At 09:10 during a cold January morning in 2010, the defendant in the case says she was tucked up in bed. A movie copyright holder, however, insists the retired single woman was illegally sharing files on the Internet.

The settlement letter sent to the woman by the copyright holder stated clearly that on January 4th she’d been using the eDonkey network to share a violent film about hooligans. For this offense she must pay compensation of around 650 euros or face court, they said.

Like so many claims of this nature, the accusation was problematic. Although she previously subscribed to a 2-year Internet and telephone package, six months earlier the woman had sold her computer and didn’t even maintain an email address. After refuting the allegations of the rightsholder, the case went to court.

The Munich District Court handled the case, and heard evidence that not only is the woman computerless, she lives alone and doesn’t possess a wireless router either. How the alleged offense could have been carried out even by a third party remains a mystery.

Nevertheless, none of the above protestations were of interest to the court. Despite the fact that the copyright holder and/or their tracking company could have made errors, or that the woman’s ISP could have identified her account incorrectly, none of these avenues were examined.

“Normally the copyright holder has to prove who did the copyright infringement. As this is hard for him – because he has no chance to look into thousand houses – the courts in Germany alleviate this burden of proof,” explains Christian Solmecke, a lawyer with Wilde Beuger Solmecke, the law firm that defended the woman.

Solmecke told TorrentFreak that initially all a copyright holder has to do is show that a protected work has been traded via a specific IP-address, then the accused has to prove their innocence.

“In the next step the defendant has to prove, that neither he nor anyone else who had access to his internet account did the copyright infringement. In my opinion our client has proved that fact. If you have no computer and no W-LAN, there has to be a failure in the backtracking of the IP-address,” he added.

The bottom line in Germany is that account holders are responsible for everything that happens on their account and if they can’t prove their innocence, they are found guilty. The woman must now pay just over 650 euros in damages to the copyright holder.

There can be little doubt that German law is tipped heavily in the favor of rightsholders. Little surprise then that Germany is without doubt the worst place in the world for pay-up-or-else-schemes. So how often are people wrongly accused?

“Every second person tells me, that he or she appears to be wrongfully accused,” says Solmecke. “Some of them lie even to their lawyer but most of them tell the truth. From my point of view, there has to be a big mistake in some of the different backtracking-systems.”

So for now the formula for rightsholders seems incredibly simple.

IP address. Accusation. Profit.

Source: Retired, Computerless Woman Fined For Pirating ‘Hooligan’ Movie

Recent polls for the federal elections show that the Pirate Party is now polling double digits across the country. With 10 percent of the total vote, the Pirates would become the third largest party in the country if federal elections were being held this week.

This means that the good run in Berlin, where nearly 9 percent of the people voted for The Pirate Party, hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the country. On the contrary, support for the Pirates only increased.

Perhaps even more impressively, it also shows that the party nearly quintupled their voter base since the last federal elections two years ago. With 845,904 votes at the 2009 federal elections, the Pirate Party got stuck at 2 percent of the vote, where 5 percent was needed to enter the Bundestag.

“This is a landmark event,” godfather and founder of Pirate Party movement Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak commenting on the news. “Getting to mainstream awareness takes metric tons of work. Getting to 10% in a poll is an achievement that only some five parties achieve per country in an entire century.”

In common with all other Pirate Parties across the world, the German Pirate Party’s policy focuses around three pillars; shared culture, free knowledge, and fundamental privacy. Based on the recent election and poll results, these key points appeal to a wide audience.

Although the results of the polls are promising, there is still a long way to go before new federal elections are held in Germany. The difficult task for the Pirates is to keep the momentum going. However, Rick Falkvinge thinks that this week’s poll results are a clear sign that they are on course.

“This isn’t an election result, but it is still something that starts to shift policy making away from neomercantilistic monopolies and toward the free exchange of TICKS (tools, ideas, culture, knowledge, and sentiments) that build the next generation of industries. That’s good for every country and for the youth in particular.”

Despite being just five years young, the German Pirate Party has already booked several successes. The party currently has more than 150 members in elected offices across Germany and with their recent surge in popularity this appears to be just the beginning.

Source: German Pirate Party Riding the Wave of Success

When the German politician Siegfried Kauder introduced a two-strikes model to beat online piracy a few days ago, his own actions with regard to copyright were weighed carefully.

