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In TCS Daily - Europe, Waldemar Ingdahl, head of Sweden's Eudoxa think tank, reviews the current state of the Pirate Party and its platform of antipathy to IP. He thinks recent government raids on pirate sites actually strengthened the pirates, and concludes: Italy, Norway, Poland and recently the United States have also seen the formation of Pirate Parties, inspired by the Swedish predecessor's success. What happens in Sweden is now closely monitored by many in the anti-IP movement.
But the Pirate Party does not have to win elections to influence the political debate. For them it is enough to be the driving force and to propose solutions to the issues. Crackdowns on pirate servers do not foster legitimacy for IP in the long run. It is therefore of great importance to rekindle the debate on IP by communicating the values of the market economy, entrepreneurship and private property and to explain how it benefits society as a whole. My reaction is that "communicating the values" is indeed crucial, but communication must be accompanied by legal and physical defense of IP as well. No education campaign can sway everyone, and it does not take many scofflaws to make the majority feel like they are being taken for suckers, paying to support the system while others free ride. Eventually, the majority stops being suckers and joins the free riders, and the system crashes. If one believes that property rights, including IP rights, have a moral basis because they are essential to a functioning society, then it is moral to enforce them (and immoral not to).
One of the things that makes one (at least this one) gloomy about the general fate of Europe is that the Europeans seem to be dominated by an apres moi, le deluge sensibility. Yes, they know that destroying property rights -- whether in music or in operating systems -- will suppress innovation and lead to stasis and decline. Say this and the reaction is: "So? You have a point here?"
And were I a leader in a rising nation, China for instance, focusing on the imperative of economic development, why would I regard this sort of "I've got mine and the hell with tomorrow" European democracy as a model?
posted by James DeLong @ 8:02 AM | International, Internet: P2P, Search Engines...
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