Pirate Party Founder Steps Down After 5 Years

ktetch-pirate writes "Five years to the day after he created the first Pirate Party, Rickard Falkvinge has stepped down as leader of Piratpartiet, the Swedish Pirate Party. The announcement was made in a webcast with Falkvinge and his deputy Anna Troberg, with Troberg taking on his duties effective immediately."

Comments

Re:Copyright Rocks

[windcask]

The artists know the drill when they sign up. They could keep a lot more of the money if they started their own labels or even signed to high-tier independents, but they want the bright lights of the stadium.

with almost none of the work behind them.

I fail to see how sitting around while smoking dope and writing poetry qualifies as more "work" than seeking out new talent, managing budgets for studio and tours, organizing promotions and buying ad space, reading the public sentiment towards particular genres and aspects of music, etc., all while employing thousands and providing for their families. The lazy bastards.

I'm no fan of MAFIAA world dominance, but I know a spade when I see one.

Copyright is NOT the issue - it's the distraction.

[Demonoid-Penguin]

You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows or all the time out of their lives that it takes to actually learn how to play an instrument, become a good actor, etc.

Neither is the RIAA/MPAA, who gets about 90% of the profit from these artists with almost none of the work behind them.

It's way to easy to see the whole "piracy" issue as *just* two opposing viewpoints. And, to me, neither view stacks up. I strongly suspect both camps are being naive and manipulated. And here's my reasoning:-

• Copying as theft is, well, obviously rubbish.
• Give people the ability to not pay for something - be it bread or circus - will mostly result in people taking more than if they had to pay.

My point here being that neither party is "completely" right. Copying doesn't reduce the industries revenue stream as much as claimed - though it doesn't make the impact the industry claims it does. I'll leave the value of promotion out of this - it's a red herring.

Why would an immensely profitable industry spend a fortune on a demonstrably pointless pursuit? The assertion that they are total idiots contradicts their success.

Follow the money is the method that should be applied. Do that and it appears obvious (to me) that the "industry" is spending vast amounts of money because it is a cost effective way for them to protect their income. The mistake pro-pirates make is believing the product is the income stream. IMO they are wrong and have been deliberately been fooled.

The industry is profitable and powerful because it controls distribution. The RIAA/MPAA campaign is not about stopping copying it's about stifling an alternative distribution network.

Re:Copyright Rocks

[Stiletto]

I don't see how multi-generational welfare families are any morally worse than multi-generational wealthy families, yet tons more complain about the former than they do about the latter. Idle is idle. Both are a net drain on society, but in different ways.

Re:Copyright Rocks

[devent]

You know what else we could do? Just put copyright back to place. To the good old days where you have to register your copyright and where it's only lasted 14 years.

We should limit copyright even more because with the internet it's so easy to publish. The limit should be 5 years now, with +5 years extend.

With a sane copyright law the artists and the publisher could come up with new ideas how to make money instead of be depended of an indefinitely state granted monopoly. What we have now is already socialism. It's worse, it's planed economy.

With the political power that such groups as the RIAA and MAFIA have and the laws behind them (100+ years copyright, DMCA, etc.) we could just make them government owned like in China and call them Office for Arts, Music, Movies.

With a limited copyright we could finally have a rich public domain, which is the most import factor for new innovation. Without a rich public domain there are no work available to build upon, for which all works we have now are build upon older works and ideas.