A few months ago 21-year old Travis McCrea participated in the Canadian federal elections as candidate for the Pirate Party in Vancouver Centre. Aside from his political ambitions, McCrea also described himself as an entrepreneur. As with his political views, his business ventures are also focused on file-sharing related ideas, and most recently he started a torrent site to promote the distribution of movies.
In a deliberately provocative move the Czech Pirate Party has launched not one but two movie download portals. The sites, which offer links but don’t host any infringing material themselves, are being launched to protest the plight of a high school student facing a 5 million euro damages claim for linking to copyright works.
Source: Pirate Party Launches Movie Download Sites As “Declaration of War”
Back in March the Russian Justice Ministry turned down the Pirate Party’s attempt to officially register. The decision was made because the authorities feel that the word ‘pirate’ could be connected with criminal acts. Now a Moscow judge has backed that decision, leading the party to decide on a new name.
Since 2010 a group of self-confessed pirates have attempted to get their newly-founded religion accepted by the authorities. The Church of Kopimism, which currently has close to 1,000 members, hope that official recognition of their values would make them immune from prosecution. However, the Swedish authorities have denied the request for the second time in succession.
Source: File-Sharers Denied Official Religion Status in Sweden
According to a disclosure report, the MPAA spent $400,000 lobbying a wide range of US government departments in the first quarter of 2011 including the FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Vice President’s Office. Issues on the table include so-called “rogue sites” including RapidShare, streaming, graduated response (3 strikes) and domain seizures.
Source: MPAA Anti-Piracy Lobbying Targets FBI, DOJ, ICE, DHS and Biden
According to a report set to be adopted today by the UN’s Human Rights Council, anti-filesharing provisions such as those outlined in the UK’s Digital Economy Act are disproportionate and should be repealed. The provisions, which include disconnecting Internet users for violating the rights of the music and movie industries, breach human rights, the report concludes.
Source: UN: Disconnecting File-Sharers Breaches Human Rights
This morning German police confiscated the servers of the Pirate Party, currently the sixth largest political party in Germany. Details of the raid are still scarce, but initial information indicates that the raid was targeted at a service running on the Party’s servers. The timing is unfortunate with the Pirate Party participating in the upcoming election in Bremen this Sunday.
A letter sent on behalf of 21 pro-copyright outfits including the Motion Picture Association and IFPI shows how the European Parliament is being urged to sign the controversial ACTA anti-piracy agreement. The backroom lobbying effort document, which came into TorrentFreak’s possession, reveals how the organizations ask Parliament not to wait for a response from the European Court of Justice but simply sign “with no further delays.”
Source: Leaked “ACTA” Lobby Letter Reveals Hollywood Pressure On EU
A group of self-confessed radical pirates are pinning their hopes on gaining official recognition of their own unique belief system. The founders of the Missionary Church of Kopimism – who hold CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols – hope that along with this acceptance will come harmony, not just with each other, but also with the police.
Yesterday both the Swedish Pirate Party and The Pirate Bay disappeared from the Internet causing concern among their users. While they have both now returned, it appears that the Party downtime was caused by the unauthorized use of their servers “for commercial purposes”, something which is expressly forbidden.