PIRATE
BOOTY
JESSICA GOW/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
FULLY OPERATIONAL
HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
As the Pirate Party has evolved, the movement that informs it is no longer only focused on file-sharing; it has developed a
much broader platform inspired by a belief
in the power of sharing in all aspects of life
and a great deal of faith in technology.
“The Pirate Party started out as a
protest movement against the copyright industry’s effort to clamp down
on sharing, but we’re starting to see
the same pattern occurring in the rest
of politics,” says 22-year-old animator
Zacqary Adam-Green, who is secondThe Pirate Bay’s first server, which was confiscated during a
in-command in the New York branch of
police raid in 2008, sits on display at the Technical Museum
the Pirate Party. “So we’re also working in Stockholm. Nils Olander, the museum’s curator, purchased
the server from police in early 2009.
on increasing participation in democracy and introducing more peer-to-peer
principles in the economy.”
camp; she long worked as a book publisher
Many Pirates, for example, believe
and a translator, and saw piracy as a threat
that information technology should be
to the livelihoods of artists like herself.
used to make government more transShe began to second-guess herself after
parent; they suggest that the laws being
writing a blog post attacking piracy, and
considered in legislatures be posted onfinding the responses she got persuasive.
line throughout the entire process of de- After researching the issue for the next
bate and amendment. Most of them also
two weeks she changed her position.
believe that services like Wi-Fi, educa“At the time, everyone in publishtion and health care should be freely acing was very negative; they were alcessible, without corporate interference. ways complaining that new technology
Falkvinge is now a roving ambassador
was going to destroy culture,” she says.
for the Pirate Party and his successor in
“Once I started talking to the Pirates, I
Sweden, Anna Troberg, runs the party itsaw that they were much more positive
self. Troberg is a convert to the pro-piracy — they were trying to find new solutions
using technology.”
No matter how quickly the party
spreads from here, though, and no mat-