sk_jun_2010 / it sais:"Forbiden Ideas?"
A major computer magazine of Serbia [Jun 2010 issue] talks with a leader of Pirate party of Serbia. Have fun!
As the Internet expanded globaly, new kinds of social problems occurred, such as the question of privacy and security, copyright, as well as shaken Inetrnet neutrality… These things are serious, and the fact that political parties of developed countries had to add their viewpoints on the new age demands to their political programs speaks for itself. However, even this was not enough. A natural response was the accumulation of like-minded people around these new topics and their unification into an official entity. In some countries these were NGOs at first, while somewhere else parties were formed immediately. After a surprising success of the Swedish Pirate Party (which won over seven percent of votes and entered the European Parliament), world political scene met new players. While the world is remodelling its textbooks on political science, and all the parties, pirate or other, are debating the patent system and the behaviour of the entertainment industry, in the Republic of Serbia, politicians argue about giraffes and prostitutes, curse the journalists and almost try to introduce unemployment tax.
It is hard to imagine the existance of a serious pirate party, or even an NGO in such conditions. However, since recently, there is an NGO called Young Pirate (Mladi pirat) in Serbia. We had a chat with its founder Aleksandar Blagojević, who is also a member of the executive board of PPI, worlds umbrella organization. First, we wanted to know what are pirate parties exactly, and what are the causes around which they gather.
Many people find it strange that you present yourselves as pirates. Do you support the piracy, that is, do you promote downloading pirate material over the Internet?
The name pirate represents rebellion. We want to distance ourselves from the rooted concept of unification because we have practical and life goals. The idea was born in Sweden and the initial energy was generated by the pirates of the Internet. It was later projected through real political parties. Today, Pirates of Europe have the political power which has been materialized in some countries, as well as in the European parliament. We do not support black market economy because it destroys the state. We do not support piracy for money. We are here to protect the creative people, the researchers and the authors! We are aware that they are the most valuable generators of ideas and energy in our society. We have modelled a program of adequate copyright protection for authors and it relies completely on the objective power of the Internet. At the same time, we wish all the best to the pirate material, we wish them a long and successful life: we support downloading and uploading of pirate material! We do it every day. We use them, as well as medical doctors, members of Serbian government, police officers, members of information agencies, highschool students, preschool students, teachers, bakers working the night shift… Even agencies for battling piracy use them! EVERYONE uses pirate material on the Internet, it is a fact of life today.
Downloading and uploading of pirate material is against the law. Does this mean you are breaking the law and inviting people to do the same?
It was more than illegal to say something against creationism not so long ago, and you ended up at the stake. Today, we exchange vast amounts of human knowledge and copyrighted material at the speed of light. Each particle of the whole apparatus of human knowledge was a copyrighted material sometime somewhere, at the beginning. Today, the whole humanity uses a certain type of knot to tie its shoelaces. Somebody must have made a great intelectual effort to incorporate that knot into the knowledge system, too bad they did not have a lawyer, they would be the most powerful people of the modern world. Isnt it silly to punish people for downloading and uploading material on the Internet? I personally have tons of copyrighted material in my private collection and I hereby invite Serbian Ministry of Interior Affairs to apprehend me because I work hard on meta manifestation of the material with maximum significance to my social surroundings. As far as the law is concerned: it does not correspond to reality. If the country of Serbia applied it only on the basis of copyright protection, it would be left with less than half its citizens out of prison. It would be worse than the inquisition. Did we learn anything from the past? I am a personal trainer and my workout routine is available for everyone to see, copy and reproduce. The outstanding performance is something I always carry within me, in my head and hands. I know I wont go to pieces if I dont lock up what I have. Not the other way around. Sure, I have a couple of tricks of my own and something I have learnt and developed over the years, but I have no problems sharing it with my colleagues, nor them copying me. On the contrary!
