On the one hand its good to see the Pirate Party doing well in the polls, particularly as their main voting base is the 18-24 base. Its encouraging because it gets disenfranchised younger people into the politial process.
However where this is dangerous is that Piratpartiet only stand on one platform – internet freedom. Now dont get me wrong its an admirable cause but is it sufficient enough to give them an important seat at the EU parliament?
Quite clearly, no!
On one of the numerous TV debates I watched it was patently obvious that the PP candidates had no policies on anything other than internet rights. They looked a bti lightweight as they were unable to join in most of the debates!
The EU is reponsible for some very serious policies: defence, security, agriculture, economic investment, do I really want a one issue Party talking for me at the parliament?
So do yourself a favour and go out and vote on Sunday but vote for a Party thats pro EU and actually has a manifesto!
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{ 16 comments }
You’re forgetting that a lot of people, and almost all young people, are having the Internet as a base for their whole life. We’re using the Internet to talk to our friends, by chatting, e-mailing, talking or any other kind of communication, we plan our weekends, we have moved our calendars online and our news reading as well. The whole life is online.
The Pirate Party may be a “one-issue” party but it is an extremely important issue. Just as The Greens also started as a “one-issue” party.
The thing that these parties have in common is that they might be one-issue parties, but their issues are ones that involves everything that you do in life.
I couldn’t care less about defence and security policies. If only the politicians would sincerely respect other cultures we would not have to bother about it at all. Naive perhaps, but I believe that it is the truth.
Just imagine what the Europeans living in the 17th century would have done if a much more technologically advanced and powerful nation would have come and taken all their natural assets. I don’t think a lot of them would have thought that stealing two planes and crashing them into a couple of buildings far away in a country you never had to bother about before would have been such a bad idea.
Because thats the thing with Islam, its just a few hundred years behind Christianity. Religioulous people cannot be changed over night, it will take time, as long as people understand that. At least the muslims arent burning women for being “witches”…
Christianity are historically a much more violent, evil, brainwashing and suppressing religion than Islam.
Joakim,
What makes you think I dont have my whole life online? In fact the internet has provided me (and 55 other people in my office) with a living so thats a naive call.
I take your view about wishing nations could all get along nicely but its not going to happen, as sad as that is, get in the real world mate.
Yes the Greens are a one issue Party but still that issue, the environment, is far more far reaching than internet privacy laws.
Also I dont care if a terrorist attacker is Muslim, Christian, Jewish or a Jedi knight it is still an atrocity. If my internet freedoms are curtailed in order to protect innocent people against extremists then I would vote for it every day.
How would you feel if your loved ones were murdered in a terrorist attack which stricter monitoring of the internet could have prevented?
Im sorry that I might have drifted a bit off-topic, I just wanted to make my point clear that the issues that Pirate Party are going to the elections for are extremely important to me, thats why Ive voted for them.
However, the things you lose in a 1984 kind of community are much much worse than the things that you prevent. Yes, a few people might die through terrorist attacks, but people die in nature disasters everyday and honestly I’d rather have that than having the whole population being suppressed and not being able to live the life they want to.
On the other hand, as the Swedish saying goes, “det är aldrig ens fel att två träter”. When it comes to religious extremists you only make it worse by facing them head on. It is like the terror balance during the cold war. It wont stop until someone breaks, and in the Cold War the Soviet Union broke with the result of most Russians having it worse now than during the cold war.
You will never, whatever you, be able to stop the religious extremists. If you go head-on some people will come with you because they are afraid, but a lot of people will just go back to be able to run towards you head-on again.
Respect and knowing that it will take time to change people is what the cure for todays problem with religion is.
Not guns and ammo.
You make a good case but if its proved that stricter internet privacy would help prevent even one terror attack I would support it.
Of course I am voting for FP and they believe in civil liberties which includes on, I guess I am a bit to the Right on this issue. Then again the UK was attacked for over 30 years by the Irish Republican Army so maybe my mentality is slightly different to those in neutral countries.
Good for you that you have voted for something you believe in though! Many others will vote PP as they download stuff for free whereas at least you are thinking about internet rights.
Real-time, state transparent monitoring of citizens will not stop terrorism or crime. It will only open the eyes of law-enforcing & military organisations and likley blunt their ability to see in the dark. They’ll become dumb and effective.
Once they get their eyes wide open, do you think there is a way back?
I don’t. Effective crime-fighting? -Possibly. A price I want to pay? -No. Nor would I want customs to search every vehicle/person crossing the border, all snail-mail being opened / analysed, roadblocks in each city police authorized to body search you in each corner – even if it would put an end(?) to the flow of illicit drugs.
I agree. It is so many problems in EU whitch need a solutions and PP are not interested to help with the solution of that.
