From A2K Wiki

Contents 1 Panel description 2 Speaker presentation slides 3 Notes on panel 3.1 David Tannenbaum 3.2 Peter Yu, Moderator 3.3 Pam Samuelson 3.4 Jamie Love 3.5 Rinalia Abdul Rahim 3.6 Ronaldo Lemos 3.7 Anriette Esterhuysen 3.8 William Drake 3.9 Q&A 4 Papers and resources

Panel description

Speakers: William Drake, Jamie Love, Rinalia Abdul Rahim, Pam Samuelson, Ronaldo Lemos, Anriette Esterhuysen
Moderator: Peter Yu
Student organizer: David Tannenbaum

As the world economy increasingly centers on "memes, genes, and bits," new technologies permit new production models that threaten entrenched interests. As a consequence, we face a looming political battle that could reshape the information society. There are three main barriers to democratic participation in setting the rules of the information economy that bias the playing field in favor of entrenched interests and old models. The first is that the harms of bad A2K policy often take a long time to manifest themselves, making it difficult to instill a sense of urgency in the body politic and among policy elites. The current experience of "information overload" obscures increasing regulation of the use of knowledge. The second is that information policy issues tend to be highly technical and esoteric to the uninitiated, and difficult even for the initiated to analyze effectively. The third is that the promises of a world where knowledge is free as the air we breathe seems ephemeral in the face of the concrete harms claimed by those who would fence off the information commons.

There are countervailing forces. The steady internationalization of lawmaking has presented new opportunities for actors all along the political spectrum. The increasing marketshare of technologies that rely on access to knowledge, and the existence proofs of commons based models of production are creating larger constituencies. Finally, the network itself is making it easier to share information about what works and to overcome collective action problems. What will be the role of NGOs, corporations, and governments in this political battle? How will North and South reconcile their differences and recognize their overlapping interests? Will there be an environmentalism of the knowledge economy?

Speaker presentation slides

Pam Samuelson (PDF) (PPT)

Jamie Love (PDF) (PPT)

Ronaldo Lemos (PDF) (PPT)

Rinalia Abdul Rahim (PDF) (PPT)

William Drake (PDF) (PPT)

Notes on panel

David Tannenbaum

• How did we get to where we are?
• Going forward, what kind of politics do we want to engage in? Domestic, international, etc.?
• What are possible coalitions going forward? How do we build power in new and innovative ways?

Peter Yu, Moderator

Pam Samuelson

For additional notes see Susan Crawford's Optimism: Pam Samuelson at A2K.

