The state parliament in Berlin has some unusual new legislators in their ranks; fifteen members of the Pirate Party entered office because of their claim of an impressive 8.9 percent of the vote. And no, not the Blackbeard kind of pirate. Pirate Parties International is the worldwide organization associated with the Pirate Party movement, whose overall goal is ”promoting global legislation to facilitate the emerging information society”. On their agenda? Three primary issues: copyright reform, abolishing the patent system, and respecting the right for privacy.
The Pirate Party began in Sweden, with a bid for the Swedish parliament. The Piratpartiet was founded on the first of January, 2006. Since then, pirate parties have sprung up across the globe, with officially registered parties concentrated in Europe, along with Canada. Many countries have unregistered pirate parties though, including Russia, the United States and Mexico.
"Facilitating the emerging information society", as they put it, is something many would treat as a small, almost nonexistent issue. But for those who spend hours online using social networking sites or finding information, it is anything but. The call for transparency resounds throughout the party, conjuring images of WikiLeaks to mind.
Their three issues of choice might seem odd to some. However, with the amount of information available online increasing by the hour, the ability to use and access information is increasingly valuable. According to their website, they believe that copyrighted information should be free to use for non-commercial purposes as soon as it is available, and that the time on commercial copyrights should be drastically reduced, all the way down to five years. In their words, "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."
The same sort of thought backs their second issue: abolishing the patent system. Between patents by the pharmaceutical industry, which often portray the industry as a collection of heartless companies that would rather collect profits then prevent a global epidemic, repulsive patents on living organisms, and unimportant patents on business concepts, there is nothing to lose in their view. By abolishing the patent system, private monopolies would disappear - the overall goal of this idea.
Finally, respecting the right for privacy. The Big Brother idea has become a meaningless term in the United States - something used in jokes. However, in their opinion, the amounts of surveillance equipment has only increased in Europe. They argue that this leads down a bad road, and in their words, "we must pull the emergency brake on the runaway train towards a society we do not want."
I congratulate the Pirate Party for the progress they have made in the last week. Since most of the populace do not know of them, they have an uphill battle to awareness and support. Still, they are well on their way after blowing away any expectations from last weekend. It only remains yet to be seen whether this success can be replicated outside of Europe, and if so, where it will appear next.
The website of Pirate Party International can be found at http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english.
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