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

Pirate News Top Three 28/02/2013

1. Pirate Bay Hosting Sails To Spain And Norway

 

As a result of pressure put onto the Swedish Pirate Party, the decision was made by both the Swedish Party and The Pirate Bay to move its web hosting services to the Pirate Parties of Spain and Norway. Although The Bay had already moved most of it's services "To The Cloud", the Swedish Party was still providing web hosting for the website. Now, bandwidth will be split between the Spanish and Norwegian Pirates, who will be providing The Bay with an "exit node". It is most likely both of these countries were chosen as a result of of their respective courts ruling in favour of defendants of filesharing cases.



Full Article At Wired UK: The Pirate Bay moves to safer shores, Norway and Spain

2.  64 Pirate Parties Worldwide

 

The number of Pirate Parties worldwide has now reached 64 in total, with 50 of those being active and/or registered in their respective countries, according to The Pirate Times. Australia, Norway and Poland are those most recently to have a Pirate Party registered with the governments of their countries. What's more, there are more 600,000 people are following a Pirate Party on Facebook or Twitter worldwide. Tunisia, Serbia and Isreal have more than one country claiming to be the official one. Maybe the Copyright movement should do a double take at those figures.

Full Article At The Pirate Times: The Pirate World 2013

3. Pirates Without Borders

 

European Pirate Parties of different countries sharing a common language have started to "twin" and share common knowledge between each other. Known as “grenzenlos Piraten-Partnerschaft” (or Borderless Pirate Partnership), parties in German-speaking parts of the Netherlands and Germany are meeting up to share/copy ideas, with those from Brussels and Liege likely to follow. Here's hoping this could be replicated between UK and Irish Pirates.

Full Article At The Pirate Times: Pilot project for International Pirate Partnerships Announced