• Maximalist IP agenda has predominated a2k conversation over past few decades
• Classic ‘public choice’ problem
  • Small group of well-org and well-financed industry groups
• MPAA, RIAA, AAP, etc.
  • Diffuse costs distributed widely among the public, collective action problem in organizing people to recognize these costs
  • Results in ‘best laws money can buy’
• 1990’s spent in an intensively defensive struggle vs. IP max agendas
  • Writing, speaking, lobbying on:
    • Clinton admin. White paper
    • EU-style database protection
    • Why states should not adopt proposed Art. 2B of the UCC (now UCITA)
    • Why WIPO treaties did not require what became the DMCA anti-circumvention rules
• Defensive victories
  • US did not adopt database protection
  • More states adopted anti-UCITA ‘bomb shelter’ statutes
  • DMCA anti-circ rules could have been worse
  • Other White paper agenda items were not adopted in WIPO treaty
• No int norm on temp copies, nor strict liability for ISPs
• New exceptions for digital envs ok, ISP safe harbors
• Dodged one boomerang
  • Most pernicious part of Clinton IP agenda was intent to use int forums (WIPO) to advance its otherwise shaky domestic proposals
• CEOs of major telecos sent letter to Clinton warning him of opposition to these treaties
• Senator Hatch sent letter to Lehman saying “don’t tie our hands in Geneva”
• But perhaps not another
  • Legacy of Clinton admin carried on by Bush is USTR has been captured by IP maximilists
  • Series of bilateral FTAs have undercut national freedoms to implement IP rules under flexibility that TRIPs and WIPO treaties allow
• Ex: anti-circ
  • After so many FTAs, will IP industries insist that US DMCA rules must be strengthened b/c of international higher protection norms?
• IP max A2K agenda
  • Interprets WCT has giving new exclusive right in © owners to control access to ©’d works
• Temp copies in RAM are reproductions
• Communication right also gives us exclusive access right
• Anti-circ. Allow us to use tech access controls which cannot be bypassed
  • Pay-per-use tech-locked info env. Hasn’t happened yet, but may yet come about
  • Net-neutrality debate may bring about 2-tiered internet
• Signs of hope
  • Canada has been resisting US-style DMCA anti-circ rules, other high protectionist proposals
• Benefits of A2K
  • Best defense is good offense?
  • Provides framework for positive agenda for promoting progressive info policy
• Not just criticizing IP max proposals
• New politics of IP
• How to move forward?
  • Role for research
  • Role for ‘popularizing’ insights from research
• As Mokyr pointed out, this isn’t valued in academic circles, but who better to do it?
  • Role for bridging across disciplinary communities
• Hard to do well
  • Coalition building by activist orgs
  • Promoting a2k policy initiatives
• A2K research agenda
  • Why WIPO treaties are consistent w/ our A2K agenda and not IP max agenda?
  • Which kinds of knowledge need what kinds of access?
  • What mechanisms are available to promote greater a2k
  • How can access costs be recouped?
  • When should info be ‘free’ as in speech and when ‘free’ as in beer? Pub domain or CC-licensed?
  • What factors besides IPR policy allows creative economies to flourish?
  • What lessons can we learn from failed peer production of info efforts as well as from successes?

Jamie Love

• Some describe a2k as a movement
• Together we are a collection of persons w/ a plethora of interests and agendas, a2k is defined quite different inside and outside this room
  • This is good for many reasons
• I think of a2k as a movement in an unfolding war over control of info
  • Taking place in academia, at UN, in Congress
• A few generalizations
  • Highly ideological
  • Effort to present future as fait acomplis
  • Heroes in this war – many in this war
  • There are also war criminals
  • Being fought in North and South
  • War over imagination
• We are trying to imagine a world where everyone has equivalent of access to Yale in every respect that is feasible
• Right to same medical care
• And opportunities for devp’t
  • This is a war worth fighting over
• Power point presentation

Rinalia Abdul Rahim

• A2K: the Global Knowledge Partnership Approach
• GKP est in 1977, network of organizations, multi-stakeholders, gov’ts, ngos, media, academia, etc.
• Diversity allows for N-S and S-S collaborations
• Vision: world of equal opportunities for all people to have access to and use knowledge and info to improve their lives
• Mission: as an evolving network of commercial, public and civil society orgs , GKP shares knowledge and builds partnerships to realize the transformative potential…
• PPP…

