[Solar-general] Fwd: [ox-en] FW: [spectre] Pirates at the Parliament: the big dream?! - An Interview with Magnus Eriksson from Piratebyran

[José Ignacio Pedrini]

Interesante, hubiese preferido español pero bue... gracias igual...



2009/7/10 Diego Saravia <dsa en unsa.edu.ar>

>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mathieu O'Neil <mathieu.oneil en anu.edu.au>
> Date: 2009/7/9
> Subject: [ox-en] FW: [spectre] Pirates at the Parliament: the big dream?! -
> An Interview with Magnus Eriksson from Piratebyran
> To: list-en en oekonux.org
>
>
> Hi
>
> This seems like an informative text, sorry for any crosspostings.
>
> Mathieu
>
> =-=-=
>
> Digicult presents:
>
> PIRATES AT THE PARLIAMENT: THE BIG DREAM?!
> An Interview to Magnus Eriksson from Piratebyran, realized during
> Hackmeeting 2009 in Milan (Italy)
>
> Txt: Marco Mancuso & Marco Riciputi / Eng: Luisa Bertolatti
>
> Digimag 46 - July/August 2009
> English pubblication online soon...
>
> Italian text: http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1508
>
> ------------
>
> "In just 24 months we have witnessed an amazing increase in consensus
> toward
>
> our ideals across the globe". Renowned worldwide for being one of the most
> defiant and cheeky online centres for Peer to Peer and exchange of audio
> and
>
> video files, fresh from their success in the European Elections which took
> one of their representatives flying from the meshes of the Net straight
> into
>
> a political seat in Brussels, the board of Pirate Party International, the
> political branch of The Pirate Bay project, is euphoric.
>
> And who could oppose such euphoria! The party of the pirates presented
> itself in Sweden and Germany obtaining a massive 7,1 % in the Scandinavian
> country that collocates it between those parties with the most consensus in
> the under 30 range. Only 0,9% in Germany, a good result nonetheless, in
> order to obtain a greater audience worldwide and the access to election
> funds, which represents, according to the pirates, the launch pad in order
> to do better in the future. "We wrote a page in political history" is the
> cry that was repeated during the past few weeks and the coverage and
> interest of the media all over the world confirms this.
>
> The pirate who will sit in the European Parliament is Christian Engström,
> born in 1960, a programmer and political activist who deals with campaigns
> for the creation of a free market for the distribution of information
> technology alongside the Foundation For a Free Information Infrastructure.
> Even if, one of the first aspects that some journalists and analysts have
> shed some light on, is that Christian Engström of the Pirate Party, as well
> as some of his colleagues such as Rick Falkvinge, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg,
> Peter Bunde and Carl Lundström, are more or less openly associated with a
> centre-rightwing political view, with ideas that are in some way connected
> to a neo-liberal type of economy and politics.
>
> Now, without seeming excessively naive or hypocritical, it seems clear that
> most of us imagined the universe of pirates to be a nihilistic stronghold
> of
>
> the Net, heroes of some fundamental rights for hacker communities (to say
> the least) like peer to peer, for the free exchange of files and ideas. The
> surprise of being faced with a real creature with three heads was
> overwhelming, framed by the great election victory and the typical
> political
>
> rhetoric of the Pirate Party, and the apolitical facade of the whole Pirate
> Party movement in its entirety (that has declared more than once of being
> in
>
> harmony with a possible "third option" that goes beyond the traditional
> division between left and right) and last of all social and economical
> analysis carried out by Piratebyran represented by Magnus Eriksson, who is
> interviewed below and was invited to the most recent Hackmeeting in Milan.
>
> And most of all, the indignation of the Net toward what happened few days
> ago was enormous: The Pirate Bay website was sold for almost 8 million
> dollars to a software house in Sweden, Gaming Factory X, who promises to
> launch a new model of business that can compensate the loss of content
> providers and copyright owners, and gratify those same owners of that
> collective platform based on the exchange of content that up until the day
> before yesterday had approximately 14 million accesses per day! Owners who
> will see a part of the money directly in cash (with which they can cover
> the
>
> fine from their prosecution, which is "just" 4 million dollars, and avoid
> going to jail for a year) and the rest will go towards shares in GFF.
>
> Good gosh! On the one side the owners of the Bay, are desperately
> reassuring
>
> their users that the money earned will be used for a foundation that will
> help projects based on the free distribution of information and the opening
> of knots on the Net, on the other the activists who throw their arrows at
> the address of their ex- paladins. The experience of the bay of pirates, in
> the past few months, seemed to be a wonderful fairy tale: the success of
> the
> portal as a neutral location, very much renowned for the free exchange of
> files, the legal battle fought in the name of peer to peer (and other
> slogans of the beginning of the millennium such as "we didn't make any
> money
> and rejected entertainment industry accusations it makes a large profit")
> against multinational music and film companies as well as a judge who was a
> member of the administration of one of these companies, the daily
> monitoring
> in front of the Stockholm Court in a mobile media centre, to the unexpected
> success of the most recent European elections. Little did it matter if,
> digging deeper into the meshes of the Net, one could discover the legal
> controversy announced by Pirate Bay itself on the use of the logo of the
> Bay
>
> by two young researchers, Anders Rydell and Sam Sundberg, in their book
> written on the experience of the pirate movement in Sweden.
>
> What are the objectives (or for some, the targets) of The Pirate Bay
> project? It's difficult to say at this point, really difficult. It's easy
> to
>
> drift toward the wrong direction, after the enthusiasm following the
> post-election period. As Engström says, "if politicians intend to impede
> the
>
> sharing of files between normal citizens, the only solution is to expand
> the
>
> government's capacity for controlling society". For this reason in official
> statements they say they want to act incisively on the norms that regulate
> copyright and privacy. And to do so effectively they want to be in
> Brussels,
>
> where legislation itself is produced and then cascades onto the members of
> the European Union. The Pirate Party will definitely have access to
> important funds for a structure that up until yesterday (perhaps) was based
> on mere donations and volunteer work (as well as funds, the pirate forces
> include new recruits and different national pirate subjects who count 32
> groups dispersed across Europe and the world, including Ung Pirate, the
> young association of Swedish pirates, with more than 20,000 subscribers it
> is the most common young political movement in Scandinavia); at the moment,
> the history of Pirate Bay reminds us of Napster and Kazaa, whose parabolas
> only made those great enemies of online piracy happy, that is to say, those
> monopolist Scrooges of the infotainment industry.
>
> The story has already been told, perhaps, but has the connotations of an
> illusion and for this reason it is creating more buzz on the Net: a story
> that in our opinion could definitely be an important chapter in the history
> of the evolution of the Net toward a homologous location under the
> dictatorship of elite businesses, as well as the neo-liberal economical
> mould that satisfies the requests of great content providers, connection
> operators, and passive users. But maybe not, maybe behind this there is a
> plan that no one can see yet, maybe we're wrong once again....
>
> The interview with Magnus Eriksson (unfortunately done during his
> intervention at the Peer to Peer Economies conference held on the 18th of
> June in the Political Science Faculty in Milan during the Hackmeeting 2009
> program, and so just hours before the statement of acquisition of Pirate
> Bay
>
> by GFF) clears just some of the aspects that have been analysed above but
> it
>
> is definitely food for thought for a broader view of the confusing
> situation: we do not want to express any kind of opinion, we will let you
> read the text that we think underlines the important distinctions of
> thought
>
> regarding the political movements of hackers in Italy. We thank Magnus for
> his time and for having answered on such short notice.
>
> Marco Mancuso: Would you like to tell us more about the 3 three main
> branches of the Pirate universe: the parliamentary fraction The Pirate
> Party
>
> (PP), the organic intellectuals of the Piratbyrån (PB), and the
> entreprenueral platform, The Pirate Bay (TPB). Is it an organic project, I
> mean it was born with a political idea behind, or it grown up from activits
> anti-cultural ad anarchist movement, step by step, enlarging objectives and
> programs? Which is your role inside Piratebyran?
>
> Magnus Eriksson: First of all; if these are the three stars in our universe
> there are also plenty of bloggers or people in other groups, institutions
> and parties making up a system of planets and comets. Also, it's not these
> components forming a coherent whole, rather their dynamics make for a
> lively
>
> debate with symbiosis, mutation and productive disagreements. To understand
> this constellation you have to look at the history. This is not something
> that has grown out of activist movements except from parts of Piratbyrån
> which in the early days of 2003 functioned as an exit-node for people who
> was tired of the autonomous movements. Pirate Bay was founded by us in 2004
> since other parts of Piratbyrån was deepely involved in hacker scenes since
> the early 90's. So combine former activists looking for something fresher,
> hackers, philosophers and a general sense of making thing look really nice
> while having a party - you have the recepe of Piratbyrån and Pirate Bay. I
> think this is a difference with Italy. Had we formed there we would
> probably
>
> be more connected to social movements, for good or worse. The Pirate Party
> was formed by completely different people and has a different outlook. If
> the former is cryptonite radiating in all directions, the pirate party has
> a
>
> precision laser aimed at the formal political process. They have a narrow
> program focused on civil liberties and personal integrity more than
> anything
>
> else, but I consider them very necessary at the moment and are very glad of
> their success. Our roles are basically determined depending on skills and
> energy. Myself have a lot of time on my hands so I get my hands dirty in
> most projects we do. I do give lots of presentations, talk to media and
> involve myself in strategic discussion, but also work with the art
> projects,
>
> try to organize the fuckin bus and design websites.
