Pirate Party Wins and Enters The European Parliament

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Pirate Party Wins and Enters The European Parliament
Written by Ernesto on June 07, 2009

The Pirate Party has won a huge victory in the Swedish elections and is marching on to Brussels. After months of campaigning against well established parties, the Pirate Party has gathered enough votes to be guaranteed a seat in the European Parliament.

When the Swedish Pirate Party was founded in early 2006, the majority of the mainstream press were skeptical, with some simply laughing it away. But they were wrong to dismiss this political movement out of hand. Today, the Pirate Party accomplished what some believed to be the impossible, by securing a seat in the European Parliament.

With 99.9% of the districts counted the Pirates have 7.1 percent of the votes, beating several established parties. This means that the Pirate Party will get at least one, but most likely two of the 18 (+2) available seats Sweden has at the European Parliament.
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“Together, we have today changed the landscape of European politics. No matter how this night ends, we have changed it,” Falkvinge said. “This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it’s time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples’ lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept that the authorities’ mass-surveillance,” he added.
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The recent debacle of the Pirate Bay Trial in Sweden has caused the membership of the Pirate Party to surge. This is not just because people want stuff for free, but because of the serious erosion in privacy and the way the case was handled. The pirate party stands for copyright reform and protection of privacy issues.
 
Garyvdh said:
The recent debacle of the Pirate Bay Trial in Sweden has caused the membership of the Pirate Party to surge. This is not just because people want stuff for free, but because of the serious erosion in privacy and the way the case was handled. The pirate party stands for copyright reform and protection of privacy issues.
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A hobby-horse of mine. I maintain that a new business paradigm is being born. Edited from previous posts on other forums.

The capitalist way is to price things unfairly. However, the existing business dinosaurs cannot enforce the money-making rules other than on a (very) local level. Without enforcement, who’s going to follow the ‘rules’? There is no moral imperative here (even if you consider usual business practise moral).

For example: You have R500.00 in your pocket (you haven’t been mugged yet). You have the choice of buying some ‘pirated’ software for R300.00 or the original for R1800.00. The products are identical. Or, you have the choice of buying a ‘rip-off’ Gucci handbag (of better quality than the original) for R1000.00 or the original for R18000.00 (remember, you can always sell your car to enrich further the already rich). You can be a glazed-eye zombie, repeating the mantra (in a monotone), “Paying rip-off prices is good, making Madonna, Microsoft and Gucci more wealthy is good”. Unenforceable and immoral.

However, rewarding innovation and effort is essential. Law and property rights are important, but unworkable as they stand, in the information economy. There is little room for creativity in piracy. You don’t need to be a creative pirate to rip-off products. Even the process of ripping-off will have been refined by the Asian Tigers. Maybe there is room for creativity to circumvent the establishment’s pathetic attempts to encrypt their product or enforce their copyright laws (bad PR incidentally). Within weeks or, at most, a few months the pirates will have circumvented any ‘protection’ efforts. There is probably more raw talent among the pirates than among status quo loyalists.

I do not claim some form of ‘oracular understanding’. At best, I would claim the status of ‘informed panic’. I do not claim an inalienable right to pirate DVDs, CDs or software – I am just pointing-out the stupidity and arrogance of the powers that make criminals of those who do – as if **they** had some inalienable right. Copyright laws - outmoded and redundant. Thus, I am in favour of a new business paradigm to the extent that I regard evolution as a ‘good thing’. I’m neutral to nervous about changes to the status quo (which I have known all my life). I am simply pointing to the writing on the wall – trying to halt this is like trying to halt a tsunami. The only thing, which can halt or reverse these changes, is a global holocaust, which will knock humanity back to an earlier economic level (hunter/gatherer, agricultural, industrial or service). A rather extreme form of ‘resistance to change’.

A well-known site at the centre of exploring alternatives to the existing copyright issues and business paradigms is Napster (a music site). There are a myriad of lesser-known sites. Pirate Bay is the latest.

America has a **huge** investment in the status quo and American citizens will not easily move out of their comfort zones. The fight will get vicious. Oddly enough, America is also the most advanced ‘information economy’ (not nearly as big as the status quo, however). Internal strife between the old & the new, will complicate things.

The rest of the world shall watch agog as the squabbling intensifies.
 
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