Piratbyrån

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Piratbyrån ("The Piracy Bureau") is a Swedish organization (or think tank) established to support people opposed to current ideas about intellectual property — by freely sharing information and culture. Piratbyrån itself is not involved in illegal activities, but says it wishes instead to give another point of view about spreading information than do certain lobby groups.

The organization provides guides, news and a forum focused on file-sharing, intellectual properties, piracy and digital culture, and is arranging events such as lectures, media appearances and a yearly May Day demonstration. In 2005 Piratbyrån released an anthology entitled Copy Me containing selected texts previously available from its website.

The name is a play on Antipiratbyrån ("The Anti-piracy Bureau"), a non governmental but content industry-based Swedish anti-piracy organization. Members of Piratbyrån have participated in debates on Swedish Radio and Swedish Television and later also been giving several lectures in other European countries, like at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

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[edit] Police raid

Rasmus Fleischer, spokesman of Piratbyrån speaking at a demonstration in Stockholm held 3 June 2006.
Rasmus Fleischer, spokesman of Piratbyrån speaking at a demonstration in Stockholm held 3 June 2006.

On the morning of May 31, 2006, the servers of both The Pirate Bay, a popular Swedish BitTorrent tracker, and the Piratbyrån were confiscated in a raid by Swedish police. The seizure was part of investigation into possible illegal activities on the part of The Pirate Bay. The legality of the raid has come into question, as Piratbyrån (and thus, its servers) is no longer affiliated with The Pirate Bay.

Piratbyrån set up a temporary news blog during the investigation. Antipiratbyrån also has a news item on the subject.

[edit] BitTorrent tracker

Members of Piratbyrån are the original creators of The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent tracker. They are however no longer affiliated with the site.

[edit] kopimi

A kopimi symbol
A kopimi symbol

Piratbyrån has proposed -- and publishes most of its work under -- a copyright alternative called kopimi [1] (pronounced, and sometimes also spelled, as "copyme"). Designed to be the opposite of copyright, a kopimi notice specifically requests that people copy the work for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial.[1]

The Kopimi page [2] contains compilations of the Kopimi logo.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Computer Sweden -- Språkwebb

[edit] See also

[edit] External links