Let’s make one thing absolutely clear about the Pirate Party of the United States (PPUS): it has no interest in defending your ability to illegally download The Blueprint 3 from Waffles.fm. It just doesn’t. If you had the idea in your head that the PPUS would somehow work to legalize your bad habits, well, tough break, kid: it’s a legitimate political party whose goal is not to make it so that you can download the latest Lady Gaga release with impunity, but rather to effect change in the more general realm of copyright and governmental transparency. In other words, you may want to lower that skull and crossbones flag you’ve been flying.
This past week I spoke to not one, but two officers of the PPUS. Ryan Martin, the party’s Administrator, and Glenn Kerbein, the party’s Operations Officer. The conversations were illuminating. Like many of you, I was only vaguely familiar with the idea of a “pirate party” as a result of the antics of The Pirate Bay. (I’ve written, at wholly unnecessary length, about TPB in the past, and my opinion on it can be summed up like this: it’s time for it to go away.) The link between the PPUS and its international counterparts isn’t as close as you might assume. As Ryan explained to me, the parties are really only linked together as a “loose confederation” that’s known informally as the International Pirate Party Movement. It’s a bit like the International Green Movement insofar as there’s no central authority telling who to do what.
But while the Greens regularly send MPs to parliaments all over the world, the American political system, wacky thing that it is, isn’t exactly keen on third parties. These days, it doesn’t seem too keen on doing anything, either, but that’s a discussion for another day (if not another blog). And it goes beyond the notion that Americans are just not “used to” the idea of a politician without a (D) or (R) next to his or her name, but the way in which the system works. You see, unlike in unitary polities, here in the good ol’ US of A you don’t really need one, national political party to be an effective national voice, but rather 50 state-level parties. So imagine how difficult it is to get some sort of organization up and running—think of the paperwork!—and multiply that by 50. This, of course, assumes that states will grant you ballot access in the first place, which, as Ryan told me, isn’t always a guarantee. Long delays in processing paperwork, “missing” paperwork, esoteric rules that not even Harvey Birdman could figure out, you name it. No, The Man isn’t working against the PPUS, it’s just that the political system in this country is so convoluted that it’s damn near impossible for someone to run an effective campaign unless they’re backed by one of the two big parties. (Read: you need money, and lots of it, to stand a chance. Just look at how Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York City.) It’s almost as if all political thought can be broken down into two, and only two, ways of thinking.
To the point, then: what does the PPUS want, and how does it plan to go about doing that? (You should have heard the passion in Glenn’s voice when he began to speak about this stuff!) It comes down to this: the PPUS is looking to reform the way we think about copyright and trademark in this country, while simultaneously bringing some transparency back the government. That’s it. To that end, it wants to elect as many local, state, and national politicians as it can. Who knows, in 10 years maybe you—yes, you!—can run for Congress in your local district, and try to modernize the ancient ways in which we imagine ownership.
The PPUS is a 100 percent legal, federally recognized political organization, one that’s funded entirely by “micro-donations,” as Ryan put it. There is no shadowy sugar daddy behind the curtain funding these guys. And money isn’t even the issue at this point. It’s early enough in the game that your time is just as valuable, if not more so, than your dollars. Do you have a legal background? Perhaps you’d like to donate your expertise to the party? Or maybe you have extensive experience in third-party politics, and know just what it takes to get on the ballot in New York or Florida or Indiana? By all means, send the party the party en e-mail and let them know what you know.
And if you’re wondering, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have contacted the PPUS. Not to take a peek at their platform and perhaps integrate a point or two, or to see how they can better articulate their positions (if they even have them!) vis-à-vis copyright in the year 2009. That’s to be expected, I guess, when you consider how much money certain entrenched interests give to the Democrats’ and Republicans’ campaigns. Is it “free speech” to donate money to a political candidate of your choosing? Absolutely, but I somehow doubt that when the framers were drafting the Constitution they thought there would ever be so much money being thrown around, pushing this interest over that one, smearing that idea over this idea.
