 Death and Taxes |
Church of Kopimism, a Pirate Bay project, now a religion under Swedish Law
Death and Taxes By DJ Pangburn 7 mins ago Kopimi, a file-sharing “church” organized last year by anonymous members of The Pirate Bay and The Pirate Party, has been granted official recognition under Swedish law as a religion by the Kammarkollegiet. … |
Popularity: 1% [?]
 SBS |
Sweden recognises file-sharing religion
SBS The country which gave the world the Pirate Bay and original Pirate Party, stored WikiLeaks data and took internet telephony mainstream (ie, Skype) has now officially recognised file-sharing as a religion. "Hopefully, this is one step towards the day … Is illegal file sharing a religion?The Week Magazine Sweden gives the nod to file-sharing "Kopimism" churchV3.co.uk (blog) File sharing is now an official religion in SwedenGeek Times of India -Washington Post all 299 news articles » |
Popularity: 1% [?]
Throughout the often hectic decade-long rise of mainstream file-sharing,many great characters have come to the forefront. There can be few digital news-consuming netizens to whom the founders of The Pirate Bay are complete strangers, and for those with a political slant, Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge is always captivating and thought provoking.
Today, TorrentFreak hands its now regular Sunday guest post slot to a man behind one of the Internet’s leading file-sharing sites. Indeed, one of the world’s biggest websites, period.
Breaking a silence of almost 10 years, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom tells us about his colorful history, the spark that ignited the Mega Song controversy, and offers to buy us all dinner if we can find a Wikipedia page more unflattering than his. Events of the past week seemed a logical place to start…..
“It was exciting producing the Mega Song and putting the video together. I enjoyed working with everyone involved and I can tell you I am hooked,” Kim told TorrentFreak.
“The song, the lyrics and the video took a lot of love and time to make. I learned that I can be creative and be good at it and I am looking forward to doing more creative work in the future,” Kim added.
But when the video was taken down and we were denied something which was rightfully ours it was like someone knifed me in the heart. Firstly, though, let me give you a little bit more background on this story….
I am now living in New Zealand and heard local singer Gin Wigmore’s voice on the radio there. I thought she would be perfect for the Mega Song. Some members of the Black Eyed Peas band and I were chilling in the studio and we decided to reach out to Gin and make her an offer to sing the Mega Song. She agreed, came to the studio in Auckland, and nailed the song in 3 takes.
Gin’s voice is special, she could be the next Amy Winehouse. She seemed excited too. At least that’s what she texted me after the recording session. She was hopeful that we got something we could work with. The following day I received a call from her manager telling me we couldn’t use Gin’s voice. Then we received letters from UMG lawyers threatening to sue us if we used her voice.
The content of the letters was really nasty and personal stuff. They were bothering me about things that happened almost 18 years ago when I was a juvenile. At that time I was active in the hacker scene. I got busted in 1997 for computer hacking and received a probation sentence a few years later. I then became a successful entrepreneur in the new economy selling data security solutions to Fortune 1000 companies.
My mistake was that I embraced the media and gave them the stories they wanted. Let’s just put this into the category ‘young and stupid’. I was giving them a glimpse into my exclusive lifestyle. For this openness I was turned into the scapegoat when the German new economy bubble popped in 2000. I was convicted for insider trading (actually saving a company and over 120 jobs) and got a probation sentence because the judge and prosecutor offered a deal to my lawyers.
Their case was a joke. Since when is the person that saves a company, pays the company money in exchange for shares and buys additional shares (for the same price) on the open market an insider trader? I took the deal and moved on with my life instead of spending the next few years in court rooms defending my innocence. You can’t imagine the rape party the German media had with me.
The Wikipedia page about me is the best account of how long-lasting these effects still are today. Find me a Wikipedia profile of a person that is worse than mine and I will buy you dinner. For your information my criminal record has been cleared under Germany’s clean slate legislation. Officially I can say I am without convictions.
I made mistakes when I was young and I paid the price. Steve Jobs was a hacker and Martha Stuart is doing well after her insider trading case. I think over a decade after all of this happened it should NOT be the dominating topic. I am 37 years old now, I am married, I have three adorable children with two more on the way (twin girls – yeah) and I know that I am not a bad person. I have grown and I have learned. Making this into an issue about my past is unfair to everyone else working at Mega.
