Pirate News Top Three 23/04/2013

Worried About Accidental Illegal Filesharing? Get Insurance.

The Local has reported that the Swedish Pirate Party has unveiled a “File-Sharer Fine" Insurance, which will pay out on any fines a person receives as a result of file-sharing. The argument goes that it can be difficult to know what is legal to download and what isn’t, as a result of poor copyright policy as well as contradicting laws in different countries (e.g. regarding mp3/mpg licences). The idea comes from planka.nu, a similar scheme in which people can insure against getting caught without a ticket on the Stockholm Metro system. It would be interesting to see what the premiums would be like and how they are calculated.

Full Article At The Local: Pirate Party launches file-sharer fine insurance

 

International Pirate Parties Compared

With the ever-growing Pirate Movement straddled across many continents and very largely influenced by their respective memberships (and rightly so), The Pirate Times has started working on a table which compares the policies that national Pirate Parties have decided to campaign or have a policy on, although at the moment it is very general. Interesting points include the focus on Church-State Separation in a number of Eastern European states, as well as the obvious near-unanimous agreement on policies such as Patent Reform, Privacy and Net Neutrality.

Full Article Available At The Pirate Times: The Pirate Times Pirate Party Policy Comparison Table

 

Cameron To Opt-Out of EU Social Media Policy?

It seems popular right now to slag off anything that comes from the EU; the apparently undemocratic institution we elect MEPs to every year is a force of evil, makes it illegal for us to call ourselves British anymore, etc. etc. Although this might win votes, it seems the current government is taking the very position it criticises the Labour Party of doing; namely opposition for the sake of opposition. David Cameron seems to be intent on opting-out of EU legislation that would mean companies such as Google and Facebook are required to remove all of your data if you request it. I’ll leave the question open as to whether this seems a good idea or not.

Full Article At Pirate Party UK Blog: Opinion: Cameron Wants to Forget The Right to be Forgotten

Abandon Ship! German Pirate Party Shipwreck In Elections?

In the last couple of weeks the German Pirate Party has failed to secure a seat in the state Parliament elections in Lower Saxony, with momentum fading since the rise of pirate parties across the world following attempted shutdowns and arrests over Bittorrent site The Pirate Bay.

This follows an apparent tirade of negative press and bad publicity over arguments within the party, as well as claims of being unable to shift the opinion that The Pirates are a single issue party concerned with copyright.

However, the profile of the German Party has in general risen since first coming onto the scene a year and a half ago. They are concerned a seperate political entity rather than a fringe party, and the recent result should increase state funding for the party.

Full Article at The Pirate Times: Lower Saxony Pirates Fail to Gain Seats in State Parliament

Grand Theft Auto 4: Key Facts Review

GTA4 is a Modern Classic; still as playable and fun as when it was first released.

Gameplay: This is one of the few games that is easy to pick up and play at any time, whether you want to be drawn into storyline and missions/side missions or whether you want to just fire it up and go on a murdering spree. The controls are responsive, with an innovative aiming system (where auto-aim locks onto the middle of an enemy's body, leaving it to you to aim for their head, legs, groin etc) and fun driving. The cars handle more realistically than the arcade controls of the previous games, which initially leaves you feeling like you're driving a bus. Stick with it though and you'll very quickly be able to weave flawlessly in and out of traffic.

Graphics: For a game towards the end of the honeymoon period of the PS3, this is absolutely gorgeous. The amount of detail in the environment, cars and inhabitants is pretty amazing. Unlike previous games, your vehicle now reacts directly to collisions, rather than showing the same damage model regardless of where the car was hit. Graphical glitches are very, very few and far between, and don't detract from the overall feel of the game.

Sound: Although the GTA series has many strongpoints, by far its strongest ally has always been the sound and music. Real DJs offer up music you would most likely have listened to in 2008, on a variety of different radio stations. The scripts of the call-in and debate shows are truly hilarious, poking fun at just about every section of American Culture, from liberal to conservative and everything in between. This is particularly ironic considering this is a game developed by Rockstar North in Scotland!

Multiplayer: For the first time in a Rockstar North-developed GTA, online multiplayer is available. This covers all the basics with deathmatch and team deathmatch, along with fantastic themed games such as "Cops and Robbers", where Robbers need to escape the city whilst cops need to kill the criminals. Another interesting mode is free mode, where you and a bunch of people can just go around the city causing havoc or generally doing what you want. It is often fun to enter this mode when you're just messing about in the game, as it gives that social element to digital anarchy.

Overall: If you don't own this game, then where on the planet have you been hiding? This is exceptionally well made and one of the first truly "blockbuster" games. For many hours of fun for the rest of your life, this is an amazing investment.

Get it now!

Fighting the Copyright Cowboys and their Copyright Crusade (aka RIAA)

I'm going to start right off with something that could be quite unexpected: copyright is something we need, and continue to need for the foreseeable future. "Are you serious?" You may be thinking. Why, yes I am; without licenses such as the General Public License, it is unlikely projects like Android, Firefox, OpenOffice/Libreoffice would thrive quite in the way they have done. Copyright law has given these projects the right to determine how others can use their program and source code, whether or not others can profit from it, the right to have code attributed back to the original project and the right to grant anyone the ability to look at the original source code and learn from it. Without copyright law, we really would be in a Wild West of ideas stolen and profited from by Copyright Cowboys; or rather, corporations with lots of money that could (and would) take any of this free software and sell it as their own, with no repatriation or acknowledgement to those that wrote it.

