Arrrrr!

That's all I have to contribute, sorry ;)

While it seems on the surface that copyright will see some major reforms in Europe, more likely all the Pirate party will be able to do is fight a battle against pro-copyright reforms. One or two seats in the European parliament will probably not be enough to make any real changes, sadly. That battle against pro-copyright reforms might well be a losing one as the entertainment lobbyists try to make a last-ditch effort to enact such laws before the Pirate party gathers even more steam throughout Europe.

I think it's interesting to note that their one seat out of 18 gives them at least significant leverage in Swedish politics. I don't know much about Swedish politics but the fact that the top party has 5 seats out of 18, while the main opposition as 4 seats seems to mean that the top parties might try to garner the support of the Pirate Party. The leader of the Moderate Party, which is the second largest party has already started discussing internet issues with the Moderate Youth leader who is also a critic of surveillance legislation and anti-filesharing laws.

http://torrentfreak.com/how-pirates-shook-european-politics-090608/

The Pirate Party won;t have any real influence in Swedish politics unless it can take seats in the Swedish parliament itself, rather than just European Parliament seat.

We've had this discussion before in a previous - and very interesting - thread, but I really hope the Pirate Party and their supporters don't get their wish of destroying the copyright system. Musicians, writers and other artists NEED copyright. Copyright helps to ensure that they are paid for their work, and helps them retain control over their creative output.

The Pirate Party and the The Pirate Bay are basically trying to justify stealing on the basis that they and other internet users find it convenient to steal music, videos etc, rather than buying it.

stratagos beat me to it, but....


Shiver me timbers and splice the mainbrace - we've a seat!

It's a fiction that artist need modern copyright law. Modern copyright law mostly protects the revenue of the largest stakeholders in music/art: the publishing companies.

Basic copyright law, sure, it can be useful to protect the rights of the artist, but the vast majority of the time, it's not the artist who owns the rights to their own music. As part of working with a label, they sign over the rights to the vast majority of the profits, and modern copyright law protects _these_ people's revenue stream, not the artists'.

@wonderllama:

I totally disagree.

Most professional recording artists rely on royalties from their recordings as a substantial part of their income. They deserve this income - it is their reward for creating music people want to hear.

People like The Pirate Bay, who the Pirate Party are closely linked with, encourage internet users to deny the artists this royalty income, by stealing music which they should be paying for.

Without copyright law, a musician could write a song, and then have it used without his permission anywhere, including venues he'd despise. I, for example, would be upset if a song I wrote became a rallying cry for hippies. Copyright law is about property rights, not just royalties.

i think i ll start a similar initiative-political party in greece after their success :P

That's true as well, Hamilton. My personal concern is that if you like a band or artist, you should show them respect by paying for their work, but your point is worth consideration too.

I would agree with you if indeed that money went to the artists, sadly the vast majority of the money you spend on recorded music does NOT go to the artists.

They absolutely do deserve income for creating music people want to hear...I just don't think they're getting it from the labels. And the labels, not the artists, are the ones pushing for increased copyright law reform, because they are the ones who stand to gain from it.

Please understand, it's not that I'm against copyright as a whole, I'm merely saying that most if not all of recent copyright legislation is not aimed at improving the rights/protecting the profits of the artists, but of the recording labels. I'm all for copyright to protect the rights of the songwriter/performer, but that's just not what laws like DMCA and other recent RIAA initiatives have been for.

@hellalt: Why? Are you keen to make theft seem acceptable?

@Wonderllama: to an extent you may be right, but I don't see how stealing music is going to improve the share of royalties artists recieve. Whatever your view of the major labels, the activities of these Pirates is still theft.

@Jamie - there is an oft-quoted 'fact' that people who share music illegally will also have a larger collection of 'legal' music and will buy the most material.

Perhaps with the likes of Spotify gaining traction the model will change, but people need to hear new music to buy it. Given the costs of downloads / CDs, people are going to find ways to get their music cheaper.

It's always been the way - I have loads of tapes of albums that I borrowed back in the day. All the internet as done has made what used to be an normal occurance between friends, a global phenomenon between anyone.

