cturner has kindly written a full Manifesto for you to peruse and comment on, it can be found here.
It reads as follows:
The Pirate Party of the United Kingdom’s Manifesto
Introduction
We wish to change global legislation to facilitate the emerging information
society, which is characterised by diversity and openness. We do this by
requiring an increased level of respect for the citizens and their right to
privacy, as well as reforms to copyright and patent law.
The three core beliefs of the Pirate Party UK are (1) the need for protection
of citizen’s rights; (2) the will to free our culture; and (3) the insight that
patents and private monopolies are damaging to society.
Ours is a control and surveillance society where practically everyone is
registered and watched. It is counterproductive to a modern judicial state to
impose surveillance on all its citizens, thereby treating them as suspects.
Democracy pre-supposes a strong protection for citizen’s rights.
A society where cultural expressions and knowledge is free for all on equal
terms benefits the whole of the society. We claim that widespread copyright is
actively counter-productive to these aims by limiting both the creation of, and
access to, cultural expressions.
Privatised monopolies are one of society’s worst enemies, as they lead to
price-hikes and large hidden costs for citizens. Patents are officially
sanctioned monopolies on ideas. Some corporations race to hold patents they can
use against smaller competitors to prevent them from competing on equal terms.
As a result, other corporations are forced into the race simply to defend
against future attacks from competitors. This is a self-perpetuating negative
cycle in which a few miscreants make gains at the expense of everyone else in
the system. A monopolistic goal is not to adjust prices and terms to what the
market will bear, but rather use their illgotten rights as a lever to raise
prices and set lopsided terms on usage and licensing. We want to limit the
opportunities to create damaging and unnecessary monopoly situations.
Trademarks are primarily useful as consumer protection devices. We feel
trademarks mostly work fine today, and do not suggest any changes here.
We are concerned about the abuse of the language, particularly with regard to
the word “property”. We are suspicious of use of the phrase “intellectual
property” to refer to copyright, patents and trademark as these things are
legal constructs and not otherwise scarce. We agree with Richard Stallman’s
take on the phrase, that it “systematically distorts and confuses these issues,
and its use was and is promoted by those who gain from this confusion.”
Democracy, Citizens. Rights and Personal Freedoms
We believe in the importance of rights such as freedom of speech, the right to
privacy, freedom of opinion, and the right to obtain information.
All attempts by the state to curtail these rights must be questioned and met
with powerful opposition.
All powers, systems and methods that the state can use against its citizens
must be under constant evaluation and scrutiny by elected officials.
It is fundamentally unacceptable for the state to use surveillance powers
against regular citizens who are not suspected of any crime.
Each citizen must be guaranteed the right to anonymity which is inherent to our
freedoms. This extends to the right of an individual to control use of his or
her personal data.
Pirate Party UK takes a stand against special legislation for terror-related
crimes.
We oppose moves to introduce identity cards for citizens, and are wary of the
state’s use of national databases.
Europe
Pirate Party UK has no opinion on whether Britain should or should not be a
member of the European Union. However, we insist that it would be unsuitable to
be part of a union that is not governed by democratic principles. For this
reason we seek revision of the UK’s role in Europe following the government’s
undemocratic acceptance of the undemocratic “Lisbon Treaty”.
Free Culture
When copyrights were originally created, they only regulated the right of a
creator to be recognised as the creator. It has since been expanded to cover
commercial copying of works and has limited the rights of private citizens and
non-profit organisations. This shift of balance has prompted an unacceptable
development for all of society. Economic and technological developments have
given unjust advantages for a few large market players at the expense of
consumers, creators and society at large.
Millions of songs, movies and books are held hostages in private vaults, not
wanted enough by their focus groups to re-publish but potentially too
profitable to release. We want to free our cultural heritage and make them
accessible to all, so that our culture can benefit from positive network
effects.
Immaterial laws are a way to legislate material properties for immaterial
values.
Ideas, knowledge and information are by nature non-exclusive and their common
value lies in their inherent ability to be shared and spread.