I also assert my right to have my writing here attributed to myself, and the right that only I may profit from it. It isn't so much about my going on a copyright crusade in order to protect my work, and it certainly isn't about me advocating a limiting of our internet freedoms just so you can buy a single, DRM protected right to read this article on only the devices I decide. It is simply me saying I put a decent 30 minutes in writing this, so don't fob it off as your own. Other than that, you are free to do as you please; my work is licensed under a Creative Commons license, so within those bounds you can be my guest.

But anyway. What absolutely angers me are these shadowy figures, in the UK and beyond, that (despite between £millions to £billions profits) claim piracy is "destroying jobs, income and livelihoods", and that because of this media companies and the police should have unprecedented powers to collect and snoop on ANYONE's data. While they are at it, they may as well be given the right to install cameras in our homes just to be doubly sure exactly WHO in a household is taking part in this crime which is certainly not victimless!

The attacks on our freedom of privacy, expression, and civil liberties is bad enough. But what offends me as well is this claim that it is all done in order to enforce the rights of content creators. Is that so? Does that mean, as an independent content creator, I have access to the same amount of police support/snooping in order to "protect" my intellectual property? I didn't think so. All these laws amount to are a protection racket perpetrated by the wealthy and vested interests of popular media. They are the mobs with easy access to guns and muscle. The reality is it is nothing to do with enforcing copyright laws; just enforcing it for those that can afford.

Welfare Cuts? Do We Need Cuts?

Fitting poster. Though I'm not advocating a Labour Vote.

Warning: Before you excommunicate me, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here. An interesting game; but no Playstation Network trophies.

"No to all cuts!" many protestors say. It's an argument that irritates me a little. If we were to trust the government's figures (OK, that's stretching it a bit), and we really have run out of money, then for me it is an argument that doesn't really work.

If I borrowed £5000 from a reputable credit card company (or Cash Convertors at least), and after the first year of payments stated quite clearly to them that I didn't want to pay my debt anymore because I didn't accept the lifestyle change, I'd probably get laughed at and a hefty court bill. I don't see why national budgets or borrowing should be any different. Even if the danger of our deficit is constantly being over-inflated by the coalition.

It is where these cuts lie, however. For me to agree to any budget that includes cuts, the cuts need to fall equally on the entire population. If my income and benefits are going to be reduced because of a cap on benefits, or an increase in tax, then I would expect that the same burden be applied to everyone on every income. I would fully expect taxes or other burdens to increase so that, as a population, it would result in us all across the income spectrum (as far as possible) gaining an increased income of no more than, for example, 2%. If I knew the head of Barclays Bank was having the same proportion of income reduced as me, I'd sleep much better at night.

What we see, however, is tax on the highest incomes reduced while these tax increases and benefit caps are inflicted on the poorest. We are quite blatantly not in it all together. And this is further compounded by the wealthiest, such as the owners of these international banks, are the ones that caused this financial mess all those years ago.

Add onto this the fact there are many areas this government could be cutting or raising money from, and this obsession with "scroungers" and "benefit cheats" makes you wonder if there is more at work here. Although to be honest I don't think our leaders are that intelligent; they just want to look hard on fraud so Daily Mail readers are more likely to vote for them. To be fair, about 2 million people read the Daily Fail, so I suppose you can't blame them.

Disclaimer: I do not actually get in the habit of taking loans out from Cash Convertors.

Fairer/More Local Policy on Wind Turbines

Windmills of the 21st century or hell on Earth? Photo by Lizzie

Something that enrages the life out of me is this entire debate on whether we should have Wind Turbines or not. The growing consensus appears to be "not in my backyard" from a small but very vocal minority, with arguments of destroying countryside, noise (which surprises me, as I have stood underneath the ones in Mablethorpe and not heard a thing) and (occasionally) that man-made climate change is a lie. More frustrating is the lack of a proper political opposition to the "tough" stance on wind farms by Lincolnshire County Council.

I believe there is a very simple answer to all of this.  Once a suitable site has been found, hold a  referendum on whether it should be built or not. If there is a wide opposition from residents in the area, then they should be granted their request providing ALL residents reduce their energy expenditure in the space of 2 years, let's say by 20%. All residents should be able to receive free monitoring equipment to measure their energy usage.

More power stations are required because of the closure of old ones, and because our energy needs are increasing all the time. To me the argument on climate change is a moot point, compared to the very real threat posed by the dwindling of the world's fuel supplies, which will lead to ever rising costs for us all. If we are to take the views of residents opposed to wind farms seriously, then on behalf of the country they should be expected to play their part in reducing their use of energy.

EDIT: You can make your views known to Lincolnshire County Council by completing their questionnaire. You may be able to better express your views by calling their customer service centre on 01522 782226 or e-mailing them. You could also try tweeting them.

Please also sign this petition for renewable energy development in Lincolnshire on Avaaz.