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Pirate Party Releases Book of Pirate Politics
ktetch-pirate writes "If the SOPA/PIPA blackouts were a wakeup call to many people, then the U.S. Pirate Party has released a book that might help explain some of the issues. The book covers issues such as Corporate Personhood, the 4th Amendment, the history of copyright, and how DRM laws are made. There are even cartoons from Nina Paley throughout to add a bit of humor. DRM-free eBook versions are available to download from the book's site, or you can buy a paperback edition from Amazon for ten bucks."
The book is under the CC BY-NC-SA, and features essays from the likes of Lawrence Lessig and Rick Falkvinge.
True pirates only believe in a keg of rum and a fair splittin' o' the booty!
... are thoughts concerning the possible destruction of the universe were I to pirate the Pirate Party's book on Pirate Politics.
Finally some actual literature on the anti-SOPA/anti-PIPA issues, rather than incessant webcomics and memes.
Hopefully we might one day move towards the revolutionary notion of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Yes I know it's terribly problematic determining the parameters, but if the principle was accepted we'd be a lot further ahead.
I have been waiting for this. Blackouts and protests can raise awareness, but those interested yet lacking knowledge require a targeted repository of information on the issues at hand. The distribution of knowledge is the best way to prepare the masses for the lengthy and technical debates that are sure to arise regarding SOPA/PIPA in the following years.
Slashdotted. Figures.
The book is under the CC BY-NC-SA
So it's copyrighted?
Then I'll torrent it.
Corporations are not considered actual people and do not have "the same rights" as actual people. They cannot vote, sit in a jury, or obtain a passport or driving license.
Corporations are however considered "legal persons", for very good reasons, and have a different set of rights. Many of the rights are overlapping, which makes a lot of sense, because just because you carry on your business through a company rather than in person should not make you lose any meaningful amount of rights. For example, whether you choose to sell burgers as Joe Bloggs (your real name) or Joe Bloggs Ltd should make no difference when it comes to whether you have protection against people falsely claiming you put rat meat in your burgers.
I wonder if the entire gigaconspiracy theory could have been avoided if whoever called them "legal persons" originally instead could have called them "Legal Organisations" with the same set of rights that "Legal Persons" have today.
Site seems to be down. Even direct IP does not work, anybody else having this problem?
There are even cartoons from Nina Paley throughout to add a bit of humor.
Look, it's from the Pirate Party. You don't have to pretend. We all know the cartoons don't add any humor and most likely just add an air of smug, borderline-solipsistic arrogance, using blunt, condescending, oversimplified metaphors that would make Jack Chick drool with envy.
*sigh* But, it'll be smug, borderline-solipsistic arrogance by one of our guys, so that makes it okay and better than the other guys' smug, borderline-solipsistic arrogance. Go team.
The value of a unit of work entirely depends upon the perceptions of the people who benefit from said work. As such, it varies with many variables, including location, culture, material availability, labor availability, alternative benefit availability, time, etc.
It is very easy to deem that someone else is overpaid because of the low value their output has to you personally, without taking into account the high value it may have to the people who are actually paying for it. The opposite is also true.
The matter is further complicated by the possibility of economic predation, where people can position themselves so as to be able to force the extraction of pay that is way beyond the value provided in anyone's perception. Though this is the most visible and most hated issue driving income inequality, the other variables contribute just as significantly to the imbalances (or the incorrect perception thereof).
The killing of an American overseas ... yeah, yeah, except they never mention he intentionally threw away his rights by declaring war on the US ... the rest of the book is probably just as stupid.
The site to get the eBook is down. If only The Pirate party had access to some kind of distributed download system that could handle the traffic...
or else!
. . . on 'giving ebooks away for free' comes out.
It's been slashdotted offline!!! There's download links on the twitter feed! https://twitter.com/#!/NoSafeHarbor
Can't download from a US internet connection. Has the site been slashdotted or is it censored in the states?
"That's either incredibly asinine or the most brilliant troll I've ever read. Not sure which." -Anonymous Coward
I read the first few essays and, though I agree with the sentiments therein, I found most of them rather poorly written - either unsure of their target (e.g., most non-computer-geek persons will not know what a "zombie botnet" is and how it relates to DNS, which is also not described) or incredibly dense in legality or just scattered (jumping from point-to-point with little connection). As a document, the whole thing would be unreadable by the normal man on the street. If you actually want a good example of what a publisher and the editorial services they should provide bring to the table, you need do little more than try to read this document. The distance between where this document is and where it should be to be effective (which should demonstrate the amount of work it would take to bridge the gap) is also a good indicator as to why these intermediaries deserve to be paid for these efforts.
If you want to kill copyright, you should put out a document showing that the services of those paid by copyright is no longer necessary. This document, though heartfelt, is crap.
