[Steve Henderson]

 Quite frankly, I feel that the Pirate Party should take a much more affirmitive stance on filesharing. In my opinion, I feel there is a bit of fear regarding potential damages to our image if we were to take a more affirmative stance. However, given that Canada is at the forefront of using filesharing I feel that there is a large enough base of support for us to take this position. We should assume a stance in favour of the outright legalization of filesharing for personal use.

 This is (in my opinion) an extremely important issue that we've been somewhat avoidant of, and it should be put to a vote.

[phro]

It's certainly worthy of serious discussion.  Thanks for throwing this out in the open.

[Concerned Citizen]

True but I think most Canadian politicians are too whipped by lobbyist obligations to get their campaign contributions to do anything like that...

Then there is the fact hey might be afraid of a war with the US... But remember what happened last time they started shit. We went down there and burned the White House down.

[Ayes]

We need to liken it to a library folks!

 Make torrent hosts donate 5% of their ad profits to funding Canadian media projects.

Throw on an additional optional box to donate money from your tax return into this canadian media fund if you are a file sharer.

[Steve Henderson]

True but I think most Canadian politicians are too whipped by lobbyist obligations to get their campaign contributions to do anything like that...

Then there is the fact hey might be afraid of a war with the US... But remember what happened last time they started shit. We went down there and burned the White House down.

Which is more or less why the Pirate Party exists, amirite?

[Kellythedog]

It is not illegal to file share in Canada.
If you own it and have the rights to distribute it, go ahead fill your torrents.
It's even ( thanks to the private copying exemption that includes a levy on blank media) legal to download all the music you want, just don't upload it, and make sure its only music, and make sure its put on a CD.

As for the 5% levy on ad revenue from Torrent sites.
That would be like Timmy Ho Ho's being made to give 5% of their profit to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, because if you eat doughnuts you MAY get clogged arteries.
Very similar to the media levy, i buy cd's  to put files on, not music and I still pay the levy, that's not fair. ( they think I might so they charge me)

IMHO
The issue centres around Balanced Copyright / IP rights and what it should look like.

I should be able to buy a DVD movie, and convert it to whatever format I want, as long as its for personal use. Then I can have that movie since I bought it.
But...what happens if I don't know how to rip it, and I just go onto a torrent site and download it already converted to whatever format I wanted.
Should I be able to do that? it's still for personal use, isn't it? ( of course under the new bill having tools to break locks would be illegal)
But how would I control the people who didn't have the movie in the first place and only wanted it for free?
And what if instead of loaning the movie to a friend by handing him the DVD, i tell him to download it, since it would be faster..is that still OK?
That is the real debate.
It's not about file sharing and getting things for free, its about where our rights as citizens begin.

[JasonCarr]

It is not illegal to file share in Canada. If you own it and have the rights to distribute it, go ahead fill your torrents. It's even ( thanks to the private copying exemption that includes a levy on blank media) legal to download all the music you want, just don't upload it, and make sure its only music, and make sure its put on a CD.

Even if we ignore the changes that C-32 is going to make to file sharing in Canada, the legal status of file sharing is still very limited. Sure I can torrent my files if I have the right to distribute, but how often do we have that on the things we download? Music downloading is legal but technologies used to do so often including uploading the information while you are downloading it. Bit-torrent is built on the notion that we are going to be seeding as much as we leech.

It's not about file sharing and getting things for free, its about where our rights as citizens begin.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Our rights as Citizens include issues far outside the scope of the pirate party's platform. You seem to be suggesting that our ability to rip a DVD or share a DVD somehow is more closely tied with our rights as citizens then filesharing or "getting things for free".  That is an unfair assessment.

Getting things for free(in the context of information) is exactly the issue the pirate party needs to take a stance on. Free information is information freedom.

[Blyss+]

Why liken it to a library?

Why not just lobby for libraries of media?  In essence, it would protect an awful lot of culture(anyone else notice how bare B&M stores are when it comes to rarer music, TV shows, and movies?), while also giving the public reasonable access to culture.

If the public is unwilling or unable to fund it, I don't see why it couldn't be a private venture.  But lobbying to reform copyright to the point that I can login to my library and stream anything I like(that is a of a reasonable age, say 5-7 years or older).

It's entirely do-able...just a matter of getting a whole whack of very entrenched folks to consider another path.

That's politics, though, no?

[Ayes]

Why liken it to a library?

Why not just lobby for libraries of media?  In essence, it would protect an awful lot of culture(anyone else notice how bare B&M stores are when it comes to rarer music, TV shows, and movies?), while also giving the public reasonable access to culture.

If the public is unwilling or unable to fund it, I don't see why it couldn't be a private venture.  But lobbying to reform copyright to the point that I can login to my library and stream anything I like(that is a of a reasonable age, say 5-7 years or older).

It's entirely do-able...just a matter of getting a whole whack of very entrenched folks to consider another path.

I am all about this! Lobbying for literal digital libraries is an excellent compromise, I've said it before!

[cpt_chris]

file sharing should be unregulated because restricting its use is impossible. you don't have to support it but allowing it is necessary.
no one will starve, i promise.

[Concerned Citizen]

file sharing should be unregulated because restricting its use is impossible. you don't have to support it but allowing it is necessary.
no one will starve, i promise.

Oh sure except for the middle men in the music industry who get the stars their high quality blow... Wont you please think of the poor super rich record company execs? How will they ever afford a second leer jet if we allow filresharing</sarcasm>

[Mikkel Paulson]

file sharing should be unregulated because restricting its use is impossible. you don't have to support it but allowing it is necessary.
no one will starve, i promise.

I agree with your sentiments on file sharing, but that is the worst justification for its legalization that I've heard yet. If we want it to be unregulated, we want it to be unregulated for a deliberate reason. Using the difficulty in catching file sharers as the primary justification is like arguing that murder should be legalized because not all murder cases are solved.

[Concerned Citizen]

I agree with your sentiments on file sharing, but that is the worst justification for its legalization that I've heard yet. If we want it to be unregulated, we want it to be unregulated for a deliberate reason. Using the difficulty in catching file sharers as the primary justification is like arguing that murder should be legalized because not all murder cases are solved.

At best it's a secondary or tertiary reason... why should we waste police resources on this when they have murders and stuff to deal with?

[Steve Henderson]

At best it's a secondary or tertiary reason... why should we waste police resources on this when they have murders and stuff to deal with?

I agree, especially given that the head of copyright theft investigations within the RCMP admitted to lacking the ability to tackle filesharing. Legalizing filesharing for personal use is a common sense approach that both saves money and facilitates the flow of information. Again, I want to put out the idea of putting forth a vote on the 19th as to whether or not we should add the legalization of filesharing (including copyrighted material) for personal use to our platform. Anyone else agree with this sentiment?

[Nuitari]

It is already in the interim platform and the proposed platform.