An anonymous reader writes
"After scoring a surprise electoral win in Sweden and getting high-profile support in Germany, The Pirate Party is coming to Canada. The party's goals are fairly simple. People should have the right to share and copy music, movies and virtually any material, as long as it is for personal use, not for profit. It opposes government and corporate monitoring of Internet activities, unless as part of a criminal investigation. It also wants to phase out patents."
First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:First Vote (Score:5, Informative)
You mean, since they are the first on the north american continent? Oh wait...! [wikipedia.org]
-- Proud voter of the Pirate Party in the EU election 2009!
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Re:First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
I know you're a troll and all, but I actually agree with your point (though not how you made it).
There's a fine line between fair and unfair use. If I like a film, money should go to the people involved in creating it and bringing it to my screen. If I like music, money should go to the people involved in creating it and bringing it to my speakers.
Sharing for non-commercial gain was fine back in the days of copying tapes for your friends at school. A group of you could club together, buy a tape each, and share them between you to get a good collection. Sure, the content creators might not get all the money they wanted, but they'd get all your pocket money. And all the pocket money from similar groups of kids all around the country.
But things have changed with the internet. Now only one person in one country has to buy it, and suddenly the group size changes from a handful of close friends into an anonymous P2P network millions strong. No industry could survive something like that - and I'm not just talking about the RIAA et all who would no longer be able to rape producers and consumers alike, I'm talking about there not being enough money around to invest in creating quality content for us in the first place.
It's all very well saying that if the content is good people will go out and buy it anyway - but once you make it legal, mainstream hardware manufacturers will come along with P2P-enabled set-top boxes which will bring convenience to the mass market, and there will be no reason for anyone to go out and buy any content. It would destroy the content creators overnight, and then we'd get no quality content.
Don't get me wrong - I agree that recent court cases and fines have gone too far, and totally disagree with things like the three-strike law. The industry is used to having it their own way for too long, and they have to realise that their days of bleeding the customer dry are numbered. Piracy and P2P are here, and no matter what they try, it's not going anywhere. They should be adopting their business models to take full use of technology, and provide affordable, legal and practical methods of content delivery. No DRM, no ridiculous fines for piracy; instead of us vs them, they should be working with us to say "if you like something, pay for it - it's only fair".
But behind all of this, there must be a legal framework to say what's right and what's wrong. Something that says "if you like something, pay for it - it's only fair".
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Re:First Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
No industry could survive something like that
The movie industry continues to rack up massive (and record) profits year after year, they're doomed if movie trading ever hits the intertubes...
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Re:First Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what I'm saying. I said that they need to adopt and provide a service that meets consumer demand, at a reasonable price in the new internet-based world.
However, the piracy party seem to be saying that all content should be available to everyone for free, entirely legally. Who is going to go make a big-budget film when they can't make any money out of it?
And don't give me "all big budget films these days are crap, people should do it for the love of art" - how is hundreds of people spending years of their lives working on something going to pay their rent?
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Re:First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
Most movies make a profit from the theatre viewings alone. That profit won't change at all, since the movie maker can easily negotiate a contract with the theatres to forbid re-distribution.
Since most internet connections are not really capable of handling blueray-disk sized downloads, or even DVD-sized in some regions, even the DVD market won't be affected that much by downloads.
They will probably still make a profit on the disks themselves as well, since those need factories and a distribution network.
So no, the movie industry should have no problem adopting to a copyright free world.
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Re:First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess that question should be answered by any soldier that has been send to a conflict zone...
And I doubt all those soldiers get paid just as much as those big-name actors, even though they do put their lives on the line, unlike those actors.
Or ask any sailor... Nowadays they even run the risk of being hijacked by real pirates...
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Re:Wrong connection (Score:4, Insightful)
Do musicians need to reach out the same number of people at the same time with their live performances? I think not.
One music performance involves a lot less crew than the production of a movie, so a lot less people need to share in the profits. Besides that, people are willing to pay a lot more for a live performance than for a movie.
