Pirate Party's North American Debut

adonoman writes "A 25-year-old Winnipeg businessman is the first Pirate Party of Canada candidate to run for federal election. At the same time, the US and UK pirate parties have put out an open letter to Anonymous requesting that they cease Operation Payback's DDOS attacks and focus on taking a legal route to fix intellectual property law."

Comments

Yeah, right.

[russotto]

Legal means have been exhausted. The pro-copyright side holds the upper hand. The unlawful means won't succeed either, but pissing off one's oppressors is a good thing in itself.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Bucky24]

pissing off one's oppressors is a good thing in itself.

How is that a good thing? If you mean oppressors in a figurative manner, making someone angry doesn't make you more right, and often it causes your side to lose support. If you mean literal oppressors, then pissing them off usually just ends up causing greater oppression. Anonymous and the Pirate Party are fighting a law. Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Re:Yeah, right.

[camperdave]

Legal means have been exhausted

Unless and until a dictatorship is in place, there is always a legal means: getting elected and changing the copyright laws.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Microlith]

I give up. We can't possibly succeed.

That, right there, is the attitude of a WINNER.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

And with attitudes like this (or, even worse, the Stallmaneque version, where trying to get paid for your work is somehow morally repugnant), it's no wonder that the vast majority of people will continue to ignore you.

Re:Yeah, right.

[idontgno]

Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Of course they are.

Quite effectively, too.

Re:Yeah, right.

[sumdumass]

I think what it means is that it makes you feel good.

It's simply playground logic that's being addresses here. So and so pissed you off, so you want to club him or rat to the teacher to get them to club him.

Re:Yeah, right.

[The Archon V2.0]

pissing off one's oppressors is a good thing in itself.

So if you're getting beat up by a cop with a nightstick, the best thing to do is scream at him "YOU CALL THAT A SWING? WHAT KIND OF PANSY ARE YOU?" ??

Re:Yeah, right.

[Idiomatick]

Canada isn't decided really. If anything even our conservative gov isn't anti-piracy. The libs would probably put something more concrete in place that was pro-piracy even.

Re:Yeah, right.

[russotto]

So if you're getting beat up by a cop with a nightstick, the best thing to do is scream at him "YOU CALL THAT A SWING? WHAT KIND OF PANSY ARE YOU?" ??

Given the choice between that and "Please sir, may I have another?", yes.

Note that I'm referring to pissing off one's oppressors as a _moral_ good. As a practical matter, kneeling at the zipper is safer.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Fluffeh]

Anonymous and the Pirate Party are fighting a law. Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Actually, in my view, the Pirate Party should not have so much as made mention of what Anon is doing. By writing the open letter, they might be taking a bit of a moral ground, but at the same time, they are associating themselves with that sort of behavior.

Do I think what Anon is doing is "right"? Nope.
Do I think that they should keep doing it? Absolutely.

I think at some point it is up to everyone to take a moral stand and make their view heard. If the person you are speaking to has their hands on their ears and is yelling "LA LA LA" sometimes, in my books, it is okay to give em a slap to the face to snap them out of it.

There is nothing wrong at all with fighting a fight on multiple fronts. Have one side of the fence, in this case the Pirate Party doing all it can through legal means. At the same time, another group, here it is Anon, goes on an all out offensive fighting a running battle of harassment and annoyances.

In this case, it seems that they both have a common enemy. They are both trying to fight a law. I don't think that taking the moral high ground while forgetting that the Enemy of your Enemy is your friend is a good plan - unless of course you know whatever you say won't be listened to anyhow, then it just becomes politics.

Re:Yeah, right.

[blair1q]

I'm an author. Anonymous and their ilk are oppressing me by stealing my property. They're the ones who should piss off.

Re:Yeah, right.

[russotto]

It's simply playground logic that's being addresses here. So and so pissed you off, so you want to club him or rat to the teacher to get them to club him.

If you want to reduce it to playground logic, "so and so" beats you up for your pocket change. The teachers take his side. He's been taking more and more of late. You have a chance to throw sand in his face. Do you take it? He'll still take your pocket change, so it won't improve your situation any.

Re:Yeah, right.

[sumdumass]

Telling the teacher or clubbing him won't stop him from pissing you off either. what it does is make you feel good/better if not only for a short period of time.

Yea, it make you feel better when you are trapped and nothing you can do will change the situation so you do what little you can for payback. That's what I'm saying.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a better analogy would be:

If you see someone getting beat up by a cop with a nightstick, gather a fairly large group of people and make sure everyone deserves to be beaten up by that cop until he cannot provide anymore.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not stealing your property.

And no, pointing out the fact that copyright infringement isn't theft does not mean that I'm a pirate or that I endorse piracy.

And yes, that IS what you were going to claim.

Re:Yeah, right.

[AnonymousClown]

Unless and until a dictatorship is in place, there is always a legal means: getting elected and changing the copyright laws.

The thing is, can one or a handful of elected people make a change? In the States, Libertarian candidates actually get elected every once in a while, but I'm afraid nothing has changed.

But if one has quite a bit of money, it's amazing how the system just bends to your will.

The big corporate machines with all the cash will never allow anyone to change IP law.

Re:Yeah, right.

[DAldredge]

How am I oppressing you by holding title to software I write?

Re:Yeah, right.

[elfprince13]

Only when you can get positive media coverage out of it. Public sympathy is important.

Re:Yeah, right.

[mug funky]

"...there is always a legal means: getting very wealthy and changing the copyright laws."

FFY

Re:Yeah, right.

[B4light]

Yea, sure, Anonymous is stealing your ebooks instead of pirating video games.

Re:Yeah, right.

[blair1q]

Okay. You're not necessarily a pirate. You're just semantically misguided. The fact is, if you have something that belongs to me and you didn't pay me for it then either I gave it to you for free or you stole it. Even if you created the copy you possess. The content belongs to me, not you, and you stole it in order to possess it.

Any questions of how easy it is to copy, whether it deprives me of anything, whether you would or wouldn't have paid for it, etc., are moot. The act of taking something that is not yours is theft.

Which brings us back to piracy. None of these clowns is a pirate. Pirates are sailors who raid ships. These are pimply jagoffs who flood network connections and rip CDs onto torrents. Put them in a room with an actual pirate and they'd crap into their own mouths to get out.

Re:Yeah, right.

[c6gunner]

Do I think what Anon is doing is "right"? Nope.
Do I think that they should keep doing it? Absolutely.

Sounds like you don't actually understand what the words "wrong" and "right" mean. Either that or you're some sort of sociopath.

Re:Yeah, right.

[goldaryn]

Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Of course they are.

Quite effectively, too.

I actually have mod points at the moment, but instead of modding parent up, I want to reply in agreement.

I couldn't agree more. I'm sure Rosa Parks would as well.

I live in Britain and frankly, I feel disgusting at the way that ordinary people have been increasingly criminalised in recent years. Particularly since Blair, legislation has been more and more as a means of control. This is not a thought, it's a fact. Look at the statistics for the number of new pieces of legislation that came in under his tenure. I really don't like the way this country is going at the moment.

Now, I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs of piracy, but I will say this one thing. The world is changing. Record companies still desperately cling onto the old models, and it make me laugh at their blinkeredness. When music copying is so mainstream that any kid with a PC can copy a CD, it starts to become clear to everyone bar the music companies and the governments they lobby that one way or another, things need to change. Just in case some of those people are reading, I will give you a few clues to get you started: how much is a track worth to a buyer? What percentage of that does the artist receive? How much of that SHOULD the artist receive? How much would the buyer pay if he/she felt the artist would receive FAIR royalties?

You made a lot of money for many years, give artists a fair deal, reduce your ridiculous profits and you MIGHT survive, record companies. Otherwise, I hope every single artist out there makes a website selling their MP3s and every single record company goes totally fucking bust.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

of course its playground logic, what do you expect from the bunch of self-obsessed hippies with entitlement issues that run the 'give us free stuff!!!1111' party?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the end justifies the means.

Re:Yeah, right.

[c6gunner]

You went pee-pee in the washroom, and then you flushed, and your pee went into the water supply, and one of the H20 molecules in that pee eventually ended up inside a glass of water which I poured out of the tap. I'm sorry for taking something that you didn't give me. Who shall I make the cheque out to?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice description, it fits RIAA quite well...

Re:Yeah, right.

[Dalzhim]

Let's say you draw a circle inside a square. I look at your drawing, and then I draw a circle inside a square as well. You pretend I've taken your idea and it wasn't mine in the first place. I reply that you've taken my freedom to come up with this idea in the first place and this freedom wasn't yours. You called me a pirate, I call you a pirate too. You say that act was theft? I am saying you've thieved first.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Kjella]

The media has a deep invested interest in the preservation of copyright as most of their business models revolve around it, be it in print, TV, radio or online. It's not about left wing or right wing, they're pretty much all pro-copyright mouthpieces. I think trying to win sympathizers, that is non-participants that still sympathize will not get you anywhere. It's about recruiting participants and making them aware how many of the people around them do it too. Raise the "status" of being a file sharer to something you openly admit to the people around you. The potential is huge, in Sweden it's up to 20% of the population now and roughly 50% in males 16-25. 20% of 300 million Americans is 60 million.

