Having secured more than seven percent of Sweden’s votes in the recent European Parliament elections, the country’s file sharing advocacy group, the Pirate Party, is heading to Brussels to make its voice heard among EU policy makers. While it was predicted beforehand that the Pirates would take one seat in Parliament, the political party’s supporters were ecstatic when their suspicions became reality.
Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told the TT news agency, “The polls beforehand had us at between eight and nice percent, but everything over four percent is a political sensation.” Nearly 20 percent of voters under the age of 30, the party’s biggest constituency, voted for the Pirates.
“They are the biggest party among young people, bigger than both the Social Democrats and the Moderates,” politics professor Soren Holmberg stressed. The Pirate’s platform advocating the freedom to file share via the Internet was overwhelmingly the most important issue to party members.
The party was only created in January 2006, but gained national notoriety and popularity during the recent Pirate Bay trial over copyright infringement, where four of its founders were jailed.
This round of EU elections lured more Swedish voters than in 2004, though the turnout was still rather low. The Local states that 42.5 percent of Swedes voted this time round, up five percent on the previous election in 2004.
Christian Hansen: The party leader Rick Falkvinge is a libertarian, our #1 EU candidate Christian Engström is a classic social-liberal and our #2 EU candidate Amelia Andersdotter I think is a syndicalist and a strong supporter of Attac.
The party itself is not a libertarian or anarchist party though. For example we are strong supporters of the democratic system as well as a state police force, courts and the constitution. As long as they follow the text, literally, of the law-book.
What we are strongly against are paramilitaric and private pseudo police forces like IFPI, MPA, the mafia, BSA, Hells Angels, Antipiratbyrån and similar. Similarly we are against all kinds of corruption and biased judges who makes his or her own interpretations of the law text to suit lobbyists… We are also strongly against all private monopolies but not necessarily all government ones.
The party has members from the complete political spectra, from communists to conservatives and everything inbetween.
I hope this shed some light. Also remember that this is my personal interpretation of Piratpartiet’s politics. Others might disagree with parts of it.
For more information, see http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english
When you sing “happy birthday to you” you are probably doing copyright infringement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
The current copyright system is so sick I can’t believe it is allowed to exist.
Public announcement:
Vote “pirate party” in your upcomming elections!!!
End of public announcement.
Would it be correct to say Piratpartiet is a modern libertarian-anarchist movement? Or is it just a one-issue protest that fails to recognize its own ideological fountainhead?
At any rate, this is a very exciting development. These guys have seen through at least some of the system.
“Intellectual Property” – the notion you can patent a thought and demand tribute from anyone else who dares to think it – is a form of theft. If you don’t want to share your creations, easy, keep them to yourself. There’s some new economic theory out showing how deleterious “patenting” is and how it is in truth a violation of the right to creative independence.
I am patenting the word “fnord.” You will have to pay me two crowns and a case of beer each time you use it. I will sic the cops on you and monitor your thoughts and make sure you pay me if you even think it. Then I will erase your memory and make certain you never remember having seen “fnord.”
Go pirates! Who’d have thunk it? In Sweden! Hail Eris! And a bottle of rum.
Optimist.
I do believe that inventors will keep inventing even you start charging them money for every invention. They simply can’t stop doing this :-)
At least the guy who invented the wheel did it only because he was too lazy to carry killed bull on his shoulders back to the village :-)
Yes, I’m able to make copies and sell them. But I don’t do it because it’s stupid (at least it won’t make me a millionaire for sure). That’s why I just give to my friends to watch for free. And I don’t give a damn about someone’s “explotation” rights.
You see, Jim, there are real life laws (and Sir Newton just discovered few of them) and there are rules invented by people (aka lawyers who don’t give a damn about MY rights). And people can’t change the first ones – only discover and use. But people can change rules set upon them by few others.
And you didn’t answer the question about farmer and “pop star”! ;-)
That’s right. I don’t argue with that. More exactly – not for the work but for the value they created. Cause if someone crashes stones to sand – this is a lot of work. But why should I pay for that if I can get sand almost for free? Well unless I want these stones to be crashed of course.
But can anyone tell me why I should pay extra for the Nike shoes just because some “famous player” was filmed in them and paid hundreds thousands grands just for that? Are they more comfortable now? Maybe I can wear them longer? What kind of work was done exactly? I haven’t asked for it.
And one more – if someone will sing for few hundreds grands only – it is his/her problem. I’m not gonna pay anyway ;-) And in some case I might agree to pay – if they STOP “signing” :-)
So paying for the value created – fine. Paying for the “copyrites” – FYS.
As everything else – and “copyrites” are no exception – when goes to extreme it loses any sense.
PS. BTW! STOP quoting my words! I copyrited every letter! (c) 2009 Alexander E.
But I can sell you license. ;-)
Firstly, everyone posting here needs to stop feeding the trolls.
Secondly, it is a good day for Sweden, for democracy, and for freedom. It is a bad day for evil corporations and their obsequious minions in governments everywhere.
