Greens EFA, a coalition of two political parties that currently have 42 seats in the European parliament, have launched a pro-filesharing campaign named "I Wouldn"t Steal". Their goal is to counter the anti-piracy propaganda put forward by the entertainment industry, and encourage people to download and share.
The message put forward by the parties is pretty strong: "Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That"s simply not true – making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing."
Greens EFA claim that the entertainment industry exploits artists and sell propaganda, and want to make the public aware of this. We couldn"t agree more of course, and it is good to see that these established political parties are attempting to decriminalize filesharing. As they write: "The media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area – lobbying to adapt laws to criminalize sharing, turning consumers into criminals."
In collaboration with RÃ¥FILM the parties created a short clip for the campaign. which they made available on BitTorrent by uploading it to The Pirate Bay. It"s beginning to look like things are finally starting to change, politicians are not scared anymore to embrace BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, and stand up for people"s right to share culture.
The Pirate Bay is of course delighted by the campaign and even updated the logo on their frontpage to show their support. Pirate Bay"s Brokep told TorrentFreak: "I love that there are smart people that understand how the world works and I"m gonna support them with whatever means I can".
Let"s hope the entertainment industry is paying attention as well.