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.

Comments

Fair day's pay for fair day's work

[Kevin McCready]

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.

Re:Fair day's pay for fair day's work

[Flammon]

Exactly! Doing something once and getting paid a hundred million times for it is a loophole in our system and it desperately needs to be fixed. Sadly the people who took advantage of this loophole have made enough money which has given them power to control the goverment and preserve the loophole.

Re:Fair day's pay for fair day's work

[Fned]

1) Because it produces no value. Copyright is meant to encourage the creation of new works by rewarding the creator, rewarding the creator is not the end goal. There is some encouragement provided by creators seeing a tiny, tiny percentage of other creators become rich, but that effect is more than nullified by the chilling effect of big media locking down the public domain for ever and ever. Eventually, no one will be able to create anything new without paying someone a fee based on some ancient crap no one except the rights-holder remembers.

2) Because copyright as it currently stands is incompatible with computers. Copyright seeks to monetize individual packets of information, and individual packets of information inside a computer system have zero value; in fact, individual packets of information in a computer can't even be made to have value without breaking the computer, since all a computer actually does is separate information from permanent media so that you can copy, destroy, or muck about with it at no cost.
Copies mean nothing in Computerland, only creation and access have value.

Re:Fair day's pay for fair day's work

[Fned]

Nearly everyone involved with actually making movies -- directors, actors, crew, caterers, editors, foley artists, stuntmen, gophers -- gets paid once for each movie.

So, I rather suspect the ticket price would be exactly what it is now, except everyone who wants to see the film would need to buy a ticket before the movie starts getting made.

The parasites that actually DO get paid over and over, and then cook the books so that it looks like they're not making a profit and therefore don't have to pay anyone royalties? Those guys? They'd be fucked. Everyone else from the scriptwriter to the moviegoer would be just fine.

This idea that copies are worth something is an idea that people are going to have to learn to let go of if they want to join the rest of us here in the computer age.

Education

[omganton]

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.

Re:Education

[CRCulver]

Ha! I'm going to sell it without attribution. What are you going to do about it, Pirate Party?!

The Pirate Party opposes the present understanding of copyright, but it does not oppose the moral right of the author to be credited. It can be argued that copyright is a recent innovation (the early US legislation noted that it is a government fiat to spur creation, not a natural right) and alien to most people, but claims that authors have the right to be credited stretch far back into antiquity.

Basically, copyright violation and plagiarism are two different issues.

Corporate Personhood, worst conspiracy ever

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Corporate Personhood, worst conspiracy ever

[pugugly]

This neat theory that corporate personhood was a badly phrased but highly meaningless concept vanished the instant the Supreme Court extended the protections of freedom of speech to corporations. Combined with money == speech, corporations have rights unmatched by any but the wealthiest Citizens.

But thank you for playing and here's your copy of the home game

Re:Cool!

[Tubal-Cain]

The primary goal is copyright reform, not abolishment.
Copyright isn't evil; it's just being abused heavily.