We dispute claims that copyright is a necessary basis for cultural development.
We point to the works of composers like Handel and Mendelssohn; to writers like
Dickens and Shakespeare; and to the rise of free software as evidence that
copyright is not a necessary foundation for artistic and commercial
advancement in any age.
We suggest an initial reduction of commercial copyright protection, i.e. the
monopoly to create copies of a work for commercial purposes, to five years from
the publication of the work. The rights to make derivative works shall be
adjusted so that the basic rule will be freedom for all to make them
immediately. Any and all exceptions from this rule, for example, translations
of books, or the usage of protected musical scores in movies, shall be
explicitly enumerated in the statutes.
All non-commercial gathering, use, processing and distribution of culture shall
be explicitly encouraged. Any product containing DRM shall display clear
warnings to inform consumers of this fact.
Contractual agreements implemented to prevent such legal distribution of
information shall be declared null and void. Non-commercial distribution of
published culture, information or knowledge – with the clear exception of
personal data – must not be limited or punished. As a logical conclusion of
this, we oppose the principle of blank media tax laws.
Pirate Party UK believes that the end of copyright is inevitable and that the
United Kingdom should enjoy lasting strategic benefits and immediate economic
gains from being an early adopter of such reform.
Patents and Private Monopolies Harm Society
Patents have many damaging effects. Pharmaceutical patents are responsible for
human deaths in diseases they could have afforded medication for, research
priorities are skewed, and unnecessarily high, and rising, cost of medicines in
richer parts of the world.
Patents on life and genes, like patented crops, lead to unreasonable and
harmful consequences. Software patents promote unhealthy patterns that retard
technological development and constitute a serious threat against the IT
sector.
Patents are said to encourage innovation by protecting inventors and investors in
new inventions and manufacturing methods. In reality, patents are increasingly used
by large corporations to hinder smaller companies from competing on equal terms.
Instead of encouraging innovation, patents are being used as “mine fields” when
waging war against others, often patents the owner has no plans on developing
further themselves.
We believe patents hampered the pace of the industrial revolution and have
continued to be abused to the current day. They actively stifle innovation and
the creation of new knowledge. Besides, just by looking at all business areas
that is not patentable it is clear that patents simply are not needed – the
market forces derived from being first-to-market is quite sufficient for
fostering innovation. Inventors should compete fairly with natural advantages
like innovative designs, customer benefits, pricing and quality, instead of
with a state-awarded monopoly on knowledge. Not having to pay small armies of
patent lawyers will free resources that can be used for creating real
innovation and improve products at a faster rate, benefiting us all in the end.
Apart from abusing patents, corporations attempt to create monopolies by other
means. By keeping information on things like file formats and interfaces
secret, they try to create vendor lock-in, thereby limiting competition with a
blatant disregard for the value of a free and fair market. This practice leads
directly to higher prices and a lower rate of innovation. Whenever the publicly
funded sector procures information systems or produces information itself, it
must actively counteract the formation or continuation of these private
monopolies on information, knowledge, ideas, or concepts.
Private monopolies shall be combated.
Open formats and open source shall be encouraged.
Closing words
We wish to guard citizen’s rights, their right to privacy and basic human
rights. When the government routinely put its citizens under surveillance, it
invariably leads to abuse of powers, lack of freedoms and injustices. We demand
a correction of these injustices. We demand justice, freedom and democracy for
the citizens.
Today’s copyright and patent laws lead to harmful monopolies, the loss of
important democratic values, hinders the creation of culture and knowledge, and
prevents them from reaching the citizens. We demand the abolishment of patents
and fair and balanced laws of copyrights, rooted in the will of the people, to
enrich people’s lives, enable a healthy business climate, create a knowledge
and cultural commons, and thereby benefiting the development of society as a
whole.
Our work with this is now focused on parliamentary means and therefore we seek
a mandate from the people to represent them in these issues.
Don’t forget to go to the forum to comment about it.
