[A2k] WIPO Casting Treaty: WIPO Struggles with openness

[James Love]

http://www.cptech.org/blogs/wipocastingtreaty/2006/09/wipo-struggles-
with-openness.html

WIPO Casting Treaty
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
WIPO Struggles with openness
by James Packard Love

So far this week SCCR Chair Jukka Liedes has strongly opposed giving
NGOs the opportunity to speak.

CPTech asked Jule Sigal from the US Library of Congress and Ann
Chaitovitz to approach the chair to support the right of the public
to speak.* The Library of Congress is opposed to having the public
speak at this meeting. WIPO is not providing enough seats in the
room, and unlike other meetings, there are no overflow rooms so some
NGOs have not been allowed to follow the debate. One NGO was told to
stop taking pictures of the proceedings.

Normally, NGOs can speak, and often their contributions address
important substantive and strategic issues overlooked or not
adequately explored during the interventions by governments, partly
because governments are often constrained by diplomatic and political
considerations. There is certainly plenty of time. The meetings have
started late, and often adjourned early, and many countries are
saying very little during the debates.

One interpretation of decision to stop the public from speaking is to
control the perception that there is a consensus in favor of a new
intellectual property right for broadcasting and cablecasting
entities, in a model that will likely be extended to the Internet in
different ways.

Given the poor track record of government negotiators in protecting
the public interest in several recent negotiations on intellectual
property rights, ** it is certainly rational to ask if government
voices are sufficient in these debates.

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*The USPTO and the LOC recently held a consultation on the treaty in
Washington, DC that was limited to 40 participants, and did not
permit the meeting to be recorded for broadcasting on the Internet.

**The TRIPS Agreement, the 1996 WCT and WPPT, the highly problematic
Appendix the Berne, the highly problematic 2005 amendments to the
TRIPS regarding exports of medicines manufactured under a compulsory
license, the plethora of recent regional and bilateral IPR chapters
in FTA and other trade agreements, and the most recent UPOV plant
varieties treaty.

posted by James Packard Love at 3:09 AM
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James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
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"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton