Pirate Party Wins and Enters The European Parliament

[HiltonT]

Now, PLEASE let me state up front that I don't condone piracy (of the software kind) in any way, but according to http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-wi ... nt-090607/ the Pirate Party, founded (I believe) by those who founded Pirate Bay, have gained at least one, and maybe 2 of the 18 seats in the Swedish parliament. :)

Arrrr.

[Eniavlys]

More links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009_(Sweden)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8012549.stm

[Robbobrob]

I find their belief in freedom and personal privacy very refreshing.....if we can get a version of that in America, I would gladly join up.

[Andrey Kurtenkov]

... in the Swedish parliament. :)

Arrrr.

The mentioned great victory of the advanced humankind was in election of the parliament of the European Union, not of the Swedish one.

[Eniavlys]

He means that the Sweden have 18 seats in the European parliament and the Pirate Party have one of those.
The pirate party is fighting for the respect of privacy on the web and for a legalization of the download. The are web pirates and sea pirates, but do you think there are a lot of difference between them? the state of mind is the same, so glory to the old pirates and to the new pirates.

[PantyGnawer]

The are web pirates and sea pirates, but do you think there are a lot of difference between them? the state of mind is the same, so glory to the old pirates and to the new pirates.

I download illegally all the time, but it just doesn't bring one the same satisfaction as swinging from your mast line onto the deck of a Spanish Galleon and running some blaggard through wit yer cutlass!

[Eniavlys]

Of course yes, but it's less expensive (a pirate ship is quite more expensive than a computer) also ya can do the 2 in the same time with a satellite connexion, with the web to explain you when the rich galleon ya can steal will pass, there is no reason for waiting all the day if you know that at 5 pm a great ship will come into your hands (or hook). So you can drink some beer, watching an illegal downloaded film, and then go on the Spanish galleon.
But if the world don't let you download informations about ships and the film you want it will be a hard day on the top of the boat looking for an Spanish ship which would maybe not come until few days.
So let us download as we want to do.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Here's an interesting article by one of my favorite computer game developers, about software piracy. I think it's worth a read.
http://pc.ign.com/articles/967/967564p1.html

[Cardinal Fang]

Ben Goldacre wrote an interesting column last week about how music downloads ARE NOT to blame for the music industry's downturn.

Artice HERE

CF

[Roy Hunter]

I tried for years to play music but avoid being part of the music business. The reason the biz is in trouble now is very similar to the reason GM and other industrial dinosaurs are in trouble: they resisted change, and assumed we'd just keep buying the same old shit.

The music biz resisted MP3 because you spend 79p a time instead of buying 10 or 12 tracks for £10; you don't get packaging (which you are paying for), which leads to merchandising (the Rolling Stones album has a big, obscene-looking mouth on it, so you want the T-shirt too); and they don't get to sell you machines to play it on. It's no councidence that Philips, the inventor of the compact cassette and the compact disc, is also a record label. It is no coincidence that Sony, inventor of MiniDisc, is also a record label.

Now that it's too late, and the iconic brand name for MP3 players is a computer company, not a record company, they are crying foul. It's not a foul: they made some bad business decisions and now they have to face the consequences. The shape of the playing field was changing and they didn't pay attention.

There was a time a multitrack digital studio cost at least £1M: now I have one in my house which cost me all in about £800. Studio time and musician's wages for the average album in about the year 2000 was £50,000. Now it's about 10% of that. They can't make money out of infrastructure like studios any more; there's no money to be made in distributing MP3s; and they don't have to print and manufacture packaging and promotional materials to the same extent.

Piracy isn't killing music: music will always survive. The music business is no longer fit for purpose, and evolution is killing it. We're just hearing its death throes. [/rant]

[daftbeaker]

Stuff

I have a nice graph for you, courtesy of the Guardian:


Article here, basically it argues that since music can be obtained much more cheaply people are choosing to spend money on games which they can't get elsewhere. Basic use of money for maximisation of resources.

[Qwertyuiopasd]

I agree with Roy. Internet Piracy, for music or video games, is a clear indicator of something being wrong, or at least not optimal, in the business model.

For exaple: the Steam platform from the Valve company. Valves games don't get pirated. You download steam for free, buy games quick and easy from that, and start downloading, and then play. Also, they do global releases, meaning games don't come out a few weeks or months later in other countries. Couple that with their steam community features and security features, and it makes more sense to just use Steam and pay for games.

For music, well, you can't really OWN an mp3 without being able to copy/send/proliferate it as you like. So, the whole buying CDs/indivudla mp3s model isn't going to last very long. Artists are already finding ways of getting around this. Take "In Rainbows" by Radiohead or "Ghosts I-IV" by Nine Inch Nails. all online ways of getting the music, with prices rangeing from free to 300 dollars to whatever you wanted to pay. Of course, that's easy for an established artist to do. The trick is what to do with new and upcoming artists.

And who knows what the answer is. My personal opinions is that it's certainly not the record company strategy. I think it'll look more like Webcomics, where you can have a living by creating some content for free (the webcomic/the music), and some for pay (hard copies of the comic, hard copies of the albums, T-shirts and other merch), and most importantly, a donations page.

The first step is getting public policy changed, and legalizing filesharing.