Victory for Pirate Party as EU party adopt its views

THE PIRATE PARTY has claimed a victory after the fifth largest coalition in the European parliament adopted its positions on copyright monopoly.

According to Falkvinge, the European Green coalition of which the Swedish Pirate Party is a member has adopted the Pirate Party's perspective on culture completely.

Positions the Green party group has adopted on copyright monopoly include that filesharing is legal and Digital Restrictions Management preferably should be outlawed or, at least, that it must always be legal to circumvent.

The Green coalition also now believes that baseline commercial copyright monopoly should be shortened to five years from publication, extendable to 20 years through registration of the work, that the public domain must be strengthened, and on top of all that, that net neutrality must be guaranteed.

UK Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye told The INQUIRER, "With the recent election victory in Berlin and now the Green EU Block adopting key Pirate Party positions, the movement continues to grow in its influence. This is because of the strength of our ideas. There are real challenges to digital rights world wide - site blocking, '[three] strikes' laws and ACTA and people are looking to us to stand up to the industry lobbyists. It's vital that we work at an international level combat these threats to the open web."

He added, "Every country with a Pirate Party presence is a country where digital rights, our right to a shared culture and civil liberties are put firmly on the agenda. Here in the UK, we plan to follow up on our meeting with Ed Vaizey to continue to point the Government in the direction of digital inclusion, rather than crackdowns like the Digital Economy Act.

"The time of the big media lobbies having it all their own way is over." µ