The media went as far as finding my father, drunk and living in some garden shed, who I haven’t seen since I was 8 years old. He is an alcoholic who used to beat my mother and myself into hospital many times. And the press got him to complain in interviews that he only sees me on TV with my big Mercedes and that I never visit him. I decided to leave Germany after that and to start over in Asia, in Hong Kong to be precise.
Hong Kong, what an awesome place to do business and to host my new phantom persona. I should write a book about doing business in Hong Kong, that’s how good it is. People there leave you alone and they are happy for your success. But that’s a different story.
Fact is, UMG knew that there was going to be a Mega Song well in advance and they didn’t like the idea at all.
Let me be clear, I don’t blame Gin for any of this. Her label messed this up. Instead of getting Gin in front of a global audience in collaboration with A-list artists, she had to be removed from the song. We actually hired Macy Gray as a replacement and she did an amazing job. There is a good chance that Gin will remain just known to New Zealanders, which would be sad because she has an awesome voice. Google for “Gin Wigmore” and hear for yourself. I wish her the best.
So here we are excited to launch our song and video. The people at UMG see it on YouTube and they don’t hesitate to take it down. They took the video down making a copyright claim and abusing the DMCA take down process that was provided to them by YouTube. In an act of comedy they are trying to tell the court that this wasn’t a DMCA take down at all. It was some kind of magical take down that is not covered by any law. Apparently YouTube has given UMG a license to kill. These are the same people who call Mega “rogue” and want more powers so they can take down entire websites. How stupid do they think everyone is? Wake up UMG, you will not get away with this nonsense.
When UMG took down our video the message for everyone to see was this: “The Mega Song: Taken down by UMG for copyright infringement”. They must have known it’s not Gin Wigmore in the song because in the description below the video it clearly stated that Macy Gray performed the vocals together with me and Printz Board, who is by the way the one of the masterminds behind some of Black Eyed Peas’ smash hits.
You would expect that a label representing an artist knows how that artist sounds, no? I think what really happened is that UMG realized how powerful our message was, how potent it would become, and how positively it would affect Mega’s image. From rogue to vogue. They decided to stop us at all costs, that becomes clear when you see the defense strategy of UMG in court. They have nothing and they don’t even care.
UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations direct to consumers and allowing artists to keep 90% of earnings.
We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free. Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works. You can expect several Megabox announcements next year including exclusive deals with artists who are eager to depart from outdated business models.
You need to understand that some labels are run by arrogant and outdated dinosaurs who have been in business for 1000 years. These guys think an iPad is a facial treatment, the Internet is the devil, and wired phones are still hip. They are in denial about the new realities and opportunities. They don’t understand that the rip-off days are over. Artists are more educated than ever about how they are getting ripped off and how the big labels only look after themselves.
Dinosaur labels don’t have the answers to today’s new realities. UMG chose to willfully sabotage our campaign instead of analyzing the situation and seeing that the answers to all their problems are right in front of them.
In parallel UMG were calling up all the artists who endorsed us telling them that they are endorsing piracy. That they are working with a convicted felon. That they are losing money because of us. They are trying to force the artists to issue statements against their endorsements and agreements. They are burning their own talents. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them fold under this enormous pressure.
I have been on the phone with artists since the shit hit the fan last week and it’s a roller coaster. But we are prepared. I made sure that we are legally covered and that every artist signed a broad release agreement with Mega. Most of the artists we worked with have been in this business long enough to know what’s going on. They can’t wait to gain creative freedom and become the masters of their own careers.
When one of the top artists endorsing Mega received a letter from the CEO of the RIAA with some active download links on Megaupload containing that artist’s music it was shocking at first. But in the same letter it was described how those links were found with a Google search. Giving Mega a hard time when we don’t even provide a search feature on Megaupload? It’s bizarre. And at the same time you find the world’s largest piracy index on Google and most other search engines. But hey, these guys are not rogue. They are just rich.
Mega has nothing to fear. Our business is legitimate and protected by the DMCA and similar laws around the world. We work with the best lawyers and play by the rules. We take our legal obligations seriously. Mega’s war chest is full and we have strong supporters backing us. We have been online for 7 years and we are here to stay, so no need to worry about us.
