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Theme One: The WSIS Declaration of Principles sets out a vision for the information society – how can the intellectual property system support this vision?
So when we try to consider whether the IP system does, can or should support the vision for the information society, the working answer could be – it depends, in part, on how it is used, on who is using it and for what purpose, and what legal rules and social and economic incentives determine how it is used. Perhaps one of the most challenging questions is whether the IP system is viewed as an element of public policymaking, constructed and implemented for public welfare outcomes, or whether it is to be viewed, more narrowly, as a system of exclusive economic rights. The IP system is shaped, in part, by international standards, but also by numerous choices of national legislatures and by individual right holders. Existing international standards have been accompanied by a vigorous, wide-ranging debate that has not focused exclusively on commercial or economic matters. From the beginning, this debate was a discourse on how best to accommodate and balance concerns about legitimate protection with broader public interests. So this discourse has addressed policy questions such as cultural diversity and the strength of home-grown creativity and cultural expression, the role of new communications technologies in education and public information, and the relationship between commercial interests and public policy goals. When the Berne Convention was last revised, in 1971, the Conference Chair paid ”a particular tribute … to those developing countries which have been members of the Berne Union for a long time and had endeavoured at the same time to place intellectual values above purely material considerations. Their efforts had enabled them to acquire an intellectual heritage of the utmost value, which gave them a high reputation throughout the world … their example would be followed by other States which preferred a valuable cultural heritage to the sometimes sterilizing importation of foreign works.”1 These broader policy factors and social concerns were highlighted in debate during continuing work on international copyright law. When, in 1996, the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) was concluded, the negotiators recognized “the need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors and the larger public interest, particularly education, research and access to information as reflected in the Berne Convention” and also: 3. This suggests that one way of dealing with this kind of question is to look at the various forms of legal mechanisms that fall under the general label of ’ intellectual property’ . The intellectual property system is not a monolithic unity, but is better conceived as a label describing a complex composite network of international treaties and national laws, together with the business and social practices that have developed around each distinct area of IP (principally the fields of copyright, patents, trademarks and designs). And these established forms of IP law are largely derived from, and shade into, the broader law of civil liability. A leading critic of the IP system, Richard Stallman, when more generally questioning the value of IP, particularly takes issue with the concept "intellectual property" as a single concept, noting that it ‘operates as a catch-all to lump together disparate laws.’ He comments that "these laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues…. Since these laws developed independently, they are different in every detail as well as in their basic purposes and methods."3 4. Despite their divergent characteristics, there are common elements – for instance, IP laws typically prescribe forms of exclusive rights over intangible subject matter, and seek to define these in a way that maintains a healthy public domain while channeling private interest to promote the creation of public goods – but the way this is done, the principles that apply, and the policy issues and communities of interest that are involved, can vary greatly. For instance, in trademark law, the "public domain" includes those descriptive terms that should remain in the common language for general use; in patent law, the public domain includes technological knowledge that is not novel, inventive or useful (industrially applicable); and so on. It may be misleading, then, to consider one IP system as an undivided whole, because the policies, purposes and methods of protection, and the legal structures that have evolved to regulate each field are very different. 5. WIPO administers 23 international IP treaties (and was, itself, established through a treaty – the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, signed in Stockholm on July 14, 1967). WIPO’s purpose is, according to the 1974 Agreement between the United Nations and WIPO, the “promotion of creative intellectual activity and the facilitation of the transfer of technology related to intellectual property to the developing countries in order to accelerate economic, social and cultural development (article 1). Each IP treaty comes into force, or becomes operational, when a specified number of States ratify or accede to it – following which, depending on a country’s system of implementation, it is translated by each government into its national law. The international IP treaties allow considerable scope and flexibility for countries, when implementing their provisions domestically, to take account of local social, cultural and economic conditions, while requiring acceptance of the minimum standards of protection agreed by negotiation among states. Intellectual property law is territorial in nature – for example, a copyright law enacted by one government sets out the requirements and terms, scope and enforcement of copyright law within that country. Clearly, the territoriality of IP laws raises issues when intellectual property subject matter is accessed and used in a global space, for example through use of the Internet. These treaties and national laws establish the legal basis for a broad system to manage knowledge in the Information Society. IP rights provide a structure within which to manage relationships between creators and owners of IP on the one hand, and users and consumers of IP on the other. The IP system does not dictate how creators may exercise rights in works they create. Rather, it provides them with choices that range from full-scale economic exploitation (an “all rights reserved” approach), to making works available through sharing with the community at large with no expectation of economic gain (though often still relying on IP rights to preserve the integrity of the work). At the individual level, the IP system is fundamentally about choices available to creators and innovators – whether to profit financially from commercial exploitation of IP, whether to dedicate IP subject matter to the public domain, whether to assert authorship rights as a vehicle for free speech. As a building-block of the Information Society, the IP system does not discriminate based on how creative content is generated or produced, or the message it conveys – the same protection is provided to programming originated by CNN as to programming of Al Jazeera or the BBC; and while they may exercise rights in different ways, open source software developers benefit from the same copyright principles as do providers of proprietary software. 6. Over time, IP law and IP-based business practices have continually adapted to social, cultural and economic change. In the copyright field, technological innovations from the printing press, to photography, player pianos, radio, television, photocopiers and video recorders, all necessitated evolution of copyright law and principles. In the Information Society, the emergence of digital information and communications technologies, including the Internet, has profoundly affected how we produce, disseminate and consume information globally. How does IP law respond to these developments? The IP treaties are regularly updated by revisions negotiated among States and implemented at the national level. New treaties can also be created, such as the WIPO “Internet Treaties” – the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty - which were concluded in 1996 and came into force in 2002. The impetus for these legal or normative developments is usually a set of needs put forward by WIPO’s Member States, often at the request of IP stakeholders at the national or international levels. In addition to treaty-based law, alternative ‘soft law’ instruments have been developed which provide more flexible, faster and in some circumstances more efficient ways to address needs and challenges in the Information Society. For example, the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Procedure (UDRP) (see Theme 10), was developed to address the problem of ‘cybersquatting,’ which involves the pre-emptive registration of trademarks by third parties as domain names. The UDRP was adopted by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), based on recommendations from WIPO following an open and transparent international consultation process, conducted both online and at publicly-reported regional meetings. WIPO’s Joint Recommendation Concerning Provisions on the Protection of Marks, and Other Industrial Property Rights in Signs, on the Internet, is another soft law set of recommendations to States for adapting national trademark laws to the digital environment. 7. IP issues are integral to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Declaration of Principles and Draft Action Plan, which reflect the central position that ‘information’ plays in the Information Society. The Declaration states:
The WSIS Plan of Action outlines goals with direct relevance to IP, including the following: “to promote the use of information and knowledge for the achievement of internationally agreed development goals” (article 4); “develop policy guidelines for the development and promotion of public domain information as an important international instrument promoting public access to information” (article 10 (a)); “support local content development” (article 23(e)). While WSIS processes are directed at addressing Information Society issues and concerns, not all of these are new or unique to Information Society discourse. Promoting access to information, sharing of knowledge and creativity, stimulating local content production and innovation to ensure diversity and economic development, and marshaling the IP system for development objectives, are long-standing concerns of the international community, reflected in discussions within WIPO and in other international contexts. However it cannot be denied that the dizzying speed with which new ICTs are becoming available gives urgency to the search for solutions.
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For some, economics are the reason for creative expression. For many, however, there are non-monetary reasons for creative works.
In a democracy, freedom of expression about our political beliefs and perceptions of what is happening in the world is absolutely essential. While a few of us write and sing for a living, families and communities throughout the ages have been sharing stories and song with no expectation of monetary reward. Academics write research articles for impact, not for money. A great many people do volunteer work of many forms; creative works sometimes arise from these efforts.
Intellectual property laws and procedures designed primarly to protect economic interests may impede the goals of creators in this sense. For example, if the work of an author who freely shares work, hoping that as many as possible will read it, is placed behind an anti-circumvention barrier, then this particular IP protection is thwarting, not helping, the goals of this creator.
The internet facilitates many kinds of free sharing of information, essential to democracies as well as healthy cultures. Let's make sure that any measures we put in place to protect economic interests do not become barriers to these other very important non-economic goals.
It seems to me that the approach most likely to accomodate these varying needs of creators is one based on the Creative Commons approach, rather than traditional copyright law.
Posted by Heather Morrison on June 02, 2005 at 04:08 PM CEST #
Putting in the shoes of the creator, creation is a miracle of life, from metamorphose to the realization of the new idea, that could only happen to a few people in a life time-And of course, the lucky ones would jealously want to protect the invention, make it rare and precious so that they can make a good fortune out of it.
"Rules are made to be broken". In the majority people who cannot impregnate an invention, some would not accept the inferiority complex, but rather to exercise their wit and skills to take away the original invention, embellish it, and create a new version of product, sold it cheaper and in big volume, so that they can make a good fortune out of it.
Sometimes, the thief outwit the creator, gave out the product at the same time with the original. Most of the time, the copy product is cheaper and come out abundantly, making it affordable to common people who survive paycheck by paycheck, especially products that correspond to human basic needs. That is how IP is needed.
Policies makers look closer on intentions, human tendencies and ethic beliefs, with hope to find correpondant solutions that fit with such separate intentions yet that converge into the same goal: making good money.
Normally IP systems function in a way that slow down common access to knowledge, screening, tagging, just to prevent thefts. Security tags reveal traces of users, even able to destroy hardware of illegal users. Nevertheless, thefts nowadays perform with high tech and under networks hard to detect. Meanwhile, common legitimate users find at odds between the needs of inspiration, creativity and freedom of speech, versus the cold and hostile system machine.
Cooperating the voice of Heather Morrison above, inventions that are worth of stealing must be ranked as a standardized ideas and be rewarded title as such. A farther vision of a new culture ambiance that milk freedom of expression and creativity to prosper. A deeper consideration of human needs for products that could be manufactured (given that it is) in an affordable volume and price.
After all, is it not the current purpose of world institutions to fight against poverty?
Lady V
Posted by Chris Ngo on June 03, 2005 at 06:54 PM CEST #
Posted by Heather Morrison on June 05, 2005 at 06:45 AM CEST #
<i>“But it is a mistake to replace "intellectual property" with any other term. A different name could eliminate the bias, but won't address the term's deeper problem: overgeneralization.”</i>
<a href="http://azeem.typepad.com/about.html">Azeem Azhar</a> calls for a new term when he <a href="http://azeem.typepad.com/blog/2004/09/intellectual_co.html">says</a>:
<i>“..many of the assumptions we make about 'intellectual property' might be reinforced by our choice of words. By the nature of physically-instantiated things, property is exclusionary and rivalrous. So by tagging the word 'intellectual' in front of it we imply that it is something exclusionary and rivalrous.”</i>
I would like to support the argument that replacing the IP term, at least in the case of copyright, might well help us eliminate some bias and help us rethink what society is trying the achieve within the institution of copyright.
Azhar suggests 'Intellectual Contributions' as a new term. Would talking of IC remind us that intellectual works are made up of the 'contributions' of all who came before? Would a new term help us think of non-rivalrous ways of dealing fairly with intellectual contributions?
Posted by Nicholas Bentley on June 05, 2005 at 02:32 PM CEST
Website: http://www.commonrights.com #
Do we want a society in which art and information is owned and controlled by corporations, or do we want a society in which art and information are shared?
<p>
Dump copyright. Dump patents.
Posted by Edward on June 06, 2005 at 01:28 AM CEST
Website: http://www.piratesorheroes.com #
Posted by Dan Thomsen on June 06, 2005 at 01:36 AM CEST #
Likewise, where registration was a chore in the pre-internet era, nowadays registration should be mandatory for somebody who wants to profit from a general IP system. Many works are being lost because the authors cannot be found, and it becomes very economically risky to undergo the preservation without the express permission of the original author. If we want new creations to benefit all humanity, a central record of such creations should be mandatory to help people looking for them.
Posted by Javier Perez on June 06, 2005 at 02:41 AM CEST #
<center>
<h3>A Bitter Protest Against Copyrights</h3>
</center>
<p>If they said there was no incentive to do good things unless the government could choose your religion ... or they said there is no incentive to grow food, unless farmers could rip up your garden ... most people would see these as the awful values that they are. But if they say that there is no incentive to make beneficial or creative works without the power to restrict what people copy (copyrights), then all too many people just take it on faith. They don't even question it, as if incentive makes rights, as if society would fall apart without them. But just as much of the
Renaissance happened without copyrights so should the information age.
