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Pirate Party (Sweden)

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Template:Infobox Swedish Political Party

Rickard Falkvinge, party leader

The Pirate Party (Swedish: Piratpartiet) is a political party in Sweden. It 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.[1] The Party has intentionally chosen to be bloc independent on the traditional left-right scale[2] to pursue their political agenda with all mainstream parties. The Pirate Party is the third largest political party in Sweden in terms of membership. Its sudden popularity has given rise to parties with the same name and similar goals in Europe and worldwide.

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[3][4], and the Centre Party in May 2009, making it the third largest political party in Sweden. The Pirate Party's associated youth organization, Young Pirate (Swedish: Ung Pirat), is now the largest political youth organization in Sweden by membership count.

The Pirate Party got 7.1% in the 2009 European Parliament elections, which will result in one seat in parliament.[5]

History and foundation

The website for the Pirate Party was opened on 1 January 2006 (at 20.30 CEST), starting 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 needed) to be handed over to the Swedish Election Authority before February 4 (while the absolutely last date would have been 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).[citation needed]

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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] (The Party has since changed to free member registration.)[6]

Phases two to five included registering with 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 meant 43 municipalities from Malmö in the south to Luleå in the north. During this phase fundraising was also started, with an initial goal of raising 1 million SEK ($126,409).[citation needed]

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[citation needed] hoped that at least 225,000 (4% of all the voters in Sweden) of those would vote for the Party,[citation needed] 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 Pirate Party in the public eye. 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 another 930 people had register membership, giving a total of 3611 members, more than doubling their original number.[citation needed]

On June 3, 2006, the Party performed a "pirate demonstration"[7] 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 – alongside the wide international cover – had become the focus of national debate. 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 focuses of interest.[citation needed]

In April 2009, after The Pirate Bay trial verdict, the Pirate Party gained 3000 members in 7 hours, making it bigger than 3 of the 7 parties in the Parliament of Sweden [8]. One week later it had already 40,000 members - compared to 15,000 members before the verdict and has now more members than 5 of the 7 parties in the Swedish Parliament, with over 46,376 members as of 22 May 2009.

Media attention in the Party's first week

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

Media quickly picked up on the movement. On January 2 2006 (a Monday), a large Swedish newspaper, Dagens Industri, produced a story on what was happening. By 3 p.m., 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.[citation needed] However, the largest Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet, managed to track the Party's leader Rickard Falkvinge down at work. Falkvinge, however, was unable to explain the Party's positions while at work, bringing this information gathering effort to an abrupt end.[citation needed]

On January 3 2006 (Tuesday), 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,[9] and IDG produced a longer front page interview with Falkvinge in the afternoon. IDG also posted an online poll similar to the initial one with similar results.[10] 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 Wednesday 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]

At the end of the first week, the Pirate Party platform had been covered by over 500 English-speaking media outlets and over 600 Spanish-speaking media outlets.[citation needed]

Current status

Membership graph after the court reached a guilty verdict in the Pirate Bay trial.

As of early 2007, the Party had over 9,000 members[11]. 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 trial and on the same day and the day after a total of over 9,000 new members joined the Party.[citation needed]

Since April 17 the Pirate Party has more than doubled in size, having over 48,000 members as of 28 May 2009, and is now the third largest political party in Sweden. Pirate Party's youth organization, Ung Pirat, has more than 20,700 members, making it the largest political youth organization in Sweden.[4]

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[12]. The party received 7.1% of the vote in the 7th June election, and won a seat in the European Parliament.

The current board of the Party consists of Rickard Falkvinge (founder), Christian Engström, Anna Troberg, Mårten Fjällström, Anna Svensson, Stefan Flod, Sofia Dahlgren, Rickard Olsson, Mikael Nilsson, Klara Tovhult, and Björn Odlund. A former board member of the Pirate Party was Mikael Viborg, who is also known as the legal advisor of the popular BitTorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay.

Political impact

National

Less than a week before the 2006 elections, the Green Party shifted their stance on copyright reform.[13] Additionally, both the Moderate Party and the Left Party changed their stances on internet downloads,[14][15] and both prime minister candidates stated publicly that it shouldn't be illegal for young people to share files.[16] 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[17] and political analysts at the largest morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter.[18] 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.[19]

After the 2006 elections, the issue has faded away from the public debate somewhat.[16] 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."[20]

International

  Officially registered pirate party
  Active, unregistered pirate party
  Discussed within PP-International
  No pirate party

Outside of Sweden, pirate parties have been started in several countries, inspired by the Swedish initiative. Officially registered pirate parties exist in Spain, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and Finland, while those in the USA, United Kingdom, Argentina, and Australia are currently unregistered, but active.

