[A2k] EFF statement to WIPO DA meeting

[Gwen Hinze]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Will also be posted as a pdf to EFF's website shortly.

Thanks all,
Gwen

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STATEMENT OF THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION ON THE PROPOSAL FOR
WIPO TO ESTABLISH A DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
Inter-Sessional Intergovernmental Meeting, April 11-13, 2005

Mr. Chairman and Mr. Vice-Chairman, we would like to congratulate you
on your election. We also thank the WIPO secretariat, the Chair and
the Member Countries for the opportunity to present my organization's
views and for admitting the 17 NGOs as ad hoc observers to this
important meeting.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international civil society
non-profit organization, with offices in the United States of America
and the United Kingdom, dedicated to protecting civil liberties,
freedom of expression and the public interest in the digital
environment. EFF is funded primarily by its 10,000 individual
members, and publishes a weekly newsletter with over 50,000
subscribers worldwide.

We wish to address how access to knowledge will be impaired by
technical locks like Digital Rights Management and Technological
Protection Measures. We support the thoughtful proposal of  the
Friends of Development. As paragraph 13 of that proposal notes:  "it
has become clear that in the increasingly global knowledge economy,
access to knowledge and technology is indispensable for social and
economic development and for the well-being of people in all
countries." Technological protection measures backed by overbroad
laws can impair access to knowledge and technology that is essential
for development, and impede technology transfer in developing
countries.

In the several years that technological protection measure regimes
have been legally enforced in developed countries, they have not been
effective at protecting rightsholders' intellectual property. Thus,
by themselves, they offer no basis for sustainable economic
development for local creators and the cultural industry in
developing countries. At the same time, they have caused substantial
collateral harm to consumers, scientific research, freedom of
expression, competition policy and technology innovation.

Overbroad technological protection measure laws pose even greater
dangers for developing countries that do not have established legal
institutions and regulatory processes to reign-in their over-reaching
effects. In developing countries they are likely to:

(1) override national copyright exceptions and limitations;
(2) impair access to knowledge, increase the cost of accessing
information, and diminish the public domain, thereby expanding the
knowledge gap between developed and developing countries;
(3) chill scientific research;
(4) restrict legitimate competition;
(5) stifle technology innovation; and
(6) preclude free and open source software development.

For countries that are net importers of copyrighted information
goods, technological protection measure laws will result in a
transfer of wealth from domestic economies to foreign rightsholders,
without any guarantee of reciprocal investment in the local cultural
economy.

Member countries are being asked to implement technological
protection measures laws in several contexts: first, as signatories
to the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty;
second, to protect broadcasters', cablecasters' and webcasters'
transmissions in the proposed Broadcasting Treaty in the Standing
Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, and third, as part of
bilateral and regional trade negotiations. Before Member Countries
are pressed to adopt these new obligations EFF believes that
countries should understand the costs to their national interests and
economies of implementing these regimes.

Accordingly EFF supports the Friends of Development proposals for an
independent, evidence-based Development Impact Assessment for new
WIPO norm-setting activities, and the guidelines for provision of
impartial and balanced technical assistance.

EFF has prepared a briefing paper for delegates that we have provided
to the WIPO secretariat, which includes our analysis of these
matters, and detailed recommendations for WIPO's ongoing work. I wish
to highlight two of these here:

(1) WIPO should undertake a study of the costs of implementing
legally sanctioned technological protection measures for developing
countries. This report should be made available with the July
Development Agenda report to General Assembly members.

(2) In providing technical assistance to developing countries on
implementation of their technological protection measure obligations,
WIPO should take account of existing public interest flexibilities in
international instruments, and preserve policy space for both
countries' existing national copyright law exceptions and
limitations, and creation of new exceptions appropriate to the
specific development needs of the countries to which it provides
assistance.

We also strongly support initiatives to restore the balance to
intellectual property systems that is overturned by technological
protection measure laws, such as the proposal for mandatory minimum
exceptions and limitations for the disabled, educational uses and
libraries, that was put forward by the distinguished member from
Chile at the November 2004 Standing Committee on Copyright and
Related Rights, and a  treaty addressing access to knowledge.

We believe that these proposals will strengthen the work of WIPO and
enhance its institutional capacity to meet the specific needs of its
developing country members.

Thank you for your consideration.