Vera Franz posted:
[from http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/187234 ]
RMS covers WSIS
2003.12.16
The World Summit on the Information Society is supposed to formulate
plans to end the "digital divide" and make the internet accessible to
everyone on Earth. The negotiations were completed in November, so
the big official meeting in Geneva last week was more of a trade show
and conference than a real summit meeting.
The summit procedures were designed so that non-governmental
organizations (mainly those that promote human rights and equality,
and work to reduce poverty) could attend, see the discussions, and
comment. However, the actual declaration paid little attention to
the comments and recommendations that these organizations made. In
effect, civil society was offered the chance to speak to a dead mike.
The summit's declaration includes little that is bold or new. When
it comes to the question of what people will be free to do with the
Internet, it responds to demands made by various governments to
impose restrictions on citizens of cyberspace.
Part of the digital divide comes from artificial obstacles to the
sharing of information. This includes the licenses of non-free
software, and harmfully restrictive copyright laws. The Brazilian
declaration sought measures to promote free software, but the US
delegation was firmly against it (remember that the Bush campaign got
money from Microsoft). The outcome was a sort of draw, with the
final declaration presenting free software, open source, and
proprietary software as equally legitimate. The US also insisted on
praising so-called "intellectual property rights." (That biased term
promotes simplistic over-generalization; for the sake of clear
thinking about the issues of copyright law, and about the very
different issues of patent law, that term should always be avoided.)
The declaration calls on governments to ensure unhindered access to
the public domain, but says nothing about whether any additional
works should ever enter the public domain.
Human rights were given lip service, but the proposal for a "right to
communicate" (not merely to access information) using the Internet
was shot down by many of the countries. The summit has been
criticized for situating its 2005 meeting in Tunisia, which is a
prime example of what the information society must not do. People
have been imprisoned in Tunisia for using the Internet to criticize
the government.
Suppression of criticism has been evident here at the summit too. A
counter-summit, actually a series of talks and discussions, was
planned for last Tuesday, but it was shut down by the Geneva police,
who clearly were searching for an excuse to do so. First they
claimed that the landlord did not approve use of the space, but the
tenant who has a long-term lease for the space then arrived and said
he had authorized the event. So the police cited a fire code
violation which I'm told is applicable to most buildings in Geneva --
in effect, an all-purpose excuse to shut down anything. Press
coverage of this maneuver eventually forced the city to allow the
counter-summit to proceed on Wednesday in a different location.
In a more minor act of suppression, the moderator of the official
round table in which I spoke told me "your time is up" well before
the three minutes each participant was supposed to have. She later
did the same thing to the EPIC representative. I later learned that
she works for the International Chamber of Commerce -- no wonder she
silenced us. And how telling that the summit would put a
representative of the ICC at the throttle when we spoke.
Suppression was also visible in the exclusion of certain NGOs from
the summit because their focus on human rights might embarrass the
governments that trample them. For instance, the summit refused to
accredit Human Rights In China, a group that criticizes the Chinese
government for (among other things) censorship of the internet.
Reporters Without Borders was also excluded from the summit. To
raise awareness of their exclusion, and of the censorship of the
Internet in various countries, they set up an unauthorized radio
station in nearby France and handed out mini-radios so that summit
attendees could hear what the organization had been blocked from
saying at the summit itself.
The summit may have a few useful side effects. For instance, several
people came together to plan an organization to help organizations in
Africa switch to GNU/Linux. But the summit did nothing to support
this activity beyond providing an occasion for us to meet. Nor, I
believe, was it intended to support any such thing. The overall
attitude of the summit can be seen in its having invited Microsoft to
speak alongside, and before, most of the various participating
governments -- as if to accord that criminal corporation the standing
of a state.
