One person's pirate is another's patriot

It seems pirates have made headlines once again. Not just the SOPA and PIPA bills, but also the recent shutdown of a popular file sharing website. The Hong Kong based website, which was taken down and whose founder and three other employees were detained in New Zealand on Thursday, has servers in the US. An excerpt from the article,

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that, 'This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?' "

I then cruised around Pirate forums and websites and came across a press release from the Pirate Bay (TPB) published on the 18^th-the day of the “blackout,” I mentioned this website on the other Pirate post, they have connections to the Swedish Pirate Party and host a file sharing website, which I believe is not operational in the states. To paraphrase its opposition to the bills, it begins by submitting the creation of Hollywood as a sort of geographical/legal response to Edison’s patent on motion pictures vis-à-vis the Kinetoscope. In that time, it was very expensive to produce movies without the patent, but it was possible on the west coast  since there was no patent on the device, and so began the industry in a town called Hollywood, “circumventing immaterial rights,” and thereby making a tidy profit and over time this town has become what TPB calls a foothold into the world’s culture and media.

TPB goes on to describe the studios as charlatans peddling the hard work and collective creative sweat of others manifested in its products; be they on the big screen, printed on a T shirt or on your soda cup at [insert fast food chain here], who are afraid of the pirates for no other reason than competition. TPB calls their service a more efficient way of facilitating direct communication between users all over the globe, which is what the Motion Pictures Association of America refer to as, “criminal websites designed to steal.” TPB even touts their support of free speech and belief that power ought to lie in the hands of the masses, not the few elite, as kindred with America’s founding ideas. I mentioned that the Pirate Bay as having Swedish roots. Apparently, in Swedish, “sopa,” means “trash,” and “pipa,” means “pipe,” they then make an analogy of the internet as a one-way pipe where government stands at the top shoving trash through which comes out on the other end, where the consumers are.

The Chamber of Commerce is unlikely to see eye to eye with what they call, “rogue websites that are a threat to the US economy.” I’ll try not to delve too deeply into what I’ll call the “rogue rhetoric,” which has been used by other US politicians to incite feelings of fear from some intangible foreign conspirator (remember enemy combatants?) in order to push through legislation that upon closer inspection may also be interpreted as, “restricting free speech and degrading internet security.” (PPI) Though the legislation is meant to target a certain group of people, namely, “a stealthy menace seeking to rob [the US] for the ingenuity for which it is so well known.” (Chamber of Commerce) The Pirate Party International calls the action, “not compatible with democratic values,” and “promoting censorship,” which would, “erode the rights of every internet user around the world.” What the MPAA calls, “protecting the theft of American intellectual property,” the Pirate Party refers to as, “giving the US government and corporations the power to block access to-and take down-websites that they consider to be infringing on their copyright monopoly.”

I know it's an obvious statement, but I guess it boils down to perspective. That is to say, how you view the internet. Is it a tool for finding information, in all its forms, or is it a potential weapon, threatening the viability and jobs of artists? I suppose it depends on who is writing your press releases. Either way, as the blackout showed, these pirates carry as much clout and capability as their opponents. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it pans out, but suffice it to say, it will impact everyone no matter what.

Pirates

During my senior year at UCSB in the fall of 2008 I went to a talk given by Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez who were running as independents in the election. At that point in time I was pretty sure I knew where my vote was going, but I still wanted to hear what he had to say. It was an eclectic audience, ranging in attendance from scholars and university administrators, to journalists and media representatives, Nader supporters, as well as Nader protestors, and probably more than a few people like myself who were just there to partake in the experience.

I remember leaving before the event had come to a proper close as suddenly a Nader campaign worker started straight up asking the audience to give them money. After all the key speakers had finished, this guy takes the stage to talk more about the campaign, how hard they work to get recognition, how much it costs to travel throughout the country and then eventually asks point blank, “Who here in this room is willing to commit a thousand dollars to support Ralph Nader’s campaign?” What followed can only be described as one of the most uncomfortable silences I have ever been party to. In fact I think he started at some higher number like two thousand and after the first uncomfortable silence lowered his initial request to a more manageable amount. Let’s face it, it’s unlikely that you’ll find someone willing to spontaneously donate a thousand dollars in a room filled by and large with university students, which if they were anything like me at that time, were facing student loan debt, credit card debt and an unwelcoming job market where liberal arts degrees aren’t the most coveted commodity in the midst of a banking crisis and impending economic meltdown, and who didn’t even have a hundred to spare, let alone for campaign contributions. But I digress… What follows below is taken from a notebook where I scribbled random quotes and ideas from throughout the talk (some may be paraphrased)

“You keep voting for winners but you keep losing.” (Gonzalez on the two parties)

“In what other society do people have to be persuaded to vote for someone who espouses their beliefs?” (Nader on obstructions facing third party candidates in a “bi-party dualopoly” wherein voters end up “supporting the last worse candidate.”)

