New Pirate Parties spring up all over Europe

After the Swedish Pirate Party (devoted to copyright liberalization and Internet freedom) took a seat* in the last EU election, new local Pirate Parties have launched in France (where a series of restrictive Internet laws have been proposed by Sarkozy) and the Czech Republic.

The Czech party has collected 2,500 electronic signatures to date and hopes to compete in October elections. It was just certified as an official political party by the Czech Interior Ministry under the name "Českou pirátskou stranu" (ČPS).
"We do not want any political posts," spokesperson Ondrej Profant told Czech news agency CTK. "If we managed to implement our program exclusively on the level of thinking, which means that large parties would embrace it as their own we would be satisfied."
Like many of the other European pirate parties, the Czechs lack a broad political program; they care only about intellectual property issues and hope to partner with other parties in a coalition.
The French pirates have little more than a Facebook group and a WordPress blog at the moment, but they too hope to shape policy in the aftermath of the Swedish Pirate Party's win. France might seen like fertile soil for such a party to flourish, since the government has been pushing a tough "three strikes" law. To date, the group has 1,600 members of a Facebook group.

Pirate parties parade through Prague, Paris

*Two seats, if the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified

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Anonymous

The Slovak Pirate Party is also collecting the necessary signatures to be registered as a legal entity (political party), they have a Facebook group and an own webpage at http://www.piratskastrana.sk.
Anonymous

Not “ÄŒeskou pirÃ¡tskou stranu” but ÄŒeskÃ¡ pirÃ¡tskÃ¡ strana” as you can see at http://www.ceskapiratskastrana.cz/
(hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension)
Anonymous

The name of the Czech partly is actually ÄŒeskÃ¡ pirÃ¡tskÃ¡ strana â€• the article mistakenly quotes the name in a non-nominative grammatical case.
agger

There’s also one in Denmark:

http://www.piratpartiet.dk/

Not a member myself, though I might consider it – I’m rather sceptical of single-issue parties, though, might be better to join the one you agree with most on filesharing/IP/free software related stuff and try to influence them to become even better. Alas, in Denmark that limits the options to “Enhedslisten”, the “United Left”.
sabik

I’m sure the name would be “ÄŒeskÃ¡ pirÃ¡tskÃ¡ strana”… one of the hazards of cutting and pasting bits of sentences from foreign languages…
subheight640

“OK, this is Europe. Now, where is American Pirate Party?!”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Congress

MMMmmm There is a single independent party member in all of of the federal government. Maybe Americans realize that it’s near impossible to elect a 3rd party candidate??????
LennStar

@1: http://www.pirate-party.us/
madisv

Just three days ago nonprofit organization was made in Estonia – Piraadipartei. So, maybe there will be Estonian pirate party too in future, but it will take quite long time. They will need to gather at least 1000 members to reorganize to real party.
Anonymous

As proposed via twitter by Bruce Sterling(I think at least, or it could have been someone else at Reboot), a better name might be “The Sharing Party” – I’ll ask the pirate party UK and see if they’d go for that…
cabalamat

There’s also a Pirate Party in the United Kingdom.

Incidently, the election period for our leader (and other officers) ends tomorrow. When we have a leader, we’ll quickly be able to register as a political party and run for election.
sopekmir

@#14: Well, Greens 20 years ago was not as bad as Pirate today.

I agree that another bombastic, traditional name would be even worse – but I do think they have a serious, deep cause and deserve a name that would not pigeonhole them as the “bad guys”.

So I agree with Trent (@#17)
peterbruells

@2 I’m not too happy with the names either, bu the name problem applied to the “Greens”, too, twenty years ago. And now they are a veritable force in many countries.
steauengeglase

@#1, it is called everyone under 30.
Tarmle

There is a nascent Pirate Party Ireland that as sorely needed in light of recent recording industry activity here.
Anonymous

We’ve been busy here in Canada….we now have a forum!

http://www.piratepartyofcanada.ca/
Join us.
Trent Hawkins

Maddox for president!

But seriously, for it to work in the US you need a friendlier name for it. It’s essentially the same as socialist parties, you carry such a strong stigma with the “pirate” name that you’ll be laughed out before you even get the name written down.
Francesco Fondi

OK, this is Europe. Now, where is American Pirate Party?!
sopekmir

I, and I think I could say – We – support Pirate Party program. When we look at so many “islands” on Internet and on all media – we wonder – how it is still possible with Internet’s last 20 years.

Copyright and patents are one side of the coin, but complete closure about government data, or, what bothers me even more – lack of openness in science publications. So there is a lot of to fight for.

One thing, however concerns me – just the very name of the Party: “Pirate Party”. They could do it better on name selection, and I reckon, this may be used against their just cause.

“Pirate Party” girls and boys: better PR please !!!
Ugly Canuck

Springing up from behind the gunwales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunwale
mightymightymatze

There will be a meeting to found a Swiss Pirate Party in Zurich on July 12th.
Pantograph

But, but we arrrrr pirates matey, you have problem with that? Then we’re going to have a problem. Let’s reclaim the pirate title and make it something to be proud of. (Well there are those Somalians in speedboats, but let’s just follow the lead of the rest of the world and ignore them for now.)

Getting in people’s faces is good PR. If they stuck to mealy mouthed jabbering about serious stuff like fair use and copyright reform, the Swedish Pirate Party would have gotten a total of three votes last election, (with the other two potential voters staying at home installing a new Linux distribution).

What we need is “vote like a pirate day”!