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Pirate Party Wins Seat In Berlin
An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Party won its first seat in the Berlin state elections with almost 9% of the vote. From the article: '"We will get right to work," top Pirate candidate, Andreas Baum, told ZDF television. "This is all new for us."'"
Pirate seat won in Berlin, wow!
...others can copy their strategy?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
is the Ninja Party?
.... considering how "cool" it is becoming in Germany to associate anything and everything with "Piraten". Pirates are in baby.
They haven't just won one seat but about 14-15. Interestingly, more seats would have been mostly useless to them as they have only nominated 15 candidates -- if they gain more seats than that or if they have to replace a member mid-term, they will have to leave that seat empty.
(+1, Disagree)
Chances are that everyone on their list, which comprised only 15 candidates, will win a seat in the Berlin senate.
Between the Greek bailout fiasco, ethanol fuel fiasco, atomic energy extension then reversal, FDP falling on their swords, Stuttgart 21, etc., I don't think any of the mainstream political parties have any credibility with the German voters left. Maybe the Green party has some, but they'd blow it after a couple of years in power. I think Mrs. Merkel is looking for a new coalition partner, maybe she should advertise on one of those in search of web sites.
The funny thing is of course how the other parties reacted. When it became clear that the Pirate Party would likely get into the parliament (predicted to get 6.5% at most), they were already scandalized, how anybody could vote such loonies. Now, I must confess I haven't watched all the reactions of other parties, but after the election both SPD and CDU were dismissive to the point of insulting those who voted for the Pirate Party. (Whose voters are more educated than the average of the electorate.)
... but the Pirate Party gained about 6% over that result - reaching 9%. Also none, none of the other parties saw fit to even mention the name Pirate Party even once. They all skirted the issue by saying something like - those others, a new party in the left spectrum or whatever.
... oh ... well what? The people? Who's that?
A representative of the Left party pointed out that having to few members nominated than the seats they won indicated that they must have overestimated themselves (sic!). Green Representative Renate Künast claimed that her party got the most gains of all parties - the Green Party gained 4.5% more votes than during the last election in 2006
Aloofness abounds among established parties, caring about their claim to power first, other parties in the government next and the people
If you had actually read the statements of the german Pirate Party, you'd know their position is not one of "screw the creators, everything free for everyone", but quite a bit more thought-out. Go read it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
EOM
It's much more a technically aware party that does lots of things right where other 'conservative' parties just still behave like 40 years ago ..
For me the name 'Pirate' ist the worst part of the party, as this is probably why lots of people won't ever take them serious .. even if they have good ideas. (Just like the Chaos Computer Club (CCC)... )
Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel has won a seat for the Silly Party.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
forcing doctors and teachers to work for no pay
Hilariously, if docs and teachers were treated like "content creators" then we'd have to pay huge amounts of money to their managers in perpetuity to basically do nothing, while the docs and teachers got practically no pay after they pay their bills. Oh wait...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Tell that to the music labels.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Notice that the people vote, not the country. If the country voted there would be no pirate party seats won.
Can you justify a retroactive copyright extension like the one that got just passed in Europe one month ago? How the hell a retroactive extension is going to encourage creation in the past? Or is the copyright extension including a time machine?
With these things one wonders how they are not getting even more votes....
The purpose of a patent is to prevent others from profiting off of your invention, or method of doing something for a finite period of time.
The purpose of trademark is to ensure that someone cannot mimick your branding, products, or company in an attempt to profit off of people whom don't know any better.
The purpose of copyright is to ensure that others cannot profit off of your work for a finite amount of time.
The purpose of these 3 things is not to force others to purchase your work if they do not wish to give you money for it.
This is a huge win for the german Pirate Party, as it puts it on the radar of all the mainstream press, even those that tried to ignore it so far.
By this time tomorrow, everyone in Germany will have heard about the Pirate Party. That one of the old, established parties has been decisively kicked from parliament (~2% of the votes, with 5% being required to enter parliament) only strengthens this perception, as the Pirate Party is called a "replacement" in some circles - the party kicked out is the Liberal party, which aside from being strictly capitalistic also used to ride on the tickets of things like freedom, liberty, individualism - stuff that is close to the Pirates as well.
Also, the PP has gotten through other important barriers straight away: They're officially a faction, with all the rights (an office in the parliament building, etc.) of the old parties. It will be receiving campaign money (Germany has a system where the parties receive tax money to cover their expenses during the campaigns, based on the number of votes they got, but you need a certain amount to receive any at all. The purpose of the system is to make sure not only the rich can afford campaigns, and parties don't need to rely on contributions from lobbyists/companies/etc. to campaign).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
(And, no, I'm not defending the long-copyright terms or the large fines imposed on pirates.)
