[A2k] ACTING AGAINST ACTA

[William New]

Pardon the observation, for consumers and users (and those who represent
them) everywhere and anyone in developing countries, it seems ACTA stands
for A Call To Arms!

It might be significant to note that anti-counterfeiting efforts took a blow
last week at the World Health Assembly through the opposition of major
developing nations (and NGOs), with a provision cut from the new global
strategy on innovation and IP, and a separate resolution strengthening WHO's
anti-counterfeiting program deferred until next year.

William New, Intellectual Property Watch Geneva


-----Original Message-----
From: a2k-admin@lists.essential.org [mailto:a2k-admin@lists.essential.org]
On Behalf Of Alan Story
Sent: 03 June 2008 20:24
To: james.love@keionline.org
Cc: Alan Story; a2k@lists.essential.org
Subject: Re: [A2k] ACTING AGAINST ACTA

Jamie and A2K'ers:

Thanks for your note; a few thoughts in response.

No, I am certainly not suggesting that South-North "brain drain" be
addressed in the ACTA negotiations. ( But I must say, such issues help up
put the piracy issue in a wider context: there are more doctors from
Malawi
practicing on the UK National Health Service in the city of Manchester
than there are in Malawi; if that isn't piracy that actually leads to
unecessary deaths (in Malawi), I don't know what is.)

In the first place, the people I work with and talk to and others who are
doing serious critical analyses of the global copyright and patent regimes
don't any illusions that we could pull off such a feat, even if we wanted
to do.

And, in the second place, thinking that copyright critics should, given
the current balance of forces and resources, put a priority on trying to
influence in any serious way the office of the US Trade Representative or
even that the offices of new WIPO head honcho Geary is not on our agenda.

What was it that Stalin asked about the Vatican in World War Two? " How
many divisions does the Pope have?" The same could easily be said,
unfortunately, by the USTR today if its officials choose to look up from
their computer keyboards and consider the forces that are lined up by the
"IP NGOs."

I say this with sadness, not out of any spite or out of defeatism. The
current ACTA saga and the so-called "debate" over piracy does, however,
provide us with a good occasion to reassess, WITHOUT ANY ILLUSIONS OR
PRETENSIONS, the weaknesses (and strengths) of the campaign being waged by
those of us who are seeking to dismantle the oppressive global copyright
and patent regimes. (That includes KEIONLINE,right?)

Are the current tactics working? What is the long term strategy? Who are
our friends, current and potential? What are the weaknesses of the enemy
and how can we best exploit them? What is the role of lobbying WIPO
bureaucrats ( and it occasionally can have a role) but how important is
this compared to "spreading the word" and working and organising
hand-in-hand with our current and potential friends?

Specifically, on the question of so-called "piracy", first of all we need
to appreciate that the still murky ACTA approach is, first and foremost,
itself based on a political and ideological set of demands primarily on
the terrain of copyright.

So let us not be under any illusions: ACTA is merely a legal "moping up"
operation, a going "in for the kill" at the end of a very long ideological
campaign that has been waged for years everywhere from our local cinema
--- you've seen anti-piracy trailers and cartoons, no doubt --- to the
front pages of our newspapers to the halls of Congress or Westminster or
WIPO offices by the waters of Geneva.

And what has been the response to this anti-piracy campaign by almost
every NGO on the IP scene and by the many governments in the global South
(such as those promoting the WIPO Development Agenda?) Among the
responses: " yes, all piracy is terrible". " we go along with you (USTR)
on that one", "WIPO is already doing a fine job fighting piracy", "at
least the DMCA process was not secret" and so on.  In short, and perhaps
with a touch of embarrassment and occasional grimaces, they have been
completely overwhelmed by the anti-piracy agenda that has been established
by the likes of Bill Gates, Jack Valenti, Rupert Murdoch and their
cronies. In short, defensiveness, a refusal to challenge the prevailing
"wisdom", a deathly silence, a "knuckling under."

And, of course, the ACTA crowd are not stupid nor political amateurs: they
know that the best tactic in any political campaign is to "capture the
agenda", to define what are the important topics to discuss ( eg. piracy
)and the ones that really are not worth talking about (e.g. how the
international patent system blocks access to badly needed drugs, how
copyright leads to the future commodification of our culture or, and as
the name of this list puts it , " access to knowledge.") And this is
precisely what they have done for at least fice years?

Of course, I do have pretend to have all of the answers about the piracy
issue for our movement , but I do know some of the questions to ask:

1) what are the pros and cons of piracy?

2) how does piracy lead to technology transfer?

3) how does WIPO/WTO/ACTA "anti-piracy" agenda work to shut out discussion
and action on the really burning and important global IP questions (such
as those above)?

4) how can we best "blow open" the downright scandalous statistical
studies about piracy conducted by groups like the Business Software
Alliance?

5) should we be surprised when we are told that we live in the era of
computers and the Internet...and then a teenager in Dehli discovers that
it will take six months (or more) of her salary to pay for even "off the
shelf" proprietary software (See the work of R. Ghosh)...and hence uses
pirated software "off the shelf" of her local market stall at 5% of the
price?

6) how can we best support teachers in the global South (and elsewhere)
who know that the only way they can get sufficent books for their students
is to use pirated (e.g. photocopied) versions?

7) why do those teaching the visually impaired need to infringe copyright
nearly every day if they want to do the best possible job?

The list could go on and on...but actually, I have some other things I
must do today. (And some of these issues are taken up pages 71-76 of the
Copy South Dossier www.copysouth.org .... and in the work of people such
as Lawrence Liang, Debora Halbert, and Roberto Verzola.)

For some people on this list, these may be irrelevant,
dangerously "political", or "off the acceptable agenda" questions. But for
many others on our globe, they are burning questions of daily life. What
"IP NGOs" are going to take them up?

Regards
Alan Story


On Tue, June 3, 2008 1:32 pm, james.love@keionline.org wrote:
> Alan,
>
>
> How do Roberto Verzola's comments map into the ACTA negotiations?  Are
> you suggesting people make political demands to address the brain drain in
> the ACTA negotiation?  Jamie
>
> On Fri, 2008-05-30 at 20:36 +0100, Alan Story wrote:
>
>> ACTING AGAINST ACTA
>>
>>
>> 30 May
>>
>>
>> As more details about the proposed ACTA pact continue to dribble out,
>> the responses printed on this list, in IP Watch, and elsewhere rather
>> miss the main point, in my view.
>
> snip
>
>> Instead, what we need more voices which directly challenge and
>> contextualise ACTA's  piracy discourse. Read, for example, the words of
>> my friend Roberto Verzola of the Philippines (as quoted on page 73 of
>> the Copy/South Dossier: www.copysouth.org)
>>
>>
>> "If it is a sin for the poor to steal from the rich, it must be a much
>> bigger sin for the rich to steal from the poor. Don't rich countries
>> pirate poor countries' best scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses and
>> programmers? When global corporations come to operate in the
>> Philippines,
>> don't they pirate the best people from local firms? If it is bad for
>> poor countries like ours to pirate the intellectual property of rich
>> countries, isn't it a lot worse for rich countries like the US to pirate
>> our intellectuals?
>>
>> In fact, we are benign enough to take only a copy, leaving the original
>>  behind; rich countries are so greedy that they take away the
>> originals, leaving nothing behind."
>>
>
>


Alan Story
Senior Lecturer, Intellectual Property Law
Kent Law School
University of Kent
Canterbury Kent
United Kingdom      CT2 7NS
acs3@kent.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1227 823316


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