Europe’s Second Pirate MP Still Not in Office

Ben Jones
January 15, 2010
56
Amelia Andersdotter,
european_elections,
piratpartiet
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The Pirate Party may have won two seats in last June’s European Parliament elections, but it’s hard to see that in practice. Despite the Lisbon Treaty going into effect just over 6 weeks ago, there is still no news of when Piratpartiet may fill their second seat.

Back in June 2009, the Swedish Pirate Party (or Piratpartiet) gained an impressive victory in the European Parliament elections, with 7% of the votes. This got them a seat in the European Parliament, with the possibility for a second if the Lisbon Treaty passed.

The treaty was eventually passed in early November and became effective December 1st 2009.

While one of the positions created by the treaty – that of the President – was filled immediately and set to work, the same can’t be said of the elected representatives in the European Parliament. To date, there has been no information on when the new elected representatives, from all around Europe will take office.

Piratpartiet’s (sole) MEP, Christian Engstrom, is not happy with the way things are being handled.

“Personally I find it difficult to understand why they can put the unelected president in office from day one, but don’t even have a plan for how to get the elected representatives of the people there,” Engstrom told TorrentFreak.

When the Pirate Party’s representative-in-waiting – 22 year old Amelia Andersdotter – and the 17 other new Parliament members will be seated is anyone’s guess. It is particularly pressing for the small parties like Piratpartiet though, where the second seat will help increase funding and enable the parties to function better.

What effect this snubbing will have in the next round of elections is unclear, but it is unlikely to hurt the Pirate Party in countries such as the UK and Sweden during this year’s national elections. On the contrary, it may even increase support in protest.

Meanwhile, requests for information from the EU on when the MEPs will be seated, have so far gone unanswered.

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http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

Makes me proud to have voted for them in this landmark election.
GuyFawkes

Gogogo Pirate Partys

I´ve met Amelia last year, she´s really great. She was very prestative with us. I´m glad for their work
Stefing

We’ve had an unelected Prime Minister and Business Secretary / Piracy Tzar in the UK for years and that’s worked out just fine.
Oh, hang on a minute…
ytb

damn Eunies
sense

The Pirate Party brands us file sharers as pirates.

This is unhelpfull at best.
Of course there is irony in the name but that is unseen by the media.

WE ARE NOT PIRATES.

We share between ourselves. We don’t make money from it. We do not PIRATE.

Change your name or disappear pirate party.
sense

The media industry brands us as pirates.

So we should accept that label ?
———————————————-

IT IS GOOD TO SHARE.

The FileShare Party !
Anonymous

Nobody would interview or talk about “the fileshare party”.

Name has to be catchy enough to notice.
sense

The piratebay is just as bad.

The name gives the impression that people who share on that site are all pirates.

piracy : the crime of making and selling illegal copies.

The media industry has TRIED to change the meaning of this word. ( succes in a few countries )

Let’s see them try to change the meaning of the word , SHARE.
BIOS

While I agree with #5, Pirate Party is the only name controversial enough to get attention. It has kind of an intimidation factor.

I like it ;)
sense

@7… ????

So…… If the media industry FINES/takes to court PIRATES ? ? ?

The public/media say what ? let them hang !

If the media industry FINES/takes to court SHARERS ? ? ?

The public/media say . . they are only sharing.

Grow a brain and think things through , as many steps ahead as possible !
Using the word “pirate” ( agreed ) will give instant publicity. However in the long term will hurt every filesharer.
The issue is about more than a few torrent sites… OUR privacy is at stake. Our RIGHT to share whatever file we want. Our RIGHT to say whatever we want.

The branding “pirate” is dangerous.

just like the branding …
” axis of Evil ”
” war on Terror ”
” terrorism ”

WHAT RIGHTS HAVE WE ALL LOST BECAUSE OF THIS VERY CLEVER BRANDING ?

Please : THINK it through.
o rly

Its advisable not to use the term ‘piracy’ to convey unauthorised copying. As gnu.org points out :

“”Publishers often refer to copying they don’t approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. Based on such propaganda, they have procured laws in most of the world to forbid copying in most (or sometimes all) circumstances. (They are still pressuring to make these prohibitions more complete.)

