The Pirate Party of Canada Is Official

wasme writes "The Pirate Party of Canada has become the first Pirate Party outside of Europe to become an official political party. Elections Canada confirmed with the party that the PPCA has gained 'eligible for registration' status, and can run in elections starting June 14. From the PPCA's official announcement: 'We are pleased to announce that as of April 12, 2010, the Pirate Party of Canada is officially eligible for Party Status. After 10 months of dedication and hard work, we have reached eligible status, which only leaves a 60-day "purgatory" period. After that, we will field candidates in subsequent federal elections, and begin the real work of a political party.'"

Comments

Congratulations

[cbreak]

May the seas be open and the winds be fortunate. Although I can't help but wonder if the name "Pirate Party" for all the pirate parties isn't a bit too ... daring. Maybe even misleading.

Re:Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone who has ever used the Internet to obtain an unrestricted digital copy of music or a movie is going to be labeled "pirate", then I don't have any reason to avoid the term. The term has already lost all meaning.

I was born in the U.S., I purchased DVDs while living there. Now to watch what I've purchased, I'm a "pirate".

Re:Congratulations

[KarlIsNotMyName]

Yeah, personally I don't consider copying data or information as serious an act as pillaging, rape and murder, and I don't see how anyone made that connection.

No amount of specific sequences of 1s and 0s on my HDDs is going to make me think of myself as a pirate.

Re:Congratulations

[MrNaz]

Your rather eloquent expression of the invalid conflation between egregious breaches of social morality and insignificantly trivial breaches of consumer behavior is misplaced.I think what you mean to say is "ARRRR!"

Re:Congratulations

[lxs]

Mr. Springsteen is that you?

I was born in the U.S.A.
Purchased DVDs while living there
Now to watch what I've purchased I'm a pirate yeah!
I was born in the U.S.A.

Re:Congratulations

[HungryHobo]

In the past?
You mean when there were even more pirates?

Re:Congratulations

[chewthreetimes]

You're right. Sharing a name with such a shitty baseball team could result in a lowered public perception of the party's competence.

Re:Congratulations

[TheKidWho]

You can blame that on global warming.

Re:Congratulations

[Vanderhoth]

Your rather eloquent expression of the invalid conflation between egregious breaches of social morality and insignificantly trivial breaches of consumer behavior is misplaced.I think what you mean to say is "ARRRR! Eh!"

Fixed that for you

Re:Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

"When piracy basically didn't exist" means "When they didn't talk about it on the telly" right?

Re:Congratulations

[silanea]

Mod parent up. Piracy (as in people boarding ships to ransack the cargo or kidnap the crew) has never ceased, it was simply marginalised to third-world regions where it did not affect "our" trade and therefore seldom made it into the news.

Re:Congratulations

[poetmatt]

it was the content industries of the US that deliberately and forcefully changed the meaning of pirate from "pirate of the high seas" to "software pirate" to "copyright infringement pirate". This was done via putting it in the news constantly. Pirate this, pirate that. So it's very appropriate to have a name that is a direct reminder of what they are up against.

The smart folks understand this has nothing to do with Somalia, although if it does bring attention to that, it would be a good thing. People need to know that other governments are abusing the fact that Somalia doesn't have a gov't right now.

Re:Congratulations

[mr_gorkajuice]

As long as digital pirates feel the need to hide as "Anonymous Coward" on /., I'm pretty sure they're pretty far form working up the guts to even hold a gun.

Re:Congratulations

[I_Voter]

RE: Political Party names

In most other nations ( other than the U.S. ) the significance of a ballot label's "imagery" can be limited by the ability of a political party to enforce party platforms.

In the U.S.(in general) the name of a political party is just a ballot label, and any individual politician can run under it in a primary (nominating) election. In most other democratic nations, a political party is a private member based organization that "owns" a ballot label and chooses politicians to run under that label. Since politicians are responsible the their party, a member based party can, and sometimes does, write a political platform, containing specific issues that it's individual politicians can be required to support.

The U.S. has not ratified the Copenhagen Document of the Helsinki Accords which states in part: (7.6) - respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by the authorities;..

Can You Define What a Political Party is?

Our Glorious National Committees: Ever wonder what they do?

Re:Congratulations

[zerospeaks]

It should be noted that the "pirates" of Somalia are just trying to protect their country from all the illegal toxic waste dumping that goes on. They consider themselves a volunteer coast guard. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

And now for their party theme song

[dkleinsc]

Pirates of the Saskatchewan, by the Arrogant Worms

And it's a hi (hey) ho (hey) coming down the plains,
Stealing wheat and barley, and all the other grains.
And it's a ho (hey) hi (hey) Farmers bar your doors,
when you see the Jolly Rodger on Regina's mighty shores.
--------

But seriously, great news, and best of luck to 'em. Now go get those CRIA hosers.

