Pirate Party Sweden

“ 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. ”

“ Millions of children and youths, who earlier couldn't get a proper education, now has access to humanity's collection of knowledge. If no other education is obtainable they have the chance to educate themselves. The revolution of information technology and the free access to knowledge and culture thus give many people new chances to take control of their own lives.
People with special interests can through the modern information technology in an entirely new way find each other and share knowledge, ideas and experiences. ”

“ Never before have so many people in the third world had the access to such a large and varied cultural supply.
Human culture has always developed as a result of cultural creators borrowing from each other, remixing and developing each other's ideas. New technology has made this easier than ever before, and in the past fifteen years we have seen an explosion of diversity and creativity in culture. ”

“ When the government uses surveillance powers against regular citizens who are not suspected of any crime, it is a fundamentally unacceptable and clear violation of the citizen's right to privacy. The government must respect the constitution not just in saying, but in practice. ”

“ Government exists solely for the betterment of society and the protection of its citizens, the very same citizens who legitimize the government. A government who uses its powers against its own citizens is essentially illegitimate. ”

“ The Pirate Party believes that people with access to free communication, culture and knowledge grow, feel better and work together to create a better and more humane society for all to live in. We see that modern information technology create new possibilities for people to themselves take control of their lives and to help in influencing the development of society. ”

“ Abstract The three core beliefs of the Pirate Party are the need for protection of citizen's rights, the will to free our culture, and 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 not in the best interests of a modern judicial state to impose surveillance on all its citizens, thereby treating them as suspects. Democracy presupposes a strong protection for citizen's rights. ”

“ People have a natural need to give their environment depth and meaning. Throughout time, man kind has always interpreted her time and surroundings through culture, to better understand her own existence and role in society.
Sadly much of culture, much like knowledge, has throughout history often been a privilege for a few. Later years' technological development has created possibilities for more and more to experience, exercise and live off of culture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Pirate Party's mission and foundations 3.1 All humans share the same rights. 3.2 Democracy assumes free, unsupervised communication. 3.3 All humans share the same right to personal integrity and privacy. 3.4 Knowledge belongs to everyone. 3.5 Culture enriches our lives and should be as available as possible. ”

“ Many people can therefore enjoy a larger meaning in their non-profit work, as compared to before. Even more importantly, this unpaid work create large values, that in the end will be useful for the entire society. Societal structures therefore need to adapt to the fact that a growing part of the value of the society is created from unpaid work, in everything from traditional popular movements to internet based swarms.
1.3 Free communication strengthens culture and spreads both participation and experience to more people. ”

“ We believe it is only fair and natural that inventors and investors alike shall be able to gain remuneration for their work and ideas. However, patents today are mainly used to prevent innovation by hindering competitors. When created, the patent duration of 20 years was a third of the inventors' lifetime and still a reasonably short timespan compared to the general pace of development. Today, 20 years is nothing to a large corporation but an eternity for society to wait for innovation. ”

“ Never before has the spreading of information contributed to so many quick technical, cultural and economical advances, as well as having opened for new prerequisites and possibilities for participation and democracy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thanks to the modern information technology, people no longer have to put trust in official communiqué and traditional news reporting. One can follow news in real time through the eyes of the people. This means that fewer assaults can happen without being noticed, and that different forms of humanitarian help can be sent quicker. Thanks to the new possibilities to communicate quick and easy with eachother, people can organise in new ways against dictatorship and oppression. ”

“ We believe patents have become obsolete and that 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. ”

“ The possibility to be anonymous in public discussions should be kept. This is important because the societal debate must be including if democracy is to be all inclusive.
1.2 Free access to culture improves people’s chances at building a good life. When knowledge and information can spread and change hands freely it gets easier and easier to develop new innovations, and to adapt old innovations for new conditions. ”

“ We wish to see a society where small and big parties alike can compete on equal and fair terms with weapons like quality, customer benefits and price instead of with patent attorneys. This will liberate resources they can use to innovate for the good of all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The goal of any monopolist is not to adjust prices and terms to what the market will bear, but rather use their ill-gotten rights as a lever to raise prices and set lopsided terms on usage and licensing. ”

“ Ideas, knowledge and information are by nature non-exclusive and their common value lies in their inherent ability to be shared and spread.
We say that copyrights need to be restored to their origins. Laws must be altered to regulate only commercial use and copying of protected works. To share copies, or otherwise spread or use works for non-profit uses, must never be illegal since such fair use benefits all of society.
We want to reform commercial copyrights. The basic notion of copyrights was always to find a fair balance between conflicting commercial interests. ”

“ Citizens' Rights The Swedish constitution guarantees every citizen access to all basic human rights such as freedom of speech, protection against oppression and respect for personal integrity. The EU data retention act tramples on all of these rights by demanding telephone companies and Internet providers store information about every single phone call, every e-mail, every visited website and position of every mobile phone. ”

“ Free our culture We wish to strengthen the attribution rights of the authors. This right shall have no time limit. We wish to free our cultural heritage and enable a richer society by revoking all exclusive copyrights. ”

“ The Pirate Party has no opinion on whether Sweden should or should not be a member of the European Union, but now that we are, we have a right to demand that the union is governed by democratic principles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Patents are used to block competition, big pharma stops developing countries from copying patented AIDS medicines, farmers get sued when a patented GM crop is accidentally spread on their fields, software patents cement the monopolies of big software houses, small inventors are dragged into courts for years to defend their patents and industry wants to patent your genes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Privatized monopolies are one of our society's worst enemies. They lead directly to price-hikes and large hidden costs for citizens. Patents are officially sanctioned monopolies on ideas. Large corporations fight each other in a race to file more and more patents they can use against smaller competitors to prevent them from competing on equal terms. ”

“ 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 a revised and modern form of IP law firmly founded on the principle of enrichment of society. We demand a healthy climate for entrepreneurs. We demand a creative commons of knowledge and culture, promoting the enrichment of all. ”

“ It can be proven that exclusivity lessens the inherent value of immaterials such as ideas, thoughts, knowledge and music. A free dissemination of information and cultural expressions enrich us all, especially when combined with a technological revolution that enables free distribution at the speed of light. ”

“ We also claim that patents suffocate innovation. By creating a monopoly on knowledge, they stifle competition and prevent development, not to mention the ways they are being abused by patent holders.
Last but definitely not least is the question of privacy. Sweden is on course for a society where every citizen is being constantly supervised by the government. ”

“ The government shall only be allowed access to a citizen's means of communication or put a citizen under surveillance in the case of a firm suspicion of a crime being committed by said citizen. In all other cases, the government shall assume its citizens to be innocent and leave them alone. ”

“ 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 retard technological development and constitute a serious threat against Swedish as well as European small- and medium-sized businesses in the IT sector. ”

“ Millions of classical songs, movies and books are held hostages in the vaults of huge media corps, 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, before time withers away the celluloid of the old movie reels. ”