The Greens have some positive policies on copyright reform
EC1010 Our general presumption is to encourage the Green value of greater sharing and to make it more difficult to obtain patents and similar forms of protection than at present. Specific policies are below.
EC1011 On cultural products (literature, music, film, paintings etc), our general policy is to expand the area of cultural activity, that is ways that culture can be consumed, produced, and shared, reduce the role of the market and encourage smaller and more local cultural enterprise (see CMS200 onwards). Specifically we will
- introduce a Citizen’s Income (see EC730), which will allow many more people to participate in cultural creation;
- introduce generally shorter copyright terms, with a usual maximum of 14 years;
- legalise peer to peer copying where it is not done as a business;
- liberalise ‘fair use’ policies to operate outside the academic environment, and allow greater development from existing copyright material; and
- make it impossible to patent broad software and cultural ideas.
