The Pirate Bay is closed

[David Gerard]

On 10 December 2014 at 10:43, Daniel Pocock <daniel at pocock.pro> wrote:
> On 10/12/14 11:29, Max Mehl wrote:

>> Of course, Free Software has many links to free culture. But TPB was a
>> site with lots of illegal content. And of course we could (and should)
>> criticise the current copyright laws but we shouldn't connect it with
>> this event. It would provide our opponents with a target IMO. Just my
>> 2 cents. Best, Max Original mail of Andrés for better understanding:

> If a PR can be written without direct criticism of the raid then it
> wouldn't be such a bad idea
> There are many points that can be made, e.g. the consumers of digital
> downloads have far less rights than their parents who bought compact
> discs and the situation will only get worse for the consumer.


I disagree. The Pirate Bay raid is largely orthogonal to free
software/content concerns. And appearing to support it would carry
only the message of support; not helping our concerns and, at worst,
handing those who dislike free software/content a stick to hit us
with.

Without some point of direct impact on software or content freedom, I
suggest leaving this one.

(I do volunteer PR for Wikimedia, and getting any message of *any*
subtlety through to the press is, in my experience, largely futile.
And any commentary we could put forward would require subtlety to get
through. If it can't fit in a hard-to-distort headline, it'll be a
tricky one.)


- d.