It didn’t take long before people spotted Kauder’s first infringement on his personal website, which was quickly followed by another one.

In what has now been dubbed Kaudergate, the pro-copyright politician was hosting at least two photos on his website which were taken from a photo sharing site without permission (1, 2).

When blogs and news sites picked up this ‘mistake’ the photos were quickly removed, but by then it was already too late.

Confronted with the blatant copyright infringements, Kauder tried to turn the tables in an attempt to use his failure to support his plans. He told the German news outlet Der Spiegel that this is a perfect example of how effective a two-strikes policy would be.

“I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to show how the warning model works. The use of the two copyright-protected photographs was brought to my attention. The photos were then removed, so the warning model works,” he stated.

An interesting attempt at spinning things around, if it weren’t for the fact that the copyrighted photos are still hosted on the server of Kauder’s website. So even after being outed by hundreds of blogs and the mainstream press two days ago, the politician – who is also a lawyer – continues to infringe copyrights (1, 2).

Even worse, Kauder claimed in the press that he had somehow “licensed” the photos after he realized his mistake. However, the photographer who owns the rights denies this and commented that the politician hasn’t been in contact at all.

One has to wonder that when a politician who wants to introduce a two-strikes anti-piracy system doesn’t even know how to stop breaking the law, how can he demand that others should?

Needless to say, the public is now demanding that he will be disconnected from the Internet. That would probably set a good example.

Source: Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan

Although the identities of the plaintiff, defendant and file-sharing site are redacted from court papers, the case reference (28 0 362/10) reveals a lawsuit between EMI Music and ISP HanseNet Telekommunikations.

EMI argued that HanseNet was involved in infringing its copyrights by providing Internet access to subscribers using a file-sharing links site.

To this end, the label argued that the ISP, Germany’s 4th largest, should stop providing subscriber access to the service by way of DNS blocking. Furthermore, to counter the site changing its URL or IP address to circumvent any court ordered injunction, EMI also asked for the site’s current and future IP addresses to be blocked.

HanseNet argued that as a mere conduit of information as detailed under the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC, it is not responsible for the actions of others using its services.

The ISP also argued that infrastructure for carrying out such blocking isn’t in place and, in any event, such blocks are easily circumvented making it technically impossible for it to comply fully with any banning order.

Furthermore, even if a block could be carried out effectively, HanseNet said that such action is not required by law. The ISP argued that the blocking of a website constitutes a substantial interference with the fundamental right to freedom of information, and without legal basis could not be carried out.

In its recent ruling, the Cologne Regional Court decided that as an ISP HanseNet is not liable for the infringements of its customers. Describing the lawsuit as “unfounded”, the Court dismissed the case.

Christian Solmecke, a lawyer heavily involved in file-sharing cases at the Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, told TorrentFreak that in his opinion the decision is correct.

“The defendant is only a technical provider. He is not allowed to track the traffic of its users. The judge said, that looking into the traffic stream would be an infringement of German communication law. Furthermore the court stated, that blocking a domain is ineffective and therefore useless,” he explains.

Solmecke says that the Cologne Regional Court usually makes decisions in favor of copyright holders so the change in this case is welcome.

“We will try to use some of the argumentation of the court in our actual file-sharing cases. Especially we will try to convince the court, that parents have no chance to control the surfing behavior of their children,” Solmecke concludes.

Source: Court: ISP Not Responsible When Subscribers Infringe Copyrights

Then last month, with the ooos and aaahs barely silenced, along came another beefed-up lawsuit, this time on behalf of Voltage Pictures, the studio behind The Hurt Locker. A record-breaking amount of people are set to be targeted as a result of this single action, an incredible 24,583 in total.

But while these US lawsuits generate huge amounts of anger among opponents, and perversely impress with their sheer scale, over in Europe they’re really showing how it’s done. Germany is the birth place of these pay-up-or-else schemes and with their huge experience they’re making the United States look like rank amateurs.

According to mind-boggling new data released by Internet industry association ECO and linked by Janko Roettgers, German ISPs are handing over the personal details of their subscribers to rightsholders at the frightening rate of 300,000 every month. That’s more than the United States has managed in total – ever.

ECO says that the letters, which demand anything up to $1700 to make legal action go away, coupled with rising availability of legal content, have caused a drop in unlawful file-sharing of some 20% since 2008.

