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[Schoq]

Aren't members of Finland's parliament allowed to abstain from voting?

[Nillo]

Right now though I try to vote for a party which I think would lead my country best as a whole.

Well, I can see where you're coming from, but I think it is a mistake to think that one party should lead the country. Even if you did vote for the Pirate Party, they surely wouldn't be the only ones sitting in parliament. There will always be votes for other parties, and those parties can handle the rest of the topics that don't have anything to do with copyrights, patents, censorship, civil rights, internet anonymity or transparency of government.

[C.A. Sinner]

Here in Sweden, I've seen a number of other parties suddenly get much more reasonable about copyright laws once they saw that our Pirate Party had a chance of getting into parliament.

You pretty much nailed why the pirate party is important. Yes they're a niche party and they don't have definite stances on everything, but the niche they fill is fairly large and they're the only ones filling it at the moment.

If they continue to be successful, it's going to enormously help raising awareness of this whole "copyright laws/online piracy" thing and turn it from a fringe topic into something that concerns mainstream society, kinda like what the green party movement did for environmentalism way back when.

[Tumetsu]

Aren't members of Finland's parliament allowed to abstain from voting?

Yes, but abstaining from voting in case I don't agree isn't much better. Besides AFAIK PP doesn't have policy for this. Correct if I'm wrong.

Well, I can see where you're coming from, but I think it is a mistake to think that one party should lead the country. Even if you did vote for the Pirate Party, they surely wouldn't be the only ones sitting in parliament. There will always be votes for other parties, and those parties can handle the rest of the topics that don't have anything to do with copyrights, patents, censorship, civil rights, internet anonymity or transparency of government.

I didn't say that country should be lead by one party. But more often than not only two or three sitting parties can have any real power at the same time in parliament. To make any decent improvement PP should be big enough, which also makes it major player in other important topics. Unless of course PP can affect to other parties with public support rather than direct traditional action in parliament, which would be preferable and so far it has been succesful in that in other countries.

Also, lets suppose that PP would get into significant position in parliament and I had voted them. What are the other parties in power? Likely ones I don't support that much and who will then decide for important topics poorly (IMO). Rather than PP I could have voted for another party which would have had opinions for these more important topics I agree with. As of now copyright doesn't bother me enough that I would place it over other important topics. Things may change, but right now there is issues which I think need my vote more. Recently I have felt that environmental issues need some more attention and voted accordingly. But I'm "moving voter" and will change my party of choice related to situation. Therefore PP is a possible candidate in future depending how it matures and copyright issues develop. Perhaps in next elections. Right now PP does seem to move in right direction IMO

Also keep in mind that I'm talking here about my local version of PP which probably isn't as well structured and working yet as its Swedish or German counterparts.

[SirNiko]

I wonder if this will strike a blow to Cloud Computing by illustrating a situation where hosting offline is hazardous.

[Paul Eres]

my thought while reading the above discussion -- in the US, our fringe parties want to end wars, return the US to the constitution, or to protect the environment. in europe, their fringe parties want to make piracy legal

[Alevice]

well, considering the state of affairs in the EU for the most part, I think it makes sense they don't address heavy topics that they simply cant relate.

[C.A. Sinner]

my thought while reading the above discussion -- in the US, our fringe parties want to end wars, return the US to the constitution, or to protect the environment. in europe, their fringe parties want to make piracy legal

that's because we have mainstream parties that want these things (at least theoretically ), except for the "consitution" stuff obv.

[Mikademus]

my thought while reading the above discussion -- in the US, our fringe parties want to end wars, return the US to the constitution, or to protect the environment. in europe, their fringe parties want to make piracy legal

...while the US want to influence Europe into the being like the US so that wanting to end wars, keeping to the constitution and protecting the environment would be fringe aspirations in Europe too.

Everyone wants to address that which is most fucked up at home. And as fucked up as the US patent and IP system might be there are other US things as or more fucked up that apparently are higher prioritised atm.

