The Auroville Charter
- Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But, to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
- Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
- Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
- Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.
If the above is what we abide by as committed Aurovilians, I think we need to seriously revisit Auroville’s ‘copyright’ doctrine. If Auroville belongs to nobody in particular, how can the ideas, insights, and innovations that come out of Auroville be with strings attached?
We need to declare outright openly that the outcomes, outputs, and outflows borne out of Auroville are selfless offerings towards humanity, and that we do not require royalties, commission, and dividends for our love.
Ethically, it also makes sense, as one cannot claim total ownership rights to anything in Auroville. Every effort in Auroville is built on previous efforts of Aurovilians, countless hours of volunteers, goodwill of the locals, funding of the donors, support of the governments, etc.
Auroville should adhere to the copyleft principle. Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works.
The ones who do not want to adhere to this collective commitment should voluntarily move out of Auroville, to perpetually profit from ‘their’ idea, insight, or innovation.
