Hessians Hope to Weave Election Magic
Written by Ben Jones on December 17, 200727th January 2008 will see only the second election worldwide to include a Pirate Party on the ballot. It will not, however, be in Sweden, but the German state of Hesse, in south-west Germany.
The Hesse state Pirate Party is fronted by Christof Leng, a 32 year old Ph.D. student at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, where he does peer-to-peer research. Mr Leng was co-founder of the German National Pirate Party and served as it’s first chairman. He has also just been selected for a position in the steering committee of the German GI. He graciously made time in his busy campaigning schedule to talk to TorrentFreak about the upcoming election, and why people should ‘Vote Pirate’.
TorrentFreak - What topics are you focusing in on your campaign?
Christof Leng - With national data retention starting on January 1st, this is certainly a major topic not only for us, but for the opposition in general. Beyond that, the privacy infringements by government agencies are something to be discussed. Another big topic for young people are the new tuition fees, which lead to a drop in student numbers. We believe strongly in the knowledge society and stopping the concept of free education will hurt Germany’s future.
TorrentFreak - So more on the privacy than culture/copyright angles?
Christof Leng - Unfortunately, copyright is something that is not decided in Hesse or even in Germany, but mostly on the European level. Thus is plays a lesser role in this election. But we try to raise awareness and get support for the next European election in 2009.
TorrentFreak - How many people have you put up as candidates?
Christof Leng - Ok, I guess I should explain a little bit about the German election system first. We have (party) lists and direct candidates, and we don’t run for direct seats, only a party list. A direct win would be utopian, as it’s majority vote. Because we’re sane and realistic, we focus on the list, which in our case has seven pirates on it.
TorrentFreak - And the minimum requirement on the party list is 5%?
Christof Leng - To get into the regional parliament of Hesse, yes, but to my best knowledge, no new party ever achieved this on this first election in an existing federal state.
TorrentFreak - Are you, however, hopeful?
Christof Leng - There are other things to aim at. If you get 1% at a regional election, you get public funding.
TorrentFreak - Is that an attainable goal?
Christof Leng - As we are a brand new party it’s really hard to predict. The Hessian division of the party was founded in February with only a few pirates. Less than a year later we already have a efficient organization and were able to collect those 1000 signatures. And the growth has not slowed down by any means. It might be not as mind-blowing as in Sweden, but we are really happy with the development. Now we want to show that we are in fact serious party and can do campaigns and participate in elections. Furthermore, while we are already well-known in the interested public, we are still mostly unknown to the general public. Everything we currently do helps us to get more and more attention.
TorrentFreak - How has your party been viewed by the mainstream media?
Christof Leng - I have no real overview of that, sorry. I’m aware that a lot of newspaper articles have mentioned us as an example of the smaller parties in the upcoming election (I guess it’s because of the catchy name), but we have been ignored mostly so far. But the election campaigns just started to heat up, there’s not much news about the election in general. We have been covered by media interested in youth, Internet/computer, and/or civil rights. We are regularly covered by Heise Online, the most important German computer/Internet news site. A lot of journalists support us, because they feel the pressure of surveillance hits them hard and hits them first. Freedom of press is endangered and they are aware of it. There have been several scandals of government agencies investigating journalists and infringing privacy laws while doing that. You also read more about the US election 11 months away in *German* press than about the Hessian one 2 months away…
TorrentFreak - It must drive you mad.
Christof Leng - On the contrary. The heat of the election in Sweden really did hurt the Swedish pirates. If it is close and it seems important, many people are afraid of trying something new. We are new, we still need to build up our reputation. That’s much easier now than in an election where people will go for the safe bet anyway. We’d not be able to compete with the major parties mainstream media coverage. With them not being covered by the media either it’s not that much of an uphill battle, but it is still uphill, of course. It’s an optimal setting for us in Germany right now (as a party, not as a citizen). The two biggest parties form a national coalition. That boosts smaller parties naturally. Imagine the US president being a republican and the vice president a democrat…
TorrentFreak - Clearly you don’t have the financial support that the major parties have, how has that altered your strategies from the traditional methods used in a political campaign?
Christof Leng - We claim that we are experts of knowledge society, online cooperation, and sharing. That is also our strong point in the campaign. We use the Internet a lot, not only to reach voters, but to coordinate our campaign. Also, most of the population in Hesse is concentrated in the Rhein-Main area (Frankfurt is the biggest city). This makes it easy for us to reach a good part of the voters. Especially the voters that are interested in our topics (students, IT workers, journalists), and they use the internet.
TorrentFreak - with about 38Million of Germany’s roughly 82M citizens as net users, that’s clearly a core demographic.
Christof Leng - Exactly .
