Wipe Out WIPO!
The World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) is a little brother to the Big
Brother that is the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
From their website: "The World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) believes that IP [intellectual
property] is native to all peoples, relevant in all times and cultures,
and
that it has historically contributed to the progress of societies."
Many cultures in the world have a
strong tradition of sharing knowledge and information, treating them as
a common good rather than private property. In fact according to the
hystory on the very same page:
"A Venetian Law of 1474 made the
first systematic attempt to protect inventions
by a form of patent, which granted an exclusive right to an individual
for
the first time. In the same century, the invention of movable type and
the
printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450 contributed to the
birth of the first copyright system in the world."
So the assertion in the first
quote that IP always has been and always will be is blatantly
inaccurrate using any definition of intellectual property that would be
accepted by the corporate world.
"The premise underlying IP
throughout its history has been that the recognition and rewards
associated with ownership of inventions and creative works stimulate
further inventive and creative activity that, in turn, stimulates
economic growth."
So in essence the argument is
that human knowledge should be sliced up
into lots and auctioned off to private (and in a globalized, modern
world
that means corporate) interests to profit from it as they see fit,
reguardless of the effect on human or environmental welfare. In
practice this results in cowardly legal bullying by multinational
corporations against individuals, community groups and even
governments. PCs for Kids, a small charity outfit in Australia were
harrassed by Microsoft for giving away FREE reconditioned PCs to poor
families and including old versions of Windows (including 3.1 for
goodness sake!).
African governments who are willing to provide funding for the local
production of affordable anti-AIDS drugs for their people are prevented
by the fact that US and European multinationals 'own' the
particular chemical compounds that form the active ingredients of the
drugs. The RIAA is currently pushing law changes through the US
Congress that would make sharing copyright music on non-profit
peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Kazaa and Gnutella a crime
punishable by a $250,000 fine or 5 years in
jail (must do some websearching and link all this next time I update).
Are these examples of
intellectual property stimulating "further inventive and creative
activity"? Nope. They are stimulating profits for lawyers and the
further privatization and corporatization of human knowledge. Private
companies sometimes receive public funding or enter into 'public/
private partnerships', so while the taxpayer foots the bill, the
company gets to keep,
control and profit from the intellectual property.
Anyway, while I could rabbit on
about this for pages, you're probably best to look to people like Noam Chomsky who can tell you in great details
about the corporatization of so many things which were once public
assets and Vandana Shiva who is one of the foremost opponents
of the new IP regime, TRIPS.
For more information on the
philisophical issues surrounding the origin of
copyright, patent and trademark principles and how the new push for
recognition
of 'intellectual property' is perverting them, check out:
EU: Foundation for a Free
Information Infrastructure (FFII)
US: Electronic Frontiers
Foundation (EFF)
the
Free Software Foundation (FSF)
has a list of organisations that campaign for the rights and freedoms
of
computer users
One important issue that relates
to intellectual property is genetic engineering
(GE), especially the idea that combining genes from two or more species
(transgenics) are a new invention which can be patented. Some of
them contain genetic information from humans. As you read this transgenic plants
and animals are being released - whether
intentionally or not - into the environment, spreading from 'contained
field
trials' and commercial crops into wilderness areas and onto other farms. A canadian farmer was sued for
'intellectual
property theft' after transgenic seeds of Round-Up Ready Soy -'owned'
by Monsanto Corporation - from passing trucks blew onto his organic
farm, ruining his livelihood.
The patenting of genetic information, like
the patenting of software processes, is a perversion of the patent
system,
which originally granted a strictly limited monopoly on the commercial
application
of an invention to give its inventor time to recoup the costs of
research
and development before having to compete in a open market. Worse,
patents
on life open a Pandora's box of ethical issues. As one commentator
observed,
owning life used to be called slavery.
I also recommend Brian Martin's
book "Information Liberation" which discusses the arguments
against the concept of intellectual property, including an interesting history of how copyrignt, patent and
trademark protection evolved.
Another event that's bound to be
of interest to anyone following the debate on IP issues is the World Summit
on the Information Society. The first meeting is happening in Geneva
(home
of the WTO and WIPO) in December this year, with the follow-up being
held
in Tunisia in 2005.
Screw you guys I'm going home...
Page Design: Danyl
Strype
strypey_at_(NO SPAM)indymedia.org
Created:
Last Updated: Monday 11 October
2004