Benutzer:TurBor/Übersetzungen/Parteiprogramm
Policy statements of the German Pirate Party
adopted by the founding assembly on September 10th, 2006
last modified by the general party assembly on July 5th, 2009
Introduction
The digital revolution encompassing all spheres of life threatens personal dignity and freedom in ways that were unknown before. The speed of those changes is such that society, legislative bodies and individuals cannot cope with it. At the same time, means of combating this process by democratically accepted rules in single states are dwindling. Globalization of knowledge and culture thru digitalization and networking puts in doubt all legal, economic and social concepts which have been in use until now. Wrong solutions to those challenges play a major role in facilitating the creation of a global totalitarian surveillance society. Fear of international terrorism makes security seem to be more important than freedom and many don't dare to speak in favor of freedom any more. Informational self-determination, free access to knowledge and culture and the upholding of privacy rights are crucial for the information society of the future. Only based on these concepts a democratic, socially just, free global order can emerge.
The Pirate Party sees itself as part of a worldwide movement which seeks to shape this order for mutual benefit. The Pirate Party concentrates on topics which are named in this policy statement, as we see it as the only way of effectively promoting those important goals in the future. At the same time we are convinced that our goals deserve support from all traditional political orientations, and that if we tried to position ourselves clearly in the political spectrum, that would hinder our efforts at upholding privacy rights and promoting free knowledge and culture.
The ancient dream of pooling all the knowledge and culture gathered by humanity, of saving it and making it available today and in the future is close to its implementation owing to the fast technological advances of the last decades. Like all great breakthroughs those advances manifest themselves in different spheres of life and require changes. Our goal is to use the chances provided by this situation and warn of the dangers which lie therein. Modern developments in legislature concerning authors' rights, however, attempt to restrict the chances granted by technological advancement. The notion of "intellectual property" in its current shape is outdated and runs contrary to the goals of establishing a knowledge- and information-based society.
No limitations on copying
Technologies which restrict or hinder the copying of works ("Digital Rights Management" etc.) seek to artificially create scarcity in order to turn a free good into a market value. Artificial creation of scarcity based on purely monetary reasons seems immoral to us, and we are against it. Furthermore, they impede in a multitude of ways the rightful use of works, create a totally inacceptable range of possibilities for control and surveillance of the users, and endanger the availability of works for generations to come which may not have access to today's playback equipment. Additionally, the economic costs for the creation and maintenance of an effective and secure copy protection infrastructure are absolutely disproportional to its economic utility. The indirect costs which come into existence through limited compatibility of playback devices and software further increase those costs.
Free copying and free use
As the copying of content in digital form cannot technically be limited in an adequate way and as the massive implementation of prohibitions in the private area has to be considered a failure, the chances of universal accessibility of content should be recognized and put to use. We are convinced that the non-commercial multiplication and use of content should be considered natural and don't negatively affect the interests of most authors, contrary to opinions voiced by particular interest groups. In the past no such correlation could be established with any degree of reliability. Actually, a multitude of innovative business models do exist which use the free accessibility to their advantage and allow authors to become more independent from particular market structures. Thus, we require the non-commercial copying, saving, granting access to and use of content be not only made legal, but also actively supported to enhance the availability of information, knowledge and culture, for that is an essential requirement for the social, technological and economic advancement of our society.
Support of culture
We consider it to be our responsibility to support the creation of cultural works especially in the context of cultural diversity. Positive effects of the changes we propose should be recognized and used to the full extent. Possible but unexpected negative side effects have to be reduced, should they come up.
A balance between the authors' and the public's interests
We fully acknowledge the personality rights of the authors to their works. Today's regulation of utilization rights, however, doesn't do justice to a fair balance between the justified interests of the authors and the public interest to have access to knowledge and culture. Generally speaking, the creation of a work makes significant use of publicly available cultural heritage. The availability of works thus created into the public domain is thus not only justified but also essential for the sustainability of human culture. Thus, a framework has to be created which allows for a fair back-flow into the public domain. This especially includes a radical shortening of rights below the time-spans defined in the TRIPS agreements.
Legal equality of software
We require that software not have any special rights in the context of copyright and related rights legislation, except when that is required by technical prerequisites (for example to guarantee interoperability). This especially includes the refusal to acknowledge privileges for software, for example for copying and use, which have a greater extent that similar rules for other kinds of content.
