back to article Pirates get extra seat in Euro Parliament

Now that the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified by Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the European Parliament gets an extra 18 members, and one of those will be from Sweden's Pirate Party. Currently there are 736 Members of the European Parliament, this will temporarily go up to 754, because Germany, which is losing three seats, keeps …

COMMENTS

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  1. Georgees

    "a complete removal of the patent system"

    Ho ho ho ho.

    Sure there are patent trolls, but no one can for one second doubt that patents aren't a good thing.

    What incentive is there for R&D if you can't make some money off it in the long run?

    A reform of patent law? Probably needed. But all out abolishment is retarded.

  2. Marvin the Martian
    Megaphone

    Removing all patenting and copyrights

    Always popular amongst those who produce f*ck all.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: "a complete removal of the patent system"

    If she starts with that position, then there is room to compromise to something sensible. If she starts with something sensible, compromise is all bad news. So it seems like a good starting position to take to me.

  4. The Original Ash
    FAIL

    "a complete removal of the patent system"

    Reform, yes. Abolishment, no.

    Ditch this bird; She's no good to our cause.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    The point of protest parties

    No one will ever remove the patent system but protest parties exist to counteract lobbies. It's important they get their say when the kind of laws we've had related to internet get drawn up.

  6. Dr Who

    Heretic!

    Georgees, how dare you peddle such heresy on these distinguished pages!

    Haven't you heard of open source?

    Make money from your innovation and development work? You are living in a different universe mate.

    Developers should develop for the love of it. Musicians should compose for the fun of it.

    How vulgar can you get - making money indeed.

    It is of course quite lucky for the open sourcers that the likes of Google, IBM and Sun have been willing to give generous handouts to all those developers who are working for free. They might have starved to death otherwise, but as it turns out it's been quite a nice little earner.

  7. Ian Stephenson
    Pirate

    @Georgees

    agreed, In fact I would go so far as to say bring copyright in line with patent law, at least with regards to the life of copyright.

    Why should a cure for cancer be protected for 15 years but media be protected for the life of the creator plus 70 years?

    She is cute though.....

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Don't really agree with their platform

    but I'm glad that people are showing how annoyed they are with some of the current legislation. But no doubt Sony etc. have the world governments in their pockets and will somehow stop this.

  9. TeeCee Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Back to front?

    "....a thorough revision and change of the copyright legislation, a complete removal of the patent system...."

    Just swap the words "copyright" and "patent" around and it makes sense then.....

  10. Christoph Hechl
    Boffin

    patents bad? yes.

    [quote]

    ... but no one can for one second doubt that patents aren't a good thing.

    [/qoute]

    I can. And i think she is absolutely right. The Patent system is so flawed that a mere reform just won't do. Start from scratch? Probably.

    By the way you point out the main flaw yourself.

    Patents should help protect ideas, not money. Almost noone who only invests vast amounts of his time to work on a good idea will get it patented (Simply too complicated and too expensive). And if he does he won't stand a chance to enforce his rights. Those who throw lots of money at trivial patents or patent renewals on the other hand will.

    Give someone with a good idea a head start to get it going? Great idea. But have him prevent others from working in the same field and/or improve said idea? Surely not what patents where meant for.

  11. mediaslave

    Not sure I trust her

    I searched her images in google and she has a mullet in many of them. Do we trust people with mullets?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Pirate Party?

    Does this mean that the Spaghetti Monster has reached Sweden?.I rather thought that the Pastifarians would invade the EU through Italy - or the Vatican maybe, where vestiges of intelligent design still linger. Not to worry though, Europe will love their free beer-volcanoes and stripper-factories.

    http://www.venganza.org/

  13. Stef 2
    Thumb Up

    Elected!

    She was democratically elected - unlike Mandelson.

    Or the Prime Minister for that matter.

  14. Frostbite
    Paris Hilton

    Her phone number

    I wonder how long it will be before she removes her mobile phone number from her website....

    ....and no she's busy Friday night.....already checked.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Removal of patents

    If they're willing to compromise so that patent enforcement has reasonable limits then maybe. The current system has stopped people trying to cure cancer.

  16. Georgees

    RE:patents bad? yes.

    "Patents should help protect ideas, not money. Almost noone who only invests vast amounts of his time to work on a good idea will get it patented"

    You say this as if the people doing the meaningful work technologically and scientifically are all funding themselves and doing it in their spare time.

    This obviously isn't true. Most real scientific and technological breakthroughs come from teams of well funded scientists.

    Sure, the person who invented the ring pull can may have had a hard time protecting his intellectual property. But in the grand scheme of things who gives a shit? It's not some huge breakthrough, it's just a ring on the top of a can. And no doubt that guy wanted to make his millions, and has by now because he invested huge amounts of money in an idea he believed in.

    A lot of people get patents granted, spend thousands upon thousands in the process and then never think of a marketable product.

