Thursday, August 13, 2009

Pirate Party Ireland

I just heard today that the Pirate Party UK has been officially registered as a political party. Ireland also has a Pirate Party website. I think it would be a good idea to have an official Pirate Party here with a representation in the Dail. Politics needs people with widely disparate views on policies otherwise you end up with what we have in Ireland, a political system where the opposition is the same as the government so no matter what way people vote we still end up with the same vested interests.

Now I don't think it would be a good idea to have copyright laws scrapped or to just allow private people to take whatever copyrighted material they want but I do think we need someone to bring some balance to the current situation. Look at the new three strikes rule from Eircom. The RIAA can tell Eircom who they believe are illegally downloading copyrighted material owned by the companies who make up the RIAA and Eircom have agreed to disconnect the offenders. These would be the same companies who at the same time do everything possible to block and delay legal downloading. It took years for the iTunes Store to come to Ireland and we still cannot purchase movies and TV shows.

We need someone in government to stand up the the RIAA and other companies and tell them you can have your copyright and a crack down on illegal downloaders but you have to provide legal downloads at same prices as other countries. Then give them an ultimatum, bring Ireland up to the same level as the US and other countries within 1 year or a new copyright bill will be put through making the maximum punishment for illegal downloads a fine equal to just the price of a purchase in the shops. I support the right of movie makers and musicians to make money from their work but I'm sick of being forced to buy movies on disc, my shelves are full.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, the industry in this country are highly unlikely to move forward at more than a snails pace, instead falling back on legal repression, bullying ISP's, and all the stale tactics you'd expect from people who haven't moved on since Napster.

An organized Pirate movement is the only way to influecne the debate at the moment.