[Upd-discuss] Copyright has no purpose

[Jean-Baptiste Soufron]

That's an amazing statement.

Do you think she was thinking that copyright was some kind of human's 
right like the liberty of expression, the habeas corpus, etc.

???



Richard Stallman wrote:

>The UNCTAD Expert Meeting on Free and Open Source, which was held in
>Geneva in September 2004, was graced by a visit by Lucinda Jones,
>Senior Legal Officer of the copyright department of WIPO.  She made a
>most amazing statement:
>
>    Copyright does not have a purpose.
>
>Lest people misunderstand, I should explain that Ms Jones did not mean
>to say that copyright is pointless, or that the companies behind
>recent extensions of copyright power have no purpose in mind.  What
>she meant was that the public should not ask that copyright serve any
>particular purpose, and particularly not a purpose for the good of
>society.
>
>Ms Jones asks us to think of copyright as something that simply
>exists, the way earthquakes and hurricanes exist.  It is beyond
>question, so we are supposed to accept the restrictions of the
>copyright system--both the present ones, and the new ones that
>megacorporations regularly ask for--without question.
>
>In other words, WIPO says, "Don't ask us to justify copyright policy,
>just submit."
>_______________________________________________
>Upd-discuss mailing list
>Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
>http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss
>  
>