[Upd-discuss] #2 Copyright Brief History

[Michael Hart]

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Several important questions below:

On Mon, 6 Sep 2004, François Briatte wrote:

> May I comment the part on WIPO :
>
>> WIPO:  UNFUNDED AGENCY OF THE UNITED NATIONS
>
> 86% of the budget comes from the patent protection system and from the 
> arbitration/mediation centre, 7% come from selling their publications, 7% 
> come from member states

Obviously the vast majority of WIPO funding comes from their patent
protection system. . .a pay for protection scheme if I ever heard one,
and their centre for arbitration/mediation. . .more of the same.

However, the point is that NONE of their funding is from the UN,
which leaves them as a an NGO or QUANGO, depending on your POV.

This is really a private organization masked as government,
and it really has no interest in the welfare of the citizenry,
actually much the opposite.


> Often considered as a very successful specialized agency. Gerald J. 
> Mossinghoff  and  Ralph Oman state :
>
> "Much of the U.S. criticism of the UN stems from the fact that the United 
> States pays a disproportionate percentage of the organization’s budget. That 
> is not the case with the WIPO. Despite the fact that as, a hightechnology 
> leader, the United States benefits directly and substantially from strong 
> intellectual property protection, it pays less than 1 percent of the WIPO 
> operating budget."

Simply because there are 175 member nations, who, en masse, pay only 7%,
so it would be literally impossible for one member nation to pay 1 percent.

So what is the point of the above tirade, other than being misleading?

No way ANY nation could pay over 1%, that's the way WIPO is set up.

MY criticism of WIPO is that it is really a multinational cartel
whose major purpose is to create monopolies for the publishers,
yet it is disguised as part of the United Nations.

If the car makers of 175 countries tried to so something like this,
they would be laughed out of town. . . .

Or if nearly any other business cartel tried it.

It is ONLY in the realm of publishing and patents that this can be done,
because of the terrible history of copyright cartels before and after
The Statute Of Anne created such a horrible tradition of rape and pillage
of the authors and inventors.

_I_ was always upset that authors got only a 5% royalty of selling price,
THEN I found out that the inventor of the Token Ring Network only got 1.5% !

>
> -- in "WIPO, a success story", World Affairs, Fall  1997, vol. 160, #2, pages 
> 104-108

Hee hee!

WHAT A TITLE!!!

Success for whom???

Eh?


>> This means that right up front WIPO acknowledges that its main
>> purpose is "protecting intellectual property" rather than the
>> rights of the masses,

This is NOT the function of goverments, but of businesses.

We should not only have separation of church and state,
but also of the state and "industrial complex," as warned
by US President Eisenhower as he left office in 1960,
just as all this was getting seriously underway.


> Article 3
> Objectives of the Organization
>
> The objectives of the Organization are:
>
> (i) to promote the protection of intellectual property [so yes, it's a 
> defensive scheme] throughout the world through cooperation among States and, 
> where appropriate, in collaboration with any other international 
> organization,
>
> (ii) to ensure administrative cooperation among the Unions [of Berne and 
> Paris]
>
> -- in WIPO Convention 1967
> http://www.wipo.int/clea/docs/en/wo/wo029en.htm
>
>> and that it is funded by a cartel of the
>> major members of the worldwide publishing industry. . yet it
>> hides itself under the flag of the United Nations
>
> That's an overstatement. WIPO is an intergovernmental organization in the 
> first place. Blame the governments that listen to copyright industries and 
> then lobby at WIPO for protectionist digital agendas (US, EU). WIPO mainly 
> does what it is intended to do : although it has some sort of autonomy, it is 
> primarily a state-driven organization.

I must respectfully disagree:  this is, and always has been, business driven,
all the way back to the laws previous to The Statute Of Anne, which only make
The Statute Of Anne look decent by comparison to such awful rape and pillage
strategies that the laws of Queen Mary I were unenforceable as demonstration
in my previous message.

If you really want to get into how terribly awful The Statute Of Mary,
as I am nicknaming it here, we can, but it will only serve to show all
just how awful were the real intentions of the publishing industry,
who wrote these laws, and who still write the laws for WIPO today,
and WIPO writes the laws for nearly all the developed countries.

