Good Morning
Posted on June 25, 2009
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
NPR had a great story this morning about Regina Spektor’s new album, it’s awesome.
The Pirate Bay has been denied a fair trial in Switzerland, that the judge being apart of the Swedish Copyright Association didn’t effect the verdict. However the pirate bay has fired back.
“The Pirate Bay will now file charges against Sweden for violation for Human Rights. More info later. (The bias-judge is himself biased…)”
While I agree with them this seems like Plan D, like they’ve exhausted every other resource and now as a last ditch effort they’re charging that because they couldn’t get a fair trial their rights were harmed. I’m not positive if this means they need to start serving their year in jail, they’re still expected to pay 30 million konor. The bottom line becomes though, if they can’t change copyright law it’s just a game of survival for them. I think they can appeal more too, I have no idea how it works in Switzerland other than what I’ve read but I certainly send them my best.
I do know in America things have been much worse in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case. She’s on the hook for 2 million dollars, for just 24 violations of copyright, $80,000 per song. What I don’t like is how she says the jury did it’s job. To me the jury failed, the jury isn’t supposed to blindly follow the law, they’re supposed to take it under consideration but come to their own conclusions. It seems to me some billion dollar record company had just a few “have to follow the letter of the law” people and they turned the rest. Maybe it’s just paranoia but I saw Run Away Jury, I know how easy it must be to tip a jury. Maybe I’m just bitter about jury’s because I’ve never been asked, and I feel like that’s something I really want to do at least once.
You can sign up for The Pirate Party in the US now. We’re a young party but we’re hoping to change the way this part of our law works. It’s broken and no party, save for maybe the socialists, are talking about these issues. Their Platform is small, and largely incomplete, I still find it more relevant to me than the 2 main parties. They also work closely with the EFF, which is always advocating for the right things. I can’t exactly say that about Moveon.org anymore.
Right to Government Access
Right to Protest
Right to Free Press
Right to Assemble
Right to Privacy
Right to Government Transparency
Separation of Intellect from Property
Reform of Copyright
Reform of Patent
Reform of Trademark
Abolition of the DMCA and related subsequent provisions within copyright law
Abolition of Digital Rights Management
Rejection of the Concept of Online Piracy
The idea that sharing anything online is piracy is absurd on its face. Actual piracy requires forceful and aggressive acts, committed against those who would keep a cargo safe from harm. The cargo in this case is the freedom to act. We would take it from those who jealously guard it for themselves and divide it amongst everyone in the country.
There’s also so much foreign policy crap, Iran, North Korea, and Bears oh my!
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