<p>Calling copyrights "intellectual property" is intellectually dishonest. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from mutual respect and the fact that not everybody can posses something at the same time. The foundation of copyrights derives from kings who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. Copyrights are about control, censorship, and not a free market property. In fact, they cheapen property rights by treating things that have natural limits in supply such as food, shelter, and medicine like information that does not.
<p>Worse, is how people who copy are slandered with names such as "thief" and "pirate", as if copying was akin to boarding a ship and murdering people. They are even accused of stealing food out of the mouths of starving artists. Yet these verbal assaults hide a cold and calculated lie, the one that says "copyrights benefit creative people". The truth is that for every artist or writer that has made it "big", there are unmentioned thousands whom copyrights haven't helped a bit, hindered, or even destroyed. Some are even barred or sued from sharing their own creations in public, while others die with the world never truly knowing their artistic genius as the mass media drowns them out. Most creators are far better off sharing and distributing their creations freely to make a reputation for themselves. Copyrights not only cause them to be drowned out in a sea of hype, but do so deceptively.
<p>However, these aren't the only problems related to copyrights. They are just a sample of many that are constantly blown off, glossed over, or ignored. Like the failures of Hollywood culture, the failures of big media to offer quality material, the failures of the market to offer competitively priced books for college students while tabloids are dirt cheap, and massive anti-trust behavior in the software industry to name a few. Their hypocritical pleas like, "how will we make money without copyrights?" is like a mobster asking "how will I make money with out victims to extort?"
<p>The burdens of imposing copyrights might have been bearable a quarter century ago when the biggest issue was copy machines. But today in the information age there is no technical distinction between copyright content and free speech content. Information is so easy to copy and manipulate, there can be no "middle ground". Our society must make a choice: Our communications will either have to be monitored or free, our privacy will either have to intruded or protected. Our speech, writing, and free expression will either have to be abridged or unabridged. Any institution that has the power to control one, must have the power to control all. Copyrights are like a vine that
will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms until we cut it off at the root!
<p>Consider parallels to other periods of transition like the industrial revolution:
<i>
<p>History teaches that during the 1800's (USA) there were many people who believed that the
entire meaning and purpose of the industrial revolution was to leverage inventions like the cotton gin to expand their plantations for unlimited growth and profit. Ironically just the opposite was true;the industrial revolution demanded a mobile and skilled workforce.
<p>First, they responded by making slavery last forever, and making laws so harsh you couldn't even teach a person of color how to read. Then they responded by trying to micro-regulate the northern states, then they responded by trying to break off from the Union and fence themselves off from the rest of the world causing all hell to break loose.
<p>Today many in media circles believe that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is to use inventions like the Internet to leverage their copyright holdings to the far reaches of the Earth for unlimited growth and profit. Ironically, just the opposite is true; the information age demands the unrestricted flow of information.
<p>First, they responded my making copyrights last effectively forever, then they responded by making it so that illegal copying could be punished worse than rape, then they tried to micro-regulate the technology industries with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and now they are trying to fence the information they control off from the rest of the world with Digital Rights Management (DRM). We are now at the point where society must tell them to go to hell.
</i>
<p>Just because an institution calls something a property right doesn't mean that it is. Just because an institution calls something an incentive, doesn't mean that it is. Just because an institution looks successful on the surface, doesn't mean that is is. Just because an institution has been around awhile, doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't fail. An institution backed up by law and the full force of government is worthless if it is unjust. It is time for time for the institution of copyrights to die in the history of the information age!
<p>Unethical laws like the DMCA, endless copyright extensions, billion dollar lawsuits, are not just about problems that haven't been worked out yet, but symptoms of a poor belief system being brought to its logical conclusion. All efforts to find a "middle ground" have failed. All those who've tried have been exploited to pacify the masses as the next generation of restrictive laws is rammed down our throats. But they have failed not in that they have lost the "middle ground" but that they have not seen that contrary to copyright monopolies, the right to copy, share, and distribute information is a right!
<p>Like freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, the right to copy things is a moral right, a right that exists above government. It is an inherent right that describes a nature of human existence that lives in us from the time we are born. If the rules of politics were created because it is better to fight wars with information and discussion than with bloodshed, the rules of copyrights must die because it is better to fight unjust control of these with defiance than with systems.
<p>Defiance by believing that people have rights even when they appear contrary to the system or
the popular mob. Defiance, by shedding the guilt and shame that those who impose copyrights try to impose on us and understanding that they are the ones who should feel guilty and shameful. Defiance by believing that free markets are about just property rights and economic freedom, and not fraudulent "property" definitions. Defiance by using and making free software, media, and open formats whenever possible. Defiance by copying and sharing creative works whenever able, and embracing new technologies like peer-to-peer networks. And finally, defiance by rejecting and challenging such lies as - copyrights "benefit artists", people who copy are "pirates" and "thieves", copyrights are "intellectual property", copyrights are "protection" ... and so on.
<p>In my humble opinion, only then can society reap the benefits the information age has to offer.
Posted by David Christy on June 06, 2005 at 03:45 AM CEST #
Whenever policy announced by the WIPO falls afoul of the desires of several large corporations in the U.S., lobbying efforts have never failed to silence those WIPO positions.
I would guess that banging your drum keeps some persons empoloyed while deflecting criticism targeted at a toothless, ceremonial organization.
Hey, even bureacrats have to eat, no?
Posted by Charlie on June 06, 2005 at 05:39 AM CEST #
There! I just wrote that essay in 2 minutes, corrected very few times over the past 2 minutes. And it says everything that needs to be said about intellectual property.
Posted by Anonymous (193.5.93.35) on June 06, 2005 at 07:01 AM CEST #
1) A better definition, for patents, of determining "obviousness". Software patents in particular. The current system has been compared to Newton having a "patent" on calculus.
2) To address the fact that 90% of the works of the 20th century that are currently still copyrighted are not commercially available, a time limit on this. Maybe, say, after 10 years of a copyrighted work not being commercially available, it reverts to the public domain.
Posted by 193.5.93.35 on June 06, 2005 at 12:13 PM CEST #
<p>In all my discussions within the company where I am employed, and all the information I am able to obtain from the media, I have yet to find a successful example of someone exercising IP rights without having a direct and measurable impact upon the creativity and imaginative problem solving capabilities of others.</p>
<p>We are spending an increasing amount of time not trying to solve a problem, but to solve a problem wherein the conceived solution doesn't already collide with someone elses IP. None of this has to do with any tangible physical elements but rather concepts, thoughts, ideas, methods.</p>
<p>In order to consider the value of IP rights and laws, it might be wise to consider how the current IP laws would have effected the European Renaissance and it's ability to provide society with the free flow of information and thought that has so greatly impacted the last 500+ years of world history. I personally do not believe that we would have benefitted as much if all the great contributions that were made to our society at that time would have been protected under the legal umbrella we call IP today. Rather, much of our existing technological and artistic progresses of that time would have been severely mired in the legal wranglings that we witness today. We have the potential today to experience something of a digital Renaissance if we have the foresight and willingness to minimize the barriers of legal protectionism.</p>
<p>While this may run contrary to many of the core ideas of copyright protection and IP, if there was no IP there would not be a reduction in creative input into the cultures and societies today. This may be the core of the debate we are trying to discuss in ten pieces.</p>
Posted by Tom on June 06, 2005 at 12:42 PM CEST #
It is not enough to understand that society is built on the backs of billions of people who will never benefit as fully as they justly should. It is not enough to wonder for a minute how a little knowledge that is hidden in a book (copyrighted) could save one person from years of starvation and slow death. It will never be enough to know that every person who gains from excluding others from a limitless resource does so by perversion and corruption of the very principles IP rights stand on by not providing benefits to all those who actually did the work.
It is the societal structure, as it exists today, that decides how information, education, knowledge, and communication happens. Thus, because of its structure and limitations there is no way for me to explain to you or anyone else how much it has distorted the direction and awareness of countless individuals, societies, and entire cultures without writing endlessly on how subtle influences build and die in the eddies of every mind, group, or the entire world. But I will leave you to consider how every action alters the world.
The point, though, is how can you alter the whole world and extend progress in every human endeavour by wrapping the incentives of IP, which can only exist as something worth something when the supply is limited and the number of producers is likewise limited, in some way that will eventually bring more *new* meaningful knowledge into the world. But can any system that protects IP, which must also limit the number of producers/supply, really benefit the world/humanity as much as one that pushed reality forward by recognizing that every person that designs, creates, or builts something did not do so by him/herself and effectively is only the tip of the ice berg that stretches back to the first communication of knowledge to another being who was capable of replicating the end result without having to exhaustively search by trial and error? It is a more meaningful question to ask WIPO and its member states just how justly a person can claim "ownership" of knowledge that is inevitably only the compilation of knowledge gather by countless people from *reality* or at most directly copied from *reality*?
And this is the last point: If humanity ever gets it act together and provides everyone with the ability to simulate reality from the singularity of its whole to the essence of any given principle or aspect limited domain of reality, what then? Or, in the context of the WIPO, would the laws that you have created *UNJUSTIFIABLY* inhibit the very progress that you propose is created by such laws? And, if so, does the fact you have so little foresight that you have not added such a limited provision, which states that no one can claim IP rights to reality and anything easily simulated by the current state of art technology using known knowledge published to the whole world, make the law so blatantly against the whole purpose of the law/treaty/agreement that it is without merit and patently unenforcable (unrespectable in all senses) by anyone who has any level of intelligence to understand that by standing in the way of progress and claiming to be helping progress you deserve neither respect and, worse, deserve all forms of misery that you perpetuate by doing so?
But wait, the WIPO is sitting on top, way above those who actually might being doing some original work or who might imagine a more efficient means of simulating reality, and really only wants to see those who are currently prospering to continue to do so. Therefore, I challenge anyone at the WIPO to justify, other then by threat of government enforced penalty, why any one of your treaties should be respected at all? That is, under the notion of the original quote wihin the circumstances of reality that allowed anyone to simulate reality (small portions of it, anyway) and manipulate the simulation under the constraints of know reality.
-- I'm just trying to point out that once a hurdle has been layed flat, everybody can walk over it without a problem. In the context of IP rights and the Information Society, once the world has the capability to not only distribute knowledge instantaneously but "create" and efficiently produce virtually everything, the capitalist principles that underpin the laws you are creating will not be sufficient to justify their existence and to not recognize this is quite dangerous, so dangerous in fact that I'd warn it will be the cause of more "terrorism" in the world than ever existed up to till it occurs. Because you step from indirectly limiting the ability and potential of humans in large groups merely by their own ignorance to *LAWFULLY* imposing restrictions (again, most will only see it as *UNJUSTLY* imposed misery) on a growing number of people capable of organizing themselves. The parallels go directly back into history when the kings (the wealthy) lost their kingdons (wealth) due to an increasing number of people and more efficient knowledge transfer (printing press) to those who actually carried out more specialized work because of it.
NOTE: I am not talking about CONTENT directly, I'm talking about knowledge (patents mostly, extending into software, compilations/databases of facts, etc.) and indirectly stating that you are unaware of the potential problem you might directly cause by not at least anticipating the progress of a technology that is virtually infront of you, were it not for a few hurdles and market forces that do not support the creation of the technology via the standard economic incentive routes (which happen to only support sellable goods and services, i.e. packagable products/consumables that must be replaced in the near future and services that annually require subscriptions).
If you can't imagine what I'm talking about: try this, just think of a robot sitting in your living room capable of painting your house, doing all garden maintanence, and ask yourself why you would not be allowed to have it grow all your food or build houses? I'm just pointing out that the laws you are creating are actually allowing corporations/business to unilaterally enforce restrictions that don't go towards bettering "human progress, endeavour and well-being," at all.
D.K.
Posted by D.K. on June 06, 2005 at 12:52 PM CEST #
(1) "The intellectual property (IP) system is a diverse and diffuse array of laws, standards, practices and policies.."
Wrong. The 'IP' system is a diffuse and complicated mess of laws that are presently failing to meet the needs of future society even as the cracks show on the present society. All the standards, practices and policies are derivative of these laws and the *legal* entities that drive these laws, and bodies which allow TRIPs agreements. In the present system, those with patents, copyrights and trademarks have the capacity to stifle innovation and have done so repeatedly in the past - not alleged, but proven.
The first thing that needs to be done is address the fact that U.S. 'Intellectual Property Law' appears to be driving WIPO.