Re:And now for their party theme song

[MonsterTrimble]

As a proud Manitoban & Canadian, may I say "Yar! Where do I sign?" And since nobody has seen fit to post the lyrics...

The Last Saskatchewan Pirate - Arrogant Worms/Captain Tractor/Brad Johner

I used to be a farmer, and I made a living fine,
I had a little stretch of land along the CP line
But times were hard and though I tried, the money wasn't there
And the bankers came and took my land and told me "fair is fair"

I looked for every kind of job, the answer always no
"Hire you now?" they'd always laugh, "we just let twenty go!"
The government, the promised me a measly little sum
But I've got too much pride to end up just another bum.

Then I thought, who gives a damn if all the jobs are gone?
I'm gonna be a PIRATE on the river Saskatchewan!

And it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores

Well, you'd think the local farmers would know that I'm at large
But just the other day I found an unprotected barge
I snuck up right behind them and they were none the wiser,
I rammed their ship and sank it and I stole their fertilizer!

A bridge outside of Moose Jaw spans a mighty river
Farmers cross in so much fear their stomachs are a'quiver
Cause they know that Captain Tractor's hidin' in the bay
I'll jump the bridge and knock them cold and sail off with their hay!

And it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores

Well, Mountie Bob he chased me, he was always at my throat
He followed on the shoreline cause he didn't own a boat
But cutbacks were a'coming and the Mountie lost his job
So now he's sailing with us, and we call him Salty Bob!

A swingin' sword, a skull and bones and pleasant company
I never pay my income tax and screw the GST (SCREW IT!!)
Sailin down to Saskatoon, the terror of the seas
If you wanna reach the co-op, boy, you gotta get by me!

Cause it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores

(*spoken* Arrrr! Ya salty dog!)
(*spoken* Arrrr! Ya salty gopher!)
(*spoken* Arr.. ya.. salty bale of hay!)
Well, Pirate life's appealing but you just don't find it here,
I hear in North Alberta there's a band of buccaneers
They roam the Athabaska from Smith to Fort McKay
And you're gonna lose your Stetson if you have to pass their way!

Well, winter is a'comin' and a chill is in the breeze
My Pirate days are over once the river starts to freeze
I'll be back in springtime but now I have to go
I hear there's lots of plunderin' down in New Mexico!

Cause it's a heave-ho, hi-ho, comin' down the plains
Stealin' wheat and barley and all the other grains
It's a ho-hey, hi-hey farmers bar yer doors
When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores...x2

When ya see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores...x2

Re:Serving two masters

[polar red]

Turning over power to multinationalists

keep drinking coca-cola-corp products, eating nestle foods, and driving GM cars ... The problem with your reasoning is that you don't apply it to corporations.

Reation from Big Media / Big Patents to this ... ?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Have there been any reactions from Big Media / Big Patents to this? Their strategy in the past has been to label these folks as common criminals when lobbying governments.

How do they swallow the fact that the Pirate Parties are now taking a legal and official route to copyright reform?

Have they issued any formal statements?

Maybe with more Pirates sailing the seas of governments, we will finally get information about what this super-secretive ACTA thing is all about.

I can't say if I am for or against the ACTA . . . because I don't know the details.

I do have a problem with so-called democracies sealing international treaties, while keeping their citizens (subjects) in the dark.

New name...

[captainpanic]

Although the "Pirate Party" is a good name to get some publicity in these early hours, I believe that on the long term a new name must be found which reflects the main issues the party stands for.

Pirate can be changed into Privacy - still a P, so not such a change.

But I would run with this name for the next months or even years.

Re:New name...

[Yvanhoe]

Yeah, many people amongst pirate parties feel that way too. But first, we think that the "second-degreeness" of the name is good and is a way to ridicule this "pirate" label that lobbyists are trying to give to people who just share files. There has already been some reaction (from the RIAA IIRC). They said that "pirate" was a bad term because it sounded "too cool" and that they needed to come out with a new term to qualify their enemies. We proposed "filesharers" but apparently that is not what they are looking for.

Re:New name...

[CyberDragon777]

The Pirate Party stands for sharing information, not privacy.

Umm, no.

"Started in 2009, the Pirate Party of Canada strives to reform Canadian copyright laws, reform the patent system, and protect every Canadian’s right to privacy."

http://www.piratepartyofcanada.com/

Re:New name...