[dEnamed]

my thought while reading the above discussion -- in the US, our fringe parties want to end wars, return the US to the constitution, or to protect the environment. in Europe, their fringe parties want to make piracy legal

I guess that's the issue with a name like Pirate Party. No matter what is done, it'll be reduced to that one single aspect. What peaked my interest in the party before the Ponytime thing I mentioned dropped it back to bottom (I'll re-read the responses to that tomorrow and see if it changes my opinion), was their approach to privacy, censorship, the limiting of human and civil rights and similar symptoms of states hoping to become Orwell's posthumous inspiration.

I don't much care for copyright and intellectual property when it hinders progress or the artists interests. I do recognize the need to protect ones ideas but I don't recognize huge companies munching ridiculous amounts of money while stalling ideas. That needs to change in my opinion. Still, I'm bound by law and as such will adhere to it.
Still, I'm also much in support of initiatives like Directory of Open Access Journals or services like Jamendo.

[Paul Eres]

big companies took advantage of artists long before copyright existed, though. before copyright existed big publishers would just publish the books of an author, make millions of dollars, and give the author nothing. so i don't think getting rid of copyright would make things any better for artists, it'd give them even less protection from companies profiting off their work without paying them anything. that's the reason copyright came into being in the first place, to make sure that big publishers had to ask the permission of the authors/artists/musicians before selling their work for a profit

i think what would be better would be laws that made copyright non-transferable. in other words, a company would no longer be able to "buy" the exclusive rights to your book or music or game, and then profit off of it without giving you anything or with only giving you a small royalty. so the person who created spider man would *always* own the rights to spider man, marvel would not

[Nillo]

That's why we don't want to remove copyright law, we just want to reform it into something that actually makes sense. In its current state, copyright allows someone to profit from a work for more than 50 years after the death of the author. And in most cases, the majority of the profit goes to people who had nothing to do with the original idea.

Also, as Mikademus said, the reason I care about things like this and not ending wars is because Sweden doesn't actually go to war with anyone. The last time Sweden went to war against another country was in 1814. We also have another party in parliament that is completely dedicated to protecting the environment (Miljöpartiet). And we obviously don't need to protect the constitution since we don't have it.

[Mikademus]

Well, we do have a constitution (grundlagen), but going against it here, as in most of European countries, is a big thing and almost certain political death.

And it is actually at the core of the Pirate Party political program and why the movement was started: lobby organisations that largely originated from outside Europe (principally the US) have increasingly pushed for legislation here that also increasingly violates both national and EU constitutions. Because of this the lobby movement have been to change laws, which of course where enacted puts national laws at odds with their own and EU constitutions, especially in areas of sanctity of individual integrity, sanctity of correspondence (mail), that surveillance must go through due process before initiated or enacted, and that only the police has the mandate to police.

Also, the new legislation attempts to redefine established and already solidly working definitions of copyright and infringement from a system that promotes culture and personal use to a system of criminalising a majority for the benefit of a very selected few where society pays the legal and social costs as negative externalities.

Previously anti-Americanism has been about laughing at the stupidities "over there", but now it is increasingly about resisting the stupidities actively being exported through lobbying and far-reaching "local" US legislation (f.i. "improved" international copyright/IP/patent agreements, SOPA, ACTA) that will make the rest of the world part of the megadum.

[ham and brie]

i think what would be better would be laws that made copyright non-transferable. in other words, a company would no longer be able to "buy" the exclusive rights to your book or music or game, and then profit off of it without giving you anything or with only giving you a small royalty. so the person who created spider man would *always* own the rights to spider man, marvel would not

So is that Stan Lee, Steve Ditko or even Jack Kirby? Do you know about the recent case Kirby's kids lost against Marvel?

I think a law like that would potentially just be worse for everyone except lawyers.

[Radiant]

Who in their right mind would call themselves the Pirate Party? Do these people want to be taken seriously?

Yes. It's working because they can use all kinds of fun pegleg-and-parrot logos, and let's face it, classic pirates are cool.

Heck, the UK has had a Monster Raving Loonie party for awhile.

We want to reclaim the word and turn it into something positive. Something like Captain Jack Sparrow, if you know what I mean? And it's more catchy than anything else we could have used for a name - "Anti-Copyright Party" just doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Good point. It's funny how "software piracy" has absolutely nothing to do with "piracy", neither with the "yohoho and a bottle of rum" kind, nor with the current affairs on the east coast of Africa; it's just a scare term invented by (supposedly) RIAA-type people.