The second thing that needs to be done is to talk to actual creators - not the people who employ them (intellectual indentureship through employment and contract agreements) or give them contracts - and ask them what they want.
Thirdly, within the specific context of (1), Copyright protection should not require as much cost and time on the part of creators - specifically, individual creators - and individual creators may need to be given an advantage such that there is a balance between them and legal entities that can throw money at legal problems until they go away.
Lastly, the Public Domain has been completely neglected here and that is of primary concern.
(2) A return to the *spirit* of the law regarding copyrights, patents and trademarks must be done by an international body, where dollars are not counted as votes.
(3) The legal use of the phrase 'intellectual property' is indeed misleading, and should not be used in my honest opinion. We're talking about Copyright Law, Patent Law and Trademark Law.
(4) It is not a mistake to call the appropriate laws by their names; and the commonality of the phrase 'public domain' does not legitimize this. Public Domain is a concept that Patent, Copyright and Trademark law all use, but it certainly does not unite them.
(5) While WIPO's written purpose is apparent, the fact that WIPO has become an engine for keeping patents, copyrights and trademarked material at a high cost such that the 'developing countries' will always be 'developing' relative to the 'developed' countries, and the only way nations have to work around this is by exercising sovereignity. Exercising sovereignity would make WIPO relevant to a much lower degree - if relevant at all.
(6) While cyber-squatting was an issue involving human and legal entities, software patents also involve human and legal entities - the difference being that the latter have more money, and have already lobbied effectively for changes that they wanted, deeming that they 'needed' them. Intuitively, this is wrong - and the good of the few rich over the many poor goes against the written purpose of WIPO (See point 5).
(7) The WSIS has been quite adept at subverting discussion about patents, copyrights and trademarks - and frankly, Civil Society - which represents more of a population through expressed opinion (discussion being the cornerstone of democracy), it is questionable than WSIS will do anything but keep avoiding the issue.
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The challenge here are TRIPs and other agreements that transcend WIPO. The agreements such as TRIPs must be made available to at least the citizens of the countries involved such that democracy might actually have a role. If WIPO wants serious conversation, perhaps WIPO should give people the information that they need to discuss it in context. Bring out the TRIPs agreements, make them public. If WIPO is seriously interested in working toward the future, the people involved - all of the people, globally - should have the *right* to see what agreements their governments have made without their implicit permission. That goes against the core of democracy.
Posted by Taran Rampersad on June 06, 2005 at 04:58 PM CEST
Website: http://www.knowprose.com #
Yes, i believe the artists, programmers, and inventors should be rewarded for their innovation. However, i do not believe copyright and patents are the answer. It is baffling that USA preaches about free market, but then turn around and practice controlled market within itself with copyright, patents, and a plethora of laws limit and govern trade practices. Now i am not saying these laws are bad as i have seen many many free markets fail miserably in the world economy.
The matter of fact is, as some posts here so delicately put it, copyright and patent are pretty much equal to hording. How is the society going to benefit from the superior innovation if price of license is a factor?
For example, betamax was at the time superior to VHS, yet, it died a horrible death due to its closed nature. Now, HD-DVD and BlueRay seem to be going down the same road. On the surface it may seem to be an example benefitting licensing and copyright. The truth is, it isn't. Why? This is because of two reasons: First and fore most, the copyright and patent laws were in-place at the time; and second, sony was willing to license betamax technology... for the right price of course. Let me elaborate. In this case, the impending possible wealth for betamax made sony hord the technology instead of distributing it. Sony wanted exclusive right to such technology that it would be an expensive and lengthy ordeal if one were to try licensing them. Anyone who discover and implement betamax technology after sony patented it would be sued. This further enhancing the alure of hording. This example clearly made the argument "with out copyright and patent inventor will start hording" wrong.
In China, there is currently a huge problem with copyright infringements, especially within the software market. However, instead of having lagging software innovation, China has a relatively fast pased innovation curve. Why? This is because the programmers come up with new techniques and better products all the time to keep their companies one step ahead of the mass copying profiteers making money off of reproducing previous versions of software. If a company doesn't keep up, it wont stay in business for long.
Last but not least, there should be distinction and acknowledgement for parallel original concept as well as derived concept. When two people across the world come up with a very similar idea on their own, what right does a governmental institution tell one or another their ideas are any less valid? Sure, it is cumberson and stupid to re-invent the wheel usually. But when the cost of license is artificially high, isn't it the market's place to adjust itself and let the companies pay for R&D to get their own version of a similar technology? As to derived work, i don't understand why people can write an essay or a book with sniplets from some other sources as long as they state the origin, yet they can't do the same thing with computer software. And what about music? RIAA keeps crying about copy infringement, yet a large portion of the songs in their library talk about the same thing, and further more, you can tell the similarities in lyrics across many songs. For example, the "tender in a blender" line was in a plethora of songs that sited no sources. I am very sure some where along the line the song writers copy eachother.
Patent and copyright laws today are filled with ugly double standards. They should at least be reformed into unified standards if not abolished.
Posted by W. XU on June 06, 2005 at 07:00 PM CEST #
In particular:
1. The primary step, a statement of purpose, does not seem to be present. None of these themes can be properly discussed until the purpose is clearly established. ex: The purpose of IP is to encourage innovation and invention.
2. The themes are long and unfocused. The objective to be accomplished / subject to be discussed should be stated in a clear and simple way along with the context. ex: Given that the purpose is to encourage innovation and invention what rewards can be given to innovators / inventors?
As with any non-trivial project you build off previous steps.
Posted by Trev Peterson on June 06, 2005 at 09:26 PM CEST #
All the latest changes to IP have done is create a new and costly headache for the small inventor or creator. The cannot get forward with their design as they cannot afford the increasinly necessary lawyers.
IP should not be for ideas but actual products or proofs. Take DNA for example. How can corporation A get a right to a natural occuring DNA and then charge a fee for it?
On the home front. I have found that trying to protect IP has created headaches for me as I have actually had to download music off the net so I could play it on my computer as the CD I purchased would not play due to DRM software to protect the music.
When Disney can get the copyright laws changed to protect Mickey Mouse from becoming public domain, or Gone with the Wind gets an extension is only for Profit, not the betterment of society. Disney gets to ride the coat tails of Mickey Mouse instead of investing the time and energy to come up with another great character.
As others have stated, I realy doubt that this forum will lead to any "non-corporate" approved policies. I am a skeptic when it comes to the proposed guidelines. This discussion should have taken place before any guidelines were created.
Posted by Robin Laing on June 07, 2005 at 12:24 AM CEST #
I'm graduated in computer science at University.
I've spent best of my life on music, maths and computer books.
I'm writing from Italy
In my town there are many mozzarella cheese vendors, as well as lawyers, doctors, attorneys and so on..
If I'd try to be a lawyer or an attorney, the law hit me in a moment because I'm not legally authorized to be a lawyer or an attorney.
If I'd try to be a mozzarella vendor, policeman arrest me alleging of sophysticated food selling because I'm not legally authorized to be a mozzarella vendor.
When my TV set goes KO for an internal card failure, I must call (and to pay) the Authorized service technician because "there are no user-serviceable parts inside".....
But why the mozzarella vendor (without any study in computer science) can sell, assemble and maintain computer without authorization?
Why the TV technician (without any study in music) can play piano-bar in hotel, pubs and resorts for few bucks (with totally automatized MIDI instruments) or can sell midifiles, taking me off every chance to exercise the work (as PROFESSIONAL musician) I've right to ?
OK.
Even if now I'm not interested to download anything but some public domain .pdf musical score, until in Italy the WIPO the RIAA (in Italy named SIAE), the Warner Bros the Microsoft or any other, don't protect my 'intellectual property' TO BE a REAL musician and to be REAL programmer, I will not consider illegal any downloading of mp3 or warez or other similar bytes from everywhere in the world.
Our patent, our copyright, our 'intellectual property' is named PROFESSION.
This ''copyright'' is infringed every time a lawyer or a medicine doctor plays the role of musician or computer programmer or other profession they don't have the right to, only because he knows ''the right person at Yamaha or at Apple that open the right door...''
Destroying or obstacling the career of a professional without rights is the worst piracy act anyone can do.
Even we musicians need to eat.
Even we IT experts need to eat.
And when we wants to eat mozzarella WE go to the store and PAY ON CASH the mozzarella vendor and HELP him to work and to live.
And we shall not produce mozzarella anytime in the future.
Want you guess tomorrow I'll find a ''pizzaiolo'' assembling a computer in my town hospital because ''his friend'' the primary doctor need a computer?
No copyright No DRM, no patent, but only STRICTLY protect everyone's right to work, and TO EARN as their expertise require.
That's IMHO the right formula.
With all respect and goodwill to the pizza and mozzarella vendors and TV technicians of the world...God bless them!
Baci e Abbracci dall'Italia!
Posted by Danilo De Riso on June 07, 2005 at 11:34 AM CEST #
It's no good to use best software if it crashes every minute ;) It's no use to talk about IP system principles if it not used for that purpose most of the time :) So IP system is just like software full of bugs ;)
# How can the IP system best support the
Information Society?
No way. It is just too slow like a turtle to provide anything good for IS. :) Until you are able to get conclusion if "idea" is patented or not in just 1 minute (via Internet-enabled free-text not keyword based search engine) it is useless. Ideally all process of validation should not include human interaction and human (law-subtype) language.
# How can we determine if the IP system really contributes to innovation and creativity?
That is easy. Get statistics from US.
Calculate number of IP patents owned by 1) individuals, 2) corporations.
Get info about number of law siutes on IP patents and angain - calculate % of individual owners and corporate owners.
Then just recall the country most of corporations are reside in ;) And calculate % of Europe population which will directly benefit from IP patents ;) It should not be more 0,0000001% of all people of Europe ;)
Posted by Nekto2 on June 07, 2005 at 02:36 PM CEST #
What is IP? After abusing the patent system, the industry is lumping together copyright, patents and something else no one can really define, and they call it IP and they do this to gain legislative (and monetary) advantage over people.
The whole IP and patent system is flawed because it does not benefit all humans: it locks knowledge and solutions under layers of bureaucracy while people die waiting for solutions to their problems or illnesses.
Protecting creative works seldom helps the creator make a living off that work: it is the business world that commercializes the work that rips most benefits and owns the patents anyways. Very few inventors really benefit. The concept of giving creators a chance does not work because corporations have them sign non-disclosure agreements and have them give up their rights in their employments contracts. Because most people cannot go without a job, they do give up their rights to get the job (otherwise they cannot feed their families).
Protecting IP does not benefit humans. Instead, it creates a system where the owners (corporations) can control who gets access to what product. And people die of AIDS or Ebola and other illnesses while cures are available in rich countries but are locked in the bureaucracy for the monetary benefit of corporations, shareholders and pension plans.
Protecting IP does not create competition because with IP protection, there is no point in being the second person to solve a problem. When the first person rips all the benefits, there is just no point in competing. Competition and improvements can only exist if you let all creators market their creative work, even if two created the same invention to solve the same problem. Anyway, this is bound to happen: with 6 billion people on earth, it is not surprizing to have 2 persons find the same solution to the same problem at different times. Why do you punish the second person? Are you encouraging this person to create something else?
The computer industry abuses the IP system because most of what they produce is not understood by the general population, hence the most simplistic computer program placing a button on a screen is "magic" to most people. Thus most people instantly fall to the argument of large corporations that the program deserves to be protected by patents and IP laws since to them it appears to be "magic" when really it is grade 1 computer class stuff. Judges and patent attorneys are just prey to corporate lawyers. Some companies have no products other than patents, and make a living suing other companies that by chance or mistake, infringe on those patents: the people producing something good for humanity get punished, and those that abuse the patent system get rewarded. How can anyone have any trust in the patent system, much less in this IP system that is being made by lawyers for lawyers?
The internet infrastructure works because it is based on open standards and the general lack of IP and patent protection (do not confuse the infrastructure with the content). Even corporations agree with this: when you enforce patents and protectionism, you loose interoperability - and you do not have telephone networks, internets, computers, etc. Yet on the other hand they lobby governments to enforce IP protection. This is non-sense, the governement must protect corporations from themselves by letting them operate in an IP free world.
Now on copyright...
Richard Stallman identified 3 types of copyrighted works in the book Free as in Freedom by Sam Williams:
- Expression of self (poems, music);
- Testimonial documents (scientific papers, historical documents)
- Functional works (software programs, products, processes);
The problem is legislators try to have one law to rule them all. Allowing modification of expression of self and testimonial documents would alter the author's experience, which is ethicaly wrong. Allowing free modification of functional works to suit any purpose of any person must be allowed by the law: this is how people can solve problems that were not anticipated by the owner of the work, or problems do not interest the owner of the work. This way, people have the freedom to solve their problems when the other solutions are too expensive or non-existent. When you do not give people freedom, you oppress them, and they make a revolution.
