That's an interesting problem, but I think it's mostly covered by the idea that the parties come to an agreement about relative value. If F/OSS developers refuse to agree to any use then their work could still end up in a closed-source gratis project but not one where copies of the software can be sold. I imagine the F/OSS developers still wouldn't be entirely happy (except for the BSD ones who already allow this kind of use anyway), but they're getting a much better deal than the non-free software people who lose the right to charge a monopoly price for every copy, and impose per-seat / per-cpu licence schemes..

The policy direction proposed by each option is clear, the policy detail isn't. IMO the vote at this stage is on policy direction, which is fine. The caucus has room to interpret the policy detail, the Policy Development Process will eventually come back to the topic with the chance to go into more detail, and being an MP is a full time job and partly because this helps us be clear about bills we draft (also partly why the 3 readings system is so long).

I understand that we *eventually* want to sort out small holes in the detail like this, but at present a better use of time and effort would be to consider our other core policies for which we do not yet have even a broad policy direction (other than by wiki etiquette).


I can agree to separate it out, though I would suggest we move on rather than do yet another thread on copyright just yet.

james g wrote:

50% or more of a work

My instant reaction is "yuck" - IMO you can in some situations create a "significantly different" idea just by placing the exact same content in a new context - but it's still a valid policy direction to propose and vote on.

james g wrote:

switch the official voting method [...] to Condorcet with ties resolved by IR/STV

Announce it in it's own thread, and if no-one opposes it in the following 2 weeks, you can pass it by default and switch it from then on. Note i'm only talking about the Policy Committee voting process, not elections to Party office.

Okay. For the other issues:

Personal/individual use/conveying:

• [A] No policy
• [B] Unrestricted personal use of a legally obtained work (format shifting, backups, etc. allowed, EULAS don't apply)
• [C] Not illegal to personally obtain or use a work without permission or payment (but conveying is still illegal)
• [D] Conveying allowed if neither money nor P2P bandwidth is received for conveying ('mix tapes' for friends, etc. allowed)
• [E] Conveying allowed if money is not received for conveying (P2P allowed)
• [F] Conveying allowed and profit may be made through advertising
• [G] Conveying allowed and copies may be sold to cover costs
• [H] No restrictions (profit may be made through advertising or sales of copies, etc.)

Use by non-profit organisations:

• [I] No policy
• [J] No restriction on use beyond per-user licensing (format shifting, backups, etc. allowed, EULAS don't apply)
• [K] Not illegal to obtain or use a work without permission or payment

Conveying by non-profit organisations:

• [L] No policy
• [M] Conveying allowed if neither money nor P2P bandwidth is received for conveying
• [N] Conveying allowed if money is not received for conveying (P2P allowed)
• [O] Conveying allowed and profit may be made through advertising
• [P] Conveying allowed and copies may be sold to cover costs
• [Q] No restrictions on conveying (profit may be made through advertising or sales of copies, etc.)

I've amended wording to hopefully make things clearer. I've taken out the stuff about inspiration, because I put it in based on one of Edison Carter's posts, but I'm now not sure he thinks it needs to be voted on at this stage. I've taken out the stuff about punishment, because it's outside the scope of the question. And I've added a couple more options, because reading back through the thread, I think I've finally clicked on what Pervach was talking about with regards to large vs. small scale copying.

Are people happy to put the above to the vote shortly?

Here is [EDIT: a link to] a summary of other pirate party's positions on non-commercial conveying and coverage of derivative works (linked) from further back in the thread.

Issues raised in this thread but not addressed at this stage (for later consideration):

• How copyright applies to inspiration as opposed to copying
• Fair use (e.g. similar to USA law)
• Excluding copyright cover on derived works (perhaps as an aspect of fair use)
• Judgement and punishment (e.g. Skynet)

My personal views on the current issues [EDIT: the issues to be voted on soon, listed at the top of this post, not the issues listed in the paragraph above]:
The Pirate Party of Sweden has been involved in P2P, so it may show a lack of solidarity to not aim to legalise this, at least for individuals. It also seems to me to be an issue that the the Pirate Party of Sweden has managed to gather support from. I don't think there's any need (or any significant benefit) in going any further than this though. P2P conveying is IMO a sufficient method of non-commercial conveying, and only needs to be legal for individuals in order to work. (As I understand it, sites like the Pirate Bay provide indexes of hash files, but don't actually convey works, so do not require it to be legal to receive money for conveying or for it to be legal for organisations to convey works, they only depend on it being legal to provide indexes of hash files.) Allowing people to receive money for conveying would, IMO, likely risk opposition from artists such as in the Creative Freedom Foundation who may otherwise be sympathetic to our position.

