TorrentFreak

Pirate Parties are gaining momentum around the world. In Germany and Austria Pirates have good chance of entering the national parliament in the next election, and in the UK things are picking up steam as well. In this weeks local elections Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye picked up 5% of the vote, beating the Lib [...]

Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom and the Pirate movement’s founder Rick Falkvinge presented their views on copyright reform to the European Parliament this week. The Pirates want to bust the myth that their ideas only center around legalizing file-sharing and offer what they see as sensible alternatives to draconian legislation such as ACTA and SOPA.

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.

Next month, the 2012 Pirate Parties International conference gets underway in Prague, Czech Republic. The event, held on the weekend of April 14th and 15th, will feature speeches from Amelia Andersdotter, Swedish Pirate Party’s Member of the European Parliament, and Laurence Vandewalle, Policy advisor on telecommunications and free culture from Greens/EFA Group in the European [...]

As citizens in Massachusetts go to the polls today to vote in the Republican primary, there is one party hoping to scoop some votes – the Massachusetts Pirate Party. Founded almost exactly a year ago, it is hoping people will ignore the pageantry of the primary, or the speeches of their former Governor, Mitt Romney, [...]

Sweden’s second largest torrent site has shut down its operations with immediate effect following threats from Antipiratbyrån. In closing, the site – which appeared in Google’s 2010 Zeitgeist report – bemoaned the “fascist tendencies” of the entertainment industries. Meanwhile, Sweden’s Pirate Party is celebrating the influx of hundreds of new members as a direct result of the closure.