Pirate Party leaflet
What is Pirate Party of Finland?
Piraattipuolue (Pirate Party) is a recently established slightly different political party with increasing support and a controversial platform. Main goals of the Pirate Party are protecting democracy and fundamental rights and liberating culture.
Piraattipuolue is a part of an international political pirate movement, which originated from the Pirate Party of Sweden, established in the late 2005.
Why does it exist?
Piraattipuolue calls for positive development of the information society. We have a view of an information society of tomorrow, in which liberty prevails and culture flourishes.
Laws abridging freedom of speech and privacy are being put into force all the time. Violations of privacy mean penetrating into the most fundamental areas of personal identity: thoughts, opinions, convictions, relationships and ways of life. In a free society, intrusion into these areas is not the state's business. Piraattipuolue wants to make clear that the end does not justify the means!
People enjoy culture and information every minute. A large portion of ways to use enjoy culture are illegal, even though their harmfulness to culture has not been proven. Piraattipuolue demands that the authorities cease to criminalize harmless actions of ordinary people. Everyone must be able to use culture freely for non-commercial purposes. No creative work deserves copyright protection for as many as 140 years (author's life + 70 years)!
Will it be able to have an influence on anything?
Piratpartiet of Sweden got 0.63 % of votes in general election of 2006 and raised extensive filesharing debate in the country. The debate has causes e.g. the Swedish Left Party to start supporting the decriminalization of filesharing. In the summer of 2008 Piratpartiet inspired major resistance to the so called FRA Act, which vests the country's Defence Forces with the power to spy on all digital communications crossing over the Swedish border. The Act narrowly passed, but the controversy continues.
Globally, people who pirate culture have achieved the nearly complete abolition of anti-consumer DRM technologies in digital music trade.
Traditional party politics is the best way to influence the power elite, who fully understand the meaning of a vote lost. All major parties of Finland originally had a narrow agenda, the Green League as a recent example.
Piraattipuolue will participate in the European Parliament election of 2009 and the Finnish parliamentary election of 2011.
How to get additional information?
Find more on the subject at www.piraattipuolue.fi!