World Intellectual Wealth Organisation Proposed

wikinerd writes "Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) proposed the creation of a World Intellectual Wealth Organisation (WIWO) as an alternative to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). FSFE says that WIWO will be 'dedicated to the research and promotion of novel and imaginative ways to encourage the production and dissemination of knowledge'. The WIWO announcement is signed by 18 organisations and 29 individuals, including Dr. Richard M. Stallman."

Comments

Typo

[Rufus88]

The name of the proposed organization is "Gnu/WIWO".

Re:Typo

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for a good laugh.

Mods spend some funny points.

Where can I donate?

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Seriously.

Re:Where can I donate?

[sepluv]

You could try FSF Europe as they seem to be behind this fine proposal. Alternatively, if you really cannot find anyone willing to take your money, my bank account # is...

A good idea!

[Max von H.]

I think the WIPO stands mostly nowadays as a legal proxy to enforce big corporations' patents around the world, rather than making things equitable. Furthermore, it has consistently sided with big business in the past few years which, I believe, isn't really its primary goal (public, international organizations should NOT be at the service of a few megacorps). Look at what's happening in India with "proprietary" seeds and the resuslting extortion schemes agro-megacorps like Monsanto pull upon poor farmers "guilty" of having their fields polinized by a remote crop. Software patents are also a big topic and the WIPO has repeatedly shown whom it wants to side with (big $$$).

The proposed WIWO clearly stands out as being more "compliant" with the idea of a global organization, such as the UN, working for the benefit of humankind. After all, we ALL contribute to the financing of these agencies since all countries pay for it through their UN contributions (or something close to it, you get the idea).

The concept of Intellectual Property is slowly eating itself up and will, sooner or later, collapse in great mayhem. How will we evolve if all the tools and procedures belong to a few greedy corporations dictating what or can't be invented or done? We NEED to keep an eye on our technology achievements and make sure such data isn't lost in the vaults of a company that will eventually disappear with everything it ever produced. There's tons of valuable work, studies, experiences and results that will never, ever benefit anyone because of some PROFIT motivations (the pharmaceutical industry is probably one of the most guilty in this regard).

It is an insult to humankind to deprive it from its own achievements solely on the selfish argument that "if I can't benefit from it, none shall benefit". We owe our civilization and most of its achievements to the exchange of ideas. Strangely, now that we have achieved the long-sought dream of global, instant communication we suddenly find ourselves threatened by greedy IP laws. Oh, the irony.

It's still time to change the course of things, else we'll soon find ourselves in a world forbidding personal freedom of thought and incapable of evolving at its natural pace.

Re:A good idea!

[EzInKy]

It is an insult to humankind to deprive it from its own achievements solely on the selfish argument that "if I can't benefit from it, none shall benefit". We owe our civilization and most of its achievements to the exchange of ideas. Strangely, now that we have achieved the long-sought dream of global, instant communication we suddenly find ourselves threatened by greedy IP laws. Oh, the irony.

There's nothing strange about it, history is full of examples where despite there being an abundance of a thing the people whose power depends on its scarcity attempt to maintain a monopoly on that thing's distribution so that they can continue control those who do not have it.

Re:A good idea!

[sepluv]

That is true, and, those people are immoral too.

But the situation the grandparent was outlining is different from (and IMO worse than) the historical examples you allude to for several reasons:

• The "resource" in question is the collection of ideas--thinking itself and communication itself--the fundamentals of what it is to be who we are, of society and of being alive (as opposed to just random bits of matter)--no other resource or thing (tangible or intagible) is more important.
• The immoral people (e.g.: WIPO and friends) here are trying to (primarily) attack (through confusion, duping, ambiguity and intellectual "theft")--and make worse the lives of--the very people (authors, artists, programmers, musicians, scientists,...) who create the ideas in question: many of these people want there ideas to be free; but, because of current laws, they have no control over this (or in some cases despite of current laws and because of the unlawful of WIPO et al); or, worse still, because they are brain-washed into giving away their exclusive intellectual exploitation rights (rights to restrict others rights) (or to not give away (non-exclusive) rights to their work).
  (This raises the more specific issue that copyright (and maybe patents) should not (and were never meant to be until WIPO introduced the term,"IP", to confuse peeps) be transferable, and definitely should not go automatically (as they usually do) into the hands of someone (or some company) who is not the author.)
• Ideas are not ownable and one cannot naturally (as in according to laws of nature) control their production or distribution due to their intagibility and lack of physical location--very different from any physical resource including, no doubt, those the parent alludes to.
• The concept of restricting abundance does not make sense as ideas are not finite resources--one can copy them an infinite number of times at no cost and one can create them at will. Whatsmore many people often create the same ideas independently and simultaneously.

Re:A good idea!

[EzInKy]

The concept of restricting abundance does not make sense as ideas are not finite resources--one can copy them an infinite number of times at no cost and one can create them at will. Whatsmore many people often create the same ideas independently and simultaneously.

Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. I have stated that the system certainly needs reform, particularly the insane time limits and the lack of need of registration, but to do away with protection all together would make works that require significant financial investment extremely rare.

Congress did Americans a great disservice when they extended the length of copyrights and dropped the registration requirment to bring US law in line with European law. It just doesn't make sense that a person could be convicted of violating someones copyright when there is no way to easily discern whether a work is still protected. A publicly searchable database and yearly registration requirments would go a long way towards balancing both the needs of authors and fulfilling the Constititional requirement of increasing the works in the public domain.

Azimov's Foundation.

[bludstone]

I didnt think Foundation was _that_ good of a book. Then again, I'm not much of an Azimov fan to begin with. :)

good bacgrund

[Mstrgeek]

this us a great psting on the issue of World Intellectual Wealth Organisation

http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/wsis-euc/2004- October/000262.html

enjoy

This isn't important...

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks, the WIPO is good enough. What we need focus our efforts on is promoting socialism, the prohibition of privately owned firearms, doubling (at least) the income and sales taxes and introducing a VAT, better arming and training of the police, building more prisons, and removing the constitution and replacing it with something more progressive such as the communist manifesto. Of course there is more such as hefty environmental regulations and the complete prohibition of self defense against common criminals, but I feel the above is a good start to establishing a new world order and a more progressive society.

Obligatory

[Ben Brighton]

I for one welcome our new nyud overlords.

There will be a day when all of slashdot shall bow to them, and use their sevices for better faster internet and linkage!

Re:Obligatory

[wikinerd]

I think Slashdot should introduce a feature in its Slash script code to enable automatic conversion of all external links to their Coral equivalents.

Absolutely!

[leonbrooks]

I'd give this article a "+5, Damn Fine Idea Shoulda Happened Yonks Ago" mod if I could. (-:

So... where does one donate either IP or $$$?

After that, all we need to do is sit back and watch Richard and Eric fight to the pain* over how it should be organised.

-

[* Obligatory Princess Bride ref]

How to donate

[wikinerd]

If anybody wants to learn how you can donate to FSFE you can visit this page: http://fsfeurope.org/help/donate.html

Oh and Here's the link:

[sepluv]

http://fsfeurope.org/help/donate.html (for FSFE donations).