To take one example - and I'm not comparing copyright to Gandhi's fight here - Gandhi broke the salt law simply by telling everyone to make salt. The British arrested over 60,000 people in one month. ONE month. Every jail they had ran full and yet they still kept doing it and trading it, there was no end and no victory in sight. That's how copyright will fall too, through the sheer mass of people, not a few demonstrators doing it as a provocation but many doing it for themselves. Granted they did get public sympathy, but that was not the force that led to victory. There's a whole different power in mass civil disobedience than in just civil disobedience.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Monkeedude1212]

You're just semantically misguided. The fact is, if you have something that belongs to me and you didn't pay me for it then either I gave it to you for free or you stole it.

Woah - now YOU sound semantically misguided.

If someone steals from you and gives it to me - I did not steal from you.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Mathinker]

Riiiiight. Unfortunately, the most likely truth of the matter is that practically no one has heard of you, and anyone who has downloaded your content because of curiosity is simply similar to someone cracking open your book inside a bookstore. And if you had a magic button which, when pressed, made your content unavailable except for pay, no one would pay you out of curiosity, they would find something else which seemed more interesting, instead.

And actually, you're being granted the right to rent our "property" back to us, society, for a limited (if currently ridiculously long) period. Because we understand you have to eat.

Re:Yeah, right.

[shentino]

Let me guess.

The bully is giving the teacher a cut of the money he takes from you.

And seriously, the real world isn't much different from the playground. What starts out as bullies testing their muscles escalates to companies flexing their legal strength, and countries proving their military might.

The entire world is about power and who has the most of it. When people are "looking out for number one", power is the only thing that actually works.

Throwing sand in someone's face could quickly get you detention/trade sanctions, but if that's all you have, may as well use it if you're going to be raped anyway.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't own what you create. Nothing you've ever created was entirely novel to begin with, from the words to the structure. It all existed before you. Wanting to benefit from what you create is understandable, insofar as the capitalistic system forces you to derive personal benefit from monetization (restriction) of your creation for your own survival. That doesn't make it right.

Re:Yeah, right.

[shentino]

Finally, someone nails exactly why the status quo isn't going to change.

Not to mention that the big corporate machines get that cash in the first place by exploiting legal loopholes that already do exist.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Fluffeh]

Or the end justifies the means.

Bingo.

Often times you have to do what is wrong for the greater good. Please allow a simple example about war - something we can all pretty much say is "bad" and "wrong":

Is war okay?
What if that country is talking about attacking your country?
What if that other country attacked your country in the past?
What if the country happens to be developing a dangerous technology that it might or might not use against your country in the future?
What if the country is doing horrible things to it's own people that you disagree with?
What if groups within that country are attacking you?
Or how about if they support someone else who is attacking you?
What about when they invade you?

War is wrong and bad, but at some point in that list, most people will say it is okay, because at that point the end justified the means. The end often justifies the means. If you think otherwise you are either very young, naive or have rose colored glasses on most of the time.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

An impossibility in itself, the media are the ones pushing for the laws, of course it will always be reported as a negative act.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are confusing being a loser with being a pragmatist.

Re:Yeah, right.

[man_of_mr_e]

I hate when people bring up Rosa Parks (and linking to her, no less.. as if you are bestowing upon us some fact nobody is in the slightest bit aware of) in regards to copyright laws.

Rosa was not breaking any law by refusing to give up her seat. In fact, the law was on her side, as recent case law had sided with others in her position. She was merely violating bus company rules. Not that her stance wasn't important, but please.. don't equate disobeying a bus driver with breaking federal law that can land you in federal prison.

Where the hell is bad analogy man when you need him?

Re:Yeah, right.

[1000101]

Laws being repealed are just the tip of the iceberg

Re:Yeah, right.

[man_of_mr_e]

Not to get all godwin or anything, but i'm sure Nazi's thought the ends justified the means as well. The problem is, very few people can honestly say that without being self-serving.

In most cases, there are better, and more legal ways to achieve the end. The end only justifies the means when there is absolutely no other way to achive "the greater good". And, in the case of Operation Payback, i do not believe for one second that there isn't any other way. Even the name is a very important clue as to the motivation... "Payback".. aka "Vengence". In other words, a very greedy, self-serving, and selfish way to deal with the problem.

Anonymous's major problem is that it feels it is justified in deciding what's right and wrong. They feel they can impose their beliefs on others. And they feel completely justified in doing illegal things to get their way. If this wasn't the only such incident, it might be chalked up to poor judgement, but it seems that "vengence" is the only thing Anonymous wants to do. Even the choice of "V for Vendetta" masks shows that they're more in love with the wrath bringing than solving the problem.

While I too think Scientology is a sham, i also don't believe it's my place to pass judgement over anyones religious beliefs. Doing so is a very slippery slope. Again, Nazi's though Judaism was some kind of cult and evil.. where do you draw the line? I am seriously expecting an Anonymous member to blow up someones car soon. I hope i'm wrong.

Violence begets more violence. And many people get a rush from doing the things they do (even been to an Anonymous rally? They're having a ton of fun at someone elses expense).

Radical behavior is a last resort. It's not like someone is imprisoning anyone for file sharing, but Anonymous seems to be acting like it's a life or death situation.

Re:Yeah, right.

[JesseMcDonald]

If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.

If an action is "wrong" or "not right" that means you shouldn't do it. If it's "right" then that you are permitted to do it, or in some cases should do it. To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.

Re:Yeah, right.

[russotto]

Not to get all godwin or anything, but i'm sure Nazi's thought the ends justified the means as well.

The Nazis ends were evil as well as their means.

Anonymous's major problem is that it feels it is justified in deciding what's right and wrong.

Every moral entity decides what's right and wrong. There's no way around it; if there is an objective morality, it's not directly accessible. You can delegate your decision making to some authority, and claim that following the dictates of authority is right while violating it is wrong, but that's making a moral choice as well.

Radical behavior is a last resort. It's not like someone is imprisoning anyone for file sharing, but Anonymous seems to be acting like it's a life or death situation.

People HAVE been imprisoned for violating the DMCA.

And that "last resort" became the only remaining one somewhere around the time of Eldred v. Ashcroft and Grokster.

Re:Yeah, right.

[man_of_mr_e]

The fact is, if you have something that belongs to me and you didn't pay me for it then either I gave it to you for free or you stole it.

Wow, you have a very narrow field of focus. I can think of many other possible ways something you consider to be yours came into my possesion without my having stolen it from you.

1) You dropped it, and I found it.
2) Someone else took it from you, and I found it.
3) I was awarded it as a judgement against you
etc.. etc.. etc..

There is a reason it's legally called "infringement" and not "theft". Copyright infringement is more akin to trespassing, in that as a land owner you have the right to say who can and can't use your property. But, just because i walked on your grass doesn't mean I stole your property from you.

Theft is depriving someone of property, which copyright infringement doesn't do. It violates your right to control who can make copies of the material, a right you can grant to someone else for a fee... just like You can charge someone rent to use your property, or to use it for hunting or whatever.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Fluffeh]

Not to get all...

While I do agree with some of your points totally, I am less convinced by others. And this isn't having a go at you at all. You might even convince me :)

Anonymous's major problem is that it feels it is justified in deciding what's right and wrong. They feel they can impose their beliefs on others.

How is that different to **AA imposing their beliefs on others - and not only that, but buying enough lobbies to make it law? They now don't even have to fully impose their beliefs - the law system does it for them?

While I too think Scientology is a sham, i also don't believe it's my place to pass judgement over anyones religious beliefs. Doing so is a very slippery slope.

I too think it is all a sham, actually I think it is nothing more than a "networking religion" at best for the top few folks in there. But they don't try to impose their rules on me. I honestly wouldn't care if they told their members to run around in small circles until they passed out on a nightly basis - until they try to force me into it.

Radical behavior is a last resort. It's not like someone is imprisoning anyone for file sharing, but Anonymous seems to be acting like it's a life or death situation.

Try telling that to the cases where people have been fined/sued for upwards of a million dollars for sharing a few mp3s. Try spending a year in litigation and then paying the lawyers without calling it "life changing". I know that if I had a choice of handing over a million dollars I don't have, or spending a few nights in prison, I would choose a few nights in prison.

Violence begets more violence. And many people get a rush from doing the things they do...

You can look at it that way, but I think that Anon here is actually looking at it in that exact way - except they don't see themselves as being the instigators. They see it as "Payback" for all the crap that has been allowed to happen so far.

When I was little, I was always taught to stand up to bullies. Here, I see a lot of "big money" and "big corporation" as being the bully here - and I WILL stand up.

Re:Yeah, right.

[man_of_mr_e]

People have been *wrongly* held for violating the DMCA. Dmitry and Elcomsoft were Acquitted of any wrongdoing.

I don't like the DMCA either, but the blame for that situation was with the FBI, not the DMCA (although certainly it gave them a reason to wrongly hold him).

Re:Yeah, right.

[slick7]

If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right..

In other words, to justify the draconian drug laws the CIA should supply illegal drugs to Americans. To insist on martial law on our southern borders, supplying the Mexican cartels with drugs, guns and money to hold Americans, in America, hostage to governmental fear tactics and false flag tactics doesn't justify anything. Machiavelli was wrong.

