US Pirate Party Starts in Utah
Written by Ben Jones on August 09, 2007The Pirate Party of the United States, a sister organization to the Swedish Piratpartiet, has officially announced that it is forming a state party in Utah. This is the first state that this burgeoning political party has announced it is forming in.
With the focus on the mine collapse in Utah high in the news right now, cynics might say that this is nothing more than a cheap attempt to gain publicity, at the expense of others. To that, Ray Jenson, the interim administrator for the Utah party responded “We’ve actually been working for quite a long time on this–over a month–and the timing really couldn’t be helped. It was ready when it was ready. If it had been two days, or two weeks from now, I’m sure we still would have had the same result.” He also added, “It’s a tragedy. Our best wishes are with those miners and their families, wherever they might be.”
Utah is, of course, no stranger to debate on copyright and its infringement. Some of the most controversial statements and proposals on dealing with it have come from Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. Mr Jenson commented “In general, he seems as though he sincerely believes what he’s doing is the right thing. I hope that some education on the issue can alert him to the fact that what he’s been proposing is not always in the best interests of the public.” Indeed, it’s hard to say how destroying people’s computers could be in the public interest, especially when there is no way of definitively proving, even after months of court discovery, that someone was infringing, and as we all know, it turned out that his campaign site was itself infringing copyright.
Mr Jenson has no plans, however, for running for any offices at this time, saying “one step at a time, we’re concentrating on getting the party and it’s issues recognized at the present”.
More details can be found here
Previously: uTorrent Takes on the BitTorrent Scammers
Next: TorrentPod Episode 42
23 Responses
This is pretty sweet, I can’t wait to see how it works out here in the land of the RIAA…
yo, finally we got our own pirate party.
This should be interesting. If they can get a good web site up with some good video’s etc. maybe they will receive a lot of support here. Americans are ready for change.
gadianton robbers?
@dr: Are you seriously comparing anything in this site to the Gadianton Robbers?
To those who do not know a lot about the LDS (aka “Mormon”) religion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadiantons.
The Gadianton Robbers were essentially a secret organization of criminals who wanted to control the government, courts, etc. The Pirate Party is primarily about restoring individual’s rights from what I can tell so this is my frustration with his/her statement. There is no explanation of this blatant insult other than to throw out a term which only people who are knowledgeable about the LDS church are likely to know. Why don’t you go read about a party before assuming that the “pirate party” means that they want to steal things illegally.
They sound pre-mission.
[quote comment="144839"]@dr: Are you seriously comparing anything in this site to the Gadianton Robbers?
To those who do not know a lot about the LDS (aka “Mormon”) religion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadiantons.
The Gadianton Robbers were essentially a secret organization of criminals who wanted to control the government, courts, etc. [/quote]
err - I’m pretty sure that whomever wrote gadianton robbers knew that they were fictional characters in an outrageously poorly written faux history of Jews living in the Americas thousands of years ago.
When Jospeh Smith wrote the book of mromon he was very anti-mason, and the gadianton robber story was a not very veiled slam on them. Ironically, he would join the Masons later in life and even used the masonic rituals as the basis for the mormon temple rites.
In any event, THEY WERE NOT REALLY ROBBERS, they were fictional characters. Just like the pirate party are not really robbers.
AWESOME news, finally someone to look out for the needs and rights of the cyber culture! can’t wait to see how this plays out, how it affects legislation, the election, the riaa and mpaa…
also can’t wait to sign up!
~j
At last, a good front to fight the **AA
Ernesto, The Register stole your post:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/10/pirate_party_invades_utah/
Ernesto didn’t write it…and it’s a completely different story…
good news!
[quote comment="145418"]Ernesto, The Register stole your post:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/10/pirate_party_invades_utah//quote
Thanks for watching over us but Sean’s right, it’s a different post. It’s good that the news is spreading.
We’re still looking for members in Utah as well as other states. We have an IRC channel with information on the national site’s “contact” page for anyone who wants to show up. And for those who don’t have an IRC client, we’ve provided a browser-based client.
9 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.