Yesterday the sad news arrived that Jurgen Rateau, co-founder and former president of Pirate Party Belgium has passed away. Our thoughts are with Jurgen's family and friends to which we send our deepest condolences.

Jurgen was a critical observer of the Pirate movement and the Pirate Parties International since the beginning. Without any desire for fame or public appreciation, Jurgen tirelessly invested his time and effort as a member of the PPI Court of Arbitration, as member of the PPI HQ, as organizer of the founding Assembly of the PPI in Brussels as well as a participant in all PPI Assemblies to date.

The Pirate movement knows Jurgen as a man of great intellect and sense of humor. Jurgen was always generous and supportive, never held back with his opinion. His straight-forward attitude will be remembered as well as his willingness to help and support.

We lost a friend and a great person. Rest in peace Jurgen Rateau!

The Pirate Parties International Board wishes fair winds to the Pirate Party of Israel in the upcoming elections.

PPI aims to raise awareness and foster the growth of the pirate movement. We are happy about the Pirate Party of Israel's decision to run for the upcoming Knesset elections on the 22nd of January, 2013. The PPI board is convinced that this decision will strengthen the global pirate movement and help its expansion into the Middle East.

The platform of the Pirate Parties is unique in its demands for direct democracy and political transparency; the formation of a Pirate Party in Israel is the first step to transforming Israel's politics.

The next PPI GA is going to take place in Kazan, Tatarstan Republic, Russian Federation. The exact dates will be announced within 2 weeks. The minutes of the PPI board meeting and voting where Kazan was chosen can be found in our Wiki

Considering the wishes of PPI members, the board have chosen the most distanced location. We have received the offers from Paris, France; Kaliningrad, Russia; Potsdam, Germany and Kazan, Russia. Unfortunately there were no offers from outside of Europe this year. Even though geographically Kazan still lies in Europe, it's gonna be the first PPI GA outside EU. Participants are going to enjoy the unforgettable mixture of European and Asian cultures. More information can be found in their offer.

Libor Michalek, a known whistleblower, won the senatorial elections in the most watched electoral precinct in the Czech Republic, Prague 2 and 3. Michalek ran for the Senate on a coalition ballot of Pirates, Greens and the Christian Democrats. He was formally nominated by the Pirate Party. Pirates are thus represented in a national parliament for the first time in history.

"Libor Michalek was a good choice. Pirates will be, however, more interested in the next six years of his work than in his victory. Two-way communication and openness was the condition of his nomination. The decision to nominate Michalek was not made by the party heads but by the whole member base in a vote where 85% of the members supported his nomination. We want to provide him with as much Pirate support as possible so that he could better promote financial transparency and access to information. Values that are crucial not only for the Pirates, but also for Libor Michalek, "said Pirates' Chairman Ivan Bartos.

In the current Geneva talks the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) discussed our application for permanent observer membership and surprisingly postponed the decision to 2013, even though the Director General recommended[1] to accept our application.

Denis Simonet, member of the PPI board, had handed in the application in early May. The matter is whether to include the PPI in the list of international NGOs, which would allow pirates to attend the meetings of the Assemblies as an observer. Above that, the PPI could "attend meetings of committees, working groups, or other bodies subsidiary to the Assemblies, as an observer, if their subject matter seems to be of direct interest". PPI fulfills all the requirements. Nevertheless doubts came up whether we are eligible to become an observer member because our members are political parties. For this reason the decision was postponed.

Gregory Engels, Co-Chairman, concludes: "The pirate movement is spreading rapidly around the globe, with parties now in over 60 countries. I am concerned that the WIPO is not interested in the dialog with this part of the civil society that thinks that the time for a massive reform of the copyright systems has come."

On the WIPO assembly in Geneva representatives from 185 countries gather to discuss the actual developments around intangible assets. WIPO is a specialized agency of the UN and administers 24 international treaties, as in the Berne Convention [2] and the Copyright Treaty [3]. Pirate Parties worldwide propagate the need for reflections on the outdated legal definitions of author rights and want to modernize laws to fit the new needs of the information society.

