Letter to the European Pirates

Dear European Pirates,

since a couple of days I’m a member of yours and this does not only make me feel good and strong as a part of a european movement, it also raises the pressure to criticize decisions you made, if there are things I don’t like.

I’m doing design work on a voluntary basis for the German Pirates since 2009. And in most of the cases the work as a pirate for the pirates is really rewarding. Not only that you get a lot of attention and positive feedback, most of them also value my work and try to help that designers get paid directly or offer other work to support my everyday business, if they can.

At the moment i get a lot of mails from you asking for design work, regarding your logo. You make a „Call for European Pirates Logo and Corporate Identity“, besides that you are actually asking for a „Corporate Design“. That is fine. I have a much bigger problem with your text at http://ppeu.net/wiki/doku.php?id=logo
My first spontaneous thought was, „Why should anybody take part in this?" Your text clearly says, „We want everything for free and forever, tomorrow and if there will be somehow problems its at your own risk. Ah, and we are going to tweet about it or maybe Facebook.“

Is this the „Libre Culture“ you demand in your manifesto?

Why do you have to take all rights of all participants (not winners!) forever, if you are going to use just one Logo in the end? I mean – there is just one European Pirate Party, so the chance for me to use some of the work for another job is (if I win the competition) very limited anyways, but to forbid this even for the not taken work, srsly?

„… designers refuse financial compensation.“ I have some kind of insight in our party and I know that money is always an issue. But that our organization is just refusing to think about it, is shameful. In the next few month our party is going to spend couple of million euros for our election campaign 2014 through all its members and suborganisations. A big part will go in print and will hopefully feature our common ideas with a great logo and we are not able to offer even a cent for compensation. Where are our ideas to fund culture and arts, if we need it for ourselves? Why are we not able to start a crowd funding or a pledge in this case? Why not using the chance to promote a network like flattr and offer the artist to promote their button? Why not use the opportunity to promote a Creative Commons License?

I think there will be a proposal from some of the german designers, for me personally it’s not done with the same pleasure and good feeling working for the right and thoughtful people, as it has been in the past. It is just done with the hope that after the sharing, the caring comes back in our focus for the future.

mit freundlichem Gruß

fRED, @frandom74, Krasse Herde, SG Gestaltung

Supporters:
@incredibul