The people they should really be tagetting are the counterfeiters who sell pirated CDs/DVDs - that is theft as they are taking money from people. File sharing is a copyright violation, but it's not the same as theft in it's purest form - if I steal a car, you don't have it, if I pirate a song, you still do..

@Pete U:

"there is an oft-quoted 'fact' that people who share music illegally will also have a larger collection of 'legal' music and will buy the most material."

I'm highly sceptical of this 'fact'. I know quite a few people who have hardly any legitimately-purchased CDs, yet have thousands of illegally downloaded tracks on their computers.


"The people they should really be tagetting are the counterfeiters who sell pirated CDs/DVDs - that is theft as they are taking money from people."

I believe these people ARE being targeted, and rightly so. I have seen several stories in my local newspaper over the last year regarding market traders etc being prosecuted for selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs. That doesn't mean they shouldn't also be targeting The Pirate Bay etc. Don't forget that The Pirate Bay was being run for profit.

@Jamie - that's why i put 'fact' like that. If I could find a link I would. I know people who would never download due to the 'quality' and who owns lots of CDs

AFAIK, the Pirate Bay was funded by adverts - perhaps they would be better (and quicker) targetting the advertisers

Well in the case of the Pirate Bay, I think they've targeted exactly the right people. The idiots who set up and ran the site are heading for jail.

most of music written and produced nowadays is just crap.
take the new album of depeche mode for example. or radiohead.
1 or maybe 2 good songs. they just know that marketing and advertisement plus history will lure people to buy it. what happened when radiohead had their new album free on the internet and asked for people to pay what they thought was worth. the average was 2$ for each digital cd. i m not suggesting we should decline all forms of property rights. i m suggesting that music and movies should move freely just on the net. if a music album is worth it i m sure people will buy it. also downloading a movie isnt the same as watching it on the big screen. groups could use that free archive movement to get known. the situation as it is right now only works for big bands who had their past with some great albums and now just fool around mocking people. why should i pay 15$ to listen to depeche mode-wrong?

@Jaime/Pete
I've got a decent collection of music. I've probably paid for 30-50% of it. Most of that was legal downloads, some was CDs. Frankly, I buy all the music I can afford and pirate the rest. And if I really like a band, I attend shows & buy merchandise to support them. If it weren't for my evil, evil acts of piracy I never would have heard of most of the bands that have gotten quite a bit of my money over the years.
Also, often I treat it as a try before I buy kind of thing - I'm not going to spend 10-15 dollars on some terrible album that I'll only listen to once.

I like to think of myself as a creative person, and I think copyright was a good idea for it's time. But times change creative people are going to have to find other business models or be creative in their spare time. That probably sounds very harsh, but just it's a reality, I will have to get used to it and others need to too. Someday, a country, maybe sweden will elect Pirates as their government, they will sweep away copyright rules and the whole pack of cards that relies on every country co-operating will crumble.

You heard it here first.

*its (I hate getting it's and its wrong)

I doubt a special interest party will ever run an entire government...

"Well in the case of the Pirate Bay, I think they've targeted exactly the right people. The idiots who set up and ran the site are heading for jail."

It's sort of funny because the site is still going on strong, and the recent success of the Pirate Party is no doubt in support for the fellows who've been convicted. Piracy is extremely prevalent, and there's no way you can enforce the law on such a large number of people. The strategy of litigating everything that moves is enormously unsuccessful and is alienating an entire generation of music listeners.

"...creative people are going to have to find other business models or be creative in their spare time."

I hope you're joking, or at least painting with far too broad a spray-gun..
'Creativity' is at the heart of all human achievement, so relegating it to 'spare time' activity is tantamount to asking us to return to a world of hunting and gathering for food all day..

I realize you're probably focusing on 'entertainment-media' creativity, as that's the primary victim of digital piracy.. But a great deal of modern civilization is built on other forms of creative work, be it academic science or commercial engineering, and most of it is protected by some sort of law, or at least policy and tradition.

