

Pirate Party Wins 7.1% of Swedish Vote, Enters European Parliament - mapleoin
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-wins-and-enters-the-european-parliament-090607/

======
stse
The Pirate Party has limited information in English and I know it can be hard
to understand what they really stand for. So I compiled a summery of their
program. Keep in mind that this is only a summery and mostly only says what
they stand for and not why they stand for it. This is also not an official
document.

The Pirate Party’s cornerstones are; the right to privacy, culture must be
open/free and that patents and private monopolies hurt society.

Privacy: Secrecy of letters should apply to all forms of communication,
including digital. No data retention and no surveillance without substantial
prior crime suspicion. No anti-terrorism legislation, current legislation is
sufficient. New legislation risk being used as a tool of oppression. The
individuals right to control ones own personal information must be
strengthened. Respect for human rights without exceptions.

Freedom of information: Swedish freedom of information laws, access to
government documents and communications, should be applied to the EU. All
government archives and documents should be available in open formats. Use of
open formats and open source in the public sector, including schools, should
be encouraged.

Open culture: Copyright should be reasonable, balanced and with societies best
in mind. The copyright holder’s commercial monopoly should be limited to five
years. You should have the right to remix copyrighted works, with some clearly
stated exceptions. All non-commercial distribution, consumption and remixing
of copyrighted and non-copyrighted works should be legal and encouraged.
Trademarks should be kept.

Private monopolies: The successive removal of all patents, including software
and medical patents. Patents force scientists to keep research findings secret
instead of sharing them. Competition should be based on innovation, consumer
benefit, and quality.

~~~
michael_dorfman
That's a nice summary of their platform, but it is perhaps also worth noting
that one of the defendents in the Pirate Bay case (Carl Lundström) is a neo-
Nazi, who has a history of funding small single-issue parties and using them
to push extremist right-wing views.

~~~
stse
Carl Lundström and The Pirate Bay are not affiliated with The Pirate Party. As
far as I know the rest of The Pirate Bay do not share Carl Lundströms views.
The connection between The Pirate Bay and Carl Lundström is also very loose.

The Pirate Party has very clear views on civil liberties and human rights for
everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual preference,
handicap or political view. Most political analysts actually think that The
Pirate Party, with its large number of youth votes, prevented the right-wing
nationalist party in Sweden from reaching the European Parliament.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Thanks for clearing that up. One of the problems with small parties is how
easily they can be derailed, especially by someone who is a) dedicated to the
task, and b) well-funded.

~~~
stse
As a consequence of The Pirate Party very narrow focus, and decision not to
take a stand in any other issues, it would be hard to introduce other issues.

Currently I only know of two people who work for the party full-time. The
party founder Rick Falkvinge, an former entrepreneur who quit his job to
devote himself to the party. When his money ran out he asked the members for
contributions and gets a small amount from a large number of members each
month. The other person who works full-time with the party is Christian
Engström, also an entrepreneur who sold his company for a profit and spent
five years as unpaid activist at the FFII lobbying against software patents.
He is the party's first pick for the European Parliament. The party also gets
founding from several other sources. Some of Sweden's "Internet Icons"
publicly supports the party.

It would be really interesting to see what all the great American
entrepreneurs could do if there was a chance for a smaller party to actually
get seats.

------
joel_feather
I think this is the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long
time. Times have changed, and this is a strong message to the establishment
that things will need to change a bit regarding some laws!

~~~
anigbrowl
I share the feeling of optimism, but must point out that the European
Parliament is where a lot of good ideas go to die, and it has little in the
way of real power. Members include representatives of parties who wan to leave
Europe and other relatively fringe thinkers. So it's significant, but not
momentously so.

~~~
mixmax
That's a common misconception, actually the European Union has a lot of power,
and member states are obliged to align their national laws to those of the EU.

From the wikipedia article on EU: _"The EU has developed a single market
through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states,
ensuring the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It
maintains common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional
development. A common currency, the euro, has been adopted by sixteen member
states constituting the Eurozone. "_

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union>)

The problem is that for the common man in the various member states EU is seen
as a monolithic bureaucracy placed in a country far away. Many don't realise
it's power. This is the problem that the members of parlaiment face.

