Pirates have a party

They gave it the name Pirates’ party, but it has nothing to do with Jack Sparrow or raiders at sea. The protagonists in this case are computer pirates from around the world who, this Saturday 20 March, at the Capranica Theatre in Rome, will make their voices heard during an entire day dedicated to freedom of the net, with meetings, debates and practical courses to get around censorship.

The party, in its second year, after  last year’s success, wants to give voice to a real cultural movement – according to EthicalExchange, organisers of the meet. It considers “software piracy” a conscious act of civil disobedience and not an antisocial act aimed at “robbing” authors of their works. The movement, which is having great success both in the US and in Europe, thinks that copyright is a cage that prohibits real creative innovation.

Many activists promote the free exchange of intellectual goods according to the ideology of the common good.

“Two thirds of traffic on the Internet is generated by peer to peer connecting.

Trying to ignore the reality or to oppose it, according to the pirates is certainly more tiring and expensive than struggling to understand why we have got here, and whether it really is this terrible…

“Internet is a mirror for society, you can’t just break the mirror and say that the system is healthy,” the pirates say.

During the meeting the measures carried out by the government for Internet regulation will be analysed, democratic possibilities opened up by social networks will be studied and some of the most effective software developed to guarantee anonymity and freedom to surf will be presented, in particular for users who live in countries where Internet is censored.

Among the participants there will be some representatives of the Swedish pirate Party, some from the widely outlawed The Pirate Bay website, as well as internationally known bloggers and artists at the forefront of innovation.

 

Translation from Italian by Cristina Barbetta.