The Swedish Pirate Party has risen to prominence in the last few months after they managed to break into the Swedish political mainstream, polling 7% at the June European Parliament election, which saw the party elect a Member of the European Parliament. The Pirate Party agenda has since spawned dozens of political parties across the Western world, including one seeking registration here in Australia.
The Pirate Party was created on a platform of internet freedom and copyright reform, in particular the legalisation of non-commercial file sharing on the internet. The party particularly shot up in prominence in Sweden during the trial of the founders of Swedish-based BitTorrent tracker Pirate Bay, which saw four of the Pirate Bay’s founders imprisoned in April 2009.
The Swedish party first ran at the 2006 Swedish elections and polled 0.63%, not electing any MPs. Their membership numbers, however, exploded in 2008, with the party overtaking the Green Party by the end of 2008 and soon after overtaking all but the two largest parties in membership numbers. At the European election, they came fifth, overtaking the Left Party, whose vote fell from 12.8% to 5.66%.
The Pirate Party concept has rapidly taken off in many countries, with nascent parties being established in many western countries. Outside of Sweden, the only Pirate Party to run candidates is in Germany, where they contested the 2008 and 2009 Hesse state elections, polling 0.3% in 2008 and 0.5% in 2009. A federal Social Democrat deputy in Germany, Jörg Tauss, defected to the Pirate Party in protest against government legislation to block child pornography websites, in a move similar to those being taken by Senator Stephen Conroy in Australia. The party is contesting the German federal election at the end of September. While I don’t expect them to cross the 5% threshold and win seats, it will be fascinating to see how they perform, and whether they gain any traction with German voters.
Pirate Parties have been registered in a number of other countries, namely Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Poland, Spain, and now the United Kingdom. Reports suggest a flood of membership applications to the UK Pirate Party upon its registration at the end of June. Pirate Party International has now been set up to communicate between these parties, and parties are seeking registration in many other European countries, as well as the US, Canada and many Latin American countries.
A similar party is seeking registration in Australia. The party has set up a website with a forum where you can read about their plans. While they are still small, they are clearly intending to achieve registration for the next federal election. Looking at their forum, it appears they are a very young group, with many high school students amongst those organising the group. I asked some questions of one of the organisers, who informed me that they have begun the process of achieving registration with the AEC, and have members mainly in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. The party appears to have little in the way of members with any political experience, particularly professional experience.
So what’s in their future? I tend to think they should find it easy enough to achieve the 500 names needed for registration, and once this has been achieved it should be relatively easy to run Senate candidates in a number of states. The party isn’t going to elect anyone in Australia any time soon, but the combination of their clear policy agenda which should appeal to a substantial young audience, and their creative name, should grab them some media attention before the next election, which will help bring in more members and possibly turn them into a real presence. They will also have a great opportunity to capitalise on concern over the federal ALP’s plans to censor the internet.
Their preferences could also play a role in determining Senate races.While they claim to be neither “a left or right wing party”, you would have to think their policy positions would lend them to preferencing the Greens. The one Swedish Pirate MEP has allied with the European Greens group, and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has become prominent in tech circles for his work against the internet filter. While we aren’t going to be seeing a Pirate Senator any time soon, they could play a real role in the next election.
Next there will be a Ninja Party.
Jokes aside, I look forward to seeing how they advance in Australia. The greens will no doubt get their preferences, and I think they may come in handy to the greens.
You could certainly see a Pirate Party becoming something of a cult movement. It seems to me though that they would struggle to attract significant numbers of voters beyond their actual membership/committed supporters. Good luck to them – as long as they do the right thing with their preferences.
How low was turnout in the Swedish EU election? To what extent would their performance have been boosted by their more highly energised supporter base compared with low turnout from other voters?
Wouldn’t they may do more harm than good in countires like th UK with its FPTP electoral system, and Germany with its MMP system though? If they gain enough popularity they could tip the balance between the Green parties getting seats and not getting any.
