US Pirate Party
Written by Ernesto on June 07, 2006The US now has its very own Pirate Party. The party is founded by Brent Allison, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia, inspired by the Swedish pirate party “piratpartiet”.
The pirate party has three issues on its agenda, one of these is to reform copyright law:
The official aim of the copyright system has always [...]
The US now has its very own Pirate Party. The party is founded by Brent Allison, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia, inspired by the Swedish pirate party “piratpartiet”.
The pirate party has three issues on its agenda, one of these is to reform copyright law:
The official aim of the copyright system has always been to find a balance between the interests of publishers and consumers, in order to promote culture being created and spread. Today that balance has been completely lost, to a point where the copyright laws severely restrict the very thing they are supposed to promote. The Pirate Party wants to restore the balance in the copyright legislation.
All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free. File sharing and p2p networking should be encouraged rather than criminalized. Culture and knowledge are good things, that increase in value the more they are shared. The Internet could become the greatest public library ever created.
The monopoly for the copyright holder to exploit an aesthetic work commercially should be limited to five years after publication. Today’s copyright terms are simply absurd. Nobody needs to make money seventy years after he is dead. No film studio or record company bases its investment decisions on the off-chance that the product would be of interest to anyone a hundred years in the future. The commercial life of cultural works is staggeringly short in today’s world. If you haven’t made your money back in the first one or two years, you never will. A five years copyright term for commercial use is more than enough. Non-commercial use should be free from day one.
We also want a complete ban on DRM technologies, and on contract clauses that aim to restrict the consumers’ legal rights in this area. There is no point in restoring balance and reason to the legislation, if at the same time we continue to allow the big media companies to both write and enforce their own arbitrary laws.
You can read more, and join the party over here
Previously: P2Pnet vs. Kazaa: Bloggers Freedom at Stake
Next: Pelé Joins the MPAA
12 Responses
Rock on.
lead the way ;)
This is great, do your best!
There is no doubt that copyright laws need to be revised, and by that I do not mean made even more insanely restrictive. When you can potentially clap someone in jail for years because they videotape a movie in a theater with a shaky handheld cam, something is definitely rotten. Whatever happened to government for the people and by the people?
5 years is way too short, though. Especially authors will get shafted that way, they make money for years during re-releases etc, and their families should receive the money after the authors death. Most authors produce the cream of their work towards the end of their lives, after all. In fact, there wasn’t that much wrong with copyright as it was envisioned in the 19th century by Thomas Babington Macaulay and his contemporaries – it is only lately it has gone completely haywire.
Yeah go go go fight ria mpaa and that twat bush
Yes rock it
Nice idea, and good start, hopefully this American party also will work to protect peoples integrity like the Swedish party do.
But I have my strong doubt that they ever will get a chance to join the gang in US senate since USA is not a democracy, its a two party system country.
We approve.
Very extreme, 5 years is too short. Not all copyright holders are giant corporations with fat wallets, trying to screw the public.
i fail to see broadband even being developed or used if not for pirating. most of the broadband users have broken copy-right laws, and i fail to see why the public needs to be punished for it and limited when copy-right/owners and certain scenes needs to change together with the world. why restrict when you can evolve? i generaly hate copy-right in all forms as its the main limiting factor for pc developments etc. just look at microsoft =D noone else have any chance of doing anything, Linux cant evolve and be compatible because of copy-right, no other operating system will be compatible. DirectX is copy-righted so games cant be run in Linux as most requires it etc. copy-right shouldnt exist in the software world at all imo. or atleast not as it does today…
i wish the swedish pirate party did something more towards this direction too instead of hunting down downloaders.. i think the anti- factor should be replaced with lets solve this so everyones happy and we can continue to evolve the internet. =D
i support
in facct i think i’ll join
Hasn’t every broadband user broken Copyright Laws lol
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