Pirate Party Unites In Australia 173
bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that the Pirate Party has opened a branch office in Australia and is recruiting office bearers and supporters. The group updated the Australian website it registered last year and advertised for a president, treasurer, secretary, and supporting positions. A party spokesman, Rodney Serkowski, said the group was close to establishing a beachhead in Australia. He said that with 300 supporters it was on its way to signing the 500 it needed to become an official Australian political party. 'We are currently an online community, working together with the intention of becoming a registered party, and we're coming closer to reaching that goal,' Serkowski said. 'If we can get the required 500 members, and be registered by year's end, I think it is highly probable that we will contest the next Federal election in Australia.' At the weekend about two percent of Germans voted for the Pirate Party, although it needed five percent to gain a seat in the Bundestag."
In other news.. (Score:4, Informative)
During the elections on Germany the Pirate Party there could rake in 2% of all the votes: almost a million people voted for them! Kudos, and keep going!.
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During the elections on Germany the Pirate Party there could rake in 2% of all the votes: almost a million people voted for them! Kudos, and keep going!.
Any party can get 2% of the votes by favouring things which the other parties oppose. One nation regularly got 5% in Australia by doing this.
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There were over a dozen parties on the ballot that couldn't.
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Yeah but lots of parties don't even try to get votes. For example here there are parties for Christians, divorced fathers who don't want to pay child support, and the gun lobby who never get a significant vote.
The Pirate Party is a bit more like One Nation because they have a fairly open, vague policy platform. If they find out that in one place there are votes for opposing music festival (they won't let us pirate our music!) they will run on that in that place. Elsewhere the issue might be caps on internet
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and the gun lobby who never get a significant vote.
This is unfortunate, the shooter's party's policies [shootersparty.org.au] are rather nice, everyone assumes you have to be a gun nut to support them.. but all they really want is the government to butt out of what people like to do in their recreational lives.
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Background note: In German federal elections, parties need to gain at least 5% of the votes (or gain at least three direct seats) in order to properly participate in parliament. Therefore some voters shy away from "wasting" their votes on small parties. It's kind of a chicken and egg dilemma - if a party doesn't already have many voters, your vote effectively doesn't count.
Same as in the US: In US presidential elections, candidates need to gain at least 50% of the votes, in order to properly gain the seat. Therefore some voters shy away from "wasting" their votes on third party candidates. It's kind of a chicken and egg dilemma - if a party isn't already among the top 2, your vote effectively doesn't count.
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Same as in the US
Hell no, not at all. There are two votes in each German federal election. The first vote is about electing a majority candidate to represent your district in parliament - which certainly resembles the US "winner-takes-it-all" system, but on a finer scale as about 299 seats in parliament are assigned that way. The second vote is about electing a party (usually) nationwide, which is where the Pirate Party gained 2% of the share. This vote gives all parties with more than 5% of the votes a proportional share o
Freedom is born where oppression reigns (Score:4, Insightful)
If the U.S. doesn't want its own Piratpartiet, the government had better consider that the reason these branch offices have popped up is precisely because of heavy-handed laws that attempt to usurp the inalienable rights of users to download content for free off the internet.
Any action against Net Neutrality, for one, will be one step towards establishing a Pirate Party here at home. Any action that tries to legislate morality on the internet will be one step towards a viable Pirate Party third party. The only real chance legislators have in the U.S. of stopping the growth of the Pirate Party here is ironically to embrace the tenets of the Pirate Party and implement the freedom of information it espouses.
Princess Leia once put it very succinctly, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Re:Freedom is born where oppression reigns (Score:4, Insightful)
The only real chance legislators have in the U.S. of stopping the growth of the Pirate Party here is ironically to embrace the tenets of the Pirate Party and implement the freedom of information it espouses.
Which is exactly what the goal of the party should be. They'll never form a government, but by bringing attention to the issues they can do a world of good. When you see the major parties imitating your policy, you haven't obsoleted yourself, you've won.
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... inalienable rights of users to download content for free off the internet ...
All bet are on ...
+5 Insigtfull
-5 Troll
+5 Funny
?
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Clue: check the user name. FWIW, I think his posts are great.
Re:Freedom is born where oppression reigns (Score:5, Interesting)
... inalienable rights of users to download content for free off the internet ...
Notice how the article takes the same outlook, it goes from "change the landscape of Australian politics by advocating fairer copyright, freer culture and ensuring the protection of civil liberties, sending a strong message to Mr Conroy that his censorship scheme is not welcome in Australia" to six paragraphs on getting free music.
