[pp.int.general] stance on fairsharing / culture flatrate / levys

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

Ahoy pirates!

We do have a position on levys in the Spanish Pirate Party. We're completely 
against the levys in CDs, HDs, MP3 Players, music players, cd writers, 
Internet, etc. This is actually a strong point in our program. You should 
also know that there's a strong movement with support from a lot of parties 
that collected 1 Million signatures against canon (=levy). It's name 
is "todos contra el canon" (everyone against canon). 

In our country, a CD costs now doubles originally because of the abusive 
canon. There's a lot of social rejection against SGAE which is the equivalent 
of the RIAA, and probably that's added to achieve the million of signatures.

Why are we against canon? The canon is legaly a remuneration for the right of 
private copy in our "Law of Intellectual Propoperty" (sic). The problem with 
it is that even when you're going to use the virigin CD to store the photos 
of your holidays, you need to pay the canon. That's nor fair. Also, the 
quantity of money to pay is unilaterally stablished by the same one who is 
going to get it. Some people have win judgments in which they have got back 
the canon they paid for storing data without using the right of private 
copy..

Not to mention that sometimes you pay twice or more times the canon because 
you copy the same data from one medium to other: first download the music of 
mozzart, then burn it on a CD, then play it in your MP3 CD player. You paid 
three times a canon for a right you didn't exercise! THat's not fair.

Not only the canon is bad for users, but most artists don't get a penny for 
it. Only the top sellers will get some money. Also you should mention that 
now in Internet we are *all* authors (me of this email!) and we don't get no 
canon, and of course, there's no need for it.

Salud,
        Eduardo Robles Elvira.

President of the Committee of Rights and Guarantees and webmaster of PIRATA 
(Spain).