You wouldn't let any other industry write the laws regulating them,
why then let the industry that lives off of authors and inventors?!?!?!


>>  it is writing and promoting laws in nearly every country worldwide
>> that do nothing but remove more and more from the public domain
>> and place more and more under copyright, thus destroying free
>> public access in the process.
>
> It is true WIPO supported, for instance, DRMs and anti-circumvention in the 
> WCT and WPPT treaties which gave birth to the DMCA and the EUCD. Upkeep of 
> the public domain seems only to be residual in the recent multilateral 
> agreements signed at WIPO (and WTO).

Residual = lip service only.


>> This has been part of the world copyright system since the
>> start of the Berne Convention in 1886
>
> … and the Paris convention in 1883 (industr. property)

That's what I was referring to 3 years earlier, below.


>>  following the start of The United International Bureau for the Protection 
>> of
>> Intellectual Property [BIRPI] only 3 years earlier.


> Incorrect. The staffs from the Paris and Berne Unions merged in 1888 
> (although they continued to publish separate activity reports). The BIRPI 
> were officially created in 1892.

I guess this depends on whose history you read. . .BIRPI would claim its
history started in 1883, but then most organizations and businesses do that,
stating "Since 1883" when they really just bought or merged with someone
who started in 1883.

The real point is that the movement for businesses to control copyright
and patent law started well before 1883, and the 1883, 1886, 1892, etc.,
events were merely dressing up Ye Olde Boyes Networke in new clothing.

"The Emperor Has No Clothes!" would be more accurate to say here.


> In the 1950s, with the creation of the UN and later the NEIO (New Economic 
> Internatl. Order : arrival of the developing countries onto the international 
> scenery), the Unions seemed obsolete. Their reform at the Stockholm 
> Conference of 1967 resulted in the creation of WIPO.

Reform:  hee hee!

Just more new emperor's clothing. . . .


>>   These and other copyright promoting industries have merged over
>> the years for form the current version of WIPO,
>
> … not sure what you mean by other industries (WIPO simply regrouped the
> BIRPI administrative staffs in one building)

Let's face it, they all had the same unenlightened self-interests,
and just formed ever larger cartels as they kept merging/recruiting.


>> but their mission has always clearly been the promotion of copyright and the 
>> degradation of the public's rights, including fair use and the public 
>> domain.
>
> Note : the UNESCO Universal Copyright Convention was elaborated to help 
> countries with little literary and artistic resources to enter the internatl. 
> IP system through a "lighter" protection regime (25 years or 25 years post 
> mortem auctoris). The UCC is subordinated to the Berne Convention, however.

I have heard rumors about this, but not anything substantive, other than
a few "show" events. . .can you tell us where it actually provided countries
with these 25 year or "life +25" copyrights?


>> [WIPO claims to have about 175 member nations, pretty much a takeover
>> of the entire world.]
>
> 180 as of today, last member state to have signed in is the Maldives

That's why I said "about" 175. . .it is always increasing, and the article
I was reading was a few years old.


>> It is obvious that none of these organizations or the laws put
>> into effect by them were ever meant to promote the interest of
>> the public, but only to increase the publishers' monopolies.
>
> Closer scrutiny on the history of the Berne and Paris conventions is needed 
> to assert this.

The real scrutiny should be on those who founded Berne/Paris, what they had
in mind, and how they tried to mask it as goverment rather than business.

This is why it is so important to go all the way back to The Statute Of Anne,
and now I realize to The Statute Of Mary, because ONLY IN COMPARISON TO THE
STATUTE OF MARY DOES THE STATUTE OF ANNE LOOK AT ALL SENSIBLE. . .but you
must keep in mind that The Stationers' Company still held all copyrights
after The Statute Of Anne, which was written and lobbied solely by The
Stationers' Company.

Once you realize the directly the publishing industry was coming from,
it becomes quite a bit more obvious where they were/are going.

And the truth is, if you just ASK the, they will tell you to your face
that they are working for permanent copyright.

Yes, the authors have a little more say today, but they still only get 5%,
same for books, music, etc.

Heck. . .REALTORS GET 6%!!!

And they are only salespeople!!!

They don't CREATE anything. . . .

>
> My two cents.

And very glad to have it!


Thanks!!!


Nice To Hear From You!


Michael


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