An Introduction

           When the phrase “a typical social movement” is brought up, what regularly pops into someone’s mind involves a group of people becoming frustrated with the way things are in their life to the point they are willing to raise their voice and let the world, or at least a larger group of people, know their frustration to gain support in changing what is causing them pain in their life.  This however, is bigger than a social movement.  What is going on in a large part of Europe and pop up spots around the globe involves more than a mere social movement but a political movement.  People are not just voicing their frustrations to encourage other people to make a change for them.  Pirate Politics is about being fed up enough with the way things are to actually get out there and make a change in a democratic manor.            

            In his book, Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests, Patrick Burkart examines how the take down of The Pirate Bay, a website devoted to sharing copyrighted material to people on the internet, was taken down and how that has encouraged people to form the new political party, Pirate Politics. Pirate Politics works to try and strengthen access to copyrighted material as they believe everyone has a right to freely access the true fruit of the world, knowledge.   Burkart moves his way through the book by first setting up the context of the political party and how they came about.  He then goes on to describe antipiracy movements by the European Union and the American government and how that has also inspired Pirate Politics to respond to the restraint copyright/patent laws create.  In the latter half of his book, Burkart moves to try and explain why the Pirate Party is not just out to gain things for free, despite their label of “free culture” they are trying to promote.  It is, he believes, a libertarian movement that wants to have great effects on the cyber world.  Burkart believes they can do this by playing on their relation to the environmentalist movement in how it encourages parts working together as one, instead of independent entities.  From these claims, Burkart argues this is a revolutionary party that is going to bring forth big changes in the way information is transferred online (Burkart, 2014).  Throughout this blog, I analyze some of his arguments, good and bad, and why one ought to believe them, or not, using different authors I have recently become acquainted with.        

Pirate Politics News

The Pirate Party has grown all around the world in many different nations.  They encourage anyone and everyone they can to join their cause.  Different areas around the world have made their own websites and news sources to inform people of the issues they are currently facing.  You can learn about these issues too by clicking on the links below to take you to their sites.

United States 

European Main

Pirate Times

What do others think?

Here are a few reviews of Burkart's book that encompass a wide range of takes of not only what he wrote about but also how he did so.

"A must-read for anyone in need of a good dose of hope."
                            -Lisa Brooten, Associate Professor, Department of Radio, Television and Digital Media, Southern Illinois University Carbondale


"Burkart builds a forceful case that pirate politics matters. Most impressive, he achieves what is one of the pirates' greatest accomplishments: making Interent politics accessible."
                            -Rebecca Wexler, Commons Journal


"Combining careful research and a creative assessment of social movement theory, Burkart provides a thoughtful profile of those cyber-nomads who dare to insist on an open and democratic information society."
                           -Vincent Mosco, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Queen's University


"The fight for access to knowledge and culture and for the flexibilization of Intellectual Property Rights is not a middle class cause solely advanced by white, western and geekish individuals."
                            -Miguel Caetano, Good Reads

Works Cited

Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. "The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification at           the Twenty-first Century"" Literacy in American Lives. Cambridge:             Cambridge UP, 2001. 169-86. Print.

Burkart, Patrick. Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests.                   Cambridge, MA: MIT,  2014. Print.

"Copyright Timeline: A History of Copyright in the United States |                            Association of Research Libraries® | ARL®." Copyright Timeline: A            History of  Copyright in the United States | Association of Research            Libraries® | ARL®. N.p., 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Dijk, Jan Van. "Social Structure." The Network Society: Social Aspects of              New Media. London: Sage Publications, 2006. 156-89. Print.

Khan, B. “An Economic History of Copyright in Europe and the United                States”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March               16, 2008.

Mcchesney, Robert W. "How Can the Political Economy of                                 Communication Help Us Understand the Internet?" Digital                         Disconnect. S.l.: New, 2014.63-95. Print

Want More Pat?

Patrick Burkart is a distinguished professor at Texas A&M University and has written countless books and papers besides the prized Pirate Politics, reviewed here.  Listed below are two links to academic websites detailing the works and accomplishments of Burkart.

Other Works

Education Areas

Some Good Ideas

            While it may seem the largest pitfall of the book leaves people with a negative and narrow minded view of the world, as is demonstrated in the negative post, there are many reasons Burkart gives that should turn people around and leave them more open to the idea of creating a world where patent and copyright laws are less influential.  One of Burkart’s best arguments is the idea where he compares the ideas behind Pirate Politics to the Environmentalist movement.  He explains how, in the Environmentalist movement, there is no claiming of individual aspects of the environment; it is not his forest, their pond or her mountain.  Instead, it all works together to create a system that functions as one.  All the individual parts depend on the other to be a successful whole.  Without the influence of the other, the whole system will not be able to function properly.  This then relates to the system of free flowing information Pirate Politics is trying to create.  
            If information was not claimed as property that could be owned but was allowed to flow freely between people, we would be able to create a much stronger and more efficient system.  Bouncing ideas off of people helps to stimulate new and stronger ideas and create never before thought of inventions that could greatly benefit society.  However, with the current copyright system in place, it is extremely difficult to spread this information between people to allow it to flow as one big system that works together.  However, if copyrights and patents become weakened, it will be much easier for information to flow through and between people, allowing many different ideas to work together as a sufficient system (Burkart, 2014).      

