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I think this is the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long time. Times have changed, and this is a strong message to the establishment that thi

I think this is the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long time. Times have changed, and this is a strong message to the establishment that things will need to change a bit regarding some laws!

anigbrowl 17y ago
I share the feeling of optimism, but must point out that the European Parliament is where a lot of good ideas go to die, and it has little in the way of real power. Members include representatives of parties who wan to leave Europe and other relatively fringe thinkers. So it's significant, but not momentously so.
- Sam_Odio 17y ago
  There's a recent WSJ article on the topic that's worth a read: "Serving in Europe's Parliament Is A Cushy Job, but What's the Point? ... Pay, Perks Are Good, Powers Not So Much; Struggling to Get Voters Interested" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html
- mixmax 17y ago
  That's a common misconception, actually the European Union has a lot of power, and member states are obliged to align their national laws to those of the EU. From the wikipedia article on EU: "The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, ensuring the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development. A common currency, the euro, has been adopted by sixteen member states constituting the Eurozone. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union) The problem is that for the common man in the various member states EU is seen as a monolithic bureaucracy placed in a country far away. Many don't realise it's power. This is the problem that the members of parlaiment face.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    European Union =/= European Parliament. I suggest that the EU Commission and Council of Ministers, along with the European court, have more influence on the development of the EU than its Parliament; which is not to say that the European Parliament is entirely toothless. The election of a Pirate Party member to that body, while interesting, is likely to have only marginal effect.
    - mixmax 17y ago
      The parlaiment, along with the council is the highest legislative body of the union and yields a lot of power. From Wikipedia: "The European Parliament has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world." Of course, as you say, a single representative from the Pirate Party will only have marginal effect. Those are the rules of a democracy.
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
        I suggest you ponder the rest of that wikipedia article, or since you live in Europe, look at its day-to-day workings for a while. As a fellow European, surely you are aware that in practice the EUP is a punching bag for national governments and widely perceived as a sideshow, which is why nations fight tooth and nail to preserve their commission representation. Given its inability to propose legislation, it is hamstrung compared to a typical national legislature, not to mention being riven by petty disputes of language nationalism and so forth. With the best of intentions, how is the new Pirate Party member going to bring about a provocative debate on the meaning of copyright and intellectual property when everything has to go through a tabling committee and debates normally impose a 1 minute time limit for speakers. Hell, I'm an ardent europhile and even I think it's politically moribund. One upside of this, though, is that I ever move back to Europe I'll consider running for a seat...I figure it ought to be relatively easy to get elected given the general public apathy that prevails around euro elections :)
        vidarh 17y ago
        I agree with you, mostly. However there is one significant effect of the election of the Pirate Part: Swedish political parties have been given a rude awakening and if the Pirate Party continues to gain they will need to face up to the fact that a lot of people want more relaxed copyright legislation, or the Pirate Party may be swept into the Swedish parliament next. (keep in mind: they were polling around 5%, and many dismissed them, claiming that their key demographic of <30's "doesn't vote" - instead they performed better than the polls indicated; that's going to scare a lot of politicians into rethinking their stance) It's also bound to make a lot of people think seriously about trying to get equivalent platforms in place in other EU countries. It's an amazing showing for a "single issue" (not really, but almost) party running in only a single, small country.
endtime 17y ago
Look, I dislike the DMCA as much as anyone, but I don't really think that a party founded on piracy is really a great thing to happen to European politics. At least, not in the respect you imply (that we're going to tell those recording industry fat cats they're not the boss of us!). If they can push honest and realistic discussion of the issues, however, that could have a lot of impact. We all like to laugh at the publishing industry (music, then movies, now newspapers) for being unable to keep up with the times, but just as the web has introduced post-scarity to publishing, so will nanotech destroy the goods industry, robotics destroy the services industry, and, eventually, AI destroy info work. My hope is that we can learn from what is happening now (and try to understand the success of e.g. Trent Reznor, and determine whether his model would work if not for its novelty), and be better prepared for the future. But no one is talking about it...ideally, the Pirate Party will change that, rather than just explain to old dudes why torrent indexing isn't illegal.
- tjogin 17y ago
  The Swedish Pirate Party has a horrible name. Because its political platform is all about preserving the right to personal integrity — not piracy. Certainly, they also believe that copyright and patent law needs to fundamentally change. And certainly, preserving the right to privacy on the internet — to the same standard that it is guaranteed through other means of communications — would make it pretty much impossible to shut down piracy. But that's a side-effect, not the expressed goal of the party. I'm Swedish myself, I've studied their platform closely, and I voted for them. Not because I want free stuff — but because I feel that the EU parliament needs more people in it who are viciously opposed to the idea of destroying our basic civil liberties. Many other candidates from other parties are sympathetic to this (as opposed to their respective party platforms). But — only a vote for the Pirate Party would shake the "old parties" up sufficiently in order to make personal integrity the party platform. And I think we're going to see exactly that kind of progression in Sweden across party lines.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - endtime 17y ago
ErrantX 17y ago
have you seen the rest of the results? PP have done well - one cant help feeling on the back of TPB publicity. But the rest of the left parties have suffered heavy losses. We're looking at a strong conservative EU parliament as far as I can tell. I fear the PP will have little impact (I confess I am not a huge fan but they do stand for some issues I believe strongly in).
- vidarh 17y ago
  Indeed, and when looking at Sweden in particular, the "Left party", which is the only other major party in Sweden that are as open to copyright reform as the Pirate Party, lost out heavily, more or less offsetting the Pirate Party gains. Personally I saw the results as horrible (even the BNP got seats) but the Pirate Party win was at least a little beacon of light, though I mostly see their win as a kick in the ass for the other parties that will hopefully see them starting to reform their own copyright platforms or risk losing the rest of the youth vote too.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    well I guess the hope is similar parties can get a break in other countries (hopefully, for me, w/o worrying links to TPB et all). Your right, it does validate copyright reform as a political platformn important to the people.