Richard Stallman goes as far as saying that people should have the freedom to redistribute (make copies) all 3 types of copyrighted works. According to Stallman, the freedom to modify copyrighted works of type 1) and 2) should only be governed by the wishes of the author, while anyone should have the freedom to modify copyrighted work of type 3).
And a last couple of comments...
How can companies claim ownership of naturally occuring products of nature, such as DNA? This is morally unjustifiable. How do you know nature hasn't done it before somewhere else in the universe?
Countries that do not impose IP protection will have thriving businesses in areas where others will be under the burden of IP restrictions and laws. Most people do not care that the products they buy is from China or USA, they just want what works to solve their problems or illnesses for the best price, and they will go to IP free countries to get them.
Posted by Uranus Hertz on June 08, 2005 at 05:10 AM CEST #
“Intellectual Property protection is important to encourage innovation and creativity in the Information Society; similarly, the wide dissemination, diffusion and sharing of knowledge is important to encourage innovation and creativity.” -- quote continues later...
I'm going to ask a really complex question: Why does IP protection encourage innovation and creativity in society based on Information?
Assume that language had a tax on its usage and anyone who used had to pay the WIPO for royalty payments that would be distributed, after all costs of enforcement are recovered, to the people who created the elements of language that were used to communicate. This would instantly create a number of jobs, and all that doing so entails. But does the tax go to those who are currently or going to create new language elements or those who once were innovative and are living off of other people who use it?
That is the entire argument against having any extended length of time on the copyright or patent laws. What is the incentive to actually create *new* knowledge? Ask what Disney or any other content company would be doing if they new that their content was going to be in the public domain in a few years. Well, we know that Disney got the law to be extended in the U.S., but if that wasn't an option, what would they have to do? They would have to create new material, be innovative, creative or get out of the way and let other new, more creative companies into the market place.
The second part of the above quote deals with the idea of disseminating knowledge. While tackling the idea that to be creative one has to be able to freely, and without wasting vast amounts of time trying to obtain licenses, etc., be able to utilize anything that may inspire them. Only, now we have to consider that most of the philosophical theories out there concerning what the mind is and how it grows principally say that everything that goes into the mind is apart of and becomes what comes out (assuming you want to stay in the domain of hard science). Now, consider, who owned the rights to the article that inspired the author who goes out and writes a best selling book about something related to the article he read? Or, maybe you relate to paintings better, the artist who is inspired by looking at thousands of copyrighted photographs and uses the styles and mixtures of colors in them to create and sell art, but he doesn't even know that he got them from somebody else's work because it is just a memory of something he liked and very few people have a photographic memory that links everything back to the original influence and knows how it mixed millions of experiences to create something. Or, songs? Who were the artists and songs that the young child, who later becomes a best selling artist, listened to? Does it take someone like me to point out that you are drawing a line in the sand and you don't even consider that what it means to the future of creative works.
Additionally, the dissemination of the final product is not the same thing as sharing the knowledge used to create it. This is where the patent system has diverged from its original design, at least in the U.S., and what is left doesn't even contribute to the domain of knowledge, as originally required to receive a "Short-term Monopoly" on this newly dessiminated knowledge. This bags the question, which is so important that it created the whole patent system to begin with; how do you verify that it is *new* knowledge and worthy of receiving absolute ownership of the idea/design?
I know that the future holds a massive challenge to the entire IP system, especially when it comes to technical knowledge, that will probably make the IP treates a mute point in the history of the Information Society. This only re-enforces the critical requirement for the WIPO to understand that its laws will have a significant impact on how the challenge will end up being integrated into the society. In essence, though, the laws only need to be restrictive enough against "blatantly obvious" and not grant monopolies that extend into the future that unjustifiably block the accelerating increase in how much knowledge will be available to everyone. If one answer could be give to just one question, it would be: Based solely on a ten year window into the future, does it make sense to give someone rights to "restrict" a technology that would otherwise be in every personal computer on the planet if it wasn't restricted? Take for instance, a software patent on a simple algorithm that is directly from mathematics on the most efficient route for delivering goods or services. Does it make sense to allow one person or even an entire company to effectively tax everyone on the means to the improve basic efficiency of an entire civilization or, if their license fee is rather high, to be able to delay the dissemination of knowledge by means of subverting the laws designed to spread knowledge in that the technique uses is only described as a vague idea (and not even an actually working implementation of the idea) and in return gets monopolistic rights to charge anyone who wants to use the something similar and be able to stop anyone who implements a similar (even if it doesn't utilize the same mathematical algorithm) idea in system?
The nitty-gritty argument is that while the IP system works in capitalist system to the point of getting people to invest in ideas and bring them to market, it also restricts the dissemination of knowledge because -- as it is currently implemented -- it doesn't require even a working model of the idea, which in the case of software amounts to having the source code to the algorithm compile and function, as is described in the patent. Or, to describe it as the U.S. military once did (in some ancient feasibility study, I think it was somewhere around WWI), to attempt to utilize the knowledge in patents to build something would require more money than to hire someone who already has experience in the field to build something of equivalent functionality.
Asked, directly: IS THERE ANY VALUE GAINED BY PROVIDING PATENT/COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIVE RIGHTS, LONGER THEN REQUIRED TO PAY FOR THE RELATIVE COST/FINANCING OF ENGINEERING/PRODUCING THE PRODUCT, IF SOCIETY ON THE WHOLE IS NEVER GIVEN ANY BENEFIT GREATER THAN THAT WHICH IS RESTRICTED BY THOSE RIGHTS?
Real world example: A one-click patent, which any freshman college student could have implement (ironically defeating the test of novelty), is given to a company that blocks another company from offering a similar convenience to their customers. Twenty years later, society gets nothing except rid of restrictive patent that stops every programmer in the world from executing a script that simply uses previously entered information without asking the user to verify it, every single time a user wants to order something. What benefit does society gain at the end, what is lost?
“Facilitating meaningful participation by all in intellectual property issues and knowledge sharing through full awareness and capacity building is a fundamental part of an inclusive Information Society.” (article 42)
To dissect the question that seems to apply to the above quote: “How can the IP system be actively used to disseminate knowledge, promote creative collaboration, and strengthen cultural diversity?”
Well, when the only thing the IP system does is create restrictions on implementing and sharing knowledge, and thus fragments cultures into exclusive segments that only promotes culture clashes. I really doubt that IP can be used to further the capacity building of the IS through ICTs that only restrict virtually every use of knowledge until one has to be exploiting some group of people to pay all the other people exploiting the IP system and restricting the further development of an open Information Society that might actually go forwards towards progress and increasing the efficiency of the society; instead of trying increase the wealth of those who already profit, exploit, and restrict the benefits of progress to those who live on top of an exclusionary culture designed to exploit anyone trying to come into or move up in the society (as any study of immigrant labor shows).
To address the requirements of an IP system that might have an opportunity to promote collaboration, the first thing absolutely required is the complete information to be disseminated. This happens to be impossible in the symbolic language level of information and is barely approachable in the massive book, encyclopedic volumes that still don't dessiminate knowledge in more than one language. Technically, this makes strengthing cultural diversity impossible because any increase in the dissemination of knowledge and more efficient means of collaborating means that the cultural references are spread, displaced, and unify along the easiest and most used pathways.
So, in regards to the questions above about culture and the IP system; the answer is that it cannot be used to strengthen any set of cultures but can result in the common strengths of all cultures being spread at the cost of breaking down any barriers that exist between them. Otherwise, the IS and ICTs becomes an exclusionary and clashing set of principles used only to exploit those who don't have access to the complete knowledge available.
But I know, based on the common short-term thought perspectives and inability to design anything that comprehensively address the limitations inherent in language based knowledge paradigms, that this WSIS conference will stumble around trying to find support from those who exhibit the common limitations of everyone who wrote and created the laws we already have and will ultimately fail to truly consider the long-term changes that nascent technology will bring in a few years. Therefore, I will stop wasting your time and my time trying to convince you to consider a perspective that most people seem to be incapable of perceiving or appreciating to the fullest extent of the human imagination. So, to all those who are capable, there is somebody out there designing, testing, and implementing a system that will blow the socks off all the pseudo-intellectuals, lawyers, capitalists, "experts", scientists, and everyone else who never grasped the infinite-perspective of the long-term.
Consider this the balancing point that I stand on and know with some certainty that the world's IP system cannot survive in the future; there are too many variables to know for sure what will happen but, like I said above, the restrictiveness and completeness of knowledge are dichotomous and the all solutions require more completeness, not more restrictions. Unless you want to live in prison?
-- There, that, is my justification for everything I will ever do; if you find a problem with it, you know the drill! My apologies to all those who are in the wrong profession; in a decade, watch out, you will be surprised how long it took to break out of the ancient, archaic, and atrophied knowledge paradigms! I hope it all goes good...
Posted by D.K. on June 08, 2005 at 10:48 AM CEST #
When the main elements of the IP system were formulated and developed, IEC is aplied to public electricity, ISO is applied to private industries, ITU is aplied to public and private partnership projects.
Society’s needs have changed that government should look down to his/ her consumer and scientis should look down to his/ her producer.
Government and scientist in their own summit positions are able to see the digital society as consumer - producer cooperations.
These changes require the adaptive and productive IP system. Thus, the IP system supports the Information Society. The IP system really produce new inovation sectors. The IP system be actively used to disseminate knowledge, promote creative collaboration, and strengthen cultural diversity.
Posted by Tjahjokartiko Gondokusumo on June 09, 2005 at 01:07 PM CEST
Website: http:// Instructions – How to Participate #
When the main elements of the IP system were formulated and developed, IEC is aplied to public electricity, ISO is applied to private industries, ITU is aplied to public and private partnership projects.
Society’s needs have changed that government should look down to his/ her consumer and scientis should look down to his/ her producer.
Government and scientist in their own summit positions are able to see the digital society as consumer - producer cooperations.
These changes require adaptive and productive process to utilize the IP system. I am planning to initiate a cooperative technology placed between public sector and private sector. Thus, the IP system supports the Information Society, really produce new inovation sectors, actively used to disseminate knowledge, promote creative collaboration, and strengthen cultural diversity.
Posted by Tjahjokartiko Gondokusumo on June 09, 2005 at 01:13 PM CEST
Website: http://www.unila.ac.id/~aset2005/ #
This difference means that IP cannot be owned in the same way as other Material Objects. IP is created by the addition of a small idea to the Public Domain and other influences. The idea does not stand alone it requires some of the Public Domain Knowledge and influences to work. If the creator uses this idea for material benefit, he also owes a part of this to the rest of the world. The creator also incurres a debt, which can only be repaid when his idea is also merged with the Public Domain Knowledge and becomes an influence to other people.
Creators may not be ethical and may want to lock up their creations from the world because there is no personal benefit in opening up. We live in a world were personal benefit is the most important thing and to discount this fact would be stupid. So we need a mechanism to induce the creators to merge their ideas into the Public Domain.
I consider enriching of the Public Domain to be the prime motive of IP Laws.
IP Laws should strive to maximize the amount of Public Domain. This would involve providing limited time exclusive ownership of the idea to the creator, in return of later merging of the idea into Public Domain. The ownership period is the variable that needs to be optimized because the longer a thing resides in exclusive ownership the worse it is for the public domain. But the shorter it is the less of an incentive there is to the individual for opening up their ideas.
The exclusive ownership is not really good for any amount of time however small so it must be tempered with Fair Use laws and Compulsory Licensing.
I believe that in todays race towards more and more exclusive Intellectual Property Ownership we have forgotten that IP is not created in a vaccuum and that the owners are not paying back enough to the community which made them able to do the creation.
I believe that IP Laws should be modified to bring a balance to the current trend.
Now lets see how the above affects us in the Information Society. Previously everything worked fine because there were not so many influences and Public Domain changed very little with time. But now with the internet the Network Effects have amplified the rate of change of Public Domain. Before everything was invented multiple times. But now nothing needs to be invented twice. The IP Laws do not currently consider Public Domain as its most important aim. This allows individuals to keep ideas to themselves. This requires that people need to invent the same thing again and again.
