I was recently talking with one of my software developer colleagues about intellectual property rights. After explaining that proper protection of IP rights is critical to sustaining a software business, my colleague responded, “Arrrrrr, shiver me timbers!” Needless to say, I was perplexed.
After a little digging, I found out that he was referring to Rick Falvinge’s Pirate Party in Sweden, a single purpose political party. These Pirates don’t want to pillage and plunder (at least not in the traditional sense). Instead, they want to reform IP and privacy laws to prevent corporate entities from exploiting them at the expense of personal privacy.
As a lawyer, the concept of property rights, particularly intellectual property rights, is central to my livelihood. That’s why I was skeptical about, maybe even threatened by, the Pirate Party’s platforms at first. After having several more pirate-talk exchanges with my colleague, I had the chance to see Mr. Falvinge at the MySQL User Conference last week. Both my colleague and Mr. Falvinge convinced me that the positions of the Pirate Party are worth pursuing … the party has real credibility. On top of that, I was greatly impressed by Mr. Falvinge's lofty goals:
- Win a seat in the Swedish Parliament with 4% of the vote.
- Act as the deciding vote in electing the Swedish Prime Minister, with a commitment that the Pirate platform would be a central objective.
- Use Sweden’s EU membership as a protective measure against trade sanctions (based on implementation of IP reforms) from the US and other trading partners.
- Achieve world domination! (OK, I added this one on my own, but these Pirates seem to think BIG).
The Pirate Party platform has some reasonable elements, but many push the discussion too far.
For example, the Pirates call for limits on the term of copyright protection, but suggest an unreasonably short term of 5 years.
In any case, the dialogue that results from this political movement is worthwhile and has the potential to impact our day to day lives at least as much as many of the policies outlined by the candidates in this year's US Presidential elections.
For those of you not familiar with the Pirate Party, I urge you to check into it if for no other reason than the novelty. The party has also been replicated in many countries, including the United States. If you have dismissed the Pirate Party as “fringe” or not worthy of serious attention, please take another look. You might find yourself with an eye patch and parrot recruiting your own crew to sail the seven seas, looking to loot the coffers of the large corporate sailing ships that abuse the copyright laws at the expense of individuals.
