[Ecommerce] UNESCO Conv. on cultural diversity briefing

[Manon Ress]

Dear Colleagues,

For those of you watching international IP issues.

Mark your calendar: April 15, 2005 Wahington DC 2pm.  More info in
State's invitation below.
Info on substance of convention at http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/ and
http://www.cptech.org/unesco/

I urge you to attend this briefing to learn more on the US positions on
this.  We have not been paying much attention to UNESCO but note that
the US is back at UNESCO and our "ministy of culture" i.e the State
department is involved.  The US delegation has been asked to "brief
NGOS" and has accepted to meet with us on April 15.

In short, this new Convention was originally designed to ensure that
culture, in the age of globalized culture industries, is not reduced to
a commodity. That was the initial idea...

As you can see in the latest draft, some governments have proposed
dangerous revisions that would transform the draft Convention into an
instrument that expands corporate ownership of culture.  For example,
there are references to piracy and intellectual property in general (in
16 instances in the latest draft) and no reference to cultural commons
or public domain.  Note that WIPO is also involved in this convention
and that the chair of the drafting committee is also the chair of the
WIPO standing committee on  Copyright and related rights drafting a
broadcaster/cablecaster and webcaster treaty.

In the Fall, the CRIS campaign submitted concrete suggestions for
changes to the draft convention to all delegates and to UNESCO but none
made it to the draft.  See:
http://www.mediatrademonitor.org/cris-suggestions.php

See you there,
Manon

Here's the official invitation:

********************************************************************
You are invited to attend a briefing on UNESCO's draft Convention on the
Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic
Expressions, organized by the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. The
briefing will cover the U.S. position regarding this and other potential
implications for civil society of this document.

The briefers will be Jane Cowley, Foreign Affairs Officer, U.S.
Department of State with Dana Gioia, Chairman, National Endowment for
the Arts and Robert Martin, Director, Institute of Museum and Library
Services who were leaders of the negotiating delegation.

The briefing will be held at 2pm on Friday, April 15, 2005 in room 527
of the Old Post Office Building, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington
DC 20506.

The draft convention can be viewed at:

<http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=25926&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html>

If you plan to attend the briefing please RSVP to Deepa Ghosh, Cultural
Program Officer, U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, GhoshDR@state.gov
<mailto:GhoshDR@state.gov>
and cc Frannie Wellings from Free Press at fwellings@freepress.net.


--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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