These figures, ECO say, make the case for not adopting measures to force ISPs to block file-sharing sites, measures which they say require “deep intervention” into the basic rights of the population.

“Blocking methods, such as those planned and advertised by the European Commission last week at the e> G8 Forum in Paris are unnecessary,” ECO said in a statement.

“First, there are many more legal and user-friendly products available now than several years ago. On the other hand, this shows a consistent approach on illegal downloads without resorting to blocking,” they continue.

However, ECO’s Oliver Süme notes that the cash demands levied by rightsholders are sometimes excessive, and a simple telling-off could achieve a useful effect.

“In most cases, a warning letter would be enough,” said Süme. “It does not always have to be a demand for several hundred euros.”

While rightsholders are making huge amounts from these settlement schemes from increasing numbers of threatening letters sent, and organizations like ECO are reporting drops in illicit sharing as a result, that’s not necessarily the full picture.

The letters are only sent out to Internet subscribers using P2P services to obtain unauthorized content, and it is unclear how many users have switched to untraceable services, such as cyberlockers, or are now taking measures to conceal their identities.

What is clear though is that if site blocking measures are introduced, file-sharing volumes will be hit, at least in the short-term. The effect of that is that fewer people will sitting ducks for these settlement letters, which have become a useful source of revenue for rightsholders. For some, reduced piracy could mean reduced revenue.

Source: Anti-Piracy Groups Send 3.6 Million File-Sharing Cash Demands

The reason for the raid is unclear at this point, but the Pirate Party believes that it’s unrelated to the party’s activities. The board of the Pirate Party has promised full transparency to assist with the investigation.

“At the moment, the Board does not expect delinquency on behalf of the Pirate Party. The investigation is not directed against the party or any of its subsidiaries, they are only involved as the server’s operators. The results are awaited with curiosity,” the Party said in a statement.

The information which the authorities provided to the Pirate Party suggests that the police were targeting a public service on a virtual server. The service has not been named, but there are concerns that the action to take the party’s entire server network down was disproportionate.

The timing of the raid is also unfortunate, as it happens just two days before the Bremen elections.

“The disconnection of all servers is a massive intrusion into the communications infrastructure of the sixth largest party in Germany. Considering the state elections taking place in Bremen in two days, this caused severe political damage, which the Board condemns decisively,” the Party continued.

“In relation to the ongoing investigations, it will have to be verified whether the issued search warrant was actually appropriate, especially whether the principle of proportionality was followed. After all, this action has led to a large-scale breakdown of the technical infrastructure of Pirate Party Germany.”

Although we can only speculate at this point, a plausible target of the raid could be the Piratepad service. Piratepad allows people to collaboratively draft documents, and unconfirmed rumors suggest that it was used to plan a DDoS attack against a French company.

Thus far, however, no official information has been provided about the nature of the French investigation. We will update this post accordingly as more information comes in.

Update: The Pirate Part released some additional information.

The servers were raided this morning 9:15 am following a warrant ordered by the Darmstadt prosecutor.

The investigation is not directed at the Pirate Party, but at unknown users of the Piratepad service who published an SSH Key which was allegedly used to attack a server of the French energy group EDF.

The Pirate Party stresses that the damage to their organization is enormous. Two days before the election their entire communication system was wiped out, and although the main page was brought back up, most services are still interrupted.

The Pirate Party further distances itself from the attacks on the websites of the German police, which started after the raid.

Source: Pirate Party Servers Raided by German Police

Despite all this, 2% was the best they could achieve in the Federal elections, although in itself, that is still not an easy figure to achieve. However, it is short of the 5% barrier required to enter the German Parliament. It also means that the seat they gained from the defection of Jörg Tauss has been lost.

Yet positives remain. Like their Swedish brethren, the Pirate Party is now the largest outside of government, eclipsing many established ‘broad spectrum’ parties. It also qualifies for federal funding, which at 0.85 Euros per vote nets the party somewhere in the region of €720,000 (or $1,050,000 US) from their 845,904 votes, plus additional money to match 38% of contributions and membership fees.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment is that the party has gained more votes in this election than the entire movement has before. It got a very strong showing with first-time voters, with Business Week reporting up to 13% of that group went Pirate. The party has also grown its membership tenfold in just a few months, to around 10,000. Not as fast as seen in Sweden, but still impressive.

