[Pal-dc] IGF Baku - Workshop 146 outcomes 'Intellectual property rights and the freedom to share'

[Julia Brungs]

Dear all,

 

IFLA's final workshop at the IGF 2012 took place on the morning of
Thursday 8th November in Baku. The IFLA Director of Policy and Advocacy
participated in a panel on intellectual property and the freedom to
share, and the session proved to be one of the most lively yet.

The panelists were diverse - two teenagers from the IGF's youth forum
started the discussion by talking about young people's views towards
file-sharing ('make material cheaper and more attractive and perhaps
people won't illegally take it') before the way that current copyright
frameworks don't favour 21st century library activities were
enthusiastically discussed by panellists and audience alike.
Representatives from the US Copyright Office, the Internet Society
(ISOC) and civil society groups concerned with balanced IP frameworks
also moved the discussion through such topics as ACTA, the TPPA and
SOPA/PIPA. The panel was notable for a contribution from the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA), often portrayed as one of the
great enemies of the public interest in the global copyright debate but
here presenting a slightly softer face by agreeing that the library
copyright situation needed clarification and that copyright term may
even have to be revisited in the near future on account of it being too
lengthy.

Workshops and discussions such as this are valuable - and indeed are the
point of the IGF. The IGF itself has no decision making powers but it
does offer the chance for stakeholders with opposed viewpoints to get
around a table and really get into the issues. Hitherto unknown points
of agreement are often the result, as we all as a deeper understanding
of why certain positions are held. While a lot of areas were covered and
consensus wasn't quite achieved, the best summary perhaps came one of
the youth panelists who simply tweeted at the end : "Copyright, as a
whole, is a mess" 

Please see here for the webversion
<http://www.ifla.org/news/igf-baku-workshop-146-outcomes-intellectual-pr
operty-rights-and-the-freedom-to-share> . 

 

Julia Brungs

Policy and Projects Officer

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

P.O. Box 95312
2509 CH The Hague
Netherlands

 

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