Just two weeks after the Swedish Pirate Party won a seat in the European Parliament, the German PiratenPartei has gained a seat in the German government. Jörg Tauss has left the Social Democrats Party (SPD) and has joined the Pirate Party.
The two million dollar fine handed out to Jammie Thomas by a Minnesota jury this week hasn’t done the music industry’s image much good. While lawyers and high level managers at the major labels cracked open the Champagne, artists such as Moby and Radiohead shook their heads in shame at what the music world has become.
The entertainment industry battle to decrease the use of file-sharing networks to share copyrighted content never seems to end. Just this week, four more European member states came out with initiatives to continue to crackdown on piracy, many of which are not only draconian, but also doomed to fail.
The Digital Britain report will be published shortly. However, no government department will be completely knowledgeable in such a nuanced subject as peer-to-peer file-sharing. So what basic errors might the generalists make based on the submissions made to the BERR last year?
Following a request from the entertainment industries, a French court has ordered the P2P news site Numerama to cover the cases of 27 convicted file-sharers. For their efforts the site receives 10,000 euros which they promise to spend wisely by supporting a pro file-sharing cause.
For more than a year Project Chanology has been protesting against the Church of Scientology, both on the Internet and in real life. As of today they are joined by The Pirate Bay, who are helping “Anonymous” to rally support for their upcoming protests aimed to make Scientology walk the plank.
With 7.1 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party has shocked its critics and secured a seat in the European Parliament. The Pirates received more votes from those under 30 than any other party in the European elections yesterday, and this was celebrated with pints of rum and loads of pirate chants.
The Pirate Party has won a huge victory in the Swedish elections and is marching on to Brussels. After months of campaigning against well established parties, the Pirate Party has gathered enough votes to be guaranteed a seat in the European Parliament.
In the aftermath of the Pirate Bay verdict the controversy surrounding judge Tomas Norström grows bigger and bigger. Most recently, defense lawyer Per E Samuelsson sent a letter to the Appeal Court in which he explains that the younger generation has lost faith in the legal system because of the shady selection procedure.
In their race for one or more seats in the European Parliament, the Swedish Pirate Party has gathered support from all layers of society, including some well known public figures. One of them is Lars Gustafsson, one of Sweden’s most prolific writers, who openly expressed his support for the Pirate Party today.
In an unexpected move, the Swedish Minister of Culture said in a speech that she’s happy with the sentences handed out to the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial. Her comments on an ongoing court case go too far, and are probably unconstitutional according to critics. Music industry insiders, on the other hand, cheered during her speech.
