Pirate Party Australia objects to the recent proposal by Communications Alliance LTD, titled “A Scheme to Address Online Copyright Infringement.”[1]
The proposal aims to introduce an infringement notice system sent by ISPs on behalf of content rights holders to notify users of alleged copyright infringement linked to their account, as well as education about online copyright infringement.
Pirate Party Australia is shocked at the recently signed memorandum of understanding between Australia and the United States.[1]
The “Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Australia On Enhancing Cooperation in Preventing and Combating Crime” (MOU) was signed on Wednesday by the Minister for Home Affairs and Justice and the United States Ambassador to Australia on behalf of the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security[2].
Results of Pirate Party Australia’s recent National Congress are in.
The annual National Congress took place on the last weekend of October this year, and the results of the week-long voting process are able to be announced.
Pirate Party Australia passed all motions with the exception of the proposal to change their official colours from blue to purple, which failed to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority.
Pirate Congress 2011 is nearly over, all we need to do is vote!
A big thank you to those that attended or participated remotely in the debate on Saturday and Sunday, in Sydney. We hope that many more will attend in Melbourne, July 2012.
We have emailed out voting links to all our registered members to vote on the motions and National Council positions. There are thirteen (13) motions that need to go to a vote by all members and there are three (3) positions that are contested and require a vote. Voting will be open for seven (7) days.
The voting system we are using has been developed in house to use a blind signature scheme whereby we can’t determine who made a particular vote only that it is a valid vote.
In order to ensure the legitimacy of this election we are posting the public key for this election – only votes signed with this key are valid. We have posted the hash of a file that contains information that will ensure that in the event that the votes are disputed the election results can be validated. We are working towards a system where you can see for your self that the election is sound and when finished the information below will be used to prove this.
Poll public keys:
X: 9e4c0442226957f92f58b18ee490e3d8b77b3dcf635931db64cf843eb8993bd7
Y: 1b9ef4861cac86856b2fab9bbdb6d4204985eb678f611868f0a268ff4429c1f3
SHA256 of proof file:
77f02363c06599690f73c085418be9594efb097a8cd808171b69462da9490329
Pirate Party Australia has recently made a submission to the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) in its review of the Innovation Patent System[1]. The submission calls for a complete overhaul of the patent system to reflect the needs of contemporary society, and the rapid advances in technology[2].
There are significant issues with the patent system. The loudest and most consistent voice of opposition to patents on software for instance are those most effected by them, software programmers. Pirate Party Australia continues to demand that software is completely excluded from any type of patentability. Software patents are a huge impediment to innovation. The only people benefiting from the current situation are patent lawyers as they ply their trade exploiting the boom in unproductive and innovation stifling litigation.