And their platform doesn't seek to end all copyright in all forms. Their first goals are to shorten the terms, do away with the excessive fines on individuals and restore due process to the proceedings. That seems pretty reasonable.
They call themselves "Pirate" because they have already been branded with the name by the MAFIAA (which seems to consider anything short of signing our paychecks over to them and electing them dictator for life to be piracy).
Do you pay your doctor for setting the bones in your arm 50 years later? How about 7 years later? How about 3 years later?
Do you pay your teachers for each individual nugget of education you gleaned from them when you're not at school? You didn't pay them by the semester, right?
Why not? That's what content creators like yourself expect when you set any sort of term on your creations.
Fuck off and get paid by the hour (or by the year) like everyone else in the world. This is why you're told to get a real job. Because in a real job you do your work and get paid once. You don't pay Sony a royalty every fucking time you flip on your radio. But you expect the bar owner to pay you every time they put your CD in their CD player.
Just. Fuck. Right. Off. You know what, there's enough art out there that if all artists decided to FOAD tonight, I think everyone would be perfectly satisfied for the next few decades.
Perhaps this is the people's way of saying they don't approve of that?
You are not entitled to payments forever for creating something.
Go do some real work you lazy entitled piece of shit.
Or. Extend your stupidity to the rest of the world. The guy that built your house? He deserves to be paid every year for you living there. The guy who made every product you currently use? He deserves to be paid every time you use that product. ect...
What? No? That's what i thought. Now go get a real job and stop being a spoiled little brat.
The purpose of a patent is to prevent others from profiting off of your invention, or method of doing something for a finite period of time.
In the US, that is absolutely NOT the purpose of a patent. Is that not the case elsewhere? The US constitution specifically states that it's to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The method of promoting science and useful arts is to allow the creator to profit, thus encouraging them to do their thing by allowing them to be compensated for it. The point is absolutely not to maximize profits for the creator. Do you really think extending copyright term (retroactively!) is going to affect whether or not somebody decides to write a novel or a song? Do you really think structuring patent laws such that only lawyers and companies with enough money to sink into lots of lawyers benefit is going to promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
/. is us-centric blah blah blah. But seriously, is the actual (not necessarily practical) purpose of patent and copyright not the same in the EU?
Yeah yeah,
"Hilariously, if docs and teachers were treated like "content creators" then we'd have to pay huge amounts of money"
The doctor's kids and their grand-kids would have to get paid too, just like musicians, writers and the rest of them.
You could also argue that _your_ kids and grand-kids will have to pay as well, because they might not exist if the doctor hadn't done his creative work on you.
You would also have to pay if you want to show your scars to somebody or tell details of the operation.
If it was life-threatening, you might have to pay for each additional year you live.
How many times do artists deserve to get paid for the same 1 item of their artistic work? And for how many years will they and their heirs and the heirs of their heirs deserve to get paid for the lead character in "Steamboat Willie"?
Which other job on Earth rewards 1 piece of work perpetually, for all eternity?
Links?
o/~ Join us now and share the software
you think you're unique and talented that is the problem. youre just another dipshit in a world of dipshits
Nice job taking out of context, but the quote was...
Hilariously, if docs and teachers were treated like "content creators" then we'd have to pay huge amounts of money to their managers in perpetuity
Stop screwing creators.
What you are just realizing that what you do has practically no value to society?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This be happenin' on a most auspicious day, me hearties! Haul anchor!
[2011-09-19 00:17 local time]
Nice troll. Now face it, copyright is doomed and dying. No amount of whining and name calling will stop the world from advancing. You speak of fairness? It is unfair of you to want to hold us all back for the sake of a broken business model that never was much good, or necessary.
Why do you worship at the altar of copyright? You aren't capable of seeing any other way, anything at all, for encouraging the arts and sciences? You're afraid of change? It will be a much, much better world when copyright is gone.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
You deserve nothing. And education is already free for the first 13 years, and somehow those teachers manage to get a salary out of it. Healthcare is also free for a lot of people, and again medical personnel seem to get paid for it.
Do you really think extending copyright term (retroactively!) is going to affect whether or not somebody decides to write a novel or a song?
Of course it is. How else would we encourage John Lennon or Elvis Presley to do new work?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
So will the pirate party become the Singularity Party. Or will it happen before the politicians even notice at (endogenously to the planet perhaps)?
Pirate Party is basically libertarian.
Here is from wiki:
The party supports the preservation of current civil rights in telephony and on the Internet; in particular, it opposes the European data retention policies and Germany's new Internet censorship law called Zugangserschwerungsgesetz. It also opposes artificial monopolies and various measures of surveillance of citizens.
The party favors the civil right to information privacy and reforms of copyright, education, computer science and genetic patents.
It promotes in particular an enhanced transparency of government by implementing open source governance and providing for APIs to allow for electronic inspection and monitoring of government operations by the citizen.
It is aimed at minimizing government involvement into some specific areas, but anything that is aimed at minimizing government involvement is anti-establishment and may just be a special case of libertarian movement.
You can't handle the truth.
76 posts? Sad how /. has... well, anyway, I'd like to congratulate the Pirate Party on their big win. Good job guys. Maybe we can put something like this together for the American elections next year.
I will run as a candidate for sure, but it's in 3+ years :-/
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Which other job on Earth rewards 1 piece of work perpetually, for all eternity?
First, no 'job' does that, including jobs protected by copyright. Furthermore you are clouding the issue by adding 'job' in there. If you would ask the question correctly (what other producer of goods on Earth rewards 1 piece of work as long as people think it has value) the answer is much clearer. EXCEPT for works protected by copyright, which have an artificial expiration date (no matter how long it is), ALL of them.
If you make any product, no matter what it is or how long ago you 'made' it, you can sell that product and make a profit on it as long as people are willing to buy it. Only in things protected by copyright does that ability disappear after some arbitrary length of time.
So you support a significant and high profile portion of the Pirate Party platform, then? Well, that's good to hear.
Our first action will be a swift DDoS blitz of Poland. Don't worry about the French or English, they won't do anything about it.
The name "Pirate Party" works much better in Sweden, which has Pirates in their history and a population that knows enough English to know the term "software piracy".
We know English even in Germany.
Tomorrow (September 19) is International Talk Like A Pirate Day (tm). Har maties! Ye auld pirates arr now running up ye auld skull and bones and taking the bootie (politician is a synonym for schwag bag).
Let me clarify what I meant: Sweden has a much better insight into US American culture. The reason for this might be that because Sweden is such a small country, it isn't profitable to dub all the American TV shows: instead swedes have to read subtitles or just learn enough English to watch TV (which most of them do).
Germany is the exact opposite, with German being the most spoken language in Europe and Germany being the richest country (and other German speaking countries being quite rich as well), it becomes viable to dub ALL foreign television in German (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0X3nJ_TSy4 if you dare). So the average German does not know about terms like "software piracy", the pun in the name is lost to the majority of voters (German phrase is "robbery copy").
http://www.venganza.org/category/pirates/
Actually, everything else you lose the ability to sell once you've sold it.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
That so is? All this time I have, been use an Auto-Translator from das Google, ja. ;-)
[But seriously, even in German, "Piraterie" has been used in a copyright context for many years. Even those who don't speak English associate it with filesharing at least as much as with Johnny Depp or Somalia.]
Oh yeah? So once Coca-Cola sold the first bottle of Coke they lost the ability to sell more? Once Apple sold the first iPod they lost the ability to sell more? No, in every case you only lose the ability to sell that particular copy of the item. You can continue to sell (and more importantly, profit from) additional copies of the thing, as long as people want them. There is a difference between 'selling AN iPad' (which costs a few hundred dollars), and 'selling iPad' (which would cost a few billion dollars). When you buy music, you buy 'a COPY of a song', you do not buy 'the song'.
We just get tea fags.
They say a lot of things, but under Politics -> Copyright you find statements like:
Daher fordern wir, das nichtkommerzielle Kopieren, ZugÃnglichmachen, Speichern und Nutzen von Werken nicht nur zu legalisieren, sondern explizit zu fÃrdern, um die allgemeine Verfügbarkeit von Information, Wissen und Kultur zu verbessern, denn dies stellt eine essentielle Grundvoraussetzung für die soziale, technische und wirtschaftliche Weiterentwicklung unserer Gesellschaft dar.
Or in English (unofficial translation):
Therefore we demand that non-commercial copying, sharing, storing and use of works not only be legalized, but explicitly promoted to improve the overall availability of information, knowledge and culture, because this is a crucial prerequisite for the social, technical and economic development of our society.
