Slashdot Mirror
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."
You know what would rock even more? If we could have both music and movies and and all the other art that we can spread across the world to everyone with a computer virtually for free as well as having the poor artists not starving.
An it would totally rock if everyone had access to all digitalized culture legally, so one wouldn't have to feel bad or fear a one in a million chance of personal economic disaster.
And we can. All it takes is a little socialism. Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
(Another solution, even easier to administer, would be basic income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee )
Anyway... Socialism FTW and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Peace.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if we can just have everything for free and have the government provide everything? That's genius. And since money magically appears out of nowhere, it's foolproof. Now all we have to do is force people to work and we're golden.
Are you replying to the part about basic income? Are you stupid or something? Do you think all people would settle for whatever little the basic income would give them? Most people would want to work to get paid so they can get fancier food, a bigger house and more stuff.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
They shouldn't have announced it. Anna Troberg could have started calling herself Dread Captain Falkvinge and nobody would have noticed.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Well, given that we have multi-generational welfare families, yes. I think many would. The question is what you do about those people. Do you let them starve, or do you feed them knowing that you were never going to get them to work anyway. Of course, if you guarantee them a livable wage without work, the number of people that live on the dole will be greater than if you let them starve.
I find the response I almost always get from my suggestion on how we should deal with food stamps interesting. I suggest we make a K-ration type food. Make it taste horrible, yet be healthy. I mean taste REALLY bad. Then just give it away. Don't bother tracking it at all. Get rid of all the bureaucracy involved in the food stamp program. Literally pull semi-trucks into parking lots and let people take what they want. If it tastes bad enough, most people will work before eating it, but they will eat it before they starve to death. The people that eat it even though they could work for food are the ones you were never going to get off the dole anyways. There would be no black market for it because anyone that wanted it could just go get it for free. This guarantees no one starves, reduces bureaucracy, and makes fraud totally uneconomical without any punitive threats. Win, Win, Win.
The interesting part is that most peoples response to this is to suggest that this would violate some kind of human right. They usually come around when it is pointed out that feeding someone food that tastes bad is not abuse. We do it to children all the time. It is interesting though that their first thought is that it is abusive.
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.
Well, given that we have multi-generational welfare families, yes.
That's because welfare, by the time you get all the free prescriptions, transportation, eyeglasses, etc.etc that's all covered, pays over 200% what a minimum wage job does. When you're not qualified to do anything, then welfare gives you a ridiculously high wage.
Hence, the problem you mention.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
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:-
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.
You are not entitled to the sweat of their brows
I like the flamebait. Always entertaining. Though it's so hard to determine whether the trolls are lying or actually believe it. But sentences like that are golden. The rule is quite explicitly that "sweat of the brow" is not protected. That is, if you take someone else's plans and build a house, you have no copyright to the result, no matter how "beautiful" it is. It was not a creative work on the part of the builder. The same with any other act where it is created with work, but not novel creativity.
So yes, we are entitled to the sweat of their brow. Just because it was hard to do doesn't mean it is copyrightable.
Learn to love Alaska
Since it's Sunday, and I have nothing better to do. Let me humor you with a long reply.
Yes, it would be great if we can have everything free. That's called the Star Trek economy. Once we have production-grade replicators or nth-generation Repraps, that will become a reality, indistinguishable from magic. Now, if all that we need to manufacture something is the work to haul some amorphous lump of matter and dump it into the replicator, then the value of money degrades to that of a household chores bribe: Hey, Junior, can you fetch me some dirt from the back yard. I promise, I'll drive you to the ballgame this Sunday.
That's it, as far as goods that we can hold in our hands are concerned. We're not yet at the Star Trek level as far as physical objects are concerned. Every single iPhone or Prius has to go through some form of manual intervention, a worker who has to assemble the bits and bolts. You can't just download the blueprint for a laptop and feed the binary data to any of today's state-of-the-art 3D printers. And even if you can, you still need special materials that you can't ask Junior to fetch from your back yard.
On the other hand, duplicating an eBook or an Mp3 is as easy as typing "cp *mp3 /media/My_Copy" or simply plugging in your iPod Touch and clicking the appropriate prompt button. As far as digital goods and objects are concerned, we are already at the Star Trek level. So the work needed to product a piece of music is limited to the very act of making the actual recording, not the reproduction. Once the master has been made, endless copies can be made.
