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Swedish Pirate Party Gains 3000 Members In 7 Hours
An anonymous reader writes "Due to outrage over the verdict in The Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than 7 hours. It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament. 'Ruling means that our political work must now be stepped up. We want to ensure that the Pirate Bay activities — to link people and information — is clearly lawful. And we want to do it for all people in Sweden, Europe and the world, continues Rick Falk Vinge. We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.'"
3000 MORE members, for a total of 17,799.
That bunker, that one of their ISP has may just come in handy.
Actually, that ISP is one of our best supporters and we have all of our Pirate Party servers in that bunker. ;-)
Money for nothing, pix for free
The elections for the European Parliament are on June 7.
That's what we're focusing all our efforts on right now. It's an entirely realistic goal, and we're planning to make it.
Vice Chairman Piratpartiet
Candidate for the European Parliament
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
There is a pirate party in the US. http://www.pirate-party.us/
Sweden has 10 million peoeple - 3000 isn't that many. This is like saying "Alaska's secessionist party has 150 more people because Palin lost!" To play a real part in politics they'll need at least 10x as many people.
I'm sure the three parties with less members will love to hear they're utterly insignificant, being in parliament and all. How many third parties are in the US Congress? Senate? Oh, right. Also, the actual figure as of this moment is over 5000 new members today alone. Let me now give you Swedens biggest parties by current memberships compared to percentage in last election.
Socialdemokraterna (s) 100639 members - 2006 elections: 1,942,625 votes - 34.99% - 130 seats
Moderaterna (m) 54858 members - 2006 elections: 1,456,014 votes - 26.23% - 97 seats
Centern (c) 47866 members - 2006 elections: 437,389 votes - 7.88% - 29 seats
Kristdemokraterna (kd) 22919 members - 2006 elections: 365,998 votes - 6.59% - 24 seats
Piratpartiet (pp) 19693 members - 2006 elections: 34,918 votes - 0.63% - 0 seats
Folkpartiet (fp) 17799 members - 2006 elections: 418,395 votes - 7.54% - 28 seats
Vänsterpartiet (v) 10700 members - 2006 elections: 324,722 votes - 5.85% - 22 seats
Miljöpartiet (mp) 9110 members - 2006 elections: 291,121 votes - 5.24% - 19 seats
I think you can safely say the Pirate Party will do a lot better election next year than 2006. Also this year in June it's election for EU parliament, where they also stand very good chances now.
Oh yeah, and did you know what is now Swedens biggest youth party?
Ung Pirat (up) 9400
Moderata ungdomsförbundet (muf) 9153
Sveriges socialdemokratiska ungdomsförbund (ssu) 5431
That's right, "Young Pirate" now has more members than the youth organization of Moderaterna and Socialdemokraterna - Swedens biggest parties. Yeah, politically insignificant. Right.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't know what universe you hail from, but most European countries are unarguably socialist to some degree and are doing pretty well for themselves. Have you confused socialism with Soviet-style communism?
Or perhaps you're just trolling and I've been caught.
I am just pointing out a mathematical fact. In our winner take all system even if a third party got 20% of the vote in every state they would get 0 representation.
FPTP is inherently flawed, and leads to people just voting for one of the two popular choices. In Sweden however, they use a system of proportional representation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_allocation
There are many different voting systems, all with different advantages and disadvantage, and almost all of them are far superior to FPTP that is sadly used in most countries.
My pet theory on that is that people want a simple choice, one or the other. When you give them a complex choice, they get frustrated.
I don't know if that's true or not, but the problem is that FPTP voting is inherently flawed with more than two choices. It's got nothing to do with the mindset of the voter.
For example, if I ask what people's favourite music is, and the poll options and results are:
* Electronic music : 35%
* Heavy metal : 25%
* Death metal : 20%
* Thrash metal : 20%
Then under FPTP, electronic music wins. But clearly, people favour metal to electronic by 65% to 35%! The problem is that if there are multiple similar options, the vote gets split between them.
There are many other kinds of flaws that can occur in different systems - e.g., take a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Criteria_in_evaluating_single_winner_voting_systems .
this was posted by Anonymous Coward at another site today but i thought it would fit nicely here. "As to predictions... Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1841, against the extension of copyright http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Copyright_Law_(Macaulay) Only quoting the ending, but the speech as a whole is a very good read "I am so sensible, Sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. If I saw, Sir, any probability that this bill could be so amended in the Committee that my objections might be removed, I would not divide the House in this stage. But I am so fully convinced that no alteration which would not seem insupportable to my honorable and learned friend, could render his measure supportable to me, that I must move, though with regret, that this bill be read a second time this day six months." S!
However while DMCA does handle one side of the equation it does not handle the wrongful use of DMCA notices taking down stuff that is legal. There are no anti-DMCA notices.
But there are - that's the whole point of DMCA take-down process! Here's how it works:
User X publishes some material using service provider P. Company Y sends P a DMCA take-down notice, claiming the ownership of said material. At this point P must take the materials down, or accept responsibility for copyright infringement (if Y can later prove in court that the material was indeed infringing).
You assume that it stops here, but in practice, it doesn't. Here's what follows.
When P takes down the materials, it notifies X. X can now in turn claim that claims put forward by Y are themselves wrong - and at that point P can put the content back online, without assuming responsibility (it now fully rests with X). Note, this is precisely your "anti-DMCA notice". If Y is willing to stick to their claim, they sue X, and then the court figures out who's wrong and who's right; if the court finds out that the material was indeed infringing, then P finally takes down the material for good, and X (but not P) pays out the damages to Y.
The reason why counterclaims are very rare in practice is because 1) most material removed under DMCA take-down notices is, indeed, infringing, and the poster knows it very well, so they don't challenge it, and 2) in remaining cases, if people are uncertain about the status, they are often afraid and/or don't have the money to go to court. #1 needs no further elaboration, while #2 is a deficiency with the American justice system in general, not with DMCA.
Aside from that, it's actually a very reasonable process that results in minimal headache for the service providers, gives content owners a quick way to remove content which is clearly illegal without going to the court for each and every case, and yet allows content posters to defend their rights in the court if they believe they are in the right.