Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants to “fundamentally” reform copyright law and abolish the patent system, has won a seat in the European Parliament following recent elections.
The party took one of Sweden’s 18 seats in the European assembly after polling more than 7% of the popular vote with the vast majority of ballots across Sweden’s 5,659 constituencies having been counted by the morning of June 8.
Founded in 2006, the Pirate Party is unconnected with the operators of Pirate Bay. However, in a national election in 2006, the party polled just a fraction of the votes that it gained in the recent European Parliamentary elections, indicating what a large section of the population thought about that ruling, and the issue of copyright and IP rights in general.
According to its website, the Pirate Party wants to “fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected.”
The party says that similar initiatives are underway in other EU member states and the election result could act as a catalyst for other anti-IP movements seeking political representation.
“Not only do we think these are worthwhile goals. We also believe they are realistically achievable on a European basis,” the website states.
The Pirate Party wants to “restore balance” to copyright legislation by making all non-commercial copying completely free. File sharing and p2p networking, the party argues, should be “encouraged rather than criminalized.”
“Culture and knowledge are good things, that increase in value the more they are shared. The Internet could become the greatest public library ever created,” the party website states.
The party also proposes that copyright holders should only benefit exclusively from their work for a period of five years. “Today's copyright terms are simply absurd,” the party says. “Nobody needs to make money seventy years after he is dead.”
In addition, the party wants a complete ban on digital rights management technologies, and on contract clauses that aim to restrict the consumers' legal rights in this area. “There is no point in restoring balance and reason to the legislation, if at the same time we continue to allow the big media companies to both write and enforce their own arbitrary laws,” it contends.
The party also wants the patent system swept away to allow possibly life-saving pharmaceutical research to be shared with the scientific community and to cut the cost of public spending on medicines.
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