Christian Engstrom Explains The Pirate Party's Position: Freedom To Communicate; Freedom From Privacy Invasion

from the sounds-reasonable-enough dept

Christian Engstrom, the representative from the Swedish Pirate Party who is now a member of the European Parliament has written an opinion piece in the Financial Times where he explains the basic rights he is fighting for and the worries about where society and culture go if we continue to allow a few small industries to overpower everyone else's rights:

If you search for Elvis Presley in Wikipedia, you will find a lot of text and a few pictures that have been cleared for distribution. But you will find no music and no film clips, due to copyright restrictions. What we think of as our common cultural heritage is not "ours" at all.

On MySpace and YouTube, creative people post audio and video remixes for others to enjoy, until they are replaced by take-down notices handed out by big film and record companies. Technology opens up possibilities; copyright law shuts them down.

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 details the inevitable push by copyright holders to simply block what the internet enables because their old business models can't keep up and they're unwilling to change:

The technology could be used to create a Big Brother society beyond our nightmares, where governments and corporations monitor every detail of our lives. In the former East Germany, the government needed tens of thousands of employees to keep track of the citizens using typewriters, pencils and index cards. Today a computer can do the same thing a million times faster, at the push of a button. There are many politicians who want to push that button.

The same technology could instead be used to create a society that embraces spontaneity, collaboration and diversity. Where the citizens are no longer passive consumers being fed information and culture through one-way media, but are instead active participants collaborating on a journey into the future.

While certainly copyright system defenders love to mock the Pirate Party based on its name alone, the basic tenets of what Engstrom speaks about are quite important and reasonable: encouraging creativity by enabling technologies is much more important than protecting an obsolete business model -- and stomping out individual privacy rights or technologies just because a few old businesses can't compete any more just doesn't make any rational sense.

Filed Under: christian engstrom, civil rights, pirate party

German Elected Official Switches Parties To The Pirate Party

from the getting-some-attention... dept

Last week, we noted that Germany may be following Australia down the very slippery slope of internet censorship with a secret blacklist of websites that ISPs must block. Not surprisingly, not all politicians in Germany support such a move, and one, Jorg Tauss, was apparently so upset by it, that he's left his own political party and signed on with the German Pirate Party instead, recognizing that being against such forms of censorship is a key plank of the party's platform. That said, the article notes that Tauss may not exactly be what the party is looking for, as he's under a cloud of speculation concerning a supposed investigation into child porn on his computer. He claims that the content was sent to him while he was investigating such content in his role as an elected official, but it could still raise questions, and pending the outcome of the investigation could potentially harm the Pirate Party's reputation if the story is different than his official one.

Filed Under: censorship, germany, jorg tauss, pirate party

Understanding The Pirate Party

from the good-or-bad? dept

In writing about The Pirate Party's success in winning a seat in the EU Parliament, I noted that I wasn't necessarily a fan of The Pirate Party's name or some of its positions, but I do think the Party is bringing some attention to important issues. Ivor Tossell, at The Globe and Mail, has an interview with Christian Engstrom from The Pirate Party, who will be taking the seat, where they discuss a variety of issues -- including the name. When Tossell questions why it wasn't called something like the Copyright Reform Party, Engstrom pointed out (most likely correctly): "Because if that had been the name, you wouldn't be talking to me."

The other issue, that was raised in the comments to that post, was the assertion that members of The Pirate Party aren't actually interested in the civil rights and freedom issues the party stands for, but that they just want "free stuff." However, in the audio interview, Engstrom does a good job highlighting why the issues they fight for are very much civil rights issues. He talks about the value of privacy and human rights -- as well as access to information.

Much of the discussion does focus on the name. Engstrom insists that the name is essential -- and notes that he joined the party because the word "pirate" acts as an effective shorthand for everything that the party stands for. Tossell, though, does raise some important questions about how far the Party can go with the name, however. I tend to agree. While I agree that calling it The Pirate Party helps in getting initial attention (and press attention), it also brings out those sorts of false accusations that it's just about "getting free stuff" rather than serious issues that impact civil rights and innovation.

