As a Member of the European Parliament for the Swedish Pirate Party, I have just published a short book (108 pages) on copyright reform together with Rick Falkvinge, who is the founder of the first and Swedish Pirate party.
The studies mentioned here seem to paint exactly the same picture as a number of studies that we refer to in that book. File sharing is not hurting revenues for the cultural sector. When we look at statistics for the last decade, with rampant file sharing on the internet, we see that more money is going into film, music, books, games and other culture than ever before, and that a larger portion of it is going to the artists and other creative people involved (as opposed to middle men such as the big record companies).
Two weeks ago we had a book launch for "The Case for Copyright Reform" in the European Parliament, and I have distributed a paper copy of it to each of the 754 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament).
Now all that remains to be seen is how many of my colleagues in the parliament will actually read it, but that's another story.
If you are interested in checking out the book, you can download "The Case for Copyright Reform" (for free, obviously) from http://www.copyrightreform.eu/ You can also order a paper copy at cost price via print-on-demand, if you prefer that.
It is time that we start looking at copyright legislation in a fact-based manner, as opposed to the IPR fundamentalist way that has been dominant in this policy area so far on both sides of the Atlantic.
There is a better way.
I don't really think that any parliamentary immunity will be necessary in connection with spreading this document, but as a Member of the European Parliament I can confirm that I have it, in case it turns out to be useful.
Member of the European Parliament
Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party), Sweden
The elections for the European Parliament are on June 7.
That's what we're focusing all our efforts on right now. It's an entirely realistic goal, and we're planning to make it.
Vice Chairman Piratpartiet
Candidate for the European Parliament
This is where we have located the servers of the Swedish Pirate Party.
Part of the reason is that the ISP Bahnhof has taken at stance on privacy issues that we are very happy with as pirates. But of course part of the reason is that it's a pretty cool looking data center.
You can find a couple of pictures from when we installed our servers in the data center here.
Vice Chairman, The Pirate Party, Sweden
Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier.