The Pirate Party (Swedish Piratpartiet) is a Swedish political party that advocates a radical change in the current legislation on intellectual property, copyright, patents and the protection of information privacy of citizens, as well as for increasing the transparency of government. The party does not consider itself to be either a left or a right political wing and does not want to enter any political blocs.
The piracy movement in Sweden began in the spring of 2005, when a campaign against free distribution of files and for strict observance of publishers' copyrights gained momentum. In particular, with the assistance of the American Association of Film Companies and Music Distributors, the largest pirate servers in Europe were seized. An open letter from a number of Swedish musicians such as Niels Landgren and the Roxette group led to a debate over changes to copyright law. In the course of these discussions, it was proposed to fine users who violate copyright when sharing.
History
This discussion, which, despite the considerable public response, did not bring significant results and did not find understanding among politicians, inspired 34-year-old Ricard Falkvinge to create a pirate party. In his opinion, every significant social movement had to go through three stages: drawing attention to the problem by individual activists, considering the problem in the scientific community and successful political implementation. Since the first two stages for the copyright problem were resolved, but no political movement paid attention to this problem, Falkvinge decided to create a pirate party.
The party was organized on January 1, 2006. On the same day, at 20:30 local time, her website opened, and the news of the emergence of a fundamentally new type of political party quickly spread throughout the Internet. The party's first program was quite radical and proposed to abolish copyright altogether, as well as to end Sweden's membership in the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization. The site presented a plan of six stages, the first of which is the collection of at least 2,000 signatures required to register a political party with the Swedish Election Commission. In order for the party to participate in the elections to the Swedish parliament on September 27, 2006, signatures had to be collected by February 4 (although the official completion of the collection of signatures was scheduled for February 28). However, the required number of signatures was collected in less than a day. The collection of signatures was stopped until the morning of January 3. At that time, 4,725 people signed the parties (despite the fact that the provision of personal data was mandatory).
Within a month, the required number of signatures were collected already on paper, and on February 10 everything was ready to apply for participation in the elections. Initially, a party contribution of SEK 5 could be paid via SMS, but later party contributions were canceled altogether. Slashdot and Digg have played a significant role in popularizing the party and its political concept outside Sweden.
In the future, the party must raise funds for an election campaign, select candidates for parliament, print ballots to create branches in all cities of Sweden with a population of over 50 thousand inhabitants. A donation campaign was also organized with the goal of raising 1 million kroons.
Since its inception, the pirate party has attracted the attention of the media. The party founder's interview was on the front pages of Swedish newspapers. During its first week of existence, the Pirate Party was reported in over 600 Swedish and 500 English-language media outlets. In the first two days of its existence, the party's website was visited by more than 3 million Internet users. A poll conducted by the newspaper Aftonbladet showed that more than 57% of the population support the creation of such a party.
The party leaders were confident that their party would overcome the four percent barrier and get into parliament, since it is estimated that about 1.2 million people use file-sharing networks in Sweden, and for at least three-quarters of them, the issue of the right to free file sharing is of fundamental importance. …
For several days the main topic of discussion in Sweden was the issue of copyright and principles of information dissemination. The main interest of the party, in addition to criticizing the restrictions on the dissemination of information proposed by the Minister of Justice Thomas Bodstrom (as it later turned out, proposed under pressure from the United States), was the right to free information and the formation of the rule of law. In addition, to protect the right to exchange information, the party has developed a new service "darknet", which allows users to obtain an IP address through a secure VPN channel that cannot be traced.
In the parliamentary elections on September 17, 2006, she received 34,918 votes, which is 0.63% of the total number of voters who took part in the voting. The party of pirates took tenth place and did not overcome the passing barrier. If the party gained less than 1%, it would be compensated for the funds for printing ballots, and if the party received 2.5% support, the party would receive funds for the next election campaign.
After the defeat in the 2006 elections, the party's strategy was changed. A youth wing of the party was created, the Young Pirate (Swedish: Ung Pirat), which is the third largest youth wing of the Swedish political party, second only to the youth unions of the Moderate Party and the Social Democratic Party. The main task of the youth wing is to train new politicians to replenish the ranks of the party. It is significant that the youth wing is financed mainly from the budget from tax revenues, having received about 1.3 million kroons of financial assistance, despite the fact that the ideas expressed by the organization, in particular regarding the rejection of the copyright agreement, are opposed to the government's position.
