Greater London Pirate Party Agenda
Attendance
Apologies / Lateness
Introductions, informal & formal
Political Experience & Pirate Experience
Proposed Business
Purpose of Meet
Core Policies (decriminalisation of downloading, see over)
Additional secondary & tertiary policies
Purpose of Party – Pressure group vs Electoral force
corresponding membership / funding requirements
Allied Causes – Liberty, Open Source movements, NotoID
Current Affairs
- Mininova
- Pirate Bay
- Gary McKinnon
- EU 3 strikes, ISP Cut offs
- FACT
Core (cont.)
Downloading: TV
Film
(illegally) Software
Anime
Downloading: Warcraft & Games
(legally) FOSS ISOs
Other: cracks, licence breaking, Citrix
Net Neutrality (good or bad thing?)
Roles of ISPs – Large and small, ISP Warnings
Role of Government – hands on vs hands off
legit censorship vs stupid censorship
Australian censorship
Chinese censorship
Work arounds & Encryptions
Phorm
Role of Rights holders – Music Groups (RIAA)
Alternatives (Radiohead Album, Myspace, Live gigs)
Role of Software Developers
DRM
Vendor Lock-in
Support Contracts
Open/Visible Source
Cloud Computing
Microsoft
Linux (Ubuntu)
Redhat
Commercial Piracy
Organised Piracy (the scene)
Minutes begin here
Attendance
Person | Real life job/profession
Gavin – IT Project Manager
Chris – Systems administrator
John – IT Consultant
Eric - Telecoms/Finance
Edmund – Online Advertising
Candidacies
For General Election, we could run in Twickenham as they already held a meet. Gareth whom John and Edmund met felt Gareth is perhaps unsuited to be a pirate party candidate however.
We discussed the success of other Pirate Parties and how we hope to emulate them.
Sweden – 2 MEPs and 7% of the national vote
Germany – 2% of the vote
The Demographics of Pirate Party and voters
Students, young men, otherwise non-voters
Many are in the IT industry,however creative types such as leader Andy
Copywrite
Copywrite should exist
Copywrite is abused
We are developing our new copywrite policies
Downloading should be a free for all for personal use
This applies to media copywrite only
Leave FOSS software areas alone for now.
The PP Copywrite group has decided on a limited copywrite period (e.g.2 years) and longer (e.g. 4 years) with the source placed in escrow for the duration.
Discussions about forum goings on and the person who did the popular #10 petition.
Nominations officer positions, John is very interested in this position.
Internal election procedures, merits of direct democracy verses decisions made by representatives, and at regional level.
Fielding Candidates
Where should they be field, which parts of the county? Where central funding is involved this will almost inevitably be a centrally made decision.
Andy will most certainly run for Worcester, only certainty thus far.
The cost of standing for MP is £500, refunded if you get 5% of the vote
Many, if not most candidates will be 'token candidates' in order to get a name on a ballot paper, we support this.
Eric proposed the 'Mandleson 10' strategy, fielding 10 seats, all in Labour held marginals where votes accrued could be enough to tip the outcome, thus make a difference,
Numbers and placements of candidates will be continually re-evaluate based on funding available.
Additional information should be sought from sources such as the Electerol Commission websites
Overall we need to evaluate what in total we do and don't know as a party about fielding candidates
The ISP monopoly in Hull could be a region worth fielding a candidate in
Gavin will hold a Q&A will nomination officer candidates on the forums so members can make an informed vote on this position.
Further discussion about standard and future electoral procedure needs to be had.
ISPs
Discussions about talktalk's resistance to the latest EU policy.
Agreement that many other ISPs are not potential allies such as the vertically integrated media branches, however we must overall seek ISPs as allies
We support transparent downloading fair-use policies, not misleading ones.
Concern was raised that ISPs are not doing enough to protect customer data, such and sharing information with anti piracy organisations too easily.
Such abuses move into the area of whether Internet access could/should be considered a human right, comparable with water.
UNConference
Being held in Sheffield on the 16th of January
Maybe Dan Bull will attend
Likely there will be opportunities for anyone to speak at this stage.
