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The Pirate Party has limited information in English and I know it can be hard to understand what they really stand for. So I compiled a summery of their program
by stse 17y ago
The Pirate Party has limited information in English and I know it can be hard to understand what they really stand for. So I compiled a summery of their program. Keep in mind that this is only a summery and mostly only says what they stand for and not why they stand for it. This is also not an official document.
The Pirate Party’s cornerstones are; the right to privacy, culture must be open/free and that patents and private monopolies hurt society.
Privacy:
Secrecy of letters should apply to all forms of communication, including digital.
No data retention and no surveillance without substantial prior crime suspicion.
No anti-terrorism legislation, current legislation is sufficient. New legislation risk being used as a tool of oppression.
The individuals right to control ones own personal information must be strengthened.
Respect for human rights without exceptions.
Freedom of information:
Swedish freedom of information laws, access to government documents and communications, should be applied to the EU.
All government archives and documents should be available in open formats.
Use of open formats and open source in the public sector, including schools, should be encouraged.
Open culture:
Copyright should be reasonable, balanced and with societies best in mind.
The copyright holder’s commercial monopoly should be limited to five years.
You should have the right to remix copyrighted works, with some clearly stated exceptions.
All non-commercial distribution, consumption and remixing of copyrighted and non-copyrighted works should be legal and encouraged.
Trademarks should be kept.
Private monopolies:
The successive removal of all patents, including software and medical patents.
Patents force scientists to keep research findings secret instead of sharing them.
Competition should be based on innovation, consumer benefit, and quality.
- michael_dorfman 17y agoThat's a nice summary of their platform, but it is perhaps also worth noting that one of the defendents in the Pirate Bay case (Carl Lundström) is a neo-Nazi, who has a history of funding small single-issue parties and using them to push extremist right-wing views.
- stse 17y agoCarl Lundström and The Pirate Bay are not affiliated with The Pirate Party. As far as I know the rest of The Pirate Bay do not share Carl Lundströms views. The connection between The Pirate Bay and Carl Lundström is also very loose. The Pirate Party has very clear views on civil liberties and human rights for everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual preference, handicap or political view. Most political analysts actually think that The Pirate Party, with its large number of youth votes, prevented the right-wing nationalist party in Sweden from reaching the European Parliament.
- michael_dorfman 17y agoThanks for clearing that up. One of the problems with small parties is how easily they can be derailed, especially by someone who is a) dedicated to the task, and b) well-funded.
- stse 17y agoAs a consequence of The Pirate Party very narrow focus, and decision not to take a stand in any other issues, it would be hard to introduce other issues. Currently I only know of two people who work for the party full-time. The party founder Rick Falkvinge, an former entrepreneur who quit his job to devote himself to the party. When his money ran out he asked the members for contributions and gets a small amount from a large number of members each month. The other person who works full-time with the party is Christian Engström, also an entrepreneur who sold his company for a profit and spent five years as unpaid activist at the FFII lobbying against software patents. He is the party's first pick for the European Parliament. The party also gets founding from several other sources. Some of Sweden's "Internet Icons" publicly supports the party. It would be really interesting to see what all the great American entrepreneurs could do if there was a chance for a smaller party to actually get seats.
- sp332 17y agoI'm not sure the point about patents is right. The whole purpose of patents is to get new ideas published, by giving inventors some of the same protections they would have if they kept ideas secret. Removing patents would increase secrecy, not decrease it.