The growth of UNIX is a very good example. Before 1978 or so AT&T was not aware of Unixes potential and people were freely exchanging unix code. This resulted in the development of BSD from Unix code. The BSD world avoided duplication as far as possible using their very liberal license. So there was only one open source Operating System, the free BSDs, all were using the same code and were exchanging code freely. Linux was created because the future of BSDs was suspect due to a lawsuit from AT&T.
Lets compare this situation with the one in the Proprietory software world. Everybody was using the BSD code or AT&T+BSD code. None of the companies were using only code for which they had paid. Should they have the complete ownership of the resulting code. After all lots of the effort was also made by the people working on the BSDs. Did companies using BSD source pay back in the form of their own created software? No! Did they even acknowledge that they were using BSD code? No!
Also due to the copywrite lots of duplicate effort happened. Every company from IBM, SUN, SGI, etc where developing the same code in a slightly different way. The effort could have been used to enrich the public domain and the players could have competed on the merit of their hardware and their skill to create flawless hardware. We may have had uncrashable and very secure Personal Computers but the IP Laws provided no benefit to the companies to do this. So we are stuck in a world of crashing computers and viruses, trojans and spyware.
The competition between these companies did not help the Unix Community at all because they were just concentrating on guarding their IP very closely. The market moved towards DOS and Windows which were in everyway inferior to the Unices. And Unix lost the momentum behind it. It was upto Linus Torvalds to bring it back in the form of Linux.
We should look at the above example very carefully. Unix has been the originator of the Internet. The internet developed because unix was a collaborative effort. Everybody developed it in their own way adding features that no company could think of. In unix most of the development and inventions have happened in universities and colleges because they were connected over the internet and could collaborate. In fact Unix and Internet has had a very symbiotic relationship. The current trend of trojans viruses and spyware is due to the fact that the maximum number of computers these days are run by closed source proprietory software which is never seen by a benevolent third party. Only by a malevolent third party who manages to steal it from the main vendor.
In the Internet Age current IP Laws are not beneficial to the growing of Economy they are detrimental. They will continue to be evermore detrimental as time goes by if they are not corrected. The progress we are seeing is inspite of them, and if we had the proper laws we would have seen much faster growth.
The Network effects due to internet imply that the optimal duration for ownership should get progressively smaller and smaller as the internet grows bigger and bigger. If IP Laws don't keep on reducing the duration regularly to keep up with the network effects it is in effect slowing the progress of humanity.
The 20Years for Copywrite was fine in 18th century but it should be quite less now. Instead we have made it 70years, thus depleting the Public Domain enormously.
The Copywrite is more of hinderance now than it was before. The Software people have found a way to use it for their benefit in the form of the open source Licenses but others in the music industry and book publishing have not been able to use it yet. But we are seeing some attempts under the Creative Commons License.
Patent System is also nearly useless, It is useful for only two kinds of companies, the big ones who have large pile of patents which they can drive out competition, and the leachers that do not produce anything and so are immune from the big companies, but use their patents to leech money from the big corporations. The only good thing is that it takes a lot of time to sue a competitor and it is very expensive.
The problem with patent system is also the duration but more importantly there is no auto correction built-in, in the form of bounty lawsuits allowing people to make money from companies that apply for bad Patents. The Patent office also behaves like a for profit organisation by allowing as many patents as possible, because each patents makes them money in form of application fees.
I hope some of these Laws will be improved for our better future.
Posted by anand srivastava on June 09, 2005 at 01:22 PM CEST #
* What are the underlying principles of IP law and policy?
From my vantage point, the purpose modern IP law is to protect the rights of the creator of a particular work (copyright), symbol (trademark), or idea ( patent). Historically, copyrights and patents were given a limited period of time before the became part of the public domain, which is the pool of knowledge, history, and stories that mankind has created over the centuries. I have no problem with trademarks not expiring (after all, I want to be sure that a Coke is really a Coke), but I am disturbed that the trend for copyrights has been to extend them ad nauseum, all so that a few big Corporations can have more control and make more money.
* What social needs and community interests were addressed when the main elements of the IP system were formulated and developed?
Originally, the IP system was a contract between society and creators. Society gave the creators certain privileges in exchange for encouraging creation. Part of the contract was that after a reasonable period of time, the creation was given to the public domain.
* Have society’s needs changed, vis-à-vis the IP system, in the digital society? If so, do these changes require adaptation of the IP system?
Society's needs have changed over the years, especially since the beginning of the personal computer era and the widespread adaption of the Internet, but IP laws have moved backwards, instead of forward. Back in the early 1800s, when all information was moved by horseback, copyright in the USA lasted for 14 years (7 years, renewable for a second 7 years). 200 years later, we can reproduce and move information in the blink of an eye, and yet copyright lasts for nearly a century and the public domain is stuck with 1923 being the last year for the public domain. Registration of works for copyright protection has been removed, so abandoned works sit in limbo because the original author or his/her descendants cannot be found. The public good is being sacrificed for profit and control.
* How can the IP system best support the Information Society?
The IP system can best support society by encouraging the easy use and movement of IP, while protecting the creator for a REASONABLE amount of time. In the digital age, IP is cheap to reproduce and use, and it will continue to be that way despite the best attempts of IP Corporations to "put the cat back in the bag."
Society is rejecting long copyrights, in fact, it is rejecting copyrights in general as seen by the widespread use of peer-to-peer and the popularity of the "black market." WIPO needs to work to understand WHY this is happening, and to find a solution that benefits both Society and the creator. The answer is not longer copyrights and more control, but a solution that both sides can respect and live with. We are not seeing this effort to date.
* How can we determine if the IP system really contributes to innovation and creativity?
The easiest way is to look at the creativity of the Corporate Music Industry, Movie Industry, and book industry versus the independent creator. The offerings by the Corporate IP providers have been less original in the last few years and appears it appears that they are even less inclined to try new things as time goes on. Teens are latching on to groups that were around when their parents were kids, we are seeing more movie remakes (do we really need a remake of "Amityville Horror"?). Music Industry profits are down (although they are still making tons of money), bu the Movie Industry is still strong. On the other hand, the "Indy Musician" market is growing. Web sites such as CDBABY.COM and DMUSIC.COM are offering new and interesting music without resorting to DRM.
* How can the IP system be actively used to disseminate knowledge, promote creative collaboration, and strengthen cultural diversity?
First of all, one cannot disseminate knowledge if it is locked up under excessive copyright and DRM. I propose returning to a reasonable copyright period (14 to 28 years at the most), the requirement that copyright protection requires registration, and that the creator can choose DRM or copyright, but not both. Peer-to-peer can be changed to allow sharing while recording what is shared for royalty purposes. A small monthly fee can go to paying the artists.
No matter what way we go in the future, the only way it is going to work is if there is a meeting of the minds between the public and the IP producer -- continuing the current IP system and IP wars will not solve the problem.
Bill
Posted by Bill Strebin on June 09, 2005 at 05:50 PM CEST #
When Richard Stallman [1] correctly argues against "intellectual property" [2] as a single concept he also says:
“But it is a mistake to replace "intellectual property" with any other term. A different name could eliminate the bias, but won't address the term's deeper problem: overgeneralization.”
Azeem Azhar [3] says [4]:
“..many of the assumptions we make about 'intellectual property' might be reinforced by our choice of words. By the nature of physically-instantiated things, property is exclusionary and rivalrous. So by tagging the word 'intellectual' in front of it we imply that it is something exclusionary and rivalrous.”
I would like to support the argument that replacing the IP term, at least in the case of copyright, might well help us eliminate some bias and help us rethink what society is trying the achieve within the institution of copyright.
Azhar suggests 'Intellectual Contributions' as a new term. Would talking of IC remind us that intellectual works are made up of the 'contributions' of all who came before? Would a new term help us think of non-rivalrous ways of dealing fairly with intellectual contributions?
Nicholas
[1] http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml
[3] http://azeem.typepad.com/about.html
[4] http://azeem.typepad.com/blog/2004/09/intellectual_co.html
Posted by Nicholas Bentley on June 11, 2005 at 09:26 AM CEST
Website: http://www.commonrights.com #
Commentary 6. above states:
“In the copyright field, technological innovations from the printing press, to photography, player pianos, radio, television, photocopiers and video recorders, all necessitated evolution of copyright law and principles.” [1]
Professor Lawrence Lessig [2] and in his presentation at the Library of Congress (Thursday, March 3, 2005) [3] supports this view:
“The balance of intellectual property regimes is a function of the technology of the time”.......”as the technology of copyright has changed so to have the laws.” “The question we have to ask is, - what the appropriate law is given the technology because a good regulation for one technology is not a good regulation for another.”
Also mentioned above, the preamble to the WIPO Copyright Treaty, 1996, [4] recognised:
the need to “provide adequate solutions to the questions raised by the new economic, social, cultural and technological developments” and “the profound impact of the development and convergence of information and communication technologies on the creation and use of literary and artistic works”
Professor Jessica Litman [5] has said:
"Most fundamentally, I would argue, we need to fasten on some measure of a copyright holders' rights other than the familiar reproduction. The act of reproducing is no longer a useful proxy for the question whether a copyright owner's incentives have been injured, or even insulted. We need to consider alternatives to measuring copyright infringement in terms of unauthorized copies." [6]
The authors of The Digital Dilemma have said:
“Given the challenges to the copyright regime posed by digital information, the committee concluded that alternatives to a copy-based model for protection of digital information deserve consideration,….” [7]
The common theme here is that as technology moves on copyright, and in a broader sense IP, has changed in the past and needs to change in the future. Copyright laws need to change so that society, both creators and consumers, can make full use of the new technology. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) fundamentally change the self-regulating effects of copies in the copyright regime [8] and therefore it is time for copyright to move on. Copies are no longer a viable currency for the trade of Intellectual Contributions.
* “How can the IP system best support the Information Society?”
IP, that is copyright in this case, needs to abandon the idea of regulating copies. And the alternative? The alternative is to regulate the 'rights' in copyright by granting the author a controlling interest in all the rights associated with their work. The copyright regime already takes the liberty of granting exclusive rights over intangible subject matter. Why not extend this rights environment beyond the creator to the trading of rights between creators, distributors and consumers?
Under today's copyright regime there is an unregulated right to 'experience the work' - that is read the book or listen to the music [9]. Under the system described in Common Rights [10], once the creative work is made public, the right to 'experience the work' becomes a default, established, right that is available to everyone (as in the patent system where once the invention is registered everyone can have access to the ideas behind the invention.) All other rights associated with the work such as the right to make copies, the right to trade the product rights, and the right to sell copies, rest with the author however this author can pass on or trade any of these rights with anyone else. Hence, anyone can experience the work (read the book, listen to the music) if it is made available to them but only consumers who have purchased additional rights from the author can perform other activities with the work. In this way the system supports the social balance of of having widespread availability of the underlying ideas, concepts, and discoveries while providing a framework for compensating the author for the convenience the consumer gains from having access to the expression of the work.
The Common Rights philosophy introduces many subtle changes into the area of IP traditionally covered by copyright and these require careful analysis to fully understand their impact. I urge you to consider the Distributed Intellectual Product Rights [11] proposal in the light of some of these benefits:
- Clearly defined rules for using identified digital products.
- Registered creator and consumer rights to intellectual products.
- Allow authors and creators the freedom to choose the level of rights protection applied to each work and the level of economic compensation derived from the work.
- Attribution is ensured.
- Consumers who support the author by purchasing a work are given considerable rights to make use of the work.
- Protection of all personal information.
- Protection of the common right of access to intellectual works for education and social purposes.
- Automatic and permanent archives of intellectual works.
- Avoidance of technically complicated and expensive centralised access control systems.
- Many new marketing strategies for the rights holders who can form peer-to-peer partnerships with consumers.
- A technical framework to support all other rights management and metadata systems.
- Opening up the potential of P2P networks to efficiently distribute content.
As Bill Strebin said above [12], “The answer is not longer copyrights and more control, but a solution that both sides can respect and live with.”
I thank WIPO for this opportunity to comment and urge you to consider Common Rights as a solution.