The challenge is to inform the public that file sharing is only one part of one issue. Hopefully the AU pirate party can stay on message and educate people there's much more to be concerned about.
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How much of the general public is going to listen beyond the "free music" point? If you say your party politics revolve around "copyright changes that would allow them to download music for free, implementing fairer copyright terms, ensuring political civil liberties and protecting against censorship" then all they'll hear is "copyright blah blah blah download music for free, blah blah blah blah blah
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As freedom loving descendent of criminals all Australians will...
(sees new iPod)
Oh Shiny!
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In Australia when the iPod was released there was no legal way to get popular music for it.
There was no iTunes or equivalent here, and it was illegal to copy your own CD collection. Yet iPod and other mp3 players sold like hotcakes.
Just like copying your CD to tape to play in the car was illegal. Time-shift recording on your VCR was illegal.
But nobody gave a damn. The laws have changed a little since, but since thy were never enforced, few people noticed.
So frankly, and sadly, I don't see the Pirate party g
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Kinda off subject, maybe, but the US and Oz aren't all that terribly different. The American colonies had their share of convicts and/or people running from persecution, or outlaws dodging court dates etc. A large number of "bond servants" helped to settle our colonies. Who, exactly, were bond servants? People bought out of debtor's prison, people facing debtor's prison, scoundrels avoiding debts that might be coming due. Someone who was actually interested in the subject could probably write a thesis
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Hmm-hmmm. "Free Musicz for EVERYONE!" is a good soundbite. It's enough to persuade the average voter after all.
For that matter, nearly half of the music produced since about 1900 SHOULD BE in the public domain. With reasonable copyright law, much of what the record labels claim to "own" would be completely free, and completely legal to download, as well as legal to distribute by any means.
Let's be less than generous with the "content providers". 15 years for copyright. Face it - every extension beyond
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Let's be less than generous with the "content providers". 15 years for copyright.
Let's be even more generous: 20 years. Just like for patents.
The way it is now, if I invent a gizmo that brings about world peace, general happiness, and has the answer to life, the universe, and everything, I can profit from it, and maybe my kids can, too. If I write a song, then my grandkids or even my great-grandkids can still reap the benefits. That doesn't make sense.
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And how much interest will there be in original recordings of songs from the 20s, 30s, 40s, etc? People either want new takes on old songs (which would be under new copyright) or they want new junk that has been mass-produced, in g
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I've yet to work out where the sweet spot is for copyright.
About 14 years [arstechnica.com], apparently.
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About 14 years, apparently.
A bullshit number of course. There is simply no accurate way to evaluating neither the positive nor negative effects of copyright and patents. And that is before taking into considering stuff like fair use, legal private copying or compulsory licensing. All of which have been tried in different forms in different countries.
From a pure societal economic perspective, copyright is probably best at zero years. Even if less media gets produced (an assumption in itself), letting the whole population have access t
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A bullshit number of course. There is simply no accurate way to evaluating neither the positive nor negative effects of copyright and patents. And that is before taking into considering stuff like fair use, legal private copying or compulsory licensing. All of which have been tried in different forms in different countries.
Why don't you READ THE PAPER before passing your omniscient judgement upon it from on high? Perhaps it would be too difficult to actually provide relevant criticism of the author's methods and research?
Objectively speaking, there's no accurate way to measure anything. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. The only sensible way to make policy is to gather evidence, evaluate the evidence in the light of a critical assessment of the processes used to gather it, and then to use the evidence to support the p
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Why don't you READ THE PAPER before passing your omniscient judgement upon it from on high? Perhaps it would be too difficult to actually provide relevant criticism of the author's methods and research?
OK. I did. And my conclusion remain the same. The 14 year number is bullshit. Not in that is 100% wrong. It just happens to be the standard journalistic bullshit.
Of course, the author never even uses it in the paper, which you would have known if you had actually read it. My criticism was never at the author, but at the number itself. Which is just the usual kind of journalistic distortion of truth. Not something new. You see it again and again, with journalists latching on to numbers that have no meaning b
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It's not just about original recordings. The songs themselves would be public domain, meaning that anyone could perform them, etc.
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There really are some people still listening to music from the 1920's. Not a lot, but some people enjoy it.
But, what about the 1950's? Even the 1960's? I said about half of the music produced since 1900 - but let's realize that much of what has been "produced" in recent decades are nothing more than remakes of old music. Let's allow FEAT to collect royalties on their remakes - but personally, I'd rather listen to the artists that they are mimicking.