And while we’re on the subject of who contacting whom: neither the RIAA nor the MPAA ever sent so much as a Christmas Card to the PPUS. Here I am, thinking that maybe someone at the RIAA would have the idea to contact the PPUS and say something like, “We look forward to a healthy and rigorous debate on the issues with you guys.” Not that the RIAA or MPAA are political parties (though they both seem to have an awful lot of influence over the two big parties), or course, but that maybe they’d have a working lunch one day and, in essence, shoot the shit. A sort of, “What do you think we’re doing wrong here, suing everyone under the sun for unlawfully humming Happy Birthday while on line at the Post Office?” Nope, as far as the RIAA and MPAA are concerned, the PPUS doesn’t exist. And if you don’t exist, you can’t possibly make any sort of impact on the national debate, which is music to the RIAA/MPAA’s ears. Fully licensed music, of course, with royalties that go not to the artist, but to the record label. America!
Getting into the specifics, just how could the PPUS change copyright in this country? First, we have to understand what copyright is before we can change it. In its most simplified form: when you create a work, you and your estate—right now, my estate consists of a 2006 era iMac and an Xbox 360—are fully entitled to all related monies for up to 50 years after your death. (It begins to complicate once you start involving other people, and copyright currently can be extended to as much as 120 years after the original creation.) Write a song today or play today, and you’re entitled to make money off it till 50 years after the day you die. To me that makes zero sense: why would I need to keep making money after I’m dead, to support my didn’t-even-earn-it progeny? (I have a weird relationship with money, I readily admit.) That time limit is pretty arbitrary, Glenn says, and should be lowered to something a little more reasonable. By all means, let the artist make his or her money, but after they’re gone we don’t need to keep paying his or her estate for dozens of years, and then see that time limit extended because some sympathetic congressman snuck a provision in an omnibus bill. Something that was initially designed to help out starving artists and promote good ol’ creativity has been bent and warped beyond all recognition. The system is broken, so let’s fix it.
I did ask Glenn where all of this is going. It’s one thing to call for change, and it’s another thing to actually bring it about. (See: this past presidential election.) And the PPUS is moving in the right direction: it’s about as organized as you can expect such a lightly funded, grassroots organization to be at this stage in the game. The long-term goal, obviously, is to elect PPUS members to national office, which is to say Congress. Considering how much it costs to run an election campaign, even at the congressional level, and considering how carefully etched out election districts are, and considering all the inherent advantages that incumbents have over challengers (and challengers from a “pirate party,” no less), and you understand why that’s not really a plausible scenario in the short term. What is entirely plausible, however: running for local school board.
Both Ryan and Glenn used the word “loophole” to describe the election of local school board members. That is, you don’t have to be a member of any party to run. In fact, party ID is totally irrelevant when it comes to school board elections. And you may be thinking to yourself, “What does a local school board have to do with copyright reform?” Anecdotally, I can say that it was brought to my attention that last year that my younger brother (age 12 at the time) had come home with an assignment from his computer class that ostensibly taught the Dos and Don’ts of using a computer. What was one of the most emphasized “Don’t”? That’s right, download music! No distinction was made between legal and illegal downloads, no effort was taken to actually teach anything even remotely related to copyright. Just the blanket statement: downloading music is bad, so don’t do it. Now, of course I don’t expect a teacher to get into issues of copyright, fair use, and whatnot in a class of 12-year-olds, but why not broach the subject in high school? I graduated high school in 2004, and the subject was never brought up. Why no take one or two days out of an economics class—really, what are you learning in high school economics beyond the demand curve and that communism means everybody is equal (which, I guess, is pure evil)?—and teach the kids about copyright law? If you’re a member of a school board, you very much have the opportunity to influence that kind of decision.
I guess I can end this long-winded nonsense with this: while the PPUS certainly stands for all the right things, it more than has its work cut out for it to “make it” in this political system. For better or worse, third-parties are just portrayed as being “odd” or, the phrase of the moment, “out of the mainstream.” As if your rights as a consumer are “out of the mainstream”! In a best case scenario, I see the PPUS playing the Ralph Nader (of the 1970s) role of forcing the candidates of the two major parties to at least broach the issues it believes in.
This was very intriguing… I’m curious as to whether there’s going to be a follow-up post.
Something a little more focused on your conversation with the PPUS guys. Maybe some excerpts from a few of your exchanges?