You say you support the authors, but not the industry. The industry is a proxy and the distributor of someones work. It is hard to imagine a system in which youd give money directly to Metallica or Steven Spielberg. Most of the authors do not want to bother with such things. Today, it is possible to legally download a song for a really small amount of money, DVD movies are not that expensive… If the whole world started to download illegally, the industry, as well as the authors would be ruined. Arent your ideas the end of blockbuster movies, games, high-end music production?
The whole world started to download illegally long time ago. However, the Hollywood (followed closely by the music industry) [http://torrentfreak.com/us-pirate-party-study-shatters-mpaa-claims-080709/] records increased profits at the same time. The authors who directly sell to customers, do not hassle with payment collections, web machines do it for them. It is true, songs can be downloaded for a fair amount of money, and DVDs are not that pricey, but it is still more than 0 dinars and we all know what free of charge means. The root to this problem is, of course, something else, and it is called replicability. If you stop to think about what you consume, lets say in music business, you can easily get to the times when music was not recorded and megabytes were not sold over the Internet, not even plastic sound carriers were sold. My belief is that the music had its own life back then and it was meaningful, peopple paid their absolute attention and revered the moment that could not be replicated.Today, everything is replicable., plastic and pretty much the same as something that already exists. Isnt it silly to pay $10 for something like that? I do not consume art that some company shreds to pieces and sells as a product of postcapitalist era and I feel very good, believe me. It is , of course, my personal choice, but ask yourselves if any artist was ever treated fair by the industry which shreds its life and ideas to pieces and throws them to a starved pack of zombies it keeps in its cooled chambers?
But if the authors did not make profit off their work, what would be their source of income? It wouldnt hurt Spielberg to lose a million or two, but in Serbia, for instance, there are people who created a computer software, on which they now live. How could they earn their living if nobody bought their work, but illegally downloaded it over the Internet instead?
Upgrading of the current system demands investing, mostly in the domain of social consciousness. It seems that hyperproduction is not the problem in comparison to hyperconsumption of the society. Everyone should use pirate material, in the same way they are using communal services and mobile telephones. I know how people react when they hear the words tax, fee, subscription or donation. What needs to happen now is the recognition of the new age significance and the reaction in this case should be hospitably domestic, or even a family one. It wouldnt hurt anyone if the Internet with all its resources was treated as a communal service or even a peoples right [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8548190.stm] or even if it became a peoples right (Estonia, France, Finland, Greece) [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_access#Internet_access_as_a_human_right]. Such an important decision should be based on the installation supported by the users. Rebellion is cool for generating the energy of change; however, the antagonism with the branch that we sit on does not lead us anywhere. So, if there is willingness, there is a way. How to protect and stimulate the authors? Only by implementing a global apparatus of social security which is compatible with the exchange (that is it stimulates it). Furthermore, the solution which emerges as the most suitable is voluntary and collective licensing (yes, the humanity is facing another great test). The concept is simple; support the authors through all the levels of a medium via which their work is consumed, from silica for the computer processors, gallium and arsenic for displays, to plastic for keyboards and the Internet installation itself. Just like we systematically build and pay for the communal network and fire protection, we need to develop in the Internet field as well, by being socially conscious. At the same time, there are systems for popularity evaluation of a certain material (nothing complicated, same as download server statistics), so the distribution of money that has been raised for the stimulation of authors would practically be automatic. A draft of this idea is available here [http://w2.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php]. We have some serious work to do and we need to do it fast.
Serbia of today is a country in which average salary does not cover the costs of a consumer basket. Gas prices are soaring, privatization process is being carried out miserably, workers go on strike
Do people have the time to think about these problems in a country like ours? Or do you plan to, like your western colleagues, raise the whole story to another level, a party level, and thus offer an elaborate political program?
The core of the pirate idea consists of the following: abolition of the patent system, copyright law reforms and protection of privacy. The party is being established and we are aware of the long road that is ahead of us, if we want such a quality upgrade. People around us feel the wind in our sails; we give them support for their ideals. They trust us. We feel that now is the ideal moment to start the reforms in Serbia. Consumer basket is huge and it cannot fit through the doorway because people are buying things they do not need! They only manage to bring in a higher installment for a refinancing loan. At the moment, active systems and methods do not bring results. We talked with very powerful people in Brussels, and they embraced our ideas and views with enthusiasm. We live in too specific a moment to let such possibilty slip from our hands!
