[ Thanks to editor individual for this
link. ]
“As with many, the turning point for Falkvinge was the
struggle against efforts to impose more restrictive copyrights
throughout the European Union in 2005. According to Falkvinge, the
issues were widely covered and discussed in Sweden by everyone —
except the politicians.“So I sat down and asked myself, ‘What does it take to get the
politicians’ attention?’ I realized that you probably couldn’t get
their attention without making it personal. So the only recourse
basically was to bypass the politicians entirely, and head straight
for the voting citizens at the polls — essentially make it so
personal that they can’t ignore it any more.”“While to North Americans, the party’s name may seem
deliberately provocative, Falkvinge explains that it was an
inevitable one given the political background. In 2001, a copyright
lobbying group called the Anti-Pirate Bureau was founded, so when a
counter think-tank was established in 2003, it naturally called
itself the Pirate Bureau.”