That is all.
https://www.facebook.com/zittwins?sk=app_182667455607
That will probably be the reaction of many. Yes, it does. Unfortunately, there is no proportional representation so any vote in a state that was not cast in favor of the winner in that state, goes in the trash.
This has two effects:
* In states safely in hands of incumbents, it doesn't matter if you vote PP or not. You won't win. You don't get a voice.
* In states that are heavily contested (swing states), even PP supporters are tempted to vote R or D, just to make sure "the other guy" doesn't win, depending which side of the fence they are on.
This book will hopefully draw a lot of attention to the USPP; being able to get the message out might prove to be just as effective.
Any product that can be deliniated in a computer file can be 'held hostage' until the ransom is paid to the creator [who charges enough up front s/he doesn't care about any subsequent piracy and lost revenue] by those interested in paying part of the ransom. Once the ransom is paid, the file is distributed. The creator got paid. The buyers got what they wanted -- everybody wins. Otherwise NO MONEY CHANGES HANDS.
See Kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/
One Kickstarter project I saw got completely funded for the mid-4 figures in THE FIRST 24 HOURS of the 30-day campaign!
There were enough supporters willing to support this particular project.
CAPTCHA: retail [kickstarter + sane pricing + co-operation = the antidote for the retail model of sales which is fraught with expensive 'overhead' which is passed on to the people who buy the stuff at the end of the line.]
It may be just me, but at least the copyright section seems very anti-American. Its anti-dark-ages-Catholic-Church also, but who isn't, really.
Is America the only country in the world after 1776? So why does the rest of the world get 2 paragraphs? The US wasn't even a party to the 1886 Berne Convention until the 1990s. Of course, in typical anti-American fashion, this must have been for evil purposes; America's so-called "freedom" is only lip service, its real aim is to enslave the world. (Anything to the contrary is anti-Party reactionary lies.) Not of course, because it is typical overpriced European crap.
The most European things of all - cars! The European Cars! - weren’t good enough for the American people. They all bought Toyota instead. This was an apocalypse-grade sign that Europe was approaching its end as industrial nations, unable to compete with Asia.
FTFY as well. (*Now* does it sound like b.s.?)
I mean, I know why no one ever cites foreign laws. America is the only place in the world with every law *ever* enacted by Congress available on Wikisource. (Well, actually, 1931 -1950 isn't, but is available elsewhere.) Laws, in America, unlike the UK, are *not* copyright, nor are even copyrightable, again unlike the UK. Its not like you could just print all the UK laws without violating needing permission. (WTF really?) German laws are hard to find, because like France, their messed up legal system (which is sooo awesome) results in completely new Constitutions (and governmental systems) every 50 years (because they worked so well.) (At least they aren't copyrighted though.)
At least make the effort to actually find non-American laws on the subject, and enlighten yourself people. I know it will be *extremely* difficult to actually find the law (which you are expected to know by heart) of a country outside America, but I can't do everything myself.
...are there anywhere they are collected on their own?
http://bit.ly/x5gtHe
I was hoping to find a Pirate Party response to Richard Stallman's essay on how the Swedish Pirate Party's proposed short term of copyright creates a needlessly unequal opportunity between copylefted free software and proprietary software upon entry into the public domain. In the same essay Stallman proposes a fix that resolves the unequal opportunity.
It's the unequal results upon entering the PD that is unfair: Proprietors don't release source code so upon entry into the public domain their works would be redistributed as binaries without users being free to inspect or modify the work. By contrast users would be free to incorporate the formerly copyleft free software program. As Stallman points out, "the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years". As he mentions, proprietary programs that timebomb themselves might remain useless even to users who merely want to run the program. Stallman wrote, "I could support a law that would make GPL-covered software's source code available in the public domain after 5 years, provided it has the same effect on proprietary software's source code. After all, copyleft is a means to an end (users' freedom), not an end in itself. And I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright.".
We should strive for equal opportunity for use upon entry into the PD but the Pirate Party's recommended copyright policy would allow proprietors to exempt themselves from the freeing effect of entry into the PD. Stallman's idea of requiring proprietary software escrow when the binaries are released seems eminently sensible to me. Then users would be on equal footing with formerly copylefted free software source and formerly proprietary software source entering the public domain.
If anyone can point me to a good response to Stallman's essay on this written by a Pirate Party representative I'd appreciate it. I've read the /. thread on Stallman's article and I didn't come across such a pointer.
Digital Citizen
I wish they'd release a new movie!
(that was a joke)
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
That seems fundamentally wrong to put a -nc there.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
...but it all seems rather pointless if they aren't permitted to go all Genghis Khan with the resources. Wading through towns of West Virginian proles with only his penis and an entourage of PMCs, executing the men and violating the women -- with millions loving him for his wealth, his success, his bravery and social dominance.