"Corporate crime, put crooks in cells" (Nader on Wall street criminality)

“Why do artificial entities (corporations) have the same constitutional rights and protections as humans who vote?” (Nader on the Fed’s bailouts)

"Cut military budget, solar energy, no nuclear power"

"Consumer distraction, corporate sleight of hand” (Nader on lack of action against aforementioned corporations)
Nader’s closing line, a Chinese proverb, “To know and not to do is not to know."

Why am I talking about Ralph Nader and what has he got to do with pirates? These are excellent questions. I was reminded of smaller party politics as I was watched the news on Sunday evening, which reported the results of Berlin’s recent state election. I guess it’s worth taking a minute to do a brief explanation of this election and the structure of German government in general. Please bear in mind that I am neither an expert on government [especially not on one as complex and layered as Germany’s] nor am I politically inclined [in Germany] as I am not allowed to vote here.

The election on the 18^th was a state election wherein constituents (people of Berlin) voted for members of Berlin’s parliament (141 seats up for election) and the city mayor. There are a number of German political parties; the majors, namely those who have seats and thus influence in the federal legislative body (Bundestag), are: the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, Social Democratic Party, Free Democratic Party, The Left, and The Greens. In the interest of brevity, and because I am not fully able to explain all the differences between the parties, a list will have to do. But suffice it to say, it’s a multi-party system. In addition to the big hitters there are other political parties represented in state parliaments (such as Berlin’s) and other minor parties, which run the political spectrum of causes (Social Equality Party, Feminist Party, Ecological Democratic Party, the list goes on and on).

So the polls close and after all the votes are counted the new layout of Berlin’s parliament is drawn up. How many seats were won or lost by the respective parties? Do individual parties account this election in terms of losses or gains from the last state election, which for Berlin was in 2006? Has there been a shift in majority representation? Is there a new coalition? (A crude explanation of political coalitions: when different political parties ally themselves. For example, the previous coalition in Berlin was known as “red red” [different political parties have different colors] consisting of the Social Democratic Party and The Left, a coalition that spans from the center-left to the left). These are the typical questions reported on after an election.

The post-election stats are published and what was interesting about this election for Berlin was that a freshman on the ticket, the Pirate Party (in its first state election), cleaned up 15 seats in this election, about 9% of the voter turnout. Who are the Pirates? Well actually it’s an international political movement active in 33 countries that has its beginnings in Sweden. The flagship Pirate Party has members present in the European Parliament and owes much of its following to a 2006 Swedish police raid of a facility hosting the Pirate Bay, a file sharing website which is also a board member of the Pirate Party. The police seized all servers and as a trial was put into motion Sweden’s Pirate Party membership surged in response to the website’s shutdown, more than doubling its size in just a few days. In the most recent European Parliament elections Pirates captured 7% of the Swedish vote. In Germany, the Pirate Party was founded a bit later in 2006 and like its predecessor suddenly gained a huge following. The support came in 2009 in response to a piece of legislation that resulted in blocking certain websites. The legislation, interpreted by some as a slippery slope to censorship, prompted tens of thousands of people to sign a petition on the Pirate Party’s website to voice their opposition to the law. The petition was signed by 134,000 people -- the largest number of people to ever put their names on a single Bundestag petition.

The Pirates aim to “bridge the gap” between the ever growing Internet generation, which uses the Internet to exchange and gather information, and the contemporary politicians who according to the Pirate Party are “of a different generation,” and thus have a different take on information privacy and regulation, copyright and patents including Internet piracy, for example, the term which inspired the party’s name. The Pirate Party, who wants to ensure that downloads for personal use are legal, appeals to interests of a considerable sector of young voters and now has a foot in the door. It remains to be seen what kind of role this fledgling party will now play in the state’s parliament. Perhaps over a few decades the Pirates will be as prevalent in Parliament as the Greens, who 30 years ago also had humble beginnings in Germany. Incidentally the Pirate Party pillaged a reported 17,000 former Green Party voters in Sunday’s election. As I said this Pirate movement has gone international with active parties all around the world. I wonder if the Pirates could ever aspire to fairly notable third party status in the US…