[Commons-Law] WIPO - Development Agenda

[Ram]

Dear all,

Heres some more "food for thought" on WIPO. 

"Wipo itself is not quite that open or open-minded. At two Wipo
meetings this month, all 182 member nations will discuss intellectual
property enforcement and its effect on development, and on developing
countries. Mr Idris and his board decided to bar participation by the
top experts in the field: public interest groups. They are not
permanently accredited by Wipo, and apparently it is a full-time job
to observe the UN body if you want to give your opinion about its
work."


More below from this article published in today´s Bangkok Post- Ram





Entertaining ideas of greed 

The entertainment industry likes to hold things back, yet inevitably
profits when they move forward

By ALAN DAWSON 

If you are under 35, you probably grew up with a video player and
recorder attached to a television set in your home _ it may still be
there _ and used it for recording shows so you could watch them at a
more convenient time, or because you weren't home when they showed.
You certainly watched movies on it, rented or bought or traded.

Yet if the movie, music and television companies of the 1970s had got
their way, videotape machines would not exist today. These businesses
sued Sony Corp in a number of courts to ban the new technology because
it was clear that many people would use video recorders to make copies
of movies from the TV screen and from their friends' tapes. This would
mean no one would go to movies any longer, and the entertainment
industry would die.

In the landmark court case, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that
people had the right to use the new video machines and Sony had the
right to sell them. Then three things occurred. Sony's Betamax video
machines flopped and VHS video became the standard. The sales of
videos and music and TV advertising grew at a record pace, and more
people went to the cinema than ever. And Sony became a ``content''
company, producing music and movies and TV shows, only to become a
major litigant in the landmark case of internet copying in 2005 _ a
demand that the US Supreme Court make file-sharing over the internet
illegal.

The entertainment industry has in fact launched lawsuits at every
stage of technology in the past 100 years. The industry sued to make
radios illegal because people would not go out to listen to live music
any longer. It sued to make car radios illegal, recorded TV shows
illegal, the showing of movies on TV illegal. A long series of
lawsuits argued that jukeboxes would be the death of the entertainment
business. And so on.

Four years ago, the Recording Industry Association of America sued a
small company called Rio, intimidating it into stop making a small and
portable machine that could copy and replay digital music. Rio went
out of business. Apple Computer began making such machines, a decision
that turned into the iPod and boosted sales of music by 100 million
songs at the Apple iTunes website alone, making millions of extra
dollars for the music industry, and in some rare cases even for the
artists who wrote and recorded the music.

Now on April 26, the entertainment industry and its highly paid lobby
will declare World Intellectual Property (Wipo) Day. You will be
instructed to support copyright, oppose piracy, and also, as the Wipo
lobbyists put it, ``mount an essay competition in local schools'', or
``organise workshops on how businesses... can benefit'' and, of
course, ``work with local newspapers to publish editorials encouraging
respect for the rights of creators''.

These are all worthy tasks. Pushing your newspaper for another
editorial is even logical. We depend on copyright to make a living,
after all. You may steal this newspaper and get away with it, but you
cannot successfully steal and reprint and sell this newspaper's
content.

But here are some other ideas on how you can celebrate International
Wipo Day, which even has its own website at tinyurl.com/6dgrp. In
fact, you can start by organising a discussion on ``How does this Wipo
website and posters and proclaimed days exist?''. Wipo says it is a
UN-specialised agency with 1,000 employees, several diverse tasks and
``largely self-financed''.

Discuss the meaning of this term. Investigate whether Wipo produces
any income, or whether it only uses money. Speculate whether any of
this money comes from the entertainment industry and thus does not go
to the starving artists and authors mentioned in the editorials.

Kamal Idris, the head of Wipo, has a glowing tribute to intellectual
property idealism. ``Our goal for World Intellectual Property Day and
beyond should be to encourage young people everywhere to recognise...
the artist within themselves. From the classrooms of today will come
the entrepreneurs, the scientists, the designers, the artists of
tomorrow. Wipo is committed to promoting a culture in which young
people can realise this potential.''

Excellent words. Wipo itself is not quite that open or open-minded. At
two Wipo meetings this month, all 182 member nations will discuss
intellectual property enforcement and its effect on development, and
on developing countries. Mr Idris and his board decided to bar
participation by the top experts in the field: public interest groups.
They are not permanently accredited by Wipo, and apparently it is a
full-time job to observe the UN body if you want to give your opinion
about its work.

The European office of the watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation
said the decision is a backdoor slap at consumers. ``Without the
public interest organisations, the discussions will be heavily
weighted towards major motion picture studios, broadcasters,
pharmaceutical giants and other powerful interests that want to expand
copyright and patent law.''

The always puckish Need To Know internet journal suggests those who
support copyright hold book-burning parties on April 26. No, not that
kind; ``burn'' some of the tens of thousands of wonderful books out of
copyright on to CDs so others can read them for free. Get some of the
most popular at www.Gutenberg.org.

Get on the internet and visit two new websites. At Peer Impact, you
can download music and get discounts if you let other people download
from you. Ourmedia.org actually encourages Mr Idris' young people to
recognise the artist within themselves by letting them post their
music, videos, writings and other intellectual property to let others
share it.

The purpose of intellectual property rights is nowhere better defined
than in the American constitution, which states authors and inventors
should enjoy exclusive rights for a limited time only, because the
value of IP is ``to promote the progress of science and useful arts''.

Record companies receive profits for taking a chance on new artists,
but they do not have the right to those profits forever. That is not
intellectual, only greedy.

The entertainment industry has attempted to ban every new technology
since the megaphone. They have failed, thankfully, and every new
technology has brought new customers and higher sales to the
entertainment industry _ no exception. If the US Supreme Court shuts
or muzzles the peer-to-peer file-sharing, then the entertainment
business will tighten its grip, increase control, but lose customers
and sales.

And if the ban succeeds, then current technology like the iPod and
TiVo digital recorders will fade and die, and no further development
will take place.

Pirates use internet peer-to-peer services without doubt, and for now
probably are the biggest users. If you are over 30 you remember when
pirates were the biggest suppliers for Thailand's video recorders and
players. But pirates also use Bangkok office buildings and street
stalls, killers use knives, wife-beaters use football boots and bank
robbers use computers. Banning the technology won't prevent the crime.
BANGKOK POST







On Apr 4, 2005 6:46 PM, Shishir K Jha <skjha at iitb.ac.in> wrote:
> I did find something afterall on "resistance" to the WIPO development agenda.
> 
> Shishir K. Jha
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law at sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
> 


-- 
Prabhu Ram,
Max-Planck-Institut for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law,
MarstallPlatz 1, 
80539 Munich
GERMANY

Tel: + 49 89 24246226
Mob: + 49 17629830521
Web: http://infoserve.blogspot.com