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[AT-IT] a paper on information and communications for developing (fwd)
- To: upd-discuss@essential.org
- Subject: [AT-IT] a paper on information and communications for developing (fwd)
- From: "Krishna E. Bera" <keb@Cyblings.ON.CA>
- Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 22:35:46 -0500 (EST)
- Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org
The paper proposes public policy solutions for software and
hardware adoption by "developing nations". GPL and mandatory
licencing are both advocated, the latter only when the former is
unavailable.
-keb
---------- Forwarded message (recipient headers deleted) ----------
From: Roberto Verzola <rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org>
Date: 22 Nov 99 11:59:16
Subject: Cf Oxfam paper on free software
Low-Cost Strategies for ICT Deployment
in Developing Countries
by Roberto Verzola
Introduction
The distinguishing feature of the information sector of the
economy lies in the nature of information. The unique features of this
sector therefore are better appreciated by first studying the nature
of information.
Information refers to a new awareness which resolves existing
uncertainty. It is non-material. An expectant mother, for instance,
may be uncertain about the sex of her child. When the doctor tells
her, "it's a girl," the uncertainty has been resolved. The mother has
received the smallest amount of information possible: the resolution
of uncertainty between two equally possible outcomes. This smallest
measure of information is called the bit. There are millions of ways a
blank page may be filled with letters. A poem by Shakespeare resolves
this uncertainty by providing one of all possible ways and therefore
provides the reader a much bigger amount of information (among other
things of course). There are billions of ways bits may be strung up
serially on the tracks of a diskette. A particular program represents
one instance of these billions of possibilities, another example of
information.
The non-material nature of information distinguishes the
information sector from two other major sectors of the economy. The
industrial sector is the sector of material goods which are
non-living. And the agricultural and fishery sector is the sector of
living goods.
While information itself is non-material, it may need a material
medium for storage and persistence. The baby's sex is information
stored in the doctor's mind, later copied to the mother's.
Shakespeare's poems are stored in books, on paper and ink. Computer
programs are stored on magnetic or optical media. [1]
The development of new information and communications
technologies (ICTs) has propelled the full emergence of the
information economy by making it easier and easier to transfer
information from one medium to another and from one form to another.
Digital technologies have further revolutionized ICTs, by allowing
these transfers and transformations to occur with no information loss.
With today's technologies, the cost of replicating information without
loss is approaching zero. I explained further the implications of such
low replication cost in the article "Towards a Political Economy of
Information" (URL: http://glocal.peacenet.or.kr/training/ ).
High start-up costs, near-zero marginal costs
From this, we note another distinguishing feature of information
goods: while the cost of moving or copying them is approaching zero,
the initial costs involved in creating new information or in building
the infrastructure for moving and manipulating them remain relatively
high.
It takes a lot of effort to invent a new design, write a book, or
develop software. But the cost of replicating them, once they are
developed, is nearly zero. It also takes much resources to set up
information infrastructures like transmitting stations, telephone
exchanges, microwave repeaters, satellite facilities, copper and fiber
optic lines, oceanic cables, etc. But once they are in place, the
marginal cost of information transfer through these facilities is
nearly zero.
Because of this, ICTs are very often much more accessible to
those who can afford the high start up costs, than to those who
cannot, to the rich than to the poor. Yet, those who are privileged to
have access will then enjoy much lower marginal costs than those who
don't and will therefore be in a much better position to compete
vis-a-vis the latter. In short, the rich will tend to become richer,
and the poor poorer. While there will obviously be exceptions, the
logic of the information sector -- with its very high entry costs and
very low marginal costs for those who are in -- will generally work in
favor of those who have the resources, capital and existing
infrastructure to take full advantage of the benefits of ICTs.
