sounds rather harsh, it's just I think you need to be more than a nice enough person with a couple of good ideas to justify asking people for money. I happen to care quite a bit about all three policies and I'd prefer them to be treated seriously. You're more likely to reduce them to laughing stock.

Then join so you can influence the policy making. We're a democratic party, and every clause in the manifesto is up for a vote & input is welcomed from everyone.

Source Code Release at the End of Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

It strikes me that, as part of the social contract of copyright, companies should be obligated to release source code at the end of copyright. Will you push for this?

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[Andy_R]

Hey, he asked me, not you :-)

Re:the concert is the product

[presidenteloco]

Yeah, but what happens when we can all, with our 3D digital TVs,
enter into most of the concert experience from home, courtesy of
high-quality sound and VR reconstructions created automatically
and in real time from 100 HD cellphone videos taken by fans in the audience?

I guess it would still be missing marijauna smell-o-vision.

Re:Authors would NOT be forced to lose their right

[presidenteloco]

The problem is this. The physical media versions of works of "information/art" (e.g. cds, dvds, books) are quickly
going the way of the dodo. All such info/art creative products will soon live mostly in the cloud as pure information.

So in this context, how does the artist/creator earn their daily bread?

Or is that a "not my problem" kind of issue, as long as you have your rights?

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[VJ42]

Hey, he asked me, not you :-)

Sorry, just being a good party activist ;p

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[Andy_R]

...and I was just posting to get rid of modpoints. I was sooooo tempted to pick the questions I most wanted to answer. Hmm, I wonder if there's an unlockable achievement for rigging your own interview?

Will you protect workers from exploitation?

[physicsdot]

Powerful copyright holders should not exploit the public by undemocratically changing laws to suit themselves - but what about the converse?

My wife is a writer - her last book was short-listed for a major award, but had disappointing sales - she has earned about half minimum wage for her 9 months work. However, there is a copy of her book on the torrent sites with enough seeders for me to think that her book is downloaded more than 20 times a week.

We know these most of these downloads are not lost sales; perhaps the downloader was poor, or didn't like the book. But some of them will enjoy it, and some of them will be comfortably well off. Those people who benefit from or enjoy my wife's book have a moral obligation to ensure that my wife is fairly compensated for it - otherwise they are exploiting her.

Will your party have a system in place to ensure that poor content creators are not exploited by rich content consumers?

Game developers

[sopssa]

It's mostly because those professions work on actual physical items and things, but while digital things don't cost almost anything to copy and sell to a new customer, they cost a lot to product.

Which brings us to another question:

How will computer game developers afford making games? Games are 99% sold for personal usage. If personal file-sharing is legalized it means game developers won't be making any money and can't cover the cost of making games. Game projects are long and huge projects, take thousands of man-years to finish and employ 50-200+ people working in the process.

Usually at this point people argue that those who like making games will keep doing so as a hobby or we can just play open source games. However the fact is that most open source and most freeware games are mediocre at best. There's no art, the graphics are from last century, most of games are clones of commercial games, sounds and music are sometimes completely missing and most games don't have any story (just try to find an open source game with Lucas Arts or Sierra like stories). They're also almost never polished or finished. This is understandable as they're done by coders, not designers or people with art skills and theres no incentive to finish and polish the project as theres no monetary gain involved.

Another point is that monetary gain leads to innovation. People have incentive to think and try out things in hope of monetary gain. Most open source games don't innovate anything, they're just about freeing some proprietary game. FreeCiv is based on Civilization, Wesnoth is based on Warlords games, OpenTTD is based Transport Tycoon (and even uses their data sets) and most shooters are Quake 2 clones. Even the interesting indie-games are proprietary, financed projects and not open source games.

If personal file-sharing would be legalized it would mean the death of the games industry if they didn't evolve. But in this case evolving would be making things completely worse. Only way for game developers to survive would be adding excessive DRM in their games like the recent Ubisoft copy protection that requires you to be connected to their servers all the time. They would probably need to harden it even more and have many parts of the game code actually run on the servers, making copying impossible. This would result in games still not being available for personal file-sharing and backfire in draconian DRM systems. Would it really be better than the current system?