But you should be worried that these guys might be successful with SOPA or PIPA or any other legal tool for Internet dictatorship.
They are buying politicians to go against the people, freedom and innovation. They want to censor the Internet and bring innovation to a standstill by having their rip-off monopoly protected by Washington. They want to intimidate innovators and take all of us back in time.
But I am telling you, these guys should soon be history, just like cheap oil, because they underestimate the power of the people, the power of the Internet and the power of innovation. To stop them you need to get moving. As you read this the payroll politicians of the MPAA and RIAA are trying to take control of your Internet.
Show your government what you think about all of this. Because if you don’t you will regret it.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Kim Dotcom (yes that’s my real name).
Source: From Rogue To Vogue: Megaupload and Kim Dotcom
Popularity: 1% [?]
It’s almost six years since Rick Falkvinge decided to enter politics and found the first Pirate Party in Sweden.
The Party quickly gained the interest of the mainstream media and at the Swedish general elections in the same year it became the third largest party outside parliament. Inspired by this success, Pirate parties were founded in dozens of other countries.
Earlier this year, Falkvinge stepped down as party leader to focus more on promoting the Pirate position internationally. Aside from sharing his thoughts on conferences and his blog, he also spreads his ideas on copyright in bi-weekly columns on TorrentFreak.
No longer bound by political shackles, resignation allowed Falkvinge to spread the word on a global podium. And not without result.
Today Falkvinge was honored by the high-level politics magazine Foreign Policy by earning a spot in their prestigious list of Top 100 Global Thinkers. Alongside familiar names such as Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Clay Shirky, Ron Paul and Hilary Clinton, the Pirate Party founder was recognized for inspiring millions of people worldwide.
“Indeed, 2011 may be remembered as the year Falkvinge’s big idea broke through into the public consciousness,” Foreign Policy writes. “His Pirates still aren’t exactly mainstream, but the issues they focus on — government transparency, Internet privacy, and copyright law — are very much in the zeitgeist, and their ranks are growing.”
“The Swedish and Swiss Pirate parties have aided WikiLeaks, offering the controversial site server space and web hosting; a self-described Pirate Party activist was named secretary of youth and sports in Tunisia’s revolutionary cabinet; and in September, the Pirates won a shocking 8.9 percent of the vote in Berlin’s state elections,” it adds.
Needless to say, Falkvinge is honored with his spot in Foreign Policy’s prestigious list, something he certainly didn’t expect when he founded the first Pirate Party in 2006.
“I never thought the ideas would gain ground this quickly,” Falkvinge tells TorrentFreak in a comment.
“I had expected a Pirate Party success in Sweden to be necessary just for the second Pirate Party to form in another country. Instead, we are seeing them grow like wildfire, and now, be recognized at the highest levels,” he adds.
Indeed, Pirate Parties all over the world are gaining momentum. In the European Parliament Amelia Andersdotter is about to become the second Pirate MEP, and in Germany the party is riding the wave of success after it earned 15 seats in the Berlin State Parliament elections.
Quite an accomplishment for such a young movement that was built by a group of volunteers who shared the same ideals, and it might be just the beginning.
Source: Pirate Party Founder In Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers
Popularity: unranked [?]
In June 2009 the Swedish Pirate Party gained an impressive victory in the European Parliament elections. With 7% of the vote, the party earned a seat in the European Parliament, with the possibility for a second if the Lisbon Treaty passed.
The treaty eventually passed a few months later, but due to the slow bureaucratic process it would take another two years before this seat could be filled. All this time Amelia Andersdotter had to wait patiently to enter parliament and represent the people who voted her in.
However, now that all member states have signed off on it, Andersdotter and 17 other new members are expected to take their seats next month.
Representing one of the youngest parties in Europe, the second Pirate MEP is about to set a fitting record. When elected Andersdotter was only 21, but the now 24-year-old will still be the youngest member to hold a seat in the current parliament.
“Not having to answer more questions about when I will finally get to fill my seat is what I’m looking forward to most,” Andersdotter tells TorrentFreak. “It feels really good that the when-question is over.”
Andersdotter is a supporter of a united Europe, and hopes that the Pirate Party can help to shape policy in which culture, creativity and innovation will flourish.