The "sweet spot" has to be between 10 and 20 years. Pe
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Just imagine how much more variety there would be in Three Dogs selection of music if they didn't have to license all those songs for Fallout 3 ...
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How much of the general public is going to listen beyond the "free music" point? If you say your party politics revolve around "copyright changes that would allow them to download music for free, implementing fairer copyright terms, ensuring political civil liberties and protecting against censorship" then all they'll hear is "copyright blah blah blah download music for free, blah blah blah blah blah".
Plus, calling the organization "The Pirate Party" probably doesn't help people get past the "copyright blah blah blah download music for free, blah blah blah blah blah" part either.
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+5 Funny
...for suggesting the Democans and Republicrats have anything to fear in a first-past-the-post system. Or maybe "+5, Sad truth" but that's not a moderation. Europe is the big threat, because to *briefly* try to describe ~30 different political landscapes most have proportional representation, a 4-5% lower limit, a big socialist block, a big conservative block and some smaller parties. These smaller parties can be both between the blocks (greens, christians, liberals) and extreme left/right wing parties.
This
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... inalienable rights of users to download content for free off the internet ...
All bet are on ...
+5 Insightful
-5 Troll
+5 Funny
You forgot the Bonus Point for the quote from Star Wars.
The geek's inalienable right to a free movie fix has always struck me as the ultimate in middle class entitlements. It means absolutely nothing if you can't afford a mid-line PC and broadband service.
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If the U.S. doesn't want its own Piratpartiet, the government had better consider that the reason these branch offices have popped up is precisely because of heavy-handed laws that attempt to usurp the inalienable rights of users to download content for free off the internet.
The two large parties in the US can safely ignore any attempts at getting a Pirate party up and running. The election system there will make sure that such a party stays insignificant. Winner takes all and such.
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Why y'all be hating on the Klingons [blogspot.com]? It'll only lead to the Klingon Power Party stealing votes away from the Pirate Party.
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Any action against Net Neutrality, for one, will be one step towards establishing a Pirate Party here at home. Any action that tries to legislate morality on the internet will be one step towards a viable Pirate Party third party. The only real chance legislators have in the U.S. of stopping the growth of the Pirate Party here is ironically to embrace the tenets of the Pirate Party and implement the freedom of information it espouses.
So, you're saying that the US should be more draconian about establishing morality laws for the internet?
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heavy-handed laws that attempt to usurp the inalienable rights of users to download content for free off the internet.
Feeling a little over-entitled, perhaps?
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Does the U.S. have an official Illegal Alien Party? Stoner Party? Sex Offender Party? Highway Speeder Party? Seems to me that if we made political parties over every group of laws a large portion of the population does not like, copyright would be far down the list.
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Illegal Aliens and Sex Offenders can't vote
Stoners are a subset of libertarians
People want to speed but they also want speeding laws.
Really "pirate" platform is an argument about freedom and ownership rights. It's a lot more philosophical then wanting to break a law, it's an argument that the law is morally wrong. It's closer to the Gun Control vs NRA or Abortion prior to Roe v Wade.
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Sex Offenders can't vote
So if you're caught urinating on the side of a tree, they revoke your right to vote?
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Don't you realise that when you recognise one lie as being valid, you open the floodgates ? Stand up and be counted. If you think copyright is being abused by the incumbents, say so, or forever doom the rest of us. Don't equivocate and hang around at the the outskirts - make your stand. Whichever way
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No, their best chance would be to establish and entrench a two-party winner-take-all system that deliberately excludes all meaningful third-party participation in both local and national politics.
(For those who didn't get the cynicism: a Pirate Party in the U.S. would be utterly fruitless since we have n
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I assume the GP is referring to the federal counter-terrorism laws and South Australia's anti-bikie laws.
Website link (Score:5, Informative)
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Yarr (Score:5, Interesting)
I signed up as a supporter. If you're Australian and involved in IT so should you. Even if you're not but care about censorship and IP related issues, sign up. Dont let people whose policies are dictated by industries who only have how much profit they can squeeze out as their only lobbyists on such issues.
Help fight for your own rights, dont rely on others to do the work for you. Its time, step up.
Sign up! Sign up! Sign up!
Re:Yarr (Score:4, Informative)
...and if you are not in Australia, sign up to your local party! [pp-international.net]
The Pirate Party will only become a major force in politics if people are prepared to put in the time, effort and cash needed to make it work. Here in the Pirate Party UK [pirateparty.org.uk], we are facing a huge challenge to raise enough money to put up a significant number of candidates in the next general election. We have 650 constituencies, each requiring a £500 deposit before we can give voters the chance to vote pirate.
