Today, Tuesday April 26, at 3pm, members of the Pirate Party Australia will be handing out free CDs outside the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Broadway Campus main entrance.

Pirate Party Acting Secretary Simon Frew said “Today is World Intellectual Property day. Intellectual property is a term used to lump together a range of different concepts in an attempt to conflate them with physical property. Ideas and culture can now be shared at a trivial cost, yet companies rely on government imposed legal restrictions to maintain their advantage through creating a false scarcity.”

“There are quite large differences between trademarks, patents and copyright, yet today is a celebration of corporate interests having successfully passed them all off as a single concept. We are coming out to oppose this and show that information should be freely shared. We have produced a Pirate Sampler CD to distribute for free, promoting the artists and Creative Commons licences” he said.

“Creative Commons is an alternative to copyright that has been created for artists who wish to share their works on a more equitable basis than copyright. The licence choices give artists direct control over how their art will be used.”

“Music is something that should be shared freely; organisations like MIPI and APRA are doing whatever it takes to try to limit peoples access to culture so they can remain the middle-men between artists and their fans and to continue to keep extracting their massive profits.” Mr Frew continued.

“Most artists don’t suffer from piracy at all, they suffer from obscurity.” Mr Frew said. “Freely sharing recorded music is a great marketing tool for live performances, where artists make a much larger cut of the takings. Traditional rights organisations like APRA focus on persecuting music fans for sharing their favourite music. They are not protecting artists income, but record label income.”

“Musicians make approximately 50% of the takings from any live show and only 15% for traditional album sales. As music sales have declined, this has been more than made up by an increase in income from live music. The recording industry, in particular the major labels, charge artists for their recordings and take most of the profit. Even if you have a recording deal, there is no guarantee they will promote you or even get your music into shops.” Mr Frew said.