Pirate Party Declaration of Principles/2.0/Duality
The Duality of Immaterial Law
Copyrights and patents were created to promote the betterment of society by encouraging creators and inventors. Today, the technological and economical development has stripped them of their use and instead they have become a choke point for our common culture. A few large actors in the marketplace use their state sanctioned monopolies to dictate terms and set prices in a way that's decidedly not in our best interests. The original goals are no longer needed since the barriers of entry into creating culture and innovating technology have become so low that anyone can partake as a creator - the explosion of the Internet is testament to this force. There are more books, more content, more culture, more music, more articles, more innovations and more movies than ever before. However, most of our cultural heritage is locked up by copyrights, left rotting in vaults, unpublished and out of print. We don't need to encourage creators any more, we need to set them free. We don't want to hinder innovation, strangle our minds and hold back our ideas any more. Ideas, music and knowledge can not, by their very nature, be exclusive property. When shared, they multiply. When given away, they enrich giver and receiver alike.
The anti-competitive contracts that large parties use to control single creators are immoral.
The artificial limits imposed by strong distributors upon consumers' rights are illegal.
We wish to promote a constructive discussion of the duality of IP law, describing the negative consequences for the little man. We wish to form fair rules for how producers' and creators' needs can be met while strengthening consumers' powers by adapting IP law to new technological breakthroughs and environmentally friendlier business models.