Latest development, 6.6.2006:
Swedish Green Party now officially wants to legalize 'downloading'
...and it did not take long for the Swedish Green Party (Miljöpartiet) to make
legalizing of personal 'downloading' an official campaign issue. This goes straight against the political program of their most likely political partner in the next government, the influential Social Democrats, who have been instrumental in bringing the new tougher copyright laws into Sweden. It is worth noting though that the Greens talk about 'downloading' only which suggests that they are not ready to legalize modern p2p software where uploading is an essential part of the network functionality. And as noted earlier, the credibility of the Greens in this issue is not high, but the development itself is remarkable. The mere possibility of Pirates entering the Swedish parliament is changing the established political field in relation to the filesharing issue.