Kirk on Radio National tonight after 8:00

[Andrew Reitemeyer]

Kirk is being interviewed on Night on National Radio  tonight after 8:00 - Piracy and open source software have been mentioned as subjects

AndrewR

[Hubat McJuhes]

Is there a recording available, maybe?

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[Bruce Kingsbury]

Yes.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2577382/on-the-spot-kirk-twist

On 22 November 2013 23:06, Hubat McJuhes <hu...@gmx.de> wrote:

Is there a recording available, maybe?

On Fri Nov 22 19:15:09 2013, Andrew Reitemeyer wrote:

Kirk is being interviewed on Night on National Radio  tonight after
8:00 - Piracy and open source software have been mentioned as subjects

AndrewR

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[Bruce Kingsbury]

Just listening now; and Kirk seem to be a bit confused between the length of patents and copyrights.

Patents, even in the USA, are 20 years from date of filing.

I can't find a clear answer for New Zealand but it appears that is an exponentially increasing scale of fees to renew a patent every three years, and it looks like they expire with no option to renew after 16 years; http://www.iponz.govt.nz/cms/patents/fees

Copyrights are life of the author plus 50 years in NZ, and much longer terms elsewhere.

[Nick Taylor]

Kirk said "nobody in the party thinks all patents and copyright should
be scrapped".


I do.





Nick

> Kirk is being interviewed on Night on National Radio tonight after 8:00
> - Piracy and open source software have been mentioned as subjects
>
> AndrewR
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[Andrew McPherson]

I believe all patents should be scrapped and all copyright should
either be 5 years or the life of the author, whichever ends first.

[Bruce Kingsbury]

I think that abolishing all patents and copyrights is a perfectly viable position. Business models would certainly be different but inventions would continue to be invented, performers and entertainers would continue and find ways of being paid to entertain. The would would not end, if anything I think it would be an overall improvement.

But I think this probably goes a little too far for most people, the have reasonable support from the public the party needs to compromise and take a more moderate position.

[Nick Taylor]

> But I think this probably goes a little too far for most people, the
> have reasonable support from the public the party needs to compromise
> and take a more moderate position.

I disagree - we need to be coming from a position of clearly articulated
principle.

"Compromise" is what has seriously screwed every progressive party in
the world - it gives credence to the lies told by the other side, and
allows them to frame the issues.

[Nick Taylor]

> I believe all patents should be scrapped and all copyright should
> either be 5 years or the life of the author, whichever ends first.

Why?

A vanishingly small number of people made any money from selling copies
of things they created anyway. Fewer than 3% of musicians signed to
major labels made more than $600 a year, pre-napster.

This idea that "by valuing a bit pattern with zero reproduction and
distribution costs at "zero", you're devaluing art", it total bullshit.
"Selling copies" is just one way of making money - it just happens to be
beloved of massive corporations who got fat cornering artists into
giving up their rights.


Lest we forget, under Clinton, a law was passed such that US musicians
signed to record labels were "working for hire", so lost their
copy-monopoly rights. This was a law that the media companies lobbied
for and won.


The societal costs of rent-seeking are too great to let it continue -
especially over something as trivial as "IP".





Nick

[Pervach]

This sounds like a discussion that would benefit from being moved to Loomio

If you're a PPNZ member and don't have Loomio or aren't in that group, apply or get membe...@pirateparty.org.nz to sort it out.

Also relevant is the results of the policy vote (official vote, of the membership, with policy formally adopted, in Aug 2011) here.

--

Pervach / Tommy Fergusson

Privacy Officer / Membership Admin

Pirate Party of New Zealand / http://pirateparty.org.nz

[mathmo]

Ditto, I also think patents and copyrights should be scrapped completely. And I've said so a number of times. 

However I'm fine with working for a party that doesn't completely oppose elimination of all IP, and instead merely seeks to reduce the extent of IP's reach significantly. As at least that would be a major improvement over the current system. And sometimes it is better to get what is achievable now, than to hold out for forever for what is perfect. 

But I can understand there are arguments against our current position being optimal for achieving change, and maybe what our position on copyrights and patents is something which needs to be revisited in the future. 

[Hubat McJuhes]

Thank you, Kirk, for doing this.
That was quite a long interview and you managed to stand the heat.

That gave us quite a bit of exposure, and that's what we need.

It obviously ignited a bit of a discussion internally about one of our core aspects that has actually not been in the center of the parties discussions too much.

Thanks heaps.

On 22/11/13 11:16 pm, Bruce Kingsbury wrote:

Yes.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2577382/on-the-spot-kirk-twist

On 22 November 2013 23:06, Hubat McJuhes <hu...@gmx.de> wrote:

Is there a recording available, maybe?

On Fri Nov 22 19:15:09 2013, Andrew Reitemeyer wrote:

Kirk is being interviewed on Night on National Radio  tonight after
8:00 - Piracy and open source software have been mentioned as subjects

AndrewR

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[Hubat McJuhes]

> Fewer than 3% of musicians signed to
> major labels made more than $600 a year

If this is so, then an UBI would be the much better option than asking
professional expoiters to exploit ther rights and restrict the artists
creativity.

[Hubat McJuhes]

I agree. It is our duty as a party to find a common understanding only
between ourselves. This may result in compromises between the most
radical and the most moderate wings in the party, but those compromises
should be found after unfolding all arguments in the constructive
environment that like-minded people like us can produce.

Compromises with the 'outside world' are necessary not a minuite eralier
than when we are asked to join in building of a government. Then we have
to compromise with the positions of our partner parties. But at that
point in time we need to have clear, un-tainted, un-compromised positons
to throw into the pot.

