Pirate Party
Encyclopedia
The Pirate Party is a political party in Sweden founded in 2006. Its sudden popularity has given rise to parties with the same name and similar goals in Europe and worldwide, forming the international Pirate Party movement
.
The party strives to reform laws regarding copyright
and patents. The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy
, both on the Internet
and in everyday life, and the transparency of state administration. The Party has intentionally chosen to be bloc independent on the traditional left-right scale
to pursue their political agenda with all mainstream parties.
The Party participated in the 2006 Riksdag elections and gained 0.63% of the votes making them the third largest party outside parliament, where a minimum of 4% is required. In terms of membership, it passed the Green Party
in December 2008, the Left Party
in February 2009, the Liberal Party
and the Christian Democrats
in April 2009, and the Centre Party
in May 2009, making it, for the time being, the third largest political party in Sweden by membership. The Pirate Party's associated youth organization, Young Pirate , was, for a part of 2009 and 2010, the largest political youth organization in Sweden by membership count.
The Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections
, which was originally to result in one seat in the European parliament, but became two when the Lisbon Treaty was ratified. Christian Engström
became the first MEP
for the party, and Amelia Andersdotter
took the second seat after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1, 2009.
Rick Falkvinge, founder of the party, stepped down on January 1, 2011 after five years as party leader, making vice leader Anna Troberg
the current party leader.
Their current principles include:
), marking the foundation of the Party. Six phases were presented on the website, with phase one being the collection of at least 2,000 signatures (500 more than required) to be handed over to the Swedish Election Authority before February 4 (the deadline for registering being February 28), so that the Party would be allowed to participate in the upcoming September 17 general election
. In less than 24 hours after the opening of the website, the Party had collected over 2,000 signatures (2,268 at 16.05 CEST).
By the morning of January 3, the Party closed the signature collection. In about 36 hours, they had gathered 4,725 signatures. As signatories are required by Swedish election law to identify themselves when giving support for a new party, international media reported this as a significant feat, given the nature of the Party. However, signatures presented to the election authorities are required to be handwritten. The goal of at least 1,500 handwritten signatures was reached February 10 and the final confirmation from the authorities was presented three days later. The Party claimed to have recruited 900 members within the first month, each member paying a membership fee of 5 Swedish kronor
(approx. US$
0.69, c.2006), payable by SMS (The Party has since changed to free member registration).
Phases two to five included registering with the Election Authority, getting candidates for the Riksdag
, raising money for printing ballots, and preparing an organization for the election, including local organizations in all municipalities of Sweden
with a population in excess of 50,000, which in 2005 meant 43 municipalities. During this phase fundraising was also started, with an initial goal of raising 1 million SEK
($126,409).
The sixth and final phase was the election itself. The Party, which claims that there are between 800,000 and 1.1 million active file sharers
in Sweden, hoped that at least 225,000 (4% of all the voters in Sweden) of those would vote for the party, granting them membership in Parliament.
On 31 May 2006 Swedish police raided a facility hosting The Pirate Bay
(and Piratbyrån
, along with over 200 other independent site owners, hosted at the same facility), leading to a breakthrough for the Pirate Party in the public eye. Before the raid, the Party was steadily growing with some ten new members every day, but the raid caused a surge of 500 new members by the end of the day, with a membership count of 2,680. The next day another 930 people had registered membership, giving a total of 3,611 members, more than doubling their original number. During parts of 2006 Mikael Viborg, who is also known as the legal advisor of the popular BitTorrent tracker
, The Pirate Bay
was a board member of the Pirate Party.
On June 3, 2006, the Party performed a "pirate demonstration" in Stockholm
and Gothenburg
. The demonstration was in collaboration with the youth sections of some other political parties (the Young Liberals, Young Greens and Young Left
). Within a few days the file sharing issue had become the focus of national debate, followed by national as well as international media. Along with criticizing the approach to restricting Pirate Bay's file sharing by the Minister for Justice Thomas Bodström
, the right to free information and rule of law
became the Party's main standpoints.
In April 2009, after The Pirate Bay trial verdict, the Pirate Party gained 3,000 members in 7 hours, making it larger than 3 of the 7 parties in the Parliament of Sweden, by member count. One week later it reached 40,000 members – compared to 15,000 members before the verdict – and now has more members than 5 of the 7 parties in the Swedish Parliament, with over 50,189 members making it the 3rd largest political party in Sweden.