They’ll be Group Arrr on the ballot.
“…. A federal Social Democrat deputy in Germany, Jörg Tauss, defected to the Pirate Party in protest against government legislation ….”
You missed a gift there. Surely he “jumped ship”.
In all seriousness though, the scope of policy is very narrow and will have limited appeal in this country (and that’s coming from a geek). I’m not saying they shouldn’t organise, or that their objectives aren’t worthy, I’m just saying it’ll be a hard slog for them to get much traction. Also geek types can’t be boxed into the sort of mould they are forming around. They tend to split equally between apathetic, left-leaning and libertarian with fewer (or at least less vocal) conservatives. The name will work for them amongst voters looking for an alternative to the donkey vote. If they manage to register then they might be worth a percentage point to whoever they preference. If they don’t manage to register before the upcoming elections they probably never will.
In the recent elections in Saxony they polled 1.9%. While its a bit hard to really work out where votes moved to between the direct seats and the list seats, the Greens vote in the direct seats was 7.7% and in the list seats was 6.4%. By the same token, Die Tierschutzpartei (the Animal Welfare Party) polled 2.1%, and you might expect a chunk of their vote ot be Green as well. Neither they nor the Priate Party ran in the list seats. On that basis I would suspect they are either deriving their support from a different sector of the electorate (both the Die Link and the FDP lost around 2% of their vote between the direct and list seats) or voters who weren’t voting at all (ie; new voters), but this second hypothesis is unlikely as there was only a small rise in the vote between the direct and list seats (about 10,000 votes out of almost 1.8 million.
http://www.election.de/cgi-bin/tab.pl?datafile=ltw_sn09.txt
From this I would venture that a Pirate Party in Australia might received a few votes (maybe 1-2%?) but those votes could well come from across the left of the political spectrum – ex-Democrats, ALP & Greens.
Looking at their website, I think the fact that they are explicitly saying they intend to be in effect a ‘single issue’ party rather than developing a broader ideological base (which wouldn’t be impossible), will confine them to being a fringe movement. 1% of the vote probably the best they could do here, and agree that it would probably be taken from all over the place, and I think possibly also a fair few new enrolees (is that a word?).
When I say ‘good luck to them’ I mean in the context that they aren’t going to become a major force, but may at least take some votes off the old parties, and hopefully direct those preferences where they ought to go.
Yes, very good Sam, Group Arrr it should be.
From Stewart “Neither they nor the Priate Party ran in the list seats.” I think you mean the direct seats.
Haha, Sam’s on fire.
I think they could get close to 4% at Uni campus electorates.
The Shooters managed to poll 2.8% in 2007 in New South Wales on a single issue, I don’t see why their single issue couldn’t get them 3% if done properly, at which point they are in with a chance of a NSW LC seat and influential position in Senate preferencing.
Shooters have a number of wealthy donors and a firmer support base (not to mention an elected MLC before ’07). Still, good luck to them (Pirates, not Shooters); they could run a great gimmicky campaign that Xenophon could only dream of.
Good point Ben, but would it not just be a one-off protest vote for them to get as high as 3%? Of course, even with 1-2% they can be in with a chance of winning seats if they get a preference harvest, and yes, you’re right that they couldn’t be categorically ruled out of contention for a NSW LC seat.
I’m not sure the comparison with the Shooters is all that strong though. The Shooters have presented themselves as, and come to be seen as, representing a broader range of what we could term ‘anti-environmentalist’ interests, as well as gun nuts, and whilst they’re competing with others like the Fishing Party, Outdoor Rec, etc for some of those voters there is enough of that ex-One Nation-type constituency to account for their vote. John Tingle also had a high profile and was reasonably well respected in a way that helped boost their vote as well.
Point is the Shooters may appear to be a ‘single issue’ party, but they actually do have an ideological constituency, and have cultivated such a constituency. The Pirates could develop an ideological constituency as well, but not if they are insistent on sticking to their ‘single issue’.
