Pirate Party Movement Joins Election Race

[hozarares]

The Pirate Party is for reforming laws concerning patents and copyright, also including the transparency of state administration and strengthening the right to privacy – both in everyday life and online.

After the Swedish and German Pirate Parties, the Dutch has also decided to join this spring national elections. It was a surprising victory for the Pirate Party last year to scoop 2 elected seats in the European Parliament, yet it has to score the first seat in the national Parliament.

Last year was really a breakthrough one for the Pirate Party movement. The Swedish Pirate Party has got 2 seats in the European Parliament with over 7% of the vote. Only some weeks later, the German Pirate Party has entered the local Parliament after another party’s member switched sides.

This year the Pirate Party movement is looking forward to continue this trend, especially during this year Swedish national elections. Actually, Sweden isn’t the only country for the Pirate Party to end up at the ballot. Both Pirate Party UK and the Dutch local Party hope to compete as well.

The Dutch Pirate Party hopes to avoid criminalizing file-sharers – that’s what a few established parties have already shown interest in, as there’s been a lot of debate in recent months concerning Dutch copyright law, currently allowing people downloading copyrighted music and movies for personal use. Instead of that the Pirates strive to make sharing of all copyrighted information online legal and shorten the copyright term to five years.

Tim Kuik, a big wheel at BREIN, the local anti-piracy group, is not afraid of organized pirates in politics. He described the plans of the Pirate Party as unrealistic and short-sighted. The chairman of the Pirate Party Samir Allioui, in his turn, said he is very happy with such negative comments, as Kuik gives voters a great reason to vote for them, meaning the negative view of most people to BREIN.

In case of victory, the party is going to strive to strengthen fundamental rights, increase transparency and protect privacy. The party is also committed to pushing for patent reform, promoting Net Neutrality and stopping abuses of copyright.

However, there’s still a long way to the election in June. The biggest barrier is the deposit required of 12,000 euros for preventing too many parties from entering. But the Party is sure it can raise this money soon.

sursa : www.ExtraTorrent.com