If an action is "wrong" or "not right" that means you shouldn't do it. If it's "right" then that you are permitted to do it, or in some cases should do it. To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.

Greed is not right. Control is not right. Justifying the means by justifying the ends is a circular argument. The only right is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Anything else is just diversionary.

Re:Yeah, right.

[man_of_mr_e]

The difference between Anonymous and The **AA's is that the **AA's (mostly) work within the framework of the law. Anonymous works almost entirely outside the law.

Yes, there have been times the **AA's have done something shady, but then they should be held liable for that in court. (and in most cases, they have been).

There's a difference between standing up to a bully in a legal manner, and doing illegal activities to get back at the bully.

What's more, the advice to stand up to bullies has lead to incidents such as Columbine. It's all too easy to feel that you are a victim and the only way out is to destroy everyone around you.

Also, the advice to stand up to bullies is based on the theory that bullies will go pick on someone else that is an easier target. The **AA's aren't going anywhere, and ther are no easier targets. They are also protecting their own rights, and therefore will dig in just as much as Anonymous will. It's a case of Mutually assurred destruction.

And yes, people have been sued for millions of dollars, but nobody is ever going to pay that.. In most cases, they will simply file bankruptcy and be done with it. It's *NOT* a life threatening situation.

Anonymous is a problem because it believes itself to be the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. It has no oversight, and there are no checks and balances. It can, and will, do whatever it wants.. and that is a recipe for terrorism.

At least terrorists have the excuse that they've been brainwashed. What's anonymous's excuse?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Fluffeh]

Don't you think that the **AA's have manipulated existing law, and had others passed to benefit only them? I am sorry if we disagree, but I really feel that the **AA's are totally out of control.

Advice to stand up to bullies might have resulted in Columbine (no idea about the specifics of that) - but I am sure that it has also resulted in a countless number of GOOD THINGS.

As for being sued for millions of dollars not being a life changing event? "Just declare bankruptcy?" Are you kidding? So, you lose your house, your car, your entertainment system, computers and anything else lying around the house that someone can sell for a few dollars to "recoup debts owed"? Seriously, how is that not life changing? Does it kill you directly, no, but I am sure that it would bring about depression, anxiety and certainly ostracize you from many friends.

Anonymous is a problem because it believes itself to be the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. It has no oversight, and there are no checks and balances. It can, and will, do whatever it wants.. and that is a recipe for terrorism.

That's not too different from the **AA's thinking they are Judge, Jury and Executioner now is it? It just has some money to spend on a lobby group.

Yes, terrorists are brain-washed. Anonymous seems to be fighting here to try to un-brainwash folks that think it is okay for companies/entities to get away with the sorts of behavior that they have been allowed to get away with.

I don't support their methods, but I also won't denounce what they are doing. Firefighters often have to start a small fire to put out a bigger one.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Rik Rohl]

but now you're in possession of stolen goods, which is illegal pretty much everywhere and has penalties associated with it

Re:Yeah, right.

[Kjella]

If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.

Really?

Today you're here: *
Potentially: *
+---------+---------+
Good...Neutral...Evil

You have a choice to either do nothing, or do evil. But that evil will prevent a greater evil, are you then "right" or "wrong"? Imagine it's right before D-day and you have a captured Nazi officer that has detailed knowledge of the German troops and defenses. Breaking him will save many Allied and civilian lives and end the war sooner, but he's an ideological hardliner and won't talk willingly. Would it be right to torture him? I don't think there's any school of ethics that's ever considered torture to be "right". And for all the good it'll do for the war, that person will be far worse off tortured than in a friendly POW-camp so there's no win-win situation here.

To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.

Yes. The real world doesn't work on boolean logic so the results are as flawed as the model.

Re:Yeah, right.

[AvitarX]

Civil disobedience is generally regarded as breaking the unjust law.

To fight the unjust laws supporting the RIAA etc, would require flagrant breaking of the copyright laws and hoping for support when unfairly punished.

A DDoS could be equated to a protest, but it could also be regarded as an act of aggression against a company.

As for Rosa Parks she refused to follow the rule that was not fair, she did not then go and block others from using the bus, or wasting the bus companies resources (both of which an effective DDoS do). It eventually lead to a bus boycott, not a bus denial of service.

Tree sitting tree huggers are causing a denial of service, but again it is public, it is open, and it is against an act, not a company.

I think the key difference is that civil disobedience involves acting in the open, to high-lite injustice and suffer the consequences to make a point (Rosa Parks didn't hid, Gandhi didn't hide, tree sitters don't hide, acknowledgement and recognition, and suffering the consequences are how they succeed, or hope to at least.

Re:Yeah, right.

[AvitarX]

Was there a Montgomery bus denial of service in history I am unaware of?

Because in the history I learned nobodies use of the bus was blocked by the protesters, and the bus companies resources weren't wasted by them.

There was public defiance of unjust rules, and then there was later a boycott of the buses, but again, history in school does tend to make stuff up, making it quite possible that actually the protesters tried to make it so others couldn't use the buses in reality. And maybe Rosa Parks was an alias, and actually someone else hiding their identity when breaking the unjust rule.

Re:Yeah, right.

[PegNorthPirate]

"...there is always a legal means: getting very wealthy and changing the copyright laws."

FFY

Or, you could approach the political system from the perspective of a hacker. 70% of people in my riding who aren't the least bit interested in anything remotely similar to "politics so far" is a pretty gaping exploit--give them half a chance to send a real message instead of just picking between talking heads, and they might just hand a regular human being root access to the legislative process.

Sincerely,
Jeff Coleman
Pirate Party of Canada candidate for Winnipeg North
1-204-800-0356
jeff at pirateparty dot ca

Official Twitter: http://twitter.com/PegNorthPirate
Official Facebook: http://fb.me/PegNorthPirate
Official Youtube: http://youtube.ca/PegNorthPirate

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you're getting beat up by a cop with a nightstick, the best thing to do is scream at him "YOU CALL THAT A SWING? WHAT KIND OF PANSY ARE YOU?" ??

Given the choice between that and "Please sir, may I have another?", yes.

Note that I'm referring to pissing off one's oppressors as a _moral_ good. As a practical matter, kneeling at the zipper is safer.

Yeah or you could have just said "If you're getting beat up by a cop with a nightstick, you probably already pissed your oppressors off in which case it may not be in you're best interests to continue as planned."

Re:Yeah, right.

[bzipitidoo]

Questioning authority is the very spirit of America. Otherwise we should never have had a revolution, and never left the British Empire. The revolution was very much illegal. Nor would we have advanced as far in technology and science. We took good ideas from Europe, and made them better. Didn't have to ask any European for permission. Also quite against the rules (their rules), and England did protest, not that it gained them anything.

You ought not to be so blindly obedient. Nor should you talk as if the law is immutable or monolithic. You can do all the copying you want, and, so far as I know, not be in any difficulty with Biblical law, or Sharia, or Roman law. You will not burn in hell for copying some Madonna song.

And, please, way to flog the false dichotomy. There is a whole lot of middle ground between obeying the law and going postal. Anonymous is in no way executing anyone, or terrorizing the public. Anonymous is not threatening to do that, and not claiming to have any such power to do so.

Re:Yeah, right.

[man_of_mr_e]

I would call the harassment that Anonymous conducts at physical scientology locations to border on terrorizing people. They taunt, annoy, and scare them, throwing things at them, scaring off potential members, etc.. That's a powerder keg waiting to errupt in something more violent.

My concern is that someone is going to take things too far. I liken Anonymous to the right to lifers that protest abortion clinics. Both think they're right, and that their opinion is the only correct one. But things have gone horribly violent with the latter group.

If you don't like that comparision.. think about it.. There is a lot of similarity.

Re:Yeah, right.

[c6gunner]

Please allow a simple example about war - something we can all pretty much say is "bad" and "wrong":

No, we can't. War isn't inherently wrong - if you start with the assumption that it is, then all your follow-up reasoning is completely irrelevant. As I said, I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "wrong".

Re:Yeah, right.

[VJ42]

Okay. You're not necessarily a pirate. You're just semantically misguided.

UK case law rests on his side, not yours. It's not just semantics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_v_Moss

Re:Yeah, right.

[Phoghat]

Maybe it's time for "V" Link Vigilante to come out of hiding and right the wrongs

Re:Yeah, right.

[Yvan256]

And current copyrights are stealing us of your work. Your works are supposed to be protected for a limited amount of time and then go in the public domain.

For decades, the spirit of copyrights has been abused by corporations all over the world. So now people are abusing copyrights without any moral afterthought.

Re:Yeah, right.

[dave420]

The legal notion of "stealing" isn't "getting something you didn't pay for" but "depriving someone of physical property". If you are an author, and someone copies your book, you still have your book. Get some of that sand out of your vagina - it's making you cranky.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Abstrackt]

Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Of course they are.

Quite effectively, too.

Civil disobedience involves deliberately breaking the law you believe is unjust, no more, no less. Given those parameters, I believe the text you quoted is correct. For example, if you believe current copyright law is unjust and want to exercise civil disobedience you should break copyright law not DDOS a website.

Re:Yeah, right.

[exomondo]

Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Of course they are.

Quite effectively, too.

Civil disobedience works for criminal cases, not civil ones.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

And an important part of any act of civil disobedience is accepting the consequences.

