Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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?
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?
Puzzle Daze is now my job
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?
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?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
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.
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.