TorrentFreak - Is there much negative campaigning in Germany?
Christof Leng - yes, but only bashing the big parties. We are mostly ignored as a party. But… they start adopting our positions. the SPD tries to look like a civil rights party in comparison with the CDU, even though they work together on data retention in the national government. the Green party made a big fuss on their last convention about how bad data retention is. The Left party tout the topic too. Point is, none of the parties takes the topic seriously.
TorrentFreak - Why is that?
Christof Leng - the SPD and Green Party prepared much of what is going on now back when they were in government. The SPD and Left party form a coalition in Berlin and just issued new laws for public surveillance. each of the established parties plays the white knight for civil rights only as long as they are in opposition. they are brainwashed as soon as they are in government. That’s why we need the Pirate Party.
Jan Huwald, Political secretary of the Piratenpartei Deutschland was similarly upbeat about the election. “Most motivating in the upcoming election campaign is it’s constant relation to grassroot political movement. Beside the visible activity the word is spreading about the pirates. Citizens are aware of our new party much more than traditional media’s coverage might suggest. In fact while collecting signatures many people actively searched for our signing stand to help out”
The question still remains, however, if the Hesse party will do any better than Rick Falkvinge, and the Swedes did in 2006.
Previously: uTorrent Gains Popularity, Azureus Loses Ground
Next: IFPI Pressure Leads Police to Detain File-Sharing Students
28 Responses
Well good luck to ‘em. I wish them success! I can’t wait to see a Pirate Party startup here.
I wish you success!
stopp vorratsdatenspeicherung!
GL!
Vote them and kick RIAA + MPAA out of Germany \O/
what a disaster! the MPAA could not have bought and paid for a better anti-filesharing campaign than these nutters are enacting
filesharing is not piracy, it is not theft, filesharing is a social networking phenomena created by the ease and abundance of copy and distribution technologies
piracy is the criminal act of organizing a commercial operation based on infringing copyright for profit
the greater public’s first knowledge of filesharing comes from one of two sources: 1. anti-p2p propaganda by the **AA, or 2. their kids downloading an mp3
meanwhile, the greatest minds in the p2p world create political parties with jolly roger flags and call themselves pirates. your political enemies are pissing themselves with laughter at your niavity
Christof Leng, your arrogance to stand as a representative for filesharing is an ego trip. you are doing more to damage the political future of filesharing than could be organized by the MPAA. how do you answer your critics who say that by taking the mantle of piracy you are consenting to the label of a criminal character? you gonna hop up and down on one leg and say “arrgghhh”
@h33t
you seem to ignore the fact about the direction the german pirateparty is taking, p2p is only a secondary goal of the party. the primary goals are privacy and openaccess.
and christoph is not doing this as an ego trip, since he no longer is a representative of the pp. (as stated in the text)
@4
I´m not Christof - but.. what ist a “representative of filesharing” (and where can I find this statement).
To answer the question about the “mantle of piracy”. Really a point of view. But I can say that we have positiv press comments and not only at specific news-sites (heise). As an example I can take “Handelsblatt” as an example. A serious economy-newspaper wich cooperates with the publishing company “Dow Jones” (wich publishes “The Wall Street Journal”). A nice article with an embedded video-interview with Jens Seipenbusch comparing us with the Greens at the beginning 80´s ending with a wish that it will not last another 20 years before the (not only political) world listen to important (”new”) topics.
So the “mantle of piracy” may exist at this time. The name is strange - no way around it. But we are growing with (or because of) this name and are working serious and accurate wich is (and will further on be) honored.
Regards
ALOA
I live in Bad Homburg, Hessen,Germany and will vote for the Piraten Partei.
Any word on an official website where I could talk to some representative in order to ask how I could help out?
Bad Homburg is a city filled with mostly old people, but there is a small community of gamers/sharers too.
I really hope they get the 1% vote, best place to advertise would be in internet cafes I think.
@7
Hello :)
On the official websites you will find al lot of adresses ( piratenpartei[dot]de or piratenpartei-hessen[dot]de ).
Greetings
ALOA
@EatMan
primary goals of privacy and openaccess are great and laudable. so why burden YOUR politics with the Swedish ‘pirate’ disease? the ‘pirate parties’ are about supporting TPB ethos of refusing to acknowledge copyright for no other reason than “I can”. a immature kamikaze attitude that will surely end in tears
“The Hesse state Pirate Party is headed by Christof Leng”. by ego i mean he does it for himself not for others because his actions do not help others as he describes, on the contrary
@aloa5
typical scenario:
father to daughter “what are you doing on your computer?”
daughter “daddy, i am downloading mp3’s”
father “is that not illegal? is it not a criminal act of copyright piracy to share your music files with your other 8 year old friends?”
