Interview With Pirate Party Leader Rick Falkvinge
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Jan 13, 2008 03:56 PM
from the stepping-away-from-total-surveillance dept.
from the stepping-away-from-total-surveillance dept.
mmuch writes "In the wake of the recent copyright debate in Swedish mainstream media, the P2P Consortium has published an interview with Rick Falkvinge, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He comments on the mainstream politicians starting to understand the issues, the interplay between strict copyright enforcement and mass surveillance, and the chances for global copyright reform." Some choice Falkvinge quotes: "What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy — forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance — realized they were under a serious attack... for the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle. And it was... nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is 'thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief'... Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding... When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around."
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Legalize File Sharing, Say Swedish MPs 545 comments
CrystalFalcon writes "In the past week, the file sharing debate has exploded in Sweden, with numerous mainstream politicians finally having understood the issue. Last week, seven Swedish MPs wrote a prominent opinion piece saying that fully legalized file sharing is not just the best solution, it's the only solution. Now their number has increased to 13, and the issue continues to grow. Good summaries at TorrentFreak and P2P Consortium. Original opinion piece in English here."
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They're free to share... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're free to share... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or for money (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting issue is what will lack. For musicians, the underground will hardly be affected, they make their money on live performance. The established names ditto, as well as merchandise. Even the "boy bands" and other label made concept will likely continue, with other sponsors (currently TV seems to love the process of creating pop bands).
For programmers, free software is already everywhere, about half of it produced by professionals according to the EU sponsored FLOSS report [infonomics.nl]. Anything that can be created incrementally can be created by people paying for features the need.
For movies, outside the big languages (English, Spanish, Hindi) production is heavily subsidized, so generally not profitable.
Books will continue to be written (a writer has no choice but to write) but getting paid might be a problem (unless you are into propaganda). Again, for smaller languages government subsidies are already needed. In Denmark it takes the form of a library fee, authors of Danish language books gets a sum proportional to how many people borrow their books. Yes I know tax is stealing, but the majority in my country for some reason want to preserve our quaint language, even if it means higher taxes.
So what we lose out is international blockbuster movies (which is sad, while I likes Clerks which is the type of movie that would continue to be made, I loved Lord of the Rings), some types of "movie like games" that cannot be created incrementally, and maybe a system to pay authors in some countries. Music will be mostly unaffected.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Visual artists make money off of the paintings they sell--so the concept of scarcity holds here--or through state arts subsidies or private patronage.
Re:They're free to share... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd go as far as to state that plastic art in general is almost entirely unaffected by piracy, like actual shows of performance arts.
I haven't bought a CD in ages, getting most music I listen to off the intertubes in one manner or another. Yet, in the last month I went to a presentation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (the musical, not the film. Though I plan on watching that too), and today I attended the world-wide second presentation of Terry Jones's (of Monty Python fame) Evil Machines (a musical). Only missed the première because I had my birthday party last night. I also have tickets for another play in a few weeks' time.
You might claim I'm hurting the music industry for not buying their wares, and that poor old artists are starving (incidentally, my girlfriend is a professional classical musician), yet I'm willing to pay about as much for a ticket for a one-night show as would be charged for a CD I'd keep for aeons (have quite a few CDs around going on 15 years old, not counting my parents').
When a download off the internet can actually lean towards me, personally, and threaten me with shiny silver razors (the guy who played Sweeney was creepy, damn him), piracy might be able to "replace" the value of a live performance. Until then, the music industry is just crying about not wanting to invest in the real deal and the pale imitation being upstaged by a more practical pale imitation. In the meanwhile, plastic arts happily plod along just fine because nobody in their right mind would compare looking at a painting proper with seeing a photograph (no matter how high resolution) of it. Or a statue (though I have a large set of photos of a visit to a sand sculpture exhibit I saw this summer -- for which I gladly paid entrance fees).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They're free to share... (Score:4, Interesting)
Live performances, merchandise, nicely packaged albums with some extra value instead of just a combined cover/tracklist leaflet.
A picture of a painting or sculpture enables you to look at the respective artifact mainly for purposes of studying it. Enjoying the art usually does take the real thing.
Take the experience back to the big screen. Home theatres are getting awefully awesome nowadays, so take care real theatres don't lose out on quality aspects and keep up.
Customer interests are shifting. People want to watch whatever they feel like whenever they feel like without interruptions (i.e. ads). deal with it. [google.com]
Either keep going letting the filmmaker do all the shifting work or explore new venues. Live is big again. People like to pay more and will give up control about time and place for awesome live performances of both music and acting (e.g. theatre, musicals, opera).