Links
1. " promotes simplistic over-generalization" -
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-
avoid.html#IntellectualProperty
2. "imprisoned in Tunisia for using the Internet to criticize the
government" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2777389.stm
3. "refused to accredit Human Rights In China" -
http://iso.hrichina.org/iso/news_item.adp?news_id=1527
4. "Reporters Without Borders was also excluded" -
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8774
Copyright 2003 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are
permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is
preserved.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
A Taste of Our Own Poison
A modest proposal: Hold Hollywood hostage till we kill farm subsidies.
By Lawrence Lessig
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=5
When America was poor, its citizens "stole." We took the intellectual property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We didn't call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.
Things have changed. Now that we're the world's leading exporter of intellectual property, we're also the most self-righteous about the importance of protecting it globally. Indeed, we can be vicious in our self-righteousness - threatening trade wars with developing nations for the crime of being just like us. Recently, through a series of trade agreements, we have demanded stricter protection for intellectual property internationally than US law would allow domestically. (Fair use, for example, is mandated by our constitution but invisible in these agreements.)
This push to protect intellectual property is defended as just one aspect of free trade - the aspect that benefits Hollywood. Since Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations, we've understood that borders are best when opened and when property from one country is respected in another. Free trade so enabled is the promised elixir for the woes of developing nations. Open your borders, protect property rights, and prosperity, the Smithies say, will quickly follow.
The dirty little secret, however, is that we don't respect the free trade rules that we impose on others. While the US sings the virtues of free trade to defend maximalist intellectual property regulation, we poison the free trade that developing nations care about most - agriculture - by subsidizing farming in the industrialized world to the tune of $300 billion annually. Rhetoric about family farmers aside, most of that money passes quickly to agribusiness. This is not Adam Smith; it is corporate welfare par excellence.
There's little developing nations can do about this - individually. But increasingly they are acting together. One group recently walked out of trade talks because agribusiness subsidies were not on the table. Others are openly discussing ways to get US attention.
What developing nations need is better lobbyists. In particular, advocates as persuasive as Hollywood's lobbyists, who've managed to defend the entertainment industry's intellectual property rights extremely well. Here's one way to get power (or the Man) on their side.
A block of powerful developing nations should first take a page from the US Copyright Act of 1790 and enact national laws that explicitly protect their own rights only. It would not protect foreigners. Second, these nations should add a provision that would relax this exemption to the extent that developed nations really opened their borders. If we reduce, for example, the subsidy to agribusiness by 10 percent, then they would permit 10 percent of our copyrights to be enforced (say, copyrights from the period 1923 to 1931). Reduce the subsidy by another 10 percent, then another 10 percent could be enforced. And so on.
The mechanism is clumsy, but the message is clear: Both the subsidy of agribusiness and the subsidy of local culture and science violate the principles of free trade by ignoring American intellectual property laws. Both violations are bad. But the two bads should be resolved together. Indeed, if anything, American subsidies should be ended first. The actual loss to US firms from piracy worldwide is not terribly high - if "actual loss" means the amount Americans would get if the piracy ended. (Would Microsoft be better off if China ended its piracy of Windows and instead used GNU/Linux - the only OS they could then afford?) But when crops grown by farmers in Peru rot in the field because the US House of Representatives cares more about agribusinesses than about Adam Smith, then there is real harm. The resentment and anger at this American hypocrisy festers as poisonously as moldering crops in the hot sun.
Of course, this solution won't work unless enough developing nations join together. But if they do, their message will have meaning. A principle is a principle. And a content industry keen to defend its "property" on the basis of that principle would then have an interest in defending principle more generally.
The world is already skeptical enough about Adam Smith's magic. Throwing hypocrisy into the bargain can't help.
--------------------
Lester Thurow - Patents' Raging Bull
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=3
In Fortune Favors the Bold, MIT professor Lester Thurow - known for his "new rules for the knowledge-based economy" - says a global economy is emerging and the time to shape it is now. His formula for building lasting prosperity? A universal patent system that encourages companies to apply for more patents and prod governments into enforcement, among other things. Sounds like either a great idea or a bureaucratic nightmare of ever bigger corporations and ever bigger government.
