Pirate Party encourages cultural participation, innovation and dissemination

Pirate Party Australia offers an alternative to the cultural policies of both major parties and the approach advocated by Liberal Senator George Brandis in the Australian recently. The Party’s policy fosters a participatory cultural environment that promotes greater development and innovation, boosting community programs and outlets while reducing the restrictions copyright law places on our culture.

Contrary to Mr Brandis’ implied support of draconian copyright laws[1], the Pirate Party believes strongly in relaxing copyright to bring it more in line with contemporary needs and expectations. Rapid changes in technology, including affordability and access, have resulted in copyright law from the print era being erroenously applied to contexts where interactions with and uses of copyrighted material have changed.

“If we want people to respect copyright, we must have respectable copyright law,” said Brendan Molloy, Senate Candidate for NSW. “References made to the current state of copyright law by Senator Brandis are troubling in that legal restrictions that prevent artists building on previous works threaten the sustainable development of culture. When we lock culture up for nearly two centuries, we severely limit the ability for works to be reused in new contexts.”

Brandis revealed his beliefs that the current model of copyright law, as developed prior to the digital era, should be perpetuated into the future, alluding to the use of digital restrictions and excessive legal ramifications for those violating such restrictions. Propping up antiquated business models via artificial limits on digital communications imposes limits on digital innovation and cultural development, which negates the very support for the arts that Brandis espouses.

The Pirate Party’s cultural policy involves relaxing copyright laws[2] and encouraging participation[3], including incentives for artists to make their works more accessible. Under the Party’s policy, copyright duration would be reduced to 15 years, rather than the life plus seventy years it is currently. This would significantly expand the public domain, allowing more works to be utilised by the public. Other changes to copyright law would include the inclusion of a generic ‘fair use’ exception along the lines of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s recent recommendations[4] and an exception for non-commercial distribution such as file-sharing.

“All culture is based on previous works. In the modern age, with tools that make remixing and editing easier than ever before, artists require better protections for fair use,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “Many popular forms of music, from hip-hop to mash-ups, put artists at risk of legal action for sampling another musician’s work. Fair use protections, like those that Senator Brandis appears to oppose, are actually the best way to protect emerging talent from their currently legally precarious position.”

The limited exceptions to copyright that permit the use of copyrighted material without permission — known in Australia as fair dealing exceptions — are in jeopardy already through the increasing prevalence of digital rights management (DRM). DRM technologies prevent the duplication of copyrighted material or restrict access to the material, and because circumventing such “protection” measures is illegal under the Copyright Act, fair dealing rights cannot be legally exercised in many cases. Present or future legal provisions permitting the use of copyrighted material can be of little benefit when the material itself cannot be accessed.

In order to increase cultural participation, the Pirate Party proposes to allocate $50 million to supporting artists who adopt Creative Commons or similar licences for their works, participatory art programs organised by community groups, and a community-based program in which scientists and cultural figures are invited to interact with the community in informal settings. In addition to this, the Party proposes an expansion of current tax exemptions to include small-capacity music venues which host at least 100 free-access live or cultural music performance per year, and book and cultural exchanges which provide low-cost literary and cultural material to the general public.

“It is vital that venues that promote and support artists have sufficient support to survive. They provide and promote spaces where the community and artists interact and new forms of art can be explored. For Australia to have a thriving cultural community, access to the arts must go beyong the large, established institutions and provide support for emerging talent,” Mr Frew continued.

“Supplementing increased community participation and outlets in live performance and workshop contexts, Creative Commons licencing allows artworks to be shared and used to generate interest in performances and exhibitions, where the current copyright system is mostly used to limit sharing and distribution. As a musician, I rely on people being able to freely access my music in order to promote and book live performances,” Mr Frew concluded.

Pirate Party Australia is contesting this year’s federal election, fielding candidates for the Senate in NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria.

[1] http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/george-brandis-details-coalitions-arts-manifesto/story-e6frg8n6-1226700080674
[2] https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Copyright
[3] https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Cultural_Participation
[4] http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/copyright-and-digital-economy-dp-79