[WSIS CS-Plenary] IPR : Strategic priorities for WGIG

[Milton Mueller]

>>> herve at info.unicaen.fr 1/27/2005 5:18:59 PM >>>
>IPR is really another domain, which concern many other things
>as medicines, indigenous knowledge, cultural domination through
>economy, spreading of scientific knowledge, the nature of
>software industry, equal repartition between North and South
>of the benefit of globalisation of trade, farmers and GM crops,
>the future of biotech industries, the libraries, ... and so, and
>so...

Yes, the term "IPR" encompasses many issues that are not connected to
Internet governance. But _some_ IPR issues, particularly those dealing
with copyright and trademark, and perhaps software patents, are central
to Internet governance. The creation of ICANN was prompted largely by
the desire to protect trademarks in the domain name space. The WIPO
Internet treaties (which is what WIPO calls them, not me) are about
copyright protection on the....Internet. etc., etc.

It seems you have made a very basic logical error. You say: Because not
all IPR issues fall within the domain of Internet governance, therefore
an Internet governance WG should not touch IPR at all. It is a logicall
fallacy. 

In advocating that WGIG deal with IPR, I am not suggesting a review and
reform of _ALL_ global IPR regimes on the planet; I am saying that those
aspects of IPR that affect Internet governance must be dealt with. The
sets intersect, and we should deal with the intersection. Not the
union.

>Who in the WGIG is conceiving the problem of crop licensing
>for poor farmers in the South ?

Out of scope, obviously, has nothing to do with Internet governance.
Until and unless crop seeds are transmitted via TCP/IP. ;-)

--MM

Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org