Copyright
The European Union is one of the world's largest markets. It gives the EU large influence in trade related issues, in the World Trade Organization as well as in bilateral and plurilateral trade negotiations.
Unfortunately the work of the EU has, since the late 80s, been drifting in a direction expanding copyright, and that from an already extensive level. Too long copyright terms and too few exceptions locks up knwwledge and cultural goods that otherwise could be of greater use to a large number of people.
To change this situation I want to push the issue of obligatory exceptions in the copyright legislation on EU level. It should be easy to make your own copies and versions of copyrighted material for educational purposes. It should be easy to make accessible copyrighted material to blind, deaf or otherwise disabled people. It should be easy for libraries and archives to make copies for the purpose of archiving and safeguarding knowledge. The European Union needs to create laws that protect the weaker parts of license fee negotiations striving to obtain those goals.
To change the EU strife for an extended copyright in international trade negotiations, I want to anchor a sensible approach to the knowledge society. The EU should not be able use its agricultural subsidizes as a means of forcing less economically developed nations to enforce stronger copyright in exchange for being able to export agricultural goods to the union in trade negotiations.
The copyright protection needs to be radically shortened, and the citizens' rights to exchange and obtain knowledge needs to be strengthened. We need a balanced copyright legislation!