[Hubat McJuhes]

I think, we should go back to what the idea was, when patents and copy right was put into place. What was the intention, what problem was thought t be remedied by these instruments.

It is then very clear that the current way these instruments are used are at least in-efficient most often simply counter-productive. The instruments have been taken over by others with the intent of exploitation and they have been successful big times. The original goals are not at all achieved.

Once we make that clear, we can communicate what should have been achieved and how bad the current implementation is.

We also have something really great to offer as a founding stone for a better solution to help compensating creatives in a highly efficient way: Here it comes again - curtains up for the UBI.

More suggestions should be welcomed, also including smart ways to implement copy rights in a sustainable manner and restricting patents to areas where they might be useful (algorithms, methods and life stock cannot be within that range). We should be able to accept suggestions to the degree they are proven to help in reaching the defined aims. If they don't, we wont' accpet them.

[Bruce Kingsbury]

Well if we really go back to the original idea it started somewhere around the transition between the "Licensing of the Presses Act" (Political censorship by the crown, plain and simple) and the "Statute of Anne" (a desperate and transparent excuse by the publishers to hold onto their previous monopoly)

A cynical, but I think fairly accurate summary.

This is why I'm pretty favourable to the idea of abolishing copyright entirely. I don't think we need laws to enable political censorship or monopolies. If anything we should pass laws preventing them.

[Nick Taylor]

>> Fewer than 3% of musicians signed to
>> major labels made more than $600 a year

> If this is so, then an UBI would be the much better option than asking
> professional expoiters to exploit ther rights and restrict the artists
> creativity.

I was a musician in the UK in the 1980s/1990s - the UK music industry
was subsidised by dole-culture. Everyone signed on. This coupled with
the fact that most of us lived in squats... we could be musicians full
time, and it was out of that milieu that really serious talent evolved...

... far more than any trickle-down effect of "selling copies" of
information. I don't think any of us saw a single penny from that.

The state provided the ecosystem to nurture talent, music companies
waited nearby, skimming the talent that floated to the top.

The companies were (in those days) essential for any progress beyond a
certain level (studio time was very expensive, and 'connections' and $
were required to get things into the broadcast channels)

So.

Here we are in 2013.

The crucial functions that the companies once provided for artists are
massively diluted in value - but they're still trying to extract
monopoly rents - even though the value of the 'service' they provide
either artists or audience is so debased that really, we can all do far
better without them. The "industry" took > 95% of artist's earnings.

I'm gradually changing my mind about a UBI - I'm not sure that it is as
important as land-reform. As someone, somewhere else pointed out, it
looks a little too much like bread and circuses. Looking back, I'd say
that the dole was less important than freedom from rent and debt.

I'm not sure that relieving people of the need to get out of bed in the
morning (not that I ever do, but I'm self-employed), is as beneficial as
relieving ourselves from rent-seekers and usurers.


That said, I'd still vote for it.





Nick

[mathmo]

It is an interesting angle to take there. But how can we then clearly communicate that we won't be stubborn hardliners who won't be able to productively work with others and compromise? And how can we clearly communicate to the voters the degree of compromise we're willing to do in partnership with the government at the time? (as if we're being to pure in our approach campaigning, the gap between that and what we'd end up accomplishing in practise after a compromise could be a rather large gap indeed....) 

[Nick Taylor]

> It is an interesting angle to take there. But how can we then clearly
> communicate that we won't be stubborn hardliners who won't be able to
> productively work with others and compromise? And how can we clearly
> communicate to the voters the degree of compromise we're willing to do
> in partnership with the government at the time?

I can't recall the last time I voted for someone according to their
ability to not stick to their principles.



Principles come first - and the degree to which we win anything at all
will depend on how clearly we can articulate the moral core that drives
these principles.

Diluting this with compromises before we've even started negotiating is
probably suicidal.

[Hubat McJuhes]

--
--

There are many ways:
1) in providing public read access to our internal decision making tools and processes, so that anyone can follow our respectful discussions around evidence based arguments. This makes our positions understandable to everyone with a good will and shows that we are able to reason. This is the one thing where the German PP failed so badly in only demonstrating their ability to produce shit-storms on a daily basis.
2) in being transparent also in our bargaining, where pure reasoning is not the way other parties operate: coalition negotiations with the PP must always be streamed online, or there are none. period.
3) in defining core policies where we declare to be staunt and stand tall; and allow higher degrees of flexibility in other areas where we even could happily agree that other parties have more competency. I wouldn't mind if PPNZ's official stance on ecology would be: 'What the greens say', if we at the same point in time also say 'But parties shall not be allowed to receive more than $1000 from non-human entities (companies, lobby organisations,...)'.

[Michael Erbacher]

I agree. It is our duty as a party to find a common understanding only
between ourselves. This may result in compromises between the most
radical and the most moderate wings in the party, but those compromises
should be found after unfolding all arguments in the constructive
environment that like-minded people like us can produce.

Compromises with the 'outside world' are necessary not a minuite eralier
than when we are asked to join in building of a government. Then we have
to compromise with the positions of our partner parties. But at that
point in time we need to have clear, un-tainted, un-compromised positons
to throw into the pot.

I think we need to be a lot clearer about the human factor to all of this. The reality is that we would be unable to move forward as a party if there wasn't some level of disagreement even within our own ranks around policy. The fact is that the only kind of organisation capable of maintaining un-tainted, un-compromised positions on anything can, by definition, only comprise of a single individual. Even the worst excesses of the reverend Sun Myung Moon and Bishop Tamaki will have it's own internal dissenters.

 

This is before we have to start dealing with external parties.