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Re:First Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA and MPAA are a big problem for copyright supporters, since they are admittedly the most outspoken spokespersons for copyright, yet they represent everything wrong with copyright. Don't get me wrong, they also represent a whole lot of what is right with copyright, but oh so much that's wrong with it. There is the greed, there is hard bargains with artists, there are the no court appearance lawsuits, and there is the DRM, but at the same time, there is a lot more to copyright. There's the culture, the inspiration, even the images of celebrity and stardom that encourage others to participate. There's the satisfaction in knowing that you have some input, via the free market, in the art you experience.
We need to stop looking to scuttle this for petty revenge against the **AA. If the pirate party supports a reasonable, reformed copyright, and they understand exactly how much we owe copyright to date for our culture, then they have my vote, despite their name (I would check, but the page is slashdotted). If they wish to undermine copyright, if they are foolish enough to believe that, as the summary suggested, that sharing is somehow less damaging just because money isn't changing hands, then I suggest they give their party points some long hard thought. If they want to simply take down the **AA, then I will fight them every step of the way, because that is, frankly, a simply idiotic approach to change.
How would I go about it? I would leave it to the market. Copyright doesn't grant you a free pass to money. You first have to earn it through creation or investment, and even then, it still has to go through us regular people in order for it to make money. If we don't want the **AA to make money, then it won't. Pure and simple. Sure, they'll kick and scream, but with enough support, even the government will be forced to turn a deaf ear, lest their political careers be over.
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Re:First Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all very well saying that if the content is good people will go out and buy it anyway - but once you make it legal, mainstream hardware manufacturers will come along with P2P-enabled set-top boxes which will bring convenience to the mass market, and there will be no reason for anyone to go out and buy any content. It would destroy the content creators overnight, and then we'd get no quality content.
It would destroy the content industry not the content creators. Not that artists wouldn't be affected but it will not kill the arts. And, in any cases, if protecting IP rights involves any of DRM, communication monitoring, restrictions on technological development, taxes that go mainly to companies and a handful of top (already rich) artists then I'd rather see the whole entertainment industry die.
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Re:First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
Something that says "if you like something, pay for it - it's only fair".
Honestly, I like that a lot more than "if you don't pay for something, you'll go to jail". I think you're missing the point of the Pirate Party, though. Its a push back against draconian DRM that says if I download a song on my computer, I can't move it to my media box, or burn a CD to use in my car. This, folks, is where the RIAA and the big media companies jumped the shark. I can't even been to tell you how much stuff like that makes me seethe with anger.
Granted, personal use doesn't cover buying Peace Sells, but Who's Buying and putting it up on the web for everybody and their brother to download. The line is somewhere between there and where the RIAA wants it, though.
Consider this: you go to the store and buy a CD, listen to it on the way home and decide it's pretty good. You tell your {brother|sister|friend} about it and they ask to borrow the CD. Should you be able to loan them the CD? Most sane people say yes (not sure where the RIAA is on this question, but when sanity is involved, I can probably guess which side of sanity they choose), but if you take the same equivalent actions in the iTunes world and burn a CD for somebody to borrow, suddenly you're a pirate.
Don't get me started on DRM for books either. I, to this day, refuse to buy a book reader no matter how cool, convenient and connected to the internet they are if they restrict me to reading downloaded content ONLY on the device they were downloaded on. I have no less than 6 devices in my house and several more at work capable of reading books on - why would I focus all my reading on one deivce? That's insanity.
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Re:First Vote (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the key factor here isn't so much a question of morality. I think it's a question of viability.
When I think about the state of copyright, I keep comparing it to the spice trades around the 15th Century or so; there are a lot of similarities with the recording industry of, say, forty years ago. Both were extremely lucrative. Both required a significant up front capital investment. And (IIRC) spice trade routes tended to be the subject of state granted monopolies - just like copyright.
So why did the spice route monopolies go away? I'm sure the monopoly holders could make all the same arguments the media cartels do today. They spent a lot of money developing those routes, they could argue. Or that they were the ones that discovered the route, and that entitled them to exclusivity. Or even that if they were not rewarded for their development, who would make the investment to find new trade routes. I think the ethics of the matter were probably about the same then as they are now with the media cartels.