>
> Marco Mancuso: You had a great victory at last Swedish Europan elections. I
> would like to know what do you want to do from now on. You have a great
> responsability not only in front of Swedish people who woted for you, but
> also for all the people on the Internet. "With this victory, the
> intellectual property question has decisevly moved in to the charmed circle
> of liberal, parliamentary deliberation"...
>
> Magnus Eriksson: I'm not a member of the party, but I'm still involved in
> the swarm taking part in forming the discussions about their agenda, just
> to
>
> clarify. Actually, at first, issues of intellectual property will have to
> take a step back. The Pirate Party will first and foremost deal with issues
> around net neutrality, internet censorship and blocking. These are the most
> urgent issues at the moment. Secondly they will focus on issues around
> civil
>
> liberties and prvacy, such as trying to prevent surveillence and data
> retention programs. A lot to be done here as well. Only in third hand will
> intellectual property come and here a quite different method needed. The
> first two are already on the agenda with issues to involve one self in.
> There are already proposals to try to fight and the arguments are quite
> clear. When it comes to intellectual property, copyright or patents, the
> pirate party will have to do more to raise the issues themselves, forming
> publics, discourses and possibly write their own proposals. This would
> really take an effort by movements all over Europe, trying to get the
> issues
>
> it will be about on the agenda. But generally I think the Pirate Party
> needs
> a European wide support and pressure from within other countries if they
> are
>
> to have some influence. In the EU, you can't just sit still and vote, but
> have to be active with suggesting changes. Politics is complicated of
> course
> and there will be compromises where no one wins in the end, so we will have
> to see how the performance will be evaluated. No matter the political
> success though, the pirate party can function as a material resource that
> brings good information out from the EU that people all over Europe can use
> to raise issues and put pressure on their politicians. This is perhaps the
> biggest benefit. Before this, people did this on their spare time with no
> money.
>
> Marco Mancuso: Try to explaing me the reasons behind your success at
> European elections. Two big events that happened in the last times in
> Sweden
>
> were the law proposing to extend military surveillance from radio to
> Internet trafic and the recent verdict against the founders of the Pirate
> Bay. Do you thing that these two episodes were in some way connected to
> what
>
> happened during elections?
>
> Magnus Eriksson: These were definitely the reasons. Without external
> developments like these, pirate party wouldn't have a chance. That's
> because
>
> they bring new political issues to the table. Things that never was talked
> about in the public debate before. They don't bring new answers to
> traditional political issues, but open up new spaces. So they were
> dependend
>
> on the public debate around file-sharing that was already quite big,
> dependend of the fame and sentence of the pirate bay and also about the FRA
> law that you mention where the old military radio surveillence departmend
> is
>
> going to be allowed to monitor traffic in internet cables.
>
> Marco Mancuso: Concerning both the Pirate Party, the Piratebyran and also
> the Pirate Bay, some anaylists and European journalists noticed that the
> political background of some of their former founders "was more shifted on
> the centre-right wing, conservative, or in some way connected to liberal
> economy and polytics". Rick Falkvinge and Christian Engström, Gottfrid
> Svartholm Warg, Peter Bunde, Carl Lundström are all examples of what some
> analysts are talink about. At the same time, all the Pirate Bay movement,
> declared itself basically apolitical, close to a possibile "third-way" that
> goes beyond the classical division left-right (close to other political
> unclissified movements like the green one, the black one or the pink one
> according to Alex Foti and his book presented at Hackmeeting 2009 in Milan,
> edited by Agenzia X "Anarchy in the Eu" -
> http://www.agenziax.it/?pid=29&sid=30). How can you manage this double
> political attitude (like the controversial about the use of your logo on
> the
>
> book about the Swedish pirate movement) and how can you face the impression
> of a left-wing or anarchist movement that you have had, I'm sure you know
> this, in Europe in the last years?
