Pirate Party

Pirate Party is a label adopted by various political parties worldwide that share a set of values and policies focused on civil rights in the digital age.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] The fundamental principles of Pirate Parties include copyright reform (dismantling copyright monopolies), patent reform, strengthening civil rights including government transparency, the right to privacy, anonymity, freedom of speech, secrecy of correspondence, the principle of subsidiarity, protection from arbitrary authority, and respect for the highest standards of democracy.^[8] The movement also advocates for freedom of information, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, digital rights, and internet freedom. The first Pirate Party (Swedish: Piratpartiet) was founded in Sweden in 2006 by Rick Falkvinge. Since then, the movement has expanded to over 60 countries.

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Pirate Party

Ideology	Pirate politics Civil libertarianism Anti-corruption E-democracy Direct and participatory democracy Anti-copyright (reform or abolition) Software and Internet freedom Anti-techno-authoritarianism (whether state-based or corporate) Antitrust^[1]^[2]^[3]

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Ideology

Pirate Parties strongly defend open-source, decentralized and privacy-enhancing technologies, including blockchain, cryptocurrencies as an alternative to state currency (fiat money), peer-to-peer networks, instant messaging with end-to-end encryption, virtual private networks, private and anonymous browsers, etc., considering them essential tools to protect personal data, individual privacy, and information security (both online and offline), against mass surveillance, data collection without consent, content censorship without due process, forced decryption, internet throttling or blocking, backdoor requirements in encryption, discriminatory algorithmic practices, unauthorized access to personal data, and the concentration of power in Big Tech.^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14] Ultimately, the protection of individual freedom stands at the core of their political agenda, seen as a bulwark against the growing power of corporations and governments in controlling information and digital autonomy. This aligns with the cyber-libertarian values and principles.^[15]

Rather than completely rejecting the traditional political spectrum left–right, Pirate Parties operate on a distinct political axis that political scientists might call authoritarian-anarchist or centralized-distributed in the digital and technological spheres. Therefore, they tend to combine libertarian and anarchist elements on digital issues with progressive (from the American point of view) positions on social issues,^[16] while most political pirates support antitrust, enhancement and protection of free market competition against anti-competitive measures, be them state or private.^[17]

History

The first Pirate Party to be established was the Pirate Party of Sweden (Swedish: Piratpartiet), whose website was launched on 1 January 2006 by Rick Falkvinge. Falkvinge was inspired to found the party after he found that Swedish politicians were generally unresponsive to Sweden's debate over changes to copyright law in 2005.^[18]

The United States Pirate Party was founded on 6 June 2006 by University of Georgia graduate student Brent Allison. The party's concerns were abolishing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, reducing the length of copyrights from 95 years after publication or 70 years after the author's death to 14 years, and the expiry of patents that do not result in significant progress after four years, as opposed to 20 years. However, Allison stepped down as leader three days after founding the party.^[19]

The Pirate Party of Austria (German: Piratenpartei Österreichs) was founded in July 2006 in the run-up to the 2006 Austrian legislative election by Florian Hufsky and Jürgen "Juxi" Leitner.^[20]

The Pirate Party of Finland was founded in 2008 and entered the official registry of Finnish political parties in 2009.

The Pirate Party of the Czech Republic (Czech: Česká pirátská strana) was founded on 19 April 2009 by Jiří Kadeřávek.

The 2009 European Parliament election took place between the 4 and 7 June 2009, and various Pirate Parties stood candidates. The most success happened in Sweden, where the Pirate Party of Sweden won 7.1% of the vote, and had Christian Engström elected as the first ever Pirate Party Member of European Parliament (MEP).^[21]^[22] Following the introduction of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Pirate Party of Sweden were afforded another MEP in 2011, that being Amelia Andersdotter.

On 30 July 2009, the Pirate Party UK was registered with the Electoral Commission. Its first party leader was Andrew Robinson, and its treasurer was Eric Priezkalns.^[23]^[24]^[25]

In April 2010, an international organisation to encourage cooperation and unity between Pirate Parties, Pirate Parties International, was founded in Belgium.^[26]

In the 2011 Berlin state election to the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, the Pirate Party of Berlin (a state chapter of Pirate Party Germany) won 8.9% of the vote, which corresponded to winning 15 seats.^[27]^[28] John Naughton, writing for The Guardian, argued that the Pirate Party of Berlin's success could not be replicated by the Pirate Party UK, as the UK does not use a proportional representation electoral system.^[29]