 

The more we pretend that this party comprises members are all in perfect accord the more we begin to look like the major parties. I think we need to move away from the black / white, yes / no concept that dominates politics.

 

I like the concept of positions compared to policies because it implies that they can move, that you can have multiple positions, and that there can be varying levels of agreeement within a group. Policies, on the other hand, feel like an unstoppable force vs immovable object view of the world in comparison.

 

My view is get rid of the word compromise and start talking about options instead. Compromise just means nobody gets what they wanted.

 

 

 

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

- F Scott Fitzgerald.

[Michael Erbacher]

Okay, let's try this...

 

"The NZ Pirate Party advocates the scrapping of all patent laws in their entirety."

 

I strongly support this position

I support this position

I partially support this position

I do not support this position

 

 

 

[Michael Erbacher]

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." 

- F Scott Fitzgerald.

 

Isn't it possible that we can have a number of positions within the party at the same time? Let's stop talking about compromise and start talking about options. We can have a number of positions on the same subject and, as individuals, we don't actually need to agree with as a whole with any of it. We just need to identify which positions have the strongest overall support within the party.

[Nick Taylor]

> 3) in defining core policies where we declare to be staunt and stand
> tall; and allow higher degrees of flexibility in other areas where we
> even could happily agree that other parties have more competency. I
> wouldn't mind if PPNZ's official stance on ecology would be: 'What the
> greens say', if we at the same point in time also say 'But parties shall
> not be allowed to receive more than $1000 from non-human entities
> (companies, lobby organisations,...)'.

Personally I think that on environmental issues "what the Greens say",
is a fairly solid, sensible approach - and it introduces the idea of
delegative democracy - which I also think is pretty important.

I think it's the programmer in me - it seems counter-intuitive to
duplicate an entire class of legal/policy code purely for the sake of...
what? Tradition?

There is actually a fairly good case (made by Clay Shirky) for
'developing' policy on GitHub. If the Greens have good code, I see no
reason at all not to simply instantiate it - allow them to handle the
upgrades... push requests their way if we have them.



As a minor derailment, does anyone know if there are any online
discussion groups re: delegative democracy? I have questions etc.

[Nick Taylor]

> I like the concept of positions compared to policies because it implies
> that they can move, that you can have multiple positions, and that there
> can be varying levels of agreeement within a group. Policies, on the
> other hand, feel like an unstoppable force vs immovable object view of
> the world in comparison.
>
> My view is get rid of the word compromise and start talking about
> options instead. Compromise just means nobody gets what they wanted.

Back to Liquid Feedback - which isn't a "voting system", but a
question-answering system. It uses a method called:

Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping

(lol)

(more here: http://liquidfeedback.org/lqfb/preferential_voting/ )

which allows a range of positions to be ranked.

If we use a system like this, and make it public, then we can show the
world exactly where we stand, and which areas we're flexible on.

(Which is about as good a way (to answer a previous question) that we
can show voters/other-parties, that we're willing to negotiate)



...



I've been looking at a couple of liquid-democracy systems. They're
monsters. I think (once I get my head around the basics), I'll write a
liquid-democracy system as a wordpress plugin - bad security, but simple
enough to proliferate the concepts.

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly" - something I have a fairly
strong belief in oddly enough. Simplicity trumps strength as a driver of
virality.




Nick

[Michael Erbacher]

 

  

Back to Liquid Feedback - which isn't a "voting system", but a

question-answering system. It uses a method called:

 

Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping

 

(lol)

 

(more here: http://liquidfeedback.org/lqfb/preferential_voting/ )

 

which allows a range of positions to be ranked.

 

If we use a system like this, and make it public, then we can show the

world exactly where we stand, and which areas we're flexible on.

 

(Which is about as good a way (to answer a previous question) that we

can show voters/other-parties, that we're willing to negotiate)

 

 

 +1

 

Can we start with a position statement around our environmental policies being "What the Greens say?" I'm itching to put it in a red box :)

[Bruce Kingsbury]

I'd also vote for our recreational drugs policy to be "whatever ALCP supports"

--

[Nick Taylor]

> I'd also vote for our recreational drugs policy to be "whatever ALCP
> supports"

I think I'd roll my own for that one - I think drugs should be treated
the same way as sky-diving... ie: you can get licenses to take various
things, after you've been screened for potential medical issues, and the
first 'flight' takes place with someone who has experience a) with the
drug and b) helping people who get caught off-balance.

I'd also advocated doing what the Swiss/Canberrarians do with cannabis,
for all recreational drugs - ie: there is a strict limit to how much
anyone can produce. This would be applied to tobacco and alcohol to
reign in the money (and therefore power) that people who's business is
poisoning people, could amass, as well as revitalising local economies,
and maximising diversity.


Oh yea - the current classifications are insane. LSD should not be in
the same category as crack, any more than coffee and codeine should be
treated as "the same thing". Fucking idiotic.


I'd also look at "pub closing time" being extended for one hour...
during which you can't buy alcohol, but can buy cannabis... just to
settle people the fuck down when they spill out onto the streets. We
could sell this one using the slogan "Vomit Not Violence".

[Andrew McPherson]

Technically speaking, codeine is useful for pain relief but is not as addictive or toxic a substance as caffeine.
Strictly speaking as someone who has had a cup of coffee and then been unable to sleep for three days afterwards, I'd prefer to not treat caffeine as harmless as codeine is.

I like the motto vomit not violence, I think it should be the byline for our drugs and alcohol position.

[Nick Taylor]

> Technically speaking, codeine is useful for pain relief but is not as
> addictive or toxic a substance as caffeine.
> Strictly speaking as someone who has had a cup of coffee and then been
> unable to sleep for three days afterwards, I'd prefer to not treat
> caffeine as harmless as codeine is.

