209 lines
9.3 KiB
HTML
209 lines
9.3 KiB
HTML
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<title>FSF Europe - World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) - Fighting intellectual poverty</title>
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<!-- Begin page content -->
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<h1>Fighting intellectual poverty</h1>
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<h2>(Who owns and controls the information societies?)</h2>
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<div align="right">
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<a href="/people/greve/">Georg C.F. Greve</a> - Hamburg, November 3rd&4th 2003
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<p>The WSIS is the World Summit on the Information Society, it should
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lay the foundations for the what some refer to as Information
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Societies, others prefer talk about Knowledge Societies.</p>
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<p>Discussing the Information Societies or Knowledge Societies should
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include discussion about who owns that Information and Knowledge, who
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controls the medium in which they reside, flow and develop and also
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who controls the languages we use within that medium. Yet all these
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issues are addressed ineffectively (Open Standards), inconsistently
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(Free Software) or not at all.</p>
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<p>The issue that many governmental delegations would prefer to not
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deal with at all are so-called "intellectual property rights" (IPR), a
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term primarily covering Patents, Copyright, Trademarks, but also
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business models, geographic locators and other things that people wish
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to denominate as such.</p>
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<p>All of these are very different and usually unrelated areas of law
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with very different effects on economy, politics and society. Mixing
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them is not only counterproductive for qualified scientific dispute,
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the term also puts forward the notion of thoughts being property. What
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it could mean to possess a thought remains unclear to the sceptical
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mind.</p>
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<p>However, all these do have one thing in common.</p>
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<p>It is both their function and their purpose to establish limited
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monopolies on intellectual creativity. For the remainder of the
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document, "Intellectual Property Rights" (IPRs) will therefore be
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referred to by what they are and do as "Limited Intellectual
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Monopolies" (LIMs).</p>
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<h3>Who controls what connects us all?</h3>
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<p>From the first cave paintings and musical instruments have creativity
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and the sharing of knowledge and ideas been what we build culture,
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friendship and society upon. Creativity and sharing of knowledge and
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what else inspires us are fundamental for making us human.</p>
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<p>In 397 AD, Saint Augustinus wrote about this: "Omnis enim res, quae
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dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo
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habenda est." ("For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with
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others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared.")</p>
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<p>When Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1476, a millennium after
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the writings of St. Augustinus, the effort of sharing knowledge was
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reduced by orders of magnitude, but the channels of distribution
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required expensive investments on the side of those who distribute it
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for us. To protect them, we invented the limited intellectual monopoly
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of Copyright for the benefit of society.</p>
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<p>Now, another half-millennium later, digitalization and most notably
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the internet have made sharing of knowledge possible at the speed of
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light, virtually no cost and very small investments on behalf of
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publishers. Every person in possession of a computer has a perfect
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(re-)production device and is a publisher by means.</p>
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<p>The way we produce knowledge is to build upon each other and upon
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those that were before us. No-one stands alone and we are all standing
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upon the shoulders of giants. The reservoir we draw from for the
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cultural development of mankind and the link that ties us together as
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society is the public domain of knowledge.</p>
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<p>This resource is being depleted by privatization and expansion of the
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limited intellectual monopolies, such as Patents, Copyrights and
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Trademarks. These have become pure trading goods to be bought at
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minimum cost from our intellectually creative to be sold at maximum
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price to those of us who seek to impart ideas.</p>
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<p>Invented for the purpose to benefit society, they often come at the
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expense of society today. Using the words of Louise Szente from South
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Africa: "Woe is the life of the modern day student living in 'Darkest
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Africa' for obviously we are still being kept in the slave quarters of
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the world. Harsh words? My friends, try and live in a society where
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such Acts as the Intellectual Property Acts of the world impedes your
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advancement in life."</p>
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<p>Limited intellectual monopolies, of which Copyright is the most
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well-known, are strong tools and as such they should be used with
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great care. Invented for a different age with different issues and
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questions to be addressed, the Information Societies will need a new