Thank you, Sweden.
The Swedish government wants to put surveillance in place.
They want to electronically inspect ALL ip-packages going to and from your computer.
This means they will ALWAYS be listening to whatever you do, no matter if you are doing banking, uploading photos, watching pr0n, or file-sharing. Big brother will ALWAYS be watching.
normally you need a court order to put a wire-tap on phones in Sweden, but when it is about guaranteeing Tom Cruise gets his millions, then our personal integrity counts for nothing.
what is copyright? a money machine for record labels mainly. Take inventors, they also produce intellectual property, then can get a 10 year world wide patent. In that time they can make money, after that it’s a free for all. If it wasn’t then a few patent holders could basically stop development of new products for decades.
For copyright I say fine we need it, artist need to live also, give them 10 years copyright then it is back to work.
@Jake “Per Wigren, no, actually, this is about stealing ”
Aha stealing :) It is not theft since the artist still have his music, breaking into his house and stealing the notes or his CD collection is theft.
Downloading over pirate bay is NOT, and I repeat NOT theft, it is violation of copyright laws. believe me there is a huge difference in there.
The pirate bay guys were also charged with “theft” but the judge threw it out of court the first day. Even that biased judge had no choice but to throw it out.
I record company is a company specializing in selling bits of plastic, what do we need them for?
When everyone got refrigerators in their home, the “ice man” lost his business, nobody shed a tear for him. And I for one will certainly not shed a tear when record companies disappear.
The pirate party wants to
1: safeguard our personal integrity in the internet
2: bring about change in copyright laws, to make them compatible with the world we are living in .
My last comments may have sounded a little overboard. I do believe one should be compensated for the work that they do(The profit motive is the most honest motive there is(no I did not say always the best, just most honest)and think they even provide a worthwhile service. But they (as with all large identities whether business or political) have become greedy. And that has led to weakness and stupidity. I bet with the millions spent on lawyers, investigators, and politicians a better solution could have already appeared and I bet when one does crop up it will not come from the media corps. But sadly they the media corps. will resist any type of change and all will go on as it has.
Lastly do you think if the media corps. could charge per person for watching a dvd or playing a song they would? hmmmmm
> And I must be able to do whatever I want with that copy
So, you must be able to make copies of it and sell them?! No, you cannot make copies because you didn’t buy the right to copy. And, even if you did, you cannot sell them because you didn’t buy the exploitation rights.
And even if Archimedes *copyrighted* a particular description of floating bodies, I suspect humans could still have sailed – unless he *patented* floating bodies ;-)
Jim.
When I buy DVD I don’t buy movie. I just buy a copy of it. And I must be able to do whatever I want with that copy. But now I even can’t watch it if I bring it to other “region”. As “copyrite” mafia forced DVD player manufacturers to implement “region” protection.
What about book? If I buy a book – can I give it to you to read? Can I sell this book?
So there are some “rights” to be protected. But it was driven to the point of absurd by “copyrite” mafia. Some morons even try to “copyrite” this smile :-)
Now let look at music and food (two most stolen items). How long can you live without food? A week? And how long can you stay without music? For years! Now, please, explain to me why not a single farmer is able to get a fraction of money that any “star” is making from just one concert or album?
Not convinced?
Ok, let’s look just what is in front you right now! Compare “copyrited” Microsoft and Internet. How come that Internet – that doesn’t belong to anyone – is developing so fast and brings so much value for all? And it a common knowledge that MS must die :-)
So this “copyrite” sh*t has nothing to do with human knowledge or progress or public interests. It’s a tool created for personal benefit. No matter what bullsh*t is told about it.
Otherwise humans could never even sail – if Archimedes “copyrited” his law about floating body :-)
So from this point ThinkAbout is right – the existing system should be replaced.
When you buy a movie DVD, you do not “own” the movie. You do not own the copyright or the exploitation rights. When you buy a DVD, you only buy a restricted LICENCE to view the copyrighted materials – that’s all. If you want to own all the movie rights, then negotiate with the relevant company. It’s a subtlety that many people don’t seem to understand or don’t want to understand.
Plus it would be great to see a few swashbuckling acts in parliament. Sometime ya just gotta pull out the ol’ sword and swing across the room to fight as a form of debate. :D
The issue to me seems to be about if you buy something, that is if you paid money in exchange for ownership of something, than it is yours. Ownership implies (or at least it should and did before the world went insane):-) the right to sell,trade,give away or destroy that which one owns. If I understand this movement correctly, it believes in the right to absolute ownership of what one purchases.
I see many of these large corporation as wanting a feudal system with us, the lowly peasants, gratefully giving of ourselves to lease our lords ware with unquestioned loyalty. But the truth is the internet has destroyed most of what made those types abusive relationships possible, which in land terms would be a captive public, but in these terms would be the ease of sharing. The corps. realise this and know the only way to keep their strangle hold on and stem the tide of the free flow of idea is to use violence(in the form of laws).