[EDIT: Could others also summarise their views on the current issues?]

Actually, if no-one's interested in setting policy for organisations, then we don't even need the second and third votes, and we can keep things simple and just run the first one. I originally put in the second and third ones because I misunderstood what what Pervach was saying about small/large scale conveying. If anyone's interested in them though, they can stay in.

This is the last call for policy proposals for copyright reach. The current provisional options are available at:
Policy Committee Proposals on Copyright Reach
Unless there are any objections before 11pm on Thursday 03/11/2011, the current options will be moved to a vote.

Voting is now open for the official PPNZ policy on copyright reach. Voting will remain open until 11 pm on Tuesday 08/11/2011. Votes will be counted by the Condorcet method (which performs strategic voting on voters' behalf) with IR/STV as a tie breaker if necessary. The results will be posted in this thread. Except in the case of a tie, the winning option will become official policy.

The options are:

• [A] No policy
• [B] Unrestricted personal use of a legally obtained work (format shifting, backups, etc. allowed, EULAS don't apply)
• [C] Not illegal to personally obtain or use a work without permission or payment (but conveying is still illegal)
• [D] Personal conveying allowed if neither money nor P2P bandwidth is received for conveying ('mix tapes' for friends, etc. allowed)
• [E] Personal conveying allowed if money is not received for conveying (P2P allowed)
• [F] Personal conveying allowed and profit may be made through advertising
• [G] Personal conveying allowed and copies may be sold to cover costs
• [H] No restrictions on personal use or conveying (profit may be made through advertising or sales of copies, etc.) (requires 75% majority)
• [W] No confidence (if you use this option, you must place it first)

(Option H would require a 75% majority to win because it goes beyond the policies of the international pirate movement, and is therefore considered non-core policy. It is not clear whether options F and/or G go beyond the policy of other pirate parties. While other pirate parties have a policy of copyright not covering non-commercial use, it is generally not well defined what counts as non-commercial use. Because of this, options F and G will be given the benefit of the doubt, and not require a 75% majority.)

A vote of no confidence means you think the way the options are presented is biased or misleading, that an option suggested during the discussion was inappropriately excluded, or that the vote is otherwise flawed.

Members can cast their vote by sending an e-mail (from the account they put on their membership application) of the following form:In the place of "X > Y > Z", include the letters that indicate your options in order of preference, separated by the greater than sign '>'. (It is also valid to separate options with the equal sign, for example "X > Y = Z" to indicate that you give Y and Z equal rankings.) You can include 1 option, or all of them, or any number in between, and including more options will not harm the chances of earlier options being successful. Only if the earlier options do not have enough support to be successful will the Condorcet method shift your vote to later options.

Before voting, please read the summary of ideas from the discussion available on the wiki page Policy Committee Proposals on Copyright Reach (linked).

The winner was: [E] Personal conveying allowed if money is not received for conveying (P2P allowed)

Votes cast: 8 votes

The unadjusted Condorcet (head-to-head) results can be summarised as follows:

• 1st: [E] Personal conveying allowed if money is not received for conveying (P2P allowed)
  (the above option beats every below option by at least 1 vote / 13%)
• 2nd: [D] Personal conveying allowed if neither money nor P2P bandwidth is received for conveying ('mix tapes' for friends, etc. allowed)
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 2 votes / 25%)
• 3rd=: [C] Not illegal to personally obtain or use a work without permission or payment (but conveying is still illegal)
• 3rd=: [B] Unrestricted personal use of a legally obtained work (format shifting, backups, etc. allowed, EULAS don't apply)
• 3rd=: [F] Personal conveying allowed and profit may be made through advertising
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 1 vote / 13%)
• 6th: [G] Personal conveying allowed and copies may be sold to cover costs
  (every above option beats every below option by at least 1 vote / 13%)
• 7th: [A] No policy
  (every above option beats the below option by at least 2 votes / 25%)
• 8th: [H] No restrictions on personal use or conveying (profit may be made through advertising or sales of copies, etc.) (requires 75% majority)

Because H is classified as non-core policy, it would require 75% vs. 25% of votes (a 50% lead) to win the vote. Because H is not first in the unadjusted results, we don't need to perform the adjustment to check for this.

Condorcet (head-to-head) gives us a winner, so STV is not needed as a tie breaker.

Thanks James. Good to have a result on that one!