Unless absolutely necessary (e.g. reading pre-release versions of new Harry Potter books to have some spoilers ready for launch parties), extremely few people like to read long segments on a screen, so you're fine. Amazon is doing an amazing job with Kindle, others will follow suit. 2008 can be your year of Napster, your opportunity to get a competitive and customer-friendly electronic distribution to work before pirates do. Text can be distributed easily and practically instantaneous without infrastructural issues. Be quick and satisfy the general public before pirates do it -- they will.
For you too, this can be a golden age. Competition is harder than ever; thanks to blogs anybody can be a reporter. Standing out can attract a huge audience quicker and easier than ever. Be a journalist instead of just a reporter, cater to people's interests and a simple blogger account with some googly ads are all you need.
The world is changing. People want comfort and/or an extraordinary experience. Provide one and you're on the winning side. Provide both and you're right on track to greatness.
Re:They're free to share... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people can create works. Some people are willing to pay for works. There is money to be made.
Someone will come up with a great business idea. This is what disruptive technology is about. So relax, and watch the show.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How lovely for you, I'm happy to have been abl
Re:They're free to share... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine you write a song. A person listens to the song and starts whistling the tune sometime later. Does he owe you royalties?
The only way to really "own" an idea it to never tell anyone. Once a piece of "intellectual property" is released into the wild, the only to control it is to infringe on the rights of other people.
The compromise of copyright was a small and limited time infringement of the rights of the public in exchange for more creative output. When copyright creates more harm to individuals than benefit, then its only justification for existence disappears.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So exactly how many iterations do you think it would take for Peter Jackson to go from selling his home videos to raising the $430 million dollars up front it would require to produce the Lord of the Rings trilogy?
As an a
Re:They're free to share... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if anybody is going to notice.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And unlike the creators who actually have
Re:Yes, you are. (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare how much work there is out there now compared to five years ago and you will see that the rate hasn't significantly dropped - its grown at a rate where I have the opposite problem - there is just too much stuff out there and more than I can ever see is very, very good.
Don't get political. (Score:3, Interesting)
People who download music and movies aren't doing it to assert their solidarity with the Sandinistas, they're doing it because they can, and frankly most of us don't have enough cash free to go buy the entire discography of say Miles Davis or Bob Dylan.
Stick to the 'we're not providing content, only torrents' line. I think they'll find a more sympathetic client base.
Re:Don't get political. (Score:5, Insightful)
Outside of the USA not everyone fears the words "socialist", "marxist" or even (to a lesser extent) "communist".
"People who download music and movies aren't doing it to assert their solidarity with the Sandinistas, they're doing it because they can"
And if you'd bothered to think about this, you'd realise that nobody's asking you to declare solidarity. What this part seems to be asking people is "What should the rules be?". Many people are now starting to realise that beyond wanting free stuff, the surveillance culture and the ever increasing copyright terms and assertions of ownership of intellectual property are damaging to society. Copyright is a social contract, not an absolute right. It is granted in order to enrich us all by encouraging people to produce.
Over the last few decades various corporate interests in various countries, coupled with international agreements, have seen massive, one sided change in the laws surrounding copyright. We're in the midst of many countries pushing it even further. And we live in a world where DRM means that in future, were keys to be lost, some cultural artifacts could be lost to us forever.
What this party and what many people truly believe is that it's time to examine the situation and restore some sanity and restore the balance.
"and frankly most of us don't have enough cash free to go buy the entire discography of say Miles Davis or Bob Dylan."
And some would say that those names and their work have become so much part of our culture that you shouldn't have to pay. It's been a few decades since they started. They made some money, they made their names. Now maybe it belongs to all of us.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Respect to this guy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember - big businesses, media empire, the government they've all got a natural, and completely understandable, vested interest in not letting the Internet become the medium for new business and political models - and only guys like Falkvinge are standing up to them.
We may not agree with everything they say but we all need to support them vocally and financially so there are at least some counterbalances to the opposing forces.
I've always believed that the incumbents in any situation should be challenged and attacked (non-violently) - the bigger the incumbent, the greater and more vociferous the challenge.
The EFF and the Pirate Party aren't big enough yet - so let's support them - I know I'm going to right now.