Form of income: Information rents
Because of the high costs of entry, it is often those who have
access to huge resources who are in a position to set up the
facilities for full utilization of the technology. In terms of content
and software tools, private investors who do so clinch their control
through statutory monopolies like patents and copyrights, which grant
them the exclusive right to use the resources they have developed. In
terms of the communications infrastructure, the huge investments
involved exclude all but a few huge firms, who then lease out the
resource under their control to other users. Either way, private
control over the software and hardware infrastructure enables the
owners to extract rents over the information resource.
This rent-seeking system eventually extracts from the public
wealth that is way beyond the cost of setting up and maintaining the
system. The rent-seekers of the cyber-economy, or the cyberlords,
therefore become the superfluous and unwelcome propertied classes of
the information economy. In the article "Cyberlords: the rentier class
of the information sector", I discussed in detail the nature of this
rent-seeking system and how it manages to concentrate wealth in the
propertied class of the information economy.
ICTs and the Internet: a critique
In the articles "The Internet: A Second Opinion" (URL:
http://glocal.peacenet.or.kr/training/ ) and "Globalization: The Third
Wave" (URL: http://global.peacenet.or.kr/training/ ), I explained in
more detail how the Internet has in fact become the leading edge of
the global information economy, the new infrastructure for marketing
the information products of the more technologically advanced
countries. As such, it will will facilitate the intrusion of global
capital into developing countries, the extraction of more wealth from
these countries, and an even faster concentration of wealth among rich
countries and global corporations. My critique of the new ICTs, best
represented by the Internet, may be summarized as follows:
- The entry costs are very expensive, and these entry costs recur
every three to five years, as rapid obsolescence forces the frequent
replacement of hardware and software. In effect, those who join the
Internet are caught in a expensive technology trap. While many of the
supposed benefits of these new ICTs may eventually prove to be
illusory, the high costs of entry are very real.
- In reality, the Internet is emerging as the infrastructure for
the marketing and distribution of the information products of rich
countries. The more it penetrates into developing countries, the
greater the market of information economies expands.
- The Internet will also facilitate rapid financial transactions
which will benefit most the huge finance firms who have the
facilities, clout and connection to take the best advantage of the new
ICTs. These will all hasten the ongoing concentration of wealth.
- ICTs will further weaken labor and strengthen capital, as
machines are more and more in a position to replace labor and as the
technology enables tighter management control. Many people will lose
their jobs to machines, and new jobs created by new technologies will
not be secure either, as they will also be under threat from a new
round of replacement. On the other hand, ICTs will facilitate
managing-at-a-distance even better than working-at-a-distance,
empowering capital even more than labor.
- The benefits of the Internet will be best enjoyed by those who
live in countries where the ICT infrastructures are most developed.
Most resources and effort spent on serving information on the Internet
will not help the poorest and the least advantaged, who cannot afford
commercial Internet services and whose lives revolve around basic
needs and survival concerns.
- Many of the promised benefits of the Internet will be as
illusory as the broken promises of television, which has become the
idiot box of the 20th century. The ongoing commercialization of the
Internet will tend to turn it into the TV -- and idiot box -- of the
21st century.
- In fact, very few seem to be looking at the negative effects of
ICTs. The issue of radiation and its impact on human health persists
-- from the near-microwave frequencies of the cell phone, to the
video monitor radiation that direct shines on the user's eyes, to the
very low frequency of power lines -- and remains a matter of dispute.
The increasing dependence on computers for mental work, thinking, and
even entertainment reminds us of the deleterious effects on the human
body of machine-dependence and its resulting lack of exercise.
To be connected or not?
To some, these misgivings are enough reason to stay away from
these technologies. Yet, the option to completely reject the new ICTs
may have its own pitfalls. While one can argue that to use them is to
immediately get trapped in a losing battle; one can also argue that
not to use them is to lose the battle by default. But is the battle in
the information arena in fact worth fighting, or are we simply being
drawn away from what are real wealth -- our ecological wealth, our
natural resources, our cultural heritage -- to be exchanged with
virtual and perhaps illusory wealth?
