We’ve been caught: IPI uncovers secret NGO plot
The PCDA procedure is pretty clear by now. They’re going through proposals one by one, with delegations and NGOs commenting only on the proposals they actually have something to say about, other than “we agree”. While the confusion is nowhere near the degree it reached during great parts of last year’s IIM series, discussing about ten to fifteen issues all at the same time does not make for quick results.
But the feeling is, increasingly and informally, that it will not be this meeting, or perhaps even this committee, that brings concrete results. The actual outcomes on the ground – as far as WIPO’s work is felt on the ground, that is – will come from other bodys in the organisation: For example, the copyright committee and the IT committee.
The core task of this, and probably the next, PCDA meeting will be to infuse the core points of the Development Agenda into WIPO’s committees other and the organisation’s structure. Just what those core points will be exactly is at the heart of these meetings.
So who’s putting the fun in WIPO meetings? That’s what the NGOs are for. One of the more lunatic statements came from the International Policy Network, which claimed that “most poor countries lack the rule of law”. I am not sure that this is the way to win the hearts and minds of the delegates from the countries in question.
Also high in entertainment value was the contribution from IPN’s cousin IPI.
Is this a sign of a new stratagem by the free culture movement? To cloak themselves in Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and to say that the public domain is under threat from an expansion of IP rights and DRM? Yes, I think so.
Yes. Definitely. Tom, you’ve beaten us. How did you come upon the closely guarded information that there are public interest NGOs which consider Digital Restrictions Management to be a serious problem, for a number of reasons? Who leaked this confidential information?
Or did you simply look it up with your favourite search engine, which gave you about 30.000 results?
I am stricken by your keen observation. You win, hands down. I’m putting on my Beethoven cloak and walking away into the sunset.