4 ms·

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

by 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
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- endtime 17y ago
  >Because its political platform is all about preserving the right to personal integrity This might be a lost-in-translation thing, but I don't know what you mean by this. Integrity means something like honesty and strength of character, which, obviously, the RIAA et al have no control over. Could you clarify? Do you just mean privacy? And okay, I believe you that the party's platform involves privacy rights more than anything else. And that is good, and even important, but I still think it's hyperbolic to call their election "the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long time" simply because they support web privacy. I get the impression a lot of people conflate privacy intrustion with Big Brother, which doesn't seem sound.
  - cwb 17y ago
    The Swedish word for integrity (integritet) can be used in two senses: the property of having a consistent value system or a right to privacy. tjogin most likely intended the latter meaning. I'm curious about the distinction between Big Brother and large-scale logging/filtering/monitoring in electronic systems without court orders by the government. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "Big Brother"? Whether you think the result is "the greatest thing to happen in European politics in a long time" clearly depends on your political views. It could be seen as an indication that a number of people make at least some effort to stand up for civil liberties (an issue I hear some consider more than "important"). Also, "long time" is not particularly well defined.. ;) I'm just guessing here of course, joel_feather didn't say much about why he thought this was such a great thing.
    - endtime 17y ago
      >I'm curious about the distinction between Big Brother and large-scale logging/filtering/monitoring in electronic systems without court orders by the government. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "Big Brother"? Well, the distinction I'm making is between keeping logs/records and abusing those logs in order to infringe on other civil liberties, a la Big Brother in 1984. What was evil about Big Brother was not the monitoring/recording, but how it was used. I know some disagree with me on this, but I do think there's a distinction.
- cabalamat 17y ago
  I'm not a big fan of the name either. But it's our opponents who call us "pirates" so maybe it's about reclaiming the label (like the gay community has done with "queer"). I think, as the PP gains vote share in Sweden and elsewhere, many of the other parties are going to steal their policies. Which is good.

by endtime 17y ago

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
>Because its political platform is all about preserving the right to personal integrity This might be a lost-in-translation thing, but I don't know what you mean by this. Integrity means something like honesty and strength of character, which, obviously, the RIAA et al have no control over. Could you clarify? Do you just mean privacy? And okay, I believe you that the party's platform involves privacy rights more than anything else. And that is good, and even important, but I still think it's hyperbolic to call their election "the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long time" simply because they support web privacy. I get the impression a lot of people conflate privacy intrustion with Big Brother, which doesn't seem sound.
- cwb 17y ago
  The Swedish word for integrity (integritet) can be used in two senses: the property of having a consistent value system or a right to privacy. tjogin most likely intended the latter meaning. I'm curious about the distinction between Big Brother and large-scale logging/filtering/monitoring in electronic systems without court orders by the government. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "Big Brother"? Whether you think the result is "the greatest thing to happen in European politics in a long time" clearly depends on your political views. It could be seen as an indication that a number of people make at least some effort to stand up for civil liberties (an issue I hear some consider more than "important"). Also, "long time" is not particularly well defined.. ;) I'm just guessing here of course, joel_feather didn't say much about why he thought this was such a great thing.
  - endtime 17y ago
    >I'm curious about the distinction between Big Brother and large-scale logging/filtering/monitoring in electronic systems without court orders by the government. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "Big Brother"? Well, the distinction I'm making is between keeping logs/records and abusing those logs in order to infringe on other civil liberties, a la Big Brother in 1984. What was evil about Big Brother was not the monitoring/recording, but how it was used. I know some disagree with me on this, but I do think there's a distinction.
cabalamat 17y ago
I'm not a big fan of the name either. But it's our opponents who call us "pirates" so maybe it's about reclaiming the label (like the gay community has done with "queer"). I think, as the PP gains vote share in Sweden and elsewhere, many of the other parties are going to steal their policies. Which is good.