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WIPO Pressured to Kill Meeting on Open Source
panthan writes "The Washington Post has has an article about a proposed meeting of the WIPO concerning open source having been removed from consideration, apparently due to pressure from the US State Department and the USPTO. 'In short order, lobbyists from Microsoft-funded trade groups were pushing officials at the State Department and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to squelch the meeting. One lobbyist, Emery Simon with the Business Software Alliance, said his group objected to the suggestion in the proposal that overly broad or restrictive intellectual-property rights might in some cases stunt technological innovation and economic growth.'" Lawrence Lessig has some comments.
Does this mean that IBM could lobby to have Microsoft not considered? That Sun could lobby to get Apple banned from other meetings because they have a different set of Intellectual Property protection than what Buymusic.com has? (All right, bad example, but....)
It seems that the only way that some businesses (read: Microsoft) are able to keep up the pressure against Linux is by trying to do it with laws. Why don't we have an Open Source DVD player for Linux? Oh - well, the MPAA helped get a law passed that makes it basically illegal to create. Sorry about that, but that's just how it works.
Yes, I'm a little irritated, and if I discover that my local senator/congressman was involved in this in any way, they can expect a nastygram listed as "voting for the other guy come election day".
I find it interesting how the major players (aka "Microsoft") are trying to keep out their real competition. What if Open Source was part of the Intellectual Property decisions? Wouldn't that be a good thing for everybody if every OS supported Intellectual Property in a truly fair and just matter? Well, good for everyone except Microsoft - can't have a level playing field if we can keep the competition out, right?
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The key to this article was in the second-to-last paragraph:
"But open-source is not just a political challenge. It strikes a starkly different, and sometimes opposite, pose from that of traditional capitalist systems."
Many companies are afraid of what this might mean to their current business model. What could open source eventually do the global economy as a whole? This "quiet war" against open source is being waged mostly by corporations in the U.S. that feel they probably have the most to lose.
Consider possible long term effects for them: The U.S. economy has seen absolutely stunning growth during the past 100 years. It has doubled in size six times during that period. Economic theory suggests that this happened because of the technological advancements. Now in the Internet age, any person in even third world countries can get online and instantly have all of the knowledge of a highly professional college graduate from the U.S. Open source gives them the opportunity to have access to information, tools, and concepts which normally would have been accessible only by the traditional business model in first world countries at a price. With the open information revolution it is "free". This concept alone could revolutionize economies around the world: suddenly they have access to the same information, but without the price. This over time will lessen the technological dominance the U.S. has held traditionally. Any new developments made within the U.S. can easily be copied and re-produced in other countries, and possibly even countries with a better comparative advantage than the U.S. (meaning they can do the same for less).
- Case in point:
it took technology companies many years to reach the point where hard drives, CPU's, memory, etc. in a PC are so fast and big as they are today. Now, anyone in a poor country could get a computer, and instantly have the benefit of all those years of development. Then with that computer, they can start downloading open source software and accessing information that they would never have been able to do otherwise. A relatively poor Ecuadorian could learn skills to rival his U.S. counterparts, start programming and outsource at a much cheaper price!This is scary for U.S. companies because it means the competition would suddenly increase, and given the relatively high cost of labor in the U.S., it could mean harder economic times for us. I imagine there would be sort of an "evening out" effect economically between the U.S. and other countries.
On top of this, when consumers are faced between the choice of two products, one that is free and one that is $100 (for example), the closer they are to being just as good, the less the consumers will buy the commercial product. To have to compete with open source would mean large profit losses for companies especially like Microsoft, who has for a long time enjoyed near monopoly status.
The only thing protecting this from changing are so called "Intellectual Property" laws that would prevent this from happening. When you see it this way, you see that Microsoft and others are simply trying to protect their interests and investment. Personally, I like the open source revolution. It definately benefits customers. We all benefit from competition, but companies have an increasingly hard time surviving in such conditions. I also recognize the importance of companies though: they are the ones that make the economic wheel spin. We rely on companies for our jobs. We have some interesting decades ahead of us. I honestly believe open source, and open information as a whole will be the main factors in revolutionizing the global economy yet again.
Is it any wonder that these companies, and even our own U.S. government fear somewhat the effect open source could have on their respective growth and income? How about we as individuals of the U.S.?
No, it's worse than that. A US Governemet representative has spouted some of Microsft's more outrageous and stupid anti-GPL FUD. This, from Lessing, is absolutly incredible:
Lois Boland, director of international relations for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said "that open-source software runs counter to the mission of WIPO, which is to promote intellectual-property rights."
If I don't have the right to share my IP as I please, what rights do I have? If I can't take my software and release it so that others can use it and share their insights to make it better, what can I do with it? Do I have to keep it to myself and hope that Microsoft will make me an offer for it?
This is total bullshit, I have every right to do as I please with my own work. If the government will back me up when I put silly restrictions on my users, it had better back me up when I put reasonable ones or none at all on them.
Louis Boland, for such a stupid statement, should be removed from her post imediatly. It shows a complete disregard for copyright law, free speech and even lacks common sense. It does not follow that the US government would spend my tax money to protect a restrictive publisher or author, but not one that is less restrictive and more directly meeting the purpose of copyright laws: to promote the state of the art and expand the public domain. Some people do not need government protection or direct monetary reward to share their ideas. It's as American as Ben Franklin's newspapers. Louis, I hope you have been taken out of context and will work to reverse this cancellation. WIPO needs to consider the issue and should encourage it because it is in everyone's best interest. If you really think free software is somehow counter to Intelectual Property rights, I hope that you are removed tomorrow and never see another public appointment.
This message was composed and posted on free software that is arguably better than Microsoft crap. It cost me less money to aquire and continues to cost me less money to maintain as well as enriching my knowledge of software and enabling me to contribute to the state of the art. Non-free software vendors won't even let me understand their inner workings, much less contribute to it's improvement.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.