Discussion about copyright is usually only around music and forgets that some of the other industries have a much harder time to come up with alternative solutions, so I'd like to hear a good solution on how would gaming industry work.

Re:Game developers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's mostly because those professions work on actual physical items and things, but while digital things don't cost almost anything to copy and sell to a new customer, they cost a lot to product.

Most, but not all. For an interesting real world novalist example see the post in the thread above

Which brings us to another question:

How will computer game developers afford making games?

I notice that many of the new games are now emphasizing the online multiplayer aspect- e.g. Left4Dead 2 single player mode is the least interesting and almost hidden at the end of a long line of cool value added online multiplayer games. All value added services that cannot be copied. WOW has been profitable, popular and has little competition. Are the game studios happy about being forced to do this to make money? I doubt it, but there lies the heart of this: Once you break even, It is extremely profitable to just duplicate as many copies as you need for fixed cost and sell each copy for scarce good prices. Example: COD MW2: As of January 18, 2010, it has taken over $1 billion in sales. Now subtract the cost of production (a _lot_ less than 1billion even you would have to admit) - now each "unit" sold going forward is all gravy: it has a fixed cost approaching zero to copy/produce.

It is much less profitable to have to run game servers to make a living, with all the overhead they bring. However this is how services in the real world operate: you actually have to have a value added service to make money, _not_ have a legislated and privilidged position to be the only one able to make a digital copy. Relying on legislation to enforce artificial scarcity into the digital medium in order to support your business model built upon the exclusive right to make copies for sale, is highly morally questionable to say the least. Further, COD MW2 managed to pull off 1 billion sales despite what pundits claim to be an internet rife with piracy/No ACTA to control the masses copying digital information!

Most likely COD MW2 benefited from the Internets natural ability to copy and propagate information, exactly the same as the Novalist reference I provided at the beginning.

Discussion about copyright is usually only around music and forgets that some of the other industries have a much harder time to come up with alternative solutions, so I'd like to hear a good solution on how would gaming industry work.

You have heard it, I have even given you real world examples - but I bet you'll reject it for one simple reason. Actually having to provide a value added service is of course not nearly as profitable as legislating artificial scarcity into the digital medium for your exclusive "right" to make unlimited copies and sell each one as if it was scarce commodity. For this reason (not as profitable) every major large game studio, music and movie producer in the world is going to fight tooth and nail, pay off any politician necessary to have legislation enacted to force artificial scarcity ASAP. As Micheal Geist put it in a recent presentation to Washington college of law: ACTA is an underhanded (immoral) way to bypass democratic processes built into other treaties like WIPO.

Re:Authors would NOT be forced to lose their right

[c6gunner]

So in this context, how does the artist/creator earn their daily bread?

Well, in the old days, they did it through Patronage, as well as by charging for live performances.

A good artists can easily earn his/her "daily bread" even if his/her works are copied without limit. What you're really asking is "How can a few industry-selected artists continue to rake in millions of dollars, out of all proportion to the time, effort, and talent which they've invested in their work". And the answers is simple: they can't, and I don't see any reason why they should.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[ContractualObligatio]

until now we've not had a way to respond to news stories

So that's why wi-fi catches your eye, but for instance the John Venables story plastered all of the news, with the comment pages full of privacy vs. disclosure debates, didn't register? The fact remains that it simply doesn't seem coincidental that none of the stories on the site on are really about freedom of speech or privacy, but a narrow set of interests.

As a PPUK member I can tell you that I believe in all three core ideals

Yes, so do I - amongst other critical issues right now. But when a party born of an anti-copyright movement has three "core ideas" that all directly flow from the central theme of copyright reform - it appears to be a classic case of the simplest explanation most likely being the correct one. There is simply no reason whatsoever of any kind to believe that there is anything more than a single theme driving the party. You know, like UKIP has a full platform but everyone knows it's really just got one idea.