~~~
anigbrowl
European Union =/= European Parliament. I suggest that the EU Commission and
Council of Ministers, along with the European court, have more influence on
the development of the EU than its Parliament; which is not to say that the
European Parliament is entirely toothless. The election of a Pirate Party
member to that body, while interesting, is likely to have only marginal
effect.

~~~
mixmax
The parlaiment, along with the council is the highest legislative body of the
union and yields a lot of power. From Wikipedia: _"The European Parliament has
been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world."_

Of course, as you say, a single representative from the Pirate Party will only
have marginal effect. Those are the rules of a democracy.

~~~
anigbrowl
I suggest you ponder the rest of that wikipedia article, or since you live in
Europe, look at its day-to-day workings for a while. As a fellow European,
surely you are aware that in practice the EUP is a punching bag for national
governments and widely perceived as a sideshow, which is why nations fight
tooth and nail to preserve their commission representation.

Given its inability to propose legislation, it is hamstrung compared to a
typical national legislature, not to mention being riven by petty disputes of
language nationalism and so forth. With the best of intentions, how is the new
Pirate Party member going to bring about a provocative debate on the meaning
of copyright and intellectual property when everything has to go through a
tabling committee and debates normally impose a 1 minute time limit for
speakers. Hell, I'm an ardent europhile and even I think it's politically
moribund.

One upside of this, though, is that I ever move back to Europe I'll consider
running for a seat...I figure it ought to be relatively easy to get elected
given the general public apathy that prevails around euro elections :)

~~~
vidarh
I agree with you, mostly. However there is one significant effect of the
election of the Pirate Part: _Swedish_ political parties have been given a
rude awakening and if the Pirate Party continues to gain they will need to
face up to the fact that a lot of people want more relaxed copyright
legislation, _or_ the Pirate Party may be swept into the Swedish parliament
next.

(keep in mind: they were polling around 5%, and many dismissed them, claiming
that their key demographic of <30's "doesn't vote" - instead they performed
_better_ than the polls indicated; that's going to scare a lot of politicians
into rethinking their stance)

It's also bound to make a lot of people think seriously about trying to get
equivalent platforms in place in other EU countries.

It's an amazing showing for a "single issue" (not really, but almost) party
running in only a single, small country.

~~~
anigbrowl
Oh absolutely. And it's a welcome counterweight to the fringe right-wing
parties (I'm looking at you BNP) and the various communists.

------
adw
Interesting reaction from Tom Watson MP, until last week the UK government
minister for e-democracy and (more or less) the Internet:

"That Sir, is a seismic result, and a big warning to a very large number of
vested interests."

<http://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/2068168426>

The Pirate Party and friends are, in many ways, the new face of the
libertarian left in Europe.

~~~
jamesbritt
"The Pirate Party and friends are, in many ways, the new face of the
libertarian left in Europe."

I'm curious: What distinguishes "libertarian left" from plain old libertarian?

~~~
emmett
Focus, mainly. Libertarians have long been aligned with the right in America
because they have emphasized the economic parts of their platform, at the
expense of the social ones.

~~~
adw
I'm not sure it really translates - it's a post-socialist phenomenon, and
socialism still seems like a swearword your side of the pond.

Take issues like gun control, social welfare, environmentalism... the modern
European hard left is, in general, strongly in favour of all of the above.
Their platform's libertarian in that it's mostly against government
intervention in personal lives, and therefore pro-marriage equality, drug
decriminalisation, liberalisation of copyright, etc etc etc. You'll find a lot
of anti-globalisation fellow travellers too.

The influences are much more things like anarcho-syndicalism, Christiania
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania>), that kind of thing.

~~~
emmett
I think we're in total agreement. Libertarians share platforms with both the
left and the right; we call them "left-libertarians" when they find themselves
mostly voting in alignment with the left, and "right-libertarians" when they
find themselves mostly voting in agreement with the right.

European libertarians, coming from the background you describe, much more
often find themselves on the left than the right.

