[A2k] ACTING AGAINST ACTA

[James Love]

In regard to Willian New's reference to the World Health Assembly, I
would add that one of the key issues in the WHA debate concerned the
definition of counterfeiting, which many countries thought was far too
broad.  Switzerland, for example, was branded as a major source of
counterfeit drugs by the European Union, but it's WHA negotiators said
this was based upon a dispute over patent validity, which was lumped in
with criminal efforts to pass off knock-off drugs using someone else's
brand and packaging.  And WHO officials working on the issue
acknowledged that most of what was being called (by the new media)
counterfeit products in developing countries were in fact unregulated
sub-standard products from unreputable manufacturers that did not
actually use well known counterfeit trademarks.  The WHA may consider
developing a new term to describe not only counterfeit drugs, but also
the more common and important cases of drugs that fraudulently claim to
have certain medical properties, and perhaps even cases where drug
developers suppress data on averse effects, or use misleading and untrue
marketing claims.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharma_Fraud).   In
this particular fora (the WHA), the NGO and public health strategy is to
reframe the debate around the problem of fraud that leads to unsafe
products, and not simply as an intellectual property enforcement
issue.

The strategy with the ACTA is less clear, in part because the process is
being drive by a small number of trade official in secrecy, and there is
a chance that an agreement will emerge before the public can see any
drafts of the text, or have any real debate.  Also, ACTA is by design a
collection and grab bag of issues put together, making it hard to
unpack.   Give its potential importance, and the short time frame, it is
something that calls for a broad mobilization, part of which is being
framed as a demand for more transparency.

Ironically, ACTA is probably being pushed the way it is, in secret in
multilateral rather than multilateral fora, because of the recent
successes of consumer interest NGOs in the more transparent multilateral
fora such as the WTO, WIPO and the WHA.

  Jamie

On Tue, 2008-06-03 at 23:22 +0200, William New wrote:
> 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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