If you don’t believe that copying not approved by the publisher is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word “piracy” to describe it. Neutral terms such as “unauthorized copying” (or “prohibited copying” for the situation where it is illegal) are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as “sharing information with your neighbor.””"
Mikael Nilsson

Ah, the “sharing information with your neighbor”-party. Me like!
hmmm

Totally agree with “sense”.

“Pirate party” sounds like guys with miniguns getting elected to legitimate armed robery. Makes no sense at all.

Yes it’s a catchy name. As catchy as damaging to the non-profit filesharing cause.
Ace Hall

How about “The Freedom Party”?

Freedom from internet censorship/oppression.
Freedom of internet access for all.
Freedom from copyright tyranny.
Freedom from corporate control.
Freedom to have anonymity.
Afficanado

Everybody likes to party, including pirates.
Afficanado

And, there’s nothing wrong with reclaiming a negative term and using it to your advantage.
Anonymous

@16

+1

I personally have no problem with “Pirate Party.”
Al

Don’t just blame Comcast. The main blame should go to the law firm that brought this class action suit and agreed to the settlement. They don’t care. They got paid for helping who?
The lawyers win again. :(
Al

Sorry, wrong place for this rant.
anonymous

We’re all branded as pirates, might as well use the term.
merethan

[quote]The piratebay is just as bad.

The name gives the impression that people who share on that site are all pirates.

piracy : the crime of making and selling illegal copies.[/quote]

Yeah, and how copying could ever be illegal is where this is all about. In other words: The meaning our society has given to the word “pirate” makes no sense. As is what has become “illegal” completely nuts these days.
merethan

I think “pirate” is a word of the same kind as “terrorist”. It means little more than “enemy of the establishment”.

Like “terrorists” today, in the good old sea piracy day’s the “pirates” were also monsters which were all bad to the bone and had to be extinguished by any means necessary.

Propaganda is not just a recent phenomenon.
FrankV

That can’t be a coincidence!
gorehound

We could use the Pirate Parety here in the US.I bet a lot of you from here are sick of the same old Democrat/Republican crud.And how many of them really care about us ???
Paolo

The point of the article is not about the name of a party, but about the SHAME that a lawfully elected people representative is prevented to make the job she is entitled to do by democratic will.

For the less important part…
All the messages about the rebuttal of the word piracy/pirate show a deep lack of understanding society. The word “pirate”, when applied to the digital world, has acquired such a positive meaning that major labels and antipiracy federations suggest their PR people to stop using the word and to revert instead to “thieves”, “terrorists”, “cyberterrorists”, and/or to use the word “pedophile” as near as possible to “digital thievery”, preferably in the same sentence.

European Commissioner Reding, in a very famous speech last year, officially stated that pirates are perceived as sexy.

So, changing name from “Pirate Party” would be a catastrophic mistake, nowadays.
http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

@16, exactly!

Here’s an example (old post on our site):
http://ezee.se/articles-blog/2008/07/11/pirates-the-new-niggers/
F.Y.i

“Oink creator cleared of charge”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iQdGjKxv2Ea9qoDPQctpYenbBsEg

“A man accused of running one of the world’s largest music sharing websites has been acquitted of conspiracy to defraud.”
Afficanado

23

I think “pirate” is a word of the same kind as “terrorist”. It means little more than “enemy of the establishment”.

Heh heh, you say terrorist, I say freedom fighter.
Ben Ben

For anyone who thinks the name Pirate Party turns heads more easily, why don’t we call ourselves the Rapists Party. Take something that’s not yours have fun with it and then either “delete” it or pass it around. It makes since right and I am sure more people will pay attention to us then.

We are neither Coca-Cola nor Batman. This is not about advertisement and sounding cool, we have right on our site and all it takes for us to accomplish the change of these outdated copyright laws is to spread the knowledge.