The answers do not come so easily. Perhaps, we need to know more
about the technology itself and to dip one foot to check the waters
while reserving the option to get out if sharks and crocodiles lie in
wait.
If a developing country -- fully aware of the pitfalls and traps
that lie in wait -- nonetheless wants to tap ICTs and continue
exploring the possibility of bringing their benefits to its people,
what then are the options available to such a country? This is the
question we will try to answer for the rest of this paper.
Cost of entry is a barrier
A real obstacle to the introduction of ICTs in a developing
country is the high entry cost of the technologies.
In the Philippines, for instance, the following summarizes the
costs of providing 51% of Filipino families access to different
technologies:
Technology Current Cost per Total Cost for 51%
Reach (%) family ($) reach (million $)
B&W TV only 43% $ 100 $ 102 M
Color TV only 14 300 1,413
VCR 12 250 1,241
Cable TV 2 1000 6,236
Telephone 6 1000 5,727
Fax 1 200 1,273
Internet 0.1 1000 6,478
CDROM/DVD 0.1 300 1,943
Virtual Reality 0 2000 (?) 12,982
Radio 84 10 20 (100% reach)
Total 37,314
Considering the rapid developments in the field, some of these
technologies become obsolete rather quickly, forcing those who have
made commitments to deploy them into another round of huge investments
every few years or so.
Responding to high costs
The introduction of ICTs is clearly an expensive proposition for
most developing countries. They compete for our peoples' time, skills
and attention, taking resources away from essential activities like
food production, health services, basic education and so on. Yet, the
possibilities of the new technologies are also tantalizing, and many
people sincerely feel that these technologies also have some benefits
to offer and, properly deployed, can facilitate solutions in providing
for basic needs.
How does a poor country solve the problem of providing for its
people facilities which are terribly expensive and which are hardly
affordable? I propose a five-point strategy for doing so:
- stick to the idea of appropriate technology, make do without
the online frills, and concentrate on low-cost offline technologies,
which can bring in the most essential services;
- use free/open software where they are available, because they
take full advantage of the benefits of pooling together the
intellectual resources not only of a country but of the whole Internet
community;
- apply genuine compulsory licensing where commercial software is
the only option; GCL is an internationally-recognized mechanism that
allows poor countries access to technologies on their own terms;
- set up public access stations that do not require the ordinary
citizen to pay a fixed monthly charge; and
- work out a system of public ownership over the hardware
infrastructure to minimize rent-seeking by private interests, which
can lead to further concentration of wealth.
Appropriate technologies
Countries must practise extreme care in selecting the
technologies to tap, identifying those which are lower-cost, simpler,
and capable enough to provide the most essential services. Often, as
Schumacher pointed out, these are intermediate technologies, which
greatly improve on the old ways of doing things but are very
accessible to poor communities because the technologies are simpler
and more affordable. Schumacher's ideas remains as relevant as ever in
the information sector.
An example of appropriate technology is low-power,
community-based radio broadcasting. As the table of technology costs
above shows in the case of the Philippines, this technology can
provide 100% access and approximate interactivity with very affordable
investments, while the more advanced technologies would require
billions of dollars of investments every several years or so and yet
leave half of the population unserved.
In computer communications, appropriate technology would be
offline technologies, i.e., technologies based on store-and-forward
email and email-based services such as mailing lists, email-enabled
access to ftp sites, Web sites, etc. Such technologies would be
text-mostly, offline, low-bandwidth, and low-cost. They would run over
the basic POTS ("plain old telephone system") network, instead of
requiring a huge and expensive network of dedicated data lines.
Free/open software
The basic principle in overcoming high resource requirements is
to pool meager resources and the share the benefits with as many
people as possible. This is exactly what free/open software does: it
pools the intellectual resources available over the Internet, and
shares the results freely with the rest of the world.
The result is something dramatic, effective and reliable.
Free/open software have proven themselves equal to if not better than
commercial software in terms of quality and reliability.