    Then when someone does they charge through the nose for the right to use it. Is this fair? Would this happen less if it was cheap and easy to patent something? No. It would be 10 times worse.

  17. PirateSlayer
    FAIL

    Outdated business model

    I wonder if she is also personally abolishing that 'outdated business model' known as "getting paid for a day's work". I hope so. I hope she is blazing a trail for her principles...if she isn't, she will of course be a stupid little hypocrite won't she.

  18. Essuu

    patents protect production

    Patents were developed to allow the inventer of something to obtain a reward for the effort required to invent it. Historically there was little point in inventing something if it was immediately ripped off by a larger outfit.

    The only reform that is really required is to require evidence of application. If you patent an invention and then do nothing with it, you lose the right to reward when someone else does. This would have to include licensing others to use the invention, sometimes that is the sensible way to exploit your invention but it would put a stop to IPR licensing shells that exist merely to borg up patents and charge other people for their use.

  19. Circadian
    Grenade

    @PirateSlayer: Outdated business model

    Wow - I'm not all that familiar with the exact terminology, but I believe this is known as a "straw-man argument" (though I am sure the resident pedants here will gladly put me right).

    In math terms, you are suggesting "a=b, therefore x=y". If this is an example of the clarity of your thought processes, then, well, as this is an article about copyright, let's use a rejoinder from Catwoman from one of the Batman films...

    (Security Guard): "Please don't hurt me - I only make minimum wage!"

    (Catwoman): "You're overpaid!"

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @PirateSlayer

    "getting paid for a day's work". Of course she has absolutely no concept of getting paid for a days work. Firstly she is barely out of education and still obviously enamoured with the teenage view of 'me as the centre of the universe', and secondly she has taken up a career in politics.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ban patents on natural genes.

    How long should patents on parts of your own genome last?

    Are you technically in infringement if you were born with some of the patented genes (i.e. the BRCA breast cancer gene that's currently before the courts)?

    Why is it an infringement for someone to read the cancer gene from your own genome?

    It's ridiculous.

  22. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
    Troll

    @Circadian

    I think the precise terminology is 'Troll with a straw-man argument'.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Patents are mostly a bad thing

    Copyrights and patents are very different things. Patents are essentially anti-competitive as they give one company exclusive rights to market an invention for twenty years. Why innovate if you can't get patent protection - well duh, because innovation produces better products which sell better and make more money. Innovations that don't achieve this are pointless anyway. So people will copy "your" ideas? But no one owns ideas. That's how progress works, good ideas replace less good ones because people copy the good ones. Why innovate when you can copy? Time to market. By the time the copycat products come along you'll be onto the improved v2.0. Besides most patents are effectively unenforceable as it is easy to effectively get round them by making minor changes to the design and litigation takes too long - the market opportunity has passed by the time you get a judgement. That's why big companies prefer to just trade patents with other big companies rather than try to enforce them. It's the little guys who get shut out and who can't afford to defend their own patents anyway. A system that favours rich, established companies is likely to be bad for innovation. So go Pirates!

  24. PirateSlayer
    FAIL

    @Circadian

    "In math terms, you are suggesting "a=b, therefore x=y". If this is an example of the clarity of your thought processes, then, well, as this is an article about copyright, let's use a rejoinder from Catwoman from one of the Batman films..."

    Oh...isn't this an article about a Pirate Party freetard being put into the European Parliament? No? Strange...I am sure that's what I read.

    I am focussing in on their main policy which involves believing that people should be able to take whatever they want for free (man). So, people like musicians, actors, film directors, software developers, games developers and all those other plebs who toil away in dark offices somewhere producing things which in this freetard pirate's opinon, are the property of mankind (maaaan)...so naturally free. I argue that she should practice what she preaches in parliament and toil away in an office somewhere talking bollocks AND not get paid for it...

  25. Martin Owens
    Alert

    What Parents are For

    >> Patents were developed to allow the inventer of something to obtain a reward for the effort required to invent it.

    No there were NOT, firslty the idea pops it's way via the royal patronage system which was daft as a brush and secondly the only reason why revolution countries like the USA and France accepted patents was because:

    "The necessitate the documentation of the useful arts into the public domain so that they be useful to mankind and progress the state of the useful sciences"

    If you think it's because Franklin wanted to line to pockets of inventors you've been brainwashed by the boys from the 80s.

  26. Gorbachov
    Go

    software and medicine patents deserve to die

    Does anyone have any credible argument _for_ these patents? Software is just too vague and medicine too important to be burdened with these things. Not to mention that both industries are neither poor nor abused. They just want more money from us.

    And please don't mix copyright and patents b/c they are quite different.

    @PirateSlayer

    No. Their stance is that the corporations are too powerful and use this power to promote draconian patent and copyright laws to the detriment of everybody else. If you invent something cool these days you have to invest in a lawyer to make sure you _can_ patent it. And if you don't have enough money (of course you don't) the existing patent search will be weak and you could lose everything as soon as you go public. So yes, the laws must change drastically.