I was using that as an example of a category-error, rather than a
relative (and in this case, subjective and highly unusual) toxicity measure.


That said, codeine is an opium derivative - the withdrawal symptoms from
which are (also) entirely different categories of illness to caffeine
withdrawal. It may be easier to get casually hooked on coffee because
the costs are so low, but it's also a hell of a lot easier to kick once
you are hooked. I do it 3 times a year.


In my experience, crack/cocaine is the worst, followed by alcohol - I've
never really tangled with opiates - only ever used them to come down
from other drugs. Using other people's (that I've known) experience as a
benchmark though, the hardest is nicotine, followed by (the most
physically savage) heroin. Nothing else comes close.


But you know - these are all medical issues. Making them criminal issues
makes EVERY problem associated with drugs about 1000 times worse, as
well as introducing whole rafts of brand new problems. Current policies
are utter lunacy.

> I like the motto vomit not violence, I think it should be the byline for
> our drugs and alcohol position.

:)

[mathmo]

To give an example, take a look at one of the "extreme" parties.... such as Libertarianz? They'd be widely seen as unable to compromise. & this is not a good thing....

[mathmo]

Although, having said that... I would be fairly keen for our policy to be the complete abolition of copyright and patents (perhaps phased in over a period of time). 

Just though trying to highlight the wider picture.

[Andrew McPherson]

I would say that a possible position would be immediate abolition of patents and a window of transition from current life plus fifty years for copyright to ten years commercial copyright from enactment down to five years commercial copyright  after five years of the enactment of the copyright act.
This then retains our position as being one where copyright is for commercial interests for the profitable period of five years only, and where patents are eliminated for not being useful or necessary for a free market.

Seeing as we will no doubt be judged as unfriendly to business, it may prove best if we state the case for the position above in terms that businesses that complain is shown to be unreasonable to regular voters.

[Nick Taylor]

> I would say that a possible position would be immediate abolition of
> patents and a window of transition from current life plus fifty years
> for copyright to ten years commercial copyright from enactment down to
> five years commercial copyright after five years of the enactment of
> the copyright act.
> This then retains our position as being one where copyright is for
> commercial interests for the profitable period of five years only, and
> where patents are eliminated for not being useful or necessary for a
> free market.

Why have copyright set at 10 years?

The purpose of "IP" is not so businesses can make money, it's to
maximise the production of work for the public good. What evidence is
there that "IP" does this?

I don't agree that our position should be "copyright only for commercial
interests".

> Seeing as we will no doubt be judged as unfriendly to business, it may
> prove best if we state the case for the position above in terms that
> businesses that complain is shown to be unreasonable to regular voters.

I don't think so.

We need to show that abolition of all IP is BETTER for business than
having to a) constantly cover one's arse against being sued and b)
constantly paying money to rent-seekers.

With "IP", all industries are forced to innovate between the gaps.

You can't (for example) make a movie where the money comes from
investors, without E&O Insurance - which is fucking expensive. The only
reason this exists is IP.

80% of Pharma R&D is state-funded, 50% of what's left goes on trying to
circumvent the "IP" of other corporations.

Whenever IP disappears, industry booms. Always has.

Maybe we ought to be saying:

"Our policies support industry, not middle-men".

[Hubat McJuhes]

It is a shame to see this valuable discussion being sort of wasted in
this volatile mailing list. This should all happen in loomio, so that we
ahve a chance to refer to the discussion and agree onto things.

[Nick Taylor]

I'll move if everyone else does :)

[Hubat McJuhes]

As far as I can see everyone but Michael participating in these threads
is also a member in the loomio group.

[Hubat McJuhes]

Michael,

request your invite for our loomeo group and propose.

[Andrew McPherson]

Copyright should only apply to businesses, not personal use. Which is what commercial copyright means.
This would be best for a transition period where the commercial copyright lasts for ten years from enactment of our bill, then reduces down to five years after the fifth year of our bill.
At no point under this bill does copyright apply to personal use, education use, non profit organisations, or government agencies.
It would only apply to businesses alone.

We could also introduce an artist renumeration board based on the stats of torrents shared to replace apra riannz and onemusic middlemen with a supplement to their nz ubi.

At this point, we would insist that artists not middlemen get any revenue from an elected board of officials who would simply be distributing funds to nz artists based on shared torrents, streams and broadcast/youtube if applicable.

This should be much more logical than leaving artist renumeration to the 3% or less that performers are left with after the label takes its cut.

I believe this is a better balance to what we want and what industry wants.

Cheers,
Andrew.

[Bruce Kingsbury]

I agree with the first part, but not the second. Having a payment system based on download stats encourages fans and/or artists to manipulate the download stats eg by downloading the work of an artist multiple times. Better that artists simply get UBI and that fans who like their work and want to reward the band over UBI can contribute directly via flattr or by buying the band's official t-shirts, caps, posters, etc.

[Andrew McPherson]

Alright, that would work a bit better.
Suggest that artists should release with a donation link/ merchandise link.

[Nick Taylor]

> Copyright should only apply to businesses, not personal use. Which is
> what commercial copyright means.
> This would be best for a transition period where the commercial
> copyright lasts for ten years from enactment of our bill, then reduces
> down to five years after the fifth year of our bill.
> At no point under this bill does copyright apply to personal use,
> education use, non profit organisations, or government agencies.
> It would only apply to businesses alone.

That's 'what' again, I was asking why?

I'd like to see some actual evidence for the benefits of those numbers -
rather than just pulling "ten years, five years" out of the air.

But before that, I'd like to see some evidence that "IP" is of any
benefit whatsoever - beyond that narrow pool of people who have managed
to use it to get something for nothing.