The most popular example of this approach is the Linux/GNU
operating system.
A philosophy of freedom
Linux represents a philosophy of freedom. It is freedom that
makes free software like Linux/GNU "free": the freedom to use it; the
freedom to copy and share it; and the freedom to modify it, because
the source code is available.
These freedoms are the mark of free software. A legal document
called the General Public License (GPL) was carefully formulated by
the Free Software Foundation, also headed by Richard Stallman, to
protect these freedoms while the protected software goes through the
process of use, sharing and modification. Thus, free software can also
be defined as software that is protected under the GPL.
The access to source code that Linux/GNU makes possible
represents at the R&D level the same kind of pooling of resources, an
approach perfectly suited to a poor country like the Philippines.
The source code of a computer program is the equivalent of the
schematic diagram of a piece of electronic equipment, the
architectural plans of a building, or the mechanical drawings of a
machine. Once a piece of equipment, a building, or a machine becomes
complicated enough -- as most pieces of software are -- modification
becomes extremely difficult without the corresponding schematic
diagram, architectural plan, mechanical drawing, or source code.
Microsoft doesn't make its source code available; Linux/GNU does.
Since the Linux source code is available, Linux can be customized much
more easily and flexibly than software without source code. Windows
users have to wait a long time for an improved version of the software
to be released by Microsoft. Linux is being improved all the time by
the Internet community, which includes thousands of independent
developers and programmers who volunteer their time and effort making
the software faster, more robust, and generally better.
Working in harmony with the nature of information
One of the key concepts in ecology, is the idea of harmony. We
must learn to search for harmony and to work for it, because the
dynamic balance that it represents gives peace to our lives. Thus,
today, it is now commonly accepted that we must work in harmony with
nature instead of in opposition to it. For to conquer nature and to
defeat it is, in truth, a self-defeating goal, because we are part of
nature.
Information has its own nature. It is non-material; basically a
numeric measure of resolving uncertainty. By its nature, information
is easy to duplicate at little cost, unlike material goods which
require significant amounts of matter and energy to go into every
unit. As the economist would say, the marginal cost of reproducing
information approaches zero. It is this nature of information which
determines its social character, why people tend to copy it, to share
it, to exchange it. As the mathematician would say, the acquisition of
information is not a zero-sum game, it is a positive sum-game. To use
a popular term today, sharing information goods like software is a
"win-win" situation, because you do not lose what you give away.
Free software like Linux/GNU works in harmony with the nature of
information, because it recognizes and takes advantage of its social
nature. Intellectual property rights (IPR) like software copyrights,
on the other hand, work against the nature of information because they
create statutory monopolies that artifically create information
scarcity, so that the privileged monopolists can dictate their price
of a good that, by nature, is easily available to all once created.
That is why, despite that power of Bill Gates and his fellow
cyberlords, they will never be able to completely implement their
so-called property rights over information, because they work against
the very nature of information. The social nature of information will
continually assert itself and people will continue to copy and to
share whatever information they find useful and worth sharing. On the
other hand, free software and its copying license, the GPL, work in
perfect harmony with the nature of information. In the future, IPR
will become obsolete and GPL and similar practices consistent with
information's social nature will become the general rule.
When we work in harmony with the nature of information, it
becomes easier to improve, and its quality, reliability and usefulness
rised rapidly This is probably why Linux is superior to Microsoft
Windows in many respects. It can do many tasks (multitasking) and
service many users (multiuser) at the same time. It has all the
facilities for communicating with other computers (networking): it can
be used as a workstation, as a server, or both; e-mail is built-in;
and it is Internet-ready. Linux can also be configured with a
graphical user interface. Unlike Windows which inexplicably stops
every now and then (sometimes taking your work file with it), Linux
machines run twenty-four hours a day for months with no problem. Ask
any local Internet service provider (ISP): many use Linux, hardly any
uses Windows NT.
