[Upd-discuss] Nesson to Knopf re: Joel Tenenbaum

[Fatima Lasay]

Dear Seth,

Thanks for your posts on this case; they have been very useful. I am new
on the UPD list.

Earlier I have sent this open letter to Joel T (via JFB website)-
Copyright enforcement as "benevolent assimilation", an open letter
<http://www.korakora.org/node/38>

I think the general impression here (Philippines) was that Nesson is an
academic not a litigation lawyer. But I would be more interested in the
impact of an appeal, and agree that a winnable case is not the point.

On Sugar's "Stallman Paradox," Sugar's belief in "universal education"
and "access to knowledge" implies the bias embedded in his technology-
(particularly ICT)-centered culture. This is the same bias that makes
things like OLPC a tool for dilatory reform in developing countries (in
connivance with their first world counterparts). The "human rights"
discourse makes the (dangerous) bias less apparent.

I trace one contemporary source of this broadly propagated bias (perhaps
mostly in Europe and North America, in the countries of SouthEast Asia
and later the NICs of Eastern Europe, I would link this ICT-centric
culture to "Development Communication", ie from Lerner, Rogers to
Quebral, et al), the mechanism is thru two documents created under the
UNESCO: one is the Grunwald Declaration on Media Education in 1982, and
the other, its follow-up, is the Paris Agenda or the 12 Recommendations
for Media Education in 2007. Both documents, if scrutinized carefully,
actually attempt to define "media" and "communication" as a propaganda
system and to install a watertight system of educational conditioning
which gives no real space for any kind of autonomous and decentralized
creative communication.

In these recommendations for media education, the technical history and
conceptualization of media technology within the genealogy of control
systems is neutralized by focus on its social use and integration almost
without question.

This is a form of conceptual and historical exclusion, as the Grumwald
Declaration states in a disempowering way: "Rather than condemn or
endorse the undoubted power of the media, we need to accept their
significant impact and penetration throughout the world as an
established fact, and also appreciate their importance as an element of
culture in today’s world."

Meanwhile, the Paris Agenda reflects a control freak's manual, appearing
to support cultural diversity, but actually contradicting this diversity
by its specification of various forms of monitoring systems, coordinated
actions, promotion of best practices, investigations on the role and
behavior of people in media education, all under an extremely
paternalistic framework of education.

This framework is reproduced in numerous venues such as WSIS and brought
"home" by state and civil society actors. It is in effect a centralized
propaganda system, whereby media and communication is used to project on
a mass audience certain ideas (such as "access to knowledge" and
"universal education") considered desirable by the experts, authorities
and stakeholders responsible for their transmission. DRM is just one of
occasional hoops made for everypne to jump through every now and then.

best wishes,
Fatima

PS I would also like to share a draft statement written in response to 
the (Philippines) "National Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy" 
at 
http://korakora.org/kuro/2009/08/statement-on-philippine-ip-policy-and-strategy/ 
- the "economic incentive" is particularly touched on there and could be 
of interest to the previous poster from Lithuania and the ideas on 
"State policy" on the public domain.