I really don't know what the world should do to protect copyrighted material.. (I do think it should be protected, because I'd rather live in a world where people were paid to create media, as opposed to whatever the alternative might be) But I find the thought of a world where we abandon all such protections frightening. Without patent protection inventors would be forced to jealously guard their secrets. Without policies to prevent plagiarism, the academic world would become a mess. I even think trademarks are important, if only so that I don't have to navigate through a marketplace full of charlatans whose anonymity allows them to sell flawed goods and then disappear into the abyss. :)

Well said, Pinguin. Glad to hear a few other voices of reason even if we're in the minority.

@Jamiet99uk: first of all copyright infringement is not theft:
stealing means I take something away from someone else and he doesn't have it any more.

Now to the main Issue, the music industry's current business model has failed and it's lobbing for special protection. If this type of lobbing had been around say 100 year ago then the buggy makers might have been able to get cars banned.
But that's not all, the Pirate party is also against treating every person like a criminal. Why should the government (without a court order) be able to keep a record of when and who you've call in the past six months? Why should the government be able to install spyware on your PC? Why should they be able to "blacklist" particular web pages. Who would you trust to decided what pages are banned? Should cartels be able "lock you in" ?

@sceptic_ka:

"first of all copyright infringement is not theft"

Ok technically the crime involved is not 'theft', but it's depriving musicians of their right to earn money by selling the music they're created. It is a crime.

"the music industry's current business model has failed and it's [lobbying] for special protection"

The music industry shouldn't need "special protection". They should be protected by existing laws, which need to be enforced more rigorously. The reason their 'business model' is under threat is because large number of people are behaving illegally.

I like CDs and vinyl records, they are significantly superior to mp3. You get artwork, you get lyrics and liner notes, and the sound quality is better. I like going in independent record shops, browsing the records on sale, and chatting to the generally very knowledgeable staff.

All of this is being killed off by people breaking the law. Pretty soon all the record shops will have closed, and downloading will be the only way to get music. I hate that thought and therefore hope to see many more prosecutions being inspired by The Pirate Bay trial.

"Why should the government (without a court order) be able to keep a record of when and who you've call in the past six months? Why should the government be able to install spyware on your PC? Why should they be able to "blacklist" particular web pages. Who would you trust to decided what pages are banned? Should cartels be able "lock you in" ?"

None of that would be necessary if people didn't break the law, and if people like the Pirate Bay didn't ENCOURAGE people to break the law, and provide the infrastructure to directly help people to break the law.

@Jamie
"Ok technically the crime involved is not 'theft', but it's depriving musicians of their right to earn money by selling the music they're created. It is a crime."

It's not depriving them anyway if the choice is that the person would either pirate it or not have it at all.

Their business model is at threat because the music industry is a lumbering dinosaur, and didn't get into the business of digital downloads until 4 years after Napster - and the music at that time was crippled with DRM, which only recently changed. The relatively poor selection of music really hasn't changed. There is plenty of music that can only be acquired through piracy, most of it out of print or imports (no, I won't pay 30 dollars for a 9-track CD, amazon).
It took NINE YEARS for the music industry to offer the same thing for money that pirates were getting for free all that time. Of course nobody paid. Meanwhile, there is a growing number of artists who do appreciate piracy for getting their music out there. And not just tiny no-name artists, either. Hell, Trent Reznor was a member of Oink until it went down. Even

*Even Lars Ulrich downloaded his last album. A gimmick, sure, but he did pirate it.

Also this forum needs an edit function so I can edit stuff when I accidentally hit post reply.

@EmperorJake:

"It's not depriving them anyway if the choice is that the person would either pirate it or not have it at all."

Yes but clearly some people who would previously have purchased CDs are now downloading music illegally. This means that due to people breaking the law, many artists are recieving less income from their music than they were previously. Thus I stand by my statement that they are being deprived of their right to earn money by selling the music they've created.

You can try to justify it with whichever excuses you want - people who download illegally are taking money away from bands and artists they claim to love, many of whom rely on royalties as an important part of their income - especially in the case of retired or ill musicians who can no longer go on tour.

@Jamie
I honestly don't know anybody who downloads music when they can afford to buy it. Even the people who only download music without paying usually have a choice between see the band live and pirate it, or pay for the music and don't see them live. I would hope bands prefer fans to see them live, though I could be wrong I suppose.

