(From Macki by way of Politech) I just spent some time catching up on all the action over at WIPO and thought I'd share my poorly written summary with politech. Everyone should be paying attention to what's going on over there, and crying bloody murder on behalf of the developing nations and our pals at IP Justice and the EFF (who are getting shafted, surprise!).
WIPO has been meeting for this week in Geneva, under discussion is a broadcast treaty that would cover webcasters and grant new rights to publishers a la the DMCA, prohibiting circumvention of technical measures, etc. etc. Typical evil stuff. IP Justice has a statement on the situation here: http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/release20041118.shtml It seems that things have gone from bad to worse over the past three days, the chair of WIPO and persons unknown have resorted to dirty tricks in an attempt to ramrod the proposal through. The Chair has abandoned consensus building, and is now DICTATING to the member countries how they will proceed. The Chair is pushing to begin a Diplomatic Conference which would mean that drafting would begin on the official Broadcast Treaty and NGO public interest groups like the EFF and IP Justice will no longer be able to attend and monitor the process. Not only that, but the NGO's are currently UNDER ATTACK; for three days running now they have had their publications STOLEN by saboteurs and thrown into trashcans. These documents are essential for communicating their positions to the delegates and reproducing them requires a long bus trip into town. Cory Doctorow is among the EFF representatives at WIPO, he has been blogging as the situation develops at eff.org/deeplinks/ More on the stolen documents: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php Read all of today's the filthy details here: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002130.php You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