Rob[link] in Sheffield will be the main event organiser
The event needs a chair
The Chair will do tasks like:
Organise volunteers for around the day
Organise the speeches from the executive
Rules about central funding vs self-funding will almost certainly be discussed
Speeches from policy heads
PR Strategies
“Ich Bin Ein Pirate”
Popular german video from the German Pirate Party. Chris has agreed to get this subbed as it is a good example of the PR we should be putting out.
Chris will be contacting Anime fansub groups, looking for their ideas or support.
UK Internet
We did not reach a consensus on the topic of net neutrality overall
The internet is a candidate for nationalisation due to its nature, or subsidisation
Wimax is a good example of local government effort trumping the investment of private enterprise
This is all needed for provision of broadband to rural areas, a laudable goal that supports remote working and deurbanisation as knock-on benefits.
Public Relations
Get writers / celebrities to advocate the party, e.g. Stephen Fry Tweeting about us
Dan Bull who did the Lily Allen response vid. Could we get him for the conference? Andy is in contact.
[Edmund and Chris are on the record as liking Lily Allen, 2 vs 3]
Could we do fund raising gigs?
Twitter features on the pirate party portal
There are already related Facebook groups
It is important the key feature of our finished manifesto is simplicity
We see no major reforms needed for the Internet Watch foundation (IWF)
We need no political ground to gain in opposing the recent 'Extreme Porn' legislation
We have no love of the advertising technology Phorm for many reasons.
The role of Spotify, is this something we should or shouldn't be praising?
Role of other 3rd party MP3 and media sites, are these our allies or enemies? What's good for PR?
We agree that the commercial Russian pirate sites are nothing good.
The role of government should not to be support old businesses as principle.
The role of (software) as service delivery is a concept we support in principle as it avoids many of the issues (licensing vs ownership) that are so contentious with the pirate party and its members.
Fundamentally we are against organised commercial piracy as it supports crime, drugs, people trafficking and other nefarious behaviours. This should be the main focus of all government led anti-piracy initiatives.
The (Warez) scene is non-commercial so doesn't effect our policies.
ID Cards
Waste of Money
Not effective
We should contact NotoID about allying ourselves on this issue to save having to invent our own separate policies. Eric plans to do this. Similarly Liberty.
Website Matters
Gavin owns pirateparty-uk.com – he plans to do something with this.
Micro-sites for regional parties and candidate sites could be a future development.
The wiki could be used to create a London Portal
Linking to allied sites, we should not reciprocate links, except from an unofficial site.
On the topic of regional involvement and communication, Chris agreed to get invoved in the forums to organise email notifications of activities and the such. Gavin expressed his hesitance about such an implementation, concerned about members being spammed or unable to opt out of such notifications.
The pirate party will not employ a full time employee this site of the General election and party funds are best spend funding candidates to stand.
Edmund suggested we save our money thus far for the European election, however this was not agreed to by 4-1.
Chris elected Greater London Pirate Party secretary
Police DNA retention policy is in need of reform similarly to that of media copywrite, life + 70 years is unsuitable in either case. Again, links with Liberty needs to be discussed on the forum, Chris will repost this.
CCTV – feature creep
We need sound bytes and other PR methodologies in order to persuade people CCTV is an issue that matter to every day people.
We should be able to win such votes even from the Tories.
Electoral Reform, e.g. Proportional representation is not a core value.
Reasons to Dislike the Pirate Party [Chris to repost this]
We don't care about anything else but downloading
Not a real political party
People don't want to vote for this perceived single issue party
Why are we called the pirate party? Isn't that a stupid name?
Why do you defend criminal behaviour?
Why doesn't Lily Allen like you?
What are you good for artists?
You are a bunch of white middle class boys.
Aren't you worried about terrorism?
Why is a DNA database a risk to our freedoms?
Why are you against ID cards?
Do you support Somalian Pirates?
Get News Coverage
Torrent freak has given us some coverage, we should be in contact
Filesoup, Uks biggest file share forum – Chris will contact for coverage
The conference also should receive some coverage
Statement of our copywrite policy should be newsworthy
Likewise our stance on the digital economy bill
Stance on Spotify
Associations will pirate bay likely not beneficial
We need a stance on Gary McKinnon
Chris will inform people of their agreed actions.
Edmund to take summary of notes to wikify for wiki.
Next meeting:
Will be decide candidates further
Next Meeting will be 2nd Jan - 15th period.
Hopefully a larger member turnout next meeting.
