The first Pirate Party to be established was the
Pirate Party of Sweden (), whose website was launched on 1 January 2006 by
Rick Falkvinge. Falkvinge was inspired to found the party after he found that Swedish politicians were generally unresponsive to Sweden's debate over changes to
copyright law in 2005. The
United States Pirate Party was founded on 6 June 2006 by
University of Georgia graduate student Brent Allison. The party's concerns were abolishing the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, reducing the length of copyrights from 95 years after publication or 70 years after the author's death to 14 years, and the expiry of
patents that do not result in significant progress after four years, as opposed to 20 years. However, Allison stepped down as leader three days after founding the party. The
Pirate Party of Austria () was founded in July 2006 in the run-up to the
2006 Austrian legislative election by
Florian Hufsky and Jürgen "Juxi" Leitner. The
Pirate Party of Finland was founded in 2008 and entered the official registry of Finnish political parties in 2009. The
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic () was founded on 19 April 2009 by Jiří Kadeřávek. The
2009 European Parliament election took place between the 4 and 7 June 2009, and various Pirate Parties stood candidates. The most success was had in
Sweden, where the Pirate Party of Sweden won 7.1% of the vote, and had
Christian Engström elected as the first ever Pirate Party
Member of European Parliament (MEP). Following the introduction of the
Treaty of Lisbon, the Pirate Party of Sweden were afforded another MEP in 2011, that being
Amelia Andersdotter. On 30 July 2009, the
Pirate Party UK was registered with the
Electoral Commission. Its first
party leader was Andrew Robinson, and its
treasurer was Eric Priezkalns. In April 2010, an international organisation to encourage cooperation and unity between Pirate Parties,
Pirate Parties International, was founded in Belgium. In the
2011 Berlin state election to the
Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, the
Pirate Party of Berlin (a state chapter of
Pirate Party Germany) won 8.9% of the vote, which corresponded to winning 15 seats.
John Naughton, writing for
The Guardian, argued that the Pirate Party of Berlin's success could not be replicated by the
Pirate Party UK, as the UK does not use a
proportional representation electoral system. In the
2013 Icelandic parliamentary election, the Icelandic
Pirate Party won 5.1% of the vote, returning three Pirate Party
Members of Parliament. Those were
Birgitta Jónsdóttir for the
Southwest Constituency,
Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson for
Reykjavik Constituency North and
Jón Þór Ólafsson for
Reykjavik Constituency South. Birgitta had previously been an MP for the
Citizens' Movement (from 2009 to 2013), representing Reykjavik Constituency South. , it was the largest political party in Iceland, with 23.9% of the vote. The
2014 European Parliament election took place between 22 and 24 May.
Felix Reda was at the top of the list for
Pirate Party Germany, and was subsequently elected as the party received 1.5% of the vote. Other notable results include the
Czech Pirate Party, who received 4.8% of the vote, meaning they were only 0.2% shy of getting elected, the
Pirate Party of Luxembourg, who received 4.2% of the vote, and the
Pirate Party of Sweden, who received 2.2% of the vote, but lost both their MEPs. Reda had previously worked as an assistant in the office of former Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter. On 11 June 2014, Reda was elected vice-president of the
Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament. Reda was given the job of copyright reform rapporteur. In February 2015, the
Pirate Party of Romania achieved a historic legal victory by successfully challenging the constitutionality of Romania's political party registration fundamental law. Starting the legal procedure in February 2014, the party demonstrated through an unconstitutionality procedure that a fundamental electoral law was unconstitutional. This led to the
Constitutional Court of Romania changing the requirements for political party registration from a mandatory minimum of 25,000 signatures (with at least 250 signatures from a minimum of 17 counties) to only 3 founding members, a legislation that remains in effect today. Following this success, PPRO was automatically registered by its own constitutional change, marking it as one of the first political pirate parties in history to successfully change legislation without being part of Parliament. The
Pirate Party of Romania had been attempting to register as a political party since June 2009, but was unable to do so due to Romania's strict party registration legislation. The Icelandic Pirate Party was leading the national polls in March 2015, with 23.9%. The Independence Party polled 23.4%, only 0.5% behind the Pirate Party. According to the poll, the Pirate Party would win 16 seats in the
Althing. In April 2016, in the wake of the
Panama Papers scandal, polls showed the Icelandic Pirate Party at 43% and the Independence Party at 21.6%, although the Pirate Party eventually won 15% of the vote and 10 seats in the
29 October 2016 parliamentary election. In April 2017, a group of students at
University of California, Berkeley formed a Pirate Party to participate in the
Associated Students of the University of California senate elections, winning the only third-party seat. The
Czech Pirate Party entered the
Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament for the first time after the
election held on 20 and 21 October 2017, with 10.8% of the vote. The
Czech Pirate Party, after finishing in second place with 17.1% of the vote in the
2018 Prague municipal election held on 5 and 6 October 2018, formed a coalition with
Prague Together and
United Forces for Prague (
TOP 09,
Mayors and Independents,
KDU-ČSL,
Liberal-Environmental Party and
SNK European Democrats). The representative of the
Czech Pirate Party,
Zdeněk Hřib, was selected to be
Mayor of Prague. This was probably the first time a pirate party member became the mayor of a major world city. At the
2019 European Parliament election, three Czech Pirate MEPs and one German Pirate MEP were voted in and joined the
Greens–European Free Alliance, the aforementioned group in the European Parliament that had previously included Swedish Pirate MEPs and German Julia Reda.
Copyright and censorship Some campaigns have included demands for the reform of
copyright and
patent laws. In 2010, Swedish MEP
Christian Engström called for supporters of amendments to the
Data Retention Directive to withdraw their signatures, citing a misleading campaign. ==International organizations==