On Jan 1, 2006, Rick Falkvinge (pictured below) founded the Pirate Party in Sweden, beginning a new era in the fight for legitimacy of P2P. Rick was tired of the MPA/IFPI lobbyers and politicians who would not listen to reason, so he resorted to taking to the streets in a battle for voters in this fall's general elections.
LinuxP2P: How did you guys come up with the idea of creating a whole new political party for file-sharing and privacy?
Falkvinge: Basically, because the politicians didn't listen to their voters, but to yesterday's industry interests instead, which led them to criminalize 20% of their voters (1.2 million file sharers, 5.2 million voters). There have been many good writers on the issues, which the politicians have chosen to ignore. So we figured the only way to get their attention was to go head-on in a battle for voters.
LinuxP2P: What are your main goals?
Falkvinge: To stir a debate about the hidden costs of copyright and patents, and to stop the big-brother society trend. This needs to be done on a European level; we view Sweden as a beachhead in this aspect. You gotta start somewhere.
LinuxP2P: How do you intend to reform the copyright laws in Sweden?
Falkvinge: Our goal is to reduce copyright substantially in both coverage and time. First of all, when copyright was created, there was no such thing as noncommercial copying. We want to bring it back to cover copying on commercial grounds only -- the copyright monopoly will not cover noncommercial activities at all, nor does it cover anything else than the original exact copy. For example, you would be free to sample from a piece of music and release it as a new work.
Second, the protection term today is ludicrous. Copyright is a monopoly given to the creator as an incentive to create more culture. So why, then, does the monopoly last seventy years after the creator's own death? He or she is very unlikely to create more culture after his or her own demise. If you look at the industry, any investment made is usually calculated to have paid itself within a few years, say five years. We believe this is a reasonable term. That would mean that any music, movie, etc, would have five years of monopolized sales under copyright before it becomes a free-for-all, which is more than sufficient to regain any investment.
Overall, today's copyright does not strike a balance between the creator's interest in regaining an investment on one hand, and society's interest in creation of culture on the other. The law is totally one-sided towards the creator's interests, preventing the spread of culture.
LinuxP2P: Will you try to get the EU's software patent directive and their data retention laws to be annulled in Sweden?
Falkvinge: The software patent directive was, thankfully, not passed. The data retention directive will not be implemented in Sweden if we get our way.
LinuxP2P: What is your position on DRM?
Falkvinge: That it should be prohibited outright. DRM is effectively media companies writing their own copyright laws, harming society and consumers. We have a parliament to write such laws, thank you very much.
The equivalent would be if someone sold you a product that shut down on purpose in daylight, or outside of a particular city, or under whatever condition the manufacturer hadn't approved. We call it fraud in the cases where we can relate, so I can't believe the media industry is getting away with this.
Apart from that, there have been numerous horror stories about DRM abuse. Starforce and XCP come to mind.
LinuxP2P: How, if at all, will your changes in Sweden's copyright laws affect Free/Open Source Software?
Falkvinge: The changes to copyright laws might not affect FOSS, but there are other provisions of our platform that will. Specifically, we will require the public sector - which is quite large in Sweden, and spends quite some money - to purchase systems in a way that does not "promote the formation or continuation of monopolies on ideas and concepts". This translates to more or less requiring FOSS, or at least more open systems than are common today.
LinuxP2P: The French are proposing to implement a monthly fee to Internet subscribers that gives them the right to download music freely, but they will also impose high financial sanctions for those caught uploading. What are your opinions on this?
Falkvinge: If they can't file share, what are they paying the fee for?
Actually, I think this system is worse than today's system. We'd have a system where the media companies would receive a flat fee and determine what was available for download for that fee. The ink wouldn't be dry on the law before the media companies removed the newest content from download availability and put it back on the shelf, and with a fresh new revenue stream to combat piracy, we'd all be worse off.
LinuxP2P: Patents provide a huge financial incentive for inventors and researchers. Won't abolishing them effectively stop innovation?
Falkvinge: This is a myth.
Patents today are a honeypot for inventors and researchers. However, one you've paid the ?50,000 to take part in the European patent lottery, you will find that the war chest of the multinational companies is much larger than yours, and they will effectively crush the inventor like a bug.
In short, the story about striking it rich on a patent is a fairy tale. There are way too many interests out there who don't want you to get rich on that patent, and they make very sure you won't be.
Besides, take a look at the high-tech gadgets around you today. Mobile phones, for example. New models are invented because people are buying the latest high-tech -- not because the inventing company can patent it. Put simply, a company that didn't spend a lot of money on innovation would quickly be out of business today. That is a much stronger incentive than being able to patent something: if you don't invent, you're dead. In such an environment, patent lawyers draw valuable resources from R&D instead of contributing to the economy.
LinuxP2P: What kind of relationship do you have with the torrent tracker ThePirateBay which also operates in Sweden?
Falkvinge: Some of the people in the Pirate Party have met with some of the people in the Pirate Bay. They were started independently of one another and are not formally connected, but the people involved have enjoyed the occasional beer when we meet.
LinuxP2P: Apart from working to improve privacy rights and legalise file sharing, what are PiratPartiet's other goals, if you have any?
Falkvinge: We have three goals: reform copyright, abolish patents, and strengthen the right to privacy. Nothing else.
LinuxP2P: Do you support all piracy, such as street traders selling knock-off DVDs and even pirate cinemas?
Falkvinge: We don't. We believe that copyright is unbalanced today. However, shifting it as far as selling knock-off DVDs - effectively abolishing copyright - would remove the creator's financial interest from the equation altogether. The law is about striking a balance between the creator's financial interest and society's interest of culture spread.
You might want to note, though, that once the copyright has expired after five years, such activity would be totally legit. It would be no different from printing a really old book today.
LinuxP2P: If file sharing was suddenly and publicly fully legalized, wouldn't everyone switch entirely to file sharing, undoing any good file sharing may do for CD and ticket sales?
Falkvinge: That's exactly what the music industry said about the cassette tape, too.
LinuxP2P interviews The Pirate Party
Για όσους δεν είναι ενήμεροι, το Pirate Party (PiratPartiet) είναι σουηδικό κόμμα που συμμετέχει στις εκλογές του φθινοπώρου, με κύριο πολιτικό άξονα την τροποποίηση των νόμων πνευματικής ιδιοκτησίας, διπλωμάτων ευρεσιτεχνίας, καθώς και θέματα παραβίασης της ιδιωτικής ζωής (privacy).
