Danas article – English version
Read the english version of Aleksandar’s interview published in DANAS!
Original article
PIRACY – Influence of file-sharing freedom fighters getting stronger. “The Pirate Scare” across Europe
Author: Goyko Vlaovic
Beside the fact that the far-right British National Party (BNP), otherwise known as the die-hard objectors to the existence of the European Union, has won 2 seats in the European Parliament in June elections, the European public was equally shocked by the news that the Swedish Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) also reached the threshold level and got Euro MPs.
Unlike the BNP activists who emphasize their xenophobic attitude and oppose “the non-white immigration of the Old continent”, members of the Pirate Party could, by no means, be put in the same group with the British pro-fascists, since they are recruited mostly from liberal and left-wing circles, and, for the sake of precision, be it mentioned that, visually, they do not in the least resemble former bloodthirsty pirates after whom they got their name.
The scope of interest of the Pirate Party, whose 7.13 percent in elections for European Parliament marks “a slap in the face” to all the mainstream, traditional political parties, is the Internet, and their main goal – legal reformation of laws defining copyright and patents. Rikard Falkwinge, the president, and at this point, the only representative of the Pirate Party in the European Parliament (once the parliaments of all the EU countries ratify The Lisbon Treaty, Amelia Andersdotter shall join him in the seats) has an important mission – to convince his colleagues from the Parliament that “file sharing over the Internet should be entirely free from corporatism of the multinational companies”. In addition to taking a third place in overall number of registered members in Sweden and a first place in number of members of the youth organization Young Pirate (Ung Pirat), The Pirate Party can surely be glad to have established an international network, entitled Pirate Party International (PPI), which gathers “the Pirates” from 32 countries. Among them is The Pirate Party of Serbia, founded on February 2nd, 2008.
- The primary goal of The Serbian Pirate Party, at this stage of its development, is to inform the citizens of their rights and get the environment ready for the acceleration of the information revolution. My definition of the Internet is that it represents a tool for communication and cooperation providing a working and creative environment. It is only partially free since megacorporational tendency to control it is constantly rising. Appart from the money flow, even governments tend to track and index the entire network traffic in more and more detail. We need to have our freedom of speech on the Internet preserved in the future and our right to privacy – says for the Blue Pages Aeksandar Blagojevic, founder and president of the Serbian Pirate Party. When asked why multinational companies are bothered by the activism of Pirate parties throughout the world, Blagojevic says it is because “they are trying to control the market”. He emphasizes that the multionationals’ goal is to keep the money flow provided by certain groups of people.
- Prices of products, such as for instance a new album of a popular group, the newest “appley” computer, operational system made of windows, or some of the “i” telephones are high because the biggest part of the price that a consumer pays is in fact pure profit, made by a corporation by its locking of knowledge. They are able to do that because the system allows the big cats to own monopolies. What the majority of people takes for valuable and on which it spends large sums of money, is in fact corporations having a vampire-like relationship with them, buyers of their products. On one hand, they are convinced they are getting a lot for their money; on the other, a company invests less and less in its actual development and spends most of the time mystifying their products, trying to convince people they are offering something really special. A system established in such a way allows the companies to get the profit even from the citizen’s rights to share something of the collective knowledge that the companies have usurped. An example of free sharing could be, for instance, that the two citizens have exchanged a recipe for a meal and the other one later made that meal. Why would anyone tax him for that? That is the knowledge being exchanged. It could be an exchange of the formula for a new medicine or for the development of a product useful to the society. The issue of locking pharmaceutical knowledge is particularly problematic because it is obviously in direct connection to people’s health – says Blagojevic.
According to him, the information the Pirates are exchanging is the knowledge which should be free of charge and accessible to everyone. He points out the issue of companies owning the power and trying to charge taxes on basically anything that a legal system allows.
- The authors and the authorship have to be protected and adequately respected. However, the problem nowdays is that the authorship is not in the hands of the authors. the corporations are the ones who legally hold more than 90% of the profits to all the creative work of the real authors. It is the essence of the issue, not movie sharing via p2p networks. Pirate Parties are trying to think up new ways of protecting the authors, preserving the current Internet exchange system at the same time. It is of great importance to mention the fact that the Holywood income grows with each year, regardless of the Pirates, and that growth is exponential and huge – says Blagojevic.
The fact that The German Pirate Party has won 850.000 votes in recent elections, the head of Serbian “Pirates” sees as a great success and encouragement to act over here as well.
- In our manifest and programme it is emphasized that the Pirate Party shall never become a part of the present Serbian political establishment. Namely, by the time we’ve thrived, the political system of Serbia will have become more valuable. It shall bring the new quality to citizen rights and freedoms, as well as freedom in general, in any other aspect of life – Blagojevic sums it up.