Linux, furthermore, is Unix-compatible, a Unix look-alike. Who
hasn't heard of Unix? It is THE operating system, the one which runs
on almost every computer from lowly 386s to supercomputing Crays.
Nearly all computer science departments in every self-respecting
university in the world use Unix as their platform for teaching and
research. The latest developments in computer science often make their
appearance on Unix first, before trickling down later to other
operating systems like Microsoft Windows or the Mac OS.
Social movements and non-government organizations (NGOs) should
look beyond the cost effectiveness of Linux, into its philosophy of
freedom in software. It is a philosophy consistent with the advocacies
of cause-oriented groups, voluntary associations and alternative
movements -- a philosophy of pooling resources, sharing, and working
in harmony with nature and with information.
Genuine compulsory licensing (GCL)
If the General Public License (GPL) ensures public access to
free/open software, genuine compulsory licensing (GCL) provides an
internationally-recognized mechanism for public access to commercial
software and other copyrighted or patented goods.
GCL works as follows: Somebody who wants to use/commercialize
patented or copyrighted material approaches NOT the patent or
copyright holder, but the government for a license to do so. The
government grants the license, whether the original patent or
copyright holder agrees or not, but compels the local licensee to pay
the patent/copyright holder a royalty rate that is fixed by law. Many
countries in the world have used and continue to use compulsory
licensing for important products like pharmaceuticals and books, in
order to bring down their prices and make them more affordable to
ordinary citizens.
GCL would legalize the operations of computer shops which offer
copying of commercial software as a service to the public, but would
require these shops to pay a reasonable royalty -- usually between 5
and 10 percent of the local price of copied item -- to the original
copyright owners. It would allow the government television channel,
for instance, to show on television the Discovery Series, while paying
a reasonable royalty set by law.
Genuine compulsory licensing (also called mandatory licensing in
some countries) is a demand of many countries who want to access
technologies but cannot afford the price set by patent/copyright
holders. While this internationally-recognized mechanism was meant for
the benefit of poorer countries, even the U.S. and many European
countries use it.
In the article "Cyberlords: the rentier class of the information
sector", I explained why GCL is an important demand which not only
helps poor countries to acquire access to expensive technologies on
their own terms, but which also splits the cyberlord class because
small cyberlords welcome GCL while big cyberlords oppose it.
When referring to compulsory licensing, it is important to
emphasize that it must be genuine, because the GATT/WTO agreement pays
lip service to compulsory licensing but defines it in a way that
negates its essential purpose by giving back to cyberlords the power
to set the terms of the license.
What about hardware?
Even free software like Linux/GNU are expensive in terms of the
hardware necessary to run them and the time needed to learn them, to
master them, and to modify them for our particular requirements. These
additional investments have to be justified vis-a-vis the competing
requirements of our impoverished people, only a small minority of
which have access to potable water, to medical care or to a telephone.
Unlike information goods, hardware is material. Therefore, the
cost of replicating hardware and building infrastructure cannot take
advantage of the near-zero marginal cost that information goods enjoy.
Harware is therefore expensive.
To look at the options open to a developing country which wants
to provide access to ICTs to its citizens despite the huge capital
requirements for doing so, it is useful to go back to the information
superhighway analogy. A government which wants to provide universal
access to transportation services will have the following approaches
available:
* one family / one car
* walkways, bicycles
* efficient public transport
Most U.S. cities have taken the first approach. This is
unfortunately the default approach taken by many developing countries,
which mistake a car-oriented society as a mark of progress. This
misguided policy is further encouraged by industrial economies which
export cars and other transport equipment to developing countries. A
common way of doing so is by granting loans to cash-strapped
governments to enable them to engage in road-building sprees so that
people will buy more cars. We know today that this approach is
unsustainable even for rich countries which may be able to afford
them. There will certainly be not enough resources available to
provide the metal as well as the fuel necessary to provide one car for
every Indian or Chinese family. Even if there were, our atmosphere
will never be able to accomodate the highly pollutive as well as
greenhouse gases that will be emitted as a result of such an approach.