Jens Seipenbusch, national party chairman, was upbeat about the results. “Our new style of politics touches the nerve of the people in Germany. We will continue to bank on participatory politics and to fight for civil rights online as well as offline.”

While it’s easy to focus on the negative, the positive is there as well. The party doubled its vote percentage in just a few months. With the funding, the rapid growth of members and the high profile the party has received in the media, it can only be a matter of time before the party gains more seats.

Source: Pirate Party Books Moderate Success In German Elections

This Friday more than 120,000 youngsters cast their votes at one of the U18 voting booths. Of these, a massive 8.72% voted for the Pirate Party that currently holds one seat in the German Parliament.

The result of this election is encouraging for the Pirates, who already had a great run at the European election earlier this year where they surpassed some of the established local parties in some districts.

“The outcome of this election shows us that young people recognize the importance of ‘having a vote’,” Pirate Party Charmain Jens Seipenbusch said. “The fact that many of them have chosen us, shows that young people find it important to defend their civil rights and that the Pirates tackle the crucial issues of the 21st century.”

The ‘real’ German federal election is scheduled for 27 September, and the Pirate Party hopes to gain a few dozen seats in the German Parliament so they can do something about increased Internet censorship and abuses of copyright by multi-billion dollar companies.

Getting into the German Parliament will not be an easy task as it requires a minimum of 5% of the total votes. Let’s hope the German parents listen to their kids for once.

Source: German Youth Would Vote Pirate Party Into Parliament

Politician Jörg Tauss left the SPD yesterday over concerns about Internet censorship. The German Pirate Party had been running a petition against an attempt by the German government to have a censorship list, which, although at first applied to child pornography, has already been considered for expansion to cover other areas.

Faced with this censorship system, which has not been proven to do anything to protect children or do anything except stifle free speech, Tauss decided to leave his party and join the Pirate Party instead.

In a statement the Pirate Party welcomes him into the party as “one of the most experienced politicians in the areas of education, research and new media,” and calls the defection the “culmination of a long chain of failures of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in the areas of civil rights in the digital age and shows a dramatic loss of their credibility inside and outside.”

However, there is also controversy as Tauss is currently under investigation over allegations that he was improperly in possession of child porn images. Tauss claims that such images were sent to him during the basis of an investigation into that subculture, in line with his official government work. Criminal charges on the possession of the images may be pending soon, with Die Welt quoting the prosecutor as saying charges will be brought “within a few weeks”.

Regardless, the Pirate Party is standing by Tauss, who has been a member of the parliament since 1994, at least until a determination of charges is announced. “As long as there will be no criminal conviction against Mr. Tauss, the Piratenpartei has no reason to question Mr. Tauss’ innocence and moral integrity.”

With their seat in the German Parliament the Pirate Party hopes to do something about the increased censorship of the Internet and abuse of copyright by multi-billion dollar companies.

Source: Pirate Party Enters the German Parliament

TorrentFreak spoke with their lead candidate, Bavarian party chairman Andreas Popp, to discuss his views on the upcoming election.

What do you see as being the most important issue in the election?

Currently the most important issue in EU (but also national) politics are the civil rights. This includes the fight against the censorship of the Internet as well as against the transformation of our western societies into police states. IT, especially the Internet, plays a very important role in these topics. The politicians who are in power right now fear the Internet and are doing everything to get control over it, just like the content industry does. What makes these topics so important is the immediate danger we are facing. If we do not fight for our civil liberties now, we might just find ourselves in a new form of dictatorship.

What is your opinion of Commissioner McCreevy’s attempts to extend copyright terms in the EU?

This extension really was some kind of a joke. They said they wanted to enhance the financial situation of retired musicians. This is already strange, since while other people have to save money for their retirement, musicians get their pension for free by copyright. But then all the experts stated that musicians will not benefit from this extension, because they normally sell all their rights in buy-out-contracts. So only music labels benefit from the law. They passed it anyways.

What about copyright in general?

I think it would take too long to explain what needs to be changed here, but you can read about it on the program (english) page of our campaign site.

How many members does the German Pirate Party have right now, and has there been any boost from the Pirate Bay trial, as the Swedish party has seen?

Nationally, we just had our 1000th member. Yes, we have had a great boost during the last few weeks, but I cannot tell you if it is because of the Pirate Bay trial or because of the new censorship law.

Are you seeing the ‘older generations’ supporting the party in significant numbers, or is it mainly 18-30 year-olds?