I’m still not entirely sure what they’re goal is other than to lower the copyright end-date by joining school boards.
…and yes, I used “they’re” instead of “their”. I went to a state school. Get off my back!
So you know that you are uneducated but choose not to do anything about it?
My choice is to get insulted on the internet by dirty hippies. That’s my cross to bear.
I think word snobs should be fined $100 for each negative comment they make about an error made by an author on any blog on the net.
There is not much in this world that really bothers me more than word snobs.
Hmmm… Word snobs, racist, and hardcore extremist Bible thumpers :-) All of you should get together, have tea and complain,
Matt, you put a comma where you should have a period. (After complain) Do you hate grammar snobs as much as you hate word snobs?
Don’t sell yourself short. This wasn’t long winded nonsense. Great post!
Double Epic Fail. One for each. And the post was long, boring, and self indulgent bs.
or is this political party thing just a convienent defendable way to describe your behavior. tough to censure a political party’s ‘free speech’.
I’d love to get in touch with these guys, but their website seems to be MIA.
The site is down temporarily due to a recent hacking, meanwhile please try the Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2208249304 Identi.ca group http://identi.ca/group/uspirateparty and IRC channel irc.pirate-party.us #uspirateparty
My problem with the Pirate Party isn’t their particular position, it’s just that their position is so limited to particular issues. Where do they stand on taxation? entitlements? immigration? military intervention? abortion? health care reform? tort reform? education policy?
A party so focused on one issue when there are so many other (more important) ones just seems silly to me, especially in our system of government. I personally will remain a progressive democrat, though I reserve the right to party like a pirate.
What is a “progressive democrat” anyway? Does this mean you have progressed from being just liberal to totally clueless?
If I’ve used words that are too big for you, I’m happy to take the time to walk you through the definitions…
Your objection here is similar to one a classmate brought up when I was a senior in high school and we met the candidates for our local congressional district a few weeks before Election Day. As you’d expect, the candidates from the two major parties were there, but we also had a Green Party candidate.
Of course, all she spoke on was environmental issues. Students even directly asked her what her stances on abortion, the Iraq War, etc. were. She simply responded that on those issues, she’d do whatever the majority of her constituents wanted. So in essence, like the PPUS guys, her only platform was a small group of focus issues.
Like I mentioned earlier, my classmate objected to this idea of a political platform ignoring those common, hot-button issues. She said she couldn’t take the candidate seriously if she refused to take a stand on them.
I feel I can respond to your objection the same way I responded to my classmate’s: the point of the party, first and foremost, is to raise awareness of these issues– to force these debates into the political arena. Both the Green Party and PPUS know full well they (currently) don’t have a chance in hell of getting a member elected to national office. Their most realistic means to change is to simply be vocal about the issues they’re passionate about, and ignore the rest. Were they to take a stance on (for example) abortion, half their potential audience would immediately shut their ears.
(Sorry for the longwinded response; I felt this anecdote to be the best way to illustrate my point. But thanks for bringing this up! It’s certainly an unconventional political tactic, but it makes sense when you think about it this way, no?)
In Oregon I am registered with the Pacific Green Party but I support the Pirate Party and am working towards getting them established here.
I don’t like the
“she’d do whatever the majority of her constituents wanted”
Instead I’d prefer a coalition of third parties with complementary focus areas. I think the Green party and Pirate party go well together.
If a coalition won’t work than make it an actual Coalition Party. That sounds broad enough so you don’t have to worry about people pointing to “Green” or “Pirate” and deciding what they stand for.
Hey Jorden,
That’s a very intriguing concept you’ve got there. I can’t tell you all the different ideas I had spring from that once I read it; I think it has some real potential, especially for local and/or regional politics.
I guess my first question would be, what would your short-term goals for such a coalition party be? Would you aim to simply bring about more discussion of said party’s focus issues a la Nader? Or do you think the *right* coalition has a reasonable chance at elected offices (on any level, not just national)?
I’ll end my post there, in case you’re not interested in discussing this at the same length I am. But if you are, hit me up at LouNatick@gmail.com and we’ll see where this goes.
-”Lou”
Sure, I emailed you.
weatherman:
Depends on what you think is most important actually, In the European state of Sweden 8% thought It was important enough to vote for in the EU Elections (Most similar to your National vote).