WIRED: You want the government to buy corporate patents to encourage innovation?
THUROW: You need incentives where there's a big up-front investment. Look at the pharmas. They're putting all their efforts into developing Viagra and fat pills. No one wants to develop a cure for malaria. So let the government come in, buy the intellectual property rights for a malaria pill, and give it away.
Are more patents a good thing?
If we're really going to be the knowledge economy, you can't make it work unless you know who owns what knowledge. Take music. If they can't find some way to lock up music, music is going to end. Eventually, there will be no professional musicians, because there's no way to make money, and we're left with a world full of amateurs.
So every decent idea should have an official piece of paper behind it?
Obviously, there's a limit. I'm dubious about business patents. Dell has something like 36 patents on the supply chain. And what we did for Disney was reprehensible: They get Mickey Mouse for 75 years, and then they have the political clout to get it extended. There must be a point where copyright runs out and stuff drops into the public domain. Descendants of Shakespeare shouldn't be able to claim royalties - and they can't.
What's the enforcement component?
There are two ways to violate a patent. One is China, which doesn't have a system. The other is Israel, which has a system but doesn't enforce it. We have to figure out the dollar value and keep track of all the violations in Israel. Then we say to US companies, we'll give you carte blanche to copy that amount from Israeli companies.
Sounds like an awful lot of government.
In a globalized world, governments become more important than they used to be. You have to think of them not as air traffic controllers but as airport builders.
- Jeffrey M. O'Brien
A modest proposal: Hold Hollywood hostage till we kill farm subsidies.
By Lawrence Lessig
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=5
When America was poor, its citizens "stole." We took the intellectual property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We didn't call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.
Things have changed. Now that we're the world's leading exporter of intellectual property, we're also the most self-righteous about the importance of protecting it globally. Indeed, we can be vicious in our self-righteousness - threatening trade wars with developing nations for the crime of being just like us. Recently, through a series of trade agreements, we have demanded stricter protection for intellectual property internationally than US law would allow domestically. (Fair use, for example, is mandated by our constitution but invisible in these agreements.)
This push to protect intellectual property is defended as just one aspect of free trade - the aspect that benefits Hollywood. Since Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations, we've understood that borders are best when opened and when property from one country is respected in another. Free trade so enabled is the promised elixir for the woes of developing nations. Open your borders, protect property rights, and prosperity, the Smithies say, will quickly follow.
The dirty little secret, however, is that we don't respect the free trade rules that we impose on others. While the US sings the virtues of free trade to defend maximalist intellectual property regulation, we poison the free trade that developing nations care about most - agriculture - by subsidizing farming in the industrialized world to the tune of $300 billion annually. Rhetoric about family farmers aside, most of that money passes quickly to agribusiness. This is not Adam Smith; it is corporate welfare par excellence.
There's little developing nations can do about this - individually. But increasingly they are acting together. One group recently walked out of trade talks because agribusiness subsidies were not on the table. Others are openly discussing ways to get US attention.
What developing nations need is better lobbyists. In particular, advocates as persuasive as Hollywood's lobbyists, who've managed to defend the entertainment industry's intellectual property rights extremely well. Here's one way to get power (or the Man) on their side.
A block of powerful developing nations should first take a page from the US Copyright Act of 1790 and enact national laws that explicitly protect their own rights only. It would not protect foreigners. Second, these nations should add a provision that would relax this exemption to the extent that developed nations really opened their borders. If we reduce, for example, the subsidy to agribusiness by 10 percent, then they would permit 10 percent of our copyrights to be enforced (say, copyrights from the period 1923 to 1931). Reduce the subsidy by another 10 percent, then another 10 percent could be enforced. And so on.
