The trial has had an interesting side-effect on European politics too. Recently, there has been a huge increase in support for Sweden's Pirate Party, whose platform of reforming copyright and protecting citizen privacy has resonated with the general public. Today, European Parliament election results show that the Pirate Party has secured at least one seat in the body by receiving about 7 percent of the Swedish vote.
According to TorrentFreak, the Pirate Party's 7.1 percent share (as of right now - more votes are being counted) entitles them to at least one, if not two seats in the 18-seat Swedish delegation to the European Parliament. Once the tally is finalized, the Pirate Party will have received around 200,000 votes in its triumph, compared to the 34,918 votes they gained in the 2006 elections.
So what do these election results mean? In terms of influence, one or two votes is not much. But the fact that a party based almost exclusively on web piracy gained so many votes cannot by ignored by the Swedish political establishment. The web is a dynamic medium where people can share content and information. Attempting to stifle the flow with lawsuits has proven unpopular and ineffective.