[VJ42]

OK, so that seems a bit schizophrenic. You want to increase privacy, but also want to "let information be free" in terms of allowing sharing of information. But increased privacy is the opposite of sharing information, it's increased control over it.

We want openness and transparency from government and organisations but privacy protections for individuals. There's no contradiction there, just empowerment for the normal person. Copyright would still remain (at a much reduced length) for people who try and make money from others work, just sharing between individuals would be decriminalized. A full PPUK manifesto can be found from here: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/press/releases/2010/mar/22/pirate-party-uk-announces-general-election-manifes/

Re:Needs a better name

[MRe_nl]

If you're going to limit the naming of your party to "things Americans don't shoot at", you're seriously limiting yourself, slippery. "Democrats" and "Republicans" is right out the window for instance ; ).

History will look upon the pirate parties...

[Max Romantschuk]

...not as extreme promoters of the abolition of copyright, but the catalyst that led the eventual restoration of copyright as a tool to promote cultural innovation, instead of hampering it.

I can dream, can't I? :)

Re:History will look upon the pirate parties...

[Aladrin]

I don't think that dream is so far from reality.

Re:History will look upon the pirate parties...

[cpt kangarooski]

Why? Copyrights exist to promote the public interest by encouraging authors to create and publish works that they otherwise would not create and publish, while minimally restricting the public in terms of both the scope of protection and the duration during which the works are protected.

A perpetual right is not only unconstitutional (the Constitution requires that copyrights be granted only for a limited time), but clearly cannot ever promote the public interest precisely because it is perpetual. Further, for nearly all of our history, we've never had rights like that in the US, and even today, the closest we get is to barely have them for a fraction of works (almost nothing qualifies, by design). Yet we still have lots of works being created and published. Pretty clearly, many authors simply don't require such rights as you describe in order to be incentivized to create and publish; they'll do it for less, in which case it would be wasteful to give them more. (Like the $500,000 screwdriver of military spending infamy) I doubt there would be a big explosion in the number of authors creating and publishing works if we did grant them; most of the rest of the world grants those rights (although not perpetually AFAIK), and they don't totally overshadow the US in terms of creative output.

No, moral rights are simply bogus. They harm, rather than benefit, the public; they aren't so desired by authors that authors are willing to actually do or not do anything in order to get them; they aren't even sensible (who cares about these things outside of matters of fraud, which there is already a law for); and they are particularly harmful to free speech (whatever the uses of works that authors might be offended by, I am certain that those uses are more important than the easily hurt feelings that the author has; more speech on public issues is always better than less, and there's nothing wrong with recycling someone else's).

Re:History will look upon the pirate parties...

[cpt kangarooski]

No. That is your and some American forefather's interpretation of why the copyright exists.

Well, that's good company to be in. Of course, it is also the reasoning of the British, when they created what we think of as copyright, even earlier in the 18th century. And it's been the opinion of at least the US courts up to the present day. And, frankly, it's the only reason that is compatible with the idea of a natural right of free speech.

In other countries, the right to be recognized as an Author of a work is already perpetual (as well as untradeable)Plainly wrong. Who says it isn't in the publics interest that creators are recognized perpetually.

Again, you're failing to explain your assertions. In any event, I say it isn't in the public's interest. People naturally have a right of free speech; it applies even to statements which are matters of opinion, or even things which are false. It is not a right that should be interfered with unless there is a very compelling reason to, there is no better alternative to limiting speech that would address the reason, and the restriction accomplishes what it needs to do, without going one bit further. And that's if you accept the idea that speech should be restricted at all. The absolutist position is appealing, and has been seen at even the very highest levels in this country, and perhaps elsewhere.

Here, you want to prohibit people, with the force of law, from speaking freely. What if there is a dispute as to authorship, possibly without any solid proof (e.g. were the plays of Shakespeare written by Shakespeare, or by someone else?) What if you want to reprint a book, but you don't want to attribute or misattribute it to anyone? What if the author doesn't want to be recognized, or wants to credit someone else (e.g. a ghost writer), but you ignore his wishes just as much as you do everyone else's?

I could understand restricting fraud: If I write a book, and I list someone else, someone famous, as the author, this could mislead people into buying it. And if I were famous, I might take a book written by someone else, take credit for it, and thus exploit my advantage unfairly. But we've already got laws against fraud. We don't need more laws to cover the exact same thing. And the victim of fraud is often not the actual author, but the customer who was defrauded.

Further, why should the right be perpetual? The author can not suffer injury once he's dead. But the public, as a whole, will still be around. Their right of free speech will still be suffering from a limitation. Why should this last forever? How does it benefit them? And in a democratic society, which recognizes free speech as one of the most fundamental rights to be protected (and which doesn't recognize copyright as such; that's just a convenience for the public), how could such a restriction be tolerated?

