Democrats, Republicans, and… Pirates?

August 24th, 2006

Pirate Party LogoThat’s right. Pirates. The Pirate Party is beginning to form in the United States. Piratpartiet originated in Sweden. They are a political party that is pro-privacy, anti-copyright, and anti-patent. Some major issues are net neutrality, the limiting of copyright lengths, and advocacy of personal privacy laws that allow the use of technologies such as cryptography.

Copyright laws are not serving the public nor are they serving the greater good. Copyright currently serves large corporations while limiting the creative expression of artists around the world. Copyright terms are constantly being lengthened to the point that nothing that you enjoyed as a child will ever go into the public domain until you are no longer alive to enjoy it. Mickey Mouse must never become public domain, so the terms keep getting longer and longer until they are longer than the lifespan of any human.

Some of the other issues that they Pirate Party stands for are brought to light in a song by “Weird Al” Yankovic entitled Don’t Download This Song. (You can download it at dontdownloadthissong.com) Downloading copyrighted material should not be grounds to make one a criminal. The Pirate Party is there to fight for issues that matter to the rising generation of Internet savvy people that want to experience media on their terms.

You can’t join yet, but they will be allowing people to join in a few weeks. For more information visit The Pirate Party Website. You can sign up to post to the forums and receive announcements about when and how to join and upcoming events.

Arrgh Matey!

One Response to “Democrats, Republicans, and… Pirates?”

  1. Ray Jenson says:

    13 months after the fact… we’re allowing people to join. Heck, we’re actively looking for people to help get us started! Just one caveat: you have to be a registered voter. “Undeclared” is the best party until we get on the ballots… but if you want to join, please let us know!

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