Sharing Leftist Content

[Joshua Purcell]

I'm interested in the leftist communities' attempts to communicate and share information within their groups as well as the rest of society. I like the idea of bit torrent technology serving as the basis for this communication when it involves articles, videos, or any other file that needs to be sent out to many people. One website I've found that seems to cater specifically to this is http://www.progressivetorrents.com/ . There are many different types of files available there which cover many different topics, and while many files are legally fine I can't say that all are because I haven't looked into all of them (it isn't a topic that interests me too much). The interesting thing for me is that here is a website for the leftist community as a whole to use for sharing leftist-oriented documents and other files.

Since I've found this website, I've made sure to go through and find files that I think are important or interesting and download/share them. I'm doing this for two purposes: 1) to use the file (whatever it is) myself but also 2) to make sure I'm helping to make these important resources available to other people. Does anyone else think this is a good service, and if so is anyone else planning on using the website (or some other similar service)? In the future I would like to see some sharing method such as a bit torrent tracker be used by organizations like the IMT in order to get newspapers, videos and other files out to both members and non-members alike.

[Christopher Hill]

Thanks very much for this :) This actually got me thinking a bit of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party_International
Obviously they are not that supportive of Capitalism and the like, they also seem to be fairly left wing, they could be interesting people to discuss politics with and perhaps even a good place to find some Comrades, does anyone know if any Socialist groups have collaborated with them before? we seem to share some of the same short-term goals.

Overall: ”Promoting global legislation to facilitate the emerging information society”
Copyright: “We claim that today’s copyright system is unbalanced” Hence their position that file sharing (e.g. music) should be decriminalized.
Patent: “Privatized monopolies are one of society’s worst enemies.” Hence their position that patents are obsolete and should be gradually destroyed. Regarding patents on pharmaceuticals, the Pirate Party proposes increasing government support for R&D to make up for loss of private R&D if there were no patent protection for innovation.[8]
Personal Privacy: “All attempts to curtail these rights (e.g. privacy) must be questioned and met with powerful opposition.” Hence their position that anti-terror laws nullify due process and run the risk of being used as repressive tools.

[Joshua Purcell]

The whole idea of the Pirate Party International is promising and similar to what I have in mind, but I'm not interested in the act of sharing content solely for undermining the capitalist powers as it relates to copyright, patents, and personal privacy (as the PPI states). I'm primarily interested in sharing content that itself is leftist in nature. So I am interested in sharing content that itself helps to further all of the goals of Marxism, not just it's opposition to staying in our current capitalist mode. But there is much overlap in this idea and that of the Pirate Party International, and I'm glad that they are getting some well-deserved recognition and even governmental power if I remember it correctly... didn't they win some elections in some European countries recently?

[Christopher Hill]

I am not certain, although I believe the original Piratpartiet is the 3rd most popular party in Sweden.