Now officially registered as a political party.
Much to the delight of free speech and copyright reform advocates everywhere, the Pirate Party UK (PPUK) has announced that it’s officially registered as a political party in that country and proves the Pirate Party’s growing international support.
“In recent years we have seen an unprecedented onslaught on the rights of the individual,” says the PPUK. “We are treated like criminals when we share entertainment digitally, even though this is just the modern equivalent of lending a book or a DVD to a friend. We look on helpless as our culture and heritage, so important for binding our society together, is eroded and privatised.”
The news comes on the heels of its wildly successful Pirate Party cousin in Sweden who recently managed to win 2 seats in the EU Parliament, and now boasts some 50,096 members making it the country’s 3rd largest.
PPUK main focus is to shape laws to “match the realities of life in the 21st century.”
Its 3 core policies are as follows:
- The reform of Copyright and Patent Laws
- The protection of our Right to Privacy
- The protection of our Right to Freedom of Speech
It says it will remain neutral on all other issues outside of these three concerns.
“The internet has turned our world into a global village,” it adds. “Ideas can be shared at incredible speed, and at negligible cost. The benefits are plain to see, but as a result, many vested interests are threatened.”
“The old guard works hard to preserve their power and their privilege, so we must work hard for our freedom. The Pirate Party offers an alternative to the last century’s struggles between political left and political right. We are open to anyone and everyone who wants to live in a fair and open society.”
So why does the UK really need a Pirate Party? PPUK leader Andrew Robinson points out the fact that there are some 7 million file-sharers in the country and that the govt plans to fine them £50,000 ($82,520 USD) for copyright infringement is “ridiculous” given there’s no proof that its harming the creative content industry.
To buttress his point I might add that numerous studies have shown that file-sharing actually increases music consumption.
In fact, one of the music industry’s own economists says that revenue is actually up 4.7% since 2007.
Robinson would like to seer an exemption in copyright laws that allows for non-commercial use of people’s works.
“Our copyright law is horribly outdated and its skewed one way because all the lobbying is on the side of big businesses,” he says in an interview with PCPro. “This ties into our thoughts on patents. They’ve moved away from a way of encouraging invention to being a way for companies to lay claim to large areas of innovation.”
The European Anti-Piracy Association (AEPOC) is alarmed by the Pirate Party’s message, which it calls it “criminal at its core,” and says its success should serve as a “wake-up call for national governments and the European Commission to take a clear position on piracy matters.”
So it’s up to individuals to make sure that their voice is properly represented in the fight and demand meaningful copyright law reform.
Why is it so important? Christian Engström, newly elected member of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament, argues that it’s because copyright laws as they currently exist are slowly restricting our ability to communicate with one another online, and that furthermore, is eroding any sense of a “common cultural heritage.”
“Technology opens up possibilities; copyright law shuts them down,” he said in a op-ed posted last month.
“This was never the intent. Copyright was meant to encourage culture, not restrict it. This is reason enough for reform. But the current regime has even more damaging effects. In order to uphold copyright laws, governments are beginning to restrict our right to communicate with each other in private, without being monitored,” he continued.
The digital age has heralded an unprecedented era in which content can be transmitted to anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds and enrichen the lives of those with few physical alternatives.
Unfortunately, copyright laws were written largely in an analog world and have yet to adapt to the current realities of our time.
Let’s hope the UK’s new Pirate Party will help change that.
We have to do it one country at a time.
Stay tuned.
DOWNLOAD AND POST A PPUK POSTER TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT
jared@zeropaid.com
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““We are treated like criminals when we share entertainment digitally, even though this is just the modern equivalent of lending a book or a DVD…..”
When you give a book or dvd away the other person now has it, you don’t have it anymore and the one possession-one purchase doctrine is respected. When you copy it to give it away, you have 2 possessions but the artist got paid for only one. Inconvenient difference.
Maybe the Pirate Party can get out of single-figure percentages someday when it stops basing it’s platform on lies like this one.
Have you heard of a thing called the 21st century perchance?
But artists oftentimes arent the ones getting paid. Companies are making money on content at society’s expense.
Your comments are utter drivel and prove each and every time why the entertainment industry is so dysfunctional.
Sad really. So very sad.
Sad drivel in your view perhaps, but yours is all ad hominem because you still haven’t refuted one word of a very direct and simple statement. And companies are making money on EVERYTHING at “societies (their customers) expense”, every product, every service, every thing they market and sell, within every form of government in every country in the world.
So your point is?
@Sam
“And companies are making money on EVERYTHING at “societies (their customers) expense”
This is the problem, we are owned by monopolistic corporations.
I should say that
sharing files = sharing information
You cannot avoid people to share information. It’s like avoiding neurons in your brain to communicate with each other. Imagine I assign a tax for each synapse transfer within your brain, I wonder how well your brain will function that way !! It’s the same with society, restricting information flow is a crime against humanity.
You haven’t proven your points. Using your logic though, you hated your father.
There are countless cases where artists think they are “making their big break” when they sign a record contract. They are all excited to have sold out concerts with millions of records sold. A year later, they are pissed off and bankrupt while their label made a killing on the deal. It’s not about content creators for the RIAA, never has been.