So, I'm sure you'll ask, who'll pay for the initial step? Those hungry for novelty and innovation. If nobody wants to pay to hear a new version of the Goldberg Variations, then we're stuck to listening to the old recordings by, say, Glenn Gould, or until some bored amateur decides to record and foist on us her atonal version of Bach.
Don't underestimate boredom as a motive for innovation and progress. It's what made Wikipedia the dominant source of information in the Internet, millions of bored users deciding to contribute their little tidbits of information.
Yes, Wikipedia still needs money to operate its servers. But that is minuscule compared to the quantity of "free" editing and writing work contributed by bored users, trolls, and government agents. We don't pay for the pizza but for the pizza delivery.
I foresee a couple of problems with this. What's to prevent me from raising pigs using this untasty free food of yours? Or maybe transform it into semi-tasty food for resale? Perhaps sell it in another country? Free raw materials would certainly be abused :)
So did the English Language, Baseball, apple pie, and George Washington, but we still call those American.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I second Basic Income, it would be a great way of not only encouraging creative activities, but new small business creation as some of the risk is taken away with an unconditional basic income no matter what. And it would guarantee that no one dependent on existing programs fall through the cracks and risk homelessness or even starvation for lack of money, while at the same time virtually eliminating the costly bureaucracy surrounding the existing programs. A basic income guarantee is unconditional, it is not dependent on any factors, not even income, you only have to make sure that each person gets one basic income and no more, thus reducing the need for bureaucracy greatly.
I've read a lot about the matter. The movement doesn't have much steam here in Sweden (the Greens used to have it in their party platform, but never made an issue out of it, not sure if they do any more) but is apparently quite a bit stronger in Germany.
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.
Requiring people to work for their basic income sort of defeats the purpose of an *unconditional* basic income..
As for who pays, the taxpayers of course, just as they pay for the myriad of programs designed to keep people off the streets now. The added cost in Sweden at least would be pretty minor, it is a pretty small group of people who are completely left out in the cold, but they do exist. The reduced cost of the bureaucracy behind all of the means-testing going on in the various agencies would cover part of it.
Before you use the common argument of reduced incentive to work, studies have showed that this is quite minimal in pilot tests. And considering the high unemployment rate (even in a good economy, unemployment is rarely below 4%), a slightly reduced incentive to work is not necessarily a bad thing, slightly fewer hours per capita also means there is work for more people in order to make up the difference...
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.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Considering that middle management and bureaucracy continue to expand, pointless consumerism runs rampant, obsolete or oversized corporations get billions in subsidies and tax loopholes, and the largest sector of the US economy is now finance (surpassing all goods-producing industries combined), it's arguable that we've long passed the point where society required full employment to provide its needs, and we have now entered the phase of endlessly inventing new high-paid welfare jobs that do little other than keep unemployment low and the GDP high (on paper).
(holy run-on sentence, Batman!)
If there was a strong social safety net, it's true that many people would simply drop out and live off the state's dime. But it would mostly weed out the unmotivated, the burned out, and those ill-suited to their jobs—in other words, people who were barely contributing if not detrimental to their own companies. If companies could no longer frighten workers with the spectre of unemployment, employees would have much greater bargaining power without resorting to labor unions. It would also give many people the chance to spend some quality time in their garage on that crazy idea they think might change the world. Or the chance to go back to school and learn some useful things. Or the chance to spend some time with their kids. Eliminating retirement and unemployment benefits would go a long way towards removing highly paid but underperforming employees and positions**. All in all, the workforce would be smaller but much more active; agile, motivated, and organic, like capitalism is supposed to be.
I don't think we've yet reached the point where we could switch to such a system without pain and suffering, but the inexorable advance of technology brings a world of employment-by-choice closer to reality. Population growth is slowing worldwide thanks to increasing affluence. For once we find much of our industry—like cars, airplanes, computers, and appliances—becoming more efficient over time, not less. Our most industrialized countries already have more than enough resources and technology to meet the fundamental desires of their populace—subsistence, transportation, communication, and recreation. Since we already have proven the practicality of an industrial base large enough to satisfy the entire population, it becomes mostly an issue of optimization and labor reduction. Assuming we can adopt a better source of energy than fossil fuels, and assuming materialism hasn't been ordained the state religion by then, I doubt this century will end without reaching the point where we can offload enough of our menial work onto computers and machines that we don't mind doing the remainder. It might not be a Star Trek techno-utopia, but it would solve a lot of problems.
