Here, here.

The link above is to a political party that has just set up in the US, following in the footsteps of Sweden's own Pirate Party - a party who are advocating reforms to copyright and IP law, amongst other things.

Now, this whole issue is something I feel quite strongly about. In this article, it discusses how the US government used the threat of trade sanctions against Sweden in order to get their government's ministries to take unconstitutional action against The Pirate Bay; a bittorrent tracker that is extremely popular - and most of my tiny readership are quite familiar with ({cough}Tam{/cough}).

See, the thing that makes me really quite angry about this, is that they weren't tracking down terrorists who'd killed hundreds of people. They didn't force the hand of the Swedish government against it's own constitution to protect anything of real value. They did it to protect the potential profits of a multi-corporate conglomerate of media labels. They did it to stop individuals from being able to obtain something for free, that these corporations would like to be able to sell them - that is assuming of course, that someone would like to buy it. Is it something they produced by the labor of their own hands? Ah, no. It's something which they obtained by contracting artists - artists who they then underpay and exploit for their own benefit.

Anyhow, just thought I'd mention - if anyone ever bothers to set up an Australian party supporting the same ideals, I'd be more then happy to send my votes in their direction. I'm appalled that the US used the Free Trade Agreement with this country to enforce portions of the DMCA onto us; legislation that has been universally acknowleged as significantly flawed. What Australian laws did the US adopt? What concessions did they make on our behalf? I'd hazard a guess: none.

Grrrr... OK, stopping now.