Swedish pirate party to run the pirate bay from inside the Swedish parliament | Hacker News Reader

Swedish pirate party to run the pirate bay from inside the Swedish parliament

torrentfreak.com

90 pointsjarrodvanda47 comments

Well, this will only happen if they actually get into parliament. Announcing the plans might get them more votes, making it self-fulfilling though.

It is fun legal hacking in any case.

For every vote it wins them, the proposed abuse of privilege will lose them three votes.

Perhaps the three votes wouldn't be cast in their favour anyway?

Anybody who doesn't think the idea of running the pirate bay out of parliament is awesome, hilarious and/or a gesture they want to make probably isn't voting for them anyways.

They're not going for mainstream votes, they're trying to amp up a small base -- extreme works.

I disagree; most of the people who would regard it as an abuse of privilege aren't planning to vote for them anyway.

The average PP voter will probably regard this as a use of privilege, not an abuse thereof.

I've wondered about exactly this principle before. If a MP were to read out large sections of a novel in parliament, and then it were to be published through the mechanism of hansard, would that invoke copyright infringement laws? I expect it would, and that parliamentary privilege wouldn't be a defence.

AIUI, you're wrong. MPs can say anything on the floor of the House. This is necessary to prevent them from being hassled by libel etc suits.

I know that it works against libel, but does it work against copyright? That's my point.

Parliamentary privilege varies from country to country, but I've never heard of there being any exceptions for copyright laws.

On the other hand, the abuse of parliamentary privilege to do something stupid is generally frowned upon.

When reading these articles, I continue to be amazed at how many euphemisms there are for "I want stuff for free".

If it was merely about getting stuff for free as in beer, I wouldn't be at all alarmed by the current legislative trends regarding copyright.

... just like it never ceases to amaze me how copyright can be extended seemingly forever in order to protect entrenched businesses.

How long until Mickey Mouse becomes public domain?

I don't seem to feel the same way that most people do on this issue. Why is it so bad that the corporation that owns the rights to Mickey Mouse, and still uses "him" to make money, retains the rights to that character? Why should it be our right to make money off it as well?

Disney has made a fortune modernizing classic fairy tales. The reason that such tales have lasted so long in our shared culture is that people have been free to evolve them into their own works. Who gave Disney permission to create stories based on the Brothers Grimm or Arabian Nights?

Imagine a culture years from now, where every piece of culture has been locked down by a corporation. What kind of stagnation would exist? Would only the authorized storytellers be allowed to participate in authorized creation?

Disney is fighting to extend copyright perpetually. They want to be making money from Mickey Mouse a 1000 years from now. The original artists will be long gone, but no one will be able to build upon Mickey as Disney has built upon ancient tales.

Read some Cory Doctorow for a better explanation of this. Makers is especially good.

Your examples of stories they derived movies from were in the public domain specifically because their creators were dead and no corporation owned the rights to them. So what if they are still making money off of something they are actively using? You actually believe our culutre is negatively affected by this? I bet you would't feel the same way if you were forced to relinquish your own wildly successful IP due to some span of time elapsing. That whole bit about a future where all parts of our culture are "locked down" by corporations is utter nonsense.

And how fair is denying future generations these goods fair? Who should we protect? Corporations or the society?

That's my point though. Society shouldn't own IP just because it is old and we got used to it. We should protect the IP's rightful owners until the rightful owners are gone from this Earth. You're acting as if you're defending our children's children's children by wanting Mickey Mouse forced into the public domain. This isn't a matter of 'evil megacorps' robbing our children of something precious.

Because copyrights exist to creste an incentive for the production of cultural goods. If Disney can milk their cows forever, there will be little incentive to produce new cows.

This monopoly on such cultural goods prevents the creation of derivedworks and reduce the value to the population of these goods.

They can have their copyright, but for a reasonable time.

"If Disney can milk their cows forever, there will be little incentive to produce new cows."

How so?

Why would you incur the risk of making new cows if the old cows are just as good?

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/lessig_nyed.html

http://www.ted.com/themes/tales_of_invention.html

and stratospark's excellent response a couple messages back

Disney isn't the only producer of "cows." If Disney wants to use it forever, let them. It would not stop anyone else from coming up with something original. Owning the rights to Mickey Mouse for so long hasn't even stopped them from producing new works all this time.

Don't you have that backwards? If I wish to make cartoons and use an anthropomorphic mouse, I have more incentive to create a new character so that I can avoid having to license Mickey. If Mickey were public domain, I'd have less incentive to create a new character, as I could just use Mickey.

In fact, I might have incentive to specifically avoid creating a new character, because Mickey has recognition.

What if Disney finds the character resembles too much a copyrighted character?

If we plan on extending copyright forever, we will end up with a pretty crowded characterspace in a couple decades. Are you sure you'll be able to come up with something that's completely original a couple decades from now? Is it sane?

In my opinion, there should be different terms for different copyright rights. The exclusive rights to make and distribute copies should be relatively, so after a reasonable time people should be able to make and distribute copies of Mickey Mouse cartoons, movies, comics, and so on.

However, the right to make derivative works should last longer, especially for characters. A good author makes a character seem like someone real to the reader or viewer. He establishes a personality for that character, and I don't have a problem with not allowing others to make stories with that character that are inconsistent with the personality established by the original author.