The mechanism is clumsy, but the message is clear: Both the subsidy of agribusiness and the subsidy of local culture and science violate the principles of free trade by ignoring American intellectual property laws. Both violations are bad. But the two bads should be resolved together. Indeed, if anything, American subsidies should be ended first. The actual loss to US firms from piracy worldwide is not terribly high - if "actual loss" means the amount Americans would get if the piracy ended. (Would Microsoft be better off if China ended its piracy of Windows and instead used GNU/Linux - the only OS they could then afford?) But when crops grown by farmers in Peru rot in the field because the US House of Representatives cares more about agribusinesses than about Adam Smith, then there is real harm. The resentment and anger at this American hypocrisy festers as poisonously as moldering crops in the hot sun.
Of course, this solution won't work unless enough developing nations join together. But if they do, their message will have meaning. A principle is a principle. And a content industry keen to defend its "property" on the basis of that principle would then have an interest in defending principle more generally.
The world is already skeptical enough about Adam Smith's magic. Throwing hypocrisy into the bargain can't help.
--------------------
Lester Thurow - Patents' Raging Bull
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=3
In Fortune Favors the Bold, MIT professor Lester Thurow - known for his "new rules for the knowledge-based economy" - says a global economy is emerging and the time to shape it is now. His formula for building lasting prosperity? A universal patent system that encourages companies to apply for more patents and prod governments into enforcement, among other things. Sounds like either a great idea or a bureaucratic nightmare of ever bigger corporations and ever bigger government.
WIRED: You want the government to buy corporate patents to encourage innovation?
THUROW: You need incentives where there's a big up-front investment. Look at the pharmas. They're putting all their efforts into developing Viagra and fat pills. No one wants to develop a cure for malaria. So let the government come in, buy the intellectual property rights for a malaria pill, and give it away.
Are more patents a good thing?
If we're really going to be the knowledge economy, you can't make it work unless you know who owns what knowledge. Take music. If they can't find some way to lock up music, music is going to end. Eventually, there will be no professional musicians, because there's no way to make money, and we're left with a world full of amateurs.
So every decent idea should have an official piece of paper behind it?
Obviously, there's a limit. I'm dubious about business patents. Dell has something like 36 patents on the supply chain. And what we did for Disney was reprehensible: They get Mickey Mouse for 75 years, and then they have the political clout to get it extended. There must be a point where copyright runs out and stuff drops into the public domain. Descendants of Shakespeare shouldn't be able to claim royalties - and they can't.
What's the enforcement component?
There are two ways to violate a patent. One is China, which doesn't have a system. The other is Israel, which has a system but doesn't enforce it. We have to figure out the dollar value and keep track of all the violations in Israel. Then we say to US companies, we'll give you carte blanche to copy that amount from Israeli companies.
Sounds like an awful lot of government.
In a globalized world, governments become more important than they used to be. You have to think of them not as air traffic controllers but as airport builders.
- Jeffrey M. O'Brien
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Internet Law 2004
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to offer the
Internet Law Program at Harvard Law School on May 13-15, 2004. This
dynamic, innovative three-day seminar will bring together the leading
experts in the field with participants from all over the world to
explore today's most pressing Internet issues.
The outstanding team of educators includes Larry Lessig of Stanford,
Yochai Benkler of Yale, and William Fisher, Charles Nesson and
Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard. On the agenda: recent reforms in
intellectual-property systems, privacy versus security on the Net, the
changing shape and role of ICANN, "open" versus "proprietary" software
systems, regulating pornography, jurisdictional problems, cybercrime,
addressing the digital divide, and more.
The program is intended for a broad audience, and no previous
experience with Internet law is necessary. Past participants have
included entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, technology
professionals, and journalists who write about technology. American
lawyers in some states may be eligible for Continuing Legal Education
(CLE) credit.
Register online beginning January 12 at <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ilaw>.
Questions? Please contact Robyn Mintz at rmintz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to offer the
Internet Law Program at Harvard Law School on May 13-15, 2004. This
dynamic, innovative three-day seminar will bring together the leading
experts in the field with participants from all over the world to
explore today's most pressing Internet issues.