Oh hey, it also occurs to me that the Pirates shouldn’t be trying to set up a new party – shouldn’t they go out and capture an existing one?
Charles – Sorry, yes, that IS what I meant to say! Thats what happens when you write posts late at night with too many “directs” and “lists” floating about…
Word has it that the Democrats in NSW were essentially captured by a bunch of Sydney University students – don’t know the truth or veracity of either the story or the teller, or whether there was an ulterior motive – but it fits with a “party-take-over” thesis…
Sam: There is actually a vigorous and ongoing debate within the Libertarian movement around the basic validity of copyright. There are logically and philosophically sound liberatarian arguments against it, as copyrights and patents are a state-enforced monopoly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got support from some parts of the libertarian Right. Certainly not the Conservatives, though.
And they’ll certainly appeal to parts of the anti-authoritarian Left, as well.
Thanks Stewart. I was thinking the Dems would be the obvious target. When you have low membership numbers, and are conducting a membership drive of the kind they have been, it wouldn’t be surprising if some well-organised little group tried and succeeded in a takeover. Poor Julia, I’ll have to be nice to her next time I see her around town.
I notice their new ‘Adopt-A-Dem’ campaign – such a worthy cause, and obviously something that makes it easier for an organised takeover:
http://www.democrats.org.au/campaigns/adoptadem/
But wouldn’t cutting copyright be a huge blow for Australian music? God knows they earn little enough without losing CD sales.
I think the issue as they all see it, and the libertarian right may talk about it differently, but it is the whole point of whether the concept of ‘intellectual property’ has any legitimacy at all. Can people or corporations really ‘own’ ideas in the same manner as physical property?
It’s an interesting point that was covered somewhere in George Lakoff’s book The Political Mind (though I can’t find where at the moment) about how many legal concepts are actually based on conceptual metaphors. In this instance, copyright and patent law is based on the metaphorical concept of ideas being physical ‘property’. Your thoughts and ideas are of course not actual, tangible, physical assets, but in our legal system we treat them as such via this conceptual metaphor.
It’s quite thought-provoking stuff. I highly recommend that book to anyone who hasn’t read it (even if you struggle to see the relevance of some of his ideas to Australian politics) – I in fact own two copies.
Lawrence Lessig explains a lot of this very well if you have a few minutes:
http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk_5UccWm3o (in three parts)
Surely you can ‘own’ music in the same way you can ‘own’ the words in a book? Is the arguement that the pirates are putting forward that all movies and music should be able to be shared freely on the internet?
Because, as a muso, I’m not very cool with that.
@Hamish
Currently you can hold separate copyright on music, lyrics and any recording of those. Calling it “ownership” tends to lead to incorrect language being used like “theft” when referring to copyright infringement. Music and lyrics can’t be “stolen” in the common sense of the word (which is why those “you wouldn’t steal a car” ads are so obnoxious).
If you know about open source software, then it provides a good analogy. Currently the status-quo in the music industry is like proprietary software licensing. The music “belongs” to the publisher and you have a limited set of usage available to you dictated by the terms of the license (which in this case is entrenched in copyright and copyright related case law). There is little or no alternative to this model in the music industry and the major labels are proactively trying to eliminate not just copyright infringement but the legitimate means by which that infringement takes place. Over time they have also extended the length of copyright validity and reduced the scope of fair-use through litigation.
The alternative models are analogous to open-source software models where instead of entrenching the value of the product into the distribution chain, the value is embedded within the reputation and services of the author. In the case of music this means making money out of concerts and other direct to the consumer services. Music publishers don’t like this idea of course because that cuts them out of the industry.
It’s possible to make money giving away what was formerly perceived as the primary product. See Google, WordPress, FireFox etc. for examples.