Nicholas
[1] http://www.wipo.int/roller/comments/ipisforum/Weblog/theme_one_the_declaration_of
[2] http://www.lessig.org/bio/short/
[3] http://www.c-span.org/congress/digitalfuture.asp
[4] http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocs_wo033.html
[5] http://www.law.wayne.edu/litman/
[6] Jessica Litman, Professor of Law, Wayne State University, 'New Copyright Paradigms'.
http://www.law.wayne.edu/litman/papers/paradigm.htm
[7] The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age (2000),Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB), Executive summary. http://www.nap.edu/html/digital_dilemma/
[8] “In the past, the very nature of the distribution media limited fraudulent dissemination (i.e. copy degradation, reproduction costs, trace ability, etc).” NRC/CSTB/Information Systems Trustworthiness Project, Panel 3, section 2.4 ( Panel created by Rohit Khare & Joseph Reagle, World Wide Web Consortium). http://www.w3.org/IPR/work/NRC-v1.htm
[9] “To read is not a fair use; it’s an unregulated use” – Lawrence Lessig’s address to the Open Source Convention, 24 July, 2002.
[10] http://www.commonrights.com
[11] http://www.omidyar.net/group/intellectual-contributions/ws/DIPR%20Introduction/
[12] http://www.wipo.int/roller/comments/ipisforum/Weblog/theme_one_the_declaration_of#comment25
Posted by Nicholas Bentley on June 13, 2005 at 08:53 AM CEST
Website: http://www.commonrights.com #
what is the term of computer software? 15 years?
Posted by mandy yip on June 13, 2005 at 09:22 AM CEST #
In small countries, producing for a rather limited market (for language reasons) investment in new production can be difficult. This means that initial payment will be small compared to larger countries, while on the other hand the later payment for the use will form an incentive for all parties in cultural production.
13 June 2005
Without remuneration on the basis of copyright protection, there will mainly be an interest in investing in the most commercial productions, to the detriment of maintaining a rich and broad cultural life within a community.
Posted by Danish Actors' Association, Mikael Waldorff, General Secretary on June 13, 2005 at 11:24 AM CEST
Website: http://www.skuespillerforbundet.dk #
As you already well know,information is power & power is information.Without protection afforded to intellectual property, then all the economic benefits arising are lost.In the present world,which nation would be naive not to take advantage of the intellectual system?
It is time that the WIPO Copyright treaty was harnessed to include the protection of both public and confidential information not to forget all the written materials which are protected by copyright.
I nevertheless think that digital media is posing a great risk to creativity,something which has to be curtailed through enforcement regime found in national laws.
NB For all of those interested,you can keep my email contacts and contact me at anytime of your convenience on intellectual property related topics.Good day to all of you who have taken time to read my comments.
Posted by Wilson Rading Outa on June 13, 2005 at 03:30 PM CEST #
(1) many true creators would like their works disseminated free of charge until they have established themselves in the market; yet mechanisms to achieve this are in their infancy (all created material is automatically subject to copyright restrictions, and the would-be user cannot easily know which works may be copied freely)
(2) the laws of few countries allow sufficient freedom to copy (copyright) works, subject to reasonable restrictions, within the controlled environment of educational institutions: this hampers teaching and research, despite the willingness of education to pay for copyright materials
(3) because many copyrights are owned not by authors but by the corporations who publish or disseminate their work, the rights are bought and sold, making it difficult for law-abiding citizens to trace the owner for permission to copy
(4) the term of copyright is too long to be justified as an incentive to creativity - nobody is persuaded into creative action on the grounds that their unborn grandchildren will enjoy their posthumous royalties
(5) very large numbers of works remain in copyright, sterilised against productive use, long after they have lost any commercial value: this is counter-productive in a true information society
Posted by toby.bainton on June 13, 2005 at 05:21 PM CEST #
“The beauty of the Creative Commons approach is that it allows for IP protection for the creator who wants it, but also freedom to share for the creator with different motives. It's up to the creator to choose from a variety of options, from retaining all rights to retaining commercial rights but allowing education uses, to retaining commercial rights in the developed world, but allowing free use in the developing world.”[1]
In a recent talk [2] Lawrence Lessig suggested four points to move forward from today's stalemate in the field of copyright:
1. We should all repeat, “piracy is wrong.” “We speak against piracy.”
2. “We urge regulators to slow down their regulation.”
3. “We begin a push for reform, reform of these laws.... meaning a kind of deregulation of our access to this culture [sharing, remix, p2p].”
4. “Begin to take steps before the government” i.e. Creative Commons.
The Common Rights approach I describe above [3] is a system that takes many of the principles of the Creative Commons [4] and introduces a technological solution that allows the creator to choose the type of distribution for their work while supporting many commercial models for those who want to follow that route. The aim of Common Rights [5] is to provide a framework that would allow a reform of the laws called for by Lessig in point 3. of his speech and also allow for an organised transition from analogue copyright practices to the digital environment of the future without the need for expensive DRM technologies.
[1] http://www.wipo.int/roller/comments/ipisforum/Weblog/theme_one_the_declaration_of#comment3
[2] Library of Congress (Thursday, March 3, 2005) http://www.c-span.org/congress/digitalfuture.asp
[3] http://www.wipo.int/roller/comments/ipisforum/Weblog/theme_one_the_declaration_of#comment27
[4] http://creativecommons.org/
[5] http://www.commonrights.com
Posted by Nicholas Bentley on June 14, 2005 at 08:06 AM CEST
Website: http://www.commonrights.com #
For example, take the quote "At the individual level, the IP system is fundamentally about choices available to creators and innovators - whether to profit financially from commercial exploitation of IP, whether to dedicate IP subject matter to the public domain, whether to assert authorship rights as a vehicle for free speech" This is never a simple choice as the available ways to profit financially are controlled by established rights-owning interests. For example, the content industries are dominated by vertically integrated multinationals, and are far from a level playing field for local content initiatives
The discussion of "legitimate rights" of IP-owners should be problematised, even if the IP system is viewed narrowly around economic issues. Legal scholars tell us that property rights are not holistic or absolute, but instead consist of a "bundle of rights" granted in the form of a title or exclusive license. Some rights in this bundle may be in legitimate conflict with the rights of others. A fair judicial framework for mediating these conflicts are important. This will require the IP system to become more responsive to stakeholders whose legitimate rights (e.g. to free expression) are curtailed by the IP system.
"How can we determine if the IP system really contributes to innovation and creativity? How can the IP system be actively used to disseminate knowledge, promote creative collaboration, and strengthen cultural diversity?"
By not standardising international law around the interests of established players, and by facilitating a diversity of IP arrangements that are culturally and socio-economically responsive to the needs of all peoples, and avoids capture by interests whose economic activities are based on rent seeking.
Danny Butt
Associate Member
ORBICOM International Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communications
Posted by Danny Butt on June 14, 2005 at 05:54 PM CEST
Website: http://www.orbicom.uqam.ca/ #
- Philippe Aigrain, Positive Intellectual Rights and Information Exchanges, in R.A. Ghosh, ed., MIT Press, May 2005
- Philippe Aigrain, Cause commune: l'information entre bien commun et propriété, Editions Fayard, février 2005, 283 pages.
Posted by Philippe Aigrain on June 14, 2005 at 10:19 PM CEST
Website: http://www.publicdebate.net/Members/paigrain #
Q: What are the underlying principles of IP law and policy?
A: The goal of intellectual property (IP) law is to provide a socially optimal level of incentives for people and businesses to invest in developing and disseminating new technologies and works. IP laws create these incentives by giving inventors, authors, performers, and others the means to earn an economic return on their investments in innovation and creativity. These incentives benefit society because they lead to the development of technologies, content, and products that might never have been created or disseminated in the absence of IP protection. In contrast to government grants or other non-market-based mechanisms, IP laws do not guarantee that inventors and authors will be paid for their efforts. Instead, IP laws provide a means through which people and firms can capture at least some portion of the value of their innovative and creative efforts—whatever that value may be—in the marketplace.
IP protection is very important to the software industry. Given the ease with which software can be copied and distributed, IP protections provide a mechanism for developers to prevent others from appropriating their innovations. Without IP protection, second-comers could simply copy the innovation or software code and thereby appropriate at least some portion of its economic value, without having to bear any related development costs. Such “free riding” on the original developer’s investment could diminish or even eliminate the economic incentive to develop and disseminate new software.
Q: How can the IP system best support the Information Society?
A: Information and knowledge are the capital—and ingenuity and creativity the means of production—that will drive economic growth in the Information Society. Effective national and global economic policies will therefore require governments to create a climate in which innovation and creativity can flourish.
Such a climate depends on sound IP protection. Authors and inventors will not be willing to put their investments at risk unless appropriate systems are in place to ensure that they can obtain a market-based return on their investment. Intellectual property laws provide such a system. IP laws are particularly important in the online environment, where the value of a work can be decimated by its unauthorized copying, transmission and use among millions of Internet users worldwide.
Robust, internationally harmonized IP protections also foster the transborder flow of technology, goods and services, which is an important feature of the Information Society. Firms are more likely to open research and development facilities in countries where intellectual property protection is strong, thereby providing jobs and access to technology for the host country. An International Finance Corporation survey of 100 major U.S. corporations found that some firms will not even consider technology-intensive ventures in countries with weak intellectual property protection, and many others consider the level of IP protection an important factor in their investment decisions.
Jesse M. Feder
Director of International Trade and Intellectual Property
Business Software Alliance
Posted by Jesse Feder on June 14, 2005 at 10:38 PM CEST
Website: http://www.bsa.org/ #
How can we determine if the IP system really contributes to innovation and creativity? By _opening our eyes_, and seeing if new knowledge appears, and if it rapidly is used and _adapted_, innovated on by others. If we see someone making a naked power grab through actually changing previously agreed upon laws, and freezing a form of knowledge for long periods of time, we know it is not.
The IP system may be actively used to disseminate knowledge, promote creative collaboration, and strengthen cultural diversity by legally protecting the ownership of these by the creator, by providing _limited_ protection of these to the creator's agents (e.g. a corporation), and by doing both for _A LIMITED TIME_. If agents for the creator assume "ownership" of the IP, and do so _instead_ of or _after_ the creator, and/or do so for periods of time that can begun to be measured in lifetimes, then the system has been subverted, and IP protection is a sham.
Posted by W. Budell on June 15, 2005 at 07:23 AM CEST #
Posted by Benoît Müller on June 15, 2005 at 08:39 AM CEST
Website: http://www.bsa.org #
Creativity comes from the mind and it is facilitated by venture capitalists.If you have a great idea and u can't implement,don't worry,there are many firms out there to work on such ideas and benefit through a small gain.Can you think of a situation where those ideas can be replicated and used without regard to the holder of the copyright or patent?It means there will be no innovation to talk about in the first place.
It will just be a chaotic scenario where no gains will be made and our lives will still be the same because we will have killed the power of innovation and creativity.God forbid!
On how the IP System can be used to disseminate information and promote creative collaboration,let me give an account of what happened here in Keya sometimes back.Scientists from Oxford University and their Kenyan counterparts in University of Nairobi were conducting an anti AIDS vaccine trial.Unknown to their Kenyans,the UK scientists were in the process of acquiring a patent before this whole issue came to light.
What should simply have been done is to put IP business beforehand in order to avoid this sought of back dealing.Hence the information would have been shared openly leading to a more condusive atmosphere for research and both parties would have benefited from the research work through patenting.This information would have been widely available in patent offices hence contributing to new information and probably concepts through dissemination to the public.
Now tell me,who can still doubt the potential of the IP system as a catalyst for betterment of humankind.
NB Thank you all for reading this information.You can keep my contacts so that in future we can continue with this debate.I am looking forward to your responses.
Posted by Wilson Rading Outa on June 15, 2005 at 11:22 AM CEST #
Posted by Elisabeth Staudegger on June 15, 2005 at 11:42 AM CEST #
Content and creativity are key components of the development of an information society and the overriding purpose of the intellectual property system is to protect creators and thereby stimulate creativity and the development and dissemination of such creativity as expressed in content. This was the case when intellectual property protection was first introduced into society, and these are still valid concepts for the future. Respecting intellectual property has a positive impact on cultural, societal and economic development in all countries, small and large.
This idea is also expressed in Article 42 of the WSIS Declaration of Principles:
“Intellectual Property protection is important to encourage innovation and creativity in the Information Society; similarly, the wide dissemination, diffusion and sharing of knowledge is important to encourage innovation and creativity. Facilitating meaningful participation by all in intellectual property issues and knowledge sharing through full awareness and capacity building is a fundamental part of an inclusive Information Society.”
Posted by International Video Federation on June 15, 2005 at 04:07 PM CEST
Website: http://www.ivf-video.org #
What was supposed to create an incentive for authors and inventors has instead become an anti-competetive weapon used by would-be monopolists to avoid playing by free market rules.
The value of IP is not in its incentive for creativity, but in its economic value to legally exclude competitors. It extends the monopoly power from the original creators through whole organizations. It protects the inefficiency of entire industries, diverting resources away from wealth creation like efficient production into cost creation like marketing and administration.