The Green Party also really just has one core idea, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Sustainability runs through their entire platform. They take a single issue, but demonstrate the importance of that idea by showing its relevance to so many areas. It isn't surprising the Pirate Party has not been able to do that with their central concern of copyrights - it has a rather more limited vision.

So I won't join, because the Pirate Party is fundamentally flawed. The idea of a political party whose members mostly come from a similar domain of knowledge is kind of offputting, too. Oh, and if Green doesn't appeal, the Lib Dems and their Freedom Bill would deliver a number of the PPUK policy goals. Your efforts will have more effect feeding into an existing political machine rather than a new one. Really, why take a the less effective route to realise your goals?

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[ContractualObligatio]

what "serious" parties are there that cover the same policies as PPUK? There simply isn't one.

Thing is, if you stop and think, then the most obvious implication of this is that the PPUK's policies are therefore not serious ones. If you think and do a bit of reading, you realise you can drop copyright reform as an issue (you don't think it's important anyway), and then the Lib Dem's policies do in fact cover some of the PPUK policies. In short: your talking out your arse.

Your assertion that PPUK is simply a "single issue party" is nothing more than that: a personal assertion

No, try the thinking trick again. If it were nothing more than just an assertion, there would be no supporting logic or facts. But the three core ideas readily reduce to a platform addressing copyright reform, or digital rights as was mentioned in a separate post. The simplest solution is often the best one, so mine is not an assertion but a conclusion based upon the facts. Besides, look at this page: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Manifesto. Clearly the over-riding inspiration is intellectual property related matters.

The three issues that they are campaigning on are clearly stated on the PPUK website and the official manifesto.

Assuming of course that these documents possess both intellectual honesty and rigour. I do not believe they do, for reasons already given.

I'm a member because Privacy and Freedom of Speech are important to me.

Even though there is a more established party that is far more likely to get results on those issues? Why?

Could you back up that allegation with some facts?

Sure. There is a direct lineage from the PPUK through the International Pirate Party to the Swedish Pirate Party to the Pirate Bay, whose prominence is widely known to have driven the crucial early membership of the Party, and whose legal advisor became a Pirate Party board member. The Pirate Bay was found guilty of profiting from assisting from copyright violations in 2009.

Of course, if you did think copyright reform was important, you would have an honest argument in favour of the Pirate Bay. There's at least one I've made mysefl in the past, seeing as I do believe in copyright reform. As it is, you seem to be taking more of a "wilful ignorance" approach.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[Anonymous Coward]

the most obvious implication of this is that the PPUK's policies are therefore not serious one

"Serious" was your word, hence the quotes. It isn't obvious and it is in no way any sort of implication, other than one you yourself made.

the Lib Dem's policies do in fact cover some of the PPUK policies.

Some of. The LibDems do not have such a radical platform as the PPUK and nor are they as committed to supporting that particular part of their platform as the PPUK are.

Assuming of course that these documents possess both intellectual honesty and rigour. I do not believe they do, for reasons already given.

Then it is pointless continuing this thread as you've already made your mind up and are simply on the attack. There is clearly nothing to debate.

Give me some evidence

[fantomas]

Give me some referenced evidence for your assertions. "Half a century" - you mean when Conservative were voted in in Oct. 1959 or other? You mean Macmillan's "You've never had it so good" government?

Interested to know what town you live in and how you've come to these conclusions.

Not quite sure what you mean by "a people" - we're one of the most mixed nations there's ever been, always been immigration and always will be. Our definition is always fluid and changing. Black folk lived in England before the English, after all (records of African soldiers serving in Roman armies on Hadrians Wall, e.g. Burgh-by-Sands). Angles didn't invade from Denmark and Germany for a couple of hundred years after that....

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[VJ42]

Sorry for the late reply on this, but I've been unable to get to My PC for a couple of days.

So that's why wi-fi catches your eye, but for instance the John Venables story plastered all of the news, with the comment pages full of privacy vs. disclosure debates, didn't register?