That is your claim

Restrictions on speech always harm the public. They may carry with them some benefit to the public, which outweighs the harm, but I've yet to see such a benefit to the public shown in this case. Further, what benefit could outweigh a perpetual restriction?

Well, they already have them where I live. And they damn well don't want to lose them.

What authors want is irrelevant, save for how the public benefits overall as a result. Think of dairy cows: The cow might want a solid gold cowbell, but the dairy farmer is only going to spend money on the cow's well being if it improves his bottom line. He will not waste money on the cow just for the hell of it, regardless of what the cow wants.

And in any case, if you don't live in the US, I don't care much what your copyright laws are, if you keep them to yourself. Paying even the tiniest iota of attention to foreign copyright laws has seriously harmed US copyright law. The sensible thing for us to do is to withdraw from all of our copyright treaties, unilaterally grant national treatment to foreigners (i.e. nationality will be irrelevant for applying for a US copyrig

Re:History will look upon the pirate parties...

[Monkeedude1212]

I can dream, can't I? :)

Yes, and you're the kind of individual we need running for office.

Re:Serving two masters

[jdigriz]

Please, Bad Analogy Guy, explain to us how differences in physical geography cause different needs for digital freedom.

Re:Serving two masters

[SpazmodeusG]

If you think it's bad I'm guessing you don't vote republican then? Seeing as though they are part of a larger international political organisation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democrat_Union

Re:Serving two masters

[vadim_t]

Actually, no.

The different pirate parties don't all work the same. I see it as a generic name for the concept, just like there's a "Communist Party" or "Conservative Party" in multiple countries. They may agree on the basics between themselves, but don't necessarily actively cooperate or agree on the specifics.

The different pirate parties do disagree on things like how long copyright should last. There's a general agreement that the current length is too long, but the swedish one wants 5 years, while there are others that would be fine with 20.

Re:cd tax

[nawitus]

Many countries (including Finland for example) have a cassette tax (which applies to CD's etc), but still have strict copyright laws. Besides, pirate parties have a broad range of issues from civil liberties to privacy, patents etc. Copyright is only a rather small part of our agenda.

Re:Serving two masters

[MrNaz]

He compares the PP to the International Socialist Org. I think his *real* problem is that he's rabidly against all that even slightly fetters corporate power due to his blind hatred of anything that smells like socialism. I wonder if he can spell "McCarthyism".

Re:Serving two masters

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, Bad Analogy Guy, explain to us how differences in physical geography cause different needs for digital freedom.

And, if possible, please use an analogy to illustrate your explanation.

Re:cd tax

[nawitus]

Because it all started from copyright. The Green Party (atleast in Finland) also has a broad range of issues they wan't to deal with. But they also started with the conservation of nature and such.

Re:Needs a better name

[nawitus]

Why does it matter when a) they've been elected to the European Parliament and b) even the copyright lobby belives it's a "cool" name? It would be a near political suicide to try to change the name. There was a short lived "information society party" in Finland but that didn't go anywhere.

Re:Serving two masters

[PhunkySchtuff]

corporations don't make laws or form government you silly twit.

You must be new round here.

It's called the "golden rule" - he who has the gold, makes the rules. From where I'm sitting, corporations have most of the gold, and there sure are a lot of laws being made in their favour at the moment.

Plus, corporations may not form government, but they sure do field people who form government - Halliburton anyone?

Re:cd tax

[SharpFang]

The CD tax is a way of labels to have a cake and eat it -twice- too.
First you pay for "pirated content" in media tax, and then they will litigate and sue you for damages anyway.

Re:Reation from Big Media / Big Patents to this ..

[nawitus]

It actually seems they view pirate parties as legitimate, and do participate in debates with them.

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[clarkkent09]

Political campaigning for rights in the digital domain is a "good thing".

I agree. However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing". Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government. If you think that is unrealistic in case of the pirate parties, take a look at crazy coalitions in some European countries where parties with 0.5% of the vote are actually represented in the government and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue. Canada doesn't have a proportional system so it's not as much of a problem there.

Re:Serving two masters

[Fantastic Lad]

We have a Communist Party in Canada, and have had one for a long time. This hasn't caused any problems. We also have a "Rhino" party, (or did for many years, anyway.)

When you have a multi-party system representing many voices, then what you are talking about becomes a strength rather than a problem. The more populous voices heard on the floor of the House of Commons, the better. At least in an ideal world, which we clearly do not have.

The problems seem to occur when one party gains too much power. Generally, when lots of people are all thinking the same way within an organized system of government, then it means propaganda and political advertising has won, any by extension, the very forces which are worst for the people are the ones being given all the keys.