Privacy and data protection
The protection of privacy and data are a guarantee for the freedom and honor of human. The modern democratic society has been fought for in the past and its creation was paid for by countless lives. The 20th century alone brought Germany two dictatorships whose atrocities were largely defined by the lack of respect for the individual life and by total control. But no dictator in history could even dream of the technical opportunities that the modern day presents. The surveillance society comes into being solely on the grounds that it has become possible and serves the interests of both the state and the industry. The Pirate Party declares war on this kind of surveillance. Every single step on the road to a surveillance state may be arbitrarily well-founded, but we, as Europeans, know from experience what lies at the end of this road and we will go to any lengths to prevent that.
Privacy
The right to the respect of privacy is irrefutably a part of the democratic society. The freedom of thought and the right to personal advancement cannot be guaranteed without this prerequisite. Systems and methods employed by the state against its citizens have to be constantly controlled by elected representatives. If the government puts its citizens who are not suspected of a crime under surveillance, this is a fundamentally inacceptable violation of the civil right to privacy. Every citizen has to be guaranteed the right to anonymity present in our constitution. The transfer of private data from the state to privately-held industries has to be stopped. The right to secrecy of correspondence has to be extended to a general right to secrecy of communication. The access to the communication channels of a citizen or his surveillance may only be allowed for the government if a founded suspicion is present that this citizen plans a criminal act. In all other cases the government should assume that its citizens are innocent and let them have their peace. This secrecy of communication has to have strong legislative protection as governments have repeatedly shown that they are not trustworthy when sensible data is concerned.
Especially the collection and storage of communication data independently of any suspicion contradicts not only the presumption of innocence but also all principles of a free democratic society. The surveillance paranoia is a much more severe threat for our society than international terrorism and creates a climate of fear and distrust. Massive video surveillance of public places, questionable systematical data gathering, central databases with unfounded suspicions are methods which we decline.
Informational self-determination
The right of every person to decide on the use of their private data has to be retained. Especially the data protection officials have to be able to act completely independently. New methods like scoring require for a person to have control not only over their private data but also over the use of any data which can be employed to form a conclusion about this person. Each user has to get the right to require providers of centralized databanks to get information on the private data stored and to correct, block or erase this data. This right has to have a realistic implementation and shouldn't incur any charges or fees. The gathering and use of biometric data and genetic tests have an especially high potential for wrongful use and thus require additional critical evaluation and independent control. No centralized data banks holding such data must be created. Generally the rules governing the protection of private data have to take into account the special qualities of digital data, for example their potential longevity and uncontrollable spread.
As the Pirate Party fights for more freedom in the spread of information, knowledge and culture, we also require data scarcity, data protection and independent control over the use of private data used for industrial of administrative ends and can thus be used to unnecessarily cut the informational self-determination of the citizen.
Patents
During the change from the industrial age to the information age the worldwide patent regulations have become partially hindering rather than stimulating for innovations. The attempt to shape the future with methods of the past is not only inadequate for handling the essential changes of the world but also poses a serious threat for the society of tomorrow, for example in the fields of patents on genetic research, biotechnology and software. In principle we aim at creating a more open market without the hindering restrictions imposed my modern patent legislation. We require a reform of the patent system and the introduction of more sensible regulations. It should in no case be extended by more innovation-hindering legislation.
Dismantling of private monopolies; open markets
In principle, the increasing reduction of private monopolies towards more open markets is a dedicated goal of our party. Patents are state-guaranteed private monopolies which artificially restrict public welfare and as such require constant justification and questioning. While patents on industrial goods are generally considered to be a success story (which can be neither proven nor disproven), the social and economic conditions of the globalized post-industrial world are vastly different. The increasing international competition leads more and more often to a misuse of the patent system that doesn't provide for any reimbursement for society. We want to restrict the increasing misuse of patents. Protection of trivialities through patents or even the blocking of innovations with the help of the patent system has to be prevented at all costs. This is especially true of the pharmaceutical industry. The high money requirements and the near-monopoly structure of this market need a reorganization for a sensible use of public resources and to prevent blocking tactics which serve only to the advantage of few. In addition, some consequences of patents on medications are highly questionable from an ethical standpoint.