We really need to get away from this idea that you can "own information"
- even for 5 years.

> We could also introduce an artist renumeration board based on the stats
> of torrents shared to replace apra riannz and onemusic middlemen with a
> supplement to their nz ubi.

Separate issue, and ill-advised I think - although it's one that has
been floating around since the 1990s.

Who is this money collected from? Who collects it? Who decides how it's
distributed? How do you stop people from downloading their own material
to game the system?

Looks to me like a tax to support pop-music.





Nick

[Andrew McPherson]

The Harvard business school study from a few years ago stated an optimal copyright term of 14 years. I think ten is a bit much but it will fly as a transitional period to five.
Five years is more than enough time to sell to businesses and I couldn't care less if people pay for information or not.  That is entirely up to them to decide and not for anyone else.

As with pretty much every policy position I have for government funding, this would be from the apttax revenues,  of which $200m a year would be a drop in the ocean for cultural development and maybe a slight increase over current amounts in the budget.

As such a subsidy to the ubi would allow cultural work to be made without the insidious influence of middlemen, perhaps we would see the next film director to leave peter Jackson's sweatshop do a better quality of work and be a success rather than moan in the papers about piracy killing off a crap film.

As for quality control of stats of downloaded material, perhaps the board can determine how crap the artist is before assessment of funding ?
Call it the lorde doesn't have talent contest.

[Andrew Reitemeyer]

On Wednesday, November 27, 2013 9:51:30 AM UTC+13, Michael Erbacher wrote:

Okay, let's try this...

 

"The NZ Pirate Party advocates the scrapping of all patent laws in their entirety."

 

I do not support this position

 

 

 AndrewR

[Nick Taylor]

I'd hazard the suggestion that if you don't agree to the scrapping of
patents, one of us is in the wrong party.


Have you actually seen the patent database? It's a fucking joke. It's a
lolly-scramble of people wanting something for nothing.




Nick

[Truth]

Hi,

The reason for the existence of copyright is actual a good one, and I do not believe we should get rid of copyright as an idea in whole The problem is the current implementation (in law) of it.

A little history:

Initially the Stationers' Company were the only licensed printers, under the Licensing Act 1662, having a monopoly on the printing market (supposedly in exchange for handling the censorship of inappropriate materials).

In 1694, the Licensing Act was not renewed (it had to be renewed every two years), in order to open up printing to other companies.

What ensued was known as the Battle of the Booksellers.

Essentially: An author would write his book, and take to get published. The publisher in question would do so, and attempt to sell it. If the book was good, and making sales, another printer would literally just copy it, print their own copies and get in on the sales of the book. No money from these secondary sales was going back to the original author (or even publisher).

The result was an economic chaos in authoring and printing, lasting 10 years - to the point many authors (and printers) gave up, stating it wasn't worth their time trying to produce anything.

To resolve this, Parliament eventually enacted the Statute of Anne. Interestingly enough, the original copyright term was 14 years, and copyright was also only available to the authors (and not to the printers).

The idea was that it would give the authors a period in which to gain from their work, and thus encourage authors to produce new works. But also ensure that the works returned to the public domain, to eventually further the public gain.

Unfortunately what we have now is completely different from this, and seems to exist only to perpetuate copyright control by large corporations (Not quite a monopoly, but a oligopoly - still close enough), and has completely lost any concept of public gain.

I'm personally of the opinion we should return copyright law to the following:

Only applicable to individuals and small groups who must be the direct authors/producers of the work (ie. not corporations, patrons, or someone commissioning a work).

Reduce the term back to 10 years - the maximum economic term may have been determined to be 14 years (ironically the same term that copyright was originally for), but I believe we should err slightly on the side of public benefit. I think this is still a reasonable term for an author to gain personally, and encourage people to attempt to make new works.

I also think there should be some form of limitation on licencing copyright out - to prevent/reduce corporate control on them.

I believe if we get rid of copyright completely, or even reduce it to too short a term, and we will end up back in the same circumstances that originally prompted the introduction of copyright, possibly even worse given how many more mediums it covers. Unless people have a good alternative to suggest.

Patents are a different issue, and I agree the current system for them just doesn't work and needs removing or completely replacing (compared to the copyright system which can be just be corrected).

Gynn Rickerby
Cell: 021 262 5205
There is no religion higher than the Truth.

[Nick Taylor]

Here's the same history, not written by the victors

http://falkvinge.net/2011/02/01/history-of-copyright-part-1-black-death/

Courtesy of the head of The Swedish Pirate Party... and original
inventor of the Pirate Party, come to that. It's ok, we don't have to
pay him a licence for the next 10 years.

> I believe if we get rid of copyright completely, or even reduce it
> to too short a term, and we will end up back in the same
> circumstances that originally prompted the introduction of copyright,
> possibly even worse given how many more mediums it covers.

What? Persecution of Protestants?

Copyright was 'originally' for censorship, after that (Statute of Anne),
printers (not authors, printers) lobbied for it and won it so they could
enrich themselves.

> Unless people have a good alternative to suggest.

I've got a great alternative to suggest. Abolish it completely.

I bet if you look at your "10 years of chaos" a little closer, you'll
find that it was actually a flowering of cultural output. Wasn't this
the period when newspapers suddenly went from one (state-run) to loads?
A free press?


You'll always be able to find entrenched privilege (back then Defoe,
today U2) willing to sing the praises for (their) monopolies, but
something I have noticed (and I'm not alone in this) is that whenever
there's a flowering of culture, it often happens BECAUSE there is no
copy-monopoly enforcement going on.

