Rick Falkvinge (born Dick Greger Augustsson on 21, January 1972) is a Swedishpolitician who founded the Pirate Party, serving as its leader until 2011.[1]
Falkvinge grew up in Ruddalen, Gothenburg, and studied Natural Sciences at Göteborgs Högre Samskola. During his high school years, he was active in Moderat Skolungdom and Moderata Ungdomsförbundet, the youth wings of the Moderaterna party in Sweden. He reportedly showed an interest in technology from an early age.[2][3]
In the fall of 2005, Falkvinge considered creating a political party focused on the issues of file sharing, copyright, and patents. The dominating Swedish organization in the copyright debate at this time was the Pirate Bureau, which was not affiliated with any party. On 16 December 2005, Falkvinge registered the domain name piratpartiet.se (The Pirate Party), and on 1st January 2006, the party's website was launched through a message on a Direct Connect hub, signaling the start of the petition to register a new political party in Sweden.[6]
According to the party, the site was viewed over three million times in the first two days, and in the morning of 2nd January 2006, the newspaper Dagens Industri published a notice about the initiative, followed by a longer article in the tabloide Aftonbladet.[6][7][8] Following the publicity, Falkvinge took out a large bank loan, quit his job at Cypak, and started working in the Pirate Party full-time.[3]
The Pirate Bay is a free Swedish based online search index founded in 2003. The site is well known for assisting in the unauthorized distribution of media such as movies and electronic games.[9] Falkvinge has been a long time supporter of the project, emphasizing his support in multiple statements.[10][11] However, over concerns of copyright infringement that would later lead to the Pirate Bay trial, the sites hosts would be raided by police on 31 May 2006. Following the raid, protests across Europe erupted on June 3, during when Falkvinge held his first widely translated speech titled, "Nothing new under the Sun."[12][13][14]
In the week that followed the raid, Falkvinge would appear on Swedish TV news daily, condemning the arrests of The Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Gottfrid Svartholm.[15] Soon after this the Pirate Party membership tripled from 2,200 to 6,600.[16]
Falkvinge chaired the Pirate Party while living off of donations and charity from supporters for 18 months until he was elected to the European Parliament in 2009.[18][19]
The Pirate Party achieved 7.13% of the vote in the 2009 European Parliament election.[20] The Pirate Party became the most popular party for voters under 30, with 25% of the demographic voting in support.[21]
Following the European Elections, media predicted that the Pirate Party would also be elected to the Swedish Parliament; however, it was only supported by 3.9% of the voters in the polls.[22] The threshold for entry was 4.0%. This support did not materialize in the 2010 parliamentary elections.
Controversies
In the launch of the party's election manifesto in 2010, Falkvinge stated that freedom of speech and freedom of the press should take precedence over the current ban on possession of drawings potentially depicting Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM), and that the party intended to repeal current legislation on the topic.[23] This statement followed a Swedish court case where a manga researcher and translator was indicted for the possession of a handful of drawings depicting minors illicitly. The Swedish Union of Journalists immediately proclaimed their support for Falkvinges stance.[24] Despite this, the stance created internal controversy in the Pirate Party, leading Falkvinge to initially back away from his position before reiterating it in 2012.[25][26]
Stepping down as party leader
On 1 January 2011, five years after the party's foundation, Falkvinge announced that he was stepping down as party leader, and that deputy party leader Anna Troberg would step into the role as his immediate successor.[27] This announcement was made on a live broadcast.[28]
In February 2016, it was announced that Falkvinge had accepted a full-time role as head of privacy for Private Internet Access, a US-based personal VPN service.[29]
Falkvinge was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in Sweden by Fokusmagazine in 2009.[31] He was awarded the Swedish Guldmusen award as IT person of the year in 2010.[32]
In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine named Falkvinge as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.[33] In 2012, TIME Magazine listed Falkvinge as one of the world's most influential people.[34] And in 2013, The Guardian listed Falkvinge as one of the world's Top 20 Internet Freedom Fighters.[35]
Published works
Falkvinge, Rick (2013). Swarmwise: the tactical manual to changing the world. North Charleston, South Carolina, USA: CreateSpace Publishing Platform.[36][37]
↑ Rydell, Anders; Sundberg, Sam (2009). Piraterna - historien on The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet och Piratbyrån (Pocket) (in Swedish). Ordfront Pocket. p.125.
↑ Bartels, Henning (2009). Die Piratenpartei (in German). Contumax-Verlag. pp.32–36. ISBN978-3-86199-001-7.
↑ Rydell, Anders; Sundberg, Sam (2009). Piraterna - historien on The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet och Piratbyrån (Pocket) (in Swedish). Ordfront Pocket. pp.147–148.
↑ Rydell, Anders; Sundberg, Sam (2009). Piraterna - historien on The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet och Piratbyrån (Pocket) (in Swedish). Ordfront Pocket. pp.143–153.
↑ Rydell, Anders; Sundberg, Sam (2009). Piraterna - historien on The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet och Piratbyrån (Pocket) (in Swedish). Ordfront Pocket. p.246.
↑ Lindblom Hulthén, Agnetha (August 6, 2010). "Barnporrlagen är censur". Journalisten (in Swedish). Archived from the original on December 11, 2010. Retrieved May 12, 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
