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17 August 2020CopyrightMaria Zamkova

Sweden jurisdiction report: Sinking the pirates

This is indeed a welcome change in a country where the world’s most notorious file-sharing site The Pirate Bay—with 22 million users at its peak in 2005—and the political movement the Pirate Party, originated.

It is easy to forget, but Sweden was an early adopter of some of the world’s most severe enforcement laws on internet piracy, such as the Liability for Bulletin Board Systems law from 1998—a Swedish attempt to regulate pornographic material (the same issue that led to the creation of the 1996 Communications Decency Act in the US); the so-called FRA Law (although with the prior aim of fighting terrorism)—in force since January 1, 2009, giving some Swedish authorities the right to intercept all internet and other e-traffic crossing Swedish borders; and the full implementation of the EU Directive on the enforcement of IP rights (the IPRED directive), which has been in force in Sweden since April 1, 2009.

In April 2009, the three administrators and the founding member of The Pirate Bay were convicted by a Swedish court of contributory copyright infringement, and each sentenced to a year in prison. However, one of the convicted administrators immediately told supporters that “nothing will happen to The Pirate Bay, this is just a theatre for the media”.

The Swedish Pirate Party issued a press release claiming that the verdict was the party’s ticket to the European parliament. The party tried to win seats in the Swedish parliament in the 2006 general elections but reached only 0.63% of the required votes (4% being the bar). They gained however from the public debate around the new laws and The Pirate Bay case.

In 2009, 7.1% of the Swedish vote was enough to place the party with two seats in the European parliament. The Swedish Pirate Party’s associated youth organisation, Young Pirate (Ung Pirat), was at the same time the largest political youth organisation in Sweden by membership count.

Apart from the protection of personal integrity, the Pirate Party’s other stated policies were that “patent protection is dangerous for society” and that copyright protection should be limited to five years after publication. Trademarks on the other hand, were not counted as IP per se by the party, which regarded “some kind of trademark rights” as an important consumer protection tool.

What happened next?

The Pirate Bay soon became popular as a trademark. In February 2009, the Swedish company Umida Group filed a national Swedish trademark application for ‘The Pirate Bay’ for rum in class 33. It was registered in May 2009, under No 403728.

In December 2009, the Swedish advertising and software company Global Gaming Factory X filed an application for ‘The Pirate Bay’ trademark, covering everything from medicines and furniture to legal services. It was registered in February 2012, under registration No 503422, around the same date that its owners went into bankruptcy.

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More on this story

Trademarks
23 March 2018   The EU General Court has confirmed that a mobile living provider’s mark would be understood as an “advertising slogan” rather than an indication of origin, meaning it can’t be registered as a trademark.
Copyright
27 February 2013   File-sharing site The Pirate Bay moved its operation on Tuesday from Sweden to Norway and Spain, where local Pirate Parties will host the site.