I think there's a few copyright holders who would choke on that one. Also they want to built open, anonymous wifi networks and absolve the ISPs of all liability = free file sharing in practice. They have a very broad political program compared to the Swedish party, but they are no less radical when it comes to copyright. I do hope hey pass the 5% barrier in the national election in 2013, then it could get real fun (they had 2% in 2009 - more than 3x what the Swedish PP managed in their national election...)
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Not only that, most people who would vote for the Pirate Party in Germany already knew full well what "software piracy" is.
wow this is a really cool website, I will spend more time here...what type of blog software is this? Love this article, would be cool to have a pirate party in America. I will post this article on my own blog, http://warlock666.com
The pendulum has been very much in one direction for at least 100 years (and needs to swing back). In the US, the signatories of the US constitution gave copyright holders 14 years with a single 14 year extension (under special circumstances). Lifetimes? Lifetimes beyond the lifetime of the originator? Ridiculous! 14 years with no extension is the pendulum swinging back to somewhere normal. Even 7 years is a long time.
Yes, they did lose the ability to sell that bottle. Furthermore they are still doing fine, even though everyone and his dog sells their own brand of "coke", some arguably better.
Here in germany, if you have a device that can receive public broadcasting, you generally have to pay a fee to support public broadcasting. Germans pay around 4 times as much into that system as the entire german music industry pulls in. We pay over 20 times as much on public debt interest as the music industry pulls in. The video industry is about the same size in terms of revenue as the music industry here. People generally do not spend much of their own money directly to access digital media, it's not difficult to collect the monetary resources needed to compensate creators. For music, there is a money pool that radio stations, restaurants that play the radio to entertain guests, and so on, pay into. The size of the pool is 50% of the revenue of the music industry (in terms of size, it does not count as revenue, though I compensated for this in the comparison above). The music industry pulls in annually, in revenue plus the pool, what a german worker earns on average for three hours of work (multiplied by the size of the work force). I get all music there is for three hours of work? And all video there is for another three hours? And all books for another couple of hours? And so on with other media? And I can share these things with my friends as I like? Sing a birthday song at a private birthday party without getting sued? Sounds like a sweet deal to me.
Would you rather have a flatrate Internet connection where you can browse around and download whatever you want without worrying how long you are connected or how much each click costs you, with considerable risk if you click the wrong links or download too large things or did not pay enough attention to when exactly you did these things? Or would you rather have these things constantly on your mind, making decisions about this all the time, and perhaps pay a little less as a result? Or maybe accept some restrictions, like there are only certain sites you can go to, but others are unavailable, to save a few bucks? People choose flatrates so they are free from their free market consumer choice obligations for negligible savings.
As much as I'm for keeping the established parties on their toes, the pirate party certainly will not be able to do so. Has anyone bothered following their top candidate in television? Be my guest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-cDewZk7wo
Berlin has bigger problems than anybody in the pirate party could possibly handle or let alone help solve.
2 pirate vessels dubbed The Bob Barker and another (can't remember name or maybe Sea Shepherds), are not as fast as the ninja whaling fleet of 10 or so vessels but these 2 pirate vessels from Australia have pushed the ninjas away from preying on whales.
Not to mention the popular real pirate Klaus StÃrtebeker who - despite being an outlaw - is conceived as a "good guy". A german Robin Hood, if you want.
I grew up in a part of this world that currently is part of Germany. I grew up with primarily two impressions of patents. One is that the patent system is there to encourage _publication_ of inventions which makes it necessary to _protect_ them as if anybody could just copy your ideas, you would not publish them, but rather store them as kind of secret sauce in your safe (where it might get lost, where scientists could not explore your ideas further, and so on). The second was featured in some television show: some school boy invented an improvement for tires of airplanes (you put stuff on them so they start spinning due to friction when landing so you can save energy and limit damage when they hit the ground or whatever). He patented the idea, but years later he still hadn't sold this to anyone of note (leaving me unclear whether patents were good because he didn't get ripped off, or bad, because this clear improvement had not been adopted, as it was patented and thus costly in various ways; may also have been a bad idea, or might have been adopted since, I have not kept track since). In general, I think of "publication" as "giving it to the public", as opposed to keeping something your private secret sauce.
I'm not fond of their "free copying for everyone so long as it's non-commercial" stance either, but so long as they are a minority party, there's no chance this is getting on the law books. On the other hand, they might be able to block some of the more atrocious pro-copyright stuff, such as further extensions to the term, or extending the scope of copyright/patents, or making penalties harsher than many crimes where people are physically hurt, or circumventing due process ("three strike laws" etc).