Filed Under: christian engstrom, civil rights, pirate party

Swedish Pirate Party Wins Two One Seat In EU Parliament

from the thanks-to-the-Pirate-Bay-verdict dept

In yet another sign that the entertainment industry's "winning" verdict in the trial of The Pirate Bay was anything but a victory, the surge in voters signed up to be a part of Sweden's Pirate Party was enough to elect two one representative of the party to the European Parliament, with 7.4% 7.1% of the vote (Updated as later results became public). And, of course, it's no surprise that this is a youth movement. Among voters under 30, 19% voted for The Pirate Party. Of course, you can guess how the entertainment industry will react -- shunning what they consider to be "immoral" "thieves" rather than recognizing what the party actually represents: those who believe in certain civil rights that are blocked and hindered by over-aggressive enforcement of intellectual property rules. I don't necessarily agree with the overall stance of "The Pirate Party" (and I hate the name), but it's hard to deny that it's actually making some inroads -- and that the entertainment industry isn't making much of an effort to understand why.

Filed Under: elections, eu parliament, pirate party, sweden

Prolific And Influential Swedish Author Throws Support Behind The Pirate Party

from the it's-all-about-freedom-of-expression dept

TorrentFreak points us to the news that one of Sweden's most influential and prolific authors has written an editorial where he throws his support behind The Pirate Party and explains why. He talks about the advance of technology and how silly it is to try and stop it, and then discusses the damages done by excessive intellectual property. He discusses how copyright often gets in the way of the creative class in getting their works out there and consumed, and when that happens the interests of spreading ideas should outweigh any protective interests. And this is coming from someone who is considered one of Sweden's most prolific writers. The idea that things like The Pirate Bay needs to be stopped or there won't be incentives to create are pretty much disproved right here.

Filed Under: copyright, lars gustafsson, pirate party, sweden

Pirate Party Banned From German Site That 'Pirated' Facebook

from the funny-that... dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the story on TorrentFreak about how the German social networking site, StudiVZ, has refused to allow The Pirate Party to create a campaign site, despite setting up campaign groups for every other political party campaigning for office. Chances are that this is just a screwup, where someone at StudiVZ was unfamiliar with the fact that The Pirate Party is a legitimate political party. However, what seems exceptionally ironic is the fact that StudiVZ is involved in a long and ongoing lawsuit with Facebook for copying Facebook's look and feel. Not only that, but StudiVZ's founder "freely admits that he took some of the basic ideas of Facebook and simply improved them." Thus, in the parlance of copyright maximalists, StudiVZ "pirated" Facebook. And, yet, now, it's shut down The Pirate Party's own site.

Filed Under: germany, pirate party
Companies: facebook, studivz

Pirate Bay Verdict May Actually Lead To Pirate Party Official Joining European Parliament

from the you've-started-a-movement dept

While the entertainment industry still really seems to think that the disputed verdict in the Pirate Bay trial was a victory, most folks who can look beyond the immediate ruling have recognized what a horrific loss this has been for the industry. On the technology side, it's done nothing of importance. Even if The Pirate Bay is eventually shut down, there are at least a dozen other sites to step in and take up the slack. On the business model side, shutting down The Pirate Bay will do nothing to fix a seriously broken business model. But, perhaps most important of all, the industry is pushing more and more people over the edge, from indifferent to the industry, to actively working against the industry. I expected the uselessness of the verdict when it came to tech and business models, but I didn't realize that it would energize people on the political side as well.

There's been lots of talk about how the verdict massively increased the number of Swedes joining The Pirate Party, but the big question is whether or not it will be enough people to make a difference, and will they actually follow through. The initial showings are impressive. A new political poll shows that the party's popularity has grown tremendously, to the point that if a vote were held today, The Pirate Party would gain a seat in the European Parliament. It's now become the second largest party for voters in the 18 to 29 age group. This isn't just a random fringe group that the industry (and other politicians) can completely dismiss. It is still small, but what's amazing is how the industry's blatant shortsightedness has given rise to an entire political movement that keeps attracting more and more members. It seems likely that the entertainment industry still doesn't realize what sort of backlash it's creating, but at some point, it might want to start paying attention.

