This cannot be stressed enough
Christian Engström, riksdag candidate of the Pirate Party, has posted this thread on the Pirate Party forums.
*** *** *** Translation
Piratbyrån being silenced is the main issue
When we talk and write about the pirate razzia, it's important that we focus on the right aspect of it.
The fact that the police has struck against The Pirate Bay is bad. Multiple Swedish cases have shown that the activities of The Pirate Bay are not in violation of any swedish law. The fact that the police wants to "try the legality" of a site is not an excuse to shut it down - probably for a long time ahead.
But the real outrage is that Piratbyrån has been closed down, too.
Piratbyrån is a political activist organisation that promotes changes in the copyright law. Now, the police have taken away their right to express their opinion, by taking their computers away. The initiative for this raid came from Antipiratbyrån, the lobby organisation of the record companies, which represents the opposite political opinion in this matter.
Henrik Pontén tells Dagens Industri [I translated this interview before]:
- At the same time, we here at Antipiratbyrån have primarily worked against the copyright-hostile organisation Piratbyrån, the ones behind the site.
The validity of this statement will probably not be debated. Piratbyrån has been a thorn in the side for Pontén and MPAA since the beginning.
But the fact that they dislike the opinions of Piratbyrån doesn't mean they have the right to use the police to silence us pirates. It is such a severe violation of our constitutional right to free speech, that it's hard to express in words.
Powerful interests from the USA contact the politicians in the swedish government, asking them to use the police against their own political opponents. And happily, they[the swedish politicians] obey.
The fact this this happens, even at the beggining of an election campaign [the election is september 2006, I think] leads our thoughts to Belarus, or countries even worse. As I already said, it's hard to express in words.
We should focus on the political aspect of this outrage, not the legal one.
If we focus on what happened to The Pirate Bay (which in itself is an outrage), we'll only end up in lots of discussions about what's legal and what's not according to current law. Honestly, it doesn't matter. Our goal is still to change the law into something that makes it crystal clear that what TPB (and others who spread culture) is doing is legal.
Us pirates aren't interested in legal jibberish. We want political change. And, until we reach that goal, we'd like to keep our freedom of speech.
*** *** *** End of translation
*** *** *** Translation
Piratbyrån being silenced is the main issue
When we talk and write about the pirate razzia, it's important that we focus on the right aspect of it.
The fact that the police has struck against The Pirate Bay is bad. Multiple Swedish cases have shown that the activities of The Pirate Bay are not in violation of any swedish law. The fact that the police wants to "try the legality" of a site is not an excuse to shut it down - probably for a long time ahead.
But the real outrage is that Piratbyrån has been closed down, too.
Piratbyrån is a political activist organisation that promotes changes in the copyright law. Now, the police have taken away their right to express their opinion, by taking their computers away. The initiative for this raid came from Antipiratbyrån, the lobby organisation of the record companies, which represents the opposite political opinion in this matter.
Henrik Pontén tells Dagens Industri [I translated this interview before]:
- At the same time, we here at Antipiratbyrån have primarily worked against the copyright-hostile organisation Piratbyrån, the ones behind the site.
The validity of this statement will probably not be debated. Piratbyrån has been a thorn in the side for Pontén and MPAA since the beginning.
But the fact that they dislike the opinions of Piratbyrån doesn't mean they have the right to use the police to silence us pirates. It is such a severe violation of our constitutional right to free speech, that it's hard to express in words.
Powerful interests from the USA contact the politicians in the swedish government, asking them to use the police against their own political opponents. And happily, they[the swedish politicians] obey.
The fact this this happens, even at the beggining of an election campaign [the election is september 2006, I think] leads our thoughts to Belarus, or countries even worse. As I already said, it's hard to express in words.
We should focus on the political aspect of this outrage, not the legal one.
If we focus on what happened to The Pirate Bay (which in itself is an outrage), we'll only end up in lots of discussions about what's legal and what's not according to current law. Honestly, it doesn't matter. Our goal is still to change the law into something that makes it crystal clear that what TPB (and others who spread culture) is doing is legal.
Us pirates aren't interested in legal jibberish. We want political change. And, until we reach that goal, we'd like to keep our freedom of speech.
*** *** *** End of translation
posted by Snild at
11:54 AM
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