I can see the Pirate party as one of the first of a new type of political organizations that will help break up the entrenched power and bring ruling power (and hopefully a form of A.E.’s DIRECT democracy ) to the public.
You’re focusing too much on just a small part of the Pirate Party ideology. The name was chosen because it was provocative enough to get us lots of media attention, world wide. Obviously it was a successful name choice. :)
The party started as a movement to counter the anti-piracy mafia that is buying itself more and more power all the time, and has absolutely no sense of proportion and absolutely no respect of due process of law. The methods they use have very much in common with the mafia. Their fight against piracy is causing so much collateral damage it’s outright frightening.
I like to compare them to Team America: World Police. The intro scene where they blow up Paris to pieces. Everything is burning. Dead bodies everywhere. “You’re all safe now, we got the terrorists!”
Piratpartiet is more of an “anti-anti-piracy” party than a “pro-piracy” party although we do believe that free sharing of culture is very beneficial to the society as a whole and thus want to legalise private, non-commercial filesharing.
Per Wigren: I think you’re confusing the issue with red herrings. If it’s not about pirating files via the Internet, then why is it called the Pirate Party? Does it hold historical pirate re-enactments – of course not!
Jake, as we say in Sweden: “Goddag yxskaft!”. It’s “God dag, mann, økseskaft” in Norwegian and “Goddag mand, økseskaft” in Danish. I’m sure there is a similar expression in Icelandic also.
Per Wigren, no, actually, this is about stealing if its easy, cheap and without consequences. I don’t care about music but I’d like my food to be free. Would you please get to work on that. I’m sure you can come up with a great slogan because it’s certainly more compelling that I be fed free then I listen to music free.
Jim: Those are indeed important issues, yes. The problem is that all established parties are already working on these issues. Not in exactly the same way but nearly. All parties want a good environment, less unemployment and so on. The difference in wealth distribution agendas are tiny (if you’re lucky, “your” party will let you have like 50 SEK per month more in your wallet). In 99% of the issues, all parties are virtually the same and they are fooling people to think that the tiny differences are major.
On the issues Piratpartiet are focusing on though, the whole government (in Sweden and the rest of the industrialised world) is heading in the completely wrong direction. Towards “1984” or “V for Vendetta” if you like drama. Each month new draconian, totalitarian laws pops up, abolishing century-old freedoms and human rights, all in the name of counter-terrorism and file sharing. It has to stop before it’s too late.
Jim.
You didn’t get it.
People are very tired of “professional politicians” and their lies. So they voted for someone who is dealing with some small but REAL issue.
I’m just surprised there aren’t more important political issues in Sweden. The agenda used to wars, economy, distribution of wealth, environment, etc – but nowadays it’s sharing files on the Internet. I blame it on 10 years of reality TV rotting brains…
ThinkAboutIt: great quote the sentiment is dead on. free flow of ideas leads to progress here is what the Pirate Party has to say:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/ahoy_european_parliament_sees_pirates_and_the_right
Back to topic.
” Nearly 20 percent of voters under the age of 30, the party’s biggest constituency, voted for the Pirates.”
So next time they will keep these voters and…get much more of those who turned 18. Keeping in mind that they don’t need a lot of f*cking “sponsors” like any old style political parties – they will reach their voters for sure.
And I think Sweden now in the better position to implement the idea of DIRECT democracy I was talking about. At least for Pirates it won’t be any problem to set up the system….
Jim, I’m glad that you decided to live the club of us, common humans :-)
Now look at one of the most famous case – electric bulb and Edison (he must be Eddisson for sure).
He “invented” the bulb. OK. But what about him paying back to his teacher who taught him read? What about sharing this invention with those unknown guys who “invented” glass? What about SHARING the “invention” based on HUMAN RACE KNOWLEDGE?
This “patent” and “copywrits” scams are just legal inventions to get financial benefits and nothing more. And for sure they are slowing down THE DEVELOPMENT of human race.
PS. Should I remind you about Microsoft monopoly? Thanks God – Bill Gates was just lucky but STUPID guy. He missed the Internet. Otherwise we won’t be able to talk now (unless you pay him per letter). BTW I’ve never paid Billy a penny.
To Per Wigren: Very well put; But I think copyrights should last only though the length of idea development plus one year on the market time.
To Jim: It embarrasses me also that it has taking so long for a party to echo the sentiments of the great American statesman Benjamin Franklin “… as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”
Just Imagine what might have been accomplished by now if we did not have to worry about lawsuits by people who patent ideas with no intent on making them or people who feel their ideas need protection because somebody might do it better.
Jim: Piratpartiet is about the right to privacy, completely free communication without surveillence for non-suspects, due process of law, free non-commercial file sharing (the natural evolution of libraries), abolishing the patent system (because its current incarnation is only about IP warfare among the big corporations and keeping small companies out of the game) and shortening copyright to 5 years (if you haven’t made money by then you probably never will).
So, file sharing is the top of the political agenda for under 30 year olds in Sweden. That makes me embarrassed to be a member of the human race.