Money goes to those with money (Score:3, Insightful)
The world is much more complex than simply, "musicians should be paid." If that were true, they'd actually get *paid* f
Re:Respect to this guy... (Score:4, Insightful)
The future? (Score:5, Interesting)
The days of bands releasing a shitty album every 5 years, touring for 6 months then retiring to their mansion in LA are over, and thank God. Will we see less people going into the business? Yes. And again, thank God -- art should be made by people with a passion for the art, not by people with simplistic dreams of fame who will do anything to get publicity.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's great. Now solve the problem for other works than just music. Or do you expect me
Good luck to them (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is one argument that never fails to elicit at least a shadow of doubt in the most hardened advocate of intellectual property and I believe this "Pirate Party" not only understand it but know it is a nuclear option in this debate. It is the the apparent paradox that intellectual property is simultaneously anti-capitalistic and anti-socialistic, it cuts across orthodox political divides because it goes against our most fundamental human nature. Intellectual property damages culture and social structure, so it offends conservatives and progressives alike. Patent wars are strangling industry and holding back essential progress now. We need to revise or abolish the entire system. As said in the interview the proponents of IP really do not have any other argument that stands up, only "We want our money", "We are the self appointed gatekeepers of knowledge and culture and you will pay us or...or.... we'll shout about it even louder!!" As far as I can see the old notion that IP promotes the arts and sciences has been knocked down, it is no longer relevant in the 21st century where the means of production are commodities and there is abundance of resources. There are 6 billion of us. Our ideas, whatever our status, are no longer special, unique or valuable. That we share culture and knowledge is what makes us human, so IP, what history will show to be a short lived facet of the industrial revolution, goes against 5000 years of human culture and our needs for the future. It only remains to perpetuate growth in de-industrialised nations.
Anyway, that said, IP being a self-evident absurdity and the arguments of its proponents being weak does not make it just go away. There is long hard fight ahead before people start to wise up and see that concepts like copyrights, patents and trademarks are the fictions of a bygone ruling class.
So good luck to them. I believe a world without intellectual property of any kind would be a much better place. This is an issue of our time, and the main parties would do well to be bold, turn their backs on the small but powerful vested interests of the media and embrace the issue, because if we had a Pirate Party in my country I would vote for them.
Copyright has gone wild - we must tame it! (Score:5, Insightful)
We also quite often forget that preventing people from speaking, or singing, or playing an instrument, or creating a DVD or using a photocopier in a way they deem proper takes away from their personal freedom and their economic freedom. Does anyone take into account the money saved on allowing people to use more copyrighted, trademarked and patented concepts with greater ease. Does the $15 I save because an album is 30 years old and 'could' be actually out of copyright count? Take that $15 and multiply is by 10 million. Now people have saved $150 million. You have to weigh their costs and benefits against the artists. And let us not forget that the artist and the corporation that has been putting out their music has been making money off the copyright for 30 years. They have made a fortune.
What about the right to use copyrighted material as part of a large of a larger whole? Eg a documentary film that wants to use short copyrighted clips. Often the cost of obtaining them makes their use uneconomic [upenn.edu]. Here commercial prorogation of something new is inhibited by 'Copyright' despite the fact that the reason d'etre of 'Copyright' was to encourage commercial prorogation of new ideas and art. Copyright owners who extol the value of copyright often 'forget' quite conveniently that IP may actually supress creativity. Often copyright is used simply to deny public use of material. So let me get this right. You need copyright law that allows the complete prevention of artistic material from circulating at all so you can encourage future creativity. Because mr/ms creative would only produce something for the public if they knew they could prevent any public dissemination. Right?!
I always get a laugh out of the heirs who already enjoy copyright revenues. So they didn't do jack sh*t but they are an heir so they should rake in cash for doing nothing. There was a New York Times article [nytimes.com] that had the audacity to argue for perpetual copyright. So you want to put on a Shakespeare play - better pay his descendants or some rich corporation. You want to read your bible in the church. Not before you hand over some cash. This idea is absurd but it's scary that the copyright crazies are advocating it. They claim they own ideas. We get this...no-one owns ideas! IP is not susceptible to ownership. We just put restrictions on IP for societal benefit not for the narcissistic desires of the original producer and certainly not their descendants.
Some of the restrictions of IP impinge on free speech. Sometimes you need to be able to film some event that has political implications without worrying about the 'person' rights. Eg Police brutality. Think this is an exaggeration? Just wait till you hear that free speech is cool but because some political speech intruded on commercial ri
Political Support (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fuck you America (Score:4, Insightful)
You're really a depressed individual. If you're so incapable of seeing the good things in life, I suggest you simply off yourself now, and put yourself out of our misery.