I love these people.

They are also neo-nazi kind of people. Still love them?

What are you talking about?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi/

It's sorta well-known here in Scandinavia, that aside from being on the frontier of fight against RIAA, they are also neo-Nazi closet cases.

Downvoters, enjoy your cognitive dissonance ;)

I'm not here to support the pirate bay or their party, but you do realise that ad homs from Orlowski thrown at one supporter of an organisation isn't a good basis for a strong argument?

I'm not going to argue over it, and yes, nearly any argument against Nazis turns ad hominem.

Here's a bit more context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg1S9n81ras

But am pretty sure one can rationalize their way out of anything.

What context? They received free server space and bandwidth from an ISP owned by a guy who some connections to so called extreme right-wing parties. What exactly does that prove? A guy who turned out to be a neo-nazi once bought me a couple of beers, does that make me guilty by association?

The connection is not as superficial as you like to present it. Lundström was a major backer of The Pirate Bay from the start, they would've had big troubles taking off without his help. Lundström went to court along with the four founders, and he was also charged and found guilty back then. Given his history of funding (then extremist) political parties, and his involvement in the PB, it is totally plausible he has a hand in piratpartiet as well.

There is quite a bit more between them than just an association. And if it was any other party backed by a Nazi am certain your threshold of tolerance would be quite lower than in this case.

As is apparent from my profile, I live in Scandinavia as well. You are mistaken at best and knowingly spreading FUD (lying) at worst when you say that.

What is well known is that Carl Lundström has been involved in some groups with very unpleasant political views (that I in no way share). Carl Lundström owns the ISP that hosted TPB in its first years. He may or may not still have a share in TPB, but it is fairly established that his role in the project never was anything other than a passive financier.

It is a very large leap, and close to libel if you ask me, to go from that to calling everyone involved in TPB and PP "neo-Nazi closet cases".

I assume that you think that half of the Swedish music industry are neo-Nazis as well, since they've worked at one time or another with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Karlsson ?

And I guess those musicians also own IKEA furniture [1]. Guilty by association.

[1] IKEA's founder was involved with a pro-nazi movement once. He apologized later.

(Edit: Corrected history. Thanks!)

Actually, Ingvar Kamprad wasn't involved with neo-Nazis, but the original Nazis. Good point nonetheless :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#Nazi_involvement

Swedish music industry didn't form its own party though.

I dunno, http://vbulletin.piratpartiet.se/showthread.php?t=15753&... and http://vbulletin.piratpartiet.se/showthread.php?t=20679&... sure comes across as wing-nuttery, no?

And please cut this BS about FUD. I know am pissing against the wind on this forum (and it reflects on my karma as we speak), but this is often down-played side of the community heroes. Maybe some people would like to know, they're a fucking pan-european party now.

Are either of those people core members of the party or are they just random people posting on a forum? And while I certainly agree that 9/11 conspiracy nutters and nutters, they seem to quite evenly distributed across the political spectrum. All parties have their crazies, and judging a political party as whole by their most "out there" members is never good way to foster intelligent debate.

I'm not offended (or motivated to downvote) by your claims, but after following your links it seems like quite weak sauce, and some more substantive documentation is needed.

Certainly, there seems to be connections between the Pirate Bay/Party and this guy who has an unsavory past and connections to an unpleasant political fringe. But how strong and how current are these connections? One might argue in turn that the RIAA is the lobbying arm of an industry which has had more than its share of dubious characters, both ethically and politically. Or point out that TPB was the main distribution vector (and helped to promote) a Swedish anti-fascist film last year - 'Nasty Old People', IIRC. Or we can get into the perennial internet argument about whether it's ethical to use PCs because IBM sold punch-card machines to Hitler's government.

I'm not saying your point is wrong, but that it needs to be backed up with more context than a simple allegation of guilt by association. I've worked for companies that were later found to have been breaking the law, but that doesn't make me a participant in their illegal activity.

It's refreshingly honest for a country to just openly admit they treat politicians as above the law, as opposed to pretending otherwise.

US Constitution, Article I, Section 6, Clause 1.

[Members of Congress] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same, and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Parliamentary immunity is not an concept isolated to Sweden.

That's just while Congress is physically in session (another use for the filibuster...?). Search "Larry Craig" or "Luis Gutierrez" for some recent arrests of American representatives.

Right, which is why the Pirate party is doing it as part of their official political activities.

I think it's pretty common, in fact. The idea is to prevent interested parties from abusing the legal system in order to prevent members of government from performing their responsibilities or gain leverage on them.

I think we'd quickly have an interesting court case in the US if a political party cited this as their defense for carrying out a criminal conspiracy during a session of Congress. After all, that clause only addresses what can happen during the session.

Honestly I can't see this going very far.

This will boil down to a debate on whether parliamentary privilege extends to being able to use resources of the state to advance goals which are not necessarily policy of the state or likely to become so, given where politician funding comes from.

Does hosting a server constitute "speech", in the sense that the writers of laws protecting MPs meant it?

Makes for a great headline though.

I can honestly say I didn't see this coming.

Sweet. Corrupt the system from within.

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