Re:Yeah, right.

[russotto]

The difference between Anonymous and The **AA's is that the **AA's (mostly) work within the framework of the law. Anonymous works almost entirely outside the law.

It's a lot easier to operate within the framework of the law when you built that framework.

And yes, people have been sued for millions of dollars, but nobody is ever going to pay that.. In most cases, they will simply file bankruptcy and be done with it. It's *NOT* a life threatening situation.

Yeah, "simply" file bankruptcy. That is, they'll simply have to lose everything they have and have their credit ruined for 10 years. No reason anyone should object to that, after all, it probably won't kill them.

Anonymous is a problem because it believes itself to be the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. It has no oversight, and there are no checks and balances. It can, and will, do whatever it wants.. and that is a recipe for terrorism.

The RIAA is a problem because they own the laws. The judges, juries, and executioners thus do their bidding. They have evaded all oversight and there is no effective check on their power. They can and do whatever they want, and they are, if not actual terrorists, at least extortionists.

Legal means exhausted

[ArchieBunker]

If by "legal means" you are saying millions in campaign contributions then legal means have not been exhausted. Maybe if the RIAA/MPAA ceased donations they could stop claiming lost sales?

Re:Legal means exhausted

[sumdumass]

copyright laws have largely been address independent of the **AAs.

Those seem to be American organizations and copyright laws have all been started in Europe first then brought to the US. Even the infamous DMCA was the result of an international treaty.

Sure, the **AAs might encourage the stuff. They might even activly support it. But if you are going to concentrate on them, you will never win. You have to find the problem, not the front man in the operation taking advantage of the problems.

Re:Legal means exhausted

[Nadaka]

The reason for that is that international treaty supersedes the US constitution.

Re:Legal means exhausted

[sumdumass]

No it doesn't.

The courts have let some treaties supersede- mainly the ones in existence at the time the constitution was created but the constitution says that the laws and treaties (except for the existing ones) shall be made in accordance with the constitution.

However, this is pointless as the constitution give congress the power to regulate copyright. All treaties the US enters in has to be implemented into law too.

Re:Legal means exhausted

[shentino]

In theory no.

In practice, all the law does is serve as a tiebreaker in a fight that isn't settled before trial.

A politician that listens. What a difference

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Here in America, we have politicians that tell us to grin and bear the gloved hand of tyranny up our metaphorical rectums. This past week has been a tumultuous time for our country with millions upon millions angry, demanding the end to the usurpation of our human rights. These calls have fallen on deaf ears.

Canada, the great untamed frontier, still seems to have politicians who put people over policy. What a topsy-turvy world we live in that we Americans finally look northward for leadership!

Maybe it's time we held our own Boxing Day.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[Captain Splendid]

Here in America, we have politicians that tell us to grin and bear the gloved hand of tyranny up our metaphorical rectums. This past week has been a tumultuous time for our country with millions upon millions angry, demanding the end to the usurpation of our human rights. These calls have fallen on deaf ears. Canada, the great untamed frontier, still seems to have politicians who put people over policy. What a topsy-turvy world we live in that we Americans finally look northward for leadership! Maybe it's time we held our own Boxing Day.

No no no. Socialism is bad, mmmmmkay?

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Yes, of course, you're right. Politicians that listen to the public are weak. We should have politicians rule us like the plebes we are.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[Anonymous Coward]

> This past week has been a tumultuous time for our country with millions upon millions angry,

Would that be why all the headlines so far have said things like "Opt-Outs Largely No-Shows", and "Opt-Out Day Turns into a Non-Event"?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/24/national.opt.out.day/index.html

Don't make the mistake of thinking a little bit of outrage on Slashdot and a few other sites amounts to a hill of beans in a population of 300 million.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[dgatwood]

I think the word you're looking for is proles.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[vux984]

I think the word you're looking for is proles

I think plebes is a perfectly suitable word.

Its a contraction of "plebeian". It comes from Roman times; where society was divided into the patricians (the elite upper class), the plebeians (the middle/lower class), and slaves. Today its its an insult, meaning that they are inferior and/or ignorant -- which is likely the intended meaning here.

As an aside plebeian is particularly suitable, because for a long while they were forbidden to know the law, but were of course still held responsible if they broke them.

Proles or proletariat is also the lower/bottom class, but they are defined more in terms as having no property. Although somewhat synonomous to plebeian. I think plebeian is really the more fitting word than prole here.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[Hatta]

My representative is great at listening. Doesn't make a damned bit of difference in what he does, but he will definitely listen to you.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[dgatwood]

Yes, I'm aware of what the term plebe means. I was referring to proles in the 1984 sense, not the "short for proletariat" sense. If you haven't read it, go read it. It will make what's happening in the U.S. right now seem all the more disturbing. You have the party members, who are kept under strict dogmatic control and are not allowed to stray from the party's position (how very Republican) or to question anything the government does, and then you have the proles, who despite having no real freedom, are given enough of an illusion of freedom that they can't be moved to rebel. They believe whatever the government says even when the government is lying egregiously in ways that should be obvious to anyone who chooses to pay attention.

Re:A politician that listens. What a difference

[vux984]

If you haven't read it, go read it.

I've read it. I'm not really a fan of Orwell. I didn't enjoy animal farm either. I tend to want to beat his characters to death with a stapler.

Perhaps because I feel Orwell is trying to bludgeon me to death with the complete lack of subtlety in his writing.

Yes, I'm aware of what the term plebe means. I was referring to proles in the 1984 sense, not the "short for proletariat" sense.

Orwell's "proles" are in the "short for proletariat sense", not just the roman sense, but also the Marxist sense.

Oh, THAT North America

[SuperKendall]

I thought you meant the real one. Next time just say Canada.

Yes, even though they are more North. The thing is, it's too North.

Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[B_SharpC]

Pirates create junk media for the honest people.
If you disagree, please post your Credit Card and Bank numbers
with security codes. It is just electrons for all to see.
I knew you would not. Pirates are hypocrites.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[mug funky]

capitalism: if it can be done cheaper, it will be.

piracy: if it can be done free, it will be.

what's the major difference, really. "piracy" is just a consequence of having a worldwide near instant distribution network and the ability to make infinite perfect copies of a product.

technology has allowed this, and there's no way in hell it can be stopped. distributors need to come up with something that is just as if not more convenient than getting the product for free. until they drop their prices and up their quality, that's not going to happen.

disclaimer: i work for a major film distributor.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[c6gunner]

Pirates create junk media for the honest people.

Wha?

If you disagree, please post your Credit Card and Bank numbers
with security codes.

Disagree with WHAT?

It is just electrons for all to see.
I knew you would not. Pirates are hypocrites.

WTF? Were you stoned when you wrote that comment?

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[B_SharpC]

You refused to post your Credit Account number.
You want copyright protection for YOUR data but not for OTHER people's data, articles or music. Hypocrite!

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[c6gunner]

Do you actually speak English, or are you just running this stuff through google translate?

FYI, "copyright" doesn't mean what you apparently think it means.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[B_SharpC]

Post child porn or bank account numbers online and let us see capitalism in action. Instead, piracy is a legal & economic issue, not a technical one. It is not a geek issue.

The quality of movies will rise again when Pirate websites are shut down and website owners are sued and lose their homes. Movie theaters should post Pirate's personal financial information for the whole world to see. It's an eye for an eye.

Why is a Movie corporation's product NOT protected but a Pirate's personal product, bank info, IS protected?? The legal side is just slowly catching up.

Why do Pirates have copyright protection but a large Movie corporation has no protection??

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[Anonymous Coward]

capitalism: if it can be done cheaper, it will be.

piracy: if it can be done free, it will be.

what's the major difference, really. "piracy" is just a consequence of having a worldwide near instant distribution network and the ability to make infinite perfect copies of a product.

technology has allowed this, and there's no way in hell it can be stopped. distributors need to come up with something that is just as if not more convenient than getting the product for free. until they drop their prices and up their quality, that's not going to happen.

disclaimer: i work for a major film distributor.

Bullshit. I subscribe to "The Movie Network" with my cable provider and am also paying for my Netflix.ca account. I can download a lot of that stuff for free, but I am still choosing to pay; TMN gives me fairly recent movies that I can watch using the included On-Demand service and Netflix for a bunch of the older stuff (I just restarted watching the tv show Heroes from Season One). I don't have a full HDTV setup yet, so can't comment on the HD experience using those services.

You do have a point that distributors need to come up with something fairly quickly - Netflix works well and you can use a PS3/Wii to watch on your TV.

Piracy did a great thing for the world: accelerate distribution times. For instance SWEp1:The Phantom Menace was released May 19 1999 in USA/Canada, but people in some major E.U. markets had to wait until late September-Mid October to go an see it. By time time SWEp3:RotS was released, this was back to within 2 weeks!

Pirate parties do great work to get "our" rights back, e.g. if I buy a CD, I want to be able to rip it, convert to mp3/aac/flac, and put that on my portable player. This is a right that people have had for a long time. Ouch. What can we do. I know! Let's invent some silly form of "copy protection" on the CD. And THEN we make it illegal to bypass that. Woohoo! Problem of allowed-copy solved by disallow-bypass.