But back to the magical '10 year' number that seems to be being pulled
out of thin air, without any evidential basis for it (apart from that
being the number of fingers we have)...

... how are you going to enforce it:

- without monitoring web traffic?
- given the internet (and therefore infringement) is global?
- given only corporations have the $$$ to fight legal battles?


...

Apropos of Cory Doctorow's opinion that vanishingly few creators
actually make significant amounts of money "selling copies" anyway...

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/oct/05/free-online-content-cory-doctorow

... how much actual money are we talking about here? Because until I see
some actual numbers, this whole thing reeks to me of "maintaining the
status quo for the sake of maintaining the status quo".

> "but I believe we should err slightly on the side of public benefit"

Steady on old chap.





Nick



ps: I think the biggest problem I have with "compromise" is that it is
suicidally poor communication.

[Truth]

On 28 November 2013 14:54, Nick Taylor <nick...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Unless people have a good alternative to suggest.

I've got a great alternative to suggest. Abolish it completely.

I bet if you look at your "10 years of chaos" a little closer, you'll
find that it was actually a flowering of cultural output. Wasn't this
the period when newspapers suddenly went from one (state-run) to loads?
A free press?

Yes, there was, very well in some aspects. The introduction of the Statute of Anne didn't change this.

On the political front, since political material was written with the intent of free (or at least cheap) distribution to spread the ideas (as mentioned on that blog), the increase in the number of printing presses was brilliant.

Authors of political material taking up their "copyright" would restrict the distribution of the idea, and as such the Statute of Anne, has little effect other than giving them a way of hindering themselves.

The Statute of Anne / copyright has little effect on newspapers as well. The explosion of culture was due to fact that suddenly people could print their own, legally.

The ability to copy someone else's newspaper has little impact, since by the time you've copied it (using old tech), it's yesterday's news. As such, a law preventing it being copied (if they so wanted), had little impact on the cultural impact of them.

The important change for both of these, had been the allowing of other printers to even exist. The right to control the printing of an individual work has no impact on these.

The people who lost out were the authors of more substantive works. Any author writing a novel for example, would soon find the market flooded with copies from other printers.

Yes, the publishers lost out as well and the invention of copyright was a gain for them too.

 

You'll always be able to find entrenched privilege (back then Defoe,
today U2) willing to sing the praises for (their) monopolies, but
something I have noticed (and I'm not alone in this) is that whenever
there's a flowering of culture, it often happens BECAUSE there is no
copy-monopoly enforcement going on.

But back to the magical '10 year' number that seems to be being pulled
out of thin air, without any evidential basis for it (apart from that
being the number of fingers we have)...

The 10 years comes between the abolishing of the pre-existing Licencing Act 1662, and the enactment of the Statute of Anne. The previous law ceased to exist in 1694, and the effects were supposedly apparent within the year. The Statue of Anne came into effect in 1710, and it supposedly took a few of years for the economic chaos to cease.

And yes, unfortunately my sources come via a publishing company: 

Alexander, Isabella (2010). Copyright Law and the Public Interest in the Nineteenth Century. Hart Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84113-786-5.

 

... how are you going to enforce it:

        - without monitoring web traffic?
        - given the internet (and therefore infringement) is global?
        - given only corporations have the $$$ to fight legal battles?

It should only apply to the use or distribution of a work where there is financial gain or equivalent compensation for it. As per the existing system, pre-internet laws, it means the author can take them to court about them having gained financially from what is his. Or possibly an alternative enforcement entity, given the issues of imbalance in court of an individual vs. corporation.

Which means in most cases of free sharing there's no breach, and no need to monitor web traffic, etc.

The questions I wish to resolve are:

Should someone (or a corporation) be able to use an artist's work in their advertising, or as part of a product they're selling, without compensation back to the artist?

Should someone be able to print and sell a book, without something going back to the author of it?

I am of the opinion that if there is to be a financial, or equivalent gain from a work, that the author should have a right to control it - for a limited period of time.

As such, I believe copyright should exist, in a limited form.

Free sharing, as we have via the internet currently, doesn't have anything related to this, and as such, should be legal, and unrestricted by any copyright law.

 

[Hubat McJuhes]

You are right. Our loomeo playgrounds are pretty dead.

Do your or anybody else know why?
Is there something completely wrong about it?
What would be thre requiremets of an online tool that could/would work
for us?

[Nick Taylor]

I think it's probably a mixture of social-media saturation/burnout
combined with the extra friction of Loomio. Yet another app you have to
log into.

Email still kindof works, because it's an established feed - it's still
part of most people's work-flow. Facebook works for people who are
logged into facebook all day - but has the drawback that it's the
opposite of everything we stand for.

Personally I was interested in Loomio because I thought it was a
delegative democracy platform... which it turned out not to be.

I've had a look at existing delegative democracy platforms - and as far
as I can see, they're chronically over-engineered monster, riddled with
dependencies etc. Already. And they haven't really gotten started yet.

Anything worth doing, is doable in a single file of code.

(Something I'm not sure I agree with, but it's worth saying)


I'm quite tempted to write a delegative democracy plugin for
wordpress... just to proliferate the idea as much as anything. WP is a
permanent security vulnerability, but I don't think that matters at this
scale.

Does anyone know if there are discussion groups for delegative democracy
anywhere?




Nick

[mathmo]

Surprise surprise. I kinda expected this, and predicted as much. 

It simply isn't as effective as email, or even Facebook. 

[mathmo]

On Tuesday, December 3, 2013 11:36:17 AM UTC+13, Nick Taylor wrote:

I think it's probably a mixture of social-media saturation/burnout
combined with the extra friction of Loomio. Yet another app you have to
log into.

