PRESS RELEASE: Pirate Proposes a Better Copyright Policy in Place of the New Extension

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PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

PIRATE PROPOSES A BETTER COPYRIGHT POLICY IN PLACE OF THE NEW EXTENSION

Winnipeg, Manitoba - 2015 April 27

The Government of Canada recently included a copyright extension in their budget. It appears that the goal is to ratify a contentious provision from the secret and controversial Transatlantic Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty. Leaked versions of the TPP are facing lots of opposition across the world. This extension will effectively keep creative works out of the public domain for 70 years. Inserting the bill into a budget denies Canadians a chance to make an informed decision. The Pirate Party calls for this unnecessary extension to be withdrawn. The party supports shortening the copyright term while preserving the artist’s moral rights and ability to continuously earn income from their work.

“Our government could improve and revitalize our public broadcaster to provide a medium for showcasing independent artist’s works. We could offer the artist a direct-to-artist monetization platform at base cost. Not only will this act as a non-profit launching pad with worldwide marketing reach, it will also give creators a defacto copyright registration without cost.” says Ric Lim, Leader of the Pirate Party. “This is one solution that is better than the old copyright cartel of surrendering the artist’s copyright to a few conglomerates, which is more suitable for an era where production and distribution costs were prohibitive. People want access to the new technological capability of unlimited and realtime access that reflects the new lower cost. Our aim should be to allow greater creative and innovative freedom.”

The copyright monopolists tend to use the few millionaire artists they’ve promoted to claim this ever expanding extension is good for artists. But the larger base of hard working and talented independent artists are not served well by this old model. The Pirate Party is working to fix the increasing abuses in our “intellectual property” laws by plugging the loophole that allows copyright trolls to extort money from Canadians (via threat of unfounded litigation), expanding and clarifying the non-commercial sharing and fair use clauses, and supporting Open Science to benefit all researchers regardless of their background.

The Pirate Party of Canada is a federal political party focused on thoughtful information policy reform, genuine democracy, civil liberties, and the freedom of the Internet. You can find out more online at www.pirateparty.ca .

Media Contacts:   Shawn Vulliez  1-(877) 978-2023 [email protected]

Category: Copyright, Intellectual Monopoly, International Issues, Newsroom, TPP.
for this entry.

Comments

2 comments for PRESS RELEASE: Pirate Proposes a Better Copyright Policy in Place of the New Extension

  2. martin pennock commented at
    Folgendes:

    Hi Laurel,
    You are totally free to use and remix our content. I think we did add a creative commons license to our website, but we have recently done a redesign (which is still ongoing), and it seems that this has yet to be added in.
    In the meantime, as I said, feel free to use it on your website(s). As a press release, that was our intention.

    Thanks, Martin.

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More information

>>>Pourquoi le Parti Pirate?<<<

Why Pirate Party?

1. Open Democracy

One of our main founding principles was Open Government. This means an Open Data policy with proactive disclosure and free access to government data. This will allow anyone to scrutinize and catch any error, negligence or corruption early on. Open Government also means increased transparency, and giving constituents real voices. This can be achieved with electoral reform .

2. Mincome / Basic Income Guarantee (B.I.G.)

Unemployment and income inequality is on the rise and we risk a breakdown of social cohesion without a system for resource distribution as we face increased automation. We're shifting from a bureaucratic culture of constant work-demands to a culture of passion, joy, and learning for the sake of learning.

Mincome will lead to cost savings and create a sustainable economy. See our press release for how that can be achieved.

3. Autonomy and Decentralization

We believe that the world works best when individuals are making informed decisions. It is our goal to get all information to all people, so they may be more informed voters, consumers, participants, and teachers. We do not need to force information culture & the hacker ethic onto people we can simply allow them to choose access. We believe the right to choose our identity, name, and appearance is inalienable.

4. Copyright and Patent Reform
Copyright and patent's main purpose was for propagation of culture and innovation. Our current copyright and patent laws are continuously being corrupted due to lobbying by copyright and patent monopolist. These monopolist refuses to innovate and provide wider access and pass on the savings from the new lower distribution cost. Instead the copyright and patent terms keeps getting extended to benefit the few to the detriment of the public interest. The opposite should happen. Copyright and patent terms should be shortened since our new information infrastructure (i.e. the internet) have brought us cheaper and faster means of distributing media contents and information. Mandatory licensing, owner's rights to a non-DRM product, open access to research data and shorter copyright term are some of the natural changes that is needed if we want to create a more open and progressive society. This will ensure future artist and innovator are not hampered by patent and copyright gatekeepers who uses rent seeking law for anti-competitive purposes.

Human beings increasingly have a moral duty to share information with one another. Libraries are stuck in the last century, enforcing artificial scarcity on digital content. If libraries were upgraded for the modern age, we would no longer need filesharing. And let's face it, watching and listening to whatever you want to is fun. It breaks down arbitrary global borders of access and creates a global culture defined by people- not by corporations.

At the Pirate Party- we believe more information leads to better decisions. We believe that more voices leads to better compromises. We believe in Canadians.

Our democracy need a serious upgrade and Pirate Party aims to change politics to the way it should be.

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Pirate Party of Canada

https://www.pirateparty.ca/