Pirate parties can also do great work with the "settlement letters' racketeering scheme.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[mark-t]

Copyright and privacy are two different things. I don't advocate piracy, but even I see a difference between wanting to share what has already been published from wanting to share something confidential.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[B_SharpC]

Copyright is also confidential. It is limited access determined by the originator. Likewise Credit Card numbers are confidential.

Music songs and Credit Card numbers are both copyright protected. Credit Card numbers have legal force of law. Music should but does not.

Piracy has been around for 1000s of years. No problem, as long as worst offenders are controlled, such as, closing down music copy websites. The law is just taking time to catch up. When it does, the quality of music will be better instead of junk quality caused by current MP3 pirates.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[pregister]

No. I'm stoned _now_ and I can't make hide nor hair of it.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[mug funky]

you've completely missed my argument.

i'm saying that while the means exist to get free, high quality movies, and while the legal route is less convenient than the illegal route, then people will pirate movies.

it's that simple. morals aside, if something's free and easier than the paid route, and often better quality (and more transparent - you can tell what you're getting straight away), then people will use it. not everyone is a crusader, most people just go for convenience.

this has nothing to do with bank details (though when bank details get leaked online, people will download them for sure, and there's a flourishing industry of iTunes account theft in China). you've misunderstood.

my point is that technology has allowed the easy and free dissemination of a world of intellectual property. moaning about it will not "uninvent" the internet - the **AA's and associated groups must stop whining and accept that the world has changed. distribution is becoming digital, and their business models can not survive. they need to adapt. they can't blame the consumer for finding something more convenient, legal or not - it's there, it's easy, and it's not going away. the ball's in the distributor's court and rapidly heading for the baseline.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[mug funky]

The Movie Network, Netflix et. al. are USA only. there's a whole world out there.

of course things are changing - digital piracy has been around over 10 years, so it makes sense that distributors are getting on top of it. they just haven't moved at the speed of Moore's Law (though if they focused their operations outside the court system they'd have had plenty of time).

however, for the majority of people, viable alternatives to piracy are not available. just because you pay for a service doesn't mean the point is moot. i pay for all my stuff too. that does not negate that the illegal solutions have many advantages over legal ones.

i'm not arguing this because i want to steal movies and i want traditional distribution to die. my livelihood would vanish if that happened!

but it's a real problem that needs solving. the only solution (IMHO) is to make it easier to pay than to steal. simple. remove the reasons to torrent stuff (and there's lots).

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[mug funky]

make sense, damn you!

the mp3 = credit card number is a fallacy.

my bank details don't get played on the radio, or broadcast on TV in ads and popular crime dramas!

but i'm sure if i were to sing my details to a funky beat and promote the everloving crap out of it, it may get to number 1 on the charts, and then they'd be equivalent. the proceeds would go to my other account. with these proceeds i'd buy drugs. i would share the drugs with my monkey.

you seem to think that copying reduces quality. mp3s are not screen prints, and pirates are not Andy Warhol. for years, the pirated mp3s were much better quality than their iTunes equivalents. in fact, you could get flac or ape and cuesheets and make a perfect copy of the original CD if you wanted. itunes offer lossless now, so they're catching up, but the quality edge has always been with the pirates. indeed one could argue that LAME and x264 (the best implementations of their respective codecs available, commercial or not) came about because of piracy. the demand for good mp3s pre-dates the demand for mp3 players and online music stores.

i'm not making a personal moral judgment on these issues - just saying that you are wrong.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[B_SharpC]

Solving piracy is simple. Authors & owners just release junk copies of ebooks. Who will pirates complain to?? That is why collectivism fails, it has no integrity of content.

Piracy does not create infinite perfect copies. There are a lot of junk copies of media. Since ANYBODY can make a copy, pirate ebooks are corrupted. Where there is no integrity, there is no trust.

Junk copies of ebooks are released all the time. Pirates can never trust their copy is authentic. MD5 is useless. Books are made with altered versions, so the only person who knows the authentic version, is the owner / author or the honest buyer.

Piracy creates junk and wastes peoples time reading junk.

There is no free lunch. That line I read from an authentic book, so I know it is true. lol

If you read pirated ebooks, you cannot trust what is inside your head. Nothing is free.

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[Yvan256]

The Movie Network and Netflix are USA-only?

Re:Pirates create junk for the rest of us

[Yvan256]

Wikipedia says iTunes has Apple Lossless since version 4.5, so I wouldn't call that "catching up" since that was six years ago.

Or are you saying that something in the iTunes Store is being sold in lossless?

Open letter in Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we need to allow Flash to read the letter? It's a letter ffs, it should be in text or html format.

Re:Open letter in Flash?

[B4light]

Allow Flash by default and it'll work

Re:Open letter in Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're reply is beside the issue. Those who know how to block flash do know how to unblock it.
The point is: why do we need to allow scripts to run to read a freaking letter??

Re:Open letter in Flash?

[PeterBrett]

Why do we need to allow Flash to read the letter? It's a letter ffs, it should be in text or html format.

I just posted the PDF on our website

Yeah, I hate scribd too.

Re:Open letter in Flash?

[cpghost]

Those who know how to block flash do know how to unblock it.

Unless they're on an OS that isn't supported by freaking Adobe.

Re:Open letter in Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you guys work with Metagovernment?
Looks like some really kickass synergy there.

Like herding cats...

[Grapplebeam]

Except the cats are the ones who are extra unruly, and possibly feral. Getting anonymous to collectively do anything is near impossible without actual results. You want them to stop? Get a law written with support from other politicians that fixes all of this. Then again, because that will literally never happen, you will never get them to stop their attacks. The heart of the problem is capitalism itself, and socialism still has a lot in common with capitalism. Even if this is all accomplished in Canada, it won't stop American anonymous, so I guess the only way to get them to do this is fix copyright law in Canada (fat chance) then use NAFTA and other trade agreements to somehow use Canada's IPs (do they have any) to get American law to change to something more reasonable (snowball's chance in hell) and then somehow make the RIAA and MPAA less bastardly (completely impossible).

Update

[airfoobar]

O:P have replied to the Pirate Parties (link to pdf on their website), and basically told them to F off.

Re:Update

[Xacid]

"and basically told them to F off"? Umm, no. From your own link: "We recognize and respect the work of all the Pirate Parties and wish them luck. We hope that they all continue their fight as they think is right. And so will we fight, as we think is right." That's a mile away from telling anyone to "F off". They're supporting the same cause - they're just not aligned in their methodology.

Re:Update

[Andy_R]

Indeed... while other O:P people have said they would stop.

The end result is that politicians of other parties will be less able to confuse O:P with the PP, and less able to dismiss the PP as rogue lawbreakers, since the PP can truthfull say they did more than anyone else to try and get O:P to behave lawfully.

Breaking Into North American Politics?

[Greyfox]

I dunno... it sounds.... haaaaard!

Candidate's single sign...

[adonoman]

Given Mr. Coleman's limited budget, to save save money, he only used a single campaign sign and posted it on the web. It's an interesting take on IP rights, given that the used another sign to create his.

Anonymous is people.

[unity100]

one should equate it to the masses in front of the guillotine back in 18th century. it is not wise, to keep ignoring their will, despite they having started to openly express it and become aggressive over it. last batch to do that, had their heads in a bucket.

Re:Anonymous is people.

[martin-boundary]

This doesn't work in the anglosphere unfortunately. The English had a revolution, remember, and they went promptly back to a monarchy, which they still have in the 21st century and no sign of wanting to change. And while the Americans overthrew the British yoke, that's a far cry from exterminating the nobles and clergy and reinventing society from the ground up, as was the goal in France.

Something in the collective psyche of the English speaking world seems to favour appeasement and compromise with the ruling classes, rather than killing them outright and replacing them and all of their legacy.

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Shadow99_1]

Well the problem with ever finding their heads in the bucket is that the overwhelming military might is now on their side, as it has become since at least WW I. As long as they retain the support of the military they are confident their heads will stay in place.

Well that and they have spent ages creating public apathy along with their corporate friends...

Re:Anonymous is people.

[unity100]

thats an interesting approach. or is it that, the old world still dominating the new, through its influence ?

Re:Anonymous is people.

[yariv]

The idea that no one ignored "the masses" since the French revolution is simply ignorant. You can see all sorts of riots since then, including in the US, which ended in nothing at all, or sometimes small compromises by the government. You simply don't understand the level of unrest required for a revolution, IP will never be enough, an economic collapse that will cause lack of food supplies might do it...

Oh, and stop romanticising the revolution, they beheaded not only the king, but tens of thousands, most of which were not part of the previous government. Thomas Paine was sentenced to the guillotine. It's not a coincidence they call (part of) it "The Reign of Terror".

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't work in the anglosphere unfortunately. The English had a revolution, remember, and they went promptly back to a monarchy, which they still have in the 21st century and no sign of wanting to change. And while the Americans overthrew the British yoke, that's a far cry from exterminating the nobles and clergy and reinventing society from the ground up, as was the goal in France.

Something in the collective psyche of the English speaking world seems
to favour appeasement and compromise with the ruling classes, rather than killing them outright and replacing them and all of their legacy.