In the new version of the party's program of January 2008, more attention was paid to the desire to democratize society, the formation of a free market, civil society and the introduction of information privacy. The new version of the program retained the basic provisions regarding copyright and intellectual property, which were proclaimed even when the party was created.
In 2008, the party actively participated in the campaign against the draft Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), which has gone down in history as a “blogging storm”. After the Swedish government supported this directive, support for the party increased slightly. On December 8, the party held a highly publicized rally called “Pirate Party Joining Day” (Swedish: Gå-med-i-Piratpartiet-dagen), which called for joining the party to protest the adoption of IPRED. The action was a success, with nearly 600 new members joining the party the day before.
In February 2009, the Pirate Party was actively involved in supporting defendants in a lawsuit against the owners of The Pirate Bay, who were accused by the Swedish prosecutor's office, the International Federation of Phonogram Producers and the American Film Association of violating music copyright and inciting others to commit illegal activities. Thanks to the hype surrounding the copyright topic on February 18, the party's popularity increased significantly due to this event. After a decline in the number of party members from 9,600 at the beginning of 2007 to 7,205 as of November 2008, already on the third day after the start of the process, the number of party members reached a record high of 10,000, and by the end of March 2009 the number of members reached 12, 5 thousand.
On April 1, the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) entered into force in Sweden, which introduced significant restrictions on the exchange of audio and video files, as a result of which traffic in Sweden fell by 30%. Representatives of the Pirate Party expressed their concern about the situation, believing that the interests of entrepreneurs should not harm ordinary citizens, creating a negative precedent for companies to invade the privacy of citizens. But their opponents considered it to be the driving force behind the transition of the population from illegal file sharing to the legal acquisition of video and music production.
As a result of the lawsuit, the creators of The Pirate Bay - Swedish programmers Peter Sunde, Gottfried Swartholm, Fredrik Ney and their sponsor millionaire Karl Lundstrem - were sentenced to a year in prison and multimillion-dollar fines. This contributed to a significant increase in the popularity of the party: if during the trial the number of the party increased to almost 15 thousand people, then after the announcement of the previous verdict in the first seven hours it grew by three thousand. The next day, in protest against the verdict, the party held a protest rally, which brought together about 1,000 people. Over the next 10 days, the number of party members exceeded 40 thousand, and it became one of the three most numerous Swedish political forces.
The party's goal was to win a seat in the European Parliament following the 2009 elections, in which the party has been preparing for participation since 2006. The main slogans of the party in the elections were to uphold the principles of privacy on the Internet, civil liberties and the development of an open society.
In the European Parliament, the Pirate Party received first one seat, which was occupied by Christian Engström, and after the entry into force of the Lisbon Agreement, the party received the right to another seat, which was received by 22-year-old Amelia Andersdotter, who became the youngest member of the European Parliament. In the European Parliament, the party joined the Greens group - the European Free Alliance, stating that the ideology of this group is closer to them, and they will support this group on all issues where they do not have their own position.
As a result of the elections on September 19, 2010, the party received 38,491 votes, which is 0.65% of the total number of voters who took part in the voting. Thus, the Pirate Party took ninth place and became the most popular extra-parliamentary political force in the country.
After the 2010 elections, in which the party did not enter parliament, the vice-leader of the party, Anna Troberg, said that the elections were falsified against small parties such as the Pirate Party and the Feminist Initiative, in particular, she accused election commissioners of the ballots of the leading parties were placed much more conveniently for voters, and in some polling stations there were no ballots of small parties at all. The day after the elections, party leader Ricard Falkvinge commented on the election results, noting that he considers them a victory for parties that are not interested in the important problems of citizens, noted that the party conducted the best election campaign in its history, and outlined the future plans of the party.
On January 1, 2011, there were changes in the party leadership: after celebrating the fifth anniversary of the party, its founder, Ricard Falkvinge, resigned as party chairman, saying that he would remain in the party leadership, but devote more time to speeches and popularization of the pirate movement outside Sweden. The new leader of the party was the former first deputy of Falkvinge, Anna Troberg, who, according to the former chairman of the party, will be able to popularize the party's program for those who do not understand the technical side of the issue.
On January 10, the new party leader assembled a new group - the operational leadership team, which will become the first party organ to meet not online, but live. The team is headed by Anna Troberg herself and the party secretary Jan Lindgren, the team also includes those responsible for individual areas of work (campaigning, education, communications and information technology), five regional representatives, former party chairman Ricard Falkvinge (as responsible for "evangelism") and Christian Engström (as Representative in the European Parliament). Also on this day, a new four-year action plan was announced, which provides for political and ideological development, training and targeted actions.
