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Top Pirate Party Member Has DMCA Takedown Notices Issued In Her Name
from the thinking-it-through dept
Julia Schramm is one of the rising stars of the German Pirate Party: in April, when she was just 27 years old, she was elected to the national party's executive committee. No surprise, then, that she is against copyright: in a podcast she described intellectual property as "disgusting" (original in German.) More surprising is that, despite this, she signed a contract with Knaus-Verlag, part of the publishing giant Random House group, to write a book. Perhaps the $130,000 advance had something to do with it.
The book is called "Click me: confessions of an Internet exhibitionist", and sells for around $22 ($18 for the Kindle version), which seems a bit pricey for just 208 pages. That wouldn't matter if the contents were of particularly high quality. Alas, it seems that many feel they are not: at the time of writing, the book has 10 one-star reviews on Amazon.de, some of which are pretty damning -- "it's really a shame about the trees that were cut down for this book" -- just two five stars, and one three stars. The German magazine Der Spiegel called the book "a disaster."
Schramm can probably live with the reviews (after all, she still has that $130,000 advance.) What's slightly more problematic for her career as one of the top Pirates is the fact that just one day after the book appeared, her publisher sent a takedown request to a site that was hosting a, er, pirate copy -- and in her name:
"This file is no longer available due to a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by Julia Schramm Autorin der Verlagsgruppe Random House."
Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
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Other than that... Damning.
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:slobbers on the couch: Rawr!
/troll
[yes, I know its Glyn's story]
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Ah Politics
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It may be her publisher, *claiming* her approval.
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WTF?!
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On the other hand: It proves that she is pretty cheap to buy.
I guess that is good for her in the long run, if she can fend off this incidence! It is just good business to make people aware how to approach you and principles are only applicable as a platform to launch a career as a lifelong politician.
If someone cannot be bought there is something seriously wrong with them!
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Most recent article http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120917/20071120413/pirate-bay-pays-off-one-enter prising-game-developer.shtml
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On a philosophical level, I agree with you. What she did and by association has allowed to be done, is quite contrary to the position she held.
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What's she appears to be doing is saying "do as I say, not do as I do". Why should it be all good for her, and all suffering for everyone else? Why can't she stand up like a big girl, release her book as an ebook for free, and sell the scarce like miniputt games or lottttts of t-shirts?
Nope. She supports piracy, but also is more than willing to sign into the copyright world and take the big advance money.
The Pirate Party needs to either show her the door, or accept that they will be labeled as being two faced about this stuff.
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Sad thing is so long as she'd been vocal about reforming copyright rather than it being disgusting, which is likely more in line with German PP policy, this really wouldn't have been as much of an issue.
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ummmm i think i know why she didnt selfpublish
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Every one of them have greasy palms and ulterior motives.
This News did not surprise me one bit.Welcome to Reality Pirate Party as you have now been assimilated.
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Pissrate Party
A delicious story, measured with her own ideas and ethics and reproved.
The piraten partei should make her head roll and issue an apology to his members; how are they going to be credible if they don't practice what they preach?
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Re: Pissrate Party
Not that all who release under that license under that are pirates mind you, but there are many who are.
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Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
Whats disgusting is them issuing the take-down under her name instead of Knaus-Verlag, or Random House group. They issued the take-down.
So a twenty-something year old girl made a mistake. Wow never in the history of man have we seen a person in their 20's do something stupid.
Now this stupid little pirate party hit piece will give the trolls an excuse to say she is a hypocrite, etc.
Im sure you did your due diligence Glyn and tried to get her side of the story before you wrote this; Right?
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Re: Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
If this was done without her knowledge it just proves that she may not fit her position in the party
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Re: Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
That would be nice. But you see, he's just pointing the inconsistency here. It's worth following the story to see what happens next. I do agree that we make mistakes (and you don't need to be in your 20's to make some pretty dumb ones) but I disagree this is a pirate party hit piece.
Also, if the tolls come troll we actually have ammunition against them. TD also criticizes the pirates. I know, I know TD never condoned piracy but rather what they often do is to suggest new ways of facing it instead of criminalizing your entire population but a direct critic is something the trolls can't possibly twist. Can they?
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Re: Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
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Re: Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
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Re: Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
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Re: Given her background and stated views, some might say that's pretty, well, disgusting....
- "I'm not against copyright, I'm against the term copyright, cause it's loaded!"
- "It was to be expected. Now the angry mob* is raging against me".
* her term for anyone who uttered criticism of her book.
That position? Yeah, makes the whole story look really thought through.
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Long John Silverette
This is just typical political doublespeak...say one thing, do another...nothing new here.
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Re: Long John Silverette
Fixed that for you.
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I smell a conspiracy...
Easily could have been that way... if you believe she has enemies in the "industry"
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if the price is right, you can buy and sell masnicks ass..
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The main example of Mike "selling out" is that mike is accused of being on the google payroll and yet mike is still consistant with his views from before google even existed.
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Selling yourself is all anyone do in a capitalistic society!
It is like peeing in the bath: Most men do it and those who deny it are doing it more than the rest!
Mike Masnick at least has the gut to admit who has leveraged him for certain services to show where the some of the potential conflict of interest occur. You don't...
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This is the basic stuff. It's not like she signed a deal without knowing or anything. $120,000 doesn't just pop up out of the ground from people planning to give your stuff away for free.
It shows a healthy dose of "do as I say, not do as I do". It makes you wonder how many other Pirate Party members are profiting from the old system privately, while calling it out publicly?
Thanks Glyn, you just ruined Mike's week.
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So to look at this and say "she can't use copyright and be a PP member" is silly and unhelpful. The issue here is that she's gone against her publicly stated personal beliefs which means that as a member of that party people can rightly no longer trust her to do what she says.
It's not an indictment of the party it's self but of one member. How the party and their members react to this that is what the movement should be judged on.
Hypocrisy of politicians is only relevant to their party when it means going against policies and laws they are pushing for. Which depending on the German PP may or may not be the case here.
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And besides, all the pirate parties have somehow different views. Ours (the Swiss one) stands in for
- copyright lasting 14 years from publication
- every work the state finances must be public domain
- no third-party and additional rights for broadcasters
- no liability for transmitting entities
- no data retention laws
- no mandatory collecting societies, and no mandatory inclusion of the whole body of works for members of such a society.
- strong fair use
- DRM must be illegal
- private copies must be legal
We've got quite a nice paper on that, in German, tough: http://www.piratenpartei.ch/Modernisierung_des_Urheberrechts
The German Pirate Party would better have copied that one (it's CC-BY, so they could legally) ;)
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Basically, you would be cursing yourself to forever be voting for a party that will have no real power.
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Or not.
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If someone wanted to pay me $130,000 for writing some crap nobody wants to read, I'd take it. Pretty much everyone would. This wasn't a book that had anything to do with pirate ideology. I'd object to my name used in a takedown notice, but I wouldn't call it hypocritical, much less "disgusting," to sell a bad book for good money if someone wants to buy.
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And this blog post brings up some other, different perspective (in German, too): http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=aea722a5
As regards the pricing: that is pretty normal for Germany, books are massively more expensive here than in the US/UK, and E-books haven't really taken off here because they are bound to the same pricing laws as physical books (which is kinda stupid, but at least kept more independent bookshops in business than you have elsewhere, which in itself is also stupid, but on a more understandable level I guess).
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