With all the noise about Jon Venables, exactly which news outlet would pick up on the Pirate party's view of this story? With only volunteers to write press releases and blog posts we prioritize on issues that give us the most visibility. That's not to say we're not discussing it internally, there's a thread on the forum devoted to the issue.

The fact remains that it simply doesn't seem coincidental that none of the stories on the site on are really about freedom of speech or privacy, but a narrow set of interests.

Really? I just checked the PPUK fron page and there's a story about CCTV cameras being installed in a school toilet in Solihull http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2010/mar/9/solihull-school-installs-cctv-childrens-toilets/

It isn't surprising the Pirate Party has not been able to do that with their central concern of copyrights - it has a rather more limited vision.

Really? We've got things on our agenda like abolition of drug patents to make medication cheaper (I paraphrase). Sounds like medical policy to me. Similar principles can be applied throughout policy areas, you'd be surprised at how far IP law pervades society. Having said that, we're not looking to win power, just with the debate. The green party has all the big ones falling over themselves to appear greener than one another. We're looking for that type of success, not government.

The idea of a political party whose members mostly come from a similar domain of knowledge is kind of offputting, too.

This is hardly our fault, we are recruiting & we do have people from outside IT. I'm a librarian, for example. I agree we need more though, and we'll welcome anybody.

Oh, and if Green doesn't appeal, the Lib Dems and their Freedom Bill would deliver a number of the PPUK policy goals. Your efforts will have more effect feeding into an existing political machine rather than a new one. Really, why take a the less effective route to realise your goals?

These would be the same lib-dems who made the digital economy bill worse: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2010/mar/6/lib-dems-make-digital-economy-bill-even-worse/

Well we helped convince their PPCs, but their MPs are ignoring them. http://www.libdemvoice.org/digital-economy-bill-parliamentarians-reply-to-prospective-candidates-18200.html If the lib-dems were to adopt all areas of Pirate policy, the need for the pirate party would be over, but they haven't and don't look like doing so.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[ContractualObligatio]

which news outlet would pick up on the Pirate party's view of this story? .. we prioritize on issues that give us the most visibility .. I just checked the PPUK front page

Oh, grow up. A blog post takes a few minutes. Here's out it works - look at the various evidence available, note all the many and various things happening in the world, spot the overwhelming concentration of the Pirate Party on their core issue around copyright, the internet, digital media etc. If after that you can still honestly say all three "core" issues are equally important, then you exactly the kind of unreliable, divorced-from-reality person we seem to end up with for politicians.

You seem to need some kind of statistical analysis of just how much significant content there is regarding geek issues compared to the others. Well done, you can latch onto isolated facts like a terrier with a bone. This is exactly the kind of smart-arse-schoolboy-on-Slashdot level of thinking that makes the PPUK a bad bet in my eyes.

Really? We've got things on our agenda like abolition of drug patents to make medication cheaper

Yes, really. The Green's environment / sustainability concern is definitely a bigger picture vision than yours. There's a reason climate change is a huge international story. In the body of your manifesto, the bit on drug patents is buried in the small print. Blink and you'll miss it. It's a useful debating point for you and little more.

the same lib-dems who made the digital economy bill worse

The issues at the heart of Amendment 120A are twofold. First, it replaces Clause 17, which would have given the secretary of state unprecedented and sweeping powers to amend the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. These powers would not have been used to do anything but make the situation worse. This means that it is in fact an improvement on the bill. Based on the facts, it's just bullshit to say it makes it worse.

Second, it takes a valid concern about law breaking, and attempts to address in a specific manner. I think copyright needs reform, I don't agree with web blocking. But a specific law that could get addressed in future, particularly with major corporate interests against it? That amendment in fact makes it possible, so what the Lib Dems have done is not exactly the sin you make it out to be.

But, as my original premise was I wonder whether PPUK membership is particularly comfortable dealing with complex realities, I don't expect you to believe any of that for a second.

So anyway, your policies are ones I support. In time - I don't believe in this election - the Pirate Party may come across as a more mature group. So go participate in democracy, vote for what you believe in. It's more than most of us do.