In the 2013 Icelandic parliamentary election, the Icelandic Pirate Party won 5.1% of the vote, returning three Pirate Party Members of Parliament. Those were Birgitta Jónsdóttir for the Southwest Constituency, Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson for Reykjavik Constituency North and Jón Þór Ólafsson for Reykjavik Constituency South.^[30]^[31] Birgitta had previously been an MP for the Citizens' Movement (from 2009 to 2013), representing Reykjavik Constituency South. As of 2015^[update], it was the largest political party in Iceland, with 23.9% of the vote.^[32]

The 2014 European Parliament election took place between 22 and 24 May. Felix Reda was at the top of the list for Pirate Party Germany, and was subsequently elected as the party received 1.5% of the vote. Other notable results include the Czech Pirate Party, who received 4.8% of the vote, meaning they were only 0.2% shy of getting elected, the Pirate Party of Luxembourg, who received 4.2% of the vote, and the Pirate Party of Sweden, who received 2.2% of the vote, but lost both their MEPs.^[33]

Reda had previously worked as an assistant in the office of former Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter.^[34] On 11 June 2014, Reda was elected vice-president of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament.^[35] Reda was given the job of copyright reform rapporteur.^[36]

In February 2015, the Pirate Party of Romania achieved a historic legal victory by successfully challenging the constitutionality of Romania's political party registration fundamental law. Starting the legal procedure in February 2014,^[37] the party demonstrated through an unconstitutionality procedure that a fundamental electoral law was unconstitutional. This led to the Constitutional Court of Romania changing the requirements for political party registration from a mandatory minimum of 25,000 signatures (with at least 250 signatures from a minimum of 17 counties) to only 3 founding members, a legislation that remains in effect today.^[38]^[39]^[40] Following this success, PPRO was automatically registered by its own constitutional change, marking it as one of the first political pirate parties in history to successfully change legislation without being part of Parliament. The Pirate Party of Romania had been attempting to register as a political party since June 2009, but was unable to do so due to Romania's strict party registration legislation.^[41]

The Icelandic Pirate Party was leading the national polls in March 2015, with 23.9%. The Independence Party polled 23.4%, only 0.5% behind the Pirate Party. According to the poll, the Pirate Party would win 16 seats in the Althing.^[42]^[43] In April 2016, in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal, polls showed the Icelandic Pirate Party at 43% and the Independence Party at 21.6%,^[44] although the Pirate Party eventually won 15% of the vote and 10 seats in the 29 October 2016 parliamentary election.

In April 2017, a group of students at University of California, Berkeley formed a Pirate Party to participate in the Associated Students of the University of California senate elections, winning the only third-party seat.^[45]

The Czech Pirate Party entered the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament for the first time after the election held on 20 and 21 October 2017, with 10.8% of the vote.

The Czech Pirate Party, after finishing in second place with 17.1% of the vote in the 2018 Prague municipal election held on 5 and 6 October 2018, formed a coalition with Prague Together and United Forces for Prague (TOP 09, Mayors and Independents, KDU-ČSL, Liberal-Environmental Party and SNK European Democrats). The representative of the Czech Pirate Party, Zdeněk Hřib, was selected to be Mayor of Prague. This was probably the first time a pirate party member became the mayor of a major world city.

At the 2019 European Parliament election, three Czech Pirate MEPs and one German Pirate MEP were voted in and joined the Greens–European Free Alliance, the aforementioned group in the European Parliament that had previously included Swedish Pirate MEPs and German Julia Reda.

Copyright and censorship

Some campaigns have included demands for the reform of copyright and patent laws.^[46] In 2010, Swedish MEP Christian Engström called for supporters of amendments to the Data Retention Directive to withdraw their signatures, citing a misleading campaign.^[47]

International organizations

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  Elected in EU Parliament

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  Registered for elections

  Registered in some administrative regions

  Unregistered but active

  Status unknown

Pirate Parties International

Pirate Parties International (PPI) is the umbrella organization of the national Pirate Parties. Since 2006, the organization has existed as a loose union^[48] of the national parties. Since October 2009, Pirate Parties International has had the status of a non-governmental organization (Feitelijke vereniging) based in Belgium. The organization was officially founded at a conference from 16 to 18 April 2010 in Brussels, when the organization's statutes were adopted by the 22 national pirate parties represented at the event.^[49]

European Pirate Party

The European Pirate Party (PPEU) is a European political alliance founded in March 2014 which consists of various pirate parties within European countries.^[50] It is not currently registered as a European political party.^[51]

Parti Pirate Francophone

In Parti Pirate Francophone, the French-speaking Pirate Parties are organized. Current members are the pirates parties in Belgium, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Canada, and Switzerland.^[52]