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.'"

Comments

Wow....

[Mia'cova]

Wow. I honestly didn't think TPB broke any swedish laws. The name is cute but the site doesn't favor pirated content over legal content. I don't get it.

Re:Wow....

[cbiltcliffe]

As much as the DMCA sucks, I don't agree with your comment.

Slashdot wasn't responsible for what the commenter posted, otherwise the CoS would have been able to sue slashdot and win, regardless of whether the comment was taken down or not.

The fact that you have to comply with a DMCA takedown doesn't mean that you're responsible for the comment.
It means you're responsible for the comment, only if you ignore the takedown notice.

In practice, the comment is gone either way, so it doesn't make much difference to freedom of speech, but you aren't legally (read: financially) responsible.

Re:Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a supporter means that you're paying subs. Even if they can't be arsed to go out and do any campaigning they're making a difference by giving money plus they're likely to talk about issues that the party raises in their newsletters.

As someone who is a member of a minority party (in the UK) I'd be very happy if we got 3,000 fee paying members all of a sudden. That kind of money and mind-share is what can lead to electoral victory.

Re:Wow....

[Handlarn]

It has everything to do with linking people and information, since hyperlinking copyrighted material is not considered a crime in Sweden.

Until now, because torrents are technically not much more than a file with links.

Of course there's an outrage. Linking copyrighted material is LEGAL in Sweden. Hosting copyrighted material for unlawful distribution is illegal. It is obvious that The Pirate Bay have not been involved in the latter.

They got a one-year prison sentence and 30 million SEK in fines for something that is legal.

Re:Wow....

[Repossessed]

You are mostly correct. Mostly is the key word here, most DMCA notices are not legitimate. From an earlier /. article:

In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.

(yes that adds up to over 100%, there is overlap)

There is, mostly, no penalty for sending fake notices, so people do it all the time. There needs to be statutory damages for sending invalid claims even when the claim is in good faith, and even when no financial damage is done to the victim, to combat this. In cases where the claim is actively malicious, the perjury clause needs to be enforced.

nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[roman_mir]

so what we have here is a possibility that in the future a 'pirate' party controls the government maybe? Would Obama with his RIAA lawyer friends declare Sweden to be part of axis of evil and will actually bomb them to bring in the democracy US style (where only 2 parties are really allowed to hold the government in practice).

That bunker, that one of their ISP has may just come in handy.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Ralish]

You don't need to get into government to affect the political process; rather, you need enough seats to be able to have a significant impact on the likelihood of legislation getting through the parliament. I suspect this is what they are aiming for. I'm not sure what the composition is of the American parliament, for instance, but many countries have minor parties with significant representation.

For example, here in Australia the Greens have several seats in the Senate, enough in fact, that the Government can't pass legislation without their support (assuming they don't have the support of the opposition). This usually isn't a problem, as the Greens will generally go along with most of the government legislation. But, for certain pieces, for example, the government is forced to make concessions to appease the Greens if they wish to get the legislation through.

The point being, if you need the support of a party in order to get more controversial legislation through, you may well find you need to make concessions to other parties in areas that aren't core to your political ideology in order to advance your main cause. I suspect this is what The Pirate Party would like to achieve. No real aspirations for government, just enough representation to change the law in the areas they really care about.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Narpak]

Have you confused socialism with Soviet-style communism?

There seems to be a lot of that going around. People seem to wilfully ignore the fact that there are so many brands of socialism that it almost render the term meaningless. Saying or implying that it is absolutely inevitable that implementing some economical control or oversight will lead to a totalitarian regime.

Re:nuclear bunker may just come in handy

[Dun Malg]

I really hope that this Pirate party gets elected to power in Sweden and abolish the copyright laws. The economic chaos that would ensue and the ridicule that that country would be subjected to worldwide would hopefully make even the most pea brained anti-copyright wannabe crusader realize what a stupid and childish idea that is.

Actually, what's childish is your over-the-top strawman argument. If you'd bothered to check out their web site, you'd see that they're for copyright reform, not abolition. Go back and study your subject, ignorant child.

Re:The Thief Party

[erroneus]

So it is just fine that copyright, the agreement between "the people" and the creators (actually, the publishers who buy up the content for exclusive distribution and control), has been abused and distorted to the point that works that would be public domain have how completely fallen off the face of the earth? The notion of copyright has been completely twisted to become a control on all entertainment. That was NOT its intent. "The people" were not represented when these changes were imposed and "the people" will have to take it back. In the mean time, civil disobedience is what we are doing -- taking freely as we please in spite of bad law.

It's not stealing. That's why they use the word "infringement." Stealing is depriving others of their property. That isn't what is happening.

Difference with the US

[Richard W.M. Jones]

It's interesting the difference with the US. "Kids" in Sweden are engaging properly in the political process, forming a party and making (real) change happen. Rather than just rolling over and accepting the situation with "nothing we can do" and "who can we vote for, they're all the same".

Rich.

Re:Difference with the US

[h4rr4r]

Perhaps because the Swedes have a system that allows for multiple parties?
Our system insures third parties never get anywhere.

Re:The Thief Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you pay Time-Warner when you sing "Happy Birthday to you" in public,
or do you steal/pirate it?
Shame on you.