'

Hmmmm.... As I remember the French Revolution the revolutionaries did exactly what you propose. They ended up killing each other because each faction found the other factions not quire politically correct enough for their own purposes. The French revolution is evidence that the goal of changing society for the better through getting rid of the clergy and God doesn't work. The Soviet Union found out the same thing. Remove God from society and it falls apart and degenerates into mass drug abuse through the lack of hope and destruction of morality that looks to something greater than humanity itself. Remember, the Soviet Union had alcoholism rates of over 50% in the general population, and the government murdered millions of its own citizens.

Same goals, same approach, and same results: death, hopelessness and the destruction of the society and the repression of the best and brightest the societies had to offer. The French even threw Thomas Paine into prison because he came to understand what they were doing couldn't work and spoke out about what he saw.

And you want to repeat the same mistakes all over again? You need to remember the definition of insanity: Doing the same things all over again and expecting different results.

Re:Anonymous is people.

[mirix]

The Soviet Union found out the same thing. Remove God from society and it falls apart and degenerates into mass drug abuse through the lack of hope and destruction of morality that looks to something greater than humanity itself. Remember, the Soviet Union had alcoholism rates of over 50% in the general population, and the government murdered millions of its own citizens.

Drug use is way up in the former Soviet Union, Now that God is back, taking care of his flock.

I'm not certain, but believe alcoholism is fairly level (and probably was the same during the tsar era, no less). The difference now is the worst drunks no longer have state housing and end up homeless. Birth rates are way down without the state supporting single mothers and such (although they are working on this, I think Putin announced some grants for children recently). Although the Oligarchs are definitely in better shape now.

"MOSCOW, December 3 (RIA Novosti) - Drug use in Russia has increased almost tenfold since 1990, the head of the Federal Drug Control Service said on Wednesday. "
source

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you call 27-37% of the population claiming to have a belief in God the mainstream of Russian society, then you might have a point. However, even those numbers are skewed because most of them are Eastern Orthodox church members which was the state "religion" under communism and any state religion is nothing more than formalism that has no power to give life and hope to the soul as it has been co-opted by the state. So, basically it's a country in which only 12-17% of the population has any idea of who God is. That's not a country that believes in God.

Re:Anonymous is people.

[zeropointburn]

If repetition with the expectation of change is insane, then our political system (voting) and Windows (rebooting) are both insane. Expository speech and writing are insane. Exercise and practice are insane. Repeat after me: history is complicated, and the world and the people in it are different today. No revolution, no crisis, no war is the same as any that have gone before it except when painted with the broadest of strokes.

The French weren't trying to remove $deity from society, they were trying to eliminate the abuses of a privileged class of oppressors, which happened to include both nobility and clergy. Your average political priest in that era was as bad as a corrupt politician of today. Now, the guy giving sermons in the corner church was probably a genuinely nice guy, but his boss's boss was probably a right bastard. I can't really say anything about the nobility of the time, but clearly the people in charge were committing some major fuckups in order for the largely passive populace to rise up in such spectacular fashion.

The Soviet Union was working from a book whose author felt that the dominion of organized religion was holding back humanity from taking responsibility for their lives and taking action for the betterment of themselves. In a typical overreaction, the positives of an organized morality were ignored in order to act against the negatives of proscribed thought and actions. In other words, the Church was judged as a whole and judged harshly rather than making any serious attempt at changing what leadership saw as wrong with it.

I don't know if you are being intentionally Christian-centric, but there are plenty of countries with tumultuous histories and non-Christian populations that are doing just fine today. I would add that there are many millions of professed atheists who are not suffering from depression or alcoholism, so the belief in a deity is not the only source of hope or inspiration. It is also not necessary to be given moral rules from on high; many common religious moral rules are fairly obvious even from an atheist perspective as good things, rules that reduce the unpleasantness in the world and lead to a better life personally as well as collectively. Mathematics (game theory specifically) often supports various ideas such as the Golden Rule without having to fall back on a supreme being.

You make a good argument, so rather than mod you down inappropriately I thought it best to answer the anon. Thanks for making me think :)

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL what a dumbass.
You think that people wanting to steal music is the equivilant of a socialist revolution against a tyrannical monarchy?
Wait until you grow up and leave moms basement, then you will discover there are a whole world of important issues that are even *gasp* more important than whether or not you get to help yourself to free games and music.

Typical retarded slashdot bullshit. Is everyone here 6 years old or something?

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Richard_at_work]

Your understanding of the removal and subsequent restoration of the English monarchy is a little stunted - there were several subsequent further rebellions against the installed Parliament, including the removal of the Lord Protectorate (the position that Cromwell created to replace the monarchy - essentially the same in all but name) by the army, and the closure of the Houses and installation of a new committee to oversee England.

The installed governor of Scotland also marched against England, which resulted in the English army essentially falling apart and allowing him to make it all the way to London, and reformed Parliament who installed Charles II as King.

The monarch-less Parliament failed because of infighting and lack of direction once Cromwell had died, and they couldn't prevent someone else from taking over the country (which is what happened).

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a pity that they want to infringe your right to take without compensation the product of other people's hard work, with your justification being that it is okay to consume the hard work of others without compensating them in any fashion whatsoever because the result of that hard work is classified as entertainment. If there is any karma, your hard work will be expropriated without you receiving compensation on the basis of similar spurious philosophical justification.

Re:Anonymous is people.

[unity100]

Remember, the Soviet Union had alcoholism rates of over 50% in the general population, and the government murdered millions of its own citizens.

so was tsar era, so is the new religious, capitalist and 'democratic' era. thats a cultural trait of that region.

and french revolution's excess, was very probably the result of close to 1500 years of heavy feudalism and serfdom. especially during the last stages, the excesses and abuse of aristocrats were beyond logic.

similar to the situation in russia before the revolution. it was even worse there.

repress a society for centuries, you create psychopaths.

Re:Anonymous is people.

[unity100]

equivilant

......

Re:Anonymous is people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous is annoying teenagers with too much technical know-how and not enough life-experience to realize they're behaving as children. They're the Tea Party of the internet. They may occasionally have good ideas, but the drooling, homophobic, ignorant mass that represents them stops those ideas from ever going anywhere tangible.

More than that

[Roger W Moore]

I think what it means is that it makes you feel good.

There is that but there is also the fact that if it makes your oppressors even more oppressive then they are likely to irritate even more people. This will improve your support and give your arguments even more weight.

An important step has already been taken in that direction in Canada: Access Canada, the body which licenses Universities to use copyrighted material, has raised its fees by almost a factor of three and also added additional, more restrictive terms. The result is that all the major Canadian universities have opted not to renew the licence. I now foresee a huge backlash amongst faculty and students as access to material will now either become far more restricted or expensive. Give it enough years and enough students should have been affected that there will be some change.

Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[unity100]

let me see. i have qualified in first 500 out of 1.5 million youth who took the national university entrance exam in my country during my generation (a very hard exam that people prepare for 3 years, like tokyo u entrance exams), i have entered a university that is in the first in my nation, and have been sending graduates to teach in schools like MIT (yeah the one in usa) for a long time. (actually my professor was flying to mit to give lessons, and flying back, while teaching us), i have quit college, not wanting to go on with a career, and out of nowhere, with nothing, i have learned coding/programming/databases and established myself as a professional in the field for 5 years now, with clients from all over the world.

during this time, i havent engaged in any illegal activity. havent been involved with the underground world, hacks, cracks, phreaks, and all that goes about it, despite i had ample opportunities, like any tech-savvy i.t. person that lives today.

but rip my freedoms off that way, and you will push a lot of people like me, to underground, with a cause. and, i assure you, pushing that many smart people that way, is not a good thing.

just saying.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder the quality of education at MIT has been in decline.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet, from your post, you sound like a 12 year old.

At some point in the future, a horrible thought is going to strike you: "Maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am?"

For your sake, I hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[lidocaineus]

I'm loathe to tell you this because it SEEMS like trolling, but it's not; if you write like this, even in an informal public forum, with bad grammar, no punctuation, a strange logical string that doesn't make any sense, and an overwhelming sense of mis-placed esteem and hubris, you aren't doing yourself any favors. You come off like someone who maybe wanted to graduate in the top 500, but really ended up near the bottom.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[unity100]

i dont give a flying fuck about what people think. i know myself. and i dont care much about punctuation, or grammar much. english is not my first language, and even in that case what i have posted above goes far beyond the comprehensive level of most graduates in america.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[Anonymous Coward]

i oppose this and im really smart so you should listen to me. if you don't listen to me it will be bad for you.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, despite all of those things, using all those comas, and forgetting all that capitalization, your written grammar sucks. Ass.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[lidocaineus]

And... you just confirmed eveything I said. Good job!

i dislike but have no proof of...