On May 18, 2010, The Pirate Bay started hosting its site through bandwidth delivered from the Pirate Party.
On August 17, 2010, it was announced that the Pirate Party will be hosting and managing many of Wikileaks
' new servers. The party donates servers and bandwidth to Wikileaks without charge. Technicians of the party will make sure that the servers are maintained and working.
On January 1, 2011, the party celebrated its five year anniversary with a Bambuser
live broadcast with party leader Rick Falkvinge and vice party leader Anna Troberg
. Live in the video, Falkvinge sent a tweet
saying he stepped down as party leader, and he announced that his successor would be Troberg. Falkvinge now works as an evangelist, spreading the politics of the Pirate Party in and out of Europe
.
Media quickly picked up on the movement. On Monday January 2, 2006, a large Swedish newspaper, Dagens Industri, produced a story on what was happening. By 3 pm, the media seemed irritated that no owner of the website was listed or easy to track down; some reports listed the website as not serious and a PR stunt. However, the largest Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet
, managed to track down the Party leader Rickard Falkvinge
at work. Falkvinge, however, was unable to explain the Party's positions while at work, bringing this information gathering effort to an abrupt end.
On 3 January 2006, all the major Swedish news outlets had produced stories on the Party. Aftonbladet
posted an online poll indicating that its readers gave the Party a 61% approval rating, and IDG produced a longer front page interview with Falkvinge in the afternoon. IDG
also posted an online poll similar to the first, with similar results. The Party website was also slashdotted.
The Pirate Party's web server received a million hits on its first day of operation, two million the next.
On 4 January, international media and radio stations picked up the story. A major Swedish radio station broadcast an interview with Falkvinge about the unexpected amount of attention the initiative received. More attention followed on Thursday, including coverage by the BBC World Service
, the first global radio station to produce a story on the Pirate Party initiative.
At the end of the first week, the Pirate Party platform had been covered by over 500 English-language and over 600 Swedish-language media outlets.
and on the same day and the day after a total of over 9,000 new members joined the Party.
Since April 17 the Pirate Party has more than doubled in size, having over 50,000 members , and is now the third largest political party in Sweden (member-wise, not speaking about seats in the parliament). Pirate Party's youth organization, Ung Pirat, has more than 21,800 members, making it the largest political youth organization in Sweden.
On April 30 the Pirate Party got 5.1% of responses in a newspaper election poll for the European Parliament. A more recent poll conducted by polling organization Demoskop for newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning gave the party 7.9% of responses. Eventually the party received 7.1% of the vote in the 7th June election
, and won a seat in the European Parliament
.
and the Left Party
changed their stances on internet downloads, and both prime minister candidates stated publicly that it shouldn't be illegal for young people to share files. Several influential analysts have credited the Pirate Party and its rising popularity for this shift in the political climate; these include a panel of senior editors at International Data Group and political analysts at the largest morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter
.
Additionally, the then Swedish Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström
, announced on 9 June that he was willing to negotiate a possible revision of the law introduced in 2005 that made unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material illegal, introducing a new tax on broadband Internet access, but he later denied having changed his stance on the issue.
After the 2006 elections the issue faded from the public debate. In January 2008 seven Swedish members of parliament from the Moderate Party
, member of the governing coalition, authored a piece in a Swedish tabloid calling for the complete decriminalization of filesharing. The Swedish members of parliament wrote that "Decriminalizing all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution. It's the only solution, unless we want an ever more extensive control of what citizens do on the Internet."
(PPI).
The Pirate Party of Germany gained seats in the city council of Münster
and Aachen
in August 2009, and in the federal election a month later they received 2.0% of the party list
votes, becoming the biggest party outside the Bundestag
. In the election to the Abgeordnetenhaus in Berlin in September 2011, the Pirate Party received 9 % of the votes and - for the first time in Germany - gained seats in a state parliament.
has expressed concern that the Pirate Party’s goal of reducing copyright term to 5 years could harm the free software
movement. Many free software licenses, mainly the GPL
, are based on long-term copyrights. Stallman argues that if copyright terms are reduced to 5 years, proprietary software vendors would be able to take free software and use it in proprietary software
once the copyright expires. But proprietary software is restricted by EULAs in addition to copyright, and the source code is not available, rendering the proprietary software unusable for free software developers even after its copyright expires. Stallman suggests that under this new copyright law, proprietary software developers should put their code in escrow
when the software's binaries are released and then release their software into the public domain immediately after their copyright expires.