Despite this, many developing countries continue to consider
increasing car ownership as an indicator of national progress.
The second approach would emphasize non-motorized transport
systems like covered walkways and bike paths. To a poor country,
bicycle manufacturing is much more technologically accessible than car
manufacturing. It will also require much less in terms of a road
network and fuel. This is, recalling Schumacher, appropriate
technology.
The third approach is one that emphasizes public access to a
commonly-owned resource that is too expensive to be acquired on an
individual basis. It nicely complements the second approach.
While the three approaches are not necessarily mutually
exclusive, it often happens that one option precludes the other. In
Metro Manila, for instance, government transport policies were heavily
biased in favor of private cars, resulting in a rapid increase in
private car ownership in the region. As the traffic situation
deteriorated and road congestion worsened, it became very difficult to
expand public transport services as the politically powerful car lobby
insisted on retaining the private car biases in the government's
transport policies. Therefore, instead of improving the bus and
jeepney system, the government took the much more expensive option of
building overhead rail systems, which will displace buses and jeepneys
and free more roads for even more private cars.
Had the government paid early attention to the development of
alternative transport systems like walkways, bike paths and an
efficient public bus system, middle class families would not have
found the private car a necessity for urban living, and neither would
it have been necessary to build very expensive overhead rail-based
systems. The experience of Curitiba in Brazil is a good example of
this enlightened approach.
Unfortunately, government are often drawn away from this
enlightened approach by the attractive loans dangled before them by
countries who want them to build more roads instead so that they can
buy more cars.
The clear lesson from this experience is that an early
enlightened approach can make it much easier for a government to
provide universal public access at a much lower cost, than if market
forces were allowed to rule and set the direction of development of
services. Letting the "free market" direct the deployment of
infrastructure would lock a country into very expensive options which
are most beneficial only for the suppliers of the technology.
Let us now pose the question: what would be the analogue in the
information sector of walkways, bike paths, and an efficient public
transport system, the approach that makes much more sense,
particularly to developing countries, that the one-family, one-car
approach?
The hardware solution: public facilities / universal access
Publicly-owned, publicly-accessible facilities represent this
strategy of resource-pooling and resource-sharing, a proven strategy
among poor countries. This approach contrasts sharply with what seems
today to be the dominant idea for introducing ICTs: "a computer on
every desktop," recalling the "one family, one car" approach in the
transportation sector.
These two contrasting approaches are as follows:
- public libraries vs. a library in every home
- public viewing centers vs. a television in every home
- public calling stations vs. a telephone in every home
- the public access terminals vs. a computer on every desktop
The first represents a community-oriented approach that
emphasizes sharing and minimizes cost; the second represents an
individualistic approach that creates a huge demand for suppliers.
It is clear what strategy the ICT industry wants governments to
take. It is also clear what strategy will be able to deliver universal
access at a cost which cash-strapped governments can afford.
Unfortunately, many governments do not give this issue much
thought, and accept without question the approach which the ICT
industry is taking. The Philippine government, for instance, had in
1998 a project to install a public calling station in every one of the
1,500 municipalities of the country. The budget for the project was
drastically reduced; instead the government is relying on private
telcos to install telephones, which they are doing, but mostly in
urban centers, and the target is to install one in every home.
Public ownership of the infrastructure
Because the ICT infrastructure is very expensive, the effort to
set it up presents an opportunity for collective pooling of resources
by an entire community. Once the infrastructure is set up, it can then
offer universal access, charging only enough to maintain good quality
service and provide for future requirements. This is the rationale for
public ownership of natural monopolies and large infrastructures.