Large groups of voting Canadians are becoming more stupid and more easily manipulated as the years go by. Our government is getting downright creepy if you ask me.

-FL

Re:OZ?

[nawitus]

It's the first outside Europe to be officially registered as a political party.

Oh great...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Canadian political party siphoning off left-leaning voters. Already that vote is split between Liberal, NDP, Green, and (some would argue) the Bloc. This vote split is why the conservatives can continue to hold political power with 38% of the popular vote.

In political systems with fully proportional representation (example: Israel) these sorts of political parties make sense: the hurdle to get representation in the legislature is surmountable and you may even be brought into a coalition government. However, in first-past-the-post systems (Canada, US, UK) these vanity parties are only self-defeating. Whichever side of the political spectrum is best able to AVOID this fragmentation is almost guaranteed power. To use a Canadian example, look at the solid Liberal control in the 90s, made easy by a 3-way fragmentation on the right (the old PC party, Reform, and Alliance). Once those parties re-coalesced into the current Conservative party they were able to take over from the perpetually fragmented left.

If you have a particular issue that you want to advance in a first-past-the-post democracy, the correct move is to identify which of the major parties is most receptive to your goal, and organize within that party. Form an organization, raise money, make noise. If you're a visible constituency within a major party (and can be counted on to bring in votes, donations, and volunteers) then they will have reason to differentiate themselves by embracing your issue.

If instead your constituency says "ha! We're going to take our votes and make our own damn party" then BOTH major parties will simply say "ok, no need to listen to care what those guys want -- they're not going to vote for us anyway". You're only making copyright reform HARDER to achieve.

Re:Oh great...

[Zironic]

And that's why first-past-the-post systems are pretty stupid. I'm continually amazed by how US and UK politics can be so fucked up.

Re:Oh great...

[VMaN]

...You're only making copyright reform HARDER...

Copyright reform isn't happening, at least in the right direction, so no loss there.

How about only having 1 party? That'd guarantee total power. No fragmentation here, no siree...

Re:Oh great...

[Sir_Lewk]

I can't speak for Canada, but "Voting for the lesser evil so that 'The Other Guy(tm)' doesn't get elected" is half the reason the US political system is the shithole it is right now. Nothing saddens me quite like people dredging up this tired old line to oppose the formation of new political parties, and getting modded up for their trouble.

Re:Oh great...

[dkleinsc]

That's why I always support Cthulhu for President: Why vote for the lesser evil?

But more seriously, while the "lesser evil" argument isn't entirely valid, bear in mind that if 50% of Nader voters had voted for Gore in 2000, Gore would have won easily and the debacle that was the George W Bush administration would never have happened. So there is a good argument for "vote for the lesser evil" when it's a close election between completely evil and not-so-completely evil, and "vote for what you really want" when it isn't.

Re:Serving two masters

[Anonymous Coward]

> multinationalists

Is that even a real word? Sounds like something made up by political lunatics in the US. Anyway, I'm not replying to insult you, IIRC you're a sane person judging from past posts, but I really don't get this (very US-specific) fear of other nations.

> But what worries me about the Pirate Party is precisely that it is fundamentally international in nature.

How can that possibly be a bad thing? Sure, a lot of things (location of a new city park or speed regulations) should naturally be decided on the appropriate level, but in todays world more "multinationalism" is needed when it comes to things like the invironment and conflict over natural resources, human rights and IT.

> Turning over power to multinationalists is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular country.

Right. And turning over power to countries is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular region.
Turning over power to regional administrators is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular state.
Turning over power to states is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular county.
Turning over power to county councils is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular city.
Turning over power to the city council is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular district.
Turning over power to the city district government is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of any particular household.
Turning over power to the mum is a bad idea because generalized solutions do not necessarily fit the specific needs of me and i don't WANNA go to be now coz i'm on level 32 and have 5 lives left!!1

(the different levels are a mix of american and european types of local governments, but you get the idea.)

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[Troed]

However, by using the name "pirate" (pirates in the physical world are dangerous, armed criminals), the parties are alienating a potentially broader public.

Oh there are a lot of people who remember a happy youth, dancing to pirate radio stations since that was the only way to get the good music.

"Pirate" is the perfect name in this historical context and rings pretty well with the intended supporters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio

Re:Serving two masters

[Troed]

The goals of the party are essentially dictated centrally from Sweden

I'm curious as to why you think your fantasies are of interest to the rest of us? :)

Re:Needs a better name

[Anonymous Coward]

US Navy Seals shot and killed 3 pirates last year.

