Last month, I attended the Open Web Vancouver conference. Without a doubt, I thought the most interesting talk at the whole conference was Rick Falkvinge's keynote session about the Swedish Pirate Party.

You may have heard of the Pirate Party. Founded in 2006, the popular image is that of an anarchist movement that grew out of the sense of entitlement of media pirates on the internet. It is said that these people want to abolish modern copyright for purely selfish reasons. Unfortunately this is not just a tired old stereotype, but completely wrong.

Thankfully, Rick's entire session is available online. In one hour, he calmly and intelligently explains his vision. He shows that the Pirate Party's agenda is about civil liberties, and part of a discussion that has been going on for centuries. By tracing back the history of copyright, he shows a clear pattern: when new technology threatens established powers and businesses, those powers try to use legislation to protect themselves and maintain control. It started with the printing press, and continues today with the internet and file sharing technologies. He shows how we've already allowed the establishment to create legislation that tries to control its true potential, and how we need a political countermovement that represents all the interests of a free, digitally liberated society.

You can watch the entire presentation below. The slides with illustrations and stats are available as well.

Part 1:

Part 2:

As you may know, I'm a sci-fi nerd, hence I've been pretty excited about the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series coming to a close. So, me and my fellow connoisseur of the awesome, Greg, put together a quick survey on Google Docs to get predictions about the end of the show. The internets filled it in.

The Battlestar nerdery was all in good fun, but more interestingly, I also asked a question about how people watch the show: via live broadcast, recorded or downloaded? Legally or illegally? Depending on your point of view, these results are either entirely obvious, or quite surprising. So far, 313 people filled in the survey, which was advertised only through blogs and Twitter for two days:

Given the circumstances, the people who answered this fit two descriptions. One, they are fan enough to actually fill out a survey about a show on TV. Two, they read blogs, talk on Twitter, hang out in forums, i.e. they know and use the web intimately. So, SciFi channel SyFy, NBC Universal, all big name media: do you see that big green chunk of people who download your shows illegally? These are merely potential customers that you haven't reached yet.