He has later rescinded this view in favor of an approach where different terms of copyright are granted depending on the strength of the monopoly desired.
, their first participation at an election for parliament since the founding of the party less than 9 months prior. With 0.63% of the overall votes, it became the 10th biggest party of more than 40 participating. However, a voting result of less than 4% of the total votes does not qualify the party for seats in the Swedish Parliament. Getting more than 1% of the vote would have granted the party financial assistance from the state for printing ballots which is costly in Sweden, while at least 2.5% would grant them state funds for campaigning in the next election. Despite the setbacks, Falkvinge began planning for the Swedish general election in 2010
. It should be noted that even the 0.63% was an overwhelming record for a party founded the same year as an election.
By May 22, a Demoskop poll showed a 7.9% support amongst Swedish voters, making the Pirate Party the third largest party. A week later this had grown to 8.2% and a projected two seats in Parliament, with 21.8% support amongst people aged 18–29. The party's top two candidates are Christian Engström
and Amelia Andersdotter
.
A model-based prediction for the 2009 European Parliament election by political scientists estimated June 4, 2009 that the Pirate Party could be the third largest party from Sweden, gaining 2 seats.
The Pirate Party got enough votes for at least one seat of the 18 available seats Sweden has at the European Parliament, getting 7.1
% of the Swedish votes. Following the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon
, a second seat was given to Amelia Andersdotter
on December 1, 2009. The Pirate Party have joined the European Greens-European Free Alliance group.
The Pirate Party of Germany also participated in the European Parliament elections, which was their first participation in a nationalwide election, and achieved 0.9% in Germany, getting 230 000 votes. They missed the 5% barrier by a wide margin but qualified for public funding.
, the Pirate Party increased their percentage of the vote by 0.02%, bringing it to a total of 0.65%, remaining under the required amount to gain a seat, but becoming the biggest party outside of Parliament.
Piratbyrån
, and the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay
. Of these three, Piratbyrån and The Pirate Party share a common history but are now separate, whereas the Pirate Bay developed on a completely separate though parallel track and is unrelated to the other two. In response to an injunction that temporarily shut down access to The Pirate Bay, on May 18 the Pirate Party became the site's ISP, stating that “It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we believe is a legitimate activity.”
Pirate Parties International
Pirate Parties International is the political international of the Pirate Party movement. It was formally founded in 2010 at the PPI conference in Brussels, Belgium.-Aims:The PPI statutes give its purposes as:...
.
The party strives to reform laws regarding copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
and patents. The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, both on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and in everyday life, and the transparency of state administration. The Party has intentionally chosen to be bloc independent on the traditional left-right scale
Left-Right politics
The left–right political spectrum is a common way of classifying political positions, political ideologies, or political parties along a one-dimensional political spectrum. The perspective of Left vs. Right is a binary interpretation of complex questions...
to pursue their political agenda with all mainstream parties.
The Party participated in the 2006 Riksdag elections and gained 0.63% of the votes making them the third largest party outside parliament, where a minimum of 4% is required. In terms of membership, it passed the Green Party
Green Party (Sweden)
-External links:**...
in December 2008, the Left Party
Left Party (Sweden)
The Left Party is a socialist and feminist political party in Sweden, from 1967 to 1990 known as the Left Party – The Communists .On welfare issues, the party opposes privatizations...
in February 2009, the Liberal Party
Liberal People's Party (Sweden)
The Liberal People's Party is a political party in Sweden. The party advocates social liberalism and is part of the governing centre-right coalition The Alliance, which achieved a majority in the general election of 17 September 2006...
and the Christian Democrats
Christian Democrats (Sweden)
The Christian Democrats ) is a political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1964 but did not enter parliament until 1985 in an electoral cooperation with the Centre Party and on the Christian Democrats' own accord in 1991. The leader since April 3, 2004 is Göran Hägglund. He succeeded Alf...
in April 2009, and the Centre Party
Centre Party (Sweden)
The Centre Party is a centrist political party in Sweden. The party maintains close ties to rural Sweden and describes itself as "a green social liberal party". The ideology is sometimes called agrarian, but in a European context, the Centre Party can perhaps best be characterized as social...
in May 2009, making it, for the time being, the third largest political party in Sweden by membership. The Pirate Party's associated youth organization, Young Pirate , was, for a part of 2009 and 2010, the largest political youth organization in Sweden by membership count.
The Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections
European Parliament election, 2009 (Sweden)
The European Parliament election of 2009 in Sweden was held on 7 June 2009 and determined the makeup of the Swedish delegation to the European Parliament. The election was held using a modified form of the Sainte-Laguë method of party-list proportional representation using the entire country as a...
, which was originally to result in one seat in the European parliament, but became two when the Lisbon Treaty was ratified. Christian Engström
Christian Engström
Lars Christian Engström is a Swedish computer programmer, activist and politician. He is deputy chairman of the Swedish Pirate Party. Engström was elected a Member of the European Parliament in the 2009 election....
became the first MEP
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
for the party, and Amelia Andersdotter
Amelia Andersdotter
Amelia Andersdotter is a Swedish politician and prospective Member of the European Parliament , elected on the Pirate Party list in the 2009 election....
took the second seat after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1, 2009.
Rick Falkvinge, founder of the party, stepped down on January 1, 2011 after five years as party leader, making vice leader Anna Troberg
Anna Troberg
Anna Troberg, born 9 April 1974 in Landskrona, is the party leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. She is also a translator and an author. She currently resides in Järfälla, a suburb north of Stockholm, Sweden.- Early life and career :...
the current party leader.
Declaration of principles
The Pirate Party’s declaration of principles version 3.2 outlines their political positions relative to Swedish law.Their current principles include:
- Overall: ”Promoting global legislation to facilitate the emerging information societyInformation societyThe aim of the information society is to gain competitive advantage internationally through using IT in a creative and productive way. An information society is a society in which the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and manipulation of information is a significant economic,...
” - Copyright: “We claim that today’s copyright system is unbalanced.” Hence their position that copyright laws cover only commercial uses of the copyrighted material
- Patent: “Privatized monopolies are one of society’s worst enemies.” Hence their position that patents are obsolete and should be gradually abolished. Regarding patents on pharmaceuticals, the Pirate Party proposes increasing government support for R&DResearch and developmentThe phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
. - 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 risk being used as repressive tools.
History and foundation
The website for the Pirate Party was launched on 1 January 2006 (at 20.30 CESTCentral European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time is one of the names of the Daylight saving time offset using the UTC offset of UTC+02:00, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used as a summer daylight saving time in most European countries. During the winter, Central European Time is used...
), marking the foundation of the Party. Six phases were presented on the website, with phase one being the collection of at least 2,000 signatures (500 more than required) to be handed over to the Swedish Election Authority before February 4 (the deadline for registering being February 28), so that the Party would be allowed to participate in the upcoming September 17 general election
Swedish general election, 2006
A general election was held in Sweden on 17 September 2006, to elect members to the Swedish parliament. All 349 seats were up for election: 310 "fixed seats" in 29 constituencies and 39 members at a national level for what are called "adjustment seats", used to ensure that parties have...
. In less than 24 hours after the opening of the website, the Party had collected over 2,000 signatures (2,268 at 16.05 CEST).
By the morning of January 3, the Party closed the signature collection. In about 36 hours, they had gathered 4,725 signatures. As signatories are required by Swedish election law to identify themselves when giving support for a new party, international media reported this as a significant feat, given the nature of the Party. However, signatures presented to the election authorities are required to be handwritten. The goal of at least 1,500 handwritten signatures was reached February 10 and the final confirmation from the authorities was presented three days later. The Party claimed to have recruited 900 members within the first month, each member paying a membership fee of 5 Swedish kronor
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
(approx. US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
0.69, c.2006), payable by SMS (The Party has since changed to free member registration).
Phases two to five included registering with the Election Authority, getting candidates for the Riksdag
Parliament of Sweden
The Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...
, raising money for printing ballots, and preparing an organization for the election, including local organizations in all municipalities of Sweden
Municipalities of Sweden
The municipalities of Sweden are the local government entities of Sweden. The current 290 municipalities are organized into 21 counties...
with a population in excess of 50,000, which in 2005 meant 43 municipalities. During this phase fundraising was also started, with an initial goal of raising 1 million SEK
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
($126,409).
The sixth and final phase was the election itself. The Party, which claims that there are between 800,000 and 1.1 million active file sharers
File sharing
File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
in Sweden, hoped that at least 225,000 (4% of all the voters in Sweden) of those would vote for the party, granting them membership in Parliament.
On 31 May 2006 Swedish police raided a facility hosting The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
(and Piratbyrån
Piratbyrån
Piratbyrån was a Swedish organization established to support people opposed to current ideas about intellectual property — by freely sharing information and culture...