Freedom Party, The Community, “Sharing Information With Your Neighbor” Party, The FileShare Party,
“We Like To” Party, whatever, it has to be something positive.
Afficanado

@27

Whoot!
http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

@27

Whoot! Whoot!

Another win for you and me… and a big loss for the sh!t-eaters!

Thanks for the link!
Afficanado

@26

Read your article, can’t say I agree with it. A better anology might be that coloured was an acceptable term, whilst black was considered insulting. Black power turned that around- Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.

Queer has also been reclaimed.
Afficianado

‘kin hell, someone’s stolen one of my eyes.
Anonymous

@28
“Heh heh, you say terrorist, I say freedom fighter.”

I call idiot.

Eitherway; politics is cash, go figure.
Afficianado

@28
“Heh heh, you say terrorist, I say freedom fighter.”

I call idiot.

Call yourself what you like mate, just try and get it grammatically correct.
streaky

I often meet a lot of people from around Europe, and they ask me why we hate the EU here.

it’s this kind of thing that gets up people’s noses.

Massively expensive, paid for by basically us and Germany – they they spend months pulling this shit rather than getting work done.
Thierry

Just to clarify a mistake you made in your article: the Treaty of Lisbon did not create the position of a President, nor is there a President of the EU. The President of the European Council merely became a more permanent position than the previous six month rotation between the leaders of the members states.
Thierry

@36

What country are you from? I agree that the EU is utterly corrupt and more things have gone wrong than right. But there is NOT one country who pays for it all. And there would be a lot of evil in Europe without the Union (the stop&search here in the UK for example has just been ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights). And apart from the UK which is incredibly paranoid and checks its borders more heavily than any other country in Europe (what is it with machine guns in British airports?!), the Union also made it a lot easier to travel around. And if British banks would finally get off their arses and modernise their system by upgrading it completely to IBAN and SWIFT, financial transactions would also be a lot quicker and easier.
Afficianado

39

@36

Eh?
HappyPirate

Fight the good fight!
Ninja

Seriously, pirate or piracy is just a label/brand. A brand that now makes MAFIAA and merry friends shake in fear for their futures.

While I do agree that real pirates are evil I’d say that branding file sharers pirates does quite the opposite, it softens the meaning of the real thing…

In any case, go watch One Piece. Or even Pirates of the Caribbean… It’s all about the ‘good’ pirate ;D

I don’t mind being labeled pirate is this means I’m threatening the ones that created this label and if those ones are the wrong part. I really don’t mind.

Let us sink the MAFIAA fleet and break their shipyards har har har! Or they might join us and evolve… Nah, impossible lmao…
Cordelia

Well the success of the Pirate Party in the EU parliament elections got a lot of media coverage. Which was GOOD. Even if they achieve little, this opened up peoples eyes to what’s going on. Unless the MAFIAA backs off there will be even more Pirate votes in the next EU election.

Meanwhile I really appreciate what’s going on in Sweden, Spain, Germany (Zensursula) and Britain (lots of petitions to the PM). The HADOPI laws in France were a real disappointment.
Precedent Van Rompuy

Well, it is always easy to criticise the EU, much easier than reading the huge legal documents that detail their democratic system that has to scale to half a billion people and dozens of countries and languages.

The reality in this case is that the Treaty of Lisbon came into affect _after_ the European Parliament elections, which means that the current parliament should consist of MEPs elected under the old, pre-Lisbon distribution of seats.

In the interests of democracy, though, the EU are trying to work around this unforeseen restriction, by retrospectively changing the voting rules.

As an organisation which prizes the rule of law, this requires that all EU states must formally and unanimously agree to apply the new post-Lisbon allocation of seats, and once that happens, the second Pirate Party MEP will take her seat in the parliament.
Gussetsniffer

Sorry
Reasoned Mind

All your torrents are belong to us
http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com Ben Jones

@ 43
The Treaty of Lisbon isn’t new, it wasn’t created after the June elections. It was all but passed in most countries before those elections. Only Ireland (I believe) and the Czech Republic were left to ratify it. With that in mind, there were provisions made for it comming into force, including the notification of these new Lisbon seats for the 18 new members, and also that the 3 seats Germany will lose will stay for now.