And Americans mostly did invent the Internet, computer (well, us and the Brits), motor car (well, us and the Brits), the light bulb and the telephone. Find some other examples if you want to prove how stupid and uncreative Americans are.
You do raise some good points, however, you're making the same fundamental mistake that many people of other countries make. That's assuming that the vast majority of Americans think one way or another, and pegging all of us as fitting some arbitrary mold that serves their own prejudices. What I find hysterical (and hypocritical) about that is that America, of pretty much all nations, is a pretty fractious affair, with most of us disagreeing with somebody else about something.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Konrad Zuse [wikipedia.org]?
>motor car (well, us and the Brits)
Gottlieb Daimler [wikipedia.org]?
>and the telephone
Philip Reis [wikipedia.org]?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>Konrad Zuse?
John Vincent Atanasoff?
>>and the telephone
>Philip Reis?
From your own cited article:
"Said Judge Lowell, in rendering his famous decision: 'A century of Reis would never have produced a speak
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hmmm, and I thought cars were invented by zee Germans [wikipedia.org].
Digital computers were achieved by Germans and Americans [wikipedia.org] sorta simultaneously in the heat of WWII, but the American ones obviously lived longer (which makes me wonder: did the Soviets invent their own
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I never said it was, invention is a worldwide phenomenon and always will be. But the GP seemed to think that Americans are idiots. I was conte
Re:Fuck you America (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, fuck you America, you fucking bunch of fat-arsed, over-consuming, celebrity obsessed, loose moraled, fornicating, right-wing, fascist, bigoted, interfering, dullard, fuck-wits - before I forget
Re:Fuck you America (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, Canada is the 51st State
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bashing The U.S.A. (o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Find some other examples if you want to prove how stupid and uncreative Americans are.
Or better still, don't believe anybody's bullshit associating nationality with particular types of knowledge or skills.
Re:Fuck you America (Score:5, Informative)
Actually it didn't happen that way in the first election, seeing as how Bush won that first election without getting the popular vote. You see, we're not exactly a true democracy. We have an Electoral College system which grants every state a number of votes in proportion to their population, making it possible to win by having a distribution of voters [wikipedia.org], but not a majority of voters.
Also taking into account the low voter turnout that the States have, it could be that only a minority of Americans supported him, but it's their own damn fault for not voting.
how emo (Score:3, Insightful)
Now try to change stuff instead, do something positive, join a r
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sick of hypocrisy? Look in the mirror (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sick of hypocrisy and two facedness.
So am I.
The world is full of problems. No doubt about it. But it's a mixed bag, too. Life expectancy has gone up [wikipedia.org] everywhere but in sub-Saharan Africa over the last 50 years. You're too young to remember the Cold War, but for those of us who were around, it sucked. The likelihood of a catastrophic global nuclear conflagration has gone down over the last 50 years.
You're not alone in being sick of the status quo, but I find it humorous that you equate anyone who doesn't share your opinion as being a whiner or someone with a low IQ. For example, you wrote:
Perhaps if you studied the history of systematic racism and sexism in Europe and America, you might recognize why equality of opportunity still doesn't exist in those places. Civil rights are not where they should be, but they have been advancing in the western world. America, for all its faults, has been trying to move beyond racism and sexism. America also has a far more sophisticated understanding of religious tolerance than Europe. For all the talk of naive and barbaric Americans, why is it that Western Europe is having such a difficult time integrating Muslim immigrants?
As for your bizarre comment about "women that act like men," what is that supposed to mean? Are you saying that you and those who follow your beliefs should be the arbiters of what constitutes acceptable female behavior?
If you're sick of lame TV, here's a newsflash: You don't have to watch television. Believe it or not, some of those moronic Americans (such as myself) have elected to get their news and most of their entertainment not from the idiot box, but from other sources like news magazines (one of the best is even produced in Britain) and international websites. Nobody is forcing you to watch the crap on TV.
I'm sick of Americans who cry that people hate them or are jealous of them or who are anti them because someone dares to point out that the America they've been programmed to believe in from birth bears no relation to the one that exists in real life.
There is nothing daring about anonymously pointing out in an online forum that the American government has been fearmongering and failing in its relations with the rest of the world. Here's another newsflash: When Shrub was elected the first time, half the country voted against him. When he was elected the second time, a slightly smaller percentage, but still almost half the voting public voted against him. Domestic opposition to this most pathetic American government has been loud and angry. The last seven years have been terribly divisive times in America. With any luck, this time around we'll elect a much more capable president, and we'll start restoring our reputation around the world.
