Pirate Party's North American Debut

adonoman writes "A 25-year-old Winnipeg businessman is the first Pirate Party of Canada candidate to run for federal election. At the same time, the US and UK pirate parties have put out an open letter to Anonymous requesting that they cease Operation Payback's DDOS attacks and focus on taking a legal route to fix intellectual property law."

Re:Yeah, right.

[Bucky24]

pissing off one's oppressors is a good thing in itself.

How is that a good thing? If you mean oppressors in a figurative manner, making someone angry doesn't make you more right, and often it causes your side to lose support. If you mean literal oppressors, then pissing them off usually just ends up causing greater oppression. Anonymous and the Pirate Party are fighting a law. Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

And with attitudes like this (or, even worse, the Stallmaneque version, where trying to get paid for your work is somehow morally repugnant), it's no wonder that the vast majority of people will continue to ignore you.

Re:Yeah, right.

[idontgno]

Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Of course they are. [wikipedia.org]

Quite effectively, too.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not stealing your property.

And no, pointing out the fact that copyright infringement isn't theft does not mean that I'm a pirate or that I endorse piracy.

And yes, that IS what you were going to claim.

Re:Yeah, right.

[AnonymousClown]

Unless and until a dictatorship is in place, there is always a legal means: getting elected and changing the copyright laws.

The thing is, can one or a handful of elected people make a change? In the States, Libertarian candidates actually get elected every once in a while, but I'm afraid nothing has changed.

But if one has quite a bit of money, it's amazing how the system just bends to your will.

The big corporate machines with all the cash will never allow anyone to change IP law.

Re:Yeah, right.

[mug funky]

"...there is always a legal means: getting very wealthy and changing the copyright laws."

FFY

Re:Yeah, right.

[goldaryn]

Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.

Of course they are. [wikipedia.org]

Quite effectively, too.

I actually have mod points at the moment, but instead of modding parent up, I want to reply in agreement.

I couldn't agree more. I'm sure Rosa Parks [wikipedia.org] would as well.

I live in Britain and frankly, I feel disgusting at the way that ordinary people have been increasingly criminalised in recent years. Particularly since Blair, legislation has been more and more as a means of control. This is not a thought, it's a fact. Look at the statistics for the number of new pieces of legislation that came in under his tenure. I really don't like the way this country is going at the moment.

Now, I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs of piracy, but I will say this one thing. The world is changing. Record companies still desperately cling onto the old models, and it make me laugh at their blinkeredness. When music copying is so mainstream that any kid with a PC can copy a CD, it starts to become clear to everyone bar the music companies and the governments they lobby that one way or another, things need to change. Just in case some of those people are reading, I will give you a few clues to get you started: how much is a track worth to a buyer? What percentage of that does the artist receive? How much of that SHOULD the artist receive? How much would the buyer pay if he/she felt the artist would receive FAIR royalties?

You made a lot of money for many years, give artists a fair deal, reduce your ridiculous profits and you MIGHT survive, record companies. Otherwise, I hope every single artist out there makes a website selling their MP3s and every single record company goes totally fucking bust.

Anonymous is people.

[unity100]

one should equate it to the masses in front of the guillotine back in 18th century. it is not wise, to keep ignoring their will, despite they having started to openly express it and become aggressive over it. last batch to do that, had their heads in a bucket.

Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[unity100]

let me see. i have qualified in first 500 out of 1.5 million youth who took the national university entrance exam in my country during my generation (a very hard exam that people prepare for 3 years, like tokyo u entrance exams), i have entered a university that is in the first in my nation, and have been sending graduates to teach in schools like MIT (yeah the one in usa) for a long time. (actually my professor was flying to mit to give lessons, and flying back, while teaching us), i have quit college, not wanting to go on with a career, and out of nowhere, with nothing, i have learned coding/programming/databases and established myself as a professional in the field for 5 years now, with clients from all over the world.

during this time, i havent engaged in any illegal activity. havent been involved with the underground world, hacks, cracks, phreaks, and all that goes about it, despite i had ample opportunities, like any tech-savvy i.t. person that lives today.

but rip my freedoms off that way, and you will push a lot of people like me, to underground, with a cause. and, i assure you, pushing that many smart people that way, is not a good thing.

just saying.

Re:Yeah, right.

[shentino]

Let me guess.

The bully is giving the teacher a cut of the money he takes from you.

And seriously, the real world isn't much different from the playground. What starts out as bullies testing their muscles escalates to companies flexing their legal strength, and countries proving their military might.

The entire world is about power and who has the most of it. When people are "looking out for number one", power is the only thing that actually works.

Throwing sand in someone's face could quickly get you detention/trade sanctions, but if that's all you have, may as well use it if you're going to be raped anyway.

Re:Update

[Xacid]

"and basically told them to F off"? Umm, no. From your own link: "We recognize and respect the work of all the Pirate Parties and wish them luck. We hope that they all continue their fight as they think is right. And so will we fight, as we think is right." That's a mile away from telling anyone to "F off". They're supporting the same cause - they're just not aligned in their methodology.

Re:Yeah, right.

[JesseMcDonald]

If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.

If an action is "wrong" or "not right" that means you shouldn't do it. If it's "right" then that you are permitted to do it, or in some cases should do it. To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[lidocaineus]

I'm loathe to tell you this because it SEEMS like trolling, but it's not; if you write like this, even in an informal public forum, with bad grammar, no punctuation, a strange logical string that doesn't make any sense, and an overwhelming sense of mis-placed esteem and hubris, you aren't doing yourself any favors. You come off like someone who maybe wanted to graduate in the top 500, but really ended up near the bottom.

Re:Pushing more people to underground ? morons.

[lidocaineus]

And... you just confirmed eveything I said. Good job!