In the music industry it is much harder to break through because whilst the the distribution channels have been de-monopolised by the internet, the major promotional channels like TV and radio are still sewn up by first tier corporate partnerships between broadcasters and music publishers. The few who are starting to break that mould are basically already famous (RadioHead, Nine-Inch Nails, Madonna to a certain extent), as they know they can still make money in other ways then just selling recordings because of their large fan bases.
…and actually I’m surprised that none of the Pirate Party platform (of what I’ve read in english anyway) covers the idea of breaking up corporate media monopolies.
We shouldn’t assume their preferences will come to the Greens. We’ve seen plenty of examples of people getting candidates disease and deciding they can win if they do deals with their opponents. Kerry Nettle almost lost in 2001 because Helen Caldicott prefrenced the Liberals ahead of her. That’s a particularly egregious example, but the whole thing is far from rare.
Given that the Australian Pirates don’t seem to share the broader politics of some of the overseas groups I think there is a high chance they’ll do preference deals with whoever suits them – including Fielding and Conroy. Even if they don’t they’re at least as likely to preference the Sex Party and the LDP as the Greens
Since their votes will disproportionately (although not overwhelmingly) come from the Greens there is a very real chance that them getting registered could end up costing the Greens senators.
There are always NEW political parties appearing at every Federal election! So what!? If you are that DUMB and dont at least preference the Greens then you are nothing but a Conservative anyway! What is new?
“There is actually a vigorous and ongoing debate within the Libertarian movement around the basic validity of copyright.”
Three Ron Paul fanatics arguing at a pub does not a vigorous debate make.
Looking over the geography of the PP’s support in Sweden last June to see obvious overlaps with the Greenies there… There is expected overlap in Stockholm, where both parties polled above average and also in other urban areas in the south. But the Greens also did quite well in the far north of Sweden, which is relatively older mining country, doesn’t yell out Pirate Party. Though that might be Left Party voters voting PP and not Social Democrat as a protest vote? However, I notice that the PP votes were quite evenly distributed, a low at 5.5% and a high at 8%…
I will note that the Swedish Social Democrats, despite being in opposition, are pretty damn uninspiring and have problems of their own; from there the Green gains (and maybe the Pirate gains too, in some ways).
So, Greenies ought to be careful about taking Pirate votes for granted, as Pirate Parties seem to be the new good places for protest voting.
Is there such a thing as a Labor “whore” and are they always called ‘Vera”??????
Ronan Lee = Former Catholic and Labor?
Catholics are an abomination! Homophobes and against equal rights for women and ALL others! They should be expelled fron the Greens and never allowed until they have been saved from their discrimination and abhorence!
If you want to read about Labor wankers then go to the “Poll Bludger”! If you want to read about the Labor Party supporters whom the Greens drool upon then go to the “Poll Bludger”!!!!! Shame, Shame and even more SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope the irony of calling Catholics abominations and wanting them discriminated against isn’t lost on you Brenton.
But being pissed off with some of those folks from time to time is quite understandable.
Slink back to PB, HC!!!!!
[But being pissed off with some of those folks from time to time is quite understandable.]
Of course, I never said it wasn’t. I oppose discrimination of all forms, even against catholics.
Brenton, maybe you should slink back to Poll Bludger if you want to keep spouting that crap.
Don’t be too harsh on him Ben, he’s obviously pretty upset about something.
Oz: My point is that it is simplistic to assume “right = support for copyright = does not support pirate party”.
Ben – what are your thoughts on intellectual property as a concept, out of interest?
Just a correction to my comment #20. I found the reference in a different book, and the author who originally wrote about cognitive science and the legal system was Steven L Winter:
http://www.amazon.com/Clearing-Forest-Law-Life-Mind/dp/0226902226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252546067&sr=1-1
Ben, are you planning to write something about the Norwegian election, are you interested in that one?
Hardly room for two cutely named social/cultural libertarian parties (Pirate Party, SexParty).
Would geeks like more sex? Perhaps they could merge.