Sweden’s New Vikings?
p2pnet.net News View:- A lot of things happened after the Swedish police attempted to take down The Piratebay. It’s time to recap and look ahead.
Torrentfreak asked Mathias from Piracy Unlimited (and Sweden) to give an overview of the things that happened, and the things that will happen.
First of all, the attack against the Pirate Bay was highly unsuccessful – they only stayed down for a couple of days before they were back in full force. Stronger than ever thanks to the widespread media attention. Subsequently several sources reported that the MPAA initiated the attack, by directly influencing Swedish authorities on governmental level, in this case the Ministry of Justice, to intervene in this specific case, which is considered illegal in Sweden (the term is “minister rule”). It also turned out that the US had threatened to put Sweden on WTO’s black list because they didn’t take the Pirate Bay down, something that should’ve made the Swedish government move even quicker. What they did was that they hinted to the prosecutor in this case that the government ‘expected quick results’ in this matter. The prosecutor had written a PM a while back that it was impossible to convict the Pirate Bay, but after some letters from the MPAA and this not so subtle hint from, what I think was the Secretary of State, he changed his mind.
When Swedish television published documents that proved this, there was some intense outburst for a while in the media, and this only worked to give the piracy movement more sympathies. Their anthology, Copy me, sold out and a new edition will be released in a few days.
Piratbyrån, which is a Swedish pro-piracy think tank, had their server seized at the same time and it was in police custody until just the other day. Between the legal efforts to get their equipment back and other other lobbying, Piratbyrån managed to gather similar and supporting groups around Scandinavia to launch an international lobby organization, which was given the name Pro Piracy Lobby. Right now, PPL is in contact with groups in a dozen countries that is interested in joining.
Secondly, the Pirate Party had already existed for about half a year, but all this attention also gave wings in their sails, and they had thousands of new members in a matter of weeks. Suddenly, they had transformed into the largest party without parliament seats. In Sweden, you get seats in the parliament if you get four percent of the votes. As we speak, the Pirate Party has almost as many members as the Green Party, which is a party that supports the current government, and without them, the current government can’t maintain their majority This leads the Pirate Party to believe that if they get into the parliament they can fill such a vital role, and thereby make a big difference. Worth noting is that some unofficial gallups from various sources indicate that the Pirate Party is the most likely party for a Swedish first-time voter to choose on election day.
This success has also led to pirate parties forming in a number of other countries: France, Italy, USA, Belgium, Austria, and very recently also Germany, Spain and Russian. There is also one forming in the UK. Together, they have founded PP-International, which is an international collaboration forum/group to exchange experiences, ideas and such, and Sweden has a very important role here.
The general elections are being held in the end of September, and the election campaigns are becoming hotter and hotter. The Pirate Party has decided that what they have now, ideas and ideology, strategy and policies, is what they’re going to run, no need to do any additions or changes now – all energy is put on the election campaign, and the work will be focused very strongly on this until after the election.
What happens after that will depend completely on how the election turns out, and here are many alternatives:
On one scenario, the Pirate Party gets their 4%, which few within the party doubt they will. In that case they will move to become influential in the forming of the government. In Sweden, the prime minister is elected by the parliament, which means that he or she must have a majority of the MPs behind him/her. No party ever gets that many seats, and so, a party that will form a government must seek support from another party, who then gets a situation where they can influence the government. This is a position that the Pirate Party seeks. Their parliamentary work will depend heavily on whether they succeed or not.
Outside the parliament, there is much to be done. If a party gets more than 2.5% of the votes, they will have state subsidiaries that allow them to employ a few people full-time to work for them. The amount of money rises with, I think, every extra .5% of the total votes. These will of course be used to have people working full time on strenghthening the party, and help with the local groups – up to now, all members of the Pirate Party works without pay for this idea that they support. A few full-timers would be nice to do alot of the foot-work.
Also, more and more local groups will be formed, and these will do the work locally, mostly making the Pirate Party seen in their surroundings, as the Pirate Party won’t run in local elections. There will be a lot of local organizing being done.
Also, they will probably put down alot of work in helping the pirate parties around the world via PP-International.
In the long run, the Pirate Party will aim for the election to the European Parliament in 2009, where it’s easier to get in. A party that receives 1% of the votes in an election has the right to have their ballots placed at voting locations by the election authorities at that place. Thus, there is a good possibility the Pirate Party gains even more in the EP elections than in the Swedish general ones.
In any way, there is an exciting few years we have ahead of us.
Torrentfreak – The Netherlands
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July 31st, 2006 at 1:59 pm
As usual, the anti “piracy” organizations (whether private and/or governmental) have shot themselves in their (figurative) feet, at the seeming moment of a possible victory.
Perhaps, as it seems, those aformentioned organizations are unaware of Reader’s Write’s First Rule of Escalation, namely “Two may play at this game (of yours)”.
July 31st, 2006 at 7:11 pm
There have been rather recent allegations posted by swedish newspapers that cite that the ad revenue generated by the pirate bay is alot larger than previously assumed. This in connection to the very shady company named targetpoint, which by proxy has an affiliation with the pirate bay (one alleged former employee has a 37% share of tpb) spells out that perhaps this tracker is a whole lot more profitable than what the owners are letting on. Swedish media has only scratched the surface of what targetpoint and it’s many subsidiaries are doing, but my guess would be that they’re generating revenue off the releases from the scene, something that pisses off most people that engage in filesharing.
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:47 pm
“[...]that they’re generating revenue off the releases from the scene,[...]”
Last time I checked TPB, they did neither distribute scene releases themself nor did they generate revenue from these scene releases.
As i understand the business modell it is based upon visitors to the site that watches the different pages. not the content of the scene releases.
that they are one of the world most visited meetingplaces for likeminded persons are is what generates advertisement revenues.
Not the scenereleases which the majority of visitors at least don’t no what to do with!
(just read the n00b comments on the RARed scene releases versions pages)
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:17 pm
does anybody know the website for the UK piirate party?
email me if you know
fgn -at- freebie.net
April 8th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Trying to get some information on this:
Viking in Costa Rica?
Some unreported evidence of a group of people deep in the Costa Rica jungle working to fix some destroyed telecom infrastructure that was destroyed by narco- trafficanos was involved in a hit and run battle.
What was reported by several observers was that one very large Costa Rican, after running out of ammunition, appeared to be using a large hammer or club, possibly a boomerang based on the way it was used, with the classic moves and swings that some thought resembled that of an ancient Viking warrior. The statement was made by Prof. Jackson Erber who is an expert on old Norse battle techniques based his statement on an eye-witness observation and video of the event that was supposedly placed on U-Tube. What was classic and not something seen in the movies is the drop to one knee, base of hammer touching the ground, while the swing is continued around and behind.
Can anyone else corroborate this?