Intellectual Property Law

Pirate Party Wins EU Parliament Seat

By David Kravets

Christian Engström will assume the EU Pirate Party seat this fall

Sweden’s Pirate Party won a seat in the European Union Parliament, swept in Sunday amid outrage over a new copyright law and the convictions of the four founders of The Pirate Bay.

The party, formed to protest copyright law, took 7.1 percent of votes in Sweden and one of that country’s 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 world’s 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 Lundström, 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 government’s 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 Engström, 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,” Engström said in a telephone interview. “It?s necessary to reform the copyright legislation to ensure that citizens? right to privacy is respected.”

In addition to one year of jail time, the defendants were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to a handful of entertainment companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros, EMI and Columbia Pictures.

The case was brought by the Swedish government and Hollywood, in what?s best described as a joint civil-criminal trial. The defendants were charged with facilitating copyright infringement.

In the trial?s aftermath, several BitTorrent trackers across the globe have shuttered. The verdict has emboldened copyright authorities to crack down on torrent sites, and file sharing in Sweden has dropped. Mininova, one of the world?s largest BitTorrent indexer, has begun moving toward legitimacy.

The Pirate Bay, with more than 20 million users, keeps operating as usual, despite the convictions, which are on appeal. The four remain free, pending the outcome of the appeals.

The European Parliament consists of 785 members and is one of the governing bodies of the European Union.

Does one seat matter? Tell us what you think.

See Also:

• The Pirate Bay Guilty; Jail for File-Sharing Foursome
• Judge Reviewing Pirate Bay Trial Bias Is Removed for Bias
• Music Labels Want Pirate Bay Shuttered
• Facebook Divorces Pirate Bay
• Pirate Bay Judge Exposed as Member of Pro-Copyright Groups …
• Pirate Bay Bias Charge: ‘Random’ Judge Assignment Wasn’t
• Prosecution Alters Pirate Bay Charges in Bid to Win Conviction …
• The Pirate Bay’s Anonymity Service Signs 100000 Users Pre-Launch …

Full post as published by Threat Level on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).