GREEN PIRATE

Rick Falkvinge, who anyone active in the pirate social movement is aware, is the founder of Sweden’s Piratpartiet which has since grown into an international Pirate Party and continues to grow in support around the world. He was named a Top 100 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine.

Rick Falkvinge is a modern thinker who has been triumphant in voicing concerns that are shared by many and affect us all. One thing that sets him apart from “talking heads” is that he very much seems to enjoy taking time to consider people’s opinion and give a thoughtful response. When I say “people”, I mean anyone. Go ahead and leave a comment on one of his posts at TorrentFreak or his own falkvinge.net and chances are that if he is available, he will give a fair reply.

Don’t think this is just for your sake though. While it is apparent that he is passionate about education people on the inherent need for free speech, open communications, civilian right to privacy and copyright / patent reform, there are rare occasions where someone directs his attention to something he was not previously aware of or gives him an opportunity to see something in a perspective that had previously been off even his radar. This ability to adapt and grow; to see beyond preconceived notions, is one quality that Rick Falkvinge possesses that has probably greatly helped him to earn this award, which he most definitely deserves.

So congratulations, Rick, from Green Pirate and welcome to the U.S.A! Have a great trip to D.C.!

Be sure to read his response to the good news.

Active Politic has compiled a top 20 list for pirate related news sources. If you ever find yourself feeling out of the loop when it comes to current events relevant to internet freedoms, add these sites to your RSS feed and you’ll never have to be the “last one to know” again.

Active Politic always scours for pirate related and other news, so that is always a good one to follow as well. In fact, I’ve gotten a bit lazy because I just follow their bot’s updates on irc. I’ll let you find that yourself tho.

My favorites (in no particular order): TorrentFreak, falkvinge.net, techdirt, Michael Geist, Politics & P2P (Andrew Norton), EFF.org and telecomix (:=~~~~~

Although I haven’t updated in a while, definitely check out the recommended list to the right. Many are big voices in the ongoing battle to defend your freedoms. I’ve been fortunate to get to talk to some of them on multiple occasions and they are generally very good, down to earth people. Each of them are real people no different than anyone else except that they care enough about our rights to make their voices heard. Aside from that, they are no different than you or I so I highly recommend browsing through that list over there.

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Some of you self-proclaimed “pirates” in the file-sharing community are as disturbingly ignorant on some aspects of file-sharing as the same corporate drones you protest. By the time you are done with this list, I hope you will have no reason to ever repeat such misinformed statements as these for as long as you support free file-sharing. You’ll notice that many of the statements listed are the same misinformed arguments used against file-sharing.

The good news is, reality is on your side! There is no longer a need to argue against irrelevant points. Forget, for a moment, the religious views of piratology that you have adopted until now. Get informed and you can win any file-sharing debate because there is little room for debate.

In no particular order, here are the top ten stupid things that pirates say. I realize I may come off a bit preachy here, but some pirates really are stupid so I figured I would extend some charity and offer some free information. After all, that’s what being a pirate is all about, no?
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