“I kind of buy into this idea that the European Union is a good thing, and that closer connections between European nations both political and social are advantageous not only on the level of the prices of groceries, but perhaps even more, culturally.”
“It’s nice to be able to say democratisation of EU governance is moving forward, that individual member states aren’t stalling that democratisation for their own nationalist purposes any more,” Andersdotter tells us.
The unitedness is also one of the downsides. As her delayed appointment illustrates, it can be very hard sometimes to actually get things done in Europe.
“What I’m not looking forward to as much is perhaps the fear that I will realise most of EU governance is actually a battle between various national interests, rather than one interest in having a good, strong European Union. But it’s difficult of course. ”
“The EU is a big place, and one reason people feel closest to ‘their’ member state is because they know most things about it. I remember the first time I was in Belgium a few years ago and the prime minister resigned and I thought ‘oh no!’ but another Belgian just said to me ‘again?’ with a deep sigh.”
For the remainder of her term as MEP, which end in 2014, Andersdotter will focus on issues like competition in the telecommunication area.
“European approaches to competition law need to be changed, at least a bit. Better sector adaptation, for instance. The lack of real control over vertical integration creates the situation where telcos (or media enterprises) own everything from the backbone cables to the music streaming service – that’s not good. One would at least expect some obligation to keep the different tiers apart,” Andersdotter says.
“Currently this type of bundling is, more worryingly, encouraged rather than regulated and it creates a very unfair balance between the infrastructure owners (in this case) and users. Competition law just now deals mostly with horizontal integration, which would be say, if one company owns all of the cable in northern Belgium (Telenet).”
Andersdotter points out that the telecommunications sector has some good sector specific laws already, the net neutrality law in the Netherlands being a prime example. The problem is, however, to get all member stats to adopt these regulations.
“Maybe European Parliament or the European institutions need better tools to make sure member states follow their community obligations,” Andersdotter notes.
Aside from defending the public from unfair competition, the future Member of Parliament will also tackle the various rights issues that are so dear to the Pirate Party.
“I’m also very interested in industrial rights, like, patent rights or design rights, trademarks. There’s an abundance of kind of side-initiatives, data exclusivity in the pharmaceutical industry being a good example, that also reinforce the ‘non-material’ economic position of companies in a way that is not always good for society,” she says.
“One issue that I know the EU deals with a lot in all areas, and that we don’t really think much about at all in terms of industrial property, is certification – what is a certification worth, how are they generated (produced) and traded, by whom? Between whom?”
Andersdotter further hopes that the Pirate Party presence in the European Parliament will be followed by strong representation in national parliaments.
“It’s important for the PP to be represented everywhere, I guess. One of my hopes for the future is that the PP will be represented in all the national parliaments of member states so that we can hold member states kind of accountable more for what happens in the EU.”
“I find it antagonizing that member states and their politicians try to avoid responsibility for their own failures by blaming the EU, but mostly how successful they are in doing so,” Andersdotter tells us.
“When national parliaments have been saying that they can’t do anything about ACTA, activists and media just kind of happily accept. What national parliaments could do, and should do, is obviously tell their national governments not to sign the agreements. That is and would be within their power,” she adds.
Thus far none of the Pirate parties has managed to score a seat in the national parliament through elections, but the recent outcome of the German State elections shows that the possibilities are there. Political change is slow, but things are moving in the right direction for the Pirate Party.
In the European Parliament the seat of Amelia Andersdotter will double the representation of the Pirate Party in Europe’s highest political arena, something the 5-years-young party can be proud of.
Source: Pirate To Join European Parliament As Youngest Member
Popularity: unranked [?]
Soon after Sweden’s controversial IPRED legislation became law in 2009, five book publishers coordinated by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån handed a request for information to a local court.
This first test of IPRED was designed to get the personal identifying details of a subscriber who allegedly stored more than 2000 audio books on his server, 27 of which breached the publishers’ copyrights.
In June 2009 the court ordered ISP ePhone to hand over the personal details of the individual. However, ePhone protested and took the case to the court of appeal which overturned the decision and sent the case to the Supreme Court.
So could IPRED, the law created to enable copyright holders to more easily chase down copyright infringers, be used for its intended purpose? Sweden’s Supreme Court said that only the European Court of Justice could decide. Yesterday, Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen gave his advice on the matter and it was a victory for privacy which could deliver a fatal blow to IPRED, but one to which Internet service providers hold the key.