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form of balance.</p>
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<p>Putting forward the simplistic notion that more monopolies always mean
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more creation, implied in phrases like: "Intellectual property
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protection is essential to encourage the innovation and creativity in
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the Information Society." (38, Oct 24th 2003 Non-Paper by
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Mr. Samassekou) are ignoring the experience of millennia of human
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creativity where no such monopolies existed.</p>
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<p>Therefore the Patents, Copyright and Trademarks (PCT) working group
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civil societies involved in the World Summit on the Information
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Society (WSIS) has worked hard to come to a more neutral statement
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like: "Striking a balance between limited information monopolies, on
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the one hand, and the use and sharing of knowledge, on the other, is
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essential to the Information Society."</p>
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<p>Instead, we find statements like: "This balance is reflected by
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protection and flexibilities included in existing Intellectual
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Property agreements, and should be maintained." (38, Oct 24th 2003
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Non-Paper by Mr. Samassekou) in the declaration of principles. A
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statement putting forward the notion that the current situation with
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appropriation of indigenous knowledge, digital divide and cultural
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starvation was already fair and balanced.</p>
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<p>The central issues of PCTs and other LIMs is: Who owns the Information
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Societies and the intellectual reservoir upon which all of us depend?</p>
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<h3>Who controls our cultural techniques?</h3>
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<p>The other issue the PCT working group has been dealing with is that of
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software and open standards. Access to software determines our chances
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for education, communication, work. Like farming was the cultural
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technique of the agricultural society, software is the cultural
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technique of the Information Societies.</p>
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<p>We cannot afford to have minorities control our essential cultural
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techniques, which is why the PCT group has been working hard to push
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Free Software, which gives everyone the freedoms to use, study, modify
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and copy software, thereby participate, learn, partake and share as an
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active member of the Information Societies.</p>
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<p>The most problematic notion in this regard were those of
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"technological neutrality" and "freedom of choice." Both very sane
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principles that we support, but used in a confusing matter to imply
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the choice between proprietary and Free Software was a technical
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choice to make. Also it implies a choice for Free Software would be
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unfairly exclusive.</p>
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<p>Indeed does Free Software not work well for those who seek to gain
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control over others with the intention of exploiting that control to
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increase their economic, social or political power. Free Software does
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forbid monopolization of control over our essential cultural technique
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for the Information Societies.</p>
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<p>Given a strong statement for Free Software, these properties would go
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a long way towards making the Information Societies equitable,
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non-discriminatory, inclusive and equally available to all.</p>
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<h3>Who controls our languages?</h3>
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<p>When communicating with others, it is important to speak the same
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languages. Those languages in the Information Societies are the
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standards we use for storage and transmission of data. Proprietary
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standards mean giving control over the languages we use to a single
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vendor, leaving those who can not work with that vendor speechless.</p>
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<p>Also, when switching software vendors or even when upgrading within
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one vendor -- often after that vendor pushed us to upgrade -- we may
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be left speechless when communicating with our past selves: when
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failing to read old files we wrote with other applications or older
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versions of the application we are using.</p>
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<p>The only way to solve these problems are Open Standards, which make
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the language of the Information Societies transparent and equally
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available to all. Therefore the importance of standardization is
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widely recognised by all participants to the WSIS,
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e.g. "Standardization is one of the essential building blocks of the
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Information Society." (40, Oct 24th 2003 Non-Paper by
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Mr. Samassekou).</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, no phrasing found in the WSIS documents so far would
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ensure Open Standards, because a standard can only be open if it is
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freely implementable and publicly documented. </p>
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<p>Therefore the PCT working group has been pushing hard to get these
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included and make sure the languages of the Information Societies will
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be available to us all.</p>
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<div align="right">
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written for WSIS compilation by the Boell Foundation, Germany
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</div>
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Last update:
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$Date$ $Author$
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