We, the European Pirates, want a fair and balanced copyright law based on the interests of society as a whole.

We therefore demand that copying, providing access to, storing and using literary and artistic production for non-commercial purposes must not just be legalised, but protected by law and actively promoted to improve the public availability of information, knowledge and culture, because this is a prerequisite for the social, technological and economic development of our society. Everyone shall be able to enjoy and share our cultural heritage free from the threat of legal action or censorship.

The commercial monopoly given by copyright should be restored to a reasonable term. Derivative works shall always be permitted, with exceptions which are very specifically enumerated in law with minimal room for interpretation.

The internet as a communicative space knows no borders. PIRATES consider artificial national barriers for cultural goods within the European internal market as a hindrance for the European integration process and demand their abolishment. Overall, a change of approach is required in the area of rights to immaterial goods and their restrictive enforcement. Further monopolies in the sectors of information and culture have to be prevented. By law, the state should only allow or maintain monopoly rights for immaterial goods if these are not conflicting with the general interest. Any monopoly-rights must be temporarily limited; neither their time-span nor their scope may be enlarged retrospectively.

The creation of so-called “commons”, such as free software, free cultural goods, open patent pools and free, open education must be promoted and legally protected.

Social life, increasingly taking place in digital spaces, must not be restricted by rights to immaterial goods. “Fair-Use Regulations” will ensure that. We demand European standards for copyright contracts to strengthen the position of creators versus processing and collecting entities and create a balance in the interest of the general public.

European collecting societies must ensure comprehensive transparency and fair participatory rights for their members.

We PIRATES strive for a revision of the TRIPS Agreement in favour of reducing exclusive rights on immaterial goods, especially in patent and copyright regulations, in accordance with our programmatic goals. The same shall apply to other trade agreements which include similar or even more far-reaching regulations on patents and copyright (TRIPS+). We will only give our consent to new trade agreements, if they do not contain regulations about immaterial goods which are contrary to our convictions on the matter.

We want to work towards provisions in trade agreements which support the use and development of open formats and open source software and regulate the mutual recognition of liberal licence modells like Creative Commons.

Abolition of information monopolies. Information monopolies prevent people from sharing and using information. The politicians have given in to a series of information monopolies that supposedly motivate creators, inventors and producers to be more active. In reality though, the only ones benefiting from the monopolies are huge corporations whereas the market as a whole is failing (bullying of the collective societies, patent wars, orphan works). Our goal is to create an environment where the motivation to create goes hand in hand with the freedom of information.