Do you think a percentage more or less in tax is more important then Basic rights of a western Democracy?
Its up to each voter really.
In Education policy Pirate Party should have a Policy actually. Do you want to raise your kids to use free neutral open source software and learn about computers or raise your kids to be customers of Microsoft?
If they want to be taken seriously as a political party, dropping the word “pirate” from their name would be a good start.
right, but if they do that they would attract zero attention. it is like the church of satan, they actually don’t believe in satan but if they drop the name…
This title made me wary initially about trivializing a serious issue. Observing the earnestness and depth of consideration with which members of the party approach these topics addressed this concern. As a brand applied to those that exercise the right of free speech, we may proudly co-opt the term.
The use of the term “pirates” is mostly in ironic reaction to the content industry’s use of swear words like “software piracy”, “music piracy”. But there are earlier instances relating to copyright and/or “intellectual property”: take the pirate radio stations (broadcasting from ships in international waters) in the 1970s, or even in 1930’s Great Britain: when the BBC was created, and radio fees demanded, people who listened to radio without paying these fees were also called “pirates”, I just recently read.
And, all pirate parties around the world, around 34 by now, call themselves “Pirate Party”.
I see the word pirate was mentioned. I refuse to read this article, but I’m intrigued.
Arrrrr not you having trouble recognizing the word Pirate without reading it?
It would be great to have a true third party in this country, or at least in a few states that could help swing elections. The Libertarians have come the closest in most states.
There seems to be room for a party that is about actually solving problems that would be populated by those from the tech community. But they would have to shy away from social issues like abortion and others that are divisive. Issues such as eliminating the hegemony of teacher’s unions on education reform, for better funding and reform of higher education, for better funding of science reserach, for (mostly) free trade, and reasonable stances on the environment (not the chicken littles on the left and the do-nothings on the right), for true immigration reform and for things like copyright and trademark protections that are reasonable.
But one has to be passionate about this kind of stuff to form a party and get voters to pay attention and most of those types don’t think real well about this kind of stuff so you get left having to pick R or D. And then you so-called progressives get really bummed when your sweet talking BO doesn’t do everything you wanted (but that he nver promised).
“There seems to be room for a party that is about actually solving problems that would be populated by those from the tech community.”
I think you severely overestimate the size of the tech community.
I just noticed you guys turned off that meebo image mouseover crap
thanks very much!
everybody who wants to read the PPUSA-Constitution
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2505140/Ppusa-Constitution
AS well here http://www.archive.org with PiratePartyUS
until 2008 (not much included but for know…)
http://web.archive.org/web/20080205223128/http://www.pirate-party.us/
and folks, by the way,
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204546161
[PiratePartyUS Facebook Account]
http://www.twitter.com/uspirates
[PiratePartyUS Twitter Account]
cheers, from Germany
Danke schön, mein Herr! ; )
…go ahead, waste your vote.
And their website is down. very impressive.
My vote for…the local school board? I’d be glad to.
Maybe if they had preferential voting there would be more votes for third parties.
I’ve been endorsed by the Pirate Party to run for US Congress, TN-5, currently held by Jim Cooper. Check the website for details.
It would be nice if we abolished the (R) Party. Or at the very least make a rule thats says you cant have white or bright grey hair and run for public office.
However I am comfortable dyed hair.
Its really a bummer to consistently hear (R) talk with such closed minded speech.
My favorite example is George Bush JR. Cocaine history.
American has been ruined by extremist Christians.
It would be nice if we abolished the (D) Party. Or at the very least make a rule thats says you cant have white or bright grey hair and run for public office.
However I am comfortable dyed hair.
Its really a bummer to consistently hear (D) talk with such closed minded speech.
My favorite example is Ted Kennedy Alcohol history.
American has been ruined by extremist Liberals.
I applaud you, Joe… well played
why not abolish both?
And this is a reason the politics in the US is so messed up; instead of focusing on solving issues you throw shit at each other. That also means you get shit politicians.
I was talking to these people through IRC and they didn’t seem to have any direction what so ever. I asked them what they were all about and how I could help and all they gave me was “You can download our logo and put it on your website.” When did they get organized? I talked with them like a month ago!
