Comment on this from the Swedish Pirate Party/Piratpartiet:
www.piratpartiet.se/nyheter/swedish-pir ... megaupload
Quote:
The hosting site MegaUpload was raided by police today, on orders by US federal authorities. MegaUpload’s owner, New Zealand based Kim ”Dotcom” Scmitz, and three associates were also arrested. The Swedish Pirate Party strongly condemns this action.
- MegaUpload was well-known to act in accordance with the law, says Anna Troberg, the Pirate Party’s leader, but was still a thorn in the side of American business interests.
- The service was based in New Zealand, Troberg goes on. That makes the issue even more problematic. Someone should explain to both the copyright industry and the New Zealand justice system that United States law does not apply to the rest of the world.
The timing of the raid is politically conspicuous since it comes the day after the largest protest against abuse of power in the history of the Internet, a protest against the net censorship bill SOPA. The Internet is currently in an uproar. Troberg foresees that the political consequences will escalate switfly.
- MegaUpload had 150 million members, says Troberg. That means they also have 150 million voters. This will give the Pirate Party and our international sisterparties a lot of traction.
This raid has many similarities with the raid against The Pirate Bay on May 31, 2006. There, too, it became apparent that American business interests were behind the raid, and there too were there major political ramifications. Among other things, it led to the Swedish Pirate Party gaining 7,1% of the votes in the European Parliamentary elections of 2009.
- This demonstrates with all desirable clarity that the copyright industry is a real threat against democratic societies. They will stop at nothing in their struggle against entering the future.
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"War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength."