Forum du Parti Pirate

I was at a breakfast last week, organized by a network of organizations called Copyright4Creativity. They have presented a platform for sensible copyright reform, highlighting some of the most obvious problems with today’s copyright, and suggesting solutions.

At the breakfast there were Members of the European Parliament from three political groups: Greens, Liberals, and Social Democrats (S&D). The encouraging thing is that we were all pretty much in agreement that we need to solve this problem, and now is the right time.

I think we can build the political momentum to have a copyright reform that legalizes file sharing and makes our common cultural heritage accessible to all. The declaration from Copyright4Creativity is a good starting point.

The signatories of Copyright4Creativity are a number of different NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, representing consumers, librarians, and digital rights activists, among others. They come from different backgrounds, but they have all seen the same problem from their own different angles:

Today’s copyright often serves as an obstacle both to the spreading of knowledge and culture, and to creativity itself.