The party, formed to protest copyright law, took 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden and one of that countrys 18 seats in the European Parliament. The party stands for radical reform of copyright legislation, abolition of the patent system and guaranteed online-privacy rights.
The party gained a renewed focus in Sweden after the four founders of The Pirate Bay, the worlds most notorious BitTorrent tracker, were convicted of copyright infringement and ordered jailed for a year and fined millions.
After weeks of testimony and delays ending April 17, Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde were found guilty in the case, along with Carl Lundstrm, who was convicted of funding the five-year-old operation.
The verdict triggered a political backlash among Swedish youth, and the Swedish Pirate Party more than doubled in size to 40,000-plus members, giving the anti-copyright party a genuine shot at landing a seat in the European Parliament.
The election was also a reaction to the Swedish governments April implementation of the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive, known as IPRED. Its main goal is to enable copyright holders to acquire once-private data identifying people linked to illegal file sharing.
Activist Christian Engstrm, who will assume the Pirate Party seat this fall, told Wired.com in a recent interview that copyright laws are becoming an affront to privacy.
If politicians want to prevent ordinary citizens from sharing files, they will constantly have to expand their ability to monitor, Engstrm said in a telephone interview. Its necessary to reform the copyright legislation to ensure that citizens right to privacy is respected.
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