Of course the generation of the “Digital Natives” are the main supporting group for the Pirate Party. But there are also a lot of people who are already out of their thirties and are supporting our activities. Even if you look at our list of candidates there are only three people who have not passed thirty yet. So I would say yes, there is a significant number of ‘older’ people supporting the pirates. I think the only difference is the medium we use to communicate. You can get in touch with the younger ones mostly through the net. The older ones are more likely to come and talk to you when you are standing on the street.

What is the method of election in Germany for the European Parliament?

It is basically the same as in our national elections. Each party nominates a list of candidates for the election and the citizens can put their cross next to one of the party. Germany has 99 seats in the EU parliament. These seats are divided proportionally among all parties with more than 5% of the total votes.

5% would be roughly how many votes?

There are about 60 million voters, but Germans are not really interested in EU elections so only about 50% of them are going to vote. So that might be round about 1.5 million votes to break the 5%-line. 50% is rather low compared to national or local elections, but the turnout is falling. People here get kind of annoyed with politics. The 60 million figure is about 10 years old, but there is a small difference to the national elections because citizens of other EU countries can register for voting in the EU elections in Germany too. It is a fair number to base things on though.

Some say you have little chance of making that 5% barrier, so why should people vote for you?

One of the most important chances in the EU elections is to get enough votes (0.5%) to qualify for public party funding. That is one of the things I like to tell all the people out there who do not want to vote for us, because they think we cannot make the 5% threshold. Even if we do not, qualifying for public funding would be a big step. One of the parties who gets public funding and is about the same size as we are, got around 80,000 Euro (about $108,000) last year – that would mean more than tripling our funds – and making it it possible to hire people for the administrative tasks, giving us more time for politics.

How much of an issue is funding in German elections?

It is a big issue. As a small party we do not get any public funding yet, so we have to get along with the money we get from our membership fees and donations. All of us are working unsalaried right now. Considering the organizational stuff that has to be done, we are limited in activity. If people want to make a donation, they can do so either to the national party, or directly to their state party. And if they cannot afford to donate money, voluntary helpers to do local work are always a big help.

The European elections take place in early June. The Germany party has a campaign website, www.piratenpartei.net

Source: German Pirate Party Sets Course For European Parliament

German authorities weren’t too happy about the leak, which might be illegal according to a criminal law specialist, and went after the source. Earlier this week police searched the home of the Pirate Party spokesperson where they hoped to find more information. In addition to the home search, a server from another party member was seized. The server, however, was fully encrypted, so chances are low that it will uncover the whistleblower.

In a response, Andreas Popp, Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party said: “A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized.”

Pirate Parties around the world will continue to speak out against these, and other privacy threats. The trojan in question (German) was able to tap into Skype calls and intercept traffic to encrypted websites.

Source: Pirate Party Official Raided after Uncovering State Trojan

Very often the legal action is not carried out but the threats are used as leverage to get ‘compensation’ from the alleged infringer to hand to the rights holder. It seems that the legal system in German has had enough of this ‘abuse’ of the criminal law system for ‘civil’ monetary gain.

In an interview with Jetzt.de, prosecutors from the Nort-Rhine Westphalia area state that those sharing files for personal, non-commercial uses, will no longer be the target of a lawsuit.

Christian Solmecke, a lawyer working at lawyers Wilde & Beuger and currently defending around 500 file-sharers against the German music industry told TorrentFreak: “That means, that the music industry in Germany has no chance to find out the real address behind an IP-address at the moment,” which is clearly a major obstacle for someone looking to take legal action.

The dividing line between personal file-sharing and commercial file-sharing needs to be defined clearly under the law, and the prosecutors have gone some way in offering this definition. “The guidelines say that no investigation should be done if the damage is lower than 3000 Euros (approx $4,500),” Christian told us. “The guideline says that the damage of trading one song is 1 Euro ($1.50). That means, that you could have 2999 Files on your computer and the prosecutors will not investigate.”

The damages for a movie are being touted at 15 Euros (approx $22.00) each, so presumably anyone sharing less than 200 movies will be considered a non-commercial file-sharer and should avoid prosecution. However, the prosecutor has indicated that those sharing brand new movies still in theater cannot expect to receive the same treatment.

Christian told TorrentFreak: “This decision is very new, we do not know what consequences it will have or if all prosecutors in Germany will follow the new guidelines.” However, the German music industry is clearly unhappy, labeling the decision as “a catastrophe” and refusing to accept it.

