[pp.int.general] With pirate ideology as a flag

[Eduardo Robles Elvira]

Hi people,

Here is a partial translation made by PIRATA members of an article
that appeared recently in Spanish mainstream media about Pirate
Parties:
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With pirate ideology as a flag

"Existing parties have failed to develop sensible politics for the
rising Information Society. Instead of taking advantage of the
fantastic potential of the Internet, they want to use the new
technology to create a Surveillance State in which the Government
nails down more control over the daily life of citizens", explains to
this newspaper the MEP of the Swedish Piratpartiet, Christian
Engström. "In this task we have a new viewpoint to contribute with to
the political debate. The fact that we were so successful in the
recent European Election shows that there are a lot of citizens,
particularly the youngsters, that share our viewpoint".

"in 2006 IT engineer Rickard Falkvinge started Piratpartiet, which
gathered all those concerns though in a independent manner.
"Politicians are not aware of what has happened during the last 15
years with the revolution that Internet and mobile phone mean",
expressed Falkvinge in an interview with this newspaper soon after the
foundation of the party, which he heads. "They keep repeating the same
things and they have to understand that in the Internet era copyright
is incompatible with the right to confidentiality".

Privacy of communications, Falkvinge insists, is a crucial right: "no
single Government can decree that each piece of private communication,
even more in the future, is illegal; that if I send a song or a video
via email to a friend I'm committing a crime". This way the defense of
civil rights and reform of copyright become closely related, as
Engström warns, "as the only way to keep the current copyright regime
is surveilling every thing that every one does within the Internet. A
price we are not up to pay""

"Equation becomes clear: "When copyright law, as currently is,
conflicts with our fundamental human rights, rights must prevail and
copyright law must be modified", points out the MEP via email.

Precisely the copyright reform maybe is nowadays the toughest issue.
Piratpartiet goal is to limit it to five years, as MEP Engström
explained in a recent interview. "Today, copyright protection deadline
lasts the whole life of the author, plus 70 years, what is ridiculous.
Current rules have no sense as in no business work can be done with
the idea of getting paid back during 100 years". Their goal is clear:
"Making non-commercial filesharing totally legal."

"This is what happens in Spain, where the downloads are legal,
including copyrighted contents, with the condition of those downloads
being non-profit. But it's a situation that can have an expiry date.
The main opponent is the cultural industry, which denounces continued
losses due to these downloads. The movie industry warns that it has
been suffering four continued years of losses in box office incomes,
meanwhile downloads increase, losses already exceeding 300 million a
year. The music sector affirms that they have been losing profits for
eight straight years. And they give a fact: while in 2000 they made
600 million € in CD sales, in 2008 this amount has decreased to 225
million €.

To stop this situation, the Government told the cultural industry,
represented by the Coalición de Creadores e Industrias de Contenido
(Coalition of Creators and Content Industries), and the Internet
Service Providers, grouped in Redtel, to negociate a self-regulation
in the sector."

"Pirate platform is ambitious, as points out Carlos Ayala, Chairman of
Spanish Partido Pirata National Board. "We are talking about the
demand of transparency and accountability of public office, about
patent system reform, about supporting free software, among other
issues". All sums up in three pillars: free circulation of culture,
copyright and patent reform, and protection of citizens rights, paying
special attention to privacy, which raises a growing concern.
Actually, personal data protection within Internet concerns more than
half Spaniards, according to the last Centro de Investigaciones
Sociológicas (CIS) survey."

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Original source:
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/bandera/ideologia/pirata/elpepusoc/20091018elpepisoc_1/Tes

Regards,
    Eduardo Robles Elvira.