anigbrowl 17y ago

I share the feeling of optimism, but must point out that the European Parliament is where a lot of good ideas go to die, and it has little in the way of real power. Members include representatives of parties who wan to leave Europe and other relatively fringe thinkers. So it's significant, but not momentously so.

Sam_Odio 17y ago
There's a recent WSJ article on the topic that's worth a read: "Serving in Europe's Parliament Is A Cushy Job, but What's the Point? ... Pay, Perks Are Good, Powers Not So Much; Struggling to Get Voters Interested" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html
mixmax 17y ago
That's a common misconception, actually the European Union has a lot of power, and member states are obliged to align their national laws to those of the EU. From the wikipedia article on EU: "The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, ensuring the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development. A common currency, the euro, has been adopted by sixteen member states constituting the Eurozone. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union) The problem is that for the common man in the various member states EU is seen as a monolithic bureaucracy placed in a country far away. Many don't realise it's power. This is the problem that the members of parlaiment face.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  European Union =/= European Parliament. I suggest that the EU Commission and Council of Ministers, along with the European court, have more influence on the development of the EU than its Parliament; which is not to say that the European Parliament is entirely toothless. The election of a Pirate Party member to that body, while interesting, is likely to have only marginal effect.
  - mixmax 17y ago
    The parlaiment, along with the council is the highest legislative body of the union and yields a lot of power. From Wikipedia: "The European Parliament has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world." Of course, as you say, a single representative from the Pirate Party will only have marginal effect. Those are the rules of a democracy.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      I suggest you ponder the rest of that wikipedia article, or since you live in Europe, look at its day-to-day workings for a while. As a fellow European, surely you are aware that in practice the EUP is a punching bag for national governments and widely perceived as a sideshow, which is why nations fight tooth and nail to preserve their commission representation. Given its inability to propose legislation, it is hamstrung compared to a typical national legislature, not to mention being riven by petty disputes of language nationalism and so forth. With the best of intentions, how is the new Pirate Party member going to bring about a provocative debate on the meaning of copyright and intellectual property when everything has to go through a tabling committee and debates normally impose a 1 minute time limit for speakers. Hell, I'm an ardent europhile and even I think it's politically moribund. One upside of this, though, is that I ever move back to Europe I'll consider running for a seat...I figure it ought to be relatively easy to get elected given the general public apathy that prevails around euro elections :)
      - vidarh 17y ago
        I agree with you, mostly. However there is one significant effect of the election of the Pirate Part: Swedish political parties have been given a rude awakening and if the Pirate Party continues to gain they will need to face up to the fact that a lot of people want more relaxed copyright legislation, or the Pirate Party may be swept into the Swedish parliament next. (keep in mind: they were polling around 5%, and many dismissed them, claiming that their key demographic of <30's "doesn't vote" - instead they performed better than the polls indicated; that's going to scare a lot of politicians into rethinking their stance) It's also bound to make a lot of people think seriously about trying to get equivalent platforms in place in other EU countries. It's an amazing showing for a "single issue" (not really, but almost) party running in only a single, small country.