Email still kindof works, because it's an established feed - it's still
part of most people's work-flow. Facebook works for people who are
logged into facebook all day - but has the drawback that it's the
opposite of everything we stand for.

Personally I was interested in Loomio because I thought it was a
delegative democracy platform... which it turned out not to be.

I've had a look at existing delegative democracy platforms - and as far
as I can see, they're chronically over-engineered monster, riddled with
dependencies etc. Already. And they haven't really gotten started yet.

Anything worth doing, is doable in a single file of code.

(Something I'm not sure I agree with, but it's worth saying)


I'm quite tempted to write a delegative democracy plugin for
wordpress... just to proliferate the idea as much as anything. WP is a
permanent security vulnerability, but I don't think that matters at this
scale.

Good idea, and it might even exist already 

As for WP and security, everything has degrees of security issues as nothing is 100% secure, but if WP is good enough for many wildly popular sites then it is good enough for us I reckon. Anyway, our big problem with WP security has nothing whatsoever to do with the CMS but with the people instead. As I've been hammering on about for ages, as we've got a critical problem with our current site that needs to be resolved.

[Nick Taylor]

> Good idea, and it might even exist already

Not as far as I'm aware.

> As for WP and security, everything has degrees of security issues as
> nothing is 100% secure, but if WP is good enough for many wildly popular
> sites then it is good enough for us I reckon. Anyway, our big problem
> with WP security has nothing whatsoever to do with the CMS but with the
> people instead. As I've been hammering on about for ages, as we've got a
> critical problem with our current site that needs to be resolved.

Really? What's that then?

[Ben Vidulich]

On Mon, Dec 2, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Hubat McJuhes <hu...@gmx.de> wrote:

Do your or anybody else know why?

Because people seem obsessed with having their lengthy discussions here on the mailing list.

--

Ben Vidulich

http://www.vidulich.co.nz

PGP Key ID: FB5AF270

[Nick Taylor]

> Because people seem obsessed with having their lengthy discussions here
> on the mailing list.

Not obsession - just a matter of hitting "reply" rather than having to
log into a website somewhere.





Nick

[Andrew Reitemeyer]

Good point - if we combine the two - mailing list and indeed other fora
(e.g. chapter meetings, Google hangouts, mumble, piratepad) for initial
discussion. Use Loomio to vote on and record a (binary only) decision.
We should push Loomio to introduce preference voting.

AndrewR

[mathmo]

A ridiculously outdated version of WP, that apparently somebody in PPNZ has so severely broken that it means it can't be upgraded to the latest without the whole site falling over.

[Bruce Kingsbury]

The only issue is the choice of base theme; our pirate party logo and colours have been uploaded into a theme that is no longer maintained and doesn't work with the most recent wordpress. If I switch to a default theme and then upgrade wordpress everything works perfectly, it just doesn't look very pretty.

--

[Bruce Kingsbury]

BTW the choice of base theme wasn't my decision. Everything I was responsible for setting up is either still working just fine, or has been intentionally taken offline by request of people who thought they could do better and then didn't.

I'd also add that the professionally designed and hosted site that we paid $800 in advance for is nowhere to be seen so anyone pushing the old 'professional design and hosting' mantra should probably keep that in mind.

[Nick Taylor]

> A ridiculously outdated version of WP, that apparently somebody in PPNZ
> has so severely broken that it means it can't be upgraded to the latest
> without the whole site falling over.

If someone can give me the login/ftp details, I can sort this. I'm
fairly adept with WP, and have about 14 years experience with PHP et al.





Nick

[Nick Taylor]

> I'd also add that the professionally designed and hosted site that we
> paid $800 in advance for is nowhere to be seen so anyone pushing the old
> 'professional design and hosting' mantra should probably keep that in mind.

Let's not spend any money on web-dev ever again. We can do this ourselves.




Nick

[Bruce Kingsbury]

We use SSH with public key authentication. There's a password on the login too but I can't remember what it is. If you can generate a keypair and send me the public key I'll add it to authorized_hosts and let you know how to log in.

[mathmo]

Ditto, I've been saying this too for a while. (& paying $800 for website is an absolute pittance, is hardly barely qualifying as "professional")

Hosting is a different thing though, I reckon it is very very worthwhile paying for that. 

[mathmo]

Really??? That is great news if so! Thank you Bruce.

As if the only problem is just the *THEME* which is preventing us from updating to the latest version of WP then I shall tonight switch it back to the default theme and upgrade to the latest version of WP (as the fact we're so very very far behind is a serious critical security flaw that we've got, it should be resolved asap).

Then I'll straight after give the site an appropriately PPNZ themed theme, as that part is a piece of cake to quickly whip up.

[Danyl Strype]

Kia ora koutou

On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 7:15 PM, Andrew Reitemeyer <pir...@cleopolis.com> wrote:
>> Kirk is being interviewed on Night on National Radio tonight after 8:00 - Piracy and open source software have been mentioned as subjects <<

Finally got around to listening to some of this. Thanks Kirk for
putting yourself in the firing line. I think anyone who intends to be
a spokesperson for the Party in election year, especially candidates,
need to listen to this and take some notes on the kinds of questions
to be prepared for. It's particularly important to watch out for
leading questions, and framing language (eg "intellectual property",
"stealing ideas"), and be ready to respectfully but firmly challenge
the assumptions the interviewer is building into their questions
(Richard Stallman is particularly good at doing this, which is one
reason he's often accused of being pedantic and annoying). I suspect
this interview was at the friendly end of what we'll face in the mass
media, and we need to prepared to do intellectual battle with people
who have axes to grind.