I think what changed was the technology of distribution. It's one thing to enforce a monopoly when to exploit it you need to spend a kings ransom outfitting a trade caravan and then a year or more braving bandits, wild beasts, disease and starvation. It's another entirely when anyone so minded can hop on a plane to Azerbaijan be back inside a week with a suitcase full of saffron.
Similarly, it's easy to enforce a monopoly on the distribution of music when that distribution requires a factory to press vinyl discs, as well as warehousing and transportation networks. But as in the case of the spice traders, technology has moved on.
The bottom line? In a time when media can be distributed for costs approaching zero, I question whether charging for distribution remains a viable way to compensate creators. And if, as I suspect it is not, then I have to question the utility of copyright itself.
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Re:It's not just distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not really my point. I'm not saying distribution is the only service the media companies provide. What I'm saying is the way they expect to be remunerated for these services is by placing a surcharge on the costs of distribution. I'm saying that the business model is fundamentally linked to distribution. And I'm saying that as real world distribution costs approach zero, it's going to get harder and harder to enforce the state monopoly that is copyright.
I'm not saying that the media company's position is wrong: neither because of falling distribution costs, nor any other reason. What I'm saying is that, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation, I think that a surcharge on distribution is rapidly becoming unworkable.
And for that reason, I think they're inevitably going to lose this fight.
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Re:First Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:First Vote (Score:5, Informative)
The industry is used to having it their own way for too long, and they have to realise that their days of bleeding the customer dry are numbered.
To talk of bleeding the customer dry is lunatic.
The federal minimum wage in 1939 was 30 cents an hour. That would buy you one adult ticket to the movies or a single 78 RPM phonograph record.
Two tracks.
The roadshow production of Gone With The Wind would have been priced at $2 to $5 bucks.
The 78 was disposable. The light-weight tonearm with a diamond stylus doesn't come into general use until the mid or late fifties.
The federal minimum wage will rise to $7.25 an hour on July 24. The average U.S. ticket price [natoonline.org] for a movie in 2008 was $7.18.
The Video-on-Demand rental is $5.
You can do much better than that with a subscription to Netflix.
Amazon's Best Sellers in Music CDs [amazon.com] will only rarely set you back more than $9.99. The mp3 single 89 cents.
The customer isn't paying more for entertainment in real terms than his great-grandfather did.
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Re:Pirate party??? (Score:5, Funny)
The ninja party has always been around, you just can't see it.
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Re:Bumper stickers? (Score:5, Insightful)
The pirate party's goals are too narrow. What the US needs isn't a political party solely devoted to IP and patent issues. What the US needs is a viable national 3rd party devoted to restoring a government for the people, by the people, ruled by the constitution. The issues that concern the pirate party would be covered if copyright went back to being a means for contributing to the public good i.e. copyrights that actually expire and go into public domain instead of perpetually feeding a corporations coffers. Rolling back corporate influence in government and lawmaking would result in an environment more conducive to IP fairness and privacy by default.
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Re:Bumper stickers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree, somewhat. The US needs ANYONE to run against the two established parties ON ANY PLATFORM, and to WIN offices around the country.
Granted, if the Pirate Party came here, they wouldn't win seats in Congress and the Senate, they certainly wouldn't win the presidency. But, if (in states where judges are elected) we started seating judges, mayors, and state representatives, the two parties would take notice. And, it wouldn't take a lot of them, either. Our politicians may be crooked as all hell, but that doesn't make them stupid. They can read grass roots movements as well as anyone.
Aren't we all sick of the same old crap we get from the two inbred parties yet? If not - well - I've heard that people get the government that they deserve. Maybe that really is true.
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Proportional Representation (Score:5, Insightful)
If we had proportional representation then the pirate party(and other minority parties) would have a chance at being represented in the house.
Instead we have rep-by-pop, which will be the status quo as long as the Conservative Party and Liberal Party continue to rule.
Re:Proportional Representation (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:This is CRAP!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
For STV (like BC-STV, the BC method that was unfortunately defeated), that's absolutely not true. A voter can rank the candidates in his desired order. If a party fields a scummy person, you could choose to just not rank that person (effectively ranking him last), and if enough voters do that, then that person won't be elected, no matter the wishes of the party. The same thing goes for independents: they can run as independents, and voters may rank an independent like any other candidate.
