Swedish Pirate Party may get seat in EU Parliament

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants to reform copyright law, could ride a wave of discontent over tighter control of computer file-sharing all the way into the European Parliament in June.

The jail sentences handed out last month to the four Swedish men behind The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s biggest free file-sharing Web sites, have given a boost to the namesake party among young voters in Sweden, a recent opinion poll showed.

“It is definitely something that has put the spotlight on our issues,” Christian Engstrom, the party’s top candidate for the European Parliament, told Reuters.

“And it has demonstrated why it is so important, because the legal machine, if it’s allowed to continue, is going to crush the Internet, starting with the Pirate Bay and then continuing on to other enterprises.”