European Politicians Launch Pro-Filesharing Campaign
Written by Ernesto on January 19, 2008Greens EFA, a coalition of two political parties that currently have 42 seats in the European parliament, have launched a pro-filesharing campaign named “I Wouldn’t Steal”. Their goal is to counter the anti-piracy propaganda put forward by the entertainment industry, and encourage people to download and share.
The message put forward by the parties is pretty strong: “Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That’s simply not true , making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing.”
Greens EFA claim that the entertainment industry exploits artists and sell propaganda, and want to make the public aware of this. We couldn’t agree more of course, and it is good to see that these established political parties are attempting to decriminalize filesharing. As they write: “The media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area , lobbying to adapt laws to criminalize sharing, turning consumers into criminals.”
In collaboration with RÃ¥FILM the parties created a short clip for the campaign. which they made available on BitTorrent by uploading it to The Pirate Bay. It’s beginning to look like things are finally starting to change, politicians are not scared anymore to embrace BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, and stand up for people’s right to share culture.
The Pirate Bay is of course delighted by the campaign and even updated the logo on their frontpage to show their support. Pirate Bay’s Brokep told TorrentFreak: “I love that there are smart people that understand how the world works and I’m gonna support them with whatever means I can”.
Let’s hope the entertainment industry is paying attention as well.
Previously: New Mvix Media Center Includes BitTorrent Client
Next: How Pirates Will Change The Entertainment Industry
63 Responses
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Nice! Kick their ass :D
If this becomes legal in the EU, hey, maybe it’ll have enough force to drive the movement to decriminalize filesharing in the US as well.
Wonderful! :D:D
Lovely stuff. This looks to be a step in the right direction.
And no-one from my country is involved in this. :(
Oh well. If Britain are involved, we’ll follow. As usual.
If this issue is communicated as “shareing is caring” treehugger style.
It wil still not solve the complete “imaginary property” and ” Artificial scarcity ” problems.
And even IF it gets pushed, we still need a “assurance” called Privacy.
Which is becomeing lees feasable after every political desicion we see happening.
hurray people in europe who arent jsut from sweden are doing something :D
I love the whole stealing is stealing thing, the equivalent to downloading an album would probably be being given the plans and parts needed to make a copy of the car someone has, then building an exact duplicate.
^_^
Spread it :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmXv3naV_IQ
Excuse me for my language, but that is fucking amazing.
In the Aftonbladet video they have a film producer saying the usual… we spend a lot of money, and if we can’t get that back there wont be any films/music/games.
He is wrong. Legalizing file sharing probably wouldn’t make them “lose” much more money. Also, culture will always be produced, as long as people want it.
Hopefully though, we’ll get rid of those films they produce just to get more money. I hate those…
BEST DAY IN MY LIFE!
ok maybe not but its pretty good ;)
Can’t wait until file sharing is legalised in EU and US but until that day I will continue to use the newer types of bit-torrent-like anonymous p2p to discover new music and video, e.g dargens (www.dargens.com)which is based on a combination of F2F, ANts p2p, Bit Torrent and Audio Galaxy.
More people need to support the Pirate Party not because they are telling consumers to break the law but cos they want to change the law.
@6
Sorry, the producer is Swedish :-) From the Greens Party.
@ 12
But the leader of the euro group is dutch :)
And check, the content of that group !
Austria The Greens , The Green Alternative European Greens 2
Belgium Ecolo European Greens 1
Green! European Greens 1
Denmark Socialist People’s Party¹ Independent 1
Finland Green League European Greens 1
France The Greens European Greens 6
Germany Alliance ‘90 / The Greens European Greens 13
Italy Federation of the Greens European Greens 2
Latvia For Human Rights in United Latvia European Free Alliance 1
Luxembourg The Greens European Greens 1
Netherlands GreenLeft European Greens 2
Europe Transparent Independent 2
Spain Confederation of The Greens European Greens 1
(Catalonia): Initiative for Catalonia Greens European Greens 1
(Basque Country) Eusko Alkartasuna European Free Alliance 1
Sweden Green Party European Greens 1
United Kingdom (England and Wales): Green Party of England and Wales European Greens 2
(Scotland): Scottish National Party European Free Alliance 2
(Wales): Plaid Cymru , Party of Wales European Free Alliance 1
My last message was bullshit
The more people share the more people know about a certain product (promotion) and therfor it is also possible that MORE people are eager to buy certain albums, movies, games.
Even thou filesharing is a HOT that doesnt stop the fact that there are still enough people out there who like to have a original copy.
Long live sharing, The more we share the more items will be bought. (my theory)
Finally! Good video too!
Awesome! <3
This is one of the best things ive seen in weaks. Good job. Now parehaps they will realise that they cant make their own shildren criminals just to earn money.
Utterly pointless, no government or legitimate legal body will ever condone filesharing. All this will do is bring more political heat on P2P.
Yeeeeeeeesssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so glad i live in Europe:)
Awesome, now use the money to buy some cruise missles and blow up the HQ of the MPAA :D.
Thats really great. If the greens in Germany speak out for sharing they have my vote. Till now, however, Im for the german Pirate Party !
[quote comment="267459"]Utterly pointless, no government or legitimate legal body will ever condone filesharing. All this will do is bring more political heat on P2P.[/quote]
Your argument is flawed. Filesharing is already condoned, because it is LEGAL..
Filesharing has never been illigal, that is false propaganda the lobbyists have been feeding you.
“Illigal” filesharing on the other ahnd is a different matter, some places its legal and only having copyrighted property is illigal while sharing it is legal.
Is it bad to have political heat on P2P issues? I think thats EXACTLY what P2P needs because where all in this shit (sorry) thanks to the lack of it.
Democracy will take place, the people will decide and you will be assimilated.
I agree with “teh borg”, but then again I _am_ a scatmuncher.
Scat!
Yum!
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