, along with over 200 other independent site owners, hosted at the same facility), leading to a breakthrough for the Pirate Party in the public eye. Before the raid, the Party was steadily growing with some ten new members every day, but the raid caused a surge of 500 new members by the end of the day, with a membership count of 2,680. The next day another 930 people had registered membership, giving a total of 3,611 members, more than doubling their original number. During parts of 2006 Mikael Viborg, who is also known as the legal advisor of the popular BitTorrent tracker
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. It is also, in the absence of extensions to the original protocol, the only major critical point, as clients are required to communicate with the tracker to initiate downloads...
, The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
was a board member of the Pirate Party.
On June 3, 2006, the Party performed a "pirate demonstration" in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...
. The demonstration was in collaboration with the youth sections of some other political parties (the Young Liberals, Young Greens and Young Left
Young Left (Sweden)
Young Left is the youth organization of the Swedish Left Party.-Ideology:It is an organization that organizes the youth of today to fight for socialist and feminist social change. Young Left is a youth organization developed out of the labour movement, with influences from environmentalism, the...
). Within a few days the file sharing issue had become the focus of national debate, followed by national as well as international media. Along with criticizing the approach to restricting Pirate Bay's file sharing by the Minister for Justice Thomas Bodström
Thomas Bodström
Thomas Lennart Bodström is a Swedish politician and member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. He was the Swedish Minister for Justice in the two last succeeding governments of the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, from 2000 to 2006. Since October 2006 until October 2010 he was the chairman...
, the right to free information and rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
became the Party's main standpoints.
In April 2009, after The Pirate Bay trial verdict, the Pirate Party gained 3,000 members in 7 hours, making it larger than 3 of the 7 parties in the Parliament of Sweden, by member count. One week later it reached 40,000 members – compared to 15,000 members before the verdict – and now has more members than 5 of the 7 parties in the Swedish Parliament, with over 50,189 members making it the 3rd largest political party in Sweden.
On May 18, 2010, The Pirate Bay started hosting its site through bandwidth delivered from the Pirate Party.
On August 17, 2010, it was announced that the Pirate Party will be hosting and managing many of Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
' new servers. The party donates servers and bandwidth to Wikileaks without charge. Technicians of the party will make sure that the servers are maintained and working.
On January 1, 2011, the party celebrated its five year anniversary with a Bambuser
Bambuser
Bambuser is a Swedish company, founded in 2007, providing an interactive live video broadcasting service, for streaming live video from mobile phones and webcams to the internet. Bambuser's main office is situated in Stockholm, Sweden, and has a branch office in Turku, Finland...
live broadcast with party leader Rick Falkvinge and vice party leader Anna Troberg
Anna Troberg
Anna Troberg, born 9 April 1974 in Landskrona, is the party leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. She is also a translator and an author. She currently resides in Järfälla, a suburb north of Stockholm, Sweden.- Early life and career :...
. Live in the video, Falkvinge sent a tweet
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
saying he stepped down as party leader, and he announced that his successor would be Troberg. Falkvinge now works as an evangelist, spreading the politics of the Pirate Party in and out of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Media attention in the Party's first week
Aftonbladet
Aftonbladet is a Swedish tabloid founded by Lars Johan Hierta in 1830 during the modernization of Sweden. It is one of the larger daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. Aftonbladet is owned by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation and Norwegian media group Schibsted, and its editorial page...
, managed to track down the Party leader Rickard Falkvinge
Rickard Falkvinge
Rickard ”Rick” Falkvinge , born Dick Augustsson on 21 January 1972 in Gothenburg, is a Swedish IT entrepreneur known as the founder and first party leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He is currently a political evangelist with the party, spreading the ideas across the world...
at work. Falkvinge, however, was unable to explain the Party's positions while at work, bringing this information gathering effort to an abrupt end.
On 3 January 2006, all the major Swedish news outlets had produced stories on the Party. Aftonbladet
Aftonbladet
Aftonbladet is a Swedish tabloid founded by Lars Johan Hierta in 1830 during the modernization of Sweden. It is one of the larger daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. Aftonbladet is owned by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation and Norwegian media group Schibsted, and its editorial page...
posted an online poll indicating that its readers gave the Party a 61% approval rating, and IDG produced a longer front page interview with Falkvinge in the afternoon. IDG
IDG
International Data Group is a technology media, research, event management, and venture capital organization.IDG evolved from International Data Corporation which was formed in 1964 in Newtonville, Massachusetts, by Patrick Joseph McGovern and a friend, Fred Kirch...
also posted an online poll similar to the first, with similar results. The Party website was also slashdotted.