The idea of Serbian pirates seems unusuall because it is new, but citizens of Serbia collectively seem less intelligent than a group of bacteria scrambling for a grain of garbage! Is money the point of separation?! Employment via connections? Salaries for rent, electricity bills…? People are pouring in the wrong direction. They struggle for loans, step over their moral scrupules in order to get a job. They have forgotten to play with their children, to have their own day. They stand in line waiting for their own misery! It is not the Serbia we inherited. Pirates do not tolerate this horrible state of affairs and they live the life as it should be lived, because every citizen of the world has the power of their freedom, strong enough to transform their lives in the way they want to! Our fellow countrymen do it every day, but, unfortunately, their role models are from television and look what our country has been reduced to! Think what you really need to do and what you really should do! Turn on your brain and do not take loans for refinancing the PM because you wasted the AM installment! If you are the haves, share with others, if you are the have nots dont take from others! The solution is unbearably simple and is right in front of our eyes!
Today, accounts and transactions of all public institutions are avaliable for all citizens to see! It is technically feasible practically without any investments. It is technically feasible and You can take a look and see how much money the Serbian government has spent today for formulating half a sentence of a law! Government meals must not be costlier than the problems being solved at those meals!
People in Serbia often take out and refinance loans in order to fix their water heaters, buy a new refrigerator, a computer for their children. What is it exactly that is unnecessary in a consumer basket?
Sitting around, cigarettes, alcohol, sweets and TV subscription. I showered with cold water during college and had 20 German marks as a monthly pocket money. My father worked as a apprentice during all the school holidays, and my grandfather (in comparison to the two of us) went straight through hell and paid for the education of three mechanical engineers out of a craftsman pocket. Today, I live off personal training. I have finished the Faculty of sports and physical education. I can say that I live off the disproportion of the distributed goods within the society, and off the human ignorance. On one hand, people close to me do need water heaters repaired, on the other, I live off solving clinically obese peoples problems, I help them lose weight. I drive a bicycle, use a peasant soap for my personal hygene, which costs a few dinars and I once witnessed a female client who came to lose weight using an elevator to get to the first floor. I empathize with the hardships of those in need and the smartest thing I have to say is that material poverty is not the final state, but a process leading to something better.
Something important happened for the pirates in Brussels, in April… What was it about and where does your organization stand in regard to that?
We made an umbrella organization which main goal is to support and coordinate the work of all Pirate movements throughout the globe. Everyone gave Pirate Parties International (PPI) their full support, from informal associations, to powerful political parties of the western Europe. The entire Statute, preliminary meetings and ideas were built in public debates (yes, even our megaenemies, that is megacorporations, could follow our work).
We felt great fulfilment because the Statute of the Pirate International brought international affirmation of the Pirate movement in the world and showed the kind of cooperation as it should be. Also, I was elected for the managing board of the PPI.
The story is new to Serbia. You must be planning some campaigns, forums and similar actions, so that citizens could learn more about your ideas and goals?
Of course. The Internet campaign is in full swing. By setting an example and by personal contacts we manage to invest the most of the serious changes into the future. In the last two years, since the idea was born in Serbia, we record an increase in the number of Pirates. The managment is in touch with around one thousand Pirates in Serbia today. There are also a lot of fan groups on Facebook and regional groups around Serbia, with which we recently got in touch. Of course, we do not see the lack of money for the pricey paid appearances and advertising space as a problem, because we do not trade in those values. We are very much aware of the materialistic concept of life of today and we direct the money to causes smarter than advertising wells. Those more experienced know the ways in which an Initernet Pirate channels material goods. All I can say at this point is that there are more efficient ways than paid appearances on television.
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