    Also, you can't patent music, books, art or similar stuff. Those are covered by copyright which has been extended way beyond sanity levels. 75 years after the author's death? WTF?!

  27. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    Thumb Up

    Finally!

    A politician that was elected!!!

  28. PirateSlayer
    FAIL

    @Gorbachov

    From the girl's website:

    "In the long run, copyright exception can and should be extended to include filesharing for private use, and this is a battle we definitely need to take."

    I take this as meaning that sharing any copyrighted information (such as music, games, software, anything you can get on a computer in other words) for nothing. How many companies do you know that would share PC games or MP3? This is what I associate the Pirate Party with, just as I associate the BNP with racism (no matter how much sense they come out with, they are still racist morons).

    As for drugs patents, I am pleased they exist so that more drugs are researched and marketed (which costs billions). Patents DO equal innovation. It doesn't take a genius to copy someone elses work...it takes real innovation to come up with a completely new way of doing something. Isn't it better to have 3 or 4 different (and individual) methods of doing something, since the drive to come up with something more efficient, something using fewer resources, something more useful stems from NOT copying. Imagine if all MP3 players had that god awful Apple wheel thing because there was no desire to innovate something better.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    The Good Ship

    Young Swedish women pirates always welcome aboard.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Patents: some reality

    In their purest form patents are good because of two main reasons:

    (1) They allow people to spend money, time and effort in innovating with the knowledge that once they do innovate something other people won't be able to undercut them because they [the others] haven't large research investments to recoup.

    (2) They force inventors to publish the gory details of their inventions (cf. trade secrets) which allows others to improve on and further develop things that may be a benefit to mankind.

    Now, patents today are not necessarily pure, and are often either absurd, bollocks or simply used for trolling and suffocating purposes. This is definitely wrong.

    It is clearly obvious to anyone who has an understanding of the patent system that the current implementations are flawed and need rationalising. It is equally clear to the same group that abolishing patents would simply stifle innovation.

  31. Hungry Sean

    abolish patents, eh?

    My knee jerk reaction was, "That's pretty stupid." But then I thought about it a bit. Patent application fees in the US are, I believe, about $65,000 a pop, and that doesn't even cover the cost of the patent lawyer to make sure things get written up properly, nor does it cover the cost of monitoring and enforcement. Clearly, this is beyond the scope of your average individual who has a bright idea, so patents are only of possible benefit to corporations.

    Ok, so with that as our starting point, what really do patents achieve for said corporations? If a company has a really good idea that is hard to reproduce, they will generally prefer to keep it as a trade secret (e.g. Coca Cola has not patented their formula, it's a secret, and therefore, as long as no one else can reverse engineer it, they maintain a monopoly over their formula). If, on the other hand, there is a chance of a competitor arriving at the same idea, or being able to recreate the method following some analysis, patents are the way to go. A great example of this would be the famous race to the patent office over the telephone. If I recall correctly, Bell barely beat out another inventor whose telephone was much more sophisticated. It would seem to me that in many senses, patents actually impede innovation and technical progress.

    I'm still not convinced abolishing patents outright is the best solution, but neither is it a preposterous one. I would be very interested to hear a clear description of ways in which patents actually spur technology (and not a lame appeal that companies need the possibility of an additional monopoly in order to innovate-- there are plenty of other forces towards innovation in the absence of patents). I'm having a hard time thinking of anything myself.

  32. Ole Juul

    Let's encourage innovation

    and abolish all patents. Patents just allow innovators to stop at version one and prevent others from moving ahead as well.

  33. Displacement Activity

    @essuu

    > Patents were developed to allow the inventer of something to obtain a reward for the

    > effort required to invent it. Historically there was little point in inventing something if it

    > was immediately ripped off by a larger outfit.

    Oh dear. Generally, I can't be arsed to get into Freetard arguments, but I've got some important work waiting to be done.

    Patents were developed to allow the state to obtain details of inventions that would otherwise have remained secret. Period. The idea is that the state buys the details of your invention from you; in return, the state grants you the right to a fixed-period monopoly (maybe 17 years) on your invention, in whatever territory that state has jurisdiction.

    You don't need to enter into this deal with the state (yours, or any other); you can just keep your invention secret, and risk other people finding out about it. I'm not aware of any state, anywhere, which is in the business of rewarding people for their hard work.

    Of course, there are problems. The ones I'm aware of are in the US; these are fundamentally due, I think, to Franklin's view that "any of the works of man" are patentable. This is completely unworkable in practice, and leads to large numbers of trivial patents from which the state gains nothing, and whose only purpose is to stifle competition. These problems don't exist in the other countries I'm familiar with.

    If Ms. Andersdotter really thinks that the fix to these problems is to abolish patents, then she really is very, very, thick.

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