The Pirate Party's web server received a million hits on its first day of operation, two million the next.
On 4 January, international media and radio stations picked up the story. A major Swedish radio station broadcast an interview with Falkvinge about the unexpected amount of attention the initiative received. More attention followed on Thursday, including coverage by the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
, the first global radio station to produce a story on the Pirate Party initiative.
At the end of the first week, the Pirate Party platform had been covered by over 500 English-language and over 600 Swedish-language media outlets.
2009
As of mid-2009, the Party had over 49,000 members, making it the third largest party in Sweden in terms of members. Large increases in membership were associated with the controversial FRA law regarding government surveillance, IPRED law regarding copyright holder access to ISP subscriber information and the trial against The Pirate Bay. On April 17, 2009 the court reached a guilty verdict in the Pirate Bay trialThe Pirate Bay trial
The Pirate Bay trial is a joint criminal and civil prosecution in Sweden of four individuals charged for promoting the copyright infringement of others with the torrent tracking website The Pirate Bay...
and on the same day and the day after a total of over 9,000 new members joined the Party.
Since April 17 the Pirate Party has more than doubled in size, having over 50,000 members , and is now the third largest political party in Sweden (member-wise, not speaking about seats in the parliament). Pirate Party's youth organization, Ung Pirat, has more than 21,800 members, making it the largest political youth organization in Sweden.
On April 30 the Pirate Party got 5.1% of responses in a newspaper election poll for the European Parliament. A more recent poll conducted by polling organization Demoskop for newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning gave the party 7.9% of responses. Eventually the party received 7.1% of the vote in the 7th June election
European Parliament election, 2009 (Sweden)
The European Parliament election of 2009 in Sweden was held on 7 June 2009 and determined the makeup of the Swedish delegation to the European Parliament. The election was held using a modified form of the Sainte-Laguë method of party-list proportional representation using the entire country as a...
, and won a seat in the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
.
National
Less than a week before the 2006 elections, the Green Party shifted their stance on copyright reform. Additionally, both the Moderate PartyModerate Party
The Moderate Party is a centre-right, liberal conservative political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1904 as the General Electoral League by a group of conservatives in the Swedish parliament...
and the Left Party
Left Party (Sweden)
The Left Party is a socialist and feminist political party in Sweden, from 1967 to 1990 known as the Left Party – The Communists .On welfare issues, the party opposes privatizations...
changed their stances on internet downloads, and both prime minister candidates stated publicly that it shouldn't be illegal for young people to share files. Several influential analysts have credited the Pirate Party and its rising popularity for this shift in the political climate; these include a panel of senior editors at International Data Group and political analysts at the largest morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter
Dagens Nyheter
is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It has the largest circulation of Swedish morning newspapers, followed by Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, and is the only morning newspaper that is distributed to subscribers across the whole country. In 2009 DN had a circulation of 316,000, reaching 881...
.
Additionally, the then Swedish Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström
Thomas Bodström
Thomas Lennart Bodström is a Swedish politician and member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. He was the Swedish Minister for Justice in the two last succeeding governments of the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, from 2000 to 2006. Since October 2006 until October 2010 he was the chairman...
, announced on 9 June that he was willing to negotiate a possible revision of the law introduced in 2005 that made unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material illegal, introducing a new tax on broadband Internet access, but he later denied having changed his stance on the issue.
After the 2006 elections the issue faded from the public debate. In January 2008 seven Swedish members of parliament from the Moderate Party
Moderate Party
The Moderate Party is a centre-right, liberal conservative political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1904 as the General Electoral League by a group of conservatives in the Swedish parliament...
, member of the governing coalition, authored a piece in a Swedish tabloid calling for the complete decriminalization of filesharing. The Swedish members of parliament wrote that "Decriminalizing all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution. It's the only solution, unless we want an ever more extensive control of what citizens do on the Internet."
International
Outside Sweden, pirate parties have been started in some 33 countries, inspired by the Swedish initiative. They cooperate through Pirate Parties InternationalPirate Parties International
Pirate Parties International is the political international of the Pirate Party movement. It was formally founded in 2010 at the PPI conference in Brussels, Belgium.-Aims:The PPI statutes give its purposes as:...
(PPI).