“but daddy, The Pirate Party says it is ok”
“ah, ok then, if there is a political party supporting copyright theft then i guess there is no problem”
“but daddy isnt theft wrong?”
“not when we vote The Pirate Party into power!”
i must admit “pirate party” doesn’t have nice connotations to it.
“freedom party” would be a much better choice…
Good luck guys!
@9 an @10
Typical scenario (even as we don´t say that downloading something illegal ist O-.K. ;) ):
“Dad - I heard about a “Freedom Party”, what do you think about”?
“Uh - ANOTHER freedom party?”
You can set every “serious” name instead. Anything with “Democracy” sounds good…. No one would take care of it. Explicit a party in Germany has the problem that no one take notice of it. Our name is nearly a guarantee of a second question like: “what the hell are THEY for?” (Christof called it catchy - my english is not that good :/ ). From this moment on we´ve won (”oh - not THAT bad… but why did they have such a silly name?”).
And from this point of sight we have to balance reasons and risks. Would we have been founded without this name? Would we have >600 people (+1 every day) in our party? As far as I know there where two other partys wich tried something like this. One was called “internet-party” I think. Another one hm.. “public rights party”. No one has ever heard of them (20 partys founded every year in Germany).
My point:
“good” name-> no one knows
“bad” name-> “silly name- but good points”
I prefer the second way. ;) Even as I think that the connotations as an “civil rights party” can work - once established. We also have a “Chaos Computer Club” - no one think about the “Chaos” in it - they are against Dat-Mining and this is the connotation there. See it on the long run.
Regards
ALOA
Oh, yes, that reminds me of the whole data retention thing in Germany…
Germans do great things for online privacy/anonymity, like running a large amount of Tor nodes and what the people at that university in Dresden are doing - I’d hate to see that go away.
[quote]what a disaster! the MPAA could not have bought and paid for a better anti-filesharing campaign than these nutters are enacting
[/quote]
With all the idiocy you are talking on here, it really makes me not want to join the site h33t, if you are affiliated with them.
File sharers have just taken on the “pirate” image because it’s a fun image.
Arrrrr! :)
Things won’t change by vote, they never had they never will. Stop giving blank check to corrupted worst-than-nazi politicians.
This “pirate party” is another shit, like the “green party” who just turned into another bullshit corrupted worst-than-nazi party
THIS is gonna be interesting. But a “pirate party” isn’t the best image to convey to the public if you want support.
http://paidandpopular.blogspot.com
@14
Maybe. I would say: “Things won´t really change by revolution - they never had, they never will”. ;)
[quote comment="241342"]File sharers have just taken on the “pirate” image because it’s a fun image[/quote]
the right to privacy and open access is ultimately trivialized when the politically active voices of filesharing name themselves in the honor and spirit of TPB. who are all about, and dont forget this, refusing to remove infringing content
public perception can potentially turn against legitimate filesharing with disastrous results if under public scrutiny the origin of the pirate parties is linked to criminal enterprise. then it is all going to be just fun
i hear you guys about it all being a fun catchy name, but you are living on another planet. single issue politics is difficult but works best by using its base of support to lobby and petition those in power who can advocate open access rights. no professional politician is gonna champion the cause of The Pirate Party for not only the fear of looking comical but more seriously because criminal piracy is a big problem for our economies (remember filesharing is NOT piracy)
in the battle for the public, perception is everything, facts count for nothing
it is too late for the USA. filesharing has become a crime in the eyes and hearts of the public and media. there is the possibility that it can happen in Europe, is defending filesharing rights what The Pirate Parties are about? if so then make a great distance between yourselves and TPB and all symbols and names belonging to criminal piracy of copyright
dont you have anything better to do with all this organizing energy you possess? here is an idea for you: organize a political party and go out there into the land of grownups and ensure we get the world we want
politics is black and white. whose cause are The Pirate Parties ultimately assisting? not filesharing
tbh I don’t like the name either, it provides a wrong picture.
