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Pirate Party (Sweden)

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Template:Infobox Swedish Political Party

The Pirate Party (Swedish: Piratpartiet) is a political party in Sweden. The party strives to reform laws regarding intellectual property, including copyright, patent and the protection of design. The agenda also includes support for a strengthening of the right to privacy (such as private property and private information), both on the Internet and in everyday life. Since it does not have an agenda on any other issues, the party claims it is not possible to place it anywhere on the left-right scale.[1]

Initially, the party was against trademark rights, but did an about-face in that question when the first party programme was accepted. It also contained changes to what the party thought about copyright and patent, amongst others. After around a month of existence, the party had gained 900 members, paying the membership fee of 5 Swedish kronor (approx. US$0.69, c.2006), payable by SMS. The current board of the party consists of Rickard Falkvinge (founder), Christian Engström, Andreas Käiväräinen, Bo Leuf, Balder Lingegård, and Joakim Lundborg. Former board members include Mikael Viborg (known as the legal advisor of the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay).

History and founding

The website for the Pirate Party was opened January 1, 2006 (at 20.30 CEST), starting the foundation of the party. Six phases were presented, with phase one being the collection of at least 2,000 signatures (500 more than needed) to be handed over to the Swedish Election Authority before February 4 (while the absolutely last date would be February 28), so that the party would be allowed to participate in the Swedish general election of 2006, which took place on September 17. 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. Given that 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.

Phases two to five included registering at the election authority, getting candidates for the Riksdag, getting ballots, and preparing an organization for the election, including local organizations in all Municipalities of Sweden with a population in excess of 50,000. As of 2005 this means 43 municipalities from Malmö in the south to Luleå in the north. During this phase the fundraising was also started, at 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 the anticipated vote) of those are voting for the party, granting them membership in Parliament.

The May 31 2006 Swedish police raid of the facility hosting The Pirate Bay (and Piratbyrån, along with over 200 other independent site owners, hosted at the same facility) meant a breakthrough for the party in the public eye. From before the raid the party was steadily growing with some ten new members every day, but the aforementioned raid by the police led to more than 500 new members by the end of the day, with a membership count of 2680. The next day had another 930 people register membership, for a total of 3611 members.

On June 3 2006, the party performed a "pirate demonstration"[2] in Stockholm and Gothenburg. The demonstration is in collaboration with some other party’s youth sections (the Liberal Youth League, Green Youth and Young Left). Within these few days the file sharing issues had – alongside the wide international cover – been the focus of the national debate. In combination with the alleged inappropriate measures taken from the Minister for Justice Thomas Bodström in The Pirate Bay-case, the right to free information and legal security was issued and targeted.

Media attention the first week

Media quickly picked up on the movement. By 10 a.m. on January 2 (Monday), the first large Swedish newspaper, the Dagens Industri, broke the story. By 3 p.m., the media were getting 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 party leader Rickard Falkvinge down at work, where he just had to end the call saying he couldn't talk about the initiative while at work.

On January 3 (Tuesday), all the major Swedish news outlets had broken the story as such. The newspaper Aftonbladet posted an online poll indicating that its readers gave the party a 61% approval rating,[3] and IDG broke a longer front page interview with Mr. Falkvinge in the afternoon. IDG also posted an online poll similar to the initial one, and scored comparable – but not identical – results.[4] The party was also slashdotted.

The web server received a million hits on its first day of operation, two million the next.

On Wednesday, international media and radio stations picked up the story. The major Swedish radio station broadcast an interview with Mr. Falkvinge about the unexpected amount of attention this initiative had received, and more would follow on Thursday, including BBC World Service, the first global radio station to break the news of the Pirate Party initiative.

At the end of the first week, the Pirate Party had been covered in over 500 English-speaking media and over 600 Spanish-speaking media.

Current status

A Pirate Party banner at the demonstration held in Stockholm 3 June 2006.

As of January 2007, the party has over 9300 members,[5] making it the largest party memberwise without any parliamentary representation. It passed the membership count of Miljöpartiet (The Green Party) briefly (Miljöpartiet has passed the membership count of PP again in December 2006) and the membership count of Moderata Ungdomsförbundet, the youth organization of Moderaterna, the second largest party in Sweden.

Political impact

  Officially registered Pirate Party
  Active Pirate Party, not registered yet
  Discussions on Pirate Party International
  No Pirate Party

Less than a week before the 2006 elections, the Green party shifted their stance on copyright reform.[6] Additionally, both the Moderate Party and the Left Party changed their stances on internet downloads[7][8], and both prime minister candidates stated publicly that it can't be illegal for young people to share files[9]. 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[10] and political analysts at the largest morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter[11]. Additionally, the Swedish Minister of Justice, Thomas Bodström, announced on June 9 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.[12]

After the 2006 elections, the issue has faded away from the public debate somewhat[9].

Outside of Sweden, pirate parties have been started in several countries, inspired by the Swedish initiative. Officially registered pirate parties exist in Spain, Austria and Germany,[13] while those in the USA, UK, Australia, France, Poland, Italy, Russia, and Belgium are currently unregistered, but active. Additionally, there are discussions on Pirate Party International about forming parties in the Netherlands, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Serbia, Romania, Republic of Ireland and a letter of notification that a party is forming in Peru.[14]

Election results, voter base

The Pirate Party captured 34,918 votes in the Swedish general election of 2006, 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% 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 while at least 2.5% would grant them state funds for campaigning in the next election. Despite the setbacks, Falkvinge is already planning for the European Parliament election in 2009 and Swedish general election in 2010.[15]

The party scored considerably higher in school mock elections, 4.5%, which led political commentators to conclude that while it may not be a considerable power at present, the school election results show that the Pirate Party will be a new player on the political scene.[16]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Vågmästarställning" from piratpartiet.se, accessed on August 28, 2006
  2. ^ "Pictures from the piracy demonstration", by Ulf Sjöström, Pirate Watch, June 3 2006, accessed on June 5, 2006
  3. ^ "Would you consider voting for the Pirate Party?", poll by Aftonbladet, at 61% yes in early January of 2006 with 50,000 responding; at 57% on July 30, 2006 with 99,000 responding
  4. ^ "Would you consider voting for a pirate party?", poll by IDG, active January 3-9, 2006, accessed on July 30, 2006
  5. ^ "Medlemsantal" from piratpartiet.se, accessed on November 20, 2006
  6. ^ Släpp filerna fria!, by the Swedish Greens
  7. ^ Larger parties bend to support file-sharing under political pressure from P2P Consortium, accessed on June 9, 2006
  8. ^ Nu vänder v och m i piratfrågan from Expressen, accessed on June 9, 2006
  9. ^ a b "Upphovsmän kan få jaga fildelare", Dagens Nyheter, February 4, 2007
  10. ^ "Piratpartiet har lyckats", published by PC för Alla
  11. ^ "Bara mp vill ändra lagen", Dagens Nyheter, February 4, 2007
  12. ^ Bodström: "Jag har inte ändrat ståndpunkt" from Aftonbladet, accessed on June 9, 2006
  13. ^ [1] as of Sept. 10th 2006
  14. ^ Active country sections on Pirate Party International forums as per 2007-Jan-21
  15. ^ "Voters Keelhaul Pirate Party" from wired.com, accessed on September 20, 2006
  16. ^ Hallandsposten, comments on the school election, accessed on January 22, 2007

External links

Wikinews has related news:

Official sites, documents

Interviews

Media coverage

Other Pirate parties


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