Karsten on Free Software

After submitting several pages of fudge on Monday, calling it a proposal, the distinguished representative of Bahrain had to take some criticism from other Arab countries, such as Egypt. The latter observed that the Bahrain proposal contradicted on several accounts the final statement of the Second South Summit in Doha, Quatar, on June 16th, which had been signed, among others, by the King of Bahrain.

Now, you would think that the representative might have been called to order by his government. No such thing has apparently happened. After Egypt pointed to this conflict, cutting itself short so as not to further embarass their “Arab brother”, the representative came up with something less fudgy, adding it to his proposal.

This addition has the merit of clarifying a few things. It asks WIPO “to undertake studies to demonstrate the economic, social and cultural impact of the use of intellectual property”. “Demonstrate”? This implies that the impact is well known already, and the infinite number of blessings a stricter IP regime (oh no, the term is leaking into me – I think there’s IP on my shirt) offers only needs to be documented.

Another paragraph demands that WIPO’s technical assistance should promote an “IP culture with an emphasis on introducing intellectual property at different academic levels”. Now, while this conjures up the image of truckloads of “Intellectual Property” being hauled into schools and universities, what it really means is less funny: Schoolkids should be convinced that it is immoral, if not illegal, to eg. share a book with their neighbours. I am not entirely convinced that this is what the King of Bahrain signed onto in Doha, together with about 130 developing countries.

But the real climax is provided by a happily frank paragraph, in which WIPO is asked to “establish a […] fund to promote the legal, commercial and economic exploitation of intellectual property rights in developing countries […]”. Not only is there no mention of *whose* rights should be exploited. The text also explicitely states that those rights should not be exploited *by* the countries, but rather *in* the countries.

I did not want to use this word in here, as it is too cheap an allegation even to my non-savoury taste; but this does smack of colonialism more than just a little.

Later on, the document loses its pleasant explicity and returns to the obfuscation strategy so familiar these days. Just say something that sounds good, and put a “maybe” before it. That way, you are sure not to incur any obligation.

But that may be too late for the distinguished representative of Bahrain to save his company car on his return back home. I hope his King takes due account of the way he is being represented.