-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [A2k] OECD Principles on Internet Policy Making approved by businesses but not by "civil society" Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:46:10 -0400 From: Manon Ress <manon.ress@keionline.org> To: a2k discuss list <a2k@lists.keionline.org> The OECD, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC),and The Internet Technical Advisory Committee to the OECD, (ITAC) as well as Egypt endorsed the Communique "Principles on Internet Policy Making" which can be found here: Final& (and finally) public version (6 pages) can be found here: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/21/48289796.pdf The words "Intellectual Property" appear 7 times, "Enforcement" 4 times, "liability" twice. But "Fair Use, Public Domain, limitations and exceptions, free software" never. Here is a sample of the tone: QUOTE The policy-making principles in this communiqué are designed to help preserve the fundamental openness of the Internet while concomitantly meeting certain public policy objectives, such as the protection of privacy, security, children online, and intellectual property, as well as the reinforcement of trust in the Internet. Effective protection of intellectual property rights plays a vital role in spurring innovation and furthers the development of the Internet economy. END OF QUOTE The Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council (CSISAC) comprising more than 80 NGOs declined to support the "Principles on Internet Policy-Making" http://csisac.org/ KEI Statement here: http://keionline.org/node/1177 On June 29, while the OECD civil society group CSISAC (80+ NGOs) debated the text of a high level statement on the Principles of Internet Policy Making, I sent this missive to the group discussing the text, expressing KEI's opposition to the draft statement. Thank you for your hard work on this. While there are some noted improvements, I still find this document as a whole quite disturbing. The Internet has actually demonstrated how much creativity is fostered without intellectual property, in fact despite IPR. Intellectual property is not a "driving" tool of the Internet. The Internet was NOT created by patents or copyright or trademark. Why would intellectual property be such a central theme for such a document? We concede that the Internet must not be a lawless "place" but this document where words such as "fair use, limitation and exception for users (it is "fixed" for the ISPs?), open source, free software, public domain, etc never appear, is wrong in tone and in its focus. Finally, the last paragraph is about protecting fundamental rights but they do not seem to include our rights. Only the rights of copyright owners are actually expressed all over the text. The need for balance between right owners and creative communities& consumers is not. Our organization feels very uncomfortable with the document and is not endorsing it. I am not sure about our exact status as member of CSISAC but I am sure KEI cannot agree with these "principles for Internet policy-making. " Manon PS we also believe that discussions about "free flow of information" should be done in a much more transparent way. The text should have been made public in order to get input from the Internet community as a whole. It is also of course quite difficult to "discuss" a text without being able to post it. -- Manon Anne Ress Knowledge Ecology International 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA http://www.keionline.org manon.ress@keionline.org _______________________________________________ A2k mailing list A2k@lists.keionline.org http://lists.keionline.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k_lists.keionline.org