STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Last Jan. 1, almost on a whim, 35-year-old IT manager Rickard Falkvinge got into politics.
Concerned about the reach of copyright and patent law, Falkvinge erected a web page with a sign-up form for a radical new pro-piracy party to compete in Sweden’s parliamentary system. He didn’t know if anyone would care, but the next day the national media picked it up, and two days later international media started calling.
The site was flooded with new members — enough for the nascent movement to sail past the requirements for participation in the national election. Falkvinge now faced a decision: stay with his nice job and let the whole thing quietly sink, or quit and become a campaigning politician. He chose to become the leader of Sweden’s newest and fastest-growing political party: Piratpartiet, or the Pirate Party.
Striding through the narrow, cobbled streets of Gamla Stan, Falkvinge looks nothing like a politician in his “Pirat” baseball cap and polo shirt. “We have a lot in common with the environmental movement,” he says. Where environmentalists see destruction of natural resources, the pirates see culture at risk. “(We) saw a lot of hidden costs to society in the way companies maximize their copyright.”
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