Sweden's Pirate Party Wins Seat at European Parliament

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 8, 2009 - 7:42am.

Stockholm, Sweden - The Pirate Party, a political party founded in Sweden in 2006 to protest copyright laws, took 7.1% of the vote in the country's elections over the weekend, and won one of the country's 18 seats at European Parliament in Brussels, TorrentFreak reported. The Pirate Party more than doubled its membership to 40,000 in the wake of the conviction of the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay in April, and the enactment of a new intellectual property law that gives copyright holders the right to unmask suspected file-swappers.

While The Pirate Party is led by Rick Falkvinge, the party's seat in the European Parliament will go to activist Christian Engström.

"Together, we have today changed the landscape of European politics. No matter how this night ends, we have changed it," Falkvinge told TorrentFreak.

"This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood its time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples' lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept that the authorities mass-surveillance."

TorrentFreak estimated that some 200,000 Swedes voted for the Pirate Party, up from the 35,000 who did so in the national elections of 2006.

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/jpkvb (TorrentFreak)

http://snipurl.com/jpkzn (Wired.com)

http://www.dmwmedia.com/tags/pirate-party

http://www.piratpartiet.se