After scoring a surprise electoral win in Sweden and getting high-profile support in Germany, The Pirate Party’s next port of call may be Canada ….
Right now, they’re a handful of loosely-organized individuals spread across the country. But they want to become an official federal political party within the next few years and get enough support to persuade Parliament to relax proposed copyright laws they say are heavy-handed and a violation of personal privacy.
The website, at piratepartyofcanada.com, is currently bare-bones at best, but there’s some forum chatter that sounds like the people behind this are sincere, intelligent and motivated.
At first, I thought that the name of the party was unfortunate, but I’m starting to think it has advantages. First of all, it’s distinctive and recognizable. It’s, arguably, cool. And, I’m starting to think that, after being (IMO wrongly) characterized as thieves and pirates, copyright infringers who think they have a moral right to interact with locked-down culture in a modern way (myself included) may actually be able to reclaim the word “pirate” and make it or own.
Most of the copyright infringers I know don’t necessarily want all copyright to be banished — but the current framework of law seems overly draconian. From the article again:
The party’s goals are fairly simple. It says people should have the right to share and copy music, movies and virtually any material, as long as it is for personal use, not for profit.
It opposes government and corporate monitoring of Internet activities, unless the monitoring is part of a criminal investigation. And it also wants to phase out patents, arguing that patents on new drugs, for example, raise the cost of medical care and keep life-saving medicine out of the hands of many people.
“For me, I think copyright at its core is a good idea but I think it’s been taken too far,” said Rob Britton, a Montreal web developer who has also joined the Canadian Pirate Party movement.
“I think stronger copyright and stronger patent law stifles innovation and discourages a free-market ecosystem.”
I’d vote for ‘em.
Grant Hamilton
