Karsten on Free Software

So far, not too much has been happening – at least in the visible part of the meeting. During lunch break, there was a panel discussion with several Civil Society experts: Jamie Love of CPTech, Martin Khor Kok Peng of the Third World Network and Ellen Thoen of Medicines Sans Frontieres.

All three of them emphasized the importance of access to knowledge in different fields. Their statements were rich in constructive suggestions on the points which a Development Agenda for WIPO would have to take into consideration. Ellen Thoen pointed to the advantages of new licensing models for pharmaceuticals, which permit the fabrication of generic medication in and for developing countries. For AIDS treatment in Africa, such a model has resulted in the yearly cost of treatment per person dropping from US$10.000 to US$250.

Neither the clear language nor the convincing arguments, though, succeeded in convincing the blockheads of the rights-holding industry, who only see new forms of handling patents, copyrights and trademarks as a threat to their business models – instead of taking on the challenge of reforming their companies so as to remain (or become again) competitive for the future.

Otherwise, the afternoon was spent with the remaining statements of individual countries. Many Civil Society delegates, meanwhile, were busy drafting their statements, which they can hope to hold tonight or tomorrow. I would prefer tomorrow; this afternoon, people are just falling asleep at their desks, even though the diplomatic dribble has gotten markedly more exciting as everyone realised not only how different the positions are, but how important the decisions taken now will be in the future.

Now, the intergovernmental organisations are making their statements. Some of them join the many developing countries in openly demanding a reform of WIPO. Chances are that the idea cannot be simply dropped anymore. The fuss is raised, and something will happen. Whatever there was in the way of old consensus, it can be considered broken now.

Just in case you were wondering what the place looked like, I took a picture of the building:

As I was walking towards the building this morning, I overheard someone saying: “All built with artist’s blood.” Well, sure depends on one’s point of view…

Just heard about another blog from the Civil Society side of the WIPO meeting: Brazilian activist Pablo Ortellando, writing for freepress.net, is keeping you informed at www.mediatrademonitor.org.

Together with Georg, I’m at the WIPO meeting in Geneva. The delegates have gotten together to discuss if the needs of developing countries should be better integrated into WIPO’s work. The climate, to me as a naive observer, seems as if the delegates are somewhat confused. Development normally is not an issue in their work; as a consequence, the comments on the proposals of Argentina and Brazil, which are considered revolutionary by the rightsholders industry lobby assembled here, seem a bit rough around the edges.

NGOs were mostly locked out in the run-up to the conference. Only organisations with permanent observer status were allowed in. This morning, there was an ad-hoc accreditation of 17 more NGOs. This helped a bit, but did not do much to remedy the fact that many NGO people simply do not have the resources to come to Geneva on the bare chance they might be allowed in.

The proposal of the US, submitted as a response, is just whacky: Create a website that would allow for easier contact between developing countries and rights holders. Besides, pair up developing countries’ beefed-up “IP” protection offices. Although this might slightly reduce transaction costs for developing countries, it would leave the fundamental problem untouched: The fact that much “intellectual property” is claimed by the rightsholder industry in rich countries, while developing countries are left to scavenge for what might drop down from the table.

Mexico’s proposal doesn’t really have any substance. Their most interesting point is that hostility towards the “IP” system in developing countries is just due to lack of information. They suggest that, if people only knew why their children can’t have school books, or why sick people cannot receive cheap generic medication instead of unaffordable original products, then they would gladly accept dying stupid – and doing so much more promptly than would be the case otherwise. Now that’s what I call an informed opinion.

The UK takes a very European approach. They say: “Yes, there are problems. We should discuss if we want to discuss these topics more frequently.”

This is the substance of two hour’s worth of of hypnotising, diplomatic dribble. I wonder if I will manage to stay awake all afternoon. This will be especially difficult, as the Chairman has cut out the coffee breaks, because the meeting started about an hour late. This especially hurts the observing NGOs, as those are the times when they get to do their lobby work, since we hardly have the possibility to speak during the conference phases. This afternoon, there will be statements on the proposals. This process might continue well into tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way: International diplomat’s mobile phones have the same boring and annoying ringtones as everyone else’s.

In the statements of regional groups (eg. Africa, EU…) and individual states, there is a tendency to follow the USA on the argument that incorporating a development agenda into WIPO’s work is fundamentally a technical question; or rather, a question of technical assistance. This would essentially mean: reinforced efforts by rich countries to push proprietary technology into developing countries (which constitutes a transfer of products and services instead of a transfer of knowledge); building of an infrastructure to strictly control and extend the current system of copyright, patents and trademarks. Although I like to be careful with the word “imperialism”, it probably is the appropriate term here.

Most rich countries (for example, Switzerland and Canada) are d’accord. They want to lure the idea of a development into a dark subcommittee, where they are going to quietly strangle it. They do this under the cover of being “pragmatic”, of “starting out with the areas where progress can be made more immediately”. This way, they hope to avoid a rethinking of the direction of WIPO’s work by labeling it a purely academic question.