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Couldn't you just pay with ten double-sided copies of 50GBP notes?
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Yes. All of those went fine without copyright for centuries, thank you very much, specially art, wich seems to be the more controversial one lately. Granted, much less grand-grand-sons would continue to profit from work they never did, but I really have no sympathy for them.
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Even if you're not but care about censorship and IP related issues, sign up. Dont let people whose policies are dictated by industries who only have how much profit they can squeeze out as their only lobbyists on such issues.
There's already a group that is lobbying for us effectively on those issues - the EFA [efa.org.au]!
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I wouldn't sign anything until I see their consitution.
If they advocate a real, workable solution that provides benefit to content creators while strengthening the rights of content consumers, then I'm interested.
If it's just "we should get stuff for free" then I hope they're consigned to the political oblivion they would so richly deserve.
So far, I'm feeling it's going to be closer to the latter than the former. I'd like to be pleasantly surprised though.
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"You can take our freedom, but you can never take, OUR LIVES!"
Err, wait...
Piratenpartei got 2.0% in german elections (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Pirate_Party [wikipedia.org]
This may not sound much, but it is actually pretty good for a new and totally unknown party with a scary name. Hopefully the aims of the party (internet Censorship, civil rights etc) will now get some public attention.
Re:Piratenpartei got 2.0% in german elections (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly - the PP pulled past the rightwing extremists with flying colors and taken on the title of the "biggest of the small parties". The news agencies moved them out of "Others" into their own column. To compare, the Greens got 1.5% when they first ran, and "save the Earth" sounds easier to convince people of than "copyright needs to be revised". This was a grand success! :D
Yes, they are expending fast (Score:4, Informative)
German Pirate Party gets some attention, though it could be more. They have been successful this far, because they address topics that major parties ignore (internet cencorship, civil rights, privacy, government transparency, open access, copyright, patents, ...). They got 0.9% at European Parliament election in June and now they got 2% in federal elections. Their membership number is exploding (currently almost 10,000 [piratenpartei.de], graph [piratenpartei.de]).
Even though some pirates hoped for a better result, 2% is absolutely astonishing. If their success continues (and polls show that PP has 13% of all first-time voters, some time is working for us), they may very well be in the Bundestag (parliament) in four years. By comparison, Green party had 1.5% in its first federal election in 1980 and since the following election, they are represented in the Bundestag with constantly over 5%.
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13% of all first-time voters, some time is working for us
I heard that it was 13% of the male first time voters.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Sorry for the misinformation, you are right. Here's the source: telepolis (German) [heise.de]
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1. Re-Brand using a backronym in order to appeal to a more general audience.
2. Expand the party platform somewhat to be less of a single-issue party.
3. Wait four years.
4. Seats in the parliament!
Note the absence of question marks.
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You mean there won't be any profit?
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You mean there won't be any profit?
There already _is_ profit. Somewhat above €500k in campaign cost reimbursements for getting more than 0.5% of the votes. Getting seats in the parliament is the next step.
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If they do that, they risk loosing support. One of the major reasons for this growth is that they defend a cause (against censorship and freedom of speech) which is supported by people from left and right-wings. It doesn't matter if you are more or less liberal in economic terms, if you defend Democracy, you defend freedom of speech.
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It worked for the Greens. They started out worse 30 years ago, and now they're regulars in parliament. A party that stays single-issue isn't going to _gain_ much support.
One of the major reasons for this growth is that they defend a cause (against censorship and freedom of speech) which is supported by people from left and right-wings.
And that precludes forming an opinion on other topics?
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Make it into a three- or four-letter backronym that's still recognizable. Heck, isn't that what texting is all about? ;)
PRTN, "Partei fuer Rechte der Buerger, Technologie und Neue Medien". I'm sure that with a bit of brainstorming, they can come up with something that makes more sense. Creativity isn't one of their weak points.
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Ok, you owe me a new monitor. And a new keyboard. Mine didn't survive being showered with coffee. ;)
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Given the number of people who like free stuff and who haven't properly grasped the effects of copyright law, I would have thought that number would be much higher.
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If the FDP has to chose between tax cuts for a few and civil rights for everyone, they'll chose the former. And they usually have to chose, since they can't govern alone. Also, not everyone buys into their libertarian agenda.
