p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- June 4-7 are the dates set for elections to the European Parliament and a, “Record low turnout is expected,” giving, “fringe candidates a better chance of winning seats, says the Associated Press.

By “fringe” it means the true representatives of the people such as  the Swedish branch of the rapidly growing Pirate Party, as opposed to the entertainment industry friendly politicians currently doing their best to put Hollywood and the Big 4 record labels into office.

In much the same manner Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music told the world about MP3 file sharing when they started trying to sue their own customers into becoming compliant corporate consumers, thanks to the efforts of Warner Bros, MGM, EMI, Colombia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony Music and Universal, the Pirate Party of Sweden has achieved a prominence it could never have dreamed of, bringing it within reach of the seat in the European Parliament.

The music and movie companies went after the men behind The Pirate Bay and,  “We tripled our member count in a week,” AP has Pirate Party founder and chairman Rickard Falkvinge saying.

“The party has been receiving about 6 percent support in recent polls, which would be enough to win a seat in the European Parliament,” says the story, adding:

“Falkvinge said his party’s advocacy of shortening the duration of copyright protection and allowing noncommercial file-sharing between individuals is catching on around Europe.

Sweden is, “just 18-24 months ahead in the political debate in this field,” he states. “We see the same debate in Europe and all over the world. This is going to be a big global change.”

Free the Web

Also expected to do well is the Green Party which, as p2pnet recently reported, is calling for »»»

Public documents in open formats
Greens want public documents to be written and conserved in an open format, in order to keep public administrations independent from software publishers and patent holders and ensure document accessibility to all citizens, independent of which software he or she uses.

European Patent Office (EPO)
Greens want EPO to become a Community Institution, accountable to the Commission and the EP. The EPO shall be publically funded, in order to discourage their practice of issuing high numbers of patents in order to secure EPO financing, which is detrimental to the quality of patents. Greens propose that 5% of the renewal fees of patents are transferred to an independent research and innovation fund.

Free the Web
Greens support an active vision of the Web as a platform for the exchange of information, with peer-to-peer groups in which each user can upload or download content and applications of choice. The non-commercial use of the internet must be excluded from all sanction systems. Greens oppose a transformation of the internet into TV-on-Demand, the installation of filtering by internet providers, and any systematic surveillance of the net, because it is incompatible with the right to privacy.

Global Online Freedom Act
Greens want a European Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA) which aims to protect of Internet freedom. Among others, the GOFA shall strengthen digital basic and human rights, promote the dissemination of anti-censor technology, increase transparency about the technical complicity of IT companies and internet providers in acts of state censorship, and develop minimum standards for IT companies providing internet services in dictatorships.

Open access to science
Greens support the Open-Access Movement for the widest sharing of scientific knowledge as advocated by the Berlin Declaration on Open Access – signed by 200 universities, research institutions, funding agencies, foundations, libraries, museums and archives from all over the world. The declaration states that our mission of disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the information is not made widely and readily available to society.

Pro-filesharing campaign

Says Ernesto in TorrentFreak, “The European Greens, which consists of many national Green political parties throughout Europe, currently hold 42 seats in the European parliament and aim to increase this number for the next term. While the Pirate Party in Sweden received much press coverage for defending The Pirate Bay and sites alike, the Greens were already doing the same thing in the European Parliament.

“In 2008 the Greens launched a pro-filesharing campaign named I Wouldn`t Steal. The campaign clip they created (see below) was uploaded to The Pirate Bay. Their goal was to counter the anti-piracy propaganda put forward by the entertainment industry, and encourage people to download and share.”

He continues »»»

This view is also reflected in the party`s principles and actions during the last term of the European Parliament. The Greens were one of the parties that managed to block legislation that would make it easier to implement three-strikes and disconnect alleged pirates from the Internet. In addition, they opposed the controversial and draconian IPRED legislation that would criminalize forms of copyright infringement.

Greens fought against IPRED, which attempted to generalise the use of criminal sanctions in all cases of intellectual property infringements. Greens helped to make sure that criminal sanctions only apply in case of violation of intellectual property rights on a commercial scale and not for personal use, they write in their Green Book.

The Greens have a clear picture of what the future information society would look like. Less copyright, more Open Source software, no software patents, a neutral net, no three strikes, open access to science and the legalization of non-commercial file-sharing, to name a few of their key points.

Greens support an active vision of the Web as a platform for the exchange of information, with peer-to-peer groups in which each user can upload or download content and applications of choice. The non-commercial use of the Internet must be excluded from all sanction systems, the Greens write.

On the other hand, the Greens oppose any systematic surveillance of the net, because it is incompatible with the right to privacy. So no spying on your download behavior by the entertainment industry or even your Internet provider, and thus no three strikes legislation.

If you’re in Euroipe, you know what to do:

GET OUT THERE AND VOTE !!!

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Associated Press – Web pirates, dancing prince running for Euro seats, June 1, 2009
entertainment industry friendly -UK government to go after file sharers, June 5, 2009
p2pnet - Green Party on `copyright problems`, June 2, 2009
TorrentFreak – European Greens Want to Legalize File-Sharing, June 4, 2009