[d@DCC] EFF: WIPO Shutting Out Public Interest Organizations / ITU DRM paper...

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: General Copyright Discussions <discuss (at) list.digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:45:11 -0500 (EST)

   While I recommend people subscribe to and read the EFFector 
http://www.eff.org/effector/ , there are two stories I wanted to hilight.

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
  Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/

---------- Forwarded message ----------
* WIPO Shutting Out Public Interest Organizations

Experts on Development Won't Be Heard at Crucial Meetings

Geneva - Last week, the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) announced that it will shut out
most public interest organizations at two important
meetings devoted to intellectual property and development.
As a result, WIPO delegates from 182 nations will
discuss these issues without hearing from many of the
world's best-qualified experts.

Scheduled for next month, two WIPO "Development Agenda"
meetings will focus on the impact of copyright, patent,
and other intellectual property rights regimes on the
developing world.  Without the public interest
organizations, the discussions will be heavily weighted
toward major motion picture studios, broadcasters,
pharmaceutical giants, and other powerful interests
that want to expand copyright and patent law.

"This is an embarrassment for WIPO," explained EFF
European Affairs Coordinator Cory Doctorow.  "Settling
the debate by locking one side out of the building
isn't the way the UN is supposed to work.  We love
the Development Agenda - it's supposed to be a new
direction for WIPO.  A one-sided discussion isn't a new
direction, though.  It's just more of the same."

EFF is accredited as a WIPO permanent observer and will
be attending the meetings.  The group will be reporting
on the proceedings and will attempt to represent the
viewpoints of some of the other public interest groups
that are being excluded from the process.

For the full release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_03.php#003401>

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* EFF to ITU: DRM Is Dangerous for Developing Countries

EFF is pleased to announce that we have submitted a paper
to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the
UN agency that advises global leaders on telecommuncations
policy, as part of its survey of "Digital Rights Management"
(DRM) technologies (ITU-R Working Party 6M Report on
Content Protection Technologies).  Our message: These
technologies have been a disaster in the developed world
and they are a disaster in the offing for the developing
world.

Cory Doctorow, EFF's European Affairs Coordinator and the
paper's principal author, explains, "This paper is part
of our ongoing effort to bring some sanity to the blind
march toward DRM technologies.  These technologies don't
work for stopping copyright infringement - their
supposed function - yet they've served as an
anti-competitive cudgel, a set of shackles on the
public's rights in copyright, and a rubric for censoring
and even jailing security researchers.  EFF is delighted
to be able to get this much-needed reality check before
policymakers worldwide as they consider the question:
'Which DRM is best for my country?'  Our answer: 'DRM
will exact a punishing toll on your national interest
and yield no benefit at all.'"

The paper, called "Digital Rights Management: A Failure
in the Developed World, a Danger to the Developing World,"
explores the ways that DRM has harmed the developed
world, negatively impacting scientific research, speech,
innovation, competition, legitimate consumer interests,
access by disabled people, archiving and library functions,
and distance education.  The paper goes on to examine the
risks to the developing world in terms of its potential
to curtail the public domain, to criminalize free and
open source software projects, to enable region-based
discrimination, and to lock local artists, authors, and
performers into the monopoly pricing of DRM vendors.

EFF would like to thank the Union for the Public Domain,
the Open Knowledge Forum, IP Justice, the Alternative
Law Forum, the World Blind Union, the European Digital
Rights Initiative, Electronic Frontier Finland, and the
Foundation for Internet Policy Research for their help
and endorsement of the paper.  If your organization
focuses on these issues and would like to sign on, please
contact Cory Doctorow at cory@eff.org.

"Digital Rights Management: A Failure in the Developed
World, a Danger to the Developing World":
<http://eff.org/IP/DRM/ITU_DRM_paper.pdf>

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