The Pirate Party of Germany gained seats in the city council of Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
and Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
in August 2009, and in the federal election a month later they received 2.0% of the party list
Party-list proportional representation
Party-list proportional representation systems are a family of voting systems emphasizing proportional representation in elections in which multiple candidates are elected...
votes, becoming the biggest party outside the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
. In the election to the Abgeordnetenhaus in Berlin in September 2011, the Pirate Party received 9 % of the votes and - for the first time in Germany - gained seats in a state parliament.
Free software
Richard StallmanRichard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
has expressed concern that the Pirate Party’s goal of reducing copyright term to 5 years could harm the free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
movement. Many free software licenses, mainly the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, are based on long-term copyrights. Stallman argues that if copyright terms are reduced to 5 years, proprietary software vendors would be able to take free software and use it in proprietary software
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
once the copyright expires. But proprietary software is restricted by EULAs in addition to copyright, and the source code is not available, rendering the proprietary software unusable for free software developers even after its copyright expires. Stallman suggests that under this new copyright law, proprietary software developers should put their code in escrow
Source code escrow
Source code escrow or source code repository is the deposit of the source code of software with a third party escrow agent. Escrow is typically requested by a party licensing software , to ensure maintenance of the software...
when the software's binaries are released and then release their software into the public domain immediately after their copyright expires.
He has later rescinded this view in favor of an approach where different terms of copyright are granted depending on the strength of the monopoly desired.
2006 Swedish general election
The Pirate Party attracted 34,918 votes in the Swedish general election of 2006Swedish general election, 2006
A general election was held in Sweden on 17 September 2006, to elect members to the Swedish parliament. All 349 seats were up for election: 310 "fixed seats" in 29 constituencies and 39 members at a national level for what are called "adjustment seats", used to ensure that parties have...
, their first participation at an election for parliament since the founding of the party less than 9 months prior. With 0.63% of the overall votes, it became the 10th biggest party of more than 40 participating. However, a voting result of less than 4% of the total votes does not qualify the party for seats in the Swedish Parliament. Getting more than 1% of the vote would have granted the party financial assistance from the state for printing ballots which is costly in Sweden, while at least 2.5% would grant them state funds for campaigning in the next election. Despite the setbacks, Falkvinge began planning for the Swedish general election in 2010
Swedish general election, 2010
A general election to the Riksdag, parliament of Sweden, was held on . The main contenders of the election were the governing centre-right coalition the Alliance and the oppositional centre-left Red-Greens coalition A general election to the Riksdag, parliament of Sweden, was held on . The main...
. It should be noted that even the 0.63% was an overwhelming record for a party founded the same year as an election.
2009 European Parliament election
In the first pre-election poll before the 2009 European Parliament election, the Pirate Party registered at 5.1%, which would be enough to get a seat in the parliament. The support for the party was concentrated to younger voters, especially those of ages 18–29 (where it is the second largest party) and 30-44 (where it is the fourth largest).By May 22, a Demoskop poll showed a 7.9% support amongst Swedish voters, making the Pirate Party the third largest party. A week later this had grown to 8.2% and a projected two seats in Parliament, with 21.8% support amongst people aged 18–29. The party's top two candidates are Christian Engström
Christian Engström
Lars Christian Engström is a Swedish computer programmer, activist and politician. He is deputy chairman of the Swedish Pirate Party. Engström was elected a Member of the European Parliament in the 2009 election....
and Amelia Andersdotter
Amelia Andersdotter
Amelia Andersdotter is a Swedish politician and prospective Member of the European Parliament , elected on the Pirate Party list in the 2009 election....
.
A model-based prediction for the 2009 European Parliament election by political scientists estimated June 4, 2009 that the Pirate Party could be the third largest party from Sweden, gaining 2 seats.
The Pirate Party got enough votes for at least one seat of the 18 available seats Sweden has at the European Parliament, getting 7.1
% of the Swedish votes. Following the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon
Treaty of Lisbon
The Treaty of Lisbon of 1668 was a peace treaty between Portugal and Spain, concluded at Lisbon on 13 February 1668, through the mediation of England, in which Spain recognized the sovereignty of Portugal's new ruling dynasty, the House of Braganza....
, a second seat was given to Amelia Andersdotter
Amelia Andersdotter
Amelia Andersdotter is a Swedish politician and prospective Member of the European Parliament , elected on the Pirate Party list in the 2009 election....
on December 1, 2009. The Pirate Party have joined the European Greens-European Free Alliance group.