            Looking at the platform from the environmentalist angle helps to bring light to another major problem in society which could be solved by the Pirate Party’s ideas.  This problem is the digital divide.  The digital divide is the idea there is a divide among people who have access to information technology because of reasons such as age, gender or the proper funds (Dijk, 2006).  When Jan van Dijk, a professor of communication and sociology in the Netherlands, speaks of the digital divide, he talks mainly about people who have access to computers and technology and people who do not.  I believe he does a disservice to this idea as one can take the topic even further by expanding the concept to people who have access to certain aspects on the web and those whom do not.  Some people have access to certain copyrighted material on the internet, leaving others behind while they profit, mentally and monetarily, off of it.  Some people have access to many different copyrighted and patented materials because of their position in life while others’ positions in life prevent them from having such access.  This thus creates a digital divide that hinders society. 

            Unless something is done to fix this problem, it is only going to get worse.  In order to see how this is so, one can relate this idea to the gap in literacy skills.  According to Debora Brandt, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, if one has a higher socioeconomic status, they are more likely to develop more sufficient literacy skills that will allow them to excel more than others at the opportunities life throws at them (Brandt, 2001).  This can be compared to the current divide between people who have access to patented material and those who do not.  Those who do are only going to have access to more patented material and be able to use those ideas to influence themselves to build off of the ideas in front of them to design and create new and improved inventions.  Unfortunately, the people who do not have access to these patents will not be able to work together to create new ideas and have the power of multiple minds working together.  They will not be able to work as one, having all the units flowing smoothly together to create the best possible system.  In order to fix the problem at hand, we need to heed Burkart’s optimism towards Pirate Politics and take to the new political movement.  His positive arguments far out weigh the one I have criticized and is thus why we need to adopt the new movement.  It will produce a great society for us to live in, as the environmentalist movement describes, that works together to create the best functioning system possible.        

    

Not the Best Ideas

           Humans are by and large creatures of habit.  Just look around you; most people struggle with big changes in their lives and would prefer, if there had to be a change at all, it be minute.  Because of this struggle with change, it is likely Burkart’s optimism for Pirate Politics to be successful is in vain.  He strongly believes that this political party will gain enough ground not only in the European Parliament but in the United States and other powerful nations around the world to be able to significantly affect the way patents and copyrights are dealt with.  He is driven, in part, to believe this idea from the Swedish Pirate Party’s success from 2006 to 2009.  In 2006, they were only able to muster 0.63% of the vote.  However, three years later in 2009, they gathered 7.13% of the vote, allowing themselves to gain a seat in the European Parliament (Burkart, 2014).  This thus persuaded Burkart this party is able to grow in a strong fashion.  In the short span between when they became a party to three years later, they were close to capturing 10% of the vote of the entire European Union.  He believed this to be strong evidence they would be able to keep growing in a large manor.  However, this short burst of popularity should not be enough to convince Burkart of the party’s future success.  

            As mentioned above, Burkart should not believe so strongly in the party’s ability to change the way the world looks at copyright and patent laws.  Because humans have such a strong habit of avoiding change, the phenomenon has been named; it is called path dependence.  Path dependence is the idea once something is in place with a certain standard, it is very difficult, and often times expensive, to replace, even if the habit has considerable flaws (McChesney, 2014).  Copyright and patent laws have been prominent in American society for nearly 227 years as they are written into the Constitution (Copyright, 2014).  Across the sea in Europe, patent law dates back to the medieval days of Europe (Khan, 2008).  Because patent law has such a prominent history, every person alive today has had some form of patent and/or copyright law experience in their life.  Even if they do not approve of the patent law system, path dependence says they would still be unlikely to work towards, let alone approve of, the shift towards the weakening and abolishing of certain patent and copyright laws.  People have become so accustomed to the system of copyrights they will not want to move away from it.  The Pirate Party in Europe was only able to muster 7.13% of the vote, which is not a significant amount, not nearly enough to win them any kind of influence in the European Parliament.  A large majority of the population did not vote with them and did not want to change their view on copyright/patent laws.  They are dependent upon the path they are currently on and will not change their ways because of a simple whim by a new political party.  Therefore, this dependence should not lead Burkart to believe change is on the way but should instead lead him to believe this relatively new party is a quick little whim that will not have much to any influence on the political system.    

Time to Buy

Click here for a link to purchase Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests, because I know this blog has made you want to read the book for yourself.