TorrentFreak

The German Pirate Party won several seats in the North Rhine-Westphalia state election today. For the fourth time in a row the Pirate Party broke the 5% threshold which is needed to enter parliament. According to the latest exit polls the Pirates received 7.5% of the total vote which translates into 18 parliament seats. Today’s [...]

I just attended the Pirate Party International’s (PPI) annual meeting, which was held in the beautiful city of Prague in the Czech Republic this year. I regard myself as a little crazy in terms of disrespect for opinions about things that can’t be done, but the growth of the Pirate Party movement outperforms my wildest dreams.

The popularity of the Pirate Party in Germany is soaring to unprecedented heights. In a recent poll the Party received 13% of the total vote, which makes it the third largest party in the country for the first time. In neighboring Austria, citizens are also warming to the Pirate Party agenda. With 7% of the total vote, the Austrian Pirate Party has a serious shot at entering the national parliament.

In a most unusual turn of events, the intellectual property section of the Court of Milan has moved to protect the identity of the official Italian Pirate Party after an unrelated group began calling themselves the Pirate Party, using official Pirate Party logos, and generally causing trouble. According to the founder of the official Pirate Party, dark pro-copyright forces are at work.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) hasn’t received a whole lot of media attention yet, but it continues to pick up support from legislators. The bill is touted as being much worse than SOPA when it comes to privacy invasions. Just as SOPA put an emphasis on piracy, CISPA also appears to include [...]

Soon The Pirate Bay will stop linking to .torrent files. Instead, the world’s largest BitTorrent site will only list so-called magnet links. One of the advantages of the switch is that The Pirate Bay will be much more portable, and easier to copy. A new torrent listing all titles and magnet links on The Pirate Bay proves this point, as the public can download a copy that fits easily on a small USB stick – or even a few dozen floppies.

Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde has revealed that the words of an MPAA lawyer several years ago inspired the creation of the Missionary Church of Kopimism. The Church hit the headlines this week and was met largely by words of tolerance, but a Catholic bishop has just labeled it “farcical” since it has no God. Interestingly, Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge mulls the idea that ‘pirate’ communications may now be barred from evidence in court.