Re:It's not that I disagree with the policies as s

[VJ42]

In time - I don't believe in this election - the Pirate Party may come across as a more mature group.

We're only about seven months old. We're not a politically mature organisation. I freely admit that this election has come far too early for us. Hopefully we can grow through the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish & Euro ones so that four or five years from now we'll have a better platform at the next one. If you take a look at the early green movement, they looked like a lot like us in terms of single issue politics. Now they've won the war of ideas without ever getting a seat in Parliament. If we can do the same, the Pirate movement will have been a success.

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd suggest you start distributing the schematics for an affordable, reusable vircator or similar device with your official literature. "The needle which plucks the electronic eye!" If you don't know what that is, give it a look. If you don't think that anyone is watching, that is.

Speaking as an American I can say that we're both up shit's creek, but in different ways. Your officials seem very excited to turn British public spaces into a national Panopticon, with ageism and counterintelligence being the two most popular justifications. With the recent advent of devices like the infamous 'Mosquito', a very pressing question has presented itself which I think your party should very carefully consider: How long do you think it will be before your police ratchet up the pressure and, with or without your public's knowing or consent, install actual incapacitating devices in or near all those cameras as well? My guess would be not long, especially if the natives become restless there in Jolly Old England and elsewhere thanks to the likely course the economy will chart over the next ten years.

It would be trivial, truly trivial, to retrofit the existing mass-surveillance networks in the United Kingdom with stealthy incapacitation devices that can work from a considerable distance now that those devices are entering the market. I hate to be a dread merchant, but your people need to be very worried about how authoritarians could abuse your nation's abundance of surveillance in order to subvert human rights. No matter how remote you might consider that possibility, that the possibility exists is cause enough for concern and should not be tolerated. A direct assault on the legitimacy of the British Panopticon and the people who authorize and support its expansion, with an emphasis on past, present, and especially potential future abuses, should be a top priority of any truly enlightened political movement there.

Technology has the power to both diminish and magnify oppression. Will the Pirate Party embrace prudence as a virtue?

Re:What is your stance on erosion of privacy in UK

[Anonymous Coward]

I would also like to clarify what I mean by prudence; technological prudence. This might be at odds with some of your beliefs and official stances, but I don't believe that you can 'have it both ways' with technological freedom.

0.1
"The abolition of technological imprudence;

0.2
Where technological imprudence is defined as the distribution, sale, installation, and mass manufacture of devices and the provision of services deemed imprudent;

0.3
Where imprudent products and services are defined as any which could be or actually are intended to be used for the purpose of subverting human and civil rights;

0.4
Where the potential or intentional subversion of human and civil rights is to be accomplished through surveillance or counterintelligence and the application of discomfort and force up to and including lethal force;

0.5
Where the application of the products or services in question can be proven to have a potentially or actually abusive quality which endangers the privacy, personal freedom, or health of private individuals and the public at large, which cannot by reconciled by merit of other justifiable, non-abusive, or benign qualities and applications which the product or service may have;

0.6
And regardless of where these products or services are to be applied, including exportation of imprudent products and services to nations abroad.

0.7
Further, parties which are found to be assisting or directly participating in the distribution, sale, installation, mass manufacture, and provision of imprudent products and services in nations abroad are subject to penalty as well."

That's a rough draft, but it gets the point across. Oppression is bad, imprudent products and services are things which have a provable potential for abuse or have actually been abused before, and therefore imprudent products and services should be banned. 0.5 leaves wiggle room for things like cameras, where the cameras have plenty of benign or justifiable uses, or CCTV services which install camera systems inside stores where the premises are being monitored by their owner, but leaves mass surveillance open to attack on the grounds that it can be or has been abused. 0.6 and 0.7 would effectively prohibit companies in the United Kingdom from doing any business abroad which could threaten the rights of others, such as the sale of snooping technology.

Something I saw in Ars Technica

[Thinboy00]

Here (warning: US-centric). What's your opinion?