No other industries create so little value for so much cost to the consumers as the intellectual property heavy industries. One has to look to state run monopolies to find waste levels even close to that.
Intellectual property is to innovation as an air monopoly would be to breathing. One could create a whole economy around the ownership of air; that does not mean that society as a whole gains any wealth from it, but you can be sure the owners, bottlers, transporters, lawyers and marketers in the 'Air Society' would be clamoring about the economic importance of protecting air rights.
Posted by Olof A Hansen Witt on June 15, 2005 at 05:35 PM CEST #
As a result of environmental changes, it is no more meaningful to restrict "how many copies of a work" exists. Instead, "how the work can be used" is a more meaningful restriction used as the incentive of creative authorship.
Without this change, the only way to protect the rights in question is to establish more insane technology and law so as to achieve one particular objective and neglect many others. DRM fingerprinting will distroy the first-sale doctrine, by preventing everyone from reselling the copyrighted work which is technically locked to a particular device. Introduction of DRM-like restrictions to "general purpose" computers, like performing restriction in the BIOS of PCs will hinder freedom to make best use of the technology, e.g. restricting the freedom of choice of the public, as seen by how hopeless at the moment to play WMA and AAC materials (sound formats which dominates the online music market) in Linux, one of the most popular "free" operating system. DMCA-like anti-trafficking protection will prevent fair use/dealing for reporting/teaching as they are not exempted acts to break the DRM-like protections, hence limiting free flow of information and the right of know.
In the other angle, it is definately not the way to go to let the author to put limit on every possible way to exercise the rights to protect. For instance, Laws from many countries allows video casette recording only for the sake of time-shifting. Some books can be sold/resold only in some countries. CDs sold in consumer shops cannot be transferred to MP3 player, and can be only played at home but not "in" office. The more restrictions like these, the harder the general public, which cannot fully understand the legal implications nor have the patience to read the lengthy license texts, to know what rights they have been granted upon a certain purchase. This will only cause confusion and mass violation of Law owing to ignorance.
It is definately an evolutionary change to the world to dispose copyright, but it is as inevitable as why we introduced the concept of copyright 3 centuries ago. Given the current technology, and how we expect the technology tomorrow will be, exercising control on copying will no longer be effective, or even unenforceable. How intellectural property can be protected in the forseeable future will soon become a urgent topic.
Posted by Alan Tam on June 15, 2005 at 06:59 PM CEST #
North American Broadcasters Association
In response to this question, the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) provides the following input for consideration.
In recognition of the importance of over-the-air broadcasting as a viable means of distribution to emerging countries in providing among other things, education, information, and cultural enrichment to their societies, NABA along with the other members of the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU)* supports the goals of the WBU Broadcasters’ Declaration submitted as input to WSIS, PrepCom-2 (February, 2003). For reference, the WBU Broadcasters’ Declaration is provided as below.
NABA further submits that for any broadcasting system to remain viable there is a need to respect the rights of content providers. The ITU-R Study Group 6M Proposed Draft New Recommendation (PDNR) submitted by NABA (modified as per the ITU-R 6M April, 2005 meeting) is also provided below for reference. This ITU-R draft document addresses the principal of providing capabilities for redistribution control signaling for broadcast application, to ensure balance in the interests of both rights holders and the public in the television broadcast environment.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY: Contribution of the World Broadcasting Unions to PrepCom-2 (February, 2003)
Convinced of the key role of public and private broadcasting, including digital and enhanced broadcasting in the years ahead, in bringing about an information society in which all citizens are included and can participate
Stressing broadcasters' commitment and contribution to such fundamental values as freedom of expression, access to information, media pluralism and cultural diversity
Believing that the information society should be founded on the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in particular Article 19, on the fundamental right to freedom of expression
the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU), comprised of regional Broadcasting Unions representing the leading radio and television organizations throughout the world, hereby put forward the following principles and objectives:
1. COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY IS NOT AN END IN ITSELF; IT IS A VEHICLE FOR THE PROVISION OF INFORMATION AND CONTENT
By definition, the term "information society" refers to the importance of information and content for the public. Communication should also involve understanding, tolerance, respect and inter-cultural enrichment.
2. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, FREEDOM AND PLURALISM OF THE MEDIA, AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY SHOULD BE RESPECTED AND PROMOTED
Freedom of expression, pluralism and cultural diversity are fundamental values and objectives which should underpin the media system and the information society as a whole, not least in the context of globalization.
3. THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA HAVE A VITAL ROLE TO PLAY IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
The media have a vital role in producing, gathering and distributing quality content within the information society. Individual communication has its limits. Communication to the general public will continue to be essential for, inter alia, selecting and interpreting information and placing it in its proper context, and to serve as a platform for the exchange of information and ideas.
Independent broadcasting services at the national and regional levels play a major role in providing unbiased information, safeguarding media pluralism and contributing to cultural diversity, particularly through the promotion of local/regional culture and audiovisual production, making full use of the various technical means offered by the information society.
In many parts of the world, independent public service broadcasting has a special responsibility in this regard. Distanced from political and economic pressures, it has the role of ensuring access to information, knowledge, culture and entertainment for all citizens, including vulnerable and minority groups, and of being a driving force for the creation of domestic content.
Commercial broadcasting, whether funded by advertising or subscription, contributes to the delivery of key policy goals such as the production of original and varied content and the existence of a plurality of news sources. In addition, other forms of legally-established and non-profit media, operated for local communities, can play an important part by serving women, youth, indigenous people, children and minority groups.
4. TELEVISION AND RADIO ARE CRUCIAL FOR ENSURING SOCIAL COHESION AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
The future is not only "on-line". Providing both information and entertainment to all, radio and television are closely linked to the daily life of everyone, and they will retain their unique level of presence, existing, in many countries, in virtually every home. They have huge digital potential, for, for instance, the distribution of multimedia content.
Especially for the developing countries, traditional radio and television will continue to be the most effective way of delivering high-quality information on, for example, health-care and education, of combating illiteracy, of debating issues of general interest and of promoting a culture of peace. These media need to be strengthened to be able to reach out to everybody. Moreover, poor, remote communities cannot be made part of the "wired" generation without a significant improvement in their living conditions.
5. INFORMATION SHOULD REMAIN ACCESSIBLE AND AFFORDABLE TO EVERYONE
Access to information is a fundamental human right. The reception of broadcast services therefore needs to remain accessible and affordable for citizens, and broadcasters must have access to events of interest to the public. The new opportunities offered by the information age should also be at the service of the whole range of communities. Free-to-air broadcasting, and especially broadcasting with universal coverage, are important means of achieving this objective. If new electronic media are to achieve the same objective, open and interoperable platforms are essential.
The ITU-R Study Group 6M Proposed Draft New Recommendation (PDNR) submitted by the North American Broadcaster Association (NABA)** (modified as per the ITU-R 6M April, 2005 meeting) is provided below for reference. This ITU-R draft document addresses the principal of providing capabilities for redistribution control signaling for broadcast application, to ensure balance in the interests of both rights holders and the public in the television broadcast environment.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION RADIOCOMMUNICATION STUDY GROUPS
Document 6M/TEMP/43(Rev.1)-E
4 April 2005
English Only
Source: Documents 6M/83, 6M/85 and Report ITU-R BT.2036
Working Party 6M (Drafting Group 6M5)
PRELIMINARY DRAFT NEW RECOMMENDATION
Broadcasting of redistribution signalling*** for television (Question ITU-R 101/6)
The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly,
considering
a) that the worldwide community recognizes that modern interconnected digital networks have created ability for easy redistribution of television signals without the permission of programme and distribution rights holders as described in Report ITU R BT.2036;
b) that broadcasting systems allow television broadcasters the capacity to develop new systems to convey additional information;
c) that such new systems are starting to be used to signal the intent of various programme and distribution rights holders on further redistribution of television broadcast content;
d) that the broadcasting community must be part of the development and the decisions on such new systems in order to ensure balance in the interests of both rights holders and the public in the television broadcast environment;
e) that other means of media delivery are using and developing signalling systems that also allow for signalling of redistribution rights;
f) that the broadcasting community must work with other content distribution communities to ensure consistent interoperability of content information;
g) that only a worldwide unified approach to rights management will make such mechanisms effective,
recommends
1. that the signalling of redistribution control be accommodated in all television broadcast systems;
2. that such systems be implemented so as to enable interoperability among all systems handling content;
3. that such systems carry forward redistribution control information as indicated by the redistribution control codes.
Respectfully submitted,
NABA
* WBU members include:
Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU)
Asociacion Internacional de Radiodifusión (AIR)
Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU)
Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU)
European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
North American Broadcasters Association (NABA)
Organización de Telecomunicaciones Iberoamericanas (OTI)
Union des Radiodiffusions et Televisions Nationales d’Afrique (URTNA)
** NABA full members: CBC/Radio-Canada / CBS Broadcasting Inc. / Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) / National Public Radio (NPR) / Public Broadcasting System (PBS) / DIRECTV / Fox Broadcasting Company / Grupo Televisa S.A. / NBC Universal / Time Warner Inc. / TV Azteca S.A. de C.V. Associate members: Bell ExpressVu / Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) / Microsoft Corporation / National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) / Sirius Satellite Radio.
*** The term “signalling” indicates that redistribution information may be carried in the television signal or in transport data.
Posted by North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) on June 15, 2005 at 07:09 PM CEST
Website: http://www.nabanet.com #
This matter always leads to the question of the balance between the economic rights and community interests, and where the IP law should place the border in order to satisfy both of them allowing a balanced relationship.
The answer to the question "where do economic rights fall beyond the community interest and access to education and access to information" is very hard to give, having different contents depending on each countries specific laws, which despite the international treaties that were made, are still very diverse all across the world.
Besides this matter, the fast development of the information society over the last decades, require a constant and quick response from the legislator to the new probelems that are constantly appearing due to the technological development and for which the law is often not prepared.
Despite all this, I believe that some very hard and important steps were already made, e.g. the creation and agreement of the basic worldwide principles for protecting IP rights.
Like in all other fields, the Law will always be one step behind the reality, specialy regarding piracy, and this is one of the best supports that it can give, speccially in smaller countries in which the reduced dimension of the market do not allow the copiright companies to afford the losses that arise from piracy which reflects in a smaller support to the artists and often stop the chance of some very good talents to proceed with their works and promote their creativity.
Posted by Luis Borges Rodrigues on June 15, 2005 at 08:04 PM CEST
Website: http://www.csbadvogados.pt #
Comments of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), www.iipa.com, on Theme 1.
The vision for the information society set out in the WSIS Declaration of Principles is consistent with the principle of strong intellectual property protection which underlies all of the intellectual property treaties administered by WIPO. Article 42 of the Declaration of Principles properly reflects the role of intellectual property protection in furthering the goals of the Information Society: “Intellectual Property protection is important to encourage innovation and creativity in the Information Society; similarly, the wide dissemination, diffusion and sharing of knowledge is important to encourage innovation and creativity. Facilitating meaningful participation by all in intellectual property issues and knowledge sharing through full awareness and capacity building is a fundamental part of an inclusive Information Society.”
To encourage innovation and creativity, nations must protect the intellectual property rights of both local and foreign artists and innovators. In order to ensure that authors, business and entertainment software publishers, filmmakers, composers, recording artists and producers continue to enrich the information society by way of their creations, nations must provide robust copyright laws which foster incentives to create as well as adequate protections for protected works as they travel over electronic networks. Not doing so will stunt the development of both the cultural industries and the information technologies sector by depriving the public of legitimate sources and copies of original, creative content. The most valuable intellectual property will not flow to new business models involving new technologies unless the creators of that property are confident in their ability to recoup their investments by having it rendered safe from IP theft.
The alternative vision of the Internet, supported by a few, places faith in the right to appropriate the creative works of others in order to disseminate them to the world free of charge. This vision will lead to a global reduction in creative output and, where it becomes piracy, an increased source of income for organized crime. Moreover, any vision of the Internet that would permit piracy victimizes local culture as well as the economies of developing countries. The victims of piracy include the artists whose creativity gets no reward; governments who lose hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues; economies that are deprived of new investments; consumers who get less diversity and less choice; and the producers of creative works who, due to rampant theft, have less money to invest in the development of new talent. Strong intellectual property protection furthers the WSIS goal of building “a people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society,” by providing a framework for business transactions, vital foreign investments, and perhaps most importantly, the impetus for local creativity, which increases not only economic, but cultural, welfare. The WIPO digital treaties – the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty -- provide the way forward to protect content in this new environment.