Pfft! Hadn't you heard? Canadians are notorious for killing seals.

Re:Needs a better name

[Jedi Alec]

i agree, pirate party is a retarded immature name. these clowns undermine serious copyright reform.

These "clowns" are actually running for political office and working from within the democratic system. If nothing else, the fact that they're acknowledged as a legitimate political party gives them access to a lot of extra soapboxes. TV interviews, debates, questions, these all serve to raise awareness about privacy concerns and governments selling out to big media.

So what have you done lately to promote serious copyright reform? And no, bitching about it on Slashdot does not count.

Re:Serving two masters

[SlothDead]

Spreading BS like "The goals of the party are essentially dictated centrally from Sweden and then implemented throughout the world wherever the PP has any power to do so." is very irresponsible, please stop that.

The various Pirate Parties are independent, there is no hierachy.

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[MoellerPlesset2]

I agree. However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing". Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government.

Who says their goal is to be in government?
Besides, the fact is, the PP in Sweden has succeeded rather well in both gaining lots of attention for the issues, and largely forced the hand of the established parties to start listening to people on copyright/IP issues. Across the board. The result is that Sweden is now one of the EU's biggest champions when it comes to advocating common-sense on these issues. (for instance, they've already made it quite clear they won't sign ACTA the way it looks at the moment).

take a look at crazy coalitions in some European countries where parties with 0.5% of the vote are actually represented in the government

Hyperbole. Which European country has parliamentary representation for a party with 0.5% of the vote? Usually the cutoff to get a seat in parliament is 3-4%.

..and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue.

So? If all people care about is one issue, to the extent that they're prepared to vote for a single-issue party, then why shouldn't that count for something? It's up to the other parties to decide if they want to compromise in exchange for support or not. If anyone should be criticized it's them.

Do not need

[fyoder]

What we need is a party to split the right. I would be happier to see a pro-intellectual property, family values, pry gun from cold dead hands, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights party announce, something that could siphon votes away from the Conservatives.

Hey, Preston, how's about giving that Reform thing another whirl?

Canadian Pirates

[psergiu]

Arrr, eh ?

Raving Loony Party

[AliasMarlowe]

But what worries me about the Pirate Party is precisely that it is fundamentally international in nature.

What worries me is that many political parties which should be international in nature pretend to be merely local. For example, the UK's Official Monster Raving Loony Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party should expand internationally. Entry by the OMRLP into US politics could be disastrous for both the Republicans and the Democrats, since the policies of all three parties would be so closely clustered (on the sanity scale).

Re:Needs a better name

[Hurricane78]

I am Canadian*, and I give that comment my seal of approval!
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* Made out of Canadian philosophy extracts and high-European thought syrup. ;)

Re:International politics

[dkleinsc]

Is the Pirate Party the first example of a political party that is operating in multiple countries at once?

How soon they forget. The Communists had this sort of thing going on a much larger scale than the Pirates.

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[selven]

Canada doesn't have a proportional system so it's not as much of a problem there.

We instead have the problem where if you have less than 15% of the vote, unless you're a single issue party dedicated to one region like the Bloc, you have no power at all (see: Green party). I prefer having actual democracy to cycling back and forth between two major parties as soon as the current one does too many things you don't like.

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[Vanderhoth]

Personally I think we should get rid of parties altogether. The problem is you vote for a person, if that person belongs to a party they're going to vote the way the party tells them to regardless of how it hurts the area they're from. If they don't, they get booted out of caucus, lose the political party funding and have to sit as an independent (see Bill Casey and the Atlantic accord).

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[MoellerPlesset2]

The entire premise of forming a political party is to be in government. Why else would you do such a thing? It amounts to an act of fraud on the citizens to form a political party without aiming to govern.

You're confusing governing with being in government.
You don't have to be in the government (have cabinet posts, i.e. control the executive branch) to govern. You still have full legislative influence by being in parliament.
For instance, the Swedish Greens have never been in government, but have succeeded in influencing lots of legislation.
To make an analogy to US politics, what you're saying is akin to it being dishonest to run for Congress if you have no intention of seeking the Presidency.

It's not necessarily the case that a small, single-issue party can maximize their influence by being part of government, since that would force them to ally themselves with a political block. It would also force them to shoulder political responsibility for the government's policies, even when outside their sphere of interest, something which could risk dividing their membership.

The US version failed

[aapold]

because they all pushed the "R" button.

Re:Serving two masters

[migla]

Besides, GP says "dictated from Sweden" as if it was a bad thing. Now, I think Sweden is a crap country with stupid people, but as countries go, it's still perhaps the best.

From that infernal nonsense Pinafore . . .