As others have pointed out, there were a few inaccuracies in the
discussion, such as Kirk's confusion between length of copyright and
length of patent. However, to be fair, the thing with live interviews
is you can't go look things up, so you have to rely on the knowledge
you can remember in the heat of the moment. It would be good to have a
basic FAQ of key information (eg basics of current copyright, patent,
and trademark law) that we can all drill into our heads, not only for
interviews and other public engagement, but so we can debate positions
and policy internally from an accurate understanding of the current
situation.

One other thought, related to our relationship with the public, no
doubt there will be people (eg candidates) who are willing to be the
public face of the party, and use their "real" name. However, I can
think of a number of people who might be keen to become financial
members of the Party, and even contribute to research and policy
development, without this becoming public knowledge. Obviously
membership admins will need to know who is who, so they know who is
entitled to access member-only decision-making spaces like our Loomio,
but if we are going to have all our internal discussions in a public
fishbowl, we need to allow members to use a handle, and protect their
privacy by making sure that handle is never publicly connected to
their day-to-day identity.

If large numbers of our members are only known to us as handles,
member-only spaces will become particularly important, because we can
be certain that everyone contributing in those spaces is a fellow
member, and that we need to play nice. In spaces like the Forum, open
to any random on the internet, it's tempting to assume people are
trolling when we disagree with them (I'm certainly guilty of this),
and treat them as such, which is one reason I think member engagement
has been inconsistent so far, and discussions often less than
productive.

Ma te wā
Strypey

--
Danyl Strype
Communications Manager
Pirate Party NZ
021 11 77 578

"Uncomfortable alliances are not just necessary; they reflect and
speak to the tremendous possibility of our political moment."
- Harmony Goldberg and Joshua Kahn Russell
http://www.nationofchange.org/new-radical-alliances-new-era-1337004193

"Both Marxists and Chicago-school libertarian economists can agree
that free software is the best model."
- Keith C Curtis
http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?page_id=407

[rogers....@gmail.com]

Is this thread of posts supposed to be private? Because I was brought here after doing a google search on the terms "loomio" and "security" - can see everything you are saying, despite the fact that I am not part of your google group. Better check your privacy settings if you are intending to have an internal discussion.

Best regards,

Deb

On Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:15:09 PM UTC-8, Andrew Reitemeyer wrote:

Kirk is being interviewed on Night on National Radio  tonight after 8:00 - Piracy and open source software have been mentioned as subjects

AndrewR

[Peter Ajamian]

On 06/01/2014 03:41 AM, rogers....@gmail.com wrote:
> Is this thread of posts supposed to be private? Because I was brought
> here after doing a google search on the terms "loomio" and "security" -
> can see everything you are saying, despite the fact that I am not part
> of your google group. Better check your privacy settings if you are
> intending to have an internal discussion.

While many of the discussions you see on this list are internal in
nature. This list is a public discussion list and available for anyone
to view or participate.

Thank you for your concern though.


Peter

[M.Rausch]

Hi Deb,

I am glad to hear that this Google group is open to nonmembers.
Why would we only want to share our thoughts with Google alone and not
with the rest of the world?

But I haven't seen any internal discussion here lately either!
Is it possible for you to point us to the passages that seem to be
attempts at intending to have an internal discussion?

Cheers,
Matt

...

[Andrew Reitemeyer]

Not that it matters but does she see what is being said on this list or
in the Loomio groups?

Both are public but Google would have a direct link to the NSA servers
and Loomio not.

Andrew

[Ben Vidulich]

On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 6:20 PM, Andrew Reitemeyer <pir...@cleopolis.com> wrote:

Not that it matters but does she see what is being said on this list or in the Loomio groups?

When you search "loomio security" in Google, the following appears on the third page (for me at least) of results: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ppnz/0dZVVlt5ZBs/haE9sPSSK0wJ

So that's how Deb would have found it.

Both the Google Group (mailing list) and main PPNZ Loomio group are public, so anyone could read what is written on either. However, in order to contribute to the Loomio group the user must request membership, which is granted by a member with "Coordinator" status. Anyone can post to the mailing list, but the post must approved by a moderator (unless the user is a member, or the moderator has given approval for all future posts by that user).

[Peter Ajamian]

On 06/01/2014 07:23 PM, Ben Vidulich wrote:
>
> Anyone can post to the mailing list, but the post must approved by a
> moderator (unless the user is a member, or the moderator has given
> approval for all future posts by that user).

Unless it's been changed since I set it up, anyone can post, but only
members who have had at least one approved "ham" (non-spam) post will
not be moderated. The bar to posting without moderation is pretty low,
but it's designed to avoid SPAM getting through to the list.


Peter

[Ben Vidulich]

Moderators have four options for messages sitting in the moderation queue (Pending messages):

• Post - allows this post, but future posts from the same email will continue to appear in the moderation queue
• Post and always allow future messages from author(s) - self explanatory
• Report spam and ban author(s) from this forum - self explanatory
• Reject - rejects this post, but future posts from the same email will continue to appear in the moderation queue

It's up to whoever moderates the queue to decide what to do with each post.

Currently there's over _spam_ 100 messages and 0 _ham_ messages sitting in the queue, so I'd say it's a pretty effective method of filtering posts.

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[Deborah S. Rogers]

Haha, probably no such thing as sharing with "google alone"! If google has it, NSA will have it sooner or later...

But anyway, I am glad to hear that your google group was intentionally open. If I had stumbled into a private group, that would really be cause for concern in terms of security. I do political organizing in countries where authoritarian governments are a serious threat, and we need to know that things in our google groups and on loomio are locked down.

Take care,

Deb

Deborah S. Rogers
IfE (Initiative for Equality)

website: www.initiativeforequality.org 

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