James Delahunty
16 Aug 2009 22:32
After registering as a legitimate political party in the United Kingdom, the UK Pirate Party received over 100 new members per hour, according to its leader. "It has exceeded all expectations. Put it this way, donations have been coming in so fast that PayPal were concerned we were a fraudulent site," said Andrew Peter Robinson, party leader.
He continued: "The party was born of the feeling at the last European elections that there was no one to vote for and a group of us were jealous of people in Sweden who could vote for the Pirate Party." The party intends to contest as many seats as funding and resources will allow and may even contest a by-election if one shows up before the general election.
However, Robinson is keeping a perspective on the reality of the Pirate Party's chances to gain any power. "We're not going to win any seats but we can get these issues discussed," he told The Register. As for the issues that the Party wants to get discussed, Robinson said the following: "The system as it is doesn't reward artists. Typical record contracts now grant 95 per cent of revenues to the record label, not the band. Reorganizing that would help make up for a lot of the shortfall from cutting the length of copyright."
He also mentioned a will to legalize non-commercial file sharing and to end "excessive surveillance".