EU Pirate Party and Shorter Copyright Term
I just read a short article on The Next Web (http://thenextweb.com/europe/2009/10/18/pirate-party-leader-threatened-burnt-stake/)about Sweden’s Pirate Party in the European Union. Here were a few very interesting points they summarized which made a lot of sense to me:
* Deep Packet Inspection and any other methods of ‘looking inside’ the data being transmitted by individuals is wrong, just like it’s illegal to intercept mail in the postal service.
* ISPs should be immune from prosecution for what’s sent through their networks, just like the postal service isn’t prosecuted for moving illegal drugs.
* Individuals have a right to privacy online and offline
* Copyright should only apply to commercial work – bedroom remixers and mashup artists shouldn’t have to ask permission to release their work unless they want to charge for it.
* Finally, and most controversially, copyright on any song, film or any other creative work should be just five years. That would mean artists would only be able to earn a living from their music for five years before the song became public property.
I definitely agree that the last one is controversial, but I have heard similar points from GNU creator, Richard Stallman: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html. His point is that a copyright is a monopoly given to a writer,etc with the intent of promoting innovation. Having long copyrights is counter to the purpose of the law, and he claims, counter to the constitution. I still do not have enough knowledge about this subject to form a strong opinion, so I will leave it at that.
October 18th, 20096:37 pm at
Just saw the report about Rick’s speech, and your blog, anyway of course I knew that he was in the UK, I believe in London during the week, not sure if I will get a chance to catch him then, although I’m sure he’ll be meeting some of the UK Pirate Party leadership.
Hmmm… I didn’t see any mentions of the UK organisation, recently formed, and much in the news? We are loosely affiliated (through Pirate Party International), we are also organisationally independent and are presently developing our policies, which naturally are likely to follow the broad sweep of Pirate party precedent so far, however we are not bound by that and PPUK policies will be created in the UK, for the UK, in support of the wider Pirate ethos.
We will be fighting the next General Election, in at least some constituencies, again this is still a matter of debate, activists available for campaigning, and funding, so it is still early days for that.
November 11th, 200910:24 pm at
If you wanna read more on this i suggest reading Lawrence Lessig’s (founder of Creative Commons) books, e.g. Code 2.0 and the Future of Ideas.
November 22nd, 20097:03 pm at
Thanks Dave. Nice find. It looks like you can read the book for free:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/2008/01/the_future_of_ideas_is_now_fre_1.html