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29th Mar 2024

Internet radicals make noise in Swedish elections

A rookie political party in Sweden, the Pirate Party, has pushed the everyday actions of thousands of ordinary people – downloading music and films from the internet – to the top of the political agenda, forcing established parties to come up with legal yet flirtatious offers to cyber pirates in the Nordic country.

In the national elections in Sweden on Sunday (17 September), the new party did not make the 4 percent vote threshold needed to get a seat in the Swedish parliament, but says it is still happy to have put the debate about privacy for internet and file sharing on the political agenda.

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"There are over a million active file sharers in Sweden, and they are tired of being called criminals," says the Pirate Party, which ran for election under a banner to reform the country's copyright laws.

Protecting integrity in an open society, private communication and file sharing and the spreading of culture and knowledge as a positive phenomenon make up the party's three issue agenda.

"To share copies, or in any other way spread or use someone else's work, should never be forbidden as long as it is done on an idealistic basis without the purposes of commercial gain", the party manifesto states.

"The right to exchange information in private is fundamental to the democratic society," party leader Rickard Falkvinge says.

The empire strikes back

It was in January, after a new law forbidding the downloading of copyright protected material from the internet, such as music and films, was introduced, that a group of Swedish file sharers decided to stand for parliament, attracting over 4000 support signatures within the first 24 hours of the party launch.

Representatives of the Swedish music industry such as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) opposed the pirates arguing that just because a lot of people abuse the system does not make it right and that politicians should not be "disloyal" and support the pirates.

The entertainment industry argues that giving into piracy demands just creates obstacles and makes it more difficult for industry to come up with legal alternatives.

"The wonderful accessibility of the net seems to make not only the greediest and unscrupulous of file sharers lose their heads," Swedish IFPI said, meaning most authors put their work into the hands of the consumers anyway, as long as they get fairly and adequately paid.

According to Mr Falkvinge, however, citizens' rights are more important than the salaries of the artists.

"They will have to find other ways to get paid," he said, claiming authors only get a few percent of the money that the business generates anyway, while the rest goes mainly to distributors that are no longer needed.

Government flirts with the iTunes generation

But putting aside authors' rights, Swedish politicians quickly tapped into the fact that file sharers are not just a bunch of internet-crazed teenagers or simply thieves, but around 1.3 million 'ordinary people' - and voters - of all ages, professions and social backgrounds, who risk being criminalized for a hobby they have no intention of giving up.

Various solutions to please both the Pirates and the anti-Pirates appeared on the table, such as a government-proposed tax on broadband, in exchange for limited downloading.

The tax revenues would channel money to authors in the same way as the taxes on empty CDs, DVDs and mp3-players is already distributed among artists in Sweden.

"We are also currently looking into the cost of legally downloadable songs online," a spokeswoman for the Swedish justice department said.

"Why are they as expensive as nine kronor (around one euro) each, and not, say one krona each? We want to stimulate and hurry the development of consumer friendly, legal ways," she said.

European pirates unite

Most households in Sweden are connected to internet via broadband, allowing high-speed downloading.

A techno-friendly population, and a government more committed to providing broadband for all than to chasing internet crooks, has allowed file sharing to take root deeply in all layers of Swedish society.

In many European countries, piracy is still associated with physical CD-records or videos, sold in the streets, as the percentage of broadband per capita is small. But soon they may end up in the same situation as Sweden.

Following in the footsteps of the Swedish pirates, a group of German activists have founded a "Piratenpartei" of their own, and other small sister parties have started in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Austria.

"We are investigating the possibilities to form a pan-European Pirate Party and run united for the European parliament elections in 2009," says Mr Falkvinge adding that first contacts had been made between the different sister parties in Europe.

To read more on this topic click here for EUobserver's special FOCUS on Creative Rights

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