[pp.int.general] Immediate action required!

[coretx]

> https://portaal.neth-er.eu/contenttypes/Artikelen/Artikel2452.aspx?Source=http%3A%2F%2Fportaal.neth-er.eu%2FDutch%2FPages%2Fdefault.aspx

A high profile pirate needs to do a quick respons.

I'll paste the content below;


The strange thing with pirates is that they quite often are proud to  
be a pirate. Chances are pretty low that you meet a person saying: “Hi  
I’m a criminal, just robbed another person”. Pirates, on the other  
hand, give interviews about the benefits of hijacking ships in the  
Gulf of Aden, or the benefits of free use of copyrighted material on  
the Internet. More explicit: yes the sharing of copyrighted material  
without paying royalties is called Internet piracy, and these Internet  
Pirates are proud to be a pirate. They even participated in the 2009  
European Parliament (EP) elections in Sweden and got more than 7% of  
all Swedish votes, making it thereby the third largest political  
party. Pirate Parties now exist in 33 countries.

The question that arises now is: should SURF become a member of the  
Pirate Party? After all, the Dutch Higher Education sector has  
declared 2009 to be ‘Open Access Year’. And doesn’t that mean Free  
Access to all digital information? WRONG.

There are a lot of misunderstandings about Open Access and copyright.  
It is essential to realize that the author, the intellectual creator,  
is the holder of the copyright. He or she has several options to deal  
with that copyright. From complete transfer of copyright to a  
publisher, to licenses that do not require the exclusive transfer of  
all rights. See copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl. Copyright therefore plays an  
important role in the creation, distribution, and re-use of material  
in the context of higher education and scientific/scholarly research.

In declaring 2009 the year of Open Access, we try to improve access to  
knowledge, information and data. The central idea is that the results  
of publicly financed research should also be available to the public.  
That doesn’t imply that everything is available at no costs. Even if  
the ‘Open Access’ model were to be applied globally, somebody has to  
pay the bill for increased access to digital information. So, SURF  
will NOT become a member of a Pirate Party.

by Wim Liebrand, director SURFfoundation (SURF)