Pirate Parties International

Pirate Parties International

Abbreviation	PPI
Formation	April 18, 2010 (2010-04-18)
Type	International nongovernmental organisation
Legal status	Association
Purpose	Political
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Membership	Pirate parties and affiliated associations
Chairperson	Guillaume Saouli
Vice-Chairperson	Bailey Lamon
Main organ	General Assembly
Website	www.pp-international.net

  Elected in EU Parliament

  Elected nationally

  Elected locally

  Registered for elections

  Registered in some states

  Unregistered but active

  Status unknown

  Ordinary members

  Observer members in some states

  Resigned

  Removed due to dissolution or disbanding

Pirate Parties International (PPI) is a not-for-profit international non-governmental organisation with its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.^[1] Formed in 2010, it serves as a worldwide organization for Pirate Parties, currently representing members from 42 countries. The Pirate Parties are political incarnations of the freedom of expression movement, trying to achieve their goals by the means of the established political system rather than through activism.

Aims

The PPI statutes^[2] give its purposes as:

to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and co-operation between pirate parties around the world.

The PPI advocate on the international level for the promotion of the goals its Members share such as protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the digital age, consumer and authors rights oriented reform of copyright and related rights, support of information privacy, transparency and free access to information.

The name "Pirates" itself is a reappropriation of the title that was given to internet users by the representatives of the music and film industry, and does not refer to any illegal activity.

History

The first Pirate party was the Swedish Piratpartiet, founded on January 1, 2006 by Rick Falkvinge. Other parties and groups were formed in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. In 2007, representatives of these parties met in Vienna, Austria to form an alliance and plan for the 2009 European Parliament elections.^[3] Further conferences were held in 2008 in Berlin and Uppsala, the latter leading to the "Uppsala Declaration" of a basic platform for the elections.^[4]

In September 2008, Andrew Norton (United States) was appointed as coordinator of the PPI collective. In August 2009 he stepped down^[5] and passed the function of coordinator over to the "coreteam" led by Patrick Mächler and Samir Allioui.^[6]

In 2009, the original Pirate Party won 7.1% of the vote^[7] in Sweden's European Parliament elections and won two of Sweden's twenty MEP seats, inspired by a surge in membership following the trial and conviction of three members of the ideologically aligned Pirate Bay a year earlier.^[8]

On 18 April 2010, the Pirate Parties International was formally founded in Brussels at the PPI Conference from April 16 to 18.^[1]

The Uppsala Declaration

At the 2009 conference of Pirate Parties International in Uppsala (Sweden), European Pirate parties agreed on a common declaration of the parties' goals for the upcoming election of the European Parliament.^[9][10] Central issues of the declaration are:

• reform of copyright, exemption of non-commercial activity from copyright regulation, reduction of the duration of copyright protections; banning of DRM technologies, opposition to media or hardware levies;
• reform of patent law, particularly stating that patents on life (including patents on seeds and on genes) and software should not be allowed;
• strengthening civil rights, transparent government, speedy and fair trial and freedom of speech; expansion of the right to anonymity in communication.

The Prague Declaration

At 2012 conference of Pirate Parties International in Prague (Czech Republic), European Pirate parties agreed to run in the elections to the European Parliament in the year 2014 with a common program as well as establish a European political party. The declaration^[11] has been followed by conferences in Potsdam and Barcelona to work on the structure of the legal body to come and the statutes for it.

Resignations

In February 2015, Pirate Party Australia resigned from PPI due to serious disagreement with the direction and management of the organisation.^[12] In the same month, Pirate Party UK also resigned^[13] and in March the Belgian Pirate Party suspended its membership within PPI.^[14]

On 20 April 2015, the Pirate Party of Iceland voted overwhelmingly to leave PPI.^[15] A member of the executive, Arnaldur Sigurðarson, reported a 96.56% vote in favour of leaving, adding: “PPI has been pretty much useless when it comes to its objectives which should be to encourage international cooperation between Pirate Parties.”

In May 2015, the Pirate Party of Sweden resolved with a significant majority to leave PPI, cancelling their observer status.^[16]

In July 2016, the Pirate Party of Canada officially withdrew from Pirate Parties International citing ongoing troubles with the organization as well as a failure to adequately provide any accomplishments over it's history.

Structure

The PPI is governed by a board, led by two co-chairs.^[17] Policy, governance, and applications for membership are the responsibility of the PPI General Assembly which must convene at least once per year.^[18]

PPI Board

Year	Co-Chairs	General Secretary	CFO	Member of the board	Alternates
2010/2011	Grégory Engels, Jerry Weyer	Joachim Mönch	Nicolas Sahlqvist	Aleksandar Blagojevic, Jakub Michálek, Bogomil Shopov	–
2011/2012	Samir Allioui, Marcel Kolaja (receded)	Lola Voronina	Patrick Mächler	Finlay Archibald (receded), Paul da Silva (receded), Thomas Gaul	–
2012/2013	Grégory Engels, Lola Voronina	Travis McCrea	Ed Geraghty	Nuno Cardoso, Jelena Jovanović, Denis Simonet	Brendan Molloy, Thomas Gaul, Alessandra Minoni, Andrew Norton (receded)
2013/2014	Grégory Engels, Vojtěch Pikal	Thomas Gaul	Marc Tholl	Nuno Cardoso, Azat Gabrakhmanov, Denis Simonet	Jelena Jovanović, Paul Bossu, Radosław Pietroń, Yasin Aydin
2014/2015	Maša Čorak, Koen de Voegt	Thomas Gaul	Sebastian Krone	Grégory Engels, Thomas Gaul, Anders Kleppe, Stathis Leivaditis	Marco Confalonieri, Yasin Aidin, Min Chiaki, Chemseddine Ben Jemaa
July 2015 - July 2016	Andrew Reitemeyer, Patrick Schiffer (vice-president)	Henrique Peer	Karla Medrano	Min Chiaki, Chemseddine Ben Jemaa, Dr. Richard Hill,	Anders Kleppe, Nikolay Voronov, Koen De Voegt, Grégory Engels
since July 2016	Guillaume Saouli, Bailey Lamon (vice-president)	Thomas Gaul	Keith L. Goldstein	Andrew Reitemeyer, Raymond Johansen, Koen De Voegt	Anders Kleppe, Patrick Schiffer, Adam Wolf, Grégory Engels

PPI Conferences

Pirate Party movement worldwide

See Pirate Party and List of Pirate Parties for an overview of all Pirate Parties around the world.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pirate Parties International.

• Official website
  • Wiki
• Pirate Parties International Collection on the Internet Archive