Patents in the information society
Industrial success in the information society becomes increasingly dependent not on inventions, but on knowledge, information and its gathering. The aspiration to regulate these factors with the help of patents is to our view directly contrary to the aim of freedom of information and culture for humanity. We reject patents on living beings and genes, on business ideas and on software as they have irresponsible consequences, hinder the development of the information society, privatize public goods without necessity and without reimbursement, and do not represent inventions in the common sense anyway. The rapid development of small and medium IT enterprises throughout Europe shows that patents on software are totally unnecessary.
Transparency of the political system
A rapid development can be observed in today's society. An increasing amount of information is gathered and interconnected. Connected information becomes knowledge and knowledge becomes power. If the access to knowledge is restricted to only a few, that means the formation of power structures that brings advantages only for a few persons, institutions or state organs and thus threatens the democratic process in a free society. This process is based upon a broad participation of citizens in the creation and control over processes in society and is thus incompatible with an informational advantage that few try to gain at the expense of the public. The ability to check on the working of administration and politics on all levels of the state governance is therefore a fundamental civil right and has to be guaranteed, protected and enforced for the good of the free democratic society. The current situation in Germany is ruled by a variety of rulings on different levels and areas of state governance and little has been done to change from a "principle of secrecy" to a "principle of transparency", although that is the groundwork for development in the society of the 21st century, especially when considering the broad opportunities presented by new media. Administration and politics finally have to admit their role as service providers to the citizens also in the context of transparency and generally re-design themselves to allow the citizen free access to information in an efficient, comfortable and low-cost manner. Especially for an evaluation of political functionaries it is necessaery for the reasons for political decisions to be transparent. Negative examples are the shrouding in secrecy of the maut contract of the sovereign and its elected representatives and the undemocratical introduction of voting machines which can be used to damage the primary element of democracy - the election.
The Pirate Party aims to increase the transparency of all state procedures and therefore requires:
• Every citizen should have the right, independent of the personal involvement and without requiring a justification, to inquire into documentation on all levels of state governance and get access to information therein. This right extends to both written material as well as material stored on digital or other media.
• The above right is limited by the rights to privacy of the persons concerned, national security issues, crime prevention and likewise restrictions. These exceptions have to be narrowly and clearly defined and must not exclude whole departments or work areas.
• The enquiry office is required to provide quick access with transparent regulations concerning its costs, in form of a disclosure of the relevant documents with the right to create a material copy to ensure a broad and efficient use of the data.
• Access denial has to be justified in writing and may be checked in court by the submitter or an authorized third party. To tnis end, the court has to be granted full access to the data by the public institution.
• All public institutions have the duty to provide regular descriptions of their organization and tasks (including an overview over documents and sources used which can be accessed by the public) as well as an annual public report on the handling of their publication duty.
Taking into consideration the immense possibilities which arise by the fast advances and spread of new media there exist different approaches to the implementation of the requirements outlined above. For example, government-run institution have to force the use of free software, implement an automatic publication system for documents and in general expand a structure of low-cost digital access. The "principle of secrecy" which is shaped by the administrative and political philosophy of a traditional state should be replaced with the "principle of publicity" that makes the responsible citizen the central point of all state actions, which, according to the a firm conviction of the Pirate Party, is an indispensable prerequisite of a modern information society in a free democratic order.
Open Access
The state budget is used to finance a multitude of creative work which in the end produce copyright-protected products. As these results are financed by the society, they should be available to the society free of charge. Today that is rarely the case.
Open Access in science
Scientific publications financed or supported by the state are often printed in commercial journals which rely on quality standards provided by other (also state-financed) scientists during peer review. These publications aren't provided free of charge even to libraries of scientific institutions. Thus, the taxpayer has to pay three times for the publication (production, peer review, journal copy) while the entire profit goes to the private journals. We support the Berlin declaration of the Open Access movement and require free access of the scientific and cultural heritage of humanity through the internet, according to the Open Access principle. We consider it the state's task to implement this principle in institutions financed and supported by it.
Open access in public governance
We require that software and other digital goods whose production is funded by the public to be included into the Open Access concept. Products which are created by state-run institutions or on behalf of such institutions have to be freely available to the general public for use and access. The source code of software has to be included in this kind of publication. This allows not only direct benefit for the public but also benefits the institutions which created the software as they can profit from improvements written by the public (Open Source/free software principle). In addition, the sustainability of the public IT infrastructure is increased and the dependence of software manufacturers reduced.