[__aatirs3925]

I dislike the idea of pirating simply because it can potentially take away earnings from the developers and possibly even cost the studio to release feature-less games if they got hit hard the first time around. However, numbers show that loyal gamers (for example) will pay full-price for a game and making $350million on the first day of selling Black Ops, I can say that the studio got more in return just from day 1 alone, and they expect to break $500mil with ease with just this one game. When I buy games on my 360, PS3, or PC, I tend to get addicted to the online features that you get (mostly achievements) when available, and these are the kind of things that properly programmed games won't be able to offer for pirated copies unless there's a underground server hosting it. Currently there is no proof that in the gaming industry at the very least, that people who pirate would have purchased the game if pirating wouldn't be an option. Rather, they would probably in my assumption buy a used game at Gamestop which is about on par with pirating if you think about it. When you buy a used game, the developers don't get royalties, so pirating is roughly the same as buying a used game or borrowing a game from someone in those terms. However, the gaming industry is doing a killing and the A++ titles are often making more money than blockbuster movies now. I will cut my post short from talking about movies, music and stuff but I just want to say that if they want to fight against piracy, they should offer A) service for free like on hulu for those who don't want to pay and B) lowered price in DVD and Bluray titles like $2 for DVD $4 for HD. That would be a great start :)

i hate to tell u about Canadian libel law

[hildi]

just google it. i hate to break your love for canadian 'freedom' but, it ain't that free.

Need a name change... seriously.

[mark-t]

Piracy is illegal. Period. Whether or not they actually condone such actions is wholly superfluous to the fact that by having that term in their name, they implicitly (and strongly) associate themselves with the advocation of illegal activities. Again, whether they mean to do this is quite irrelevant. They must change their name before they have even the slightest *hope* of being taken seriously in Canada. Otherwise it's just the rhino party all over again, as far as most people will be concerned.

If they want to get any real votes, let alone seats in parliament, then they need to change their name to something respectable. If they aren't willing to, it just ends up looking like they just want attention.

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

The "silly" name of Pirate Party in Sweden (Piratpartiet) holds two seats in the European Parliament.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Pirate_party#2009_European_Parliament_election

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[PegNorthPirate]

Piracy is illegal. Period. Whether or not they actually condone such actions is wholly superfluous to the fact that by having that term in their name, they implicitly (and strongly) associate themselves with the advocation of illegal activities. Again, whether they mean to do this is quite irrelevant. They must change their name before they have even the slightest *hope* of being taken seriously in Canada. Otherwise it's just the rhino party all over again, as far as most people will be concerned.

If they want to get any real votes, let alone seats in parliament, then they need to change their name to something respectable. If they aren't willing to, it just ends up looking like they just want attention.

We as a society define what is and is not respectable. If a word for pillaging ships on the high seas can mean "sharing information online via computers", then it can mean "getting actively engaged in your country's democratic process" too, a process we are beginning right now. Very few people on doorsteps are stuck on the name--out of a hundred people around 60 don't blink, 30 need an explanation to appreciate it, and 10 are exactly where you are.

Sincerely,
Jeff Coleman
Pirate Party of Canada Candidate for Winnipeg North
1-204-800-0356

Official Twitter: http://twitter.com/PegNorthPirate
Official Facebook: http://fb.me/PegNorthPirate
Official YouTube: http://youtube.ca/PegNorthPirate

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[Anonymous Coward]

All governments in all democratic countries governs their people by the same means. They change the laws to make people behave the way they want.
All known democratic systems are based on an idea that the laws never are perfect and has to be updated.
It does not matter if piracy is illegal, we know that it is illegal, they know that it is illegal. The thing is that they want to make it legal and if they do it will still be called piracy.

Your argument works just as well on any party since all parties want to change to laws. (And by that making something legal illegal or something illegal legal.)

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[selven]

The Marijuana Party is also named after something illegal. I don't see the problem.

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[mark-t]

Thank you for your response, however, I maintain that it is not merely an issue of what is socially acceptable, but an issue of legality. Piracy is illegal. Period. You can dress up the term or make it sound as "cool" as you like, but it's still an act that is against the law, and using the term in the party's name just looks like a feeble grab for attention rather than a sincere effort to present a set of platforms that are actually respectable.

Like I said... for most people, it's just going to look like the "Rhino Party" all over again. Go ahead and put your head in the sand and ignore this recommendatiuon if you like, but I am resolutely as certain as I am that I am even writing this right now that the Pirate Party is not going to get any significant number of votes, let alone seats, without a name change. Which is unfortunate, because I like a lot of what the pirate party is trying to do... unfortunately, the masses just aren't going to take you seriously enough with a name like that to bother to investigate it. And if you really don't think you need the masses' approval to make a difference in Canada, I suggest you re-check the term "democracy".

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[mark-t]

What's your point? The marijuna party isn't taken very seriously by Canadians either. One only has to look at the election results to see that.

Re:Need a name change... seriously.

[mark-t]

No, they do not want to make piracy legal. They want to make copyright terms more reasonable and give consumers more privileges than what other parties might propose, but they do not endorse the abolition of copyright, which would be what is required to make piracy legal.

Anon

[Anonymous Coward]

lol they will never stop lol if the Pirate Party doesnt get the rules then we are all doomed.

3. We are Anonymous
4. Anonymous is legion
5. Anonymous never forgives

When you mix that with anon and legion doing most things for the lulz.....

And upon what authority

[horza]

Very disappointed in the Pirate Party. If they were winning seats in elections, successfully introducing legslation into parliaments, and making headway in making reforms relecting their policies, then I would understand their calls for Anon to stand down. However, I cannot see what platform upon which they have built their moral authority.

They can distance themselves from illegal actions, other than the illegal actions that *they* have decided should not be illegal, but maybe they should concentrate on changing the system from within in the way they wish rather than ordering the cessation of the civil disobedience actions of Anon. They know perfectly well Anon doesn't care what anybody else thinks and such pointless political grandstanding is a little unpleasant.

Phillip.

Re:And upon what authority

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this show is vital for their legitimacy. DDOSes are illegal and the Pirate Party is not trying to make them legal. They do support civil disobedience, lest they denounce the pirate bay or attack people who break copyright law in such a way that it is consistent with their platform.

nay

[unity100]

noone ignored the masses since french revolution. they always paid them attention. they rarely gave them what they wanted, but, they never ignored masses, for they knew that how it would end, if they did.

Re:nay

[Anonymous Coward]

Splitting hairs and excessive comma splicing.

Re:nay

[yariv]

Well, no one is ignoring the masses now, they make examples of some people, ruining their lives (financially) for some downloaded stuff. So, not ignoring them, but still what the OP meant by ignoring...

http://www.famalegoods.com

[falas107]

welcome to: W W W ( famalegoods ) c o m The website wholesale for many kinds of fashion shoes, like the nike,jordan,prada,****, also including the jeans,shirts,bags,hat and the decorations. All the products are free shipping, and the the price is competitive, and also can accept the paypal payment.,after the payment, can ship within short time. free shipping competitive price any size available accept the paypal W W W ( famalegoods ) c o m jordan shoes $32 nike shox $32 Christan Audigier bikini $23 Ed Hardy Bikini $23 Smful short_t-shirt_woman $15 ed hardy short_tank_woman $16 Sandal $32 christian louboutin $80 Sunglass $15 COACH_Necklace $27 handbag $33 AF tank woman $17 puma slipper woman $30 W W W ( famalegoods ) c o m

Anonymous has "a spokesperson?"

[Phat_Tony]

Anonymous’ spokesperson...

I'm sorry, who?

Re:Anonymous has "a spokesperson?"

[jack2000]

Ha, just more people who don't know what they are talking about. A faceless mass of angry doesn't have a spokesperson.

Re:Anonymous has "a spokesperson?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous’ spokesperson...

I'm sorry, who?

me

Best be sure you aren't next in line for the chop.

[westlake]

one should equate it to the masses in front of the guillotine back in 18th century. it is not wise, to keep ignoring their will, despite they having started to openly express it and become aggressive over it. last batch to do that, had their heads in a bucket.

21% of peak Internet traffic in North America is a Netflix stream.

YouTube Video 10% Flash Video 6%. Everything BitTorrent, 10%. Video's Expanding Bandwidth, and What It Means for Internet Traffic [Nov 19]

Netflix reached those numbers with only a bare 2% of it's 15 million paying subscribers streaming video.

300,000.

That would put the number of prime time video pirates at less than 30,000.

Jamie Thomas took her case before three civil juries. Each one of which handed her head back to her on a plate.

It seems that nothing pisses off the masses quite like the geek's sense of entitlement.

 

Adopting Pejoratives is a time honored tradition

[istartedi]

For example, "Black" was pejorative. The accepted term at the time was "Negro", which has turned around and become a pejorative. Similarly, "queer" was also an insult, and it became the name of a movement.

If you unfairly treat X to the point where X has a higher moral claim then you do, then eventually X becomes a compliment.

When "pirates" were copying floppies and the industry was simply saying "don't do that", the industry seemed to have the moral high ground. In those days, I was on the side of the industry. When they started laying six figure judgements on students, they lost me. I'd be proud to call myself a pirate now.

Re:Adopting Pejoratives is a time honored traditio

[mark-t]

You are talking about issues of social unacceptability, I am talking about what is actually illegal. The term pirate isn't socially unacceptable (actually, it's arguably quite a trendy term these days, thanks in no small part to some recent Disney films), but it's still the term used to label someone who commits piracy, which is, no matter how cool or trendy pirates might appear in our culture, still against the law.

Can't boycott Hollywood

[tepples]

It eventually lead to a bus boycott, not a bus denial of service.

Except one cannot easily boycott the entertainment industry. True, you throw away your radio and your TV and seek out sources of free cultural works on the Internet. But you still have to buy food at a grocery store that plays non-free music over its speaker system, paying the producers of non-free music with part of what you spend on groceries. And the cable company still gives the lowest tier of TV service for no additional charge with Internet service.