Intentions are good tho, no doubt
[quote comment="241433"][quote comment="241342"]File sharers have just taken on the “pirate” image because it’s a fun image[/quote]
the right to privacy and open access is ultimately trivialized when the politically active voices of filesharing name themselves in the honor and spirit of TPB. who are all about, and dont forget this, refusing to remove infringing content
public perception can potentially turn against legitimate filesharing with disastrous results if under public scrutiny the origin of the pirate parties is linked to criminal enterprise. then it is all going to be just fun
i hear you guys about it all being a fun catchy name, but you are living on another planet. single issue politics is difficult but works best by using its base of support to lobby and petition those in power who can advocate open access rights. no professional politician is gonna champion the cause of The Pirate Party for not only the fear of looking comical but more seriously because criminal piracy is a big problem for our economies (remember filesharing is NOT piracy)
in the battle for the public, perception is everything, facts count for nothing
it is too late for the USA. filesharing has become a crime in the eyes and hearts of the public and media. there is the possibility that it can happen in Europe, is defending filesharing rights what The Pirate Parties are about? if so then make a great distance between yourselves and TPB and all symbols and names belonging to criminal piracy of copyright
dont you have anything better to do with all this organizing energy you possess? here is an idea for you: organize a political party and go out there into the land of grownups and ensure we get the world we want
politics is black and white. whose cause are The Pirate Parties ultimately assisting? not filesharing[/quote]
‘naming themselves in the honour of piratebay’ What planet are you living in? Every time I see one of your comments, h33t, I wonder more and more just what sort of alternate reality you live in. Pirates existed long before peter and co set up a website a few years ago. Pirates were democratic leaders, often working to change laws, and undermine politicians bought and sold by the rich and pwoerfull, using the newest technologies. As a metaphore, it’s apt.
Couple of things to point out to you, since you seem to be reading the comments, and not the article - the Hesse party is not dealing with copyright at all, because that just is not handled at the state level. Privacy, and associated rights, ARE, however.
As far as linked to criminal enterprise - as far as I know (and so far I’ve spoken with over 20 of the different pirate parties around the world) none of them have any ties to ‘criminal enterprise’. Perhaps you should do some (I’d usually add ‘more’ here, but that would imply some had been done in the first place) research.
help me get this correct Ben Jones, there is no relationship between TPB and the political pirate party in Sweden which was the first and inspired the rash of parties in the UK, USA, Germany, etc.. it is all coincidental due to some revolutionary digital phenomenon happening in Sweden and nothing to do with the cash that is swashing about the place
my error then is to mistakenly associate the shared name of Pirate with the shared issues of copyright etc which is also all coincidental
and i have further erred because 5 members of TPB are not up on criminal charges for facilitation of copyright infringement in Sweden
furthermore, i have mistakenly made the link between copyright piracy and piracy of the highseas especially romantic swash buckling hero type of piracy!
fuck me how did i make such a mess
I don’t know how it’s in the rest of the world, but the “Pirate theme” in cloth. bags, ties, caps and so on is very popular up here in Sweden.
Even small babies/children have pirate-bodies, small cosy pirate gloves. (My 2 year and 5 year old both have pirate gloves).
So, the pirate theme is not that bad.
/Perty
@h33t:
I completely agree with everything that 1) aloa5 and 2) Anonymous (great name, really original ;) hehe) have said, firstly that with a name like Pirate Party, people are going to prick up their ears and think “eh, well thats something new, i wonder what that is” *clicks on link to Pirate Party website*.
And secondly that its a fun name with a great deal of potential for advertising the party and its so funny to think of the stereo-type politician with a patch over one eye with a bottle of rum in his/her hand. *giggles*
Finally, Good Luck Pirate Party, if i lived in Germany/Hesse, i would certainly vote for you, and probably try to help you in whatever way i could.
This need to be a world wide phenominon. Looks like there are Pirate parties coming up world wide. Lets get the momentum going.
I’ve never been on an electoral role or ever voted before, but I reckon I would for this party .
h33t:
“the right to privacy and open access is ultimately trivialized when the politically active voices of filesharing name themselves in the honor and spirit of TPB. who are all about, and dont forget this, refusing to remove infringing content”
And you never pause to consider the fact that copyright-law reform is one of the main issues of these movements?
At this point the pirate-parties are the only ones standing up against the tidal wave of civil rights abusing legislation being passed. One of the main reasons that there even is a growing “politically active voice” is the ingenious choice of the pirate brand!
h33t:
You are correct, there is no (I repeat no) connection between the Pirate Bay and the Swedish Pirate Party (or, AFAIK, any PP).
I think you’re wrong when you say it’s coincidental that they’ve both arisen, though. It’s defininitely not random. It was an idea whose time had come, and which is taking on many different faces.
Compare Greenpeace and the Green Parties.
So why Sweden? Well, my best explanation was that we were a few months ahead due to early high-speed broadband rollout. When you put technology in people’s hands, they discover what it can be used for. (100 Mbit is expected in an apartment in Sweden today. I had 10/10 Mbit in 1998, pretty normal at the time. Compare that to the US, where most are still not at that level today.)
Rick Falkvinge
Party leader, Swedish PP
[quote comment="241342"]File sharers have just taken on the “pirate” image because it’s a fun image.
Arrrrr! :)[/quote]
yes, it’s like the word “gay”!
100 Mbit is expected in an apartment in Sweden today ?
I’m moving to Sweden!
It’s today!
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