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Information As A Global Public Good
Danny Yee writes: "The struggle for free software is part of a broader struggle for
free information and communications. Those who will be hurt
most by commodification and appropriation of information are
the poorest men and women around the world - so
we are trying to interest aid and development
agencies in intellectual property issues. Read
Information as a Global Public Good - a proposal for an Oxfam International advocacy campaign."
I approve and appreciate the sentiment behind this proposal, although in the end it's a bit like approving of Mom, the flag and apple pie.
The devil is in the details, and this Oxfam document is sparse on those. Some of them are simply parts of existing activist programmes: a hostility towards WIPO and WTO that is partially, but not wholly, merited, encouraging Open Sourse ideas and use, a demand for patent reform particularly with regard to biotechnology. Citing this new French legal proposal to require governments to favour open source and computing standards in contracting is novel, and a good thing.
However, intellectual property reform is a very painful issue. It is one thing to say that the existing system is dysfunctional, it's quite another to propose alternatives. The initial intent of patents was to insure that inventions would eventually enter the public domain by offering that the inventor a monopoly on its use for a fixed time. For all the grousing, I've seen few real plans for a new IP scheme. The only thing I've seen that seems realistic to me is to reduce the length of patent and copyright protections, and possibly to give different kinds of patents different lengths and abolishing some kinds of patents and ownership rights with regard to biology and software. Before lending my support the cause of patent reform, I need to see a real programme.
Copyright globally corresponds to the life of the author, plus a few more years, or 70-90 years for works-for-hire. Shortening those protections very much is a lost battle, those norms have been in place in most of the world for a very long time. Acting to make sure they aren't extended any further is a better platform. (Disney basically bought an extra 20 years of ownership of Mickey Mouse by paying off Congressmen in the '98 elections.) The expansion of fair-use and enshrining some sort of educational and library exemption is another viable goal. Beyond that, I'm not sure how much can genuinely be done about copyrights.
Open disclosure of WIPO and WTO processes is probably a good thing, within limits. Part of what the WTO exists to protect is the ability of members to come to an agreement before taking trade issues to arbitration. That can be useful and important.
Before lighting in too hard on the WTO, take a look at the treaty itself. It enshrines quite a few exemptions for the third world. A winable fight might be to get some of those exemptions expanded rather than trying to undermine the organisation completely.
The importance of industrial standards is a good cause to rally around, even if it isn't a very romantic one. Their function is to ensure that open, easily obtainable standards apply to products and services, favouring third world industries in the same way that open Internet and computing standards favour small, non-Microsoft vendors. One of the functions of the WTO is to ensure that standards enacted by governments are open and available, so that countries can't create barriers to entry of exactly the kind Microsoft makes.
A good look at the global standards process would be a good education for a activist with this kind of agenda.
Reforms of this type will take place in an international arena in the future. Abolishing the WIPO and WTO just moves the problem to some new international organisation. Hijacking the existing institutions has often proved more effective for revolutionaires.
The Left has always had cosmopolitanism on its side, and it bothers me to see new nationalisms and isolationisms become causes with activist support. Global entitiies have played an important role in the liberal causes of the past, and they can again in the future.