Should this decision spread around Germany, P2P tracking outfits such as Logistep AG and the German company Digiprotect will have to look elsewhere to make up their revenue. There are indications that Digiprotect is already branching out into the UK, in a new partnership with everyone’s favorite anti-p2p lawyers, Davenport Lyons.

Via P2P-Blog

Source: Sharing 2999 Songs, 199 Movies Becomes ‘Safe’ in Germany

Now, a new judgment has come from the Frankfurt court of appeal. The judges have decided that the owner of an Internet connection is not responsible for copyright infringements carried out without their knowledge on their open WiFi. The same court already ruled that parents are not responsible for copyright infringements carried out by their children.

Lawyers representing copyright holders have long insisted that it is the responsibility of the bill payer to ensure that nothing illegal happens on his connection by taking technical measures to stop unauthorized access by a 3rd party. The plaintiff in this case stated that the IP address of the defendant was tracked making unauthorized uploads of copyright works and demanded damages. The defendant had insisted that not only was he innocent but also away on vacation at the time of the alleged offense.

Regular readers of TorrentFreak will know that lawyers Davenport Lyons in the UK have been sending out many letters which accuse people of copyright infringement when, through ignorance or simple generosity, have simply left their WiFi open for others to use. Davenport state that a previous German court decision has ruled that users are responsible for the infringing actions of others on their Internet connection, and in their opinion UK courts would rule the same. This is the ruling that the Frankfurt court has just over-ruled.

Given this decision, further recipients of Davenport letters should expect to see these comments about open-WiFi liability removed, at least until the highest court in Germany has had the opportunity to review the situation. Describing the decision in Frankfurt as “sensational”, Christian Solmecke, a lawyer currently defending around 500 file-sharers told TorrentFreak: “The future will show us what the highest court in Germany – the Bundesgerichtshof – says to this difficult question.”

Source: Victims of WiFi Theft Not Responsible For Illegal Uploads

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.

Source: Hessians Hope to Weave Election Magic

TF: What exactly does the political leader of the German Pirate Party do?

JH: The most important point is to coordinate the political development of the pirate party. This implies motivating discussions about current and new stances as well as writing press releases. It also includes being active as a spokesman of the party, but of course here I am not the only one.

TF: The party was officially registered as a party on September 10th 2006, correct?

JH: Yes, that is the day we founded it. The letters for registering it were sent a few days later, but that is not what counts in Germany.

TF: Approximately how many members do you have?

JH: A few minutes ago it have been 537 plus a handful pending, future members.

TF: What has been the party’s achievements over the past year?

JH: If ordered by how hard it was to achieve, then I am proud that we have federal parties in 6 federal states wich build local concentration points for pirates and interested persons.

Close to that came our funding in a number of NGOs and citizen right groups. When we started a year ago none of them took us serious. Today a lot of their members have become pirates, we organize demonstrations and press releases together and hold lectures on each others conferences.

Third to name of course is media attention. Besides the base attention of journalists discovering the pirates and their attitudes, there have been two popular events this year: the first was a trojan horse build of old computer crap with which we “infected” the ministry of interior to demonstrate against hidden intrusion to computer systems. The second is the “Killerchess”, a bloody chess game with human pawns, to show the idiocy of a law which proposed forbidden all kind of violence in computer games.

TF: Are there any current activities for the party?

JH: A smaller one: a local internet provider named Arcor has – without any good reason – decided to ban certain pornographic sites. Tomorrow we will not only discredit this behaviour but also launch a website to circumvent this filter. A bigger one is the festival of forbidden art, we copy an artists installation of a spam shredder (computer, printer and shredder in a line to immediately destroy all incoming e-mails) and modify it, to download illegal videos from YouTube, burn them, display on a big screen and then destroy the CDs on which we burned them. The illegal video will be mesh art, to demonstrate the power of recycling knowledge and the absurdity of claiming property in ideas. The act will be surround by a Creative Commons band. Of course we also do more traditional political work by commenting current political and social movements. Currently we are working with other European Pirate Parties in dealing with European Justice and Security Ministers demand to block dangerous words like “Bomb” and “Genocide” from being searched.

TF: When is the next election in Germany?

JH: The next regional election is in January 2008, the election for our federal as well as the European parliament is in 2009 as well as the most regional elections.

