Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Pirate party gains support in Sweden
I was pleased to read here that the pirate party has gained a seat in the European parliament. They gained 7.1% of the vote and are now the third largest party in Sweden. According to press reports the party wants to reduce government surveillance, deregulate copyright and abolish the patent system. Support for the party grew recently after the prosecution of the people involved in running the popular PirateBay web site.
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This sounds like clownery, but there is a lot of serious economic research showing how patent system kills technological progress instead of promoting it.
ReplyDeleteI like the guys - have you seen the DDo$ attack?
I should clarify that I am not a supporter of the policies of the pirate party as such. The vast bulk of the inforation on their web site is in Swedish, so I can't really claim to understand what they are fighting for. However, I am happy to see them suceed for two reasons:
ReplyDelete1 - The mainstream media presents the pirate Bay promoters as evil and the companies suing them as fighting for the rule of law. The reality is much more subtle and there is right and wrong on both sides. It is nice to see the pirate's point of view gaining some support among "respectable sources", to balance up the debate slightly (a DDo$ attack on the other hand is definitely not going to gain support among respectable people).
2 - The vast bulk of candidates campainging for seats in the European parliment were campaigning on topics of national interest. Liberitas and the Pirate party were notable exceptions to this rule because they are both campaigning on topics which are relevant to the European parliment. I definitely don't support what Liberitas are fighting for, but I applaud the fact that they are at least cmpaigning based upon European issues rather than national policies.
This is wonderful posting. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBathmate
This is wonderful posting. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBathmate