On April 14th and 15th the Pirate Parties International General Assembly (PPI GA) was held in Prague. Representatives from 28 countries decided on the future of the PPI, the international umbrella organisation of Pirate Parties.

During the conference, participants drafted and signed a declaration regarding the upcoming European Electionsin 2014. Pirate Parties will participate in the European Elections, include a common programme into their individual programmes and will form a political party at European Union level. As of now, the declaration was signed by Pirates from 19 different pirate parties (DE, CZ, IT, PL, LU, BE, LV, FR, EE, FI, RO, RS, UK, ES, SI, SK, SE, CAT, PT), including famous pirate MEP Amelia Andersdotter from Sweden. [1] Individual Pirate Parties are invited to ratify the declaration in the following months.

Pirates from all over the world meet in Prague at the Pirate Parties International conference 2012

On April 14th and 15th Prague will be the capital of Pirate Parties. Representatives from more than 20 countries will meet for the Pirate Parties International (PPI) General Aseembly 2012 in Czech Republic.

During this conference, the General Assembly - the highest body of the PPI - will decide upon the admittance of new members to the PPI, elect a new board and discuss and vote on amendments to the PPI statutes. In addition there will be an open space and a parallel session for discussions about the forming of a Pirate Party Europe/EU.

We would like to invite you to the 2012 Pirate Parties International conference which will be held on April 14th and 15th in Prague, Czech Republic.

During this conference, the General Assembly - the highest body of the PPI - will decide upon the admittance of new members to the PPI, elect a new board and discuss and vote on amendments to the PPI statutes. In addition there will be an open space and a parallel session for Pirate Party Europe/EU discussions.
Speeches will be given by Amelia Andersdotter, Swedish Pirate Party's Member of the European Parliament, and Laurence Vandewalle, Policy advisor on telecommunications and free culture from Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament. Saturday's program will be closed with a keynote address by Cory Doctorow, blogger, journalist and well known anti-copying-monopoly fighter.

No Safe Harbor, released January 24th 2012, is a collection of political essays, texts and discussions that help explain and educate about Pirate Party positions. While some have been published before, many others are original to the book.

Contributors range from first-time writers being published for the first time, leading academics, to Pirate Party officials, and even international organizations like the United Nations.

Adding color to the book are cartoons by artist and free culture activist Nina Paley, creator of the animated film Sita Sings the Blues.

On January 19th, right after the international blackout strike followed the day before by more than 60.000 websites against the new anti-piracy laws proposed in the United States, the Department of Justice executed a court order through which they shut down the services of Megaupload and charged seven persons, five of which , including the founders and some employees, have already been arrested.

The Pirate Parties defend the free exchange of information, and considering the arguments exposed in the indictment and the press release submitted by the United States Department of Justice, we claim that the big majority of the accusations have no legal basis or are blatant U.S. government interference in other countries.

On January 18, many websites went voluntarily on strike [1] to demonstrate against the threat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) bills, pending US legislation that would restrict freedom of speech, negatively impact economies, and degrade internet security. Among others Wikipedia [2], Reddit, Mozilla, and Free Software Foundation participated. Many organizations, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, have expressed grave concerns over the bills [3].

Regardless of whether its purpose is legitimate or whether it will work; the legislation is not compatible with democratic values. It promotes censorship by 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, including search engines or blogs which link to such sites. This would be done by ordering Internet Service Providers to censor access to the Internet and by cutting funds to the infringing websites by forcing the advertisers and payment services to cancel their accounts [4].

On the first of January 2012 many works will enter into the public domain in many jurisdictions; that means you can remix those works freely, usually even without citing the original author (although we think if you do appreciate their work, it's good sports to name them) without getting sued. Thus the first of January each year has been established not only as New Year's Eve, but also as Public Domain Day since some years.

If you are eager to remix some of these works, we suggest to lookup the copyright expiry date for works in your jurisdiction, e.g. at Wikipedia. As of today a lot of countries are basing the copyright term expiry date by the year the author died, you may then lookup who died in the respective year, e.g. 1941.

We all whish you a happy new year (given you are using the Gregorian calendar). The video embedded below has been created by the Pirate Party of Australia where all works by authors that died in 1941 will become public domain.