I agree, you SHOULD vote for a party with a broader manifest. But that is impossible to do as all the other parties in Sweden has opinions about internet privacy that is ludacris. That is why I am voting for PP on Sunday. I just can’t vote for a party like Moderaterna (which is “my” party) when they get laws like IPRED and FRA implemented in Sweden, that’s impossible for me. Doesn’t matter what they say in other issues, just the fact that they are pro this kind of stuff just makes my stomach ache. Feels kind of like 1984 and that’s unacceptable, sorry to say, but that will be a reality in 10 years if Moderaterna keeps doing exactly what they want.
Dream on mate. Your country has never had to defend itself from a terrorist attack and I hope it never does.
Drugs doesnt worry me but reading ‘terrorist chatter’ about bombing a market square in my hometown then they can read away!
Lets face facts the only ones that should really be worried about this are those with something to hide.
I have already cast my vote for the Privacy party.
While I understand the PP doesnt have any long
term objectives, its one of the thing that has made
them appealing for the times of now.
I believe that the right to privacy (NOT piracy – and I want to reiterate that)
is a keystone foundation needed for any semi free democratic nation.
And until a keystone such as privacy (and I dont mean surfing)
is put back into place then a political and democratic
process doesn’t hold much merit.
Unfortunately, for the PP to get allot of votes it has had
to appeal to the younger generations in somewhat of
a dishonest mannerism (under the guise of torrents)
But realistically most parties do the same thing but
in a less interesting topic format (usually tax related that appeals to middle aged voters)
I have been here for over 15 years and have seen Sweden start to change from a very liberal and charitable nation to that of a nation where we are starting to see many laws and so called nationalistic ideologies which go against many of the key factors that has made Sweden what it is today.
I am white, european (dual national) and non religious but am finding it harder day by day as many new laws are being put into place that alienates me as a member of Sweden (even though I am a full citizen and have been since birth) by the expectations and subsequent laws being put into place in order to make people conform to certain ideals which time and time again go against many of the international treaties and laws (such as EU directives and UN human rights laws) that Sweden has signed.
I dont really have the space to write a 20 minute drab list of errors, but I can say that at present sweden is not in a healthy state and there is a larger gap and 2 tier set of laws for its society growing ever more present.
I feel that at present politics in Sweden are not serving the people .
And until the foundations of laws and freedoms is addressed then the more serious matters of running a country is futile.
“Lets face facts the only ones that should really be worried about this are those with something to hide.”
I hate to disqualify myself but Anne Frank had nothing to hide. It’s all in the eyes of the one who is watching.
Oh dont get me wrong the Intelligence Services arent whiter than whiter but still I can handle that if they manage to foil terrorist attacks.
Anne Frank? Is that the Party line? Dear Oh Dear! That is so far removed from people surfing the net, oh dear, scare tactics or what!
Mark
Thats a really interesting post, obviously only being here 18 months its hard for me to comment. I would have thought having the Social Democrat machine out of power for a bit would have lead to a fairer Sweden to be honest.
Shane: The below quote proves that you have got the whole idea of internet completely wrong.
It is not about getting stuff for free. It never has been and never will be. Dont mix up the idea of Open Source and sharing with getting stuff gratis. “Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”
“Many others will vote PP as they download stuff for free whereas at least you are thinking about internet rights.”
It is correct that I download music, movies, tv-shows and a bunch of other things on the internet. But I do it because I love to listen to music and watch movies and the Internet is by far the best media to explore those interests. The thing is that the media companies have refused to understand this, and complains about losing out on CD sales. But they are not losing out on CD sales because people are downloading for free instead, they are losing out on CD sales because CD’s are such an inferior media.
Take vinyls for example. Now that is something special. The sound is analog, it sounds real and the packaging they come in can sometimes be so nice so they can be put up on the wall. I’ve even done so myself. Who would ever want to put a CD on the wall?
The computer is the base of most peoples homes today. A lot of people have a computer attached to the TV so they can watch movies using the TV, and even more people have good sound systems connected to the computer so that they use the computer for listening to music.
A CD will in todays homes only be bought, ripped to the computer and put away somewhere on a shelf, never to be seen again.
Is it strange that people dont want to pay 20 euros for a CD when thats all we do with it?
And then we havent even started talking about where those 20 euros goes. Only 3-5% goes to the artist. Thats at MOST 1 euro per CD! The record company steals 50-60% while the record store takes the usual 20-30% profit. The rest goes to packaging, transport and other costs.
Is it strange that people dont buy CD’s anymore when the artists who actually made the music gets almost none of our money from it?
