PIRATE
BOOTY
that the courtroom was packed with reporters eager to cover the biggest piracy
trial in years and he encouraged members and supporters of the Pirate Party
to protest the trial every day. The media
seized on the protests as emblematic of
young Swedes’ support of TPB. And the
coverage reached a fever pitch when the
court announced the guilty verdicts.
“There was an outcry over this grossly
unfair injustice; there were huge protests the next day in some large squares
in Stockholm,” Falkvinge says. “We knew
that that was our ticket to the European
Parliament.”
It was indeed. Sweden held elections
for the European Parliament in June
2009, and the Pirate Party stunned po-
“THERE
WAS AN OUTCRY OVER
THIS GROSSLY
UNFAIR
INJUSTICE.”
HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
litical analysts by snaring 7 percent of
the vote, netting them two delegates in
the European Parliament.
The party’s success in Sweden also
emboldened budding Pirate Parties overseas — most notably in Germany, where
the local Pirate Party eventually made
significant inroads in the parliaments of
four different German states.
There are now Pirate Parties at some
stage of development in more than 50
countries. Though the movement hasn’t
yet replicated its Swedish and German
successes elsewhere, Falkvinge said he’s
optimistic about its prospects in Finland,
the Czech Republic and Switzerland in
the near future.
Pirate Parties now even exist in the
United States. Despite obstacles for
third parties domestically, the parties
have presences in Massachusetts, New
York and California.
Tethering the entire movement is a
goal of relaxing or eliminating what it
sees as a “copyright monopoly” that hinders the spread of culture and information. They say that because file-sharing
involves “copying,” not “taking,” it’s disingenuous to call it stealing — and, perhaps more significantly, that F