At the party congress of the Social Democrats, there were a few decisions-in-principle made on the matter of IPRED (Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.) Earlier this spring, the party took a stand in favor of the new law, voting for its adoption. Those at the congress moving for a change of direction were quickly subdued, and there was nothing to be found in the resulting documents to indicate a change to this policy.

SD state that,

[Our] position is that the police are the ones responsible for investigating crime, including those pertaining to copyright.

However, as Mark Klamberg and others point out, IPRED is not about investigation of crime. It is rather about lawsuits under private law, whereby it grants a private interest (such as the copyright lobby) authority on par with that of the police, as if had it been a crime investigation. The above quote does not in any way change this fact.

Ravenna further underlines the backwards thinking of SD, when they state that “we have now achieved a balance between the integrity of the individual, and the author’s right to compensation.” Interestingly, it so happens to be the case that the latter “right” does not in fact exist – not even under current copyright law itself.

Mattias Bjärnemalm also says that, as long as SD do not understand that copyright law is in fact hampering creativity – not encouraging it – they will remain lost [on their way.]

Just around Halloween seems like a good time to be talking about the FRA. Even though the law on mass-surveillance governing the operations of the FRA has been passed – for the second time – without even one single MP of the Coalition having voted against [it], we must not admit ourselves to defeat. We must realize that, we now shoulder a herculean responsibility:

We are the last line of defense of the free and open society.

As such, it is imperative that we soldier on. We simply cannot afford to give in. Marie Andersson shares her thoughts on this matter at her blog Opassande (Swedish.)

In the wake of the elections to the European Parliament, we had been asked if we had truly understood the implications of the role we were about to assume. To a certain extent, we had become synonymous to [representing and defending] civil rights. “If you don’t make it into the Parliament,” they said, “the politicians will know that civil rights are largely irrelevant. For a foreseeable time to come, these issues will have vanished from the political agenda entirely.”

It was a heavy responsibility bear. But we did so with pride and strength, claiming two seats in the Parliament, and thus sending a message across. And we must keep at it.

In the latest poll by United Minds, our figure is at 2.1% for the general election coming up next year. This is quite an impressive result, given that we have been largely invisible for three months while recovering [from the European Parliament election.] We know that, when we work together, amazing things can be accomplished.

So, why should we keep going? What difference does it make that, for an example the FRA are allowed to jack in to our carriers, and intercept the communications of anyone, at a time and duration of their choosing? Let me explain with the help of a known book. I have substituted a few words in order to demonstrate my case:

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the FRA plugged in on any individual carrier was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in to your communications whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every article read, every mail sent, every date agreed to was monitored by the Government.

This piece is from the book 1984, by George Orwell. It has often been used as an example to paint a very dark vision of the future, meant as a warning – not an instruction manual.

(The book can be read in its entirety at Project Gutenberg, Australia, where its copyright has expired.)

The Pirate Party is needed in Parliament. It is not enough to tear up and rework the “FRA law.” The agency has violated whatever trust was there to begin with, and it must be shut down and replaced with exactly nothing, at all. When there is legislation tailored to suit the needs of a specific agency, it has used up its right to exist.

The Finnish Piraattilitto, think tank and lobbying organization, today write that Finland has one month left of secrecy of correspondence. The same applies for us.

[The rest of the post was lost in translation.]

One does not have to look particularly far in order to find one of these cameras. Wherever you are, simply survey the surrounding area and you will find yourself in the line-of-sight of at least three or four of them. (In the following three pictures, I have marked the spots where the cameras are located, in order to ease identification due to the zoom level. Please also note that there are numerous cameras to my sides and rear, outside of the field of view.)

Outside one could find these black dome-type cameras everywhere, some of which were privately-owned.

Middle: This appears to be a lamppost at first sight, but the black dome tells another tale. (Oxford Street)

I also met with Andrew Robinson, leader of the Pirate Party UK. We talked a lot about their electoral system, as well as exchanging thoughts and experiences in general. He shared a valuable insight with me that shows why laws need changing – a point of view I had not considered myself:

It is currently legal to sometimes capture a few images of people, on a few streets, simply because no one has had the means to do more than that. However, having acquired the means, that same right to sometimes capture an image is suddenly taken to mean always, everywhere. This dramatically changes the balance of power and grants the observer an information advantage that is directly unpleasant, as well as threatening.

To rephrase: some types of surveillance have been unregulated because it is practically harmless when done on small scale, privately. However, as this has been escalated to a level where there arises a complete awareness of how we go about in our day-to-day lives, it has become a very real menace to society, calling for a different set of regulations altogether.

Add to this, that, as has been said above, this type of surveillance does not aid in either preventing or solving crimes.

Fortunately, we can practically forget about threats of shutting file-sharers off from the internet. Lord Mandelson (whom is widely despised), is the person responsible for this motion, which is to be submitted in 2011. His counterpart, Tom Watson, has a different and far more understanding approach in his position as Digital Engagement Minister-to-be at Tories.

UPDATE: My bad. Tom Watson is an MP for Labour, not Tory. I had assumed he was Tory since he is regarded as the next minister for digitalry. Thanks to Philip Hunt of PPUK for pointing this out.

I will be back shortly with thoughts on my experiences from London and Manchester.

Feb 5: Rally against Lex Nokia in Finland.

Feb 10: First verdict from the ECJ of the legality of the Data Retention Directive.

Feb, unknown date, somewhere 1-15: Vote about the Lex Nokia wiretapping law in Finnish parliament.

Feb 16: The Pirate Bay trial starts.

Feb 18: EP vote on Medina report.

Feb 25: Swedish vote on IPRED1 over-implementation.

March, guess: presentation of data retention legislation in SE.

April 3: (assumed date) The Pirate Bay verdict communicated.

May 20: (SE, FI) Ballot boxes open.

June early: EP election.

Very small – about ten members.

Blackout in media; you don’t hear anything about any PP in Danish media. Almost all media is owned by copyright fundamentalists.

TPB censoring in progress in courtrooms; one of the parties in the court case is actually one of the major media owners, who only report their side of the case.

In these blocking and censoring court cases, there’s no real interest in preventing the block, because as the cases are brought against ISPs, there is nobody speaking for freedom of communication between the user and the blocked party. Therefore, those who sue – the enemies of the Internet, the record and film industries — basically always win.

In Denmark today, you can go to jail for six years for a copyright violation. The laws are going to be ”harmonized”, so you can get six years of prison for a patent violation (which is absolutely insane).

More Internet censorship laws are coming.

I’m not sure who will be attending, although just meeting the hosting pirates in Piraattipuolue will be a reunion to look forward to.

The first conference was in Vienna in the summer of 2007; the second in Berlin, in the winter of 2008, and the third in Uppsala, last summer.

I’ll be liveblogging as much as I can from the conference while still participating in it.