The Friends of Development group [1] seems to stick together so far. It’s hard to tell if, how far – and much less, through which mysterious back alleys – the influence of hard-core patents, copyrights and trademarks advocates USA and their allies on this issue will succeed in breaking up this alliance.

South Africa and Bolivia, from the Friends of Development group, are arguing to the contrary; however, they seem to be in the minority. Pakistan joins in more or less, doing an important service to the cause by naming examples of patents, copyrights and trademarks hindering development: schoolbooks, pharmaceuticals, software. Chile also seems to be on this side.

This seems a good idea to me. As someone from the German embassy in Geneva told me, many diplomats, especially from the EU, don’t understand why WIPO should need a development agenda. As he said, to them it seems that the topic of development is simply stuck onto every United Nations forum. We will need to make clear why WIPO’s activities play such a fundamtental role for developing countries – and for us all.

So much for an afternoon of statements largely by governmental delegations. This will continue into tomorrow. Eventually, after the governments and the intergovernmental groups, NGOs will get to make statements too.

Interesting enough: At WIPO, even companies are labelled as NGOs. I should hence be speaking of “Civil Society” instead, although I understand that the term is also contested in much the same way.

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[1] This group consists of the 14 countries that co-sponsored the original development agenda proposal at the Assemblies last year, that is, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Venezuela.

Today is weird. When I got to the office this morning, I started up the computer, plugged in my laptop and waited for the usual 150 or so e-mails to come gushing over me. But instead, there was just a trickle. Since I’m normally busy answering the mail all morning, this left me stunned. Georg already checked the mail server, but it was fine. Neither of us has any idea why today noone is sending us requests, complaints, praises… If I hadn’t come into Hamburg on the train and everything seemed fine, I would have guessed that the city had simply taken off into space, without a network connection. A few mails do arrive, though. A friend sent me this: http://www.liquidgeneration.com/rumormill/ipod_killing.html Must be strange to die this way.

A nightmare has been lifted off my shoulders. Finally, I have understood how to format blog entries. Georg had told me that it was something like structured text, and I, as a poor layman with him being my resident tech god, simply believed it. No, children, don’t be fooled so easily. Don’t believe what they tell you. Better put your blog entries in HTML, starting and ending the entry with tags. Don’t do like I did, running round the Structured Text site for hours. At first, I thought I was once again the only one around without an idea how things work. But then I saw that surprisingly few people had links in their blogs – eg. stefano. Small wonder he knew how to do it: He had been among those setting up the site. Some things apparently are just too worldly to mention them in a Howto.

Check out what Le Figaro did to an interview with Georg today: what a placement! Here‘s the article.

We finally moved into our new office space, with all the gear. The room is in the souterrain, with windows at sidewalk-level. I can check out the socks of people passing by – not that I have time to, though. This morning, we called a taxi. It had to be a van, since beside a computer, a monitor and a printer, we also had to transport five boxes containing the envelopes for the Cryptocards. Besides a lot of air. They were the first thing Georg complained to me about when I arrived at his place today. Understandable: The boxes had been blocking one of his scarce square meters all weekend long. They took away a lot of light, to. I’m sure Georg will relish his regained privacy. For me, the new location is both a gain and a loss: On the positive side, I don’t have to ruin my back on Georg’s sofa anymore. (You can see from one of my last entries that this thing has become something of an obsession.) On the negative side, Georg’s cooking is really good. From now on, I guess it’s sandwiches for me. Wanna check out Georg in the office? Have a look: http://www.fsfe.org/Members/gerloff/blogpics/georg.office/image_view (Yes, someday I will figure out how to put real links into blog entries. Patience, please.)

The geographical focus of my work has so far been the sofa in Georg’s living room. It’s made of leather, brown, and somehow vintage. Maybe vintage 80s. As a workplace, it’s certainly not ergonomical. The same goes for the living room table in front of me. With my lower back hurting, I’m less than sad that tomorrow we will move into our new office in Hamburg. It’ll be interesting to set up the place. As mentioned on tuesday, my first job will be printing and mailing the Cryptocards. I always appreciate intellectual challenges… and a good office chair. I’m not sure what I’ll find there, but it certainly is going to be more comfortable than permanent sofa arrest. @Georg: Really, your sofa’s fine. It’s just not ergonomy’s silver bullet 🙂

We just heard the news from Bloomberg, a major New York-based stockmarket information group: They inform of a 0.2% drop in Microsoft shares, related to the demands made by the Samba Team and FSFE for Microsoft’s compliance with the orders of the European Commission, which demands that Microsoft take steps to re-allow competition in the European software market. It’s not that I’m anti-Microsoft, just pro-Free Software. However, I can’t help but smile at the fact that we, as an organisation with a minimal budget, have managed to have an at least noticeable effect on the share price of such a corporate behemoth. here’s the article: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a7ix7ly96e3E&refer=us