Ronaldo Lemos

• Will talk about 2 things:
  • Crisis in the ‘culture of the industry’
  • And talk about ‘something new’
• Many people aren’t familiar w/ whats going on in devp’ing world these days
  • Take for instance the music industry
  • Largest recording label in Brazil is Sony-BMG, number of Br artists hired by Sony after merger is 52 artists
  • Pres of Sony told press that 40% of these artists will be ‘laid off’
• That leaves 13 cd-releases this year
• Even w/ the other 3 major labels we won’t have more than 40 cds released by multinational labels
• Or publishing
  • 2004, 4975 books published (~50% new releases)
  • 1800 bookstores for 186,000,000
  • Br gov’t is largest purchaser of books (esp. textbooks)
• Or press
  • 2000, Folha de SP had 440,000 circulation down to 307,000 in 2005
  • Power of print press is vanishing
• Or movies
  • Hollywood has 85% of world and Brazilian markets
  • 2004 352 produced in Brazil and 51 screened out of 110 million
  • Now 1800 movie screens in Br, down from over 5,000 in the 50s
• Something new
  • web 2.0 has reached Brazil, such as the website Overmundo
• Very exciting
  • But what I’m talking about is the fact that ‘global peripheries’ are using technologies to produce their own cultural products and become completely independent from ‘cultural industries’
  • Three examples:
• Tecno-brega in Para – 400 CDs being put out every year, although you won’t find them in the stores, they are produced and distributed exclusively through street venders
• Skipping the intermediaries
• CDs cost ~$2 (compared to $15)
• Baile funk in Rio d Janeiro
• Became symbolic world-wide
• Also won’t be found in stores
• M.I.A. (famous British artist) plays baile funk
  • Movies
• US produced 611; Brazil produced 51; India produced 911, Nigeria produced 1200 – 30 new titles per week
• 0 movie theaters in Nigeria until recently; now there is one.
• Cost $3 or rented for $0.50, generated $200M/year which makes Nigeria the 3rd largest in the world
• Nigeria doesn’t even have a copyright law
• 1969 Henri Langlois wrote a piece saying the periphery would take over ‘cinema’
  • OpenBusiness – platform to share and develop innovative Open Business ideas – looking precisely for ? these sorts of ideas
• One year project (Br, Mexico, South Africa, Colombia and Nigeria)
  • Increasing interest in 3rd world cities as a source of ideas for new forms of ‘business culture’
  • Invitation to the ‘iCommons Summit’ in Rio from June 22-24

Anriette Esterhuysen

• Huge potential for this movement to become a defining social movement for this era
  • Many examples: FLOSS, A2Med, etc.
• But also many wedges:
  • One ex: is how we see the role of the state
• There is a shift away from state-ism and we need to explore this
  • False juxtiposition b/t market and state
  • Role of access to infrastructure
• Way in which A2K in the North doesn’t recognize the absence of infrastructure in the South, which results in very different stories/languages
  • ICT4D – are we talking about development as growth? As justices? Creating consumers? Or creating citizens?
  • Mobile business and internet
  • Privatization – not being interrogated sufficiently
• A lot of fundamentalisms that we need to challenge
  • Many devp’ing countries are suspicious of civil society (esp. international civ society)
  • Even human rights is a divider – freedom of information and freedom from censorship are discourses that many people in the South don’t really engage with (unless they live in very repressive envs)
  • Language is another divider – not just diversity of languages but also jargon, terminology
  • Gender is a big divider – female librarians and male lawyers
  • Other dimensions of power
• Power relations w/in the movement
• Specialization and narrow-ness of the movement is problematic
• Very few HRs advocates at WSIS for example
• Need for integration
• Unifiers:
  • Social justice – this has to be at the core (not development)
• Has to frame everything we do
• Move from devp’t as growth to devp’t as justice
• Move away from ‘rights as standards’ and put empowerment back into the rights discourse – consumer rights, etc.
  • Sustainability
  • Public policy – need to look at how we define public policy
• Reduction to unrealistic targets (MDGs)
• Simple concepts of justice have been lost
• Need to put public interest back into public policy
  • Decentralization – need to embrace diversity and resist the trend to centralize
• Don’t wait for the perfect regulatory and legal environment to act
  • A2K is broader than just IPR and proprietary vs. non-proprietary
  • We need to look at alliances – even unholy alliances
  • What is the role of subversiveness
• Piracy as the driver for some open-business models
  • Identify blocks of power and evil and challenge them

William Drake

• Transparency in Internet Governance as an A2K Issue:
  • PPP…

Q&A

• What do NGOs want from Academics and vice-versa?
  • Jaime Love – academics should pay more attention to work being done informally on blogs, websites, list-serves etc.
• Important to recognize b/c its where a lot of good technical stuff is and b/c it signals to gov’t who is worth listening to
• Also, more research on alternative payment schemes; how do we create private markets for public goods
  • Anriette – some serious research into telecom reform, looking at open access models of ownership and different business models
• Also important to look at what’s happening on the periphery
  • William – dialog, dialog, dialog

Papers and resources