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Sick (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sick (Score:5, Funny)
Shhhh, you have to start with the popular stuff, then you can slowly slip in your other agendas.
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Re:Sick (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sick (Score:5, Funny)
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It should appeal to the US too (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It should appeal to the US too (Score:4, Insightful)
US legislators appear to have forgotten that during the early phases of US growth, the US refused to acknowledge any foreign intellectual property
Why do you think that they have forgotten? Quite the contrary, I believe that they're fully aware that present-day American economy has changed a lot since then, and large parts of it now depend on strong protection of "intellectual property".
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Re:It should appeal to the US too (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't make sense to value foreign IP unless you plan on pulling a big take from selling your domestic IP abroad. The U.S.'s position has coincided with its economic interests, not its moral opinion.
Right now China doesn't care much about copyright and patents, but you can bet in 20 years from when they have ceased trying to catch up to the superpower and effectively *are* the superpower, that they will be among those rallying for stronger enforcement.
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Was OK, until the dumb stuff at the end.... (Score:5, Insightful)
> intellectual property protects our DNA code, purchases, travel habits, and
> other information individuals consider private.
What universe do you live in? You have it exactly reversed (or, I really didn't understand what you meant to say). Large corporations have patented the human DNA of individuals for their own gain [nationalgeographic.com]. They haven't started to sue the children of the people whose genes they sequenced, but if Monsanto can succeed in suing an organic farmer whose crops were contaminated by their patented genes [gmofreemendo.com] (the link is for a more recent Canadian case, but they already won a similar case in the US!), it isn't unthinkable that it could happen in the future.
Other large corporations, Google, for example, keep all kinds of records of people's web preferences, credit card purchases, and tons of other "information that individuals consider private", and if anyone is protected by IP rights in those cases, it's the corporations, not the individuals!
IP rights only extend to "creative works", and there has yet to be a court system which defines "deciding to buy something" or "deciding to click a particular ad" as "creative".
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Most welcome, Canadian brethren (Score:5, Interesting)
As an official in the Swedish Pirate Party, I can only wish our Canadian brothers and sisters a heartily welcome up onto the barricades, and the best of winds.
We are changing the world together.
The neoconservatives are laughing (Score:4, Interesting)
The Pirate Party is coming to Canada.
It's likely to split the non-neoconservative vote even further into obscurity.
Re:The neoconservatives are laughing (Score:5, Informative)
To elaborate, we have at least 4 (serious) political contenders who are in (or near) the center of the political spectrum here in Canada:
- The Marijuana Party
- The New Democratic Party
- The Green Party
- The Pirate Party (the new kid on the block)
These parties compete primarily with the Liberal Party (Canada's unofficial right-wing party); and the Liberal party is the only party that can offer any serious opposition to the Conservative party (Canada's unofficial neoconservative party), who tends to remain strong unless there is consistent and persistent and extreme scandals and incompetency during their terms in office (sorta like how the Republicans remain quite strong in the US despite their scandals and in-competencies).
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Re:The neoconservatives are laughing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I would describe the Pirate Party of Canada as "serious". Their website appears to contain no manifesto. It does link to the "International Pirate Party" website though, so I looked there ... but the section of that website to do with policies simply points you to a web forum where a bunch of people are arguing about what that should be.
That leaves the original Pirate Party of Sweden. What are their policies? At least they do have some. Unfortunately they are self-contradictory and poorly thought out. For instance they believe that copyright should not apply for "non commercial use", ie, file sharing should be free. But what counts as commercial use then? They appear to think that, for example, a musician who writes music for a video game should get paid (and the law would enforce that) but the creators of the video game themselves probably won't get paid, depending on the whims of their customers. That makes absolutely no sense, because then the musician just wouldn't get hired at all. They also want to abolish pharma patents, and their proposed replacement is "government does all research". Somebody needs to study some basic economics, starting with Adam Smith.
