Pirate Party Sails Into European Parliament
12 November 2012
With a campaign based on reforming copyright and piracy laws, Sweden’s Pirate Party won its first seat in the European Parliament during the June elections. The party now holds one of Sweden’s 18 seats in the Parliament.
Rickard Falkvinge, the party’s founder and leader, told the BBC that the court case surrounding The Pirate Bay, a Sweden-based website which indexes and tracks BitTorrent downloads had a “significant role” in the party’s victory. The party took fifth place in the vote, securing some 7.1% of the popular vote, behind the Social Democrats, Greens, Liberals and the Moderate Party.
On April 17, a Stockholm district court convicted the four men who founded The Pirate Bay of assistance to copyright infringement and sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of SKr30 million (US$3.9 million) after a nine-day trial. The ruling is under appeal. Wired magazine reported that after the ruling, more than 22,000 new members joined the Pirate Party.
The party’s platform is based on its desire to fundamentally reform copyright law, eliminate the patent system and ensure that citizens’ rights to privacy are respected.
“The official aim of the copyright system has always been to find a balance in order to promote culture being created and spread,” the party says on its website. “Today that balance has been completely lost, to a point where the copyright laws severely restrict the very thing they are supposed to promote. The Pirate Party wants to restore the balance in the copyright legislation. All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free. File sharing and P2P networking should be encouraged rather than criminalized. Not only do we think these are worthwhile goals. We also believe they are realistically achievable on a European basis.”
Christian Engström, the Pirate Party vice president, will take the party’s seat in the European Parliament. He is a computer programmer who has worked as an activist for the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, lobbying against software patents.