The method of election is PR, not FPTP, so holding an elcetion now for the odd one or two gained seats wouldn’t work, and is unneccesary due to the way proportional representation is done. In Sweden’s case, you just continue to allocate seats until the new number is reached. That’s how come we knew last summer who had the ‘Lisbon Seats’, if the treaty passed.
Anonymous

Amelia Andersdotter is so immature. I met her at Dreamhack and I don’t think she will do well in the European Parlament unfortunately.
FreeSCV

Well I can understand the demonizing of the “evil pirates” who for whatever reason feel it’s alright (it is) to download material they find online for the 100/month they pay to an ISP.

They’ve already paid 1200/year for all you can eat Internet (unlimited) only to say fat people aren’t welcome (throttling, capping, etc)

Pirate Party, I wish you the best.

But like how Napster went viral, turning into web based bit torrent tech spawning thousands of p2p websites instead of a single point of failure (one Napster server shut down = death of music sharing)

…the same shall most likely be true for NEW political parties.

I’d rather vote an Open Source party, transparent /w all they do for their representatives as the main platform, fixing copywrong is 1 out of 100 MAIN topics needing reform/upgrades.

I push for daily voting on my 15 dollar Linux tribute website:
http://www.opensourceg.com

Voting every 5 YEARS is not enough.
Voting alongside our “leaders” will give VALUABLE stats for future elections.

Like Napster, the power should be distributed more, say to 7 billion people instead of 300ish American senators.

Also guests, visitors, and illegal Mexican workers should also have an online vote to shape policy (imo). Should be counted even if separated for civil voting tallies.

http://www.opensourceg.com
Sure as hell worked for Linux! :)
Haha

Why is this news?
The concept of EU by itself is a joke!
AnarchyNow

Who gives a shit? Europe is a totalitarian dicatorship anyway, your petty pirate-party is not gonna change anything just like all the pretentious parties since 200 years. Euro-deputies are just a bunch of wankers with high salaries that do nothing but take the money and obey wall-street/beijing orders.
Eij

I read or heard somewhere that old day pirate ships often took better care of their crew, than the military ones. That they were always fighting and looting is a myth. Just like todays internet pirates.
Anonymous

@sense
nice try to split the supporters. keep it up, only muppets like you fall for that crap.
CaptainScurvyFace

@Eij

That’s actually true in a way. When successfully raided a ship the wounded usually got more of the loot then the others in the crew. Kind of like an insurance. Pirates also had the first democracy, voting for a captain and quartermaster, that being the most capable according to the crew. A lot of the pirates (that being during 16th-18th century) were also former slaves (usually saved by pirates), merchants, crew from military vessels and privateers that got tired of the mistreatment from their superiors or the East India Company.

This is probably the reason they picked Pirate Party as a name. Standing for true democracy, share alike and treat each others fair (except for those looking for exploiting others. They’ll walk the plank). Not to plunder, rape, kill and cause mayhem wherever they go.

Anyway the EU is a joke. Laughing my ass off when someone praise it.
Arancaytar

What makes the name of the Pirate Party so apt is the sheer nonsensical nature of the epithet the media control group has given its enemies.

Real pirates attack ships and murder people at sea (still do). “Pirates” copy information. To label them thus is so ridiculous it is not even insulting. It’s laughable.

There is only one kind of pirate that is less ridiculous to compare the filesharers to, and that is the kind romanticized in movies today: Unruly, gutsy, egalitarian, anarchic, yet with the kind streak necessary for movie antiheroes. (Ironically, Disney showed this kind of pirate in a hopeless underdog struggle against a vast, tyrannical trade empire.) This pseudo-pirate, who does not harm a fly, who steals from the rich and whose greatest ambition is the freedom to sail into the sunset, is the closest “pirates” will get to filesharers.

There is no shame in taking an epithet your opponents have given you, reinterpreting and making it your own. Consider the donkey of the US democratic party.

Set the sails! Yarrrr!
anon

SG SUPPORTS YOU
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Europe’s Second Pirate MP Still Not in Office

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