[wrencherd]

More like:

"In matters digital, downloadable and musical,
I am the very model of a modern torrent client."

I should think.

Re:From that infernal nonsense Pinafore . . .

[dkleinsc]

Well, I wanted to pick something written by and about Canadians. Plus you have the rhythm and rhyme scheme all wrong. This is a better version:

"In short, in matters digital, downloadable and musical,
I am the very model of a modern copy criminal."

Re:From that infernal nonsense Pinafore . . .

[wrencherd]

Sure, but if I were that talented I would be a musician.

That would probably lead to dating, which would, in turn, invalidate my SLA w/ slashdot.

Re:From that infernal nonsense Pinafore . . .

[Trails]

They call it theft for reasons that are quite clearly subliminal
In order to support a business model that's primordial
Infringement is a civil matter, extortion is criminal
But they push legislation that will kill our highway digital
And so we need a party that will argue antithetical
In order to preserve our freedoms we hold indispensable
So I say welcome to the party that is dubbed piratical
You'll get my vote election time lest Bob Rae joins your ensemble!

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[analyst-cz]

However, forming single-issue political parties is generally a "bad thing".

... are actually represented in the government and able to influence things way beyond their mandate since their limited platform allows them to trade support on all kinds of issues in exchange for their favorite issue.

Regarding the single-issue political parties look at life-cycle of the "green movement" wave since 80th of last century. I can not speak for outside EU, but in the European area they started as single-issue political parties and, even recognizing several unlucky excesses, they grow into mature "full hearted" political parties. After bringing the issue into top politics and getting the worse problems and threats solved parliamentarian way, the social push on the issue faded and the same faded the share of green parties in the parliaments. I thing this is fair and beneficiary to all.

Actually I see big parallel of the pirate movement with the green movement. Just think about these similarities:

* Parties established by "non-professional" politics, as the "last resort" to save the really big troubles ahead, which importance part of society oversees and the other does not believe is avoidable due to politicians. And politicians, pushed by big money interests, taking decisions which moves all closer and closer to some hardly reversible cataclysm (yes, the big nature disasters (greens tried to avoid) and big public riots (pirates tries to avoid) are similarly deadly in my opinion).

* Laughed at the beginning due its told naivety and inadequate program.

* Surprisingly flooding parliaments in the above-single-state areas once society realizes the issue seriousness and gets believe in the possibility of change.

However there is one major (positive) difference, which should be noted:
About a half of European pirate parties has "opened government" (meaning absolute and uncensored access not only to outputs, but to any internal background information for any government decision for all citizens) and "direct democracy" (meaning replacement of the old parliamentary government system, necessary when all decision makers had to confer at the same point in space and when fastest transport were horse riding, by some system allowing more direct and unbiased participation of everybody's opinion on the decisions taken, based on modern technical means) in their programs. I hope this point will spread into the whole pirate movement and in such case I forecast even longer life-cycle and bigger importance to pirate movement than the green one had.

Pushing as hard as you can on a single issue and ignoring the rest of the world is ok when you are a non-governmental pressure group but not when your goal is to be in the government.

Absolutely agreed. Just i would like to present "closer scale" look into the pirate party, Czech Pirate Party this case (preparing for its first parliament votes this June).

I myself was part of the "silent majority", voting different parties, not loyalty based but program and party history based. I was never (and still I am not) member of any politician party. However I proudly became "registered supporter" of the CPP once I noticed, they have this status along to the full regular party membership. This status requires same member fees as the full membership and grants you full access to all internal forums and meetings, however your votes are counted separately and are treated just as recommendations. However this sense of detail shows, what I think is typical for pirates movement: technocratic, sophisticated and theory of systems based ruling mechanisms. Why I like this status is, that it allows you to judge the party before eventually becoming full member and as such to have your name forever associated with it some way.

However I can say from my experience (and I did get access to internal forums of several, various oriented, politic parties before) the

Re:Serving two masters

[tophermeyer]

Please, Bad Analogy Guy, explain to us how differences in physical geography cause different needs for digital freedom.

And, if possible, please use an analogy to illustrate your explanation.

And if you don't mind, an ASCII illustration would also help us visualize your position.

re: First past the post democracy .....

[King_TJ]

Your argument is the exact same one I hear all the time in the USA, when it comes to the Libertarians. (In fact, the man most people probably consider the quintessential Libertarian figure today -- Ron Paul? He's run on the Republican party ticket since the mid 1970's!)

The problem with the entrenched 2-party system is, the 2 parties tend to align themselves with certain "goals" they want to achieve. Individuals signing up to run under one of their party names who have different ideas quickly get marginalized or "shut down" by the majority in the party.