But dont think that people for every download they do puts 20 euros into a savings account, nono, we use that money to go to concerts and buy merchandise instead. Thats where the artists make money. And thats where they always have made their money. The record companies have gotten so lazy thanks to all the boy and girl bands that started in the 90′s. All they had to do is to put up a bunch of photoshopped people on a poster and people would buy their CD’s. They cant do that anymore, thankfully!!
The record companies have to understand that its a new world out there thanks to the Internet and technology. They need to understand that their current business models are very redundant. Anyone can today record an album with a very decent sound quality and put it up on the internet. Thanks to the Internet they can even go around and do marketing for it. Next up is touring and the record company was never needed.
The record companies are nothing else than like an agent is for a movie star. Only thing is that the first takes up to 60% of the profit while the latter only gets the usual 10%. Record companies as of today are mostly glorified PR agencies.
Thats why its so weird that so few artists are embracing the new technology, without the record companies they will make much more money.
Im sure that pretty soon most artists will sign agent contracts with firms handling the contacts with producers, studios, specific pr agencies etc. Not really different from what the record company does today, but the risk might be spread a little bit different and most important of all, such a firm will only take 10% of what the artist or band makes, not 60.
A result of this will also be, which weve already seen, that A LOT more artists can make a living out of their music due to more people knowing who they are and thus going to their concerts.
Sure, the major major artists will and do make less money. They get thanks to the Internet a smaller piece of the cake. But is it really such a bad idea that more people can make a living on their music with the only real result of Snoop Dogg not being able to have 10 Ferraris but “only” 5?
Ive started saying and believing this five or six years ago now, ever since I stopped buying CD’s and time has proven me correct. As a sidenote I do however buy DVD’s, BluRays and vinyls which I think are hardcopies that carry more value than just the content. DVD’s and BluRays mostly for the superior quality compared to downloads and vinyls for the realness of the sound and the art on the covers.
This question really has nothing to do with copyright or stealing, its about a new technology that most people use and in that new technology, there is no good way of paying for what you want, at least not so far.
Spotify is however a really good start but people will not buy music until the artists that we love get a bigger share of the cake, ie until the record companies have disappeared and as a result of that, music is a lot cheaper.
Just think of it, music stays at pretty much the same price no matter how old it is, sometimes it even goes up. Movies however, gradually slide down in price the older it is. Usually you can find the biggest blockbusters for under 10 euros on DVD just 6 months after the DVD release. Just last week I saw the dark knight available on DVD for 8 euros for example.
And this is the strange thing of course, Movies are 100 times more expensive to make than records. And yet, theyre half the price.
No wonder that people download music instead of paying greedy record companies.
Joakim you make some decent arguments BUT …
Open source is one thing…that is intended to be free however an artist works hard to produce music, the record companies whether you like them or not spend good money promoting the cd and there are a lot of costs.
I like music, I have about 3 weeks worth of music on my Ipod that I never leave my home without. I am proud to say I have paid for every single track and hopefully some of the cash allows the artist to make a living and continue to produce good music.
I like Spotify as it gives me chance to listen to a cd to see what its like before buying it. I am also a big fan of Itunes and have bought lots from that. I think CDs are over-priced as well but I will hand over the cash if I want to.
To be honest internet piracy is like a plumber coming to your home, doing the work and not getting paid which is why I am against it. However I am for solutions like Itunes, Spotify and the others that are out there. The record companies are adapting…slowly but surely.
@Shane
I actually agree with you in terms of piracy.
I also agree that the music industry has dragged its heels and through its own arrogance and reluctance (laziness) has gotten to a point where technology and “the norm” has surpassed them. And like any business if you dont find solutions to problems you will either go tits up or other businesses will profit for your latency.
If I had my way I would ensure that any album sold on iTunes, would be able to re-download them at any time needed or a physical hard copy included in a set price. The music industry started to promote DRM and then went tits up and left everyone high and dry with formats that dont work anymore.
I personally really miss music stores over here and the subsequent related new works from artists .
But last but by no means least, while there is allot of talk about “piracy” and different views on copyright ownership need to remember its not about piracy but PRIVACY and the key rights of an individual.
Shane: As I said, dont mix up the idea of Open Source with getting stuff gratis.
People who develop FOSS software do of course also need money to put food on their tables, theyre not doing charity work. They just believe that Free software, as in Free Speech and not Free Beer, is the best way to achieve the ability to put food on the table through what theyre doing.
My whole rant in the earlier post was just about record companies being redundant due to them not filling a function and also wasting money on crap that is not needed. Such as expensive photoshoots and stuff. Which btw sometimes is not even needed. Robyn has mentioned in an interview that her record company spent more than 200K Dollars on a photoshoot which they then never made anything out of.
And now theyre crying about not earning enough money? Bah, humbug.
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