So, Sweden’s Pirate Party has won one of the country’s 18 seats in the EU parliament, campaigning on the issues of free file-sharing for all on the net – and also increased user privacy.
No doubt the high-profile Pirate Bay trial has raised public awareness on the topic within Sweden and also worked to help mobilise young people to vote on an issue they cared about, where possibly they might simply have not bothered (the 18-25 demographic is hardly notorious for massive turnouts at elections).
Anyway there are basically two things that make the result an especially interesting one for me:
1. Firstly, I am impressed that an issue such as this can be discussed and debated to this extent in mainstream Swedish…