Panel on WIPO and intellectual property

On 16 November IPJustice organised a panel on intellectual property and
WIPO, chaired by Robin Gross.

Philip Petit of WIPO spoke about the history of WIPO, its relation to
other organisations like WTO and its role in various treaties. He also
welcomed NGOs participation in WIPO. According to him WIPO’s mission is
promoting IPR in order to accelerate economic and cultural development,
yet IPR is not determined by WIPO but by its member countries. WIPO merely
administers treaties. He also said copyright is no monopoly because
copyright owners are free to donate their rights if they want to. Perhaps
most telling was his statement that “as long as you have no legal right to
your creation, it is not worth anything”.

The second speaker was Alex Byrne of IFLA, who spoke about the importance
of IPRs for the libraries. IFLA members are serving more than 2.5 billion
users. Byrn expressed support for the treaty on Access to Knowledge (A2K)
and review of the WIPO mandate, in order to recognise the rights of
different stake-holders, including users. Libraries’ concerns include the
imbalance of IP laws favouring right holders, monopolisation of
information, the inhibiting effect of IPR laws on new technologies and the
shrinking of the public domain, but also the protection of indigenous
knowledge.

He also noted that all creators are also users of others’ copyrighted
works, invoking Newton’s metaphor about standing on the shoulders of
giants. Copyright laws are increasingly a hindrance rather than a help to
libraries, also in developed countries, and any future models should be
based on the right to know.

Next spoke Georg Greve from FSFE. He spoke about the problematic nature of
the term “intellectual property” and how much of the debate is
ideologically charged, as if there were a “church of IPR”. In his speech
he underlined user rights and wondered how anyone could compare copying to
real piracy, robbing and killing people. He also wondered whether it made
any sense to have the same copyright rules for literature and software. He
told the audience how FSFE had gotten involved with WIPO and how WIPO
officials actually had been very helpful, even though sometimes appearing
a bit afraid of NGOs. Perhaps key point was that IPR are not a god-given
system but human-made, so it can be modified to work better. Perhaps WIPO
could play a mediating role there. Like Byrn, Greve supported the A2K
treaty.

The fourth speaker was Jamie Love of CPTech. He spoke about IP as a tool
to support innovation. This could be done right or wrong, leading us to
alternative futures. “Do we want to make everything controlled,
patentable, with no commons, or should we rather pause to think what we
really want with IP?” He spoke about the WIPO development agenda and
suggested WIPO should be changed to optimise, rather than maximise IPR.
Love also spoke extensively about the A2K treaty.

All in all the discussion was quite constructive, with all parties
expressing interest in continuing cooperation and hoping NGOs would play a
greater role in future discussions on IPR.

IP Justice information on the WIPO panel
http://www.ipjustice.org/WSIS/WIPOpanel.shtml

(Contribution by Tapani Tarvainen, EDRI-member EFFI Finland)

NB! name of Alex Byrne corrected