------
erikstarck
Just got back from the election party in Stockholm. One seat in the EU
parliament is just what (pp) needs for the Riksdagen election 2010. Most
likely, there are differences hidden under the purple surface of the party
that will show now. The maturity process is started.

Will be interesting to see if this spawns copycats throughout Europe. At the
very least the established parties should take notice. Infopolitics is here to
stay.

~~~
mblakele
I've read that most of the power is tied up in committees
([http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story...](http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13788340)).
If it's like the US House of Representatives, that means seniority is
necessary for any real power. Legislation by committee is also a great way to
wield power behind closed doors, since the media rarely reports on what they
do.

Is there an EU equivalent to Congressional Quarterly (<http://cq.com/>)?

~~~
fbailey
no seniority plays no role that's a very us specific thing

------
ErrantX
Just to put it slightly in perspective: here in the UK the BNP (far right
racist party) won a seat too. Getting the seat is just part 1 - next the PP
have to cut through the red tape and get the message out to the rest of the
EU.

(I must apologise for my countrymen btw, I never thought it would actually
happen :()

~~~
m_eiman
The Swedish variant of BNP almost got a seat too.

It's to be expected, of course, with an economic meltdown. Nothing brings
votes to right wing extremists like a crisis and someone else to blame it on -
this time it's the muslims who get the blame for everything that's wrong in
the world.

------
Eliezer
This is one of the most surreal pieces of news I've seen in a while. No
offense to any pirates. Arrr.

------
viraptor
So people voted on a party which wants to deal with copyright issues of the
distributed music/video content (as its main goal)... A party that will now be
able to have its say about national and European issues. It's a bit
interesting that such an issue can be so high on people's priority list. Not
that I'm opposed to what they want to do, but I'm not sure what to think of
Sweden right now:

Is it the best country to live in? One where people don't come across bigger
problems in their daily life?

Or is it that all standard political parties in Sweden crossed the line which
many parties in any country are very close to - not doing anything, having
every possible populist claim in their programme, getting old...

~~~
codeodor
Not sure if you're in the US, but reading your comment, I can't help but
linking to an explanation of how legislative seats are dealt out in Sweden
(and many other countries). It's not a thing like we have in the US:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_alloca...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_allocation)

In such a system, it's not uncommon to see a few seats go to minor parties. In
the US, we'd surely see some Libertarian and Greens in congress if we had such
a system. However, the US system is more conducive to 2-party politics because
of the way the rules are defined, which is why we see it here and not so much
elsewhere.

So, its a surprising result if you're used to 2 parties, but not so unexpected
when multiparty politics is the norm.

~~~
viraptor
Yeah - I'm from Europe and used to multiparty government. Yet every small
party I've seen, that actually targeted young people and specifically issues
that people <30 care about, never gets to be popular. And they certainly don't
get 2 seats in EU.

I was just wondering why it happened in Sweden of all countries... was The
Pirate Bay court case really the trigger, or is it connected to how Swedish
people act, or was it something else?

~~~
vidarh
They've taken a talking point that is _shared_ between liberals, libertarians,
communists, anarchists and some socialists/social democrats and that directly
affect peoples lives (a huge percentage of people share files etc. and don't
see it as something wrong) at a time when big media are trying to tell people
they're all criminals.

That's probably key to their success - they can take voters from across the
spectrum who don't have a voice at all in large parties (the closest in Sweden
perhaps being the socialist/communist Vensterpartiet - Left Party - which also
wants to significantly limit copyright) but who have liberal tendencies.

This has been brewing for a while, and it'll likely spread outside of Sweden,
limited by non-proportional voting in some countries. What is particular about
Sweden is that Sweden had one of the most liberal policies on copyright in
Europe to start with - non-commercial copying for "personal use" (including
sharing with friends) was (is it still?) legal. This is a right that was
ingrained. So when these rights are being taken away, it's natural you get a
backlash.

------
ErrantX
I just wanted to highlight part of a BBC news report
(<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8088309.stm>):

 _Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants to legalise internet file sharing,_

They also got mentioned right after the far-right parties. I find it a bit
worrying that mainstream media is still vewing them in this light. It smacks
of not being taken seriously still - I wonder how that can be addressed?

