Greens propose radical reform of "bloated" intellectual property laws
09 September 2005
The Green Party conference, co-inciding with today's global "Software Freedom Day," today confirmed its commitment to a radical reform of Intellectual Property laws.
Two motions were passed - one promoting Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and opposing software patents, and a second seeking an intellectual property regime that preserves the incentive to create whilst maximising public access to information.
"Patents are very expensive to uphold in the courts - and effectively lock smaller firms out of the market," notes Green MEP Dr Caroline Lucas. "Small software developers need freedom for creativity and development - not a corset designed to protect the interests of the few big players that dominate the sector."
"Intellectual resources need to be in the public domain" says Matt Wootton, Green Party External Communications Co-ordinator.
"In the UK, excessive Intellectual Property Rights prevent access to and dissemination of vast areas of knowledge. For instance, this motion seeks to abolish Crown Copyright, a protection for most material originated by ministers and civil servants, which has been paid for by the UK taxpayer."
Peter Lockley, the motions' proposer and a researcher for The Open Knowledge Foundation added: "By switching to open systems, government at all levels can save huge amounts of money, escape the lock-in beloved of Microsoft (who have been fined by the European Commission for abusing their monopoly power) and at the same time increase local autonomy and creativity. And we should be encouraging the use of FOSS in schools - vital if we want to teach children how software works, rather than simply turning out passive users of a standardised product."
Notes for editors:
The basic idea behind open source is very simple: In software, for example, when programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for an application, the software evolves. This can happen at a speed that seems astonishing, if one is used to the pace of conventional software development.
