[pp.int.general] Uppsala Declaration

[\"Mårten Fjällstr\"]

Hi,
we have now finalised a European Pirate Parties Declaration of a basic  
plattform for the European Parliaments election of 2009, wriiten in  
Uppsala. Or the Uppsala Declaration for short. The document is attached in  
Open Office format (odt) and also added as text on the bottom of this  
email.

A small pre-amble:
The paper is not to be viewed as a restriction on national parties, but as  
support and startingpoint. If it needs to be translated or modified to  
suit different target audiences, then go ahead and do so.

Yours,
Mårten Fjällström
Party Secretary
Piratpartiet, Sweden


-----
Uppsala Declaration

Policy

Copyright

Copyright is well out of touch with today's cultural landscape. It has  
evolved into an obstacle to creativity, particularly grass roots  
creativity. We need at least these changes to copyright law:

- Copyright is commercial
Copyright only regulates commercial activity. (Local law usually defines  
"commercial activity" in sufficient detail.) Non-commercial activity is  
never regulated by copyright law.

- Sharply reduced monopoly term
Copyright is a limited commercial monopoly that expires well within one  
generation. The exact term is left to the local pirate party.

- No media or hardware levies
No levies to compensate for copying should be permitted - but we allow for  
government scholarships or similar, which are not compensation. This way,  
it's obviously unilateral, and the copyright lobby doesn't have the  
implied right to accept or reject.

- Parliament writes copyright law, not the lobby
Technical measures that prevent consumers from using culture in ways  
permitted by law, so-called DRM technologies, are outlawed.

- Derivative works always permitted
Instead of having derivative works normally prohibited except in quite  
fuzzy fair use exceptions, under our copyright, derivative works are  
always permitted (not covered by the original copyright), with exceptions  
to this very specifically enumerated in law with minimal room for  
interpretation (like "direct translations of a book").

Patents

The patent system of today has lost touch with its original intentions,  
and has developed into something that is harmful to innovation and  
economic progress in many areas.

Pharmaceutical patents raise many ethical concerns, not least in relation  
to people in developing countries. They are also a driving force behind  
increasing costs for publicly funded health care systems in the member  
states.

We demand an initiative for a European study on the economic impact of  
pharmaceutical patents,
compared to other possible systems for financing drug research, and on  
alternatives to the current
system.

Patents on life (including patents on seeds and on genes) and software  
patents should not be allowed.

Civil Rights

EU and it's member states should adhere to the highest standards of  
democracy. Therefore such principles as transparent government, speedy and  
fair trial and freedom of speech should always be respected. In this day  
and age it is crucial to preserve the legal protection of citizens from  
arbitrary exercise of authority. The EU has an important role to play in  
shining a light on violations against civil rights in member states.

A democratic society needs a transparent state and non-transparent  
citizens. The citizens should be able to freely gather to formulate and  
express their opinions without fear of government surveillance. To expand  
this to an information society the right to anonymity in communication  
must be expanded. Therefore the secrecy of correspondence should encompass  
all digital communication.

Votes Strategy

It is the collective consensus of the gathered European Leaders that with  
the scarce resources of a new founded contender party, those resources  
must be focused on a well identified front bowling pin. Statistical data  
states that election participation has been on a continual down slope for  
the past decade and a half for first-time voters, while at the same time,  
the core support for our issues are in the 18-30 age range. This data is  
supported by membership demographics.

Therefore, the identified key catalyst target group is university  
students. Previous experience from elections where Pirate Parties have  
participated show that we are unusually strong at technical universities;  
up to ten times the national average. We need to broaden this scope to all  
universities. Universities are ideal in that they are a concentrated  
recruiting ground with people who are generally passionate about what they  
take part in.

Using Sweden as a template for numbers, assuming that these numbers are  
similar across other European countries with Pirate Parties, there are  
300k university students. 100k votes are needed to get into the European  
Parliament. This means that we would need 33% of the votes of the  
university students, which is not a realistic number. Therefore, we must  
regard universities all across Europe as a recruiting ground for activists  
and ambassadors, who recruit voters in their turn. For example, there are  
another 125k 18-year-olds not yet in university, but who usually have  
friends there. There are friends, relatives, and social circles.

In other words, the key is to supply political passion about the issues to  
young people who would otherwise typically not vote at all, and encourage  
them to become recruiting ambassadors in their turn. There is no  
identified difference here between different political issues of ours.

To accomplish this, we need to supply these ambassadors with confidence,  
rhetoric and, where possible, political material to distribute in turn.  
This is a logistical challenge that needs to be met by each individual  
European Pirate Party.

EP Strategy

In the European Parliament, it is the party groups that are the key to  
getting influence. Once elected, we will discuss with the groups that  
could be of interest, to determine which group is closest to us, and join  
that group.

Inside the group, we will do our utmost to persuade the other members of  
the group to join our position on the issues that fall within our  
political platform. In return, we´ll listen to the advice of the group on  
all other issues, and vote with the group unless we have some strong  
reasons not to.

When we are approached by lobbyists and other parties on issues that are  
outside the Pirate platform, we will refer them to the relevant person in  
the group and encourage them to make their case to him. This will allow us  
to focus on the issues that we really care about.

The decision making process in the EU is very complex, and in order to  
keep on top of what is happening we will need the support of the internet  
community. The Pirate movement is a grass roots movement that builds on  
the involvement of many activists working together using modern  
information technology. This way of working will be a strength that we can  
use to our benefit once elected.

While working with different issues in the EU, we will keep in mind the  
principles that we think should be the guiding stars of the EU itself:

- Subsidiarity
Decisions should be taken as close to the citizens as possible. The EU  
should only handle issues that cannot be handled by the individual member  
states themselves.

- Transparency
The decision making process in the EU today works in a way that makes it  
very difficult for both media and ordinary citizens to follow what is  
happening and take part in the debate. This has to be improved. We need to  
work towards more transparency and openness.

- Accountability
The European Parliament is the only institution in Brussels that is  
directly elected by the voters. The role of parliament should be  
strengthened, so that power is moved out of the back rooms and into the  
open.
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