endtime 17y ago

Look, I dislike the DMCA as much as anyone, but I don't really think that a party founded on piracy is really a great thing to happen to European politics. At least, not in the respect you imply (that we're going to tell those recording industry fat cats they're not the boss of us!). If they can push honest and realistic discussion of the issues, however, that could have a lot of impact. We all like to laugh at the publishing industry (music, then movies, now newspapers) for being unable to keep up with the times, but just as the web has introduced post-scarity to publishing, so will nanotech destroy the goods industry, robotics destroy the services industry, and, eventually, AI destroy info work. My hope is that we can learn from what is happening now (and try to understand the success of e.g. Trent Reznor, and determine whether his model would work if not for its novelty), and be better prepared for the future. But no one is talking about it...ideally, the Pirate Party will change that, rather than just explain to old dudes why torrent indexing isn't illegal.

tjogin 17y ago
The Swedish Pirate Party has a horrible name. Because its political platform is all about preserving the right to personal integrity — not piracy. Certainly, they also believe that copyright and patent law needs to fundamentally change. And certainly, preserving the right to privacy on the internet — to the same standard that it is guaranteed through other means of communications — would make it pretty much impossible to shut down piracy. But that's a side-effect, not the expressed goal of the party. I'm Swedish myself, I've studied their platform closely, and I voted for them. Not because I want free stuff — but because I feel that the EU parliament needs more people in it who are viciously opposed to the idea of destroying our basic civil liberties. Many other candidates from other parties are sympathetic to this (as opposed to their respective party platforms). But — only a vote for the Pirate Party would shake the "old parties" up sufficiently in order to make personal integrity the party platform. And I think we're going to see exactly that kind of progression in Sweden across party lines.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- endtime 17y ago

ErrantX 17y ago

have you seen the rest of the results? PP have done well - one cant help feeling on the back of TPB publicity. But the rest of the left parties have suffered heavy losses. We're looking at a strong conservative EU parliament as far as I can tell. I fear the PP will have little impact (I confess I am not a huge fan but they do stand for some issues I believe strongly in).

vidarh 17y ago
Indeed, and when looking at Sweden in particular, the "Left party", which is the only other major party in Sweden that are as open to copyright reform as the Pirate Party, lost out heavily, more or less offsetting the Pirate Party gains. Personally I saw the results as horrible (even the BNP got seats) but the Pirate Party win was at least a little beacon of light, though I mostly see their win as a kick in the ass for the other parties that will hopefully see them starting to reform their own copyright platforms or risk losing the rest of the youth vote too.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  well I guess the hope is similar parties can get a break in other countries (hopefully, for me, w/o worrying links to TPB et all). Your right, it does validate copyright reform as a political platformn important to the people.