In June 2007 different members of international pirate parties met in Vienna, Austria to discuss the future of the movement. The conference was called "Next Step Politics!? Pirates to Brussels in 2009!?". The event was organized by the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts and activist groups such as monochrom and transforming freedom.

In 2008, the German Pirate Party became the second Pirate Party to contest an election, in the Hesse state election, 2008, and received 0.3% of valid votes. [21]. Additionally, there are discussions on Pirate Party International about forming parties in the Netherlands, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, Republic of Ireland and a letter of notification that a party is forming in Peru.[22] A pirate party has been founded in Slovenia as well. [23][24][25]

Election results, voter base

2006 Swedish general election

The Pirate Party attracted 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% 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 is already planning for the Swedish general election in 2010.[26]

2009 European Parliament election

Christian Engström, the Swedish Pirate Party's top candidate for the European Parliament election, 2009

In the first pre-election poll [27] 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). [28]

By May 22, a Demoskop poll showed a 7.9% support amongst Swedish voters, making the Pirate Party the third largest party.[29] 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.[30] 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. [31].

Finally, the Pirate Party got enough votes for at least one seat of the 18 available seats Sweden has at the European Parliament[32], getting 7.1 % of the Swedish votes. [33]

Relations to other Swedish pirate organizations

There are three major pirate organizations in Sweden: the political Pirate Party, the NGO Piratbyrån, and the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay. Of these three, Piratbyrån and The Pirate Bay share a common history but are now separate, whereas the Pirate Party developed on a completely separate though parallel track and is unrelated to the other two.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Piratpartiet.

References

  1. ^ http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english
  2. ^ "Vågmästarställning" from piratpartiet.se, accessed on August 28, 2006
  3. ^ Result of Verdict, for the Pirate Party. Blog Pirate. April 17, 2009.
  4. ^ a b "Medlemsantal" from piratpartiet.se, accessed on May 28, 2009
  5. ^ http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_3027135.svd
  6. ^ https://pirateweb.net/Pages/Public/SE/NewMember/New.aspx
  7. ^ "Pictures from the piracy demonstration", by Ulf Sjöström, Pirate Watch, June 3, 2006, accessed on June 5, 2006
  8. ^ "Announcement on the official website, in Swedish"
  9. ^ "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
  10. ^ "Would you consider voting for a pirate party?", poll by IDG, active January 3-9, 2006, accessed on July 30, 2006
  11. ^ "Medlemsantal" from piratpartiet.se, accessed on April 5, 2007
  12. ^ "M tappar opinionsstöd " from unt.se (Swedish), accessed on May 25, 2009
  13. ^ Släpp filerna fria!, by the Swedish Greens
  14. ^ Larger parties bend to support file-sharing under political pressure from P2P Consortium, accessed on June 9, 2006
  15. ^ Nu vänder v och m i piratfrågan from Expressen, accessed on June 9, 2006
  16. ^ a b "Upphovsmän kan få jaga fildelare", Dagens Nyheter, February 4, 2007
  17. ^ "Piratpartiet har lyckats", published by PC för Alla
  18. ^ "Bara mp vill ändra lagen", Dagens Nyheter, February 4, 2007
  19. ^ Bodström: "Jag har inte ändrat ståndpunkt" from Aftonbladet, accessed on June 9, 2006
  20. ^ Swedish prosecutors dump 4,000 legal docs on The Pirate Bay Ars Technica, accessed on August 5, 2008
  21. ^ "Hessians Hope to Weave Election Magic" (html). 2007. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
  22. ^ Active country sections on Pirate Party International forums as per 2007-Jan-21
  23. ^ RTV Slo: "Slovenian pirates" for a free internet; Slovenian pirate party has been founded [1] as per 2009-May-14
  24. ^ žurnal24: They've sailed into Slovenia too [2] as per 2009-May-14
  25. ^ inDirekt: Pirates in slovenia as well [3] as per 2009-May-14
  26. ^ "Voters Keelhaul Pirate Party" from wired.com, accessed on September 20, 2006
  27. ^ "Unga väljare kan ge Piratpartiet EU-mandat" from dn.se, accessed on May 6, 2009
  28. ^ "Pressmeddelande: Piratpartiet får 5.1% i EU-valet" from piratpartiet.se, accessed on May 6, 2009
  29. ^ "Pirate Party Sweden's third-largest: poll" from thelocal.se, accessed on May 30, 2009
  30. ^ "Piratpartiet får två mandat i ny mätning" from dn.se (Swedish), accessed on May 30, 2009
  31. ^ "Analysis by Member State" from predict09.eu, accessed on June 5, 2009
  32. ^ "Pirate Party Wins and Enters The European Parliament" from TorrentFreak.com, accessed on June 7 2009
  33. ^ "European election results 2009 for Sweden" from elections2009-results.eu, accessed on June 7 2009
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Official sites, documents

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