To open such public works to private ownership open the door to
rent-seeking with no time bound, extracts additional cost from users
to support the profit-driven rent-seekers who will charge as much as
the market will bear, and contributes to the further concentration of
wealth in the hands of the rich. Because of the low marginal costs of
moving and reproducing information goods, the information sector
attracts more than its usual share of rent-seekers. A conscious effort
by the government to encourage public or community ownership of ICT
infrastructures can avoid this problem.
Conclusion: The Philippine Greens' Programme for the Information
Sector
Within the Philippine Greens, we have developed a critical
analysis of the emerging global information economy and have
formulated what we believe is an appropriate set of responses to the
entry into our country of the Internet and various other information
and communications technologies (ICTs). This set of responses contains
many of the elements discussed above, as well as other policies which,
we hope, represent a well-rounded policy framework for the information
sector.
These information policies include:
1. The right to know. It is the government's duty to inform its
citizens about matters that directly affect them, their families or
their communities. Citizens have the right to access these
information. Neither the State nor private corporations may use
"national security", "confidentiality of commercial transactions", or
"trade secret" as reasons to curtail this right.
2. The right to privacy. The government must not probe the private
life of its citizens. Citizens have the right to access information
about themselves which have been collected by government agencies. The
government must not centralize these separate databases by building a
central database or by adopting a unified access key to the separate
databases. Nobody should be forced against their will to reveal any
information they do not want to make public.
3. No patenting of life. The following, whether or not modified by
human intervention, may not be patented: life forms, biological and
microbiological materials, biological and microbiological processes,
genetic information.
4. The moral rights of intellectuals. Those who actually create an
intellectual work or originate an idea have the right to be recognized
that they did so. Nobody may claim authorship of works or ideas they
did not originate. No one can be forced to release or modify a work or
idea if he or she is not willing to do so. These and other moral
rights of intellectuals will be respected and protected.
5. The freedom to share. The freedom to share and exchange
information and knowledge must be recognized and protected. This
freedom must take precedence over information monopolies such as
intellectual property rights (IPR) that the State grants to
intellectuals.
6. Universal access. The government will facilitate universal
access by its citizens to the world's storehouse of knowledge. Every
community needs access to books, cassettes, videos, tapes, radio and
TV programs, software, etc. The government will set up a wide range of
training and educational facilities to enable community members to
continually expand their know-how and knowledge.
7. Compulsory licensing. Universal access to information content
is best achieved through compulsory licensing. Under this
internationally-practiced mechanism, the government itself licenses
others to copy patented or copyrighted material for sale to the
public, but compels the licensees to pay the patent or copyright
holder a government- set royalty fee. This mechanism is a transition
step towards non-monopolistic payments for intellectual activity.
8. Public stations. Universal access to information infrastructure
is best achieved through public access stations, charging subsidized
rates. These can include well-stocked public libraries; public
telephone booths; community facilities for listening to or viewing
training videos, documentaries, and the classics; public facilities
for telegraph and electronic mail; educational radio and TV programs;
and public stations for accessing computer networks.
9. The best lessons of our era. While all knowledge and culture
should be preserved and stored for posterity, we also need to distil
the best lessons of our era, to be taught -- not sold -- to the next
generations. There should be a socially- guided, diversity-conscious
selection, undertaken with the greatest sensitivity and wisdom. It is
not something that can be left to a profit-oriented education system,
to circulation- or ratings-driven media, or to consumption-pushing
advertising.
The information economy is growing at a phenomenal rate, often
independently of the capacity of communities to absorb it, or of
governments to control it. This growth is driven mostly by global
forces external to our own society but very much present within it.
Left by themselves, these global forces will simply treat our
country and our communities as fodder for their relentless drive in
search of profit and growth. On the other hand, we want the balanced
development and interaction of our agricultural, industrial and
information sectors in a way that enhances the overall quality of life
in our communities. These are often orthogonal, if not opposite
directions.
To be able to attain that dynamic balance between these sectors
so that they enhance each other and contribute to the overall health
and sustainability of our communities -- this is the challenge of the
information sector.
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