The Technograph

No. I know what you are thinking, but the Pirate Party has nothing to do with the infamous marauders of the sea, nor does it have anything in common with a social event filled with debauchery and swashbuckling. It is, in fact, a political platform started in Sweden that has now spread across Europe. The Pirate Party does, however, share one ideal with the real life pirates: the desire to escape unfair laws, more specifically, today’s copyright and privacy laws.

The pirate political party, better known as the Piratpartiet, was founded in Sweden, having at its very foundation a mere website discussing the inadequate laws governing the spread of information. The party’s main principles focus on promoting new laws that allow for easier spread of information in today’s society. The largest obstacles to this spread are the current copyright laws, which render this sharing to be illegal. In addition to supporting free spread of data, the party considers information monopolies detrimental to the public and views any attempts to limit personal privacy as illegal.

Based on these ideals, the party launched its website outlining a development plan for the future in January 2006. Small numbers of members joined every day, but the party had no publicity, so the prospect of expansion was small. A media hype breakthrough occurred when, on May 31, 2006, Swedish police raided a facility that hosted the Pirate Bay, a widely used Swedish BitTorrent tracking website. The facility was raided due to alleged accusations of copyright violations promoted by the website and, as a result, host servers were confiscated and arrests were made. A rise in membership immediately followed, but the surge in new members culminated after the Pirate Bay trial verdict was issued. The harsh verdict, including jail time and a massive fine, outraged Swedes, who then chose to show their support by joining the Piratpartiet. The new total member count reached around 50,100 ( HYPERLINK "http://www.piratpartiet.se" www.piratpartiet.se) , the number at which it is today, making the Pirate Party the third largest political party in Sweden by membership number.

The Swedish Pirate Party has had a great deal of success in its three and a half years of existence, success that has culminated with the seat it gained in the European Union parliament in the 2009 European Union Parliament Election. With a small part of the total votes in the country’s election for parliamentary seats, the Pirate Party has gained the right to have a representative in the European Parliament.

Since the Swedish Piratpartiet’s conception, the initiative has spread across Europe. Although Pirate Parties in countries such as France, Germany, UK and Spain have had less success than their Swedish counterpart, they are growing and gaining recognition as time passes. Each country’s party may be a bit different, but in the end they all share the same goal: to pave the way for a society in which online piracy does not exist and information can be spread freely.

Tagged with: Europe, global, politics, political, pirates, party