Infrastructure monopolies
Communication is the basic foundation of human society. The European history since the time of the Enlightenment has been firmly connected to the fight for freedom of communication. Lacking communication possibilities encourage the establishing of totalitarian systems while a multitude of free communication channels benefit industry, welfare, education and freedom. Free communication is a foundation of any functioning democracy and a basic human right. For a free information society free information is of essential importance. The worldwide networking must not be considered just as a by-product of globalization. Modern communication networks in the course of technological advancement enter all areas of human society. Understanding in the new millenium is defined by telecommunication which has almost completely penetrated our life. Used as an instrument, telecommunications can multiply the potential of a society. Social networking can be designed broader and with firmer connections. The technological advancement steadily decreases the costs of communication.
Monopolies
Artificially created monopolies on communication channels hinder this technological advancement. The corporations controlling the market are subject to a constant requirement of profit maximization and thus defend outdated infrastructure from modernization as well as threaten to introduce new technologies only in the case that they also fall under their monopoly power. Neither should new monopolies be granted nor the existing one sustained. Nobody must be discriminated against because of a communication monopoly. The Pirate Party considers its responsibility to protect the free connectivity and to support decentralized communication channels, especially by supporting non-commercial projects aimed at that goal.
The electromagnetic spectrum
The electromagnetic spectrum has to be free for a broad, civilized, democratic use. The possibility of broadband communication available to everybody as well as the sum of individual utilities have to be the decision-making criteria, not a monetary calculation. That means a continuous creation of available frequence ranges adapted to technological developments which must not be subject to access limitations. The distribution of frequencies has to take into consideration the multitude of possible technical uses, as well as the different sizes, possibilities and local spread of the institutions bidding on the frequency ranges. Frequencies may be reserved only under the condition that social and technological sustainability remains untouched. International cooperation in the governance of the electromagnetic spectrum has to be honored, supported and extended according to the goals defined in this program.
Contents filtering
Control over information being communicated destroys the foundations of a functioning democracy. The telecommunications infrastructure has thus to be neutral in respect to the contents being transmitted. Any forms of censorship have to be prevented and the possibility of installing any kind of filters have to be actively anticipated and combated. The freedom of communication must not be endangered neither on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany nor abroad. Censorship initiatives of other countries must not be supported in any form. Initiatives of political or technical nature that aim at the undermining of filtering systems have to be supported in the course of foreign policy settings.
Education
Education in a free democratic society
Every person has the right to free access to information and education. In a free democratic society this is essential to ensure to every person a maximal measure of social interaction independently of their heritage. With that goal in mind the aim of institutional education is the development of critical, conscious and social individuals. The free access to education is, however, necessary not only in the light of the social development of society, but also of the economic one. Education is one of the most important resources available to German economy, as only through the sustaining, spread and multiplication of knowledge advancement and social welfare can be ensured in the long run. Investments in education are investments in the future.
The public education infrastructure
The free access to education facilities is in everybody's interest. Thus it is a task of society, and of the state, to finance an effective and adequate education infrastructure and to assure its general availability. Private financing of public education facilities is to be generally welcomed as far as it doesn't influence the education contents. Fees for education of any kind whatsoever restrict the access to education and are thus to be disallowed. The same reason applies for the free availability of textbooks. The best way to ensure this aim is to support the use and creation of free works which transfer knowledge. Those free works are not only available for use in class, but also allow the teaching person to freely and without legal hurdles adjust the materials to their teaching method. Although an education requirement on the state is provided, the education in state facilities shall not replace the parents' educational efforts. A complete education includes both forms of education being used together.
Education as an individual process
Every person is an individual and has personal strong and weak sides. Institutional education should thus support the individual strengths, reduce the individual weaknesses and help to develop new abilities and interests. Some forms of achievement measurements don't satisfy those requirements, along with rigid learning and time plans. We especially reject the evaluation of behavior based on a rigid predefined norm table. The content of education has to be based upon proven and reliable data and have to be taught in a maximal neutral manner. This includes a neutral image, a balance of different viewpoints and critical attitude towards sources.
Democratization of educational facilities
The education facilities are an important and defining part of the students' and pupils' lives. Thus, it has to be seen as an environment for the students the use of which should be always possible. A democratic organization of education facilities should allow the students as well as all the other interest groups therein to exercise adequate influence. In this way democratic values are transmitted and given an example of, the acceptance of decisions is heightened and the community feeling inside the facilities is strengthened.