Party program
According to the party program version 3.4, approved on April 12-25, 2010, the party sets itself three main tasks
Development of democracy, protection of privacy. According to party members, an atmosphere of surveillance and control over personal life reigns in Swedish society. The party of pirates insists on the strict observance of human rights, freedom of speech, the rights to culture and personal development, as well as the protection of private information of citizens. The party demands to establish strict control over the use of force and the persecution of citizens. Discrimination on religious, ethnic, political, age, sexual or other grounds is recognized as unacceptable. It is proposed to extend the privacy of correspondence not only to ordinary sheets, but also to e-mail, SMS and other technologies, in particular, thanks to the cancellation of the Data Retention Directive. "Pirates" propose to recognize access to the Internet as one of the basic civil rights, such as the right to clean water and access to telephone communications. Party members plan to make Internet access equal for everyone, with the right to access all websites and protocols without exception, and providers who do not comply with these conditions will be prohibited from selling their services. Internet service providers should, in turn, be completely exempt from responsibility for the information uploaded by their users. The party plans to make the process of public administration and decision-making as transparent and open as possible, as well as to defend democratic values both in Sweden and throughout the European Union.
Free culture and copyright law reform. The Pirate Party believes that copyright should encourage the creation, development and dissemination of cultural works, since free access to culture for all on equal terms is beneficial to society as a whole, and therefore proposes to balance copyright law. According to the party, copyright should first of all ensure the author's right to a name, and not restrict access to works. In particular, the party considers it necessary to ensure free access to classical works of literature, films and songs, as well as free dissemination of ideas, knowledge and information. The party proposes to amend the copyright law so that it restricts only commercial use and does not affect the voluntary exchange of files for non-commercial purposes. In addition, the party plans to reduce the term of copyright to five years and allow (with a few exceptions) the use of works to create derivative works. It is proposed to prohibit technical means of copyright protection if they restrict the distribution of non-confidential information.
Reform of legislation on patents and monopolies. Party members point out that private monopolies harm market competition, and patents are a means of market manipulation by monopolists. The party plans to phase out the patent system as it sees it as one that does not encourage but discourages innovation. “Pirates” require monopolists to make their activities transparent, which will stimulate the development of the market and avoid artificial obstacles to entering the market. The program proposes to legislatively limit the possibility of creating monopolies and make citizens equal economic partners in the market. The party welcomes the dissemination of scientific research results in free access and insists on ensuring universal access to archive data without reference to specific software. It is proposed to stimulate the transition of public institutions to open source software. Trademark law should only protect consumers from the purchase of counterfeits and not restrict the use of trademarks in art, public debate or consumer criticism.
Party symbol
The name of the party comes from the term "piracy", which is used by hackers to refer to illegal copying of copyrighted material. The former non-profit public organization Piratbyrån (literally "Pirate Bureau") and the website The Pirate Bay (literally "Pirate Bay") have a similar name.
The official symbol of the Pirate Party is a black sail on a white background in the shape of the letter P. The original color of the party was black, but subsequently the party changed its official color to "pirate purple". This color means that the party does not consider itself either "blue" (the color of the centrists and the right), or "red" (the color of the left), or "green".
Political influence
During the 2006 elections, at least three parties changed their attitude towards copyright law, which, according to observers, increased their popularity among voters precisely at the expense of the potential electorate of the Pirate Party. The Green Party has supported a number of Pirate Party demands for copyright reform, and the Center and Left parties have changed their attitude towards file-sharing networks: candidates for the post of prime minister from both parties said there should be no restrictions on file-sharing
As a result of the so-called "pirate demonstrations" on June 9, 2006, Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström announced that he was ready to consider changes to the law passed in 2005, which prohibited downloads of copyrighted material.
On January 3, 2008, seven MPs from the ruling Moderate Party issued an appeal calling for the removal of all restrictions on file sharing.
International connections
The Pirate Party is a co-founder of the Pirate Party International (PP International), which brings together the pirate parties of the world, modeled on the Swedish party.
Within a few months after the appearance of the Swedish Pirate Party, similar parties were created in Spain, Austria, Germany and Poland. As of 2010, parties of this type are already operating in 33 countries (Ukraine is not among them). In addition to the Swedish Pirate Party, the Pirate Party of Germany achieved significant success in the elections, which received 0.9% of the votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections and gained 2.0% on party lists in the 2009 national elections to the Bundestag and, like the Swedish party, became the largest non-parliamentary party in its country.
