The Swedish manifesto says it's against seeing the developing world starve, "because the developed world refuses to share its intellectual property," says the story, adding:
"Its message is that corporations are engaging in racketeering in the developing world and a few power hungry individuals and greedy corporate entities are infringing on privacy and integrity. Piratpartiet says that it will strike out immaterial law, ignore WIPO and WT, and annul any further treaties or policies that hinder the free flow of information. They will refuse to allow data retention nonsense based on terrorism claims or failed RIAA business models."
Says Pirate Party France:
We, French Internauts, presently observe the confiscation, by a few partisan and powerful groups, of the French Internet Domain, therefore leading to a prejudice for the vast majority of Internauts.
With the upcoming promulgation of the law about Author Rights - EUCD - , these rights being now seen as the ennemy of the network and of the internauts, we demand the abrogation of the whole set of laws that define intellectual property on the French soil and encourage the internauts to forget these notions in their everyday lives.
The party also demands the legalisation of P2P networks for non-lucrative use as a natural consequence of the suppression of the author right.
The French Pirate Party plan 6 major reforms :
1 - Total and unlimited liberty of speech 2 - The end of the author rights as they exist in 2006 3 - The right to browse anonimously on Internet 4 - The legalization of P2P Networks when used in a non-lucrative purpose 5 - The suppression of all taxes on empty hardware 6 - Free Internet access to all
The already established Parti Pirate Belge is also online in Belgium, where it declares:
The Belgian Pirate Party is currently an association which intends to eventually form a new political party aiming to bring about reform on author's rights, the abolition of the patent system and the safeguarding of individual rights of privacy.
They hope to be able to organize themselves in time to run in elections in 2007.
They will be working with the Swedish Pirate Party.
Three main points:
- a change in author's rights in order to establish a more balanced relationship between authors, producers, artists and consumers (not criminalise p2p, encourage the sharing of p2p files in non-commercial fields, reduce the duration of author's rights,...)
- the abolition of patents: pharmaceutical, human genome and software.
- to increase the protection of the right of privacy on the Internet and elsewhere ( sharing of personal information by big business and governments, limits on RFID technologies,...)
Other issues related to those above:
- to offer Internet access at a reasonable cost and to create an assistance package enabling people to get a basic Net service;
- to create new employment and to promote research and the development of technology products in Belgium; and
- to fight xenophobia, pedophilia and any other radical and pernicious activity which could harm the integrity of human users of the Internet.
We ask you to respect the laws and to not commit, under our name, any illegal acts. Our credibility depends on your will to generate interesting projects which will be fair to all of us.
Back in North America, among other things, the US Pirate Party states:
The official aim of the copyright system has always been to find a balance between the interests of publishers and consumers, in order to promote culture being created and spread. Today that balance has been completely lost, to a point where the copyright laws severely restrict the very thing they are supposed to promote. The Pirate Party wants to restore the balance in the copyright legislation.
It also says:
We also want a complete ban on DRM technologies, and on contract clauses that aim to restrict the consumers’ legal rights in this area. There is no point in restoring balance and reason to the legislation, if at the same time we continue to allow the big media companies to both write and enforce their own arbitrary laws.
p2pnet was recently told plans may also be afoot to start a Pirate Party in Canada.
We could certainly use one with the entertainment and software cartels suborning elected Canadian politicians as fast as they can find them.
Le Parti Pirate - De la patience…de la patience…., July 5, 2006 Piratpartiet - Välkommen till Piratpartiet! summed it up - Sweden's new Pirate Party, January 4, 2006 Parti Pirate Belge - Qu’est-ce que le Parti Pirate Belge ? US - Pirate Party of America, June 8, 2006