@Mr Pinguin, I was certainly not joking when I said that creative people should find other business models. I agree 100% that art and creativity is at the heart of human achievement, but it was ver thus, long before copyright protectism was introduced and it will remain at the heart of human achievement after copyright protectism has expired.

As I said previously I consider myself a creative person and I would like my work properly protected, but I'm also a realist, I know copyright will not exist in the same format in 10 years time as it does today. The rights and wrongs of copyright are somewhat irrelevant, once the majority of people ignor laws it become impossibl to enforce them. The law enforcement agencies can only opperate with mass consent.

Also, copyright is a complete pain sometimes. Have you ever seen the horrible history range. My sons read them and they are very good, but there isn't a single photograph in them. Why? because the writers would have to pay royalities to the people who own the pictures. The book on 'Terrible Tudors' doesn't have a photo of a Henry VIII painting because, someone owns the paintings and want allow unauthorised pictures to be taken!

From a practical point of view, without giving credence to piracy... the music industry is really going about this the entirely wrong way. You can shout and whine that it's wrong, but every day, there are more and more pirates, and pirating has become ridiculously prolific. The music industry is just not competing and it's hanging on to old ways that have no realistic potential in a world with internet.

Sewing and litigating and convicting is clearly not working, and even if legislation passes to make pirating definitely more illegal, the amount of pirating will be unlikely to slow down by much. The iTunes model is certainly working better than selling CD's, but even then I would say that their songs are overpriced. To truly capture the pirate market, offer songs for cheaper and/or sell them things that pirates could never replicate, like merchandise or concert tickets or raffle tickets for something like an opportunity to meet the band. I'm seriously surprised at the lack of ingenuity in the music industry considering it presides over some of the most creative individuals in the world. It's relying on antiquated business strategies and simply using litigation and legislation to try and mold the rest of the market to their will. It will never work, it must adapt.

@Jamiet99uk:

"Yes but clearly some people who would previously have
purchased CDs are now downloading music illegally. This means that due to people breaking the law, many artists are recieving less income from their music than they were previously. Thus I stand by my statement that they are being deprived of their right to earn money by selling the music they've created."

actually that's not clear. Technology has changed, the advent of youtube and napster has allowed smaller/lesser known artists to get known by a larger audience, it is possible that some of the revenue has been diverted to other artists.

It is also wrong to state that all downloaded music is reducing the amount artists are making. If the money doesn't exist in the first place I can't buy any artists work. So you whole premise is flawed.

Total spending on musics/video may be down but that doesn't mean people aren't spending their discretionary money's on other things, spending on computer games has increased, and they also face illegal downloading/piracy.

Besides it has always been legal to borrow a CD from a friend and listen to it. The technology has changed, and artists need to catch up, The record labels are the slow moving unweildy structures which are suffering most; if i owned one i'd be looking at moving into another bussiness.

The pirate bay convictions are crazy. A site which provides users with the ability to find illegal content for download and is supported by advertising revenue: Google.

The convictions will at least help those in favour of copyright reform get the law changed.

I have a lot of copied music, but i wouldn't have spent money to buy it if i had not been able to download it for free.
As for denying artists their rightful income; if they make music and nobody chooses to buy it is that my fault? if people who listen to their music choose to support them that is their choice. Clearly people can't be controlled by laws, copyright law will ultimately fail to prevent downloading of illegal music just as the chinese government has failed to stop their citizens from finding out about the tiananmen square protests.

The law needs to represent the realities of the current day's technology, and he concensus of the majority. It currently does not. What bussiness model artists will use, how to monetize their work i don't know, but copyright law alone isn't going to cut it.

wow, a little longer than i had planned on witing...

Well, if you care to be bored out of your mind, I wrote a paper on piracy legislation:
http://www.hobbitcentral.com/alternate/piracy.doc

Pirates and boring are mutually incompatible statements. You will be forced to remove one of the words from your sentence.

Also, I tried to access the document but it was claimed to be corrupted.