-
**(If an employee is particularly valuable, they should be paid more now, not promised pensions twenty, thirty, forty years down the line. If the employee is smart, they'll invest the money wisely. If they're not smart, at least the safety net means they won't be sleeping in the gutter. In either case, you won't see the triune problems of employees twiddling their thumbs until their pensions mature, companies unwilling to fire underperforming executives because they don't want to pay their golden parachutes, and the financial ruin of victims of Enron-type collapses.)
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
and the horse you rode in on.
The horse I rode in on is an experimental bio-fueled vehicle.
The complaints about its exhaust are overblown.
Have they improved on it? Nay.
In other word, minimum wage is way too low.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know what would rock even more? If we could have both music and movies and and all the other art that we can spread across the world to everyone with a computer virtually for free as well as having the poor artists not starving.
An it would totally rock if everyone had access to all digitalized culture legally, so one wouldn't have to feel bad or fear a one in a million chance of personal economic disaster.
And we can. All it takes is a little socialism. Let the people decide what they like by downloading stuff and give those artists a living wage paid for with taxes.
(Another solution, even easier to administer, would be basic income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee )
Anyway... Socialism FTW and fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Peace.
Or - any artist, performer, actor, director, writer who feels strongly about defending the way the current studio/distribution system treats them - publicly put up their paypal (or bank account details). An account the studios don't control. Then those that support the artist - but not the distributors, can donate money directly. What's that going to hurt? If they recieve money, and they don't want it - they can donate it to a worthy cause. But you can bet the studios won't let that happen!
In Australia - with certain restrictions, terms written on the back of a cheque are legally binding - what if people who like musician x sent him a cheque, and on that cheque it said "Dear x, I enjoyed your song/album y but I don't like the manager/company who fucked you over on the royalties - please accept my payment for $z on the condition you don't share it with said manager/company, sincerely a fan".?.
Nourish the share-cropper, starve the slave master. Viva the intelligent revolution!
We could even go with the fashion industry's concept, which doesn't have any copyright protection at all. And as we know, fashion designers are notoriously poor, don't have a chance to earn a decent living, and we are forced to wear the same design for dozens of years because no one has any incentive to create new clothes designs.
Or we could be the food industry, where recipes aren't protected by anything, not even trademarks (the trademarks itself are protected though). And as we know, no one ever got rich from inventing any new recipes.
You can't expect much subtlety in catch phrases and propaganda. But I can assure you that the thought process doesn't end there when pro-pirates are concerned, and I assume the same is true for the anti-pirates.
Copying information has been easy and nearly costless for quite some time. What the internets have provided us with is a very easy and nearly costless way to connect people and publish and distribute information. All organizations (in its most inclusive meaning) that have benefited from the earlier situation where high costs were associated with connecting people as well as publishing and distributing information, are in one way or another threated by this development. This includes e.g. the copyright industry as well as the catholic church and even the national state itself, even though it may not be immediately obvious. All these organizations will try to defend themselves, and we will have a major struggle for quite some time, but I really don't think opposing communication among people will work out very well in the long run.
Here comes everybody, by Clay Shirky, explains some of these things in more detail. It's a great book.
Disclaimer: I'm a member of the Swedish Pirate Party, and I've been so for a few years. I've voted for them in the three most recent elections (two for the Swedish parliament and one for the EU parliament).
I definitely believe that this is a good move. Rickard Falkvinge is a very charismatic person, but also a controversial one. He's enthusiastic, he knows how to reach the headlines and has done a wonderful job of founding the party and establishing an awareness of these questions in Sweden. The problem is that he lacks political tact. He's committed at least two really bad faux-pas, one statement in which he defended the right to keep but not buy child pornography and one time when he asked for personal funding from the party members, suggesting as they would be gifts they didn't need to be taxed. On top of that, there is a common view that the Pirate Party is Falkvinge's own private project and that he is something of a cult leader.
Therefore it is great to have Troberg on board as a leader. She is less technical and more personal than Falkvinge, but first and foremost she's much better suited to running an organisation than Falkvinge ever was. She will be able to handle people without driving them off, she's competent and she radiates credibility in a way that a party with the word "pirate" in its name needs desperately. Falkvinge was great for kick starting the party but Troberg is just the right person to take it to the next level. She has a tough job though - the party flopped in the 2010 elections and without a lot of hard work there is a risk the party will dwindle and be largely forgotten well before the 2014 EU parliament elections.