Miegel, Fredrik, and Tobias Olsson. "From Pirates to Politicians: The Story of the Swedish File Sharers who Became a Political Party." Democracy, Journalism and Technology: New Developments in an Enlarged Europe. (2008): 203-215

The goal of this paper is to attempt a basic analysis of the development of the Pirate Party in Sweden and its political significance. Miegel and Olsson begin with a close description of the three most significant websites associated with the Swedish file-sharing movement. The paper ends with the application of democratic theory on the movement. The first description is of the website: Thepiratebay.org. Miegel and Olsson concentrate mostly on the site's navigation at the bottom of the page and then on the "forums" link where they outline a correspondence between username "Apple" and "TPB." In it Apple threatens legal action against The Pirate Bay to which TPB responds with (typical) candor, "...that [Apple] sodomise [themself] with a retractable baton...." The next site description is of piratbyran.org, the web-based lobbying organization. Most of Sweden's political discussions occur through this site making it of more civic importance than The Pirate Bay. The final site analysis is of piratpartiet.se, the Swedish Pirate Party's homepage. The site began as a protest against copyright laws, but eventually grew to be the petition site where party leader Rickard Falkvinge collected enough signatures to register the political party.

The next section of the paper focuses on a more theoretical explanation of the significance of the file-sharing movement. Miegel and Olsson write that the Pirate Party breathes new life into the core values of democracy. They cite John B. Thompson's ideas on the societal institutions in control of knowledge in light of the interent and new media communications today. Quoting Christian Engstrom (the Swedish Pirate Party's vice-chairman) extensively, they buttress their argument that the Pirate Party is less about file-sharing and surveillance and more about questioning fundamental democratic values.

It is this last section of Miegel and Olsson's paper that will be useful for my paper in analyzing the party's future impact, and though their descriptions of the websites seem mostly surface and aesthetic, they will help me navigate the sites.

Falkvinge, Rickard. "www.piratpartiet.se". The Pirate Party. 11 July, 2009 .

The Declaration of Principles was first conceived on February 2006, three months before the Pirate Bay raid. It outlines the three core beliefs of the party: The need for the protection of citizen rights, the will to free culture and the abolishment of the patent system. The introduction notes that Trademarks are not an issue and that the party has no recommendations there. The first section of the declaration focuses on the Swedish constitution and the citizens' right to privacy. The Party is firmly against any kind of surveillance and takes a stand against any anti-terrorist legislation beyond what is already instituted by the Swedish government. Postal Secrets (the idea that any kind of "post" is private) should legally extend into all communication including email and SMS regardless of technology. Access of personal information is only okay under the strong suspicion of a crime and specific work-related duties. It is also mentioned in this section, that though the party is not entirely against the EU, it will not accept the constitution as is (it has already been rejected by France and the Netherlands). Any Swedish representatives should also fight to bring the Union closer to the Swedish principle of Public Access to Records (offentlighetprincipen) where anyone can access any government document anonymously. An example would be of a minor being able to view a censored video by the Cinema Administration Board without showing identification. The next section is devoted to freeing culture. The party promotes the sharing and open availability of all works, especially for non-profit use. Non-commercial distribution should not be limited or punished. Another key belief is noted in this section, that commercial copyright be shortened to five years after publication. The Party also believes that DRM should be banned. The final section is devoted to patents as monopolies that harm society. The party supports open access formats and encourages open source.

Finally the closing words explains the strategic goal of the party. The Party does not strive to be a part of the administration, instead they would rather be a tie breaker in Parliament. Anyone who is willing to take on the Pirate Party's beliefs (I have interprested this as a whole rather than partially), will get their vote.

The Declaration of Principles is key to my paper because it explains what exactly Pirate Party would like to achieve leading me in my analysis of the party. Though the entire declaration is usefuly, I am least likely to explore the idea of patents as monopolies.

Falkvinge, Rickard. "Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties." Google Tech Talks, Google Headquarters Mountain View, CA. 31 July 2007.

Falkvinge begins this tech talk by noting that the strength of the Pirate Party comes from the youth today. He predicted that with the 35,000 votes coming of voting age by 2009 might just place someone in Parliament in the EU elections. Falkvinge's presentation is broken down into three parts and ends with questions from the audience. The first part is an introduction to who he is and what the Pirate Party's agenda is all about. He outlines what is already noted in the Declaration of Principles, but adds to this comments that filesharing vs. copyright is like trench warfare and that it is not about the money anymore but about civil liberties. The second part is a history of copyright beginning with the Catholic Church (this is much like the outline of the Steal this Film documentary series). He emphasizes that copyright has always been for the benfit of the distributors and not the creators. The final party of the presentation is on his vision of the future. Again, he reiterates the Party's core beliefs about copyright for commerical use early, reducing the term to five years, enouraging non-commercial collection, use, derivation and uploading. He expresses the opinion that file sharing and open access to all culture and knowledge through technology will be as significant as libraries. Falkvinge then turns to the political strategy of the party. He notes that politicians are too preoccupied with other issues to pay attention to copyright reform, but should the party gain enough influence, that they might begin to pay attention. The Pirate Party is satisfied not taking on any other political stances outside of IP reform and as just existing as a tie breaker. Finally, Falkvinge brings up the fact that Swedish copyright law cannot be changed by the EU, but at the same time, the EU will need to protect Sweden from any trade sanctions from the US.

Falkvinge's presentation is useful because it is a more organic representation of the beliefs of the Party. The party at this point feels less "rebellious" than its image in the public media. Falkvinge is extremely thoughtful in his opinions and is clearly an expert on how to promote the party from the bottom up, raising awareness all over Europe.

The League of Noble Peers, dir. Steal This Film Part I. 2006. .avi format, 2009.

Steal this Film is a project conceived and executed by The League of Noble Peers, a mostly anonymous group of friends who "decided to make a film about file-sharing that *we* could recognise." Right now there are only two parts to the series (each part was said to take about two months to create, but Part III has yet to come out in the past year), each part is about forty minutes in length. Part I begins with the founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Karl Lundstrom, all of whom would be later found guilty at the Pirate Bay Trial in June of 2009. They comment on the raid and the subsequent events involving the US pressuring WTO sanctions against Sweden if the Swedish government did not take action in shutting down the site. The founders are embittered that Sweden could be manhandled by lobbyists from Hollywood (a commercial is shown in which Arnold Schwarzenneger and Jackie Chan villify piracy calling them "the bad guys"). After the raid, the MPAA sent out a press release saying that they had succeeded. Large words in white and all caps flash across the screen throughout the entire movie stating facts about file-sharing. The day after the much publicized raid, Pirate Bay membership doubled. Gottfrid Svartholm (who started the site on a server in Mexico), says that the MPAA, US and Swedish government had essentially, "shot themselves in the foot." Thus begins the second half of Part I which is mostly comprised of interviews of young Swedish people who all admit to and support file-sharing on the internet. Here is where the essential theme and agenda of The League of Noble Peers emerges: File-sharing cannot be stopped and society needs to be changed to conform to this. As Richard Dreyfus says in a brief cameo, "It is not about the law anymore. People will do what they want to do."

Part I of Steal this Film is mostly about the surge of support for copyright reform and the Pirate Party making it significant for my paper. Not only is the awareness of copyright bullying growing, it is transmogrifying into a debate about autonomy and democracy. More about democracy is presented in Part II.