[WSIS CS-Plenary] IPR : building consensus

[Hervé Le Crosnier]

Daniel Pimienta wrote:
> For the first time in so many years I can perceive a deep difference
> of views with Hervé, I think I shall express it :-), and still
> more because it is related, in my opinion, to one of the deepest issue
> in relation to the transformation of our societies: the questions of the
> public domain of knowledge, the time protection and scope of patents,
> the management of "droit d'auteur" (e.g. if they should survive the
> author),... many connex issues usually named by simplicity (and
> confusion making) under "IPR".
> 
> Hervé, I suspect that our difference maybe more tactical than strategical,
> but I need to know.

	Well Daniel,

	First, and I think it's true for many people whose
	english is not their first language, i don't think
	we disagree on this. What I try to explain is somethng
	else, though my words are not as fluent in english
	as they are in french...

> 
>>         - to integrate IPR in our conception of the governance
>>           of the "internet-society" (not all society...
> 
> I am extremely reluctant to make that dichotomy between "Internet-society"
> and "society". This is not only reductionist but prone to come back
> to a pure technological view of the issues wereas they are essentially 
> "societal".
> 

	Yesterday, Milton say that's not a problem for the WGIG if
	no one know about crop licensing and IPR... I try to follow
	on that way : farmers all around the world are acting
	for common goods of seeds information... And the "internet"
	is not their channel.

	So what are the specific things of the IPR paradigm that are
	in the field of the WGIG. My question is clear, and if the
	answer is also clear, I suppose we will find consensus.

	The WGIG is about internet, and not about the public good
	of knowledge. So what I fear is that decisions concerning
	internet will become decision that lowered the building
	of a public good of knowledge. But if we can specify what
	aspects of IPR are to be discussed in the scope of WGIG...


> 
> In more specific words, if Internet governance issues may related directly
> to the management of Internet resources, this does need to be considered
> within the frame of the society we aim to shape, not as a technological
> question abstracted from the societal context.
> 
>> IPR is not top on the agenda of the WGIG, because it was not top on the
>> whole WSIS (for best and worse)
> 
> For bad.
> Civil society must work to make it a top issues in spite of the
> obvious conservative force which try to prevent it. One way could be to 
> avoid
> all or nothing approaches in pro of a "negociate parameters" approximation.

	First we have to be clear about what civil society want to
	write on the agenda of WGIG concerning IPR.

	As far as my experience in that domain go, it's always the "P"
	world that dominate, not the "I" one

	But civil society is challenging this problem, for example
	through the "Geneva declaration" on WIPO, which ask this
	multilateral organism to consider itself as a represnetative
	of the whole world society, and not only of the "proprietary"
	way.

	Immaterial ownership is an oxymoron. It's only a contract
	between society and creators or inventors which are built
	to expand the ability of the whole society to create and
	innove. But now, all around us, force of the "P" world want
	to change that equilibrium, to give all power to "ownership".

	I fear that IPR without qualification, without telling
	what specific IPR problems, and on what direction (with
	what guidelines and key positions...) is only a way to expand
	"properties" at stake of the world capacity to transmit
	knowledge, culture and emotion.

	And I agree Daniel, the internet is the model for this
	kind of expansion, i praise. So I don't want it to
	become a tool for limiting knowledge transfert. And
	moreover, knowledge transfert from richs countries,
	with IPR laws formatted for their interests, to poorer
	countries that have only to accept IPR laws as they
	come. That's the real problem of the TRIPS (IPR treaty
	under the WTO).

	So I try to see if we, as civil society constituants,
	can build a consensus by ensuring each other of what
	do we really talk about when we say "IPR". And more
	closely in that debate (which is different of the
	problem of IPR for education, as only one example) :
	what specific IPR problem fall under the scope of
	WGIG, and what can be the Civil society position on
	theses.

Hervé Le Crosnier