Here's a tip: The next time you go ranting about hypocrisy, examine your own hypocrisy first. Then try posting with an account. It's still just a pseudonym, but at least it's a small form of taking responsibility for your writing.
Not if you don't want to (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been exposed to pretty much every argument, angle, and corner out there in this debate. Obviously you don't have to respect me for that, but you'd do well to assume that I've seen the pros and cons of most dimensions of this structural shift.
Oh, and as always, if I had known in advance this interview would end up on Slashdot, I would have spent more time on it.
Re:Not if you don't want to (Score:5, Informative)
There are plenty of ways the police are bound with regards to entrapment, search and seizure, warrants, interrogation, holding suspects and so on that all limit their effectiveness. Push too far and the people will simply decide this comes at too high a price.
Imagine you wanted to prohibit gay sex (not that long ago we did), and someone said: "The enforcement of this is ineffective, we need the right to break into people's houses at night and lift the covers". At that point it would hardly matter if you agreed with the law, you'd tell them to stay the fuck out of your bedroom. That is where the RIAA is now, and they're being told to stay the fuck out of people's Internet connection.
Re:Not if you don't want to (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy _does_ involve two consenting people doing things in private (exchanging digital information). The person who objects is a third party.
Nope (Score:3, Insightful)
You do however seem to exemplify the "no intellectual capital" quote. Rather than tak
Re:Am I really...- probably RIAA astroturf (Score:5, Interesting)
RIAA astroturf is flying thick and fast today. A content free propaganda first post mod'ed up to +5 to try to neutralize the article and direct the debate. I wonder how that happened?
Be careful people; there's a lot of astroturf [wikipedia.org] and probably sock puppets [wikipedia.org] on /. these days. It's amazing how every time there's a story with a point of view that the software or media industries don't like you'll get numerous weasels popping up who "just happen" to repeat tired old propaganda we've all heard and dismissed many times before. Treat these lowlifes with the contempt they deserve.
Redundancy and repetition are a strong sign that marketing parasites are involved. They don't care if they waste/steal people's time and attention as long as they achieve mind share at the expense of other points of view.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" [wikipedia.org] are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One problem is that all you need for a copyright violation to take place (in the USA at least) is for two private parties to exchange some copyrighted information. In order to use the law to stop copyrig
Re:Seriously need to get some perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was about not being able to download movies, your reaction would be correct. In reality, it's about (some, but "any at all" is a bad enough answer) private interests and the state being allowed by law to monitor all network traffic supposedly to be able to catch any copyright infringements. Once that's actually allowed, you can imagine what people can do with that kind of power.
A break-out group of seven politicians from the dominant party in the current administration wrote an op-ed piece last Monday which outlines some of the consequences in the near future [wordpress.com] (link's to the English version). If you won't believe the rag-tag newcomer party, would you believe the largest party in the administration - the people who already *have* power?
Believe me, of all the problems this might bring, having to spend money to see "Hollywood claptrap" is not what we're worried about.
Re:i'm all for total surveillance... (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess you didn't notice when Burma shut down the whole cell phone network to stop pictures and video from getting out. As soon as the Western press wasn't getting spoon-fed a lot of free content, it dropped the story like a hot potato and the Burmese government happily went back to slaughtering monks.
P2P doesn't exist in a vaccuum. And because it's so pervasive, controlling copyright means significant intrusion of the state into peoples' lives in one way or another. If you want to go up against armed thugs waving a dead cell phone around and telling them, "If you kill me, I'll take pictures", you go right ahead.
Not that different (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in the past, there was the chance for "bettering" yourself-- getting yourself a knighthood, for instance. Most peasants really didn't have that chance, just as the current poor have no real chance to better themselves. Some do, certainly, but there are only a few slots available for betterment.
It's not just "fucking music files." This is about the concept of ownership of ideas. This is about the ownership of culture, the very framework of our society. (There is an intimate relationship between art, ideas, and culture.)
Anyway, we still have the assholes, and they still stand on the heads of those less fortunate than themselves. Now, property rights might not belong to those with the biggest swords or guns, but they *do* belong to those with the biggest bank account. It's less bloody, and probably a better proposition. But just because the serfs aren't beat bloody by their lords doesn't mean they aren't serfs just the same.