I liked this article.
Website Issues: We’re switching hosts now to something that should stay stable for a while. We need to create a plan for what we want our backend infrastructure to look like, likely a VPS image. That takes time and effort, which we could ALWAYS use more of.
Volunteering: We currently use a mailing list for discussion. Very soon we hope to begin breaking teams down by state. We are also going to have a support tour starting soon. The hope is to get a good number of volunteers willing to travel from state to state assisting in the starting of state level orgs. Contact me directly if you want to volunteer and are afraid you won’t find ‘the right person to talk to’.
School Board Policies: I’m glad to hear some of the comments I am, here. Policy, not law, dictates a lot of personal expression in the public schools. The Pirate Party is, imho, a very good fit for such decisions. Open Course Ware is often blocked to high school students by policy; something I find reprehensible.
Can’t wait for the next interview! I really hope we get a few folks together to help put together a weekly radio show for the US Pirate Party.
I have been intressted in the differenses between the politial system in US compared to those in Europe. Even though those in Europe have quite many differenses, they are more simmilar towards each others than to the US.
* Many parties. In general these groups: Conservatives (blue), liberals (yellow), environmental (green), socialists (light red), communists (dark red), and then there are some others, mostly rasist/nationalist/regionalist.
* First of all you vote for a party. Politicians are free to follow their own agenda, but are mostly required to vote like their fellow party members in their government. Betray that to often and your political career is over.
* Liberalism in europe is different from how the term is used in US. It strives for freedom, mostly economic (like low taxes).
* Some view nationalism as patriotic, but many also view it as a fasadé for fascism and rasism, and even nazism. As Europe is many different nations, a nationalistic movement is often viewed as a threat to the peace (both World Wars started in Europe in that way, as well as several genocides).
* Socialism and even communism is not viewed as evil, though only a few want that kind of dictatiorship that the Soviet union once had.
* The hole system is made to get people to vote. In some contrys they are obligated by law to vote. The system in US seams to be designed to hinder people from voting. For exampel: in most european contries you simply get the few papers you need to vote sent home to you onces you are an adult, and you can even vote from prison.
Wow, that was a lot of text. Hope I didn’t spelled to much wrong as my spellchecker doesn’t work. Well. My point is this:
There are poping up Pirate Parties in many european countries now, and for them it is within reasonable range to start getting into their government within the next couple of years. The Swedish Pirate Party is in the EU-parlament, and the German one is already represented in their government. Way beyond most expectations. All with an extremly tiny budget, but lots of effort, and only focusing on civil rights and IP. And despite the multitude of parties in Europe, they still are something completely new and uniqe.
Well. Good luck from the Swedish Pirate Party.
“* Liberalism in europe is different from how the term is used in US. It strives for freedom, mostly economic (like low taxes).”
Yeah, the Statist have stolen that term from us. What use to be just ‘Liberalism’ now is called ‘Classical Liberalism’ in America. That would be the name of the ideology you are referring too.
PP site is down…someone probably looted it…
Major correction guys — the term of copyright (for non-works for hire) is *not* life plus 50, but instead life plus 70, thanks to the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension act.
5% of the population of the globe own 95% of the capital created within it…
…50% of that total pool is owned by 1% of the population.
Property rights rule ok!!!
I’m so glad I exercised my Dual EU/US Citizenship and moved to the Land of Freedom that is Modern Day Germany.
In less than 10 days I’m looking forward to placing my *2nd* vote this year for Germany’s Piraten Partei.
In just over 3 years we’ve risen from nothing to becoming Germany’s 7th largest Party, and we’re growing in strength and numbers, each, and every, passing day.
After I I vote Piraten here I’m then going to fill out my NYC Absentee Ballot and vote a straight Democratic ticket, with a particular interest in getting William C. Thompson Jr. elected mayor of New York.
Art is a Public Resource, and as such, outside of the Creators of said Art, Private entities should not be allowed to claim Private Ownership of it.
The first tangible step towards this would be to create a pool of monies that will be used to completely buy-out the current Corporations that are claiming Ownership of that which does not, and never had, rightfully belong to them.