TorrentFreak

The Swedish Pirate Party has failed to replicate last year’s massive victory in the European elections. The Party, which promised it would host Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay inside the Swedish Parliament if it was voted in, lost the majority of last year’s support and won’t reach the threshold that would allow it to enter Parliament.

The EU election last June was a surprise for many, as the Piratpartiet got a seat with over 7% of the votes. Then when the Lisbon Treaty passed and they were awarded a second seat in the European Parliament. However, it wasn’t without drawbacks as the second seat has yet to be filled. That may happen soon.

Today the Swedish Pirate Party has published its election manifesto for the upcoming elections that will take place in September. With more experience than during their first run in 2006, the Pirate Party hopes to secure several seats in Parliament by focusing on issues surrounding privacy, culture and knowledge. Foremost, non-commercial file-sharing should be legalized and encouraged.

The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in Sweden, are planning to shake up the country’s ISP market. After taking over the supply of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet will now partner in the launch of Pirate ISP, a new broadband service that will offer anonymity to customers and provide financial support to the Party.

After their former hosting provider received an injunction telling it to stop providing bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, the worlds most resilient BitTorrent site switched to a new ISP. That host, the Swedish Pirate Party, made a stand on principle. Now they aim to take things further by running the site from inside the Swedish Parliament.

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.

Teaching kids how to copy. Poster campaigns in schools, and a PirateBay for kids. The most brilliant idea’s are often generated at the dinner table. A quote from the Wired article about how piracy divides Sweden: Pirate Bay’s Peter is dining with a crew of pirates from all over Europe. Over tabbouleh and sausage, the [...]