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Re:The neoconservatives are laughing (Score:4, Informative)
This is so wrong I don't know where to start. First, I'm guessing you're pretty young if you think the Tories have been traditionally strong. Secondly, the Liberals are not, not have ever been right wing. They're a pragmatic centrist party. Before Chretien's election Canadian politics were dominated by the Tories and the Liberals. They were both centrists and back in the day the most common complaint heard was that there was no difference between the two. Then the Tories were decimated and the reform party which is definitely right-wing took over as the major opposition. Eventually they merged with the more moderate eastern tories to form what we know as the CPC today, though Reform appears to dominate the leadership. Though as an easterner I have no love for them, I would never say the party as a whole is neo-conservative.
The NDP has always been left wing, they've always been tied to the Unions (not withstanding the split with Buzz recently). To call them (or the Marijuana party) centrist is just plain crazy. Your characterization of Canadian politics betrays a fairly extreme leftist bent.
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Australia Too (Score:5, Informative)
Pirate Party Australia [pirateparty.org.au], join as a preliminary member today!
Re:Australia Too (Score:5, Funny)
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Official website here (Score:5, Informative)
As a Canadian, my thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts on this. First of all, the part is irrelevant, they have no chance of electoral success, they probably will only even run candidates in a handful of ridings. Even if they did run in all 308 ridings, they have no chance to get more than, at best, 5% of the vote in their best riding (and even that is a stretch). Our system, which has been confirmed by several recent referendums, essentially makes any votes for them "wasted" in a few ways. I'd still recommend anyone vote for them, if they support their principles.
As for my thoughts on copyrights in general. I'm a generally libertarian leaning Conservative. I don't like how the RIAA/MPAA is conducting themselves. I don't like the abuses of patent systems, and I think copyright lasts way too long. I'd be completely in favor of reform of those.
That being said, I feel the general idea of copyrights and patents is a sound one. IMO, people should have ownership over ideas and works that they create. An aspect of ownership is the right to deny use of your property to others.
I see this in a similar manner as land ownership. Land ownership is a similarly abstract concept. One can only "own" land based on the collective agreement of the population, and the government. Likewise, even if one is not using a tract of land one owns, one can deny access to it from others.
That being said, like a typical goodthinking Slashbot, I hate DRM, think the RIAA/MPAA are a bunch of thugs, and feel that copyrights last way too long (I think patents last about the right length, but stupid crap shouldn't be patentable). I don't, however, feel this gives people a right to pirate whatever they feel like, nor do I think it invalidates the idea of copyright, in general. (For my background, I'm a 22 year old white Canadian male who buys his games, music and movies, and buys a great deal of them.)
I'd be interested in seeing well thought out disagreements, of course. I'm also sure my thoughts and my analogy could be worded much better. I'm usually terrible at getting my point across.
Re:As a Canadian, my thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
people should have ownership over ideas
I disagree. How can you be so egotistical as to think that you are the only one in the world that has had a given "idea"? How can you prevent - no - PENALIZE someone else from having the same idea?
This is why IDEAS cannot be patented, and never should be. Lawyers have been trying to do end-runs around this concept for decades now.
The development of an idea into something useful - a working prototype, a unique machine, an application of that idea that requires time, money and skill to create - yes, this should be given certain LIMITED protection. But the idea itself? You don't deserve to be paid just because you thought about something and put it on paper.
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The goals are *WAY* bigger! (Score:5, Insightful)
First and foremost, they oppose any kind of censorship and totalitarian government.
Then comes the goal to move from the imaginary "intellectual property" scheme back to what copyright, authors right and the freedom of ideas once were meant to be.
They are not for the exploitation of artists. That is what the **AA is for.
This TFS(ummary) is probably the worst summary of a party program I have ever read. :/
Maybe some people are just so used to parties an programs being meaningless because they all belonged to the same industry lobbies anyway, that they do not pay attention to them anymore.
As a member of the Pirate Party of Canada... (Score:5, Informative)
We are not saying that people should have the right to copy whatever they like, despite what public opinion might be. Copyright is an important tool for innovation, we just think that it has gone too far (death + 50 years? Come on!). That does not mean that everyone should be allowed to download as much music/movies/etc. as they want. On top of that, we are not saying "phase out patents." There are some members of our forums that are saying that, but it does not reflect the entire Pirate Party's desires.