Denis Simonet: "To become a WIPO observer member is an important step for the pirate movement, as it affords us an opportunity to explain our concerns regarding author rights at the right place. We aim to be an important stakeholder in the debate."

General information
The Pirate Parties international is the international umbrella organization of the Pirate Parties movement. It was founded in Brussels in 2010 and unites 28 parties around the globe. For further information please consult http://www.pp-international.net or contact us 


Contact
Pirate Parties International
Gregory Engels
Co-Chairman
Tel. +49 172 8534491
E-Mail: press@pp-international.net


[1] http://wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/a_50/a_50_2.pdf
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPO_Copyright_Treaty

The Pirate Party UK invites you to their annual Conference in London on the 16th of September 2012:

"The conference is an important date in Pirate Politics in the UK, if you can make it you will have the opportunity to take part in debates, hear about what has been happening within the UK party and help shape our agenda and approach for the coming year. You'll be able to get involved in panel discussion, arrange to attend training events, network with other pirates, exchange experiences and have your say on our policy and direction.

On July 4th at 12:56 CEST, the European Parliament decided whether ACTA would be ultimately rejected or whether it would drag on into uncertainty. In a crushing 478-to-39 vote, the Parliament decided to reject ACTA once and for all. This means that the deceptive treaty is now dead globally.

This is a day of celebration. This is the day when citizens of Europe and the world won over unelected bureaucrats who were being wooed and lobbied by the richest corporations of the planet. The battleground wasn’t some administrative office, but the representatives of the people – the European Parliament – which decided in the end to do its job beautifully, and represent the people against special interests.

It was an emotional moment at the General Assembly of North Rhine-Westphalia this weekend on Saturday 30th of June: the German Pirates exchanged greetings and congratulations with the Russian Pirates in Moscow at their founding Assembly. After more than a year of struggle with the administrations, the Russian Pirates could finally start the procedure to become the official “Pirate Party of Russia”.

Why Pirate Party of Russia wasn’t registered (earlier)

Informally the Pirate Party of Russia exists since 2009 as a movement composed of a group of people that want to promote Pirate ideas. In more than 2 years the Pirates already managed to gather more than 5.000 preliminary membership applications, 100.000 supporters in social media and to be regularly represented in Russian media. In 2011 the group started the first attempts to be legally registered as a political party. However before the elections in December 2011 the situation for unregistered parties was very bad. At that moment, to be officially recognized as a political party that can participate in elections, you needed 45.000 members in the Russian Federation and be represented with at least 400 members in more than half of the 83 Russian regions. These very strict requirements together with the high financial burdens to create such structures in the biggest country in the world led to the fact that since 2006 no new parties were registered in Russia. In the December 2011 elections only 7 parties were recognized officially – in a country with 143 Million inhabitants!

The French Pirate Party is ready to join the battle for the parliamentary elections, during which citizens will elect the members of the French parliament.

The upcoming weeks will be those of all opportunities for the French Pirate Party. Let's put it bluntly: it's getting hectic.

Thanks to a significant mobilisation, the French Pirate Party has granted its investiture to 101 candidates [1].

The stake of this ballot is the renewal of the 577 deputies of the National Assembly. These parliamentary elections, whose first round will happen on June 10th, will be particularly important as the parliament's majority will effectively appoint the government, by granting it its confidence. That's how the French Republic works: the people elects the President, who puts in place a temporary government, then the same people elects its deputies, who will establish the orientation of the government for the five years to come.

Pirate Parties International is a worldwide organization of Pirate Parties. Currently it has 29 Members from 5 continents. It's aim is to to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and co-operation between pirate parties around the world. The Pirate Parties International is a non profit organisation, with its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. 

We are looking for a 


        SOCIAL MEDIA ÜBERCHIEF  (volunteer, part time)


Responsibilities:

• Develop innovative, effective, on-going social media plan across all channels of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Youtube, and more) and continually update that plan/strategy and related activity based on emerging trends and opportunities.
• Monitor, track, interpret and leverage all social media trends.
• Create and maintain procedures for social media management that could be distributed to the PPIs members.
• Directly supervise and manage PPI's day-to-day social media activities, including its social media platforms.