Information

The PPI Wiki is currently hosted by PP-De but will soon migrated to this site. For now it can be found here. The Wiki contains a wide selection of information on PPI, its structure and activities as well as a details on individual Pirate Parties from around the world.

The planing for the International Workshop 2007, which is on June 8th-10th in Vienna (Austria), is nearly finished.

There will come Pirates for every where in the world, for example Peru.

Speeker will be Rickard Falkvinge (founder/chairman of the swedish piratepartiet), Eva Lichtenberger (politician of the european parlament), Rasmus Fleischer (Piratbyran) and more ...

Interested to come ??

Vitsit the International Workshop 2007 on the Wiki and sign the mailinglist.

here is the speaking of Rick Falkvinge (chairman of the swedish
Piratpartiet) at the german pirate party convention from the 20. May 2007.

On YouTube:
Ricks Speech: Part1
Ricks Speech: Part2
Ricks Speech: Part3

For download:
Mirror: Wunschik.net
Mirror: Chaotika.net

Since 20. May the german pirates have a new party executive.

Chairman: Jens Seipenbusch aka nanuk
Vice-President: Sven Riedel aka Sr
Political Secretary: Jan Huwald aka jh
Treasurer: Peter Böhm aka Bierat
Secretary-General: Bastian Grundmann aka NoEwS

[News, News]
The new german Ambassador for Int.PP and Eu.PP is jh (Political Secretary), formely NoEwS.

Last Friday, January 26, one of the coldest days in recent New York City history. It was also the day Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), the members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, sought to cast a permanent freeze on the activities of millions of their customers in the US, forcing them to comply with their vested interest dictates, or face potentially ruinous civil court proceedings..

They were appearing at an oral hearing before judge Kenneth Karas in Elektra v Barker, a landmark case lodged by the Big 4 record labels against Tenise Barker, a single New York woman represented by Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who runs the Recording Industry vs The People blog.

The forum became a bit of a spambot haven, and needs to be sorted. Unfortunately, the server decided to act up as well - so we're "inbetween" fixes at the moment. It means that all users that have zero in post count, will possibly find that their accounts aren't around after all things are said and done. We hope that you will find your way back, and register a new account, once we're done.

Basically, we need to sweep the database clean from bots, and the only idea so far is to delete all accounts that show zero in post count, and now that we have found a modification that will properly keep the spambots out. Quite possibly, an upgrade of the forum software will be in the works eventually as well.

The existence of legal systems without robust enforcement of copyright law, in countries where software development is a highly robust enterprise, is a serious threat to the free software model.

Open source development has always been an international phenomenon. After all, the killer app of the movement -- Linux -- was born in Finland, and the quintessential dual licensing business was started in Sweden with mySQL. Companies like Red Flag have stepped up in Asia to take Linux into double-byte territory.

The very essence of collaborative development is to break free from arbitrary or geographic barriers like the borders of the nation-state. But attempts to internationalize free software licensing -- the legal paradigm as opposed to the development model -- have been less successful.

Reformers shift battleground to Court of Justice

The European Commission has quietly iced plans to reform copyright levies, just days before they were due to go into effect.

The proposals would have allowed governments to dump levies on electronic media devices. The levies are collected by copyright groups to compensate artists for private reproduction of their work, and the reforms were vehemently opposed by artists and the French.

Reuters reports that a Commission spokeswoman told reporters, “"The Commission has decided more reflection is required on this complex issue. When it is ready, it will bring it on the agenda of the Commission."

Rickar Falkvinge, in his blog, examines the case for Sweden legalizing filesharing (in Swedish). The reasoning is worth a brief discussion here, as the same interpretations hold for other EU countries as well, and perhaps beyond.

We should first note the important fact that in European copyright laws, a distinction is made between the "moral" rights of the copyright holder (essentially right of origin) which can never be contracted away from the creator of a work, and the "economic" rights (which can).

The basis for the discussion is the Bern Convention current 1971 text:

Berne, Article 9, paragraph 1: Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall have the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of these works, in any manner or form.

Berne, Article 9, paragraph 2: It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.

A long list of detailed exceptions to the first paragraph's distribution monopoly follow. Note the introductory two qualified conditions: "does not conflict with a normal exploitation" and "does not unreasonably prejudice". These qualifiers are interpretative and are not otherwise defined.

We do however have some guidance for interpretation when the Berne text refers to printed books. It is for example an easy exercise to argue that an electronic facsimile reproduction of a book does not conflict with the "normal exploitation" of physical book sales nor "unreasonably predjudice" the interests of the author.

But what about "digital works"? The WIPO copyright treaty (WCT) deals specifically with computer software, for example. It defines software copright protection as "literary works":

WCT, Article 4: Computer programs are protected as literary works within the meaning of Article 2 of the Berne Convention. Such protection applies to computer programs, whatever may be the mode or form of their expression.

Only in national legislation (for instance Swedish laws based on the WCT) do we find any more detailed interpretation. However, here we also find explicit exceptions to the exclusive distribution rights — specifically, the right for individuals to make non-commercial copies for personal use.

These are national laws that the international copyright-holder lobbyists wish to see changed, with the erroneous claim that the overriding international treaties (Berne, WCT) require it.

Yet the reasons for these detailed national excections are clearly motivated: it is exceedingly difficult and socially unacceptable to introduce the kind of total surveillance state required to enforce a complete ban on copying for personal use. It means nothing less than complete monitoring of all private communication between individuals and of their use of all information. At the same time, it is meaningless and counterproductive for citizens' regard for the law if such bans are legislated but cannot be effectively enforced.

Meanwhile, the EUCD, often referenced as advocating a complete babn on copying actually says something different:

EUCD, article 5, paragraph 2: Member States may provide for exceptions or limitations to the reproduction right provided for in Article 2 in the following cases: ...

This list needs to be fleshed out by representatives from all nations, in order to make it easier to get in touch with each pirate party. Once a person is selected or have volonteered to be a representative from their country, register at the forum and send infinite_emma a PM.