Even if they were a majority party, they'd still have to compromise with others. So even then I wouldn't expect a complete implementation of their copyright program, but rather something sensible, e.g. scaling back copyright terms to reasonable levels (like say 10-20 years).
So, all in all, even if you're a creator, if you care even a little bit about the society around you and not just yourself (and so don't think that you should be entitled for a lifetime state-mandated pension for a single creative work), supporting them is likely to do more good then opposing them, even if you disagree on their more extreme policies.
Coca-Cola lost the ability to sell the first bottle of coke, and in order to sell more bottles of Coke they had to manufacture more. They have to continue manufacturing Coke for as long as they want to sell it, therefore they are continually working and continually purchasing new raw materials in order to make Coke.
They cannot, having manufactured the first bottle of Coke, produce infinite more bottles for free and with no effort.
And copyright doesn't give you the ability to sell something, it simply makes it more profitable by artificially eliminating the threat of free market competition and creating a monopoly on this particular product (but without the normal controls that apply to monopolies).
You can sell something which is not copyrighted, and so can anyone else. But you can't demand ridiculous markup, because someone else will simply provide it at a cheaper price... This is called competition.
As for an ipad, well if apple charged $5000 then very few people would buy them, which is why they cost roughly the same as their nearest competitors, and then sell more due to the extra perceived value of their brand.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Dear creators,
> We deserve to get paid for our work
But finding out actually _how_ to get paid is your problem. If you cant, nobody owes you a working business model. You dont somehow _have_ to work as a creator. If nobody wants to voluntarily pay you for doing creative stuff, go flip burgers.
> your desire to get other people's valuable hard work for free
This is not about "getting free stuff", no matter how often you creators repeat it.
The unpleasent fact about life is that people like to exchange information with each other, i.e. information wants to be free. Creative works are bits of information. To enforce your current business model, you have to constantly monitor and log the internet habits of millions and millions of people, and you have to punish millions and millions of them for something they feel is not wrong: exchanging useful information with their peers. Nobody cares that you declared parts of this information your "property", this kind of property is an artificial construct and is not widely supported. Your business modes is _very_ unnatural, it is literaly a fierce for-profit censorship scheme, with a giant apparatus doing nothing else but prosecuting people for too freely talking to each other, it is like North Korea applied to music.
> is not only unfair, but it's ultimately self-destructive
This is not your decision. In a democracy, we should be able to vote what is fair / unfair / constructive / destructive. Copyright, as we know it, is perceived as a mightily destructive force by a majority of people, which has been able to survive that long because of lobbyism, govermental intransparency (like having ACTA declared a threat level national security) and a tight relationship with publishing houses.
Todays copyright is opposing to the will of the majority of people, and if this democracy thingie is even worth half of what its called, then by hell, we will get rid of today's copyright soon. The established party system is actively preventing any kind of change, but as long as we can get a new, young, fresh party in (sorry US, get rid of your system or you will soon look old), we will be working on it. And if suing people for a living is your money making scheme, dear creator, you should start looking for another job soon.
Compared to the industry-bought-and-paid-for other parties, yes they are extremists.
Then you remember that our current copyright laws would have been deemed insane by the inventors of the original system, in terms of length and controls and punishments.
Non-commercial copying of music was quite common when I was young. It was called bootlegging and many of those were on sale in record stores. Some bands like the Grateful Dead even supported the fans making them.
In Germany, until very recently, it was perfectly legal to create a low number (the courts generally said up to about 5) of copies for friends (it had to be friends, not strangers) non-commercially. This priviledge was called "Privatkopie" (private copy) and even the music industry acknowledges it, though grudgingly. For the past years, it's been under attack and there are now several restrictions, but it's still there.
And it's a sane thing to do, because otherwise you make every teenager who has ever created a Mix-CD for his first big love into a criminal. The courts realize that, the politicians don't.
So basically, what the PP want is much closer to current legal reality than what the major parties want, just in the opposite direction.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But now global warming will start to deacrease:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Cheers
Wow, you're fucking dumb.
Fünfzehn Mann auf des Toten Kiste, hohoho... und ne buddel voll Rum!
If it has no value, why do people want it?