Other than that, the summary is right.
Re:Everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time when I go to the cinema it is not because I can't wait to get to watch the movie for free but because I enjoy watching it on a big screen.
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Re:Everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
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One Wallet (Score:5, Insightful)
Your question is interesting and one which many people ask themselves. I think it's more like people have one wallet to use and instead of spending money on music they kind of like they spend it on other things - just because they can get it by downloading. The total economic output is however more or less constant. I can only refer to my own spending statistics so feel free to contradict me. I don't put that same money in my savings account! I use it to go to the movies (5 of them past 6 months), fuel my car, go on vacation.
So the recent legislations in e.g. Sweden and the rest of Europe has nothing to do with economics, but rather only distribution of money and "fairness" to the companies. Of course, to succeed they must squash many citizen rights and deploy surveillance to keep citizens in check. One could argue that the win from such legislation really is nothing in comparison of how trampled the citizens become. Of course, the new legislation opens up a can of worms to further reduction of rights sort of like Pandora's box. We end up moving in the wrong direction if what we want is democracy. //S
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Re:One Wallet (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the effects on your local, domestic industries and services will most likely be negative.
As you pointed out, people only have so much money. When you only have 100 bucks (and banks clinging to money like never before, so overspending isn't really an option anymore) you can only spend 100 bucks. People will not get "and", they get "or". CD or haircut. DVD or dinner.
Now, which of the two will keep more money in your country? A haircut from a local shop with local people working there or a CD from a US rapper? A dinner at a local restaurant eating local food or a bollywood DVD?
(not trying to be nationalist here, but it usually makes the right wing proponents of stricter copyright laws shut up when they can't really argue against it without pissing off their "$country first!" voters) :)
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Re:Everyone (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably not.
I can already get a movie as soon as it's out in cinemas. You may rest assured as soon as it's released somewhere on this planet, a torrent is created shortly afterwards. That's already how it's done. Do you think "allowing" this to exist in a country would change it one little bit? How can you spread it earlier than at the same time you get to see it at all?
Yet, people still go to the movies and they still buy DVDs. Why? Simple. I don't have a THX system at home and neither do I have a huge screen. And certainly no 3D machine. If the movie is good enough, I wanna see it like that! But is it worth the 10 bucks or more? I'm not gonna waste 10 bucks and 2-3 hours of my life on a movie when I don't know if it's worth it. 9 out of 10 times it's not. And, being a statistician, at that odds I'm on average better off if I don't go.
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Re:Bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
My problems with patents is that as more and more people work in a certain field, the change of independent discovery of an idea increases drastically (especially the so-called "ideas" one sees patented these days). In the software world, any reasonable competent programmer comes up with any number of ideas during the course of their work (sometimes also referred to as "reinventing the wheel", although perhaps on a smaller scale).
Programming software therefore is rapidly becoming a huge patent minefield, one which is not easily avoided since reinventing the wheel is pretty common in software development. Taking time to study patents to see if none were violated would make the cost of writing even the simplest software prohibitive. It would be like writing a message (like this one), except I'd have to check with the patent office if certain ways of expressing my thoughts (like one does in programming) aren't someone's exclusive property.
In my opinion, the entire of idea of patenting something is assuming that you or your company are so smart that it could not possibly have been discovered by the other 6 billion people on the planet (whether they already did it before you which is often the case, or discover it independently later).
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Re:Bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Like copyright law, patent law was never meant to prevent the duplication of a product, process, or idea. It was only meant to prevent the duplication FOR PROFIT.
I personally met one individual who patented a method to modify carburetors to increase fuel mileage. He sold his patent to GM. The man still worked on cars, and modified those big Chevy Impalas to get 30+ MPG. If he worked on your car, he could not accept payment. Doing so would have put him in violation of patent law. But, doing the very same work for his own amusement was perfectly legal.
It's a shame GM wasn't putting that patent to use 40 years ago, when they bought it. They might not be bankrupt today.......
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