Losing a big legal battle might actually be good for your political future. In April The Pirate Bay four was sentenced to a year in prison, and had to cough up $4.5m in damages.

Today their political party, the Pirate Party, has a seat in the European Parliament.
 
The party ran in Sweden’s election for the European Parliament and managed to draw 7.1% of the vote- enough for one of Sweden’s 18 available seats. Their campaign was based on the reformation of copyright laws and some of their policies include the legalisation of Internet file-sharing and the protection of privacy on the Internet.

The high profile case against The Pirate Bay drew record crowds to the courthouse each day and managed to raise the profile of the party significantly.