[A2k] Joint library statement on the WIPO development agenda

[Teresa Hackett (eIFL)]

On 28 June, Andrew Cranfield, the new Director of EBLIDA delivered a
joint library statement to the WIPO development agenda meeting in
Geneva. This was a short oral intervention with the request that a
longer written statement (below) be included in the official record of
the meeting.

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IFLA: International Federation of Library Associations

EIFL: Electronic Information for Libraries

EBLIDA: European Bureau of Library Information
and Documentation Associations

Joint Statement

Provisional Committee on Proposals Related
to a WIPO Development Agenda

Second Session

Geneva, June 26-30, 2006

IFLA represents the world=92s major libraries and library associations and
through its 1700 member organisations in 150 countries it speaks for
hundreds of thousands of professional librarians around the world. EIFL
represents leading academic, research and public libraries in 50
developing and transition countries.  EBLIDA represents 150 European
library and archive associations and institutions.  We wish to comment
on a few specific points in Annex 1 to PCDA/1/6/Prov.2: Proposals by
Clusters Submitted for a WIPO Development Agenda.

We agree that developing and transition countries need assistance to
make the transition to become able to compete more effectively.
Libraries are essential partners for the WIPO Partnership Office to
enable developing countries to compete in the knowledge economy.

The value and importance of libraries to the knowledge economy has been
confirmed by the recent European Commission Communication on the
European Digital Library,  and by research reports on the British
Library  and Florida Public Libraries.

Information is the fuel of modern economies. In Europe, content
industries total some 5% of Europe=92s GDP, and ever more organisations
depend on access to the right information to take informed decisions.
Libraries provide substantial access to this content.  A recent study
found that the British Library generates some US $670 million worth of
value per annum, both in direct value to the library=92s users (US $109
million) and the indirect value to society (US $561 million). This is
4.4 times the annual government funding of US $153 million. The British
Library study quantifies the Library=92s value, not only to its direct
users but to the public at large who benefit indirectly from access to
world class scientific research, creativity and innovation. It also
showed that if the Library did not exist, the UK would lose US $510
million of economic value pa. The Florida study found that the state=92s
public libraries were responsible for an economic return of US $2.9
billion on the taxpayer investment of US $449 million per annum and that
for every taxpayer dollar spent on public libraries in Florida, wages
increase by US $12.66.

These studies illustrate the tangible benefits to the economy of strong
library infrastructures as crucial components of any national strategy
of investment in the knowledge economy. An essential feature of a
successful knowledge economy is access to education and research.
Libraries provide this access. Therefore, the international IP regime
needs to incorporate flexibilities to encourage the introduction of
exceptions and limitations to copyright on a similar basis to those
enjoyed by industrialised countries such as the USA, Canada and Member
States of the European Union. This would foster successful knowledge
economies in developing and transition countries and would create
meaningful access to education by their populations along with the
dissemination of knowledge and technology.

Cluster B. Norm-setting, Flexibilities, Public Policy and Public Domain

B7. Draw up proposals and models for the protection and identification
of, and access to,
the contents of the public domain.

B8. Consider the protection of the public domain within WIPO=92s normative
processes.

B21. To ensure that norm-setting activities help identify and maintain a
robust public domain in all WIPO=92s Member States.

Cluster D: Assessments, Evaluation and Impact Studies

D9. WIPO should deepen the analysis of the implications and benefits of
a rich and accessible public domain.

We support proposals B7, B8, B21 and D9 on the public domain. The public
domain is considered to be part of the common cultural and intellectual
heritage of humanity. It provides a fertile source on which creators can
build new works, as well as a rich source of content for education. It
is said that 70-98% of works lack any commercial value 50 years after
they are published, but they serve as the basis for new and creative
derivative works based upon them.

Works may be in the public domain for a number of reasons. Those works
falling into the public domain on expiry of the term of protection or
because the work is not subject to copyright in the first place operate
as an integral part of the copyright system. This is why the library
community believes that it is proper for WIPO to take guardianship of
the public domain, protecting it from erosion such as through extended
terms of protection and ensuring that public domain content is not
rendered inaccessible through Technological Protection Measures (TPMs).

The delegation of Mexico asked about the meaning of having access to the
public domain because the public domain is accessible to all and they
queried the notion of =93protecting=94 the public domain. The point is that
the public domain may not accessible to all in the digital future if
content is subject to a Technological Protection Measure (TPM). A TPM
cannot know when the term of protection expires, thus locking the
content up in perpetuity even when no rights subsist. Obsolescent TPMs
render digital content in the public domain inaccessible to future
generations. The result is that there will be damaging gaps in the
cultural record. This is unacceptable to libraries charged with
preserving our cultural heritage. Great research libraries such as the
British Library have expressed their grave concern on the future
implications and have called on policy makers to find a solution.

Leaving aside problems created by TPMs, content in the public domain is
shrinking because of extended terms of protection, resulting in less
content for creators to build upon and less content for the benefit of
society. Pioneering projects such as that of Eduvision, providing
digital learning materials to the poorest children in Kenya, suffer as a
result because they must rely on older out-of-copyright and more
out-of-date materials. Academic research is impeded, such as that into
the works of the literary great, James Joyce.

Longer terms of protection also exacerbate the problem of orphaned works
i.e. copyright works whose owners are difficult or impossible to trace,
thus making rights clearance difficult and cumbersome e.g. when
libraries need to get permission to undertake digitisation projects.
Academic, scholarly material or less known works of no commercial value
but important to researchers, historians, architects and other
specialists may be disproportionately affected.

We support the proposal of Chile for an obligation to notify works and
inventions that fall into the public domain in a global database.
Indeed, the notion of maintaining a centralised directory of public
domain titles was one element of the U.S. Public Domain Enhancement Bill
2003 (H.R. 2601). The proposal by Chile would provide a single global
database that could be easily searched to determine whether or not a
particular work remains under copyright protection or is in the public
domain. We believe this is a concrete, practical step that would help to
provide much-needed certainty for libraries and users alike.

Cluster C: Technology Transfer: Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) and Access to Knowledge

C21. To negotiate a multilateral agreement where signatories would place
into the public domain, or find other means of sharing at modest cost,
the results of largely publicly funded research. The objective would be
to set out a mechanism for increasing the international flow of
technical information, especially to developing countries, through
expansion of the public domain in scientific and technological
information, safeguarding, in particular, the public nature of
information that is publicly developed and funded without unduly
restricting private rights in commercial technologies.

Libraries support the vision of open access to research material, which
has been defined as the free availability of peer-reviewed literature on
the public internet, permitting any user to read, download, copy,
distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles.

There are two main routes to achieving open access. The first one is
through peer reviewed open access journals. The number of such journals
has increased enormously in recent years, with some publishers now
offering their entire journals on an open access basis, and others
offering it for selected items.

The second route is through self-archiving, where authors deposit the
final, post peer reviewed, electronic version of their articles in their
private archive, an institutional, or subject-based, repository. A
growing number of publishers expressly permit self-archiving of the
final version of the research output.

Major funding institutions and universities throughout the world have
adopted policies or resolutions on open access including in Europe,
Latin America and the United States.

The benefits to developing and transition countries are enormous. Not
only do they gain access to the best global research, it provides a
means by which they can increase the audience for their work thus
enabling them to more effectively contribute to the global research
community. In December 2005, open access was defined as one of the
priorities in national strategy the information society in Ukraine. In
addition, eIFL is conducting pilot projects in South Africa, Ukraine,
Lithuania and Zimbabwe to develop institutional repositories in third
level institutions.

We believe that it is important to distinguish open access from the
public domain. Open access is achieved by way of a licence, with the
copyrights remaining either with the author or the institution. Access
to publicly funded scientific and technological research is increased
through an expanded =93information commons=94. In contrast, the public
domain consists of material for which the term of protection has expired
or which by its nature, is not subject to copyright.

We strongly support the setting out of a mechanism for increasing the
international flow of technical information and we believe that open
access provides one such working model. We believe that WIPO should
raise awareness of the open access model amongst Member States and
encourage exchange of policies and practices in this area.

Libraries are a major gateway for citizens to access works of the mind
for the purposes of education, research or private study, whether in
person or remotely through virtual learning environments, or directly on
the Internet through library portals. In the digital age countries can
not have viable modern economies and social development without fair
access to and re-use of knowledge as expressed in copyright works. In
this context fairness requires the pro-active acceptance of agreed norms
by both rightsholders and users. This is essential for the achievement
of universally high standards of education which is the passport to
economic success.

All intellectual property initially arises from underlying ideas which
are usually first expressed in a format subject to copyright, and it
should be recognised that all creators of IP are themselves users of
copyright works and will have made use of the exceptions and limitations
to copyright for the purposes of education, research or private study.
These exceptions are therefore crucial to assist developing countries
and LDCs to catch up with developed countries. However in the last 10
years international treaties, supranational directives from the EU and
national legislation have worked to erode the information user=92s rights
to enjoy and use the exceptions and limitations to copyright especially
in the digital environment. Copyright is now creating barriers to access
and the fair use of knowledge rather than promoting innovation. This is
why mechanisms are needed to establish a proper international framework
setting the norms by which copyright should be managed in such a manner
which ensures that user rights are established and enshrined with
respect to both analogue copying and the digital age. This would counter
the trend towards the monopolisation and privatisation of information by
ensuring that information remains publicly available to nurture
education and innovation.

Access to knowledge is not just an issue for developing countries, but
also for developed countries since knowledge is a universal tool and
equal access is an important need for all.

We share the vision expressed in the Declaration of Principles adopted
by the World Summit on the Information Society in November 2003, which
promotes an inclusive society based on the fundamental right of human
beings both to access and to express information without restriction and
in which everyone will be able to create, access, use and share
information and knowledge. To this end we support that WIPO seeks
mechanisms, using fair exceptions and limitations fit for the digital
age, to achieve a true balance between the rights of owners and users of
intellectual property.

Contacts

IFLA:
Barbara Stratton=09 Barbara.Stratton AT cilip.org.uk

EIFL:
Teresa Hackett=09 Teresa.Hackett AT eifl.net

EBLIDA:
Andrew Cranfield=09 cranfield AT debibiliotheken.nl