Now, if you've really only got a single issue you're trying to advance, sure ... your best best is to pick which of the 2 major parties would be more receptive to it, and try to weasel in there. Whether you agree with many other things they want to do or not, you pretend to care while you try to "wheel and deal" to get your idea out there. (And so far, I'd have to say, that's my problem with the current "Pirate Party". They really do only seem to focus on one issue - copyright. They may pay some lip service to holding other political beliefs, but I've never seen them make any effort to, say, become outspoken on environmental issues or discuss whether or not government intervention of certain type might boost an economic recovery.)

But I think it's dangerous to cling too tightly to that belief that a 3rd. party "only helps one of the other 2 major parties, so it's pointless". If he actually cared to do so, Ross Perot could certainly have become one of our U.S. presidents, despite his 3rd. party affiliation. And if enough people get disgusted with the way the Republicans and the Democrats of today both seem to have the SAME agenda on so many major issues (Obama is pretty much just following the same advisers Bush did about what to do with the war)? We're ripe for a 3rd. party to step in and take control.

Re:Serving two masters

[metacell]

The Swedish Pirate Party has no power whatsoever over pirate parties in other countries. The moment the German pirate party, for example, feel that the Swedes have gone too far, they can just ignore them and go their own way.

It's actually common that European political parties have "sister parties" in other countries. The Christian Democrats exist in many European countries, as well as Green parties, and Liberal parties. It's not comparable to the International Socialist Organization.

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[metacell]

I think there may be a slight confusion in terms here - in English-speaking countries, "government" is often used to refer to the state as a whole. In that sense, the entire parliament and all authorities are part of the government.

In Sweden, the word is used in a stricter sense; only the executive organ is referred to as "government". The rest is referred to simply as "the state".

Re:Reation from Big Media / Big Patents to this ..

[mcgrew]

I can't say if I am for or against the ACTA . . . because I don't know the details.

I don't have to know ANY of the details to be against it -- why would they keep it a secret if they thought it was benign? There are media companies and governments, NO input from citizens, and "my" representatives are keeping it secret from me. What's not to hate?

Other issues?

[MBGMorden]

I'm all for this, but based on my "admittedly limited" exposure, it seems that the only issues that the Pirate Party have ever really talked about much are copyright issues. No qualms there, I'm all for that, but do they have an official stance on anything OTHER than copyright?

Re:Other issues?

[Per Wigren]

Some of The Pirate Parties' main points are: Defend the right to privacy and personal correspondence, less surveillance, shorten copyright, abolish patents, remove laws against reverse engineering, promote open source software, ensure net neutrality, stronger laws against plagiarism, ensure due process in all cases, and much more. Basically, to use a cliché, The Pirate Parties exist to steer the world away from 1984, as far away as possible.

Re:Other issues?

[Per Wigren]

As a Swedish pirate, the swedish pirate party Piratpartiet is the one I know best. Here gun control is not an issue. Pretty much everyone agrees that more guns is bad and less guns is good. I know that that's kind of opposite to the American view but anyway, that not a pirate party question here.

We explicitly don't take stand in most questions because it will only split the movement and make it weaker. Our issues are VERY important to us and our stand in them are WAY different from the established parties, at least how they act in reality (not what they say in election campaigns).

In Sweden, there are only minor differences among the established parties. They have big fights over if some benefit should be 80% or 82% for example.

If you vote for Piratpartiet, it's because you think that our issues are more important than the difference between the established parties. It's not because you think that those other issues are not important.

Re:Serving two masters

[maxwell demon]

But what worries me about the Pirate Party is precisely that it is fundamentally international in nature.

They are not international. They are region-free.

There's a problem with the name....

[mark-t]

However ideal the agenda of the party might actually be, the term 'pirate' is very heavily associated with anarchy and activities that involve breaking the law, rather than the far more positive notion of working within the legal system to effect the potentially revolutionary changes that the Pirate Party wishes to advocate. Unfortunately, people who have never heard of them will take one look at the name and judge the party based on that, rather than investigate what their actual platforms are. Without a name change, they don't have a hope in hell of making a difference. They are likely going to be taken about as seriously as the Rhino Party.

Re:Pirate parties should rename themselves

[cptdondo]

Oh come on. Haven't you heard of the Tea Party, those wonderful, thoughtful, educated ultra-rightists, led by the ever-so-thoughtful Ms. Palin?

Heck, if a bunch of kooks called the "tea party" can make the republicans pee in their pants, then the "priate party" ought to make the democracts shit in their shorts.

I'm buying pop corn. We may not have thoughtful politics here in the US, but it sure promises to be entertaining. Bring on the Pirate Party! I'll join!