Here’s another gem from the WIPO meetings on a Development Agenda, which followed the proposal of 14 developing countries (the "Friends of Development") for WIPO to steer away from bluntly foisting IMP maximalism upon everyone, in serfdom to rich-country rightsholders. This time, it’s not the quote that is absurd, but rather the text it refers Read more »
Though I really shouldn’t be blogging, I can’t help it (this might provide a hint as to why). Currently, I am evaluating tons of WIPO papers from the first round of the Development Agenda debate (2005) for my master’s thesis. Some (actually most) of these have some amazing soundbites. If you think about them for Read more »
The latest round of WIPO negotiations on a broadcasting treaty, which took place at the start of May, ended somewhat inconclusively. As the US pet proposal of including "webcasting" monopoly powers in the treaty held up everything else, the negotiators agreed to schedule yet another preparatory meeting for September before deciding to hold a formal Read more »
This week at WIPO, delegates are negotiating the proposed Broadcast Treaty. This treaty has a "webcasting" option. With this option enabled, anyone making available a combination of sounds and images on the internet would receive a new kind of monopoly powers over that "webcast". Richard Stallman has aptly called these "skunk odor powers": They stick Read more »
As Thiru reports, WIPO has published a draft text for the proposed broadcast treaty. This treaty, if adopted, is going to establish a new layer of monopoly powers. Working somewhat like copyright, these monopoly powers would be given to a broadcasting institution merely for broadcasting something. Weirdly, there is the idea of a "webcasting right": Read more »
The first panel of the afternoon – “New political paradigms” – was a rather visionary affair. Predictably, it has the conservative minority steaming. Declan McCullagh of Politech, whose presentation this morning centered exclusively on the US (how Hollywood has bought the Democrats), was rattled by the suggestion of Tunisian professor Mohamed Ben Ahmed, who said Read more »
Just before lunch, we enjoyed a panel about “The politics of new technologies”. Or rather, most of it. Kenneth Cukier, a journalist with The Economist gave a presentation about… nothing in particular. By no means do I mean to offend Kenneth, who, I am sure, is a fine journalist. But that profession’s innate generalism did Read more »
The first meeting of the WIPO Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda is over. The mood was rather conciliatory, compared to the rants and raves that took place during last year’s series of conferences on the subject. This made for snail-paced progress, though progress there was. At least, there now seems to be a draft Read more »
It is with a sour tone not quite in the Olympic spirit that Tom Giovanetti, everyone’s favourite lobbyist around here, has announced that he has detected a world record in the repetition of the term "Free Software". Predictably, the prize goes to Georg Greve, FSF Europe’s president. If you ever wondered how many times someone Read more »
Two NGOs have commented on the US proposal: FSF Europe and EDRI, the European Digital Rights Initiative. FSF Europe appreciated the US statement as a good starting point for consensus, yet contradicted the US on the view that WIPO had no need for analysing its own activities. Inspired by last week’s Internet Governance Forum, we Read more »