@Jamiet99UK

All I have to say to your argument is; Britney Spears.

If you think the money goes to the artists and copyright will save their efforts you are lost on Capitalism.

**side note: Average Teacher Salary (USA): $51,000
The Police (band) 2008 earnings: $115,000,000

Fuck you and your Capitalistic aggrandizement of music and focusing your ideology on the wrong shit.

I love you ^_^

Sayjo the Lion-Hearted, are you serious? The Police made all that money because people bought their albums and went to their concerts to listen to the music that they created themselves. They own that music just as much as you own your shoes.

A teacher is a government employee paid by a school district which sets the teacher's pay. I agree teachers ought to make more money, but that's a completely separate issue from how much The Police made last year. Unlike Diplomacy, the real world isn't zero-sum.

Look, downloading music for free is stealing. I agree that there needs to be reform and that selling CDs for $15 or however much they are now just won't work anymore, but you can't expect people to make music if they're not going to make money doing it too. Well, you can, but then you'll just get Peruvian panpipe crap.

I don't know exactly what the Pirate Party's platform is, but I do think it's pretty sad that 7.1% of Swedish voters think that downloading music is their most important political issue.

Sayjo, I think you'll find that Jamie is not very capitalist. At least that's the impression I've got from debating him.

Invictus, the Pirate Party platform isn't about the legalization of pirating music (at least I hope not). It's about preventing legislation from passing that will let law enforcement access previously private net information to find pirates. They view the internet surveillance as a violation of privacy rights.

@Sayjo:

1. "Fuck you and your Capitalistic aggrandizement of music"

Chrisp is correct on this one. I'm not a capitalist. I'm actually a socialist who believes we'd be far better off with a command economy. You might even call me a Marxist, but I dislike that term.

However, unfortunately, we currently live under a capitalist economic system, and I am practical enough to accept that under such conditions, people have to do their best to make money so that they can meet their needs and have a reasonable lifestyle.

In my idea of an ideal world, we WOULD be able to share music, free of charge, because the artists would be supported by the state. But we don't live in that world, and therefore artists need to be paid for their work.

**side note - I think it's a shame that you felt the need to childishly say "fuck you". Let's have a proper, polite, adult discussion, please? There's no need for flaming or swearing.

2. "All I have to say to your argument is; Britney Spears"

I don't generally like Britney Spears' music either, but clearly some people do. That's a matter of taste. The song 'Baby One More Time' is, at least, a masterpiece of pop songwriting - not that she wrote it herself of course.

I assume your point here is that Britney Spears has become very wealthy despite her limited talent, due in part to the system I am defending. I personally think there should be much heavier taxation for the highest earners, but that's an issue that goes beyond the scope of this thread.

3. "Average Teacher Salary (USA): $51,000"

Teachers probably deserve to be paid more, but I don't see what that has to do with illegal downloading. (For reference, I actually earn less than this and I still manage to pay all my bills AND buy a few CDs FROM A RECORD SHOP, so I think teachers can survive on their pay).

4. "The Police (band) 2008 earnings: $115,000,000"

Most of that income was from touring, not record sales.

Ok that's Sayjo responded to. Now, who else....?

@Chrisp: "Invictus, the Pirate Party platform isn't about the legalization of pirating music...."

No, however Invictus's point about Sweish voters is still valid, because it seems pretty clear that a lot of people, especially younger voters, voted Pirate Party as a protest-vote response to the Pirate Bay trial.

@orathaic:

1. "It is also wrong to state that all downloaded music is reducing the amount artists are making."

I didn't say that. I'm only referring to illegal downloading, not ALL downloading. I have no objection to people paying to download music, as many people do.

2. "Besides it has always been legal to borrow a CD from a friend and listen to it."

Yes, and that is still legal. What's your point?

3. "The pirate bay convictions are crazy. A site which provides users with the ability to find illegal content for download and is supported by advertising revenue: Google"

I have two comments to make on this point:

Firstly, just because The Pirate Bay is not the only website involved in illegal downloading, that doesn't change the fact that they were breaking the law. Are you saying that if someone else breaks the law, that makes it okay for you to break the law too?

