[pp.int.general] Hi to the list

[Brian McNeil]

On Tue, 2009-10-27 at 00:08 +0100, Eduardo Robles Elvira wrote:

<snip>

> BTW it would be best if everyone who sends an email to this lists says
> which Pirate Party (if any) and/or country are they members of in
> their signature as has been suggested previously.

Eduardo, that is a good point, and I will right now apologise for not
introducing myself and just diving into several discussions on the list.

I'm not a member of any Pirate Party; in fact, I'm not a member of any
political party nor have ever been such. I quite happily self-identify
as a socialist in political terms. And, I think, the near-constant
attempts by those on the far right to imply people like myself are
either in some way responsible for, or seeking to implement,
totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany, the USSR, or Communist China are
absurd and disingenuous.

My interest in the Pirate Party? When I'd likely casually comment that
I'd never join any party? Senior figures in the PP have given Wikinews
the time to conduct in-depth interviews, provided considered instead of
canned responses, which have been refreshingly free from "my opponent
has not denied unsourced rumours that he fellates goats; have you asked
him why he has not made a statement denying he fellates goats?" shtick.
Mind you, we'll interview just about *anybody* on Wikinews, one of those
we picked on for the past US Presidential campaign was the US Nazi Party
presidential candidate. Zero chance of him getting elected, but often
sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And, naturally, the PP intention to fundamentally reform the legal
framework around copyright. Without question, I want to see dramatically
shorter terms before any work enters the public domain alongside other
now Free parts of our cultural heritage such as Shakespeare.

I just keep coming across examples of works I believe should now be in
the public domain, or freely available on a non-commercial basis.

Last week it was Dr. Strangelove, released in 1964. Jack Straw, the UK's
Justice Minister, was a panellist alongside BNP leader and alleged
Holocaust-denier Nick Griffin on the BBC's Question Time. Straw
described Griffin as, "the Dr. Strangelove of British politics". The
film's Wikipedia article is a poor substitute compared with sitting down
and watching the full thing to decide if Straw's soundbite is accurate,
and what it actually means; most people half my age will not have seen
the film, so they have to pay or commit copyright infringement to be
allowed to judge the words of a politician. Luckily, there is the local
library. If a copy exists in any publicly funded library in the region I
can request it, it will be delivered to my local library for me to
borrow it from, and (IIRC) the cost is around £1 for a two-week loan.

I would hope, that in reframing copyright, and recognising it as some
form of social contract, provisions would be included to try and make
sure the work becomes universally available at the time it enters the
public domain; a responsibility to society that comes with holding the
copyright on a work. And, that there's no exceptions to entering the
public domain like the one the UK legislated into existence on Peter
Pan.


-- 
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
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