We could just get rid of all the politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Again and again, people on /. just don't get it. Collaborative governance (aka open source governance) is the only way we can realistically overcome political corruption: by simply obsoleting all the politicians.

Re:We could just get rid of all the politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

/. is not about answers. It is about people complaining and whining without ever having the slightest intention of ever getting up off their chunky asses and doing anything about it.

News Corp's conflict of interest

[tepples]

You mention the Boston tea party of 1773. But as I understand it, that was long before the news media developed its conflict of interest with publishers of fiction. If the modern tea party movement wants to keep its cozy relationship with Fox News Channel, it can't adopt copyright reform policies that would hurt Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, which shares a corporate parent with Fox News Channel.

MPAA news

[tepples]

getting elected and changing the copyright laws.

Anyone who runs for the U.S. Congress on a copyright reform platform will get buried by the major U.S. TV news organizations, all of which share a corporate parent with a major movie studio.

Re:MPAA news

[camperdave]

I doubt if dramatic chipmunk, annoying orange, llama song, badger badger, they've taken the hobbits to Isengard, or any similar video has been made popular by the major TV networks. One does not need TV coverage to get into the hearts and minds of the people. (Although I will admit that it helps).

It's not just software

[tepples]

How am I oppressing you by holding title to software I write?

Computer programs are not the only kind of work at issue here. It's easy to avoid reading (and therefore copying) a computer program because computer programs aren't performed publicly as background noise. But once I hear a song on the radio or on the grocery store's speaker system, I am forever barred from writing a song that uses a similar melody. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music; Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton. So what should I do to make sure that any song I write hasn't been written before?

Trade secret != copyright

[tepples]

You refused to post your Credit Account number.

Authentication is much more like a trade secret than like a copyright. Please don't listen to people who claim that copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets should be treated equally just because they're all "intellectual property".

Re:Adopting Pejoratives is a time honored traditio

[Gerafix]

Who's culture and law? As far as I'm aware downloading music for personal use in Canada is perfectly legal and extremely popular in certain age groups. Those certain age groups by the way are going to be the ones running the country soon enough.

You didn't answer his question

[judeancodersfront]

It's called the piracy party, not the selective copyright reform party.

It could work...

[brirus]

The pirate party needs a few good U.S. candidates. And money. And loads of hot women.

Op:Payback

[dragonhunter21]

Wait, what? Operation Payback is still going on?

Wow, anon has more staying power than I thought.

Their Mistake!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the DDOSing resume!

DDos These Dirtbags!

Who the spammers are? a bunch of Americas, a bunch of hungarians, a few brits, and RACKSPACE.NET
These guys are causing Slow game creation, full games, screens full of spam!

[ Contacted ]
d2magic.com 76.64.159.117 -> peer1.net -> domains@peer1.net, Vancouver BC abuse@peer1.net ( Nice guys! )
d2qq.com 74.53.235.40 -> theplanet.com -> srsplus.com, Dallas TX
GoGodly.com ->Theplanet.com -> softlayer.com, Dallas TX abuse@softlayer.com

Mydiablo2.com ->theplanet.com "The Brits"
D2loot.com -> properhost.net -> As29550.net -> transfers-auth@names.co.uk, MaidenHead.UK

mulefactory.com 94.125.180.101 -> Comport.hu -> ginger.@tsplab.hu ( Hungary )

THE MAIN PERPS! "The Americans!"
d2papa.com 74.52.9.234 -> Bebop.digitalxero.com ->d2box.com ->wazzhost.org -> domain@wazzhost.com
d2cart.com 96.30.39.108 -> earth.wazzhost.org -> Applevalley, Ca, USA
ALSO:
d2goods.com, d2king.org, d2majors.com, d2trust.com, d2warehouse.com, diabloez.com, rpgstock.com, d2bigs.com, ggsupply.com,
Some contact @ wazup.ro bughy_b@yahoo.com
d2bigs.com -> admin@d2bigs.com

The Dirtbags! "RackSpace.net" Dallas Fort Worth, TX, USA

Wilweaton.net, on RackSpace.net 1-877-934-0409 Call Them
"Therefore, on behalf of the Internet,
I would like to invite all the spammers in the world
to kindly fuck themsleves."

d2site.com 72.32.155.142 ->Rackspace.net -> sebastiann711@yahoo.com
lewt.com -> rackspace.net
d2items.com 73.32.163.244 -> Rackspace.net -> Resolves to d2site.com

Spammers for Blizzard's Battle.net game Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.
A Rackspace.net address. ( i.e. ingame message bots )

Wilweaton.net, on RackSpace.net "Therefore, on behalf of the Internet,
I would like to invite all the spammers in the world to kindly f*ck themsleves"

d2gamesmall.com -> enom.com -> Demandmedia.com
To make my point:

Please add the following text to your hosts file:

127.0.0.1 as28278.com
127.0.0.1 as29550.net
127.0.0.1 as41075.com
127.0.0.1 d2bigs.com
127.0.0.1 d2cart.com
127.0.0.1 d2magic.com
127.0.0.1 d2qq.com
127.0.0.1 mulefactory.com
127.0.0.1 d2papa.com
127.0.0.1 d2goods.com
127.0.0.1 d2king.org
127.0.0.1 d2majors.com
127.0.0.1 d2trust.com
127.0.0.1 d2warehouse.com
127.0.0.1 d2site.com
127.0.0.1 d2items.com
127.0.0.1 diabloez.com
127.0.0.1 digitalxero.com
127.0.0.1 ggsupply.com
127.0.0.1 machineword.com
127.0.0.1 rpgstock.com
127.0.0.1 wazzhost.org

This cuts of all access to the spammers!

No, that isn't an option

[SmallFurryCreature]

It sounds nice, but where do you get the party machine from? This is an issue the Dutch PVV has (Geert Wilders). As a small party with a very low income (it has no members because of how it is organized. By comparison, the Socialist Party has millions in income from members) and can't properly vet its people. Since these people haven't been roasted on the traditional decades of party membership, some real whacko's come up and are then exposed.

So you NEED the large party machine and "us knows us" to filter your politicians to have people that do not have to resign the moment they are elected and investigated.

But by needing that large party machine, you become part of the whole ivory tower. Any person thoroughly tested in the political arena becomes a part of it. You then loose the ability to think as a new independent party.

The idea that an indepent can come from outside and get elected is present, but this person will then either have to work with the system or spend all his time fighting it as a loner. If he actually gets more then 1 seat, how is he going to fill this with reliable candidates without falling back on close friends (nepotism) or relative strangers who might be hiding all sorts of things from their past?

Just see the well established parties and their members who suddenly get exposed as tax dodgers or boy lovers (democrats and republicans respectively).

And the press eats these scandals up, because they can't just use their normal "bash left on even days and right on uneven days" on an outsider.

Just getting elected and just changing the law. Not outside a hollywood movie.

If everyone knows Rosa Parks

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone knows Rosa Parks, why are there still people claiming that you can't repeal laws by breaking them?

Re:If everyone knows Rosa Parks

[dave420]

Did you not read the rest of his post? He answered that for you.

Ask whathisface

[Alistair Hutton]

Whatever happened to the reply from Ask the leader of the British Pirate party questions thread on Slashdot, was there ever and answer?

"Pirate" is hyperbole

[tepples]

National Pirate Parties acknowledge that their name is hyperbole. According to the web sites of a couple national Pirate Parties, they have "adopted the very term employed by associations and copyright maximalists, intended to demonise and promote further and more strict criminalisation of file sharing and free culture distribution, and used it to identify ourselves as a means of drawing attention to the fallacious nature of the label." Compare the "Democratic Party" back when "democrat" was a pejorative term for supporters of mob rule. Web sites of national Pirate Parties make it clear that the platform is one of reform.

Re:Best be sure you aren't next in line for the ch

[unity100]

geeks ? masses ?

do you think that there are millions of geeks in america ? hehehehe.

and do you think the jury had acted along with the will of masses ? hahahaha.

I thought of a couple more

[tepples]

You oppress me when you convince a government to make use of your software mandatory. For example, Microsoft has convinced some governments to make their tax return software require its Windows operating system.

You oppress me when publishing my own work requires the same device that can be used to break copy controls on works to which you hold titles. Nintendo has attacked makers of devices that run "homebrew", or software developed by individuals for Nintendo platforms, in court systems around the world.

Internet non-users vote.

[tepples]

I doubt if dramatic chipmunk, annoying orange, llama song, badger badger, they've taken the hobbits to Isengard, or any similar video has been made popular by the major TV networks.

Works that have become "Internet popular" aren't necessarily known to the electorate. I see people who haven't heard of any of the "Internet popular" videos you mentioned, yet they still vote. They don't see the point of spending $600 for a PC+monitor and $600 per year for home Internet access and learning how to use them when they're satisfied getting their news from newspapers and traditional television. Howard Dean in 2004 and Ron Paul in 2008 tried to run as the so-called Internet candidate, yet their campaigns crashed and burned.

Re:Adopting Pejoratives is a time honored traditio

[mark-t]

Piracy isn't downloading music for personal use, it's another term for copyright infringement, which is quite definitely illegal in Canada.