>
> Magnus Eriksson: Just a detail, the controversy about the logo on the book
> was never about copyright but how they presented it as the official
> biography of the pirate bay. Even the authors themselves thought this was a
> bad idea but the publisher I guess wanted attention. Anyway, I noticed that
> Pirate Party is seen as left-wing or anarchist even in some places. This is
> simply not true. They have a narrow program about reforming copyright and
> patent, stop surveillence and keep the net open. Not small things of
> course,
>
> but that's it, call it what you want. If anyone want to connect this to
> other kinds of politics, it can be done, but you have to connect to them
> with an external relation. "Pirate Party does this in the EU, to us this is
> very connected to this other issue". Maybe this sounds strange for someone
> coming from the very polarized italian political environment, but here it
> works very well to do it in this project or issue driven, pragmatic way. To
> collaborate with people on some projects where on other projects it would
> be
>
> impossible because you would totally disagree. I mean even the guys running
> the Pirate Bay don't agree on shit except that they want to run a
> bittorrent
>
> tracker.
>
> I'm not too keen on cathegorizing the complex movements of politics but in
> a
>
> way it is beyond left and right. Not because it's some kind of neutral
> politics of the middle but the range of supporters and antagonists are all
> over the political spectrum and a failure of handling these issues within
> the traditional political actors. Dominant parties on both left and right
> are working for more surveillence. The issue of copyright is both defended
> and attacked from both sides. We enjoy this confusion at the moment because
> it opens up new political spaces and thinking, something which is
> desperately needed. So maybe it's not apolitical, but omnipolitical. And
> maybe you have to understand the Swedish political landscape to get this.
> Both the social democrats and the autonomous left in Sweden seem to lack
> political energy and all the intreresting things I think are happening in
> Sweden comes from places hard to define at the moment
>
> Marco Mancuso: Speaking again about a neo-liberal kind of economy and
> politics: how, in your opinion, your attention to peer to peer items will
> be
>
> used by the Pirate Party to promote a new possible business model of "free
> content & free labour"? How much, in your idea, the Pirate Bay could
> eventually become a profit-making venture and how could change the future
> of
>
> small indipendent grassroots economical acvitities?
>
> Magnus Eriksson: If you're talking about the Pirate Party, even the
> critique
>
> against the sentence of the pirate bay was mostly presented as a critique
> of
>
> how lobbyist could influence the political and legal system. Other than
> that
>
> it
> was mostly about internet surveillence and things like that. It seems very
> unlikely that PP would engage in generating new business models as a part
> of
>
> their formal political work, although they will surely use these ideas in
> their rethorics to counter the arguments made by lobbyists. I don't think
> business models in general will be generated by any central organisation.
> These things happen on the edges of networks, close to the flows of
> desires.
>
> This is the big fault in the argument of the copyright industry who is
> always asking for peace of mind from piracy so they can finally sit down
> within their industry and formulate the business models of the future. But
> innovation doesn't happen in this sea of tranquility but in the chaotic
> everyday life world.This does not mean that such ideas can spawn from the
> edges of the PP. They have a lot of enthusiastic members who will probably
> be bored with formal political work and engage in more free flowing
> activities.
>
> Marco Mancuso: How was your experience at Hackmeeting in Milan? At the
> light
>
> of my previous emails, how was your experience, emotions, feedbacks in
> front
>
> of such a mainly apolitical or anarchist audience, idealistic and
> optimistic
>
> in front of the potentiality of free code, free software, open source
> economies, free circulations of intellectual properties, which invited you
> as a concrete example of possibile success of their ideals. Do you feel a
> sort of responsability in front of them and, more in general, in front of
> European movements like Hackmeeting?
>
> Magnus Eriksson: Wow, I do NOW after you put it like that. No seriously, I
> don't feel a responsibility "in front of" them as you put it. I think it is
> the wrong way to put it that we are representing or are holding a power in
> our hands to use as a benefit for others. Our philosophy is the kopimi
> philosophy which is about spreading ideas and practicies as an epidemic.
> Even for the pirate party, they don't have any influence at all except in
> what extent they can contaminate other political actors to also work for
> these ideas. And also with politicians from other countries feeling the
> pressure from movements in their countries. That's why we have to be
> promiscous and contaminate everyone else. Not because they have the power
> and we are powerless, but because our ideas and precticies have all the
> power and if they don't get on the train, they will be left without
> momentum. There is no centre of power that you can enter and from there
> change the world. Instead, you have to connect to everything and be
> everywhere. Transforming all other entities, institutions and areas of
> society. So the EU is a place where many places transverse. You have to
> change it from a seat, form another country, from a company, from their
> email inbox, phone line and fax maxhines. Within a sentence, a proposal, a
> TV-station, an irc-channel or a hackmeeting. In, out, up, down, left and
> right. So everything that gets sucked into the EU magnet and later poured
> out carries your signature.
>
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>
>
> --
> Diego Saravia
> Diego.Saravia en gmail.com
> NO FUNCIONA->dsa en unsa.edu.ar
>
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-- 
Dux JP.
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