While there is little chance of success in the US due to our (primarily) two party system, it's a different story in Europe. Even over here, the Pirate party would probably benefit by linking up with another party such as the Greens, but for now they're on their own and growing. Is it the rise of the geeks or is it the 99% rising up against the 1% or is it something else? It's a good read about this fast growing party that's not just a bunch of young punks looking for free downloads. The smear campaign by the mainstream is not unlike what we used to hear about bloggers. Remember when it was popular to talk about bloggers as 25 year old kids living in the basement of their parents house? The Pirate party people are serious people raising serious issues. The Observer:
"It's not theft. It's an infringement on a monopoly. If it was theft and it was property, we wouldn't need a copyright law, ordinary property laws would suffice." Nor does he have any truck with the argument that file-sharing hurts art and artists. "It's just not true. Musicians earn 114% more since the advent of Napster. The average income per artist has risen 66%, with 28% more artists being able to make a living off their hobby. What is true is that there's an obsolete middle market of managers. And in a functioning market, they would just disappear." But in any case, he says, it's not about the economy or creativity. "What it boils down to is a privileged elite who've had a monopoly on dictating the narrative. And suddenly they're losing it. We're at a point where this old corporate industry thinks that, in order to survive, it has to dismantle freedom of speech."The recording industry is suffering from a generation gap. The old model no longer applies and younger people today view music differently than it was viewed a decade or two ago. The industry hates the fact that they can't control what is published so they're using (and abusing) their power to turn back the clock and put the genie back in the bottle. That is not going to happen.