Jääskinen’s statement concluded that while no EU Directive exists which prevents copyright owners requesting personal information on file-sharers from ISPs under IPRED, the data being stored by ISPs must have originally been stored for the purpose in order to be subsequently released.
“It is a victory for freedom. Although it is difficult to interpret, it is very good news,” says Christian Engstrom, MEP for the Pirate Party. “Internet service providers collect customer data to manage their operations, not to bust suspected file sharers as the copyright mafia want them to do.”
But speaking with Expressen, pro-copyright advocate Per Strömbäck says that the Supreme Court asked the ECJ only one question – Is there any conflict between the EU data retention directive and the Swedish IPRED-law? – and the response to that was a clear “no”. Further discussion on the reasons why data was originally stored was an error by the Advocate General, he believes.
Pirate Party’s Engstrom says the advice by the Advocate will mean that it will still be OK for the ISPs to disclose information to police and prosecutors in criminal cases, just not to private companies, adding that “the justice system has more important things to do than to track down teenagers who listen to music.”
Indeed, ePhone’s original objection to IPRED was that it would give surveillance powers to private companies where that should be an issue for the police, so they will be pleased with the advice. Needless to say, ePhone did not store customer information for the purposes of handing it over to Antipiratbyrån.
But for now, as the advice from the Advocate General is digested by the ECJ before heading back to Sweden’s Supreme Court, increasingly Antipiratbyrån are doing just fine without help from IPRED. By conducting their activities alongside the police – who already have the necessary powers to get information from ISPs – they are getting the information they want anyway, just in other ways.
Source: EU Advocate General Anti-Piracy Advice “A Victory For Freedom”
Popularity: 1% [?]
Running from the 3rd to 6th November, Gamex is Sweden’s biggest gaming show. All the big names in interactive entertainment are there showing off their wares, including giants such as Activision, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Nintendo.
One group that will not be there, however, are the Swedish Pirate Party.
“The Pirate Party would have been in place inside the show, but now we will not be,” says Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg. “We are simply no longer welcome.”
Troberg says that after the sales people from the exhibition pursued the party for months to participate, they decided to book and pay for a booth. Not only that, the party also agreed to a package of advertising and hotel rooms.
As can be seen from the photograph below of pre-event billboard advertising, everything was in place for the party to participate.
But earlier this week, just before the event was due to start, the Pirate Party received some surprise news.
“On Tuesday afternoon, I called a representative of the show with a few simple practical questions, but she seemed generally stressed out and said something vague about the show and not wanting any problems before she hung up,” says Troberg.
“I thought it was a bit strange, but in the afternoon, the pieces fell into place when the fair manager, Bear Wengse, phoned me and kindly, but firmly, announced that the Pirate Party was no longer welcome at the fair.”
Wengse informed Troberg that the exhibition is a meeting place and not a venue for political conflict and the party’s presence could cause problems, particularly since some of their work “could be perceived as criminal.”
Troberg countered that as a political party they only want to change certain laws democratically, and that can not be considered a crime. Nevertheless, the ban stood.
There isn’t a complete ban on politics at the event, though. The Swedish Social Democratic Youth League (SSU) are being allowed to appear – even though they too support the decriminalization of non-commercial file sharing.
However, the SSU probably fly a little more easily under the radars of some of the more prominent entertainment industry exhibitors at Gamex – Warner, Sony and Disney as prime examples. There’s no proof that these companies objected to the Pirate Party’s presence, but the party’s support for their arch-enemy – The Pirate Bay – won’t have gone unnoticed.
Nevertheless, Troberg is upbeat. She extended thanks to the forces behind the party’s exclusion, the net result of which was more exposure for the party than they would have otherwise achieved at the exhibition, and at much less expense.
Visitors to the show wanting to show their support for the party weren’t disappointed, though. Yesterday the party’s Young Pirate division were outside the event, handing out free T-shirts to be worn inside.
“I find it absolutely hilarious that a gaming fair banned the Pirate Party on the official pretext that ‘our culture is harmful to gaming’,” Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party, told TorrentFreak.
“A decade down the road, people will just shake their heads at that. What else can you do, really?”
