Pirate Politics the Information Society Series Laura Denardis and Michael Zimmer, Series Editors
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Pirate Politics The Information Society Series Laura DeNardis and Michael Zimmer, series editors Interfaces on Trial 2.0, Jonathan Band and Masanobu Katoh Opening Standards: The Global Politics of Interoperability, Laura DeNardis, editor The Reputation Society: How Online Opinions Are Reshaping the Offline World, Hassan Masum and Mark Tovey, editors The Digital Rights Movement: The Role of Technology in Subverting Digital Copyright, Hector Postigo Technologies of Choice? The Capabilities Approach and Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), Dorothea Kleine Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Contests, Patrick Burkart Pirate Politics The New Information Policy Contests Patrick Burkart The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, re- cording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email spe- [email protected]. This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burkart, Patrick, 1969– Pirate politics : the new information policy contests / Patrick Burkart. p. cm — (The information society series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-02694-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Piratpartiet. 2. Piratenpartei Deutschland. 3. Internet—Political aspects—Sweden. 4. Internet—Political aspects—Germany. 5. Information society—Politi- cal aspects—Sweden. 6. Information society—Political aspects—Ger- many. 7. Political parties —Sweden. 8. Political parties —Germany. 9. Sweden—Politics and government—21st century. 10. Germany—Poli- tics and government—21st century. I. Title. JN7995.P57B87 2014 324.243'08—dc23 2013027450 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For David Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii List of Abbreviations xv Introduction 1 1 Nomads of the Information Society 25 2 European Antipiracy Initiatives:The Ratchet and the Fulcrum 69 3 Technoculture versus Big Brother 113 Conclusion: The Legacy of Pirate Politics for Moral-Practical Reasoning 147 Notes 159 References 167 Index 197 Preface The idea for this book was planted in 2009 as I was completing the manuscript for Music and Cyberliberties and entertaining the notion of an international umbrella movement for cyberliber- ties. As that book was going to press, news of the upstart Swedish Pirate Party began hitting the media, first on tech blogs and later in the mainstream press. As news of the group propagated and its influence spread to the European Parliament, Sweden and other eurozone countries faced new and recurring threats to cyberlib- erties, further stoking the Pirates’ grievances and increasing their salience. Had the umbrella movement arrived so quickly? Pirate Politics had to be written to find out. So I spent the 2012 school year researching pirate politics and teaching and living in Sweden while writing this book. To some of my students, the Pirate Party is a joke or a prank—of casual interest, but not to be taken seriously. The party’s single issue of digital rights flouts their expectation that politics should be more broadly engaged with society’s other problems, especially the economic crisis gripping the eurozone. However, those stu- dents who are members of the Pirate Party take their member- ships very seriously. In class, our lively, well-informed debates x Preface and discussions about cyberliberties were consequential for the students, most of whom lived in Sweden, Germany, or another country with a budding pirate party. We debated pirate politics in real time in response to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agree- ment (a new, plurilateral trade agreement serving as a Trojan horse for copyright reforms), new data-retention and surveil- lance laws, and other contemporary cyberliberties challenges. In the closing months of 2012, the Swedish Pirate Party was struggling to rekindle its initial spark, while the German Pirates risked their newfound popularity by sharing their inter- nal squabbles and disagreements publicly on online discussion boards. The mature pirate parties appear to be at risk of break- ing down, while new ones in the Czech Republic and elsewhere are in ascendancy. Popular commentators will, undoubtedly, continue to marvel that anarchistic or apolitical geeks found a political footing to begin with, and will look no further than the flash in the pan. Determining whether the Pirates are like an evanescent wave that has already decayed, or will persist in one form or another, is not the point of this book. It is also not my intention to rally supporters, defend detractors, or make predictions. Instead, I wish to explore the international contexts and contents of resis- tant forms of political and cultural agency aligned against struc- tures and processes of media and communication perceived to be toxic and unjust. Looking for, finding, and describing the per- sistent features of agency in the flux—the recurring assertions of autonomy and solidarity—are the real objectives here. Another objective is to rehabilitate prior discourses of politi- cal and social theory concerning the nature of “new politics,” especially sociological theories of social movements, and to try Preface xi them on for size once more. This goal will grate against most empirical approaches to political systems, and against game-the- oretical and neorealist perspectives on international relations. I make no special claims to expertise in those fields. But I ask for no forbearance either, and invite all appropriate critiques if they can help us better understand what we agree that we are observing. Acknowledgments I thank my colleagues and students at Karlstads Universitet Medie-Och-Kommunikationsvetenskap for providing a depart- mental home while I researched and wrote this book. Their support and kindness was invaluable. Göran Bolin, Christian Christiansen, and Miyase Christensen, Leif Dahlberg, Peter Jako- bsson, Mats Nilsson, Klas Sandell, Martin Fredriksson, Stefan Larsson, Ad van Loon, and Joep van der Veer provided essen- tial feedback and guidance for the duration of the project. Steve Bales offered excellent library support. Jonas Andersson blazed a research trail in Sweden that I tried to follow. He generously took every opportunity to offer insights and corrections to my drafts. Stephan Urbach, Marina Weisband, Julia Reda, Carsten Koschmieder, Eva Schweitzer, and Joel Schalit gave me impor- tant access to German perspectives on pirate politics. The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, at Texas A&M University, provided support for this project. I bene- fited from early opportunities to present my ideas at the Interna- tional Communication Association—Popular Communication Division and the Global Fusion conferences, and also at the Uni- versity of San Diego Department of Communication Studies, the xiv Acknowledgments University of Montana Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University in Qatar’s Department of Journalism and Communication, the University of Texas at Austin School of Information, Uppsala University’s Department of Informatics and Media, the Department of Aeshetics and Communication at Aarhus University, and the Department of Media and Commu- nication Studies at Södertörn University. I thank Kip Keller once more for helping me find the right words. Abbreviations A2K access to knowledge ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTN Advisory Committee on Trade Negotiations BSA Business Software Alliance BT British Telecom DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act DRM digital rights management EC European Commission EFF Electronic Frontier Foundation EU European Union EUCD European Community Directive on Copyright in the Information Society FFII Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure FIPR Foundation for Information Policy Research FOSS free and open-source software FRA Försvarets Radioanstalt GATS General Agreement on Trade and Services GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade HADOPI Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet IFPA International Federation of the Phonographic Industry xvi Abbreviations IIPA International Intellectual Property Alliance IMF International Monetary Fund IP intellectual property IPR intellectual property rights IPRED Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive ISP Internet service provider KEI Knowledge Ecology International MEP member of the European Parliament MPAA Motion Picture Association of America NGO nongovernmental organization NSM new social movement P2P peer-to-peer PhRMA Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association PPI Pirate Parties International PP-UK Pirate Party—UK QoS quality of service RIAA Recording Industry Association of America SMS short message service SPP Swedish Pirate Party TPB The Pirate Bay TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement TRIPS Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement USTR U.S. Trade Representative WHO World Health Organization WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization WTO World Trade Organization Introduction Move over, Greens. Make way for the Pirates. —Mary Papenfuss, “Pirate Party Storms German Ship of State” The Swedish Pirate Party (SPP)