A Sadien.com Editorial

I've seen this story about the "EU Pirate Party" floating around for several days now.

Piracy is bad. No question about it. (And before all of the Pro-Pirate-Bay-Copyright-Sucks-I-Dont-Wanna-Pay-For-Stuff people start throwing a tantrum over that statement, I believe the bigger question is, "What is an appropriate definition of piracy?")

Copyright holders should have an absolute right to protect their content, and distribute it as they see fit. If they wish to charge for it, great. If they wish to give it away for free, that's great too.

The point is, it should be the copyright holder's choice. Period. The exact same way that if you go to work... you get paid. If you donate your time to a cause... it's charity.

Forcing an individual or entity to GIVE AWAY their work-product, is slavery. And, I mean that literally, by definition.

If you have a 25 year old man. And you force him work for 100's of hours to create a "widget"... then gave it away to the public for free... with no compensation to the young man... every special-interest group on the planet would be screaming the words "slavery" and "human rights violations" on behalf of the young workman.

Yet, when that "young man" is a multi-billion dollar content provider... the entire mood shifts to "Screw 'em. They've got the money."

Is this fair?

Please understand, my group is NOT, ABSOLUTELY NOT, an advocate for "big-software," "Hollywood," or any other commercial group. We believe those groups can be unfair, unethical, and use heavy-handed tactics to push their own agenda.

Our opinion is that content providers and content users should co-exist in a mutually beneficial, peaceful relationship.

Which brings me back to my original premise, are we losing something in translation on this topic?

I mean, they're called "The Pirate Party." The American definition of "piracy," is "illegal theft."

It stands to reason that people (specifically Americans) might question a "Piracy Party" being elected to any office. They same way we would question political parties named "The Kitten Kickers" or "The Grandma Haters."

Did the EU just fill a political seat with a known, willful criminal element? Or are we missing something here?

Sadien Staff
Sadien, Inc.
http://www.sadien.com