EFF and its friends are making amazing progress at the World Intellectual Property Organization: we've got dozens of non-governmental organizations in the pipe to attend the meetings in Geneva, and it's clear that the rightsholders are scared. At the last meeting we attended, our documents were stolen and dropped in the trash in the toilets. Now, with a meeting coming up to discuss the "Development Agenda" — a catch-all term for WIPO initiatives that make new copyright and patent rules that try to help developing countries, rather than exploit them — the International Bureau is cooking the process. They've decided to exclude "ad-hoc observers" (the category that nearly all of the copyright reform groups fall under) in favor of "permanent observers" (a category dominated by motion picture studios, broadcasters and other gigantic rightsholder interests). Check it out:
Right-owners are now in FULL MOBILIZATION on the WIPO development agenda. The only thing I have seen like this are the campaigns relating to the 1998-1999 WHO resolution on trade and public health and the 2001 WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. Like then, the right-owners effort is closely coordinated behind the scenes, with enormous cooperation and pressure from the US and other developed counties. The US has formed an inter-agency task force to attack the DA. It would be good to have some details on the EC organization on this. I assume the worst, but there is a new Commission, so we need to check. Note that the US, the EC and European governments will put huge pressure on developing country governments to abandon/isolate Brazil or India on this, which is exactly what happened on the WTO negotiations over paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration, and which was a disaster.
It appears as though the WIPO secretariat is entirely committed to defending corporate right-owners and entirely trying to undermine consumer interests. I would love to be wrong about this, but one has to face the evidence we have seen so far, including for example the recent USPTO and Casablanca meetings, and the rejection of applications for ad hoc observer status to groups like ICSTD and others, and the lack of a real dialogue with civil society NGOs.
Ten year ago, WIPO nearly killed the net with its destructive "Internet Treaties." These treaties are the reason that Dmitry went to jail, that 2600 magazine was censored, and that Verizon got thousands of bogus subpoenas demanding that it turn over customer info. These treaties are why the Church of Scientology and Diebold are able to censor their critics by calling them infringers. They're why WIPO has the same relation to bad copyright that Mordor has to evil.
Now that we're on the verge of reversing some of that harm with a rational treaty that treats the Internet like a solution, not a problem, they're pulling out all the dirtiest tricks they can think of. If I were you, I'd be mad as hell. I know I am.
(via Copyfight)