Source: Too Controversial: Pirate Party Banned From Gaming Exhibition
Popularity: 1% [?]
Last month, a Swedish court heard the case against a woman accused of sharing 45,000 music tracks online. No other personal file-sharing case in the country had ever considered so many alleged infringements.
The case dated back to the 58-year-old’s alleged actions in 2007, although it took a full year after IFPI’s investigation for her house to be visited by authorities. During the search a Direct Connect client was found installed on a computer, complete with logs which were later shown to contain entries backing up IFPI’s investigation.
Prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad said that the defendant was guilty of sharing the tracks either deliberately or through criminal negligence.
The main point in the case from the defense, that the 58-year-old did not have the technical knowledge to understand that uploading as well as downloading was being carried out, failed to convince the court of the woman’s innocence, not least because she holds down the job of a systems administrator.
Yesterday the court found the northern Stockholm resident guilty of copyright infringement. She was sentenced to probation and an income-based fine equivalent to 50 days pay – 16,000 kronor, around $2,500.
Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge previously told TorrentFreak that due to the large amount of music being shared in this case, he feared that the prosecution and copyright holders would take the opportunity to up the levels of punishment handed out to file-sharers in future cases.
But in the event, considering the volumes involved the punishment is lower than in a case heard earlier this year when a 26 year-old was found guilty of sharing just 44 tracks but was fined 13,000 kronor, around $2,000.
Nevertheless, Rick is not happy – any fine is too much – and the fact that the defendant also has to pay for her public defender really bothers him
“I attended the trial. You could really see the entitlement in the prosecutor’s eyes; this was just an open-and-shut case,” he told TorrentFreak this morning.
“I find it staggering that the establishment can be so oblivious to the fact that this entire structure is disappearing, and judge honest people who share culture — as if that was something bad — without a second thought. We need to change these laws. The establishment is not going to do it for us.”
Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg is equally disappointed with the verdict.
“This case doesn’t have a victim of crime,” Troberg adds. “It has a victim of law.”
Source: Guilty Verdict in Record-Breaking Swedish File-Sharing Case
Popularity: unranked [?]
With the historic win in the Berlin state parliament elections just four weeks behind us, the German Pirate Party continues to gain momentum.
Recent polls for the federal elections show that the Pirate Party is now polling double digits across the country. With 10 percent of the total vote, the Pirates would become the third largest party in the country if federal elections were being held this week.
This means that the good run in Berlin, where nearly 9 percent of the people voted for The Pirate Party, hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the country. On the contrary, support for the Pirates only increased.
Perhaps even more impressively, it also shows that the party nearly quintupled their voter base since the last federal elections two years ago. With 845,904 votes at the 2009 federal elections, the Pirate Party got stuck at 2 percent of the vote, where 5 percent was needed to enter the Bundestag.
“This is a landmark event,” godfather and founder of Pirate Party movement Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak commenting on the news. “Getting to mainstream awareness takes metric tons of work. Getting to 10% in a poll is an achievement that only some five parties achieve per country in an entire century.”
In common with all other Pirate Parties across the world, the German Pirate Party’s policy focuses around three pillars; shared culture, free knowledge, and fundamental privacy. Based on the recent election and poll results, these key points appeal to a wide audience.
Although the results of the polls are promising, there is still a long way to go before new federal elections are held in Germany. The difficult task for the Pirates is to keep the momentum going. However, Rick Falkvinge thinks that this week’s poll results are a clear sign that they are on course.
“This isn’t an election result, but it is still something that starts to shift policy making away from neomercantilistic monopolies and toward the free exchange of TICKS (tools, ideas, culture, knowledge, and sentiments) that build the next generation of industries. That’s good for every country and for the youth in particular.”
Despite being just five years young, the German Pirate Party has already booked several successes. The party currently has more than 150 members in elected offices across Germany and with their recent surge in popularity this appears to be just the beginning.
Source: German Pirate Party Riding the Wave of Success
Popularity: unranked [?]
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Record-Breaking File-Sharing Trial Heard in Sweden
TorrentFreak Even in the home of The Pirate Bay the sheer scale is a record-breaker, and the prosecution has already hinted at a jail sentence. The defense, however, will be hoping for a much better outcome. Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge was there to see it … |
Popularity: unranked [?]