I have refuted your positions time and time again, but you dismiss them without any evidence to the contrary.
P2P actually increases music consumption. Music industry losses are due mainly to the fact that nobody buys albums anymore (thank iTunes), and that teens, especially in the UK, are turning to FREE sources of streaming music.
The music industry has been screwing customers and artists over for years and that is a FACT. From swindling early blues and jazz artists to the infamous 20 dollar CD boondoggle in the 1990s it has only cared about profits at every turn. Its no secret the number of artists that have been screwed over. That too is FACT.
Bottom line is that P2P is here to stay so quit whining and get creative. Its so tiresome to hear you whine all the time.
“Sad drivel in your view perhaps, …”
You forget that there are other readers here. Or is that part of the reason why you disregard consumers?
“… but yours is all ad hominem because you still haven’t refuted one word of a very direct and simple statement.”
Wow, you are a hypocrite.
Practically all of your comments have used ad hominem. For instance, the first sentence of your comment.
Do you even know what ‘ad hominem’ means? It means “appealing to personal considerations rather than to fact or reason”. Insults are not ad hominem, but trying to disprove or prove something by attacking a characteristic or belief of his is ad hominem. soulxtc regarded your “utter drivel”, i.e. the substance of your argument, but that is not ad hominem.
“And companies are making money on EVERYTHING at “societies (their customers) expense”, every product, every service, every thing they market and sell, within every form of government in every country in the world.”
Holy shit this is the most naive thing I have read from you today!
“So your point is?”
I can indeed make fun of you all I want!
“When you give a book or dvd away the other person now has it, you don’t have it anymore and the one possession-one purchase doctrine is respected.”
You neglect the fact that people would rather not lend their possessions as there is the risk of losing it and that the original owner cannot use it until it is returned.
Do you know why you neglect this crucial fact? It’s your utter disregard to consumers and the current century.
“When you copy it to give it away, you have 2 possessions but the artist got paid for only one.”
Assuming the song was bought legally, how would you know that the artist was paid at all?
How do you count one copy as one possession?
“Inconvenient difference.”
Subjective garbage.
“Maybe the Pirate Party can get out of single-figure percentages someday when it stops basing it’s platform on lies like this one.”
Worthless drivel.
‘When you give a book or dvd away the other person now has it, you don’t have it anymore and the one possession-one purchase doctrine is respected. When you copy it to give it away, you have 2 possessions but the artist got paid for only one.’
In other words, file-sharing is superior to lending – and therefore, deserves even more encouragement.
As for the artist – if he loves his work, he should be overjoyed that more and more copies of it are being made. If he loves money instead – then he should become a banker…
I can remember copying songs on to tape back in the 80`s then tape to tape came out, WHY? for that simple purpose. it did not effect the industry then and it doesnt NOW!
as for the artist, the revenue they receive is around 2% of sale which is peanuts anyway. the artists dont complain because they have and always will make there money with live tours and appearances and sale of ,merchandise. the only complaints are from industry`s figures that have for years controlled what,when, and how we listen to music. since this freedom through file sharing, top bands are being recognised and old favorites are being resurrected..enough said….
If singers or groups don’t like it, then why don’t they just not produce any CDs and perform live instead?
Culteral folk songs are passed down from generation to generation without royalties ever being paid.
In many cases many music albums are OVER produced, costing millions to make. 90% of the songs will be crap.
Defination of greed? Well, you hear of a songwriter writing a song within 5 minutes and getting $ millions for it. That is GREED.
Humans have for thousands of years listened to free music, it’s a tradition
The book/cd metaphor doesn’t work in this case, and it’s a cause of problems.
When I buy a CD, it makes sense that I pay for that CD, because it cost money to manufacture and distribute to me. There is a benefit to me, the cd, and a cost to the vendor, the cost of supplying it. But music pirates don’t shoplift CDs.
When I download the _contents_ of a CD, there is a benefit to me (the same as before) and _no_cost_ to the supplier. I do not pay him because he was not involved, he incurred no costs from the download, and deserves no reward.
People think about computing in metaphors -desktops, files, folders, webSITES are thought of like places, emails thought of like letters, and music thought of like physical CDs. But a digital song is a bunch of binary. It is, in fact just a very big number, just information. And any attempt to charge someone for a number, or claim _ownership_ of a number, or stop one person from telling someone else a number, just because you happen to also sell disks with the same number on them, begins to look as ridiculous as it is.
The music ‘industry’ has not been around for long, and in that time it has done more to harm the culture and art of music than any other force. Speak to any true artist, they feel that making art is something so fundamental to their personality that they will do it all their life, whenever they can. Artists continue to make art under pain of death in oppressive regimes, musicians write because they feel compelled to, and and play because they love it. If any ‘artists’ decide to stop making music because of reduced profit from CD sales, i think we can afford to lose them. A very large proportion of their income comes from live concert ticket sales (an actual product that exists and they have the right to sell) anyway, unless they have no actual talent and are thus unable to perform live.