[A2k] Users' rights

[James Love]

On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 09:17 -0300, Federico Heinz wrote:
> On 27/06/2009, A.C.Story wrote:
> > I don't understand how we can consider that the word "user" has the
> > implication of being what you call "parasitical"
>
> While I don't agree that "user" has connotation of being "parasitical", talking
> about "user's rights" as oposed to "autor's rights" reinforces the idea of the
> artificial division of people in "creators" and "consumers".
>
> Unfortunately, "public" has a similar connotation (artist/public). I think
> "people's rights" or "human rights" are better alternatives.

Dear Federico

    If I understand, I think the larger point by Professor Story is that
one can describe a "right" for a user/public/farmer/consumer/ etc....
which is separate from the right of the creative person or the owner of
the copyright.

    Having worked recently on a human rights project (involving the
Right to Development), it is not obvious to me that every right is most
usefully described as a "human right."

    People do have human rights, but the IPR system in general is
something that also makes a lot of pragmatic decisions that are
essentially political and involve some models of economics and
innovation theory.   I think it is appropriate to set out rights for
different stakeholders, without having to prove in all cases that the
rights meet a particular standard used for human rights.

  Jamie

--
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International
http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org
Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.6584