The Pirate Party of Germany also participated in the European Parliament elections, which was their first participation in a nationalwide election, and achieved 0.9% in Germany, getting 230 000 votes. They missed the 5% barrier by a wide margin but qualified for public funding.
2010 election
In the 2010 general electionSwedish general election, 2010
A general election to the Riksdag, parliament of Sweden, was held on . The main contenders of the election were the governing centre-right coalition the Alliance and the oppositional centre-left Red-Greens coalition A general election to the Riksdag, parliament of Sweden, was held on . The main...
, the Pirate Party increased their percentage of the vote by 0.02%, bringing it to a total of 0.65%, remaining under the required amount to gain a seat, but becoming the biggest party outside of Parliament.
Relations to other Swedish pirate organizations
There are three major pirate organizations in Sweden: the political Pirate Party, the now-defunct NGONon-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
Piratbyrån
Piratbyrån
Piratbyrån was a Swedish organization established to support people opposed to current ideas about intellectual property — by freely sharing information and culture...
, and the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
. Of these three, Piratbyrån and The Pirate Party share a common history but are now separate, whereas the Pirate Bay developed on a completely separate though parallel track and is unrelated to the other two. In response to an injunction that temporarily shut down access to The Pirate Bay, on May 18 the Pirate Party became the site's ISP, stating that “It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we believe is a legitimate activity.”
See also
- Elections in SwedenElections in SwedenElections in the Kingdom of Sweden are held every four years, and determine the makeup of the legislative bodies on the three levels of administrative division in the country. At the highest level, these elections determine the allocation of seats in the Riksdag, the national legislative body of...
- European Parliament election, 2009 (Sweden)European Parliament election, 2009 (Sweden)The European Parliament election of 2009 in Sweden was held on 7 June 2009 and determined the makeup of the Swedish delegation to the European Parliament. The election was held using a modified form of the Sainte-Laguë method of party-list proportional representation using the entire country as a...
- EU Copyright Directive and DADVSIDADVSIDADVSI is the abbreviation of the French Loi sur le Droit d’Auteur et les Droits Voisins dans la Société de l’Information...
- PiratbyrånPiratbyrånPiratbyrån was a Swedish organization established to support people opposed to current ideas about intellectual property — by freely sharing information and culture...
- Politics of SwedenPolitics of SwedenPolitics of Sweden takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the government, led by the Prime Minister of Sweden. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament, elected within a multi-party...
- National Defence Radio Establishment (Sweden) (FRA)
- The Pirate BayThe Pirate BayThe Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
- Patent pirate
- Anti-Counterfeiting Trade AgreementAnti-Counterfeiting Trade AgreementThe Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a proposed plurilateral agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement...
(ACTA)
External links
Official sites, documents
Pirate Party official site Declaration of Principles 2006 Election Manifesto 2006 election manifestoInterviews
- Interview with founder in LinuxP2P
- Interview with founder in The Local by Agence France-PresseAgence France-PresseAgence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
- YouTube Interview with Founder Rick Falkvinge
- Google Video Interview with Founder Rick Falkvinge, in Swedish (with English subtitles).
Speeches
- Rickard Falkvinge speaks at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2007O'Reilly Open Source ConventionThe O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...
(27 July 2007) - Rickard Falkvinge speaks at GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
(31 July 2007) - Rickard Falkvinge speaks at Stanford Law SchoolStanford Law SchoolStanford Law School is a graduate school at Stanford University located in the area known as the Silicon Valley, near Palo Alto, California in the United States. The Law School was established in 1893 when former President Benjamin Harrison joined the faculty as the first professor of law...
(31 July 2007) - Rickard Falkvinge speaks at the party congress 2007 of the German Pirate Party Part 2 Part 3
- Rickard Falkvinge speaks at the PPI Conference Friedrichshafen, Germany (13 Mar 2011)
Media coverage
- Coverage on Slashdot (1 2 3)
- The Technocrat Article
- Article in The InquirerThe InquirerThe Inquirer is a British technology tabloid website founded by Mike Magee after his departure from The Register in 2001. In 2006 the site was acquired by Dutch publisher Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen...
- http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1124 The Brussels JournalThe Brussels JournalThe Brussels Journal is a conservative blog, founded by the Flemish journalist Paul Beliën. It was founded in 2005, and has both an English language section with various international contributions, and a Dutch section...
coverage - English translations of articles about the Pirate Party at P2P Consortium
- Piratbyrån's speech at Reboot