[Upd-discuss] #2 Copyright Brief History

[François Briatte]

On Sep 8, 2004, at 5:45 PM, Michael Hart wrote:

> On Tue, 7 Sep 2004, François Briatte wrote:
>
>> My statement :
>>
>>>> The point is : governments have encouraged WIPO to live on its own =

>>>> funds.
>>
>> Yours:
>>
>>> BUSINESSES ENCOURAGING GOVERNMENTS TO CREATE COPYRIGHT LAWS.
>>
>> I am not sure we are discussing the same point. I was pointing to the =

>> fact that member states have incited WIPO to raise its own funds. I =

>> was not discussing copyright laws at all.
>
> I really think you have it backwards here. . .WIPO, and its
> predecessors, all the way back to the Statutes of Anne and Mary,
> have always been "company stores."
>
> The real issue is that "the member states" don't run WIPO,
> WIPO runs the member states, as far as copyright law goes.

Hard to believe:

- states that do not want to be part of WIPO are not part of WIPO (the 
US joined the Berne Conv. in 1989, if I recall well)

- states vote using the one vote per country method (whyich explains 
why the US/EC had problems building bottom-top coalitions and had to 
use the WTO shift to get IP as a 'string attached' to other trade 
issues)

In sum, WIPO indeed enjoys a certain degree of autonomy, but its 
convention, its decision making procedures and the global satisfaction 
index from states concerning it makes it a tool of member states.

They write copyright law because (our occidental) governments asked for 
it. Still, WIPO cannot enforce copyright law without it being enacted 
by the vote of sovereign states. Internatl relations observers will 
tell you I'm defending a realist position (see Susan Sell in IO 1995) 
against a liberal one (IOs aren't empty shells etc.).

> WIPO doesn't WANT to be funded by outsiders. . .publishers
> want complete control, secrecy, anonymity, etc., and still
> to operate with the force of law.
>
> This is how they do it. . .their own funding, their own rules,
> no accountability to anyone. . .yet they write most copyright law.

We seem to agree on this point. On the rest, I would like to add some 
nuance to what I read a few mails before, idea est I do not think it 
helps telling "WIPO rules" while its governance scheme is a lot, lot 
more complex (as most governance schemes).