Not 2 percent in Germany (Score:3, Interesting)
Investigations are ongoing.
Re:Not 2 percent in Germany (Score:4, Informative)
There are two tables for the results of Berlin. The first one shows the results for the 'Erststimme' (first vote) which is used to elect a direct candidate for your district. Since there were no direct candidates from the pirate party for Berlin, the number of votes is 0. The second table shows the results for the 'Zweitstimme' (second vote), which is used to assign the seats in the 'Bundestag' proportionally to all parties that gained more than 5%. As you can see, the votes for the pirate party do appear in this table.
I hope this helps. But mind you, the German election system is extremely complicated.
Greetings from the Germany.
What we actually manages to do (Score:3, Interesting)
This is only the beginning. PP has shown that change is possible, that it is possible to reach positions where you can affect actual policies:
The swedish Pirate Party has one member in the European Parliament since this summers' election. This MEP is now one of the 14 MEPs in the group working with the european commission to work out a final solution for the Telecom package.
Could there be a more supid name (Score:3, Funny)
"What's the name of your organization?"
"The Pirate Party."
"Oh, aren't those the ones that believe in pirating other people's hard work?"
"No uhh... the name is a uhh... shut up, Arrr!!!!"
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"No, the name is a reference to fighting global warming!"
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By the way, there's no "Ahoy" tag?
Pirate Party is too narrow a term (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the Pirate Party should rebrand itself as the Internet Party, Digital Party or Future Party, some such thing, and just fight for the rights of all things that service the good of the Internet, which is kinda what they're doing anyway, except to the layman, who asks "what the hell has pirates got to do with the Internet"?
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Duh, if they rebrand themselves, they should use a backronym, of course. Conveniently enough, Pirate starts with a P, as does Party. Just knock a few letters from "Pirate(s)" to end up with a three- to four-letter backronym palatable to the general public.
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The Pirate Party name gets average joes asking what they actually stand for.
Calling it something mundane just leaves them thinking "Oh, just another run of the mill minority party".
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what about the Irate Party?
2% may not sound like much, but consider this: (Score:2)
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Perhaps the media companies who stand to lose quite a bit if the Pirate Party gains real traction are not exactly keen on giving it a lot of attention?
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good luck (Score:2)
All the best to our australian friends. For those who didn't follow the news: The Pirate Party has reached a newsworthy 2.1% here in Germany in our general election last sunday.
It's great to see that we're becoming an international movement, and the support we're gathering is considerable.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
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Out of curiousity, what freedom are you demanding here? To download something that is copyrighted?
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It's a valid question, and one that will be asked by every voter. Surely you have an answer?
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I, for one, look forward to watching the Peter Griffin Side Boob Hour.
They may just get a seat. (Score:3, Informative)
One of our current federal senators is Seven Fielding, of the christian political party called Family First. http://www.stevefielding.com.au/ [stevefielding.com.au]
That fool got his seat with only 1.8% of the primary vote. The remainder were on preferences.
Mr 2% (Score:2)
The GPL (Score:2)
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How quickly people forget that the GPL relies on copyright to function.
No, it's not forgotten at all. Stallman raised this issue a few weeks ago [gnu.org], and since then the Pirate Party UK [pirateparty.org.uk], at least, has decided to adopt the solution he proposed:
...a special rule for free software: to make copyright last longer for free software, so that it can continue to be copylefted. This explicit exception for free software would counterbalance the effective exception for proprietary software. Even ten years ought to be enough, I think.
(Okay, not exactly, because the exception would be for software released with source code, rather than for Free software explicitly).
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Even the gpl wouldn't be harmed much by reduction of duration of copyright. Taken from 100 years down to 15... hell the very first beta of the linux kernel would just be public domain as of a couple years ago.
The problem with copyright as it is now is not that it exists... it's that the sheer duration has raped the public domain for a hundred years nearly. No new works can be derived from the inspiration of others that have been long since forgotten.. or copyright suits could emerge.
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Any more excuses ? It would simply be more like the BSD licence, which IMHO is better anyway. Free is fre
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They shoudln't have advertised for a President (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the Pirate Way. What they needed was a Captain, A second Officer, Master at Arms, Helmsman, Navigator and you certainly can't forget cook. That's what it takes to run each and every pirate ship we have, not some new fangled rank like President.
What, no ninja party? (Score:2)
Re:Great... (Score:5, Informative)
I want a British pirate party now. We need one :/
That's okay, because we've got one [pirateparty.org.uk]! Just passed 500 paid-up members, too.