EU Parliament Gets First Pirate Member By Mark Fleischmann June 10, 2009 — File-sharing enthusiasts are rejoicing with the news that Sweden's Pirate Party has captured a seat in the European Union's Parliament.

While the Pirate Party is not directly connected with the Pirate Bay torrent website, they do share an affinity for downloading regardless of copyright law. Pirate Bay does it directly by letting people download torrent files which can then be used to share files, usually illegally. The Pirate Party, on the other hand, wants to go all the way and legalize file sharing. Its other stated goals include protecting privacy and free speech on the internet.

In the EU Parliament, as in other parliamentary systems, it isn't necessary for a candidate or party to get a majority or plurality of the vote. Instead, seats are apportioned among parties based on how many votes they get. So while the Pirate Party won only 7.1 percent of the Swedish vote, that was enough to entitle it to one of Sweden's 18 seats in the EU legislature.

The Pirate Party was founded in 2006 as a reaction to a lawsuit that tried to put Pirate Bay out of business. There is also a German Pirate Party.

In the background, the recording industry has mostly given up its misguided effort to achieve copyright compliance through mass lawsuits. Instead it is now trying to persuade internet service providers to crack down on illegal file sharing, with some support from the government in the U.K. and France, among others. This may bring the industry into conflict with EU law, which already regards internet access as a "fundamental right."