Secondly, while you might be able to use Google to find sites you can use to download things illegally, Google differs from The Pirate Bay in that this is not the main purpose of Google. The Pirate Bay was also explicitly encouraging its users to break the law.

Sorry, I missed one:

@EmperorJake: "@Jamie: I honestly don't know anybody who downloads music when they can afford to buy it."

Really? I'm glad all your friends and acquaintances are such nice, law-abiding people. Unfortunately I certainly have encountered plenty of people who illegally download music despite the fact that they could have afforded to buy it.

@jamiet99uk:

"1. "It is also wrong to state that all downloaded music is reducing the amount artists are making."

I didn't say that. I'm only referring to illegal downloading, not ALL downloading. I have no objection to people paying to download music, as many people do."

you missed my point(perhaps it wasn't aimed correctly). Some people who download music illegally don't have the money or inclination to pay for that music in the first place.

2. The social behaviour of sharing music with friends has always been acceptable; this is an extension of that behaviour which many people support. (making it hard, and dumb to legislate against)

my point being. Google aren't being targeted with a law suit because they are big enough that they would win and this would hurt those who pursue stricter interpretations of copyright law.

I believe they are providing the same service which Pirate bay was convicted of providing. I didn't see anythign about 'explicit encouragment' in the court's verdict.

the guys who setup pirate bay weren't even a company working for profit, they just built some tools which people choose to use.

"I'm actually a socialist who believes we'd be far better off with a command economy."

Lastly, I would also consider myself some form of socialist, but I don't know that we would be far better off in command of the economy. Even if i believe that in some countries *cough* america *cough* the economy is so free that people have gained the freedom to work as slaves... /tangent.

@orathaic:

"Some people who download music illegally don't have the money or inclination to pay for that music in the first place."

They don't have the inclination to pay for it? So it's OK for people to download music illegally, because they don't feel like paying for it?

"The social behaviour of sharing music with friends has always been acceptable; this is an extension of that behaviour which many people support"

The use of sites like The Pirate Bay to enable millions of people to illegally download music cannot be compared to the act of one person lending a CD to a friend.

"the guys who setup pirate bay weren't even a company working for profit"

I do not agree. It is true that making money was not their sole aim - they also had the aim of undermining the copyright system. However they absolutely did make a profit from the site. That's a fact.

Oh, I should also respond to:

"Google aren't being targeted with a law suit because they are big enough that they would win"

Google and The Pirate Bay are very different entities. The Pirate Bay was specifically set up with the intention of helping people illegally download music, video, etc. The creators of The Pirate Bay deliberately set out to break the law, and to assist others in doing so.

I really don't think you can accuse the creators of Google of deliberately setting up their service with the primary aim of assisting illegal downloads. The Pirate Bay were/are a lot more pro-active in spreading illegal downloading, which is why they were targeted for prosecution.

@El_Perro_Artero:

There's something wrong with the document in the link you posted. It opens in Word, but there's just gibberish.

"They don't have the inclination to pay for it? So it's OK for people to download music illegally, because they don't feel like paying for it?"

no, They don't feel like buying it, so it shouldn't be counted amongst the profit lost by record labels/artists.

Not 'they don't feel like it, so they shouldn't pay' more They weren't going to pay for it in the first place so stop crying about the loss of profits.

As far as i can tell the anti-copyright people who setup pirate bay never formed any business/company, and were prosecuted as individuals. They were not operating as employees of a profit making group. (i don't know what they spent the advertising revenues on)

"The use of sites like The Pirate Bay to enable millions of people to illegally download music cannot be compared to the act of one person lending a CD to a friend."

what if i don't copy the music from my friend i merely listen to the music stored on his computer (streaming it directly from his hard-drive, we're on the same LAN so it's easy, but what if i'm on a broadband connection on the other side of the world?)

is that a breach of copyright law because we can both stream different parts of the same song at the same time? because it copies the song into the ram on my computer? because it deprives the author of income?

Also you are right, pirate bay were charged with "promoting copyright infringment", and that is not something i'd try charging google with (though the service they provide is very similar if you already want to infringe copyright).