For evidence of this fact, we need only look to some developing countries which have long benefited from the protection of intellectual property. India, for example, has a thriving cultural and software sector as the result of a longstanding commitment to copyright protection. In addition, those nations who more recently moved toward stronger intellectual property protection, such as Korea, are now benefiting from significant increases in economic activity involving creative works as well as better, high-paying jobs. As improved intellectual property protection and the penetration of broadband technologies spreads throughout the developing world, the goals of WSIS (and the goals of WIPO) will move ever closer to fruition.
To be certain, technological developments and market changes have brought people all over the globe to the threshold of an exciting future, one in which their access to entertainment, information, education and productivity tools will be more extensive, less expensive, and more convenient than ever before. The prospect of a digital marketplace in creative works offers great promise to all countries, and particularly to developing countries, where it is estimated that at least 935 million people are online (2004 data). The expansion of electronic commerce can mean more and better jobs, more secure and diversified economies, and social and cultural advancement in these countries. For instance:
Electronic commerce can help communities and countries overcome existing barriers to access to scientific and technical data, educational materials, and technical and productivity software. Trade in these vital resources, needed for prosperity and competitive advantage in the Information Age, will be much cheaper, more efficient, and easier in a digital networked marketplace.
Electronic commerce can help countries attract higher and more consistent levels of foreign direct investment in high technology and information-intensive businesses. A host of service, processing and other functions can conveniently be out-sourced to any country, and these investments in turn will enhance the skills and opportunities of that country’s citizens.
Electronic commerce can help build stronger economic, social, and cultural links among communities or countries, without regard to geographic proximity.
Perhaps most significantly, electronic commerce can provide an enormous boost to the cultural and creative industries of a country. Through digital networks, a country’s local music, art, and literature can reach new markets throughout the region and the world and can be delivered directly to paying customers around the globe. The Internet is also the prime medium through which crafts, cuisine and other cultural riches, as well as key services such as tourism, can be marketed instantly and economically to a worldwide public.
But if electronic commerce offers great promise to the developing nations, it also presents formidable challenges. Unless all participants in this new marketplace shoulder the responsibility of promoting the values of honesty, fairness, and respect for the property of others, a world of legitimate electronic commerce cannot possibly succeed. Piracy and other forms of theft of intellectual property already threaten the potential of the digital marketplace. The very same technology that facilitates the legitimate distribution of an unparalleled diversity of creative products around the world also makes possible the greatest threat to the success of electronic commerce.
Countless ingenious individuals around the world are working together to create the cornucopia of content that global digital networks can deliver to our homes, offices, and schools. But this bounty of content is highly vulnerable to theft. A global strategy that promotes responsibility and respect for the creative work of others can yield enormous benefits for the public in every community and country. By contrast, if laws and public policy encourage irresponsibility, larceny and abuse, the digital marketplace will quickly empty, leaving only the thieves to traffic in a back street that respectable people and responsible companies would never choose to enter. All the benefits that electronic commerce can deliver – better access to key technologies and educational tools; a more hospitable foreign investment climate; stronger ties with neighbors and distant nations; and wider markets for the creativity and innovation of the people of a community or country – would be diminished, or eliminated altogether, without adequate intellectual property protection.
Of all the policy issues raised by the advent of global electronic commerce, none is more critical to its success than the protection of intellectual property. The value of the Internet to its users turns directly upon the content that moves across it and the software tools that enable users to reap its benefits. Intellectual property protection is the most effective incentive for the creation and widespread distribution of valuable content, and for the development and dissemination of useful software tools. To the extent that those incentives are weakened or undercut, the spectrum of information and entertainment products and services made available over digital networks, and the functionality of the networks themselves to end users, will shrink to the lower end of the value chain, or perhaps disappear altogether.
Copyright gives creators the basic property rights that enable them to authorize and control the copying, distribution, performance and display of the works they create. Exercising these exclusive rights themselves, or licensing someone else to exercise them, is the main way that creators earn a living and generate revenue. That revenue is needed to underwrite the skyrocketing costs of producing and distributing motion pictures; developing, testing and maintaining computer software; scouting, recording, and promoting musical talent; and all the other activities that are indispensable to bringing creative works to the public. Copyright also makes possible the paychecks for the millions of jobs the creative industries generate worldwide.
Our vision for the information society is encompassing. Combating copyright theft in order to foster the growth of electronic commerce requires a multi-faceted strategy. Technological measures to combat piracy are essential. So is public education about copyright, especially targeted to network users. However, these steps are not sufficient by themselves. Strong legal protections must be adopted, and more importantly, vigorously enforced worldwide, if sufficient intellectual property incentives are to be preserved.
Posted by International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) on June 15, 2005 at 09:30 PM CEST
Website: http://www.iipa.com #
ACT is a global trade association in the information technology sector and represents nearly 3,000 members – the vast majority being small and medium-sized enterprises.
ACT agrees with WIPO’s statement in the commentary that “IP laws typically prescribe forms of exclusive rights over intangible subject matter, and seek to define these in a way that maintains a healthy public domain while channeling private interest to promote the creation of public goods.” It is the exclusive rights that provide a basis for companies to make investments in the innovation, development and bringing to market new goods and services. All forms of intellectual protection were founded on this principle and have been true to this principle over the centuries and to the present day. Copyright protection affords authors the freedom to write and live by writing – including writing software – if they can find employment or otherwise sell or disseminate their works profitably. Trademark protection is similarly imbued with these characteristics. A free market can hardly exist without a strong and effective trademark law; without the sanctity of a commercial identity that a trademark brings (thus allowing only the one who builds a business to enjoy the fruits of his labor) free enterprise and the beneficial competition it engenders is without motivation. Patent protection gives inventors the exclusive right to exploit their inventions for a limited time. This exclusive right gives them the economic security and, thereby, freedom to follow any path along which their human ingenuity and imagination may lead them.
Intellectual property is neither a new nor a static concept. The grant of some form of exclusive rights to inventors originated in the early part of the 15th Century in Venice and spread rapidly during the 16th Century to Germany, France, the Netherlands, and England. Laws for the protection of intellectual property change in concert with changes in technology, society, and domestic and international commerce. One only needs to recall the statement by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations to appreciate the true import of such changes. There, Mr. Smith stated that the labor of persons we now call “performers” is “like that of menial servants, unproductive of any value, and does not fix or realize itself in any permanent subject; or vendible commodity, which endures after that labour is past, and for which an equal quantity of labour could afterwards be procured.” While in 1776 it was not possible to fix a performance in a tangible medium, today a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry has been built around performances in videos, cassette tapes, and compact disks.
It is these changes in technology that cause the greatest challenges to and greatest opportunities for the intellectual property system. Such changes are a large part of the reason that the norms in the field of intellectual property have developed so rapidly over the past century.
Absent intellectual property – in particular copyright and patent protection – creators of computer software would not have the incentive to invest their time and resources in the development of truly innovative programs and develop and refine them for broad distribution and use. Eliminating or weakening intellectual property protection for software would have a decidedly deleterious effect – leading to less innovation and more mere reproduction of existing software and functionality. Historically, this has proven true. Consider, for example, what happened when exclusive rights in books were eliminated in revolutionary France in the latter part of the 18th century. The result of making information free and allowing anyone to print anything resulted in "cultural anarchy, . . . [the] liberation from copyright turned every bookseller into a pirate” and new works – in particular substantial ones – disappeared from the market.
Intellectual property protection, therefore, has a long and important history and it remains important and relevant to society and the technologies of today. In a fundamental way, the needs of society have not changed – the intellectual property system is still needed to ensure that creative works of all types are protected to encourage investment of time and resources into creative enterprises. That said, changes in technology do argue for adaptation of the IP system – adaptation which has taken place and continues to take place at WIPO, other intergovernmental organizations and at the national level.
Posted by Jonathan Zuck on June 15, 2005 at 11:39 PM CEST
Website: http://www.actonline.org #
While we appreciate the Forum initiative of WIPO as a recognition of the need of being more inclusive, one must recognize that these are very complex issues and the outcome of this forum may very well quite superficial.
Therefore, we really wonder if this Forum is the best framework. We deeply concerned that this forum is not a true multi-stakeholder process.
Indeed often questionnaires with carefully crafted questions are writen to elicit specific answers.
It very important to notice that the conclusions of the online forum will form part of WIPO's contribution to the WSIS. Is it reasonnable to work out the WIPO contribution in this way ?
Would have not a specific thematic meeting be necessary ?
How WIPO is going to determine what the conclusions the forum has reached?
According to Richard Stallman, one of the most respected member of the PCT working group ( that WIPO is quoting in the question ),
tt is important to recognize how the formulations of the questions themselves presume and reinforce a specific ideology:
The WSIS Declaration of Principles sets out a vision for the information society ? how can the intellectual property system support this vision?
This assumes that it makes sense to speak of "the intellectual property system" as if it were a single entity. It also presumes that this supposed entity plays a positive social role.
The intellectual property system and freedom of expression and creativity: Help or hindrance?
This encourages confusion between copyright law and other laws by lumping them all together as an "intellectual property system".
The public domain and open access models of information creation: at odds with the intellectual property system or enabled by it?
Likewise.
What are the rights and responsibilities of intellectual property rightsholders?
This encourages people to try to think about copyright law, patent law and trademark law as if they were the same issue.
Global partnerships to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: what role for intellectual property?
How is intellectual property policy made for the information society:
and who makes it?
Likewise for these two.
Emerging business models for distributing intellectual property online: opportunity or threat?
Referring to works of authorship as "intellectual property" not only causes confusion between copyright and patent law, it also devalues the works themselves. To speak of a novel,
or a song, or a program as if its sole significance were as property
is to deny the existence of cultural importance.
What are the challenges for enforcement of intellectual property rights in the digital environment?
This confuses copyright law with other laws. In addition, note the bias expressed by asking how technology creates challenges for imposing their preferred social system. Why not ask, "What challenges doesf copyright law create for the use of computers and networks?"
Awareness must be raised that :
- Copyright, Patents & Trademarks are tools that should be benchmarked by the service they do to humankind.
- WIPO should restate/reconsider its mission to be dedicated towards
increasing global intellectual wealth of all of humankind, see
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/wiwo.html
- WIPO should make sure that it also teaches the Free Software model by working together with the established players in the field.
- WIPO should make sure that all its digital activities and databases are fully accessible with Free Software and never require installing proprietary software.
For more information see : Changing the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
http://www.france.fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/
It is also suggested that concerning copyrights and patents, there should be a clear distinction between the creator/authors, the "rights" owners,
and the users. Therefore not just two constituencies are needed, but three.
We are keen to underline that "creator" and "owner" terminology is being part of the "IPR mysticism", but yet in practise since all inventors are individuals, most rights are removed from inventors employees in most unequitable conditions. A similar situation appears concerning copyrights where many artists are deprived from most of their rigths because of unequitable transfer agreements, sometimes on the borderline of extortions.
The law must protect the now endangered communities of creators/authors and should be able to provide to offer equitable agreements with third parties.
Currently the Patent system no longer delivers tools to protect creativity, but instead
weapons of mass destruction of innovation.
It is not only the cost to get a patent, but the cost of litigations that have transformed patents into weapons of oppression, and intimidation by big bussinesses over small businesses and individuals.
Concerning the so-called Software patents, they would give a terrible blow to all the software industry and prevent Free Software to continue to exist as such.
Again, we should underline that this forum is not the proper form to discuss complex issues,
For example concerning the discussion about the directive in Europe. The real point is that some lobbies are deceiving high officials while stressing that no patents should be awarded to
"software as such" while allowing patents on "data processing". Really one could really wonder how careffully writen patents on data processing would not lead to patents on software ! and in a so subtle ways on mathematical methods which are clearly not patentable.
It should be underlined that improvement of the economy does not imply the undiscriminate re-inforcement of so-called "IPRs" to induce investements and jumpstart a moribond economy.
On the contrary, this supposed cure is going to kill the patient.
As a conclusion, we would like WIPO not to fell in to premature judgments on the sole basis of this forum and to conduct a truely multi-stakeholder dialogue and to contact the thematic working group of the Civil Society
( http://www.wsis-pct.org )
concerning this matter.
Best regards
F. MUGUET
PCT group co-coordinator
Posted by Dr. Francis MUGUET on June 15, 2005 at 11:53 PM CEST
Website: http://www.wsis-pct.org #