Who are we?

Piraattipuolue (Pirate Party of Finland) is a registered political party devoted to protecting privacy and freedom of speech as well as upgrading the copyright laws to meet the reality of the 21st century.

Copyright legislation must not restrict non-commercial use of creative works. Pharmaceutical and software patents should be abolished as harmful to society and the entire patent system should be revised. Neither copyrights nor external threats ought to be used as an excuse to excessive curtailment of fundamental rights such as privacy. States and the European Union should act more transparently and more democratically.

Prevalent political trends are counterproductive. Stricter copyright laws are introduced which are a threat to privacy, try to make the current absurd copyright terms even longer and are breaching consumer protection by encouraging DRM. Patents create more jobs only to law firms. Those frightened of the free speech in the Internet demand service providers and admins to take responsibility of their customers' opinions. States collect more and more information of their citizens while often operating behind closed doors themselves.

Non-commercial filesharing and other normal use of cultural works cannot be restricted without tampering with people's privacy. Such developments towards a surveillance society must be stopped in Finland and in Europe.

Piraattipuolue is a part of an international Pirate Party movement.

Our political agenda in a nutshell

1. Protection of individual rights, especially privacy, secrecy of correspondence and the freedom of speech
2. Complete decriminalization of non-commercial use of creative works (copying, sharing, remixing etc.)
3. Shortening the copyright protection to 5–10 years
4. Abolition of software and pharmaceutical patents and reconsideration of the necessity of the whole patent system
5. Increasing openness in decision-making and reforming democracy through the information society

What have we done?

Piraattipuolue was founded at 24th May 2008 in Tampere. Since then we have organized demonstrations, lobbied for better and against poor legislation, for example the corporate snooping law dubbed "Lex Nokia". We constantly follow domestic as well as international developments in legislation related to intellectual property, freedom of speech, privacy, democracy, government transparency and information society in general. During our existence some major parties have made a shift in attitudes towards internet piracy and have become more favorable to our viewpoints. Piraattipuolue has about 3,100 members, which makes us comparable in size to the Greens which is a government party.

Piraattipuolue operates openly both in administrative and financial matters. Board meetings are held publicly in the IRC real-time messaging system and their minutes are published on the Internet. Details of the party's finances are published through the party's web site. Piraattipuolue also uses a public wiki for internal planning.

In 2010, party activists Ahto Apajalahti and Kaj Sotala published a book entitled Jokapiraatinoikeus ("Every Pirate's Right") which discusses Internet piracy, filesharing, fan culture, remix culture and commercial copyright from pirate perspective. The book is legally available for free as an e-book.

Key people
Pasi Palmulehto, Chairman
Ahto Apajalahti, Vice Chairman
Petri Lagus, Vice Chairman

What will we do?

Piraattipuolue is a registered party, eligible to set up candidates in parliamentary, municipal and EU parliament elections. We will participate in the Finnish parliamentary election of 2011 at April 17th. Currently we have about 100 parliamentary candidates in 9 of the 14 electoral districts. We aim to participate in Finnish presidential election and municipal elections in 2012 as well as in the European parliamentary election in 2014.

How to contact us?

General inquiries:

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Press:
Antti Impiö, Deputy Board Member, International Affairs, Pirate Party of Finland
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+358 50 304 5867

Joonas Mäkinen, Pirate Youth of Finland, Vice Chairman, International Affairs
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+358 40 700 5190

Ahto Apajalahti, Vice Chairman, Pirate Party of Finland
+358 45 310 2342