[Fsf-friends] Massive victory at WIPO!

[Sandip Bhattacharya]

[Warning! Cross posted!]

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/04/massive_victory_at_w.html

Massive victory at WIPO!
-------------------------

For years now, progressive elements and copyfighters have been trying to 
get the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization to start thinking 
about ways of promoting creativity and development instead of just IP -- to 
get the organization to see that its raison d'etre is a better world, and 
that stronger IP laws is just one way of accomplishing that -- and that IP 
only works sometimes.

We've been foiled at every turn by the maximalists, the movies studios and 
the trademark offices, the patent-cops and the recording industry lobbyists 
and the IP lawyers' associations.

Which is why this is such good news: at the general session of the WIPO in 
Geneva this weekend, the Assembly has adopted a decision to put development 
and the promotion of creativity front-and-center in its goals. That means 
that from now on, WIPO isn't an organization that blindly supports more IP 
no matter what, but rather one that seeeks to improve the world by whatever 
tool is best suited to the job.

Jamie Love and the Consumer Project on Technology gets the credit for this: 
they were the ones who started this fight, and they've been the ones who 
led it all along.

This is the day the tide turns.

     Bearing in mind the internationally agreed development goals, 
including those in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the Programme 
of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001-2010, the 
Monterey Consensus, the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable 
Development, the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action of the 
first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society and the Sao 
Paulo Consensus adopted at UNCTAD XI;

     (1) The General Assembly welcomes the initiative for a development 
agenda and notes the proposals contained in document WO/GA/31/11.

     (2) The General Assembly decides to convene inter-sessional 
intergovernmental meetings to examine the proposals contained in document 
WO/GA/31/11, as well as additional proposals of Members States. To the 
extent possible, the meetings will be convened in conjunction with the 2005 
session of the Permanent Committee on Cooperation for Development Related 
to Intellectual Property. The meetings, open to all Member States, will 
prepare a report by July 30, 2005, for the consideration of the next 
General Assembly. WIPO-accredited IGOs and NGOs are invited to participate 
as observers in the meetings.

     (3) The International Bureau shall undertake immediate arrangements in 
order to organize with other relevant multilateral organizations including 
UNCTAD, WHO, UNIDO and WTO, a joint international seminar on Intellectual 
Property and Development, open to the participation of all stakeholders, 
including NGOs, civil society and academia.


-- 
Sandip Bhattacharya    *    Puroga Technologies   *     sandip@puroga.com
Work: http://www.puroga.com        *         Home: http://www.sandipb.net

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