Norwegian Communist party voices support for Pirate Bay

It wasn't long ago that Microsoft's "I'm a PC" campaign took the label originally intended to be a pejorative and made it a badge of honor. Now, Norway's Red (Rødt) Party is trying to do the same with "pirate."

Capitalizing on the furor surrounding the Pirate Bay trial in Sweden, Norway's Red political party has opened a site called Filesharer.org where people who illegally share media files can de-anonymize themselves in support of the Pirate Bay.

"It is almost sad to witness how a desperate industry clings to it's millions, trying to blame its troubles on a handful of Swedes who have enabled file sharing for people," says the Red Party's parliamentary candidate Elin Volder Rutle, "If you are going to punish all who share files, you need to start at 'A' in the phone book."

The site carries a banner of "This is what a criminal looks like," under which users post their photograph, name, and location. They are then assigned a number and made publicly browsable. As of 3:30pm EST, there were 1300 signatories.

The Red Party formed in 2007 as an amalgamation of Norway's two now-defunct communist parties, the AKP and the RV.