Not the Best Ideas

           Humans are by and large creatures of habit.  Just look around you; most people struggle with big changes in their lives and would prefer, if there had to be a change at all, it be minute.  Because of this struggle with change, it is likely Burkart’s optimism for Pirate Politics to be successful is in vain.  He strongly believes that this political party will gain enough ground not only in the European Parliament but in the United States and other powerful nations around the world to be able to significantly affect the way patents and copyrights are dealt with.  He is driven, in part, to believe this idea from the Swedish Pirate Party’s success from 2006 to 2009.  In 2006, they were only able to muster 0.63% of the vote.  However, three years later in 2009, they gathered 7.13% of the vote, allowing themselves to gain a seat in the European Parliament (Burkart, 2014).  This thus persuaded Burkart this party is able to grow in a strong fashion.  In the short span between when they became a party to three years later, they were close to capturing 10% of the vote of the entire European Union.  He believed this to be strong evidence they would be able to keep growing in a large manor.  However, this short burst of popularity should not be enough to convince Burkart of the party’s future success.  

            As mentioned above, Burkart should not believe so strongly in the party’s ability to change the way the world looks at copyright and patent laws.  Because humans have such a strong habit of avoiding change, the phenomenon has been named; it is called path dependence.  Path dependence is the idea once something is in place with a certain standard, it is very difficult, and often times expensive, to replace, even if the habit has considerable flaws (McChesney, 2014).  Copyright and patent laws have been prominent in American society for nearly 227 years as they are written into the Constitution (Copyright, 2014).  Across the sea in Europe, patent law dates back to the medieval days of Europe (Khan, 2008).  Because patent law has such a prominent history, every person alive today has had some form of patent and/or copyright law experience in their life.  Even if they do not approve of the patent law system, path dependence says they would still be unlikely to work towards, let alone approve of, the shift towards the weakening and abolishing of certain patent and copyright laws.  People have become so accustomed to the system of copyrights they will not want to move away from it.  The Pirate Party in Europe was only able to muster 7.13% of the vote, which is not a significant amount, not nearly enough to win them any kind of influence in the European Parliament.  A large majority of the population did not vote with them and did not want to change their view on copyright/patent laws.  They are dependent upon the path they are currently on and will not change their ways because of a simple whim by a new political party.  Therefore, this dependence should not lead Burkart to believe change is on the way but should instead lead him to believe this relatively new party is a quick little whim that will not have much to any influence on the political system.