TF: Do you have anyone running for election then?

JH: Yes of course. At the moment we plan to take part in every national and regional election. We have to collect signatures for that case and in some cases this might stop us. But where active pirates are the signatures are no problem. The most promising federal party is the one of Hesse, with Thorsten Wirth as chairman, but we will take part in the election as the Piratenpartei, not reduced to a single person – this is a flavour of German election laws. Hesse is also one of the two federal states which have elections next January.

TF: What do you feel are the chances of election?

JH: Anything above 1% will be a success in the first election. It will help as in further election, because it is a promise for our voters, that their next ballot is not wasted. If we get such a result once, it will boost our results on the following elections. Especially in Hesse we have a good chance of getting such a result, because the current government has made several unpopular decisions before election like forcing study fees and reintroducing biblical stories into biology. Also Hesse is one of the most active regions for pirates. I think they will made the percent and this will be a land rush for the pirates in Germany.

TF: 1% would make it the best result internationally for any Pirate Party. how many votes (if you know) would that mean?

JH: 60,000

TF: We have talked before with representatives of the US Pirate Party and they do not encourage copyright infringement, does the German party have that position as well?

JH: We would prefer not to encourage breaking the law. But the German copyright law is so incompatible with the freedom of speech and daily use of computer and internet that it is almost impossible not to infringe copyright. We therefore see civil disobedience in the copyright issue as a valid form a protesting against it. We recommend to make use of ones natural right of free flow of information, we also help people to get the technology for sharing and resting against censorship. This advice finds its limitation when it comes to earn money from others work. We do not support that.

TF: Finally, where do you see things being, globally, in a years time?

JH: I expect big progress into surveillance state in Europe but also a larger debate about the fear of terrorism and the dangers of a police state. This will give the pirate parties an even bigger boost, as current oppositions are failing their task of correcting governments heading. I do not expect big movements about the copyright laws, but a change of their environment. There are chances that the John Doe cases against filesharers will loose their power as acceptance of screen-shots as proofs as well as revealing names behind IP addresses will be denied by judges. A lot will happen in the field of open access (and related with that patents) when it comes to public funding – which matters for the majority of scientific results. I expect an increase of open access publications and a broad discussion among scientist, who wake up and find out that they have more pull. And finally I expect that the number of pirate parties will be lower than today, but the number of pirate party members increase a lot. This because the incentive to run a party alone in a country is low and the initial hype to found one is over. But once a critical mass is reached the parties growth will make oneself independent. Additionally the Pirate Parties goals are getting more important every day they are not in parliament as the movement towards the information society can not be stopped any more. Only its shape can still be formed.

The German Pirate Party’s site is here

Source: German Pirate Party Celebrates First Birthday

The copyright holders first go to a criminal court with the purpose of obtaining the customer information of the infringing filesharers. The law enforcement agencies then need the customer info, in order to proceed with the legal investigation. If the copyright holders get the names of the alleged pirates, they start a civil lawsuit.

However, since last week it has become harder for law enforcement agencies to obtain customer information from ISPs. The higher federal court in Germany has ruled that ISPs are not allowed to keep IP-logs without a legal reason (billing for example). This means that users with a dynamic IP address cannot be tracked down if their IP address has changed.

Source: P2P lawsuits cost German taxpayers millions

This new law is adopted exactly two months after the German anti-piracy federation (GVU) busted some of the key players in “the scene”. But now it seems that not only the release groups have to worry, but everybody who tries to download something from the net that might be copyrighted. The new law comes into effect on january the 1st, 2007.

The law is widely debated and currently one of the toughest in Europe at the moment.

Patrick von Braunmühl, of the Federation of German Consumer Organisation was not pleased and said:

This sends a completely wrong signal to society. It criminalises consumers and will deeply disturb internet users

However, the German justice minister defended the law, and said:

The aim is not now to slap handcuffs on downloaders in the school playground. But if someone downloaded a film before it reached the cinemas it was obvious that they were responding to an illegal offer and breaking the law

Günther Krings, the Christian Democrat legal affairs spokesman responded:

There should be no legal distinction between stealing chewing gum from a shop and performing an illegal download

So if you steal a chewing gum in Germany you will face up to 2 years in prison? Or even 5 if you try to sell it?

We’re going to hear more about this…

Source: Two years in prison for downloading a movie