Filed Under: europe, european parliament, pirate party, sweden
Companies: the pirate bay

German Authorities Raiding Homes To Find Skype Tapping Whistleblower

from the drawing-more-attention... dept

Apparently a whistleblower recently leaked some evidence that German authorities were using a special trojan horse software to tap Skype audio conversations. The document detailing this was leaked to the German Pirate Party, one of many international "Pirate Parties" that have been formed in recent years to push for more reasonable government policies on a variety of fronts from intellectual property to privacy and government surveillance. Illegally tapping Skype conversations may be illegal, but it seems that German authorities are a lot more interested in tracking down who leaked the documents and have raided the homes of various German Pirate Party members, confiscating computer equipment. Of course, if anything, this would seem to confirm that the government was at least experimenting with, if not actively using, such a trojan horse wiretapping program -- and the raids have only served to generate much more attention over that fact.

Filed Under: germany, pirate party, skype, tapping, whistelblower

Anonymous P2P May Not Deliver -- But It Doesn't Need To

from the do-the-math dept

Rick Falkvinge, the head of Sweden's Piratpartiet has just given a new interview, and it's worth a read. As you might expect from the leader of a pro-piracy political party, he's rather bullish on the future of filesharing:

[A]nonymous encrypted P2P is just a few years off (and encrypted BitTorrent is already becoming ubiquitous). More interestingly, our cellphones are increasing in capacity dramatically. When P2P debuted with Napster in 2000, the average hard drive was the same size as my cell phone memory is today. Using technology already available, BlueTooth 2, I can share content from my cellphone anonymously — say, in a café or so. This will probably just accelerate, with cellphones being more and more capable, holding more and more data, and opening up to customized applications. I'm betting that a P2P app operating on Bluetooth is not far off for the iPhone, for example. Imagine the anonymous sharing that will happen in the background just on the average subway train! The possibilities are very, very encouraging.

File sharing will find new ways — any measure to stop it will be ineffective the instant it is in place.

I can't say that I agree with everything Falkvinge says here. Although it's true that Bittorrent encryption is fairly widespread, the technique is employed to avoid ISP throttling, not as a useful means of protecting filesharers' identities. And anyone who's paid any attention to Bluetooth's miserable security record — or who has just been frustrated when trying to get two devices to pair — can be forgiven for laughing wryly at the idea of the protocol evolving into something suitable for ad-hoc high-speed filesharing.

Falkvinge's optimism about anonymous P2P is perhaps the most interesting part of his filesharing triumphalism. In truth, it's a considerably harder problem than he implies: the internet is simply not designed for two-way communication with a truly unknown party. Sure, black hats can spoof IP addresses — but that's a technique that's only useful for a one-way communique, such as when flooding a target with junk packets in a denial of service attack. If you want a response you either need to reveal your identity or relay the traffic through a third party who can be counted on to keep everyone's identities secret.

This sort of relay system has been successfully employed by Relakks proxy service, as well as the Freenet and Tor projects, the latter two of which also add encryption to limit the relay nodes' complicity. But if Falkvinge is counting on the lack of prosecutions against these projects as evidence of the technique's legal unassailability, he's dreaming. Given that both Freenet and Tor are widely rumored to be havens for child pornographers — and the understandable (if occasionally misguided) zeal with which such crimes are prosecuted — it seems like only a matter of time before someone operating a Tor node is arrested for facilitating illegal activity (the infamous Tor embassy hack has already attracted law enforcement's attention, of course).

But Falkvinge's larger point seems sound: there's no indication that P2P can be stopped. But this isn't because of some just-around-the-corner bulletproof technology; it's simply a matter of filesharers' overwhelming numbers — numbers that, as Falkvinge implies, may be better measured by the rapidly-expanding count of P2P-capable network interfaces than by the number of humans operating them.

Filed Under: anonymous p2p, file sharing, p2p, pirate party