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
No value != little value. How much do you pay per year for toilet paper?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Klaus Stoertebecker
Goedeke Michels
Hennig Wichmann
Klaus Scheld
Magister Wigbold
Arnd Stuke
Nikolaus Millies
(effectively) Paul Beneke
In case anyone is wondering I think this success is unlikely to translate to such a success nationally. Remember that Berlin is not only a city state but also a fairly hip one !! The PP are not likely to get this level of support in, for example, more rural areas !!
Well, technically, selling the same physical bottle to several different people is more akin to fraud, isn't it?
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
"Electronic voting machines aren't so bad after all"
What's cooler than Pirates or Ninja's?
Nazis.
Links?
Nein, rechts.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Troll wanna cookie? Copyright is a perfectly valid and acceptable construct, just like patents are: they both provide incentives for inherently public works by enacting temporary barriers against market dilution by third parties.
It's not the concepts themselves that are the problem: it's their implementation. The debate should be centered around what should be protected and for how long. Calling for abolition is about as useful as outlawing cars because they run on fossil fuels.
Pretty sure Coca-Cola can't prevent you from measuring the bottle, tweaking the sizes and making a new one that fits in your cub-holder properly.
The Pirate Party of Berlin is somewhat different than the branches of other federal states. The other branches rather have an emphasis on a restraint of the rampant surveillance - not only on the net, but also in RL - more political transparency and civil rights.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
... which hosts a tracker site open for anyone to link from and upload to. Then ordering it to be taken down is one political party attacking another and that is taboo as well as against several laws - need to get the EFF involved and go to the Supreme Court, and if they say it's okay - it'll be open season on every political web-site. I love when the legislators have written themselves into a corner. :)
Or at least with their explicit or implicit permission.
The pirates who had the sanction of no government seem to be the minority. Many of them had that status because the British stopped the practice of using privateers for government ends, and the privateers turned unsanctioned pirate.
Ernst RÃhm
Klaus Nomi
Roland Emmerich
Oh, snap!
Speaking of which, could someone please make a funny Hitler speach parody regarding the Pirate Party victory and post the link here?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
If he had his way we'd have no copyright in the US because of the fear of its abuse, as he correctly predicted.
Jefferson even proposed this for the Bill of Rights, too bad he didn't succeed:
Given the current thinking, 14 would have probably been written in. In reading this next paragraph, it's obvious the Pirates are less radical than Thomas Jefferson:
The incentives are perverse and the mechanisms are not workable. That's the core of the problem for both copyrights and patents. Of all the ways to compensate artists and scientists, we just had to pick... monopolies? We've seen time and again that monopolies are bad. They're easy to abuse, and they are abused. They're very negative. They're all about denial and control of things that shouldn't be and can't be controlled. Just the sort of thing to attract abusive, controlling psychopaths, and it has.
Now we have entire industries built on acquiring these monopolies for outrageously low amounts, and hoarding and monetizing them. Remember, these are the guys who brought us such lovely terms as "Hollywood Accounting" and "Payola". They steal from the artists even as they accuse us of that. They've fought technology at every turn. They want to turn the Information Superhighway into a tollroad, with themselves as the gatekeepers. We have an entire generation driven underground, accused and very guilty of the non-crime known as "sharing" but called by the fiery slanted names of "piracy" and "theft". Yet that hasn't been enough for the extremists. They're constantly trying to broaden the meaning, length, and scope of the monopoly protections. They keep trying to transfer costs to the public while at the same time brainwashing and diverting us with the whole "starving artists deserve to be paid" and "copying is stealing" emotional appeals. They try to turn universities and ISPs into copyright police. They would like to destroy the used bookstore and the public library. They've had far too much success at all that. The system is very costly to run, and does not really work. Plus, as concentrations of media and media rights, they are a lot more vulnerable to censorship and loss.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Uploading through P2P counts as commercial distribution due to the potential number of receivers so even if they got that pushed through it wouldn't legalize P2P.
I don't think they'll get it through but they'll add a useful opposing voice to votes that basically screw natural people as well as those stupid anti-terror laws.
I'm pretty sure they were elected on their broader anti-authoritarian stance, after all the neo-liberal FDP had a massive vote loss which I'd guess is at least partially caused by the people who voted FDP for the opposition to anti-terror nonsense migrating to the PP instead. It probably helped the pirates that their polling results showed a result above the 5% threshold shortly before the actual vote so people would be encouraged to vote PP, not go with "the lesser evil" on a belief that PP votes wouldn't count.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Same is Germany: Either direct seats or 5% get you in.
The barrier is 4% in Sweden so it's slightly easier. I really hope we don't have to look to Germany in shame the next election!