The outstanding team of educators includes Larry Lessig of Stanford,
Yochai Benkler of Yale, and William Fisher, Charles Nesson and
Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard. On the agenda: recent reforms in
intellectual-property systems, privacy versus security on the Net, the
changing shape and role of ICANN, "open" versus "proprietary" software
systems, regulating pornography, jurisdictional problems, cybercrime,
addressing the digital divide, and more.
The program is intended for a broad audience, and no previous
experience with Internet law is necessary. Past participants have
included entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, technology
professionals, and journalists who write about technology. American
lawyers in some states may be eligible for Continuing Legal Education
(CLE) credit.
Register online beginning January 12 at <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ilaw>.
Questions? Please contact Robyn Mintz at rmintz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
An excerpt from interview with Yochai Benkler...
A Reference to the interview with Yochai Benkler that I made during "i-law 2003"!
Mr. Yurtsan Atakan, the leading ICT columnist of Hurriyet Daily, quoted the interview that I made with Prof. Yochai Benkler during the "i-law 2003" course in Stanford for the "Open Radio" ("Aç?k Radyo" in Turkish). He underlined that the well-known "Indian miracle" on creating software is a "fairy-tale" and referred to what Benkler told on creativity and innovation by the transition countries!
For the Turkish translation of my interview click on here...
And... I am enclosing the original decoding of the said interview below:
A.TANSUG- Dear Professor Benkler, what would you tell us for the rest of the world in terms of their positioning in the information society?
J.BENKLER- I think we’ve been seeing too much focus in the US, in Europe, on securing high-speed Internet connections and the information economy based on purely market behavior, based on strong property rights. This has been true for a radio frequency spectrum policy, this has been true for broadband wire policy, and this has been true for intellectual property policy and we see in this regard both the US and Europe moving in the same direction...
The problem and the problems are divers for each of these particular layers of the communication system; the problem with exclusively lies on the property based approaches is that they are leading us towards missing the opportunity of an open, decentralized Internet and straightening into re-concentrate or to shift the Internet to a broadcast model where you still have one primary or one small set of primary owners of the means of communication, of the contents of communication, who then can control the flow of information and society.
I think for any country now and I say this one I speak in the US, and I say this one I speak in Europe and I say this one I speak to people or interested in development in all sorts of places in the world, beat as a matter of policies of freedom, beat as a matter of policies of development and there is a series of strategies that are committed to open communication systems that can be implemented. At the physical layer this means using a variety of strategies of unlicensed wireless communications, things we now see primarily in the wire Fay market in communications devices and don’t have the government licenses to operate but are in fact permitted to operate wherever within a range of frequencies but permitted to offer whatever but these enable is the development of a network that is owned by no one and the network that is owned by its end users, built and by its end users and provides no bottle-neck over which anyone can exercise control in the way that the cable operator controls, the cable head in and whether the broadcaster control the transmit so that’s are the physical.
3-11- 3.43 (Noise)
3.49
At the logical layer, what we have today is increasing opportunities. For use of open source software or free software that is not controlled by any single company that is open and free for any country to use as its primary software infrastructure for critical infrastructures, it is being deployed by parts of the US government simply because its better, it is being deployed widely in businesses, because its better.
But from the perspective of creating an open network, it is crucial that the logical layer, that the layer of software and standards that allowed machine to let people speak to each other and make culture together. Be such that no one company can control it that and no one person can say, “you may speak and you may not speak this particular kind of uses permitted and that particular kind is not”. And so it is a matter of speech and openness and innovation. It is important to adopt a strategy that supports open source software up to an including I think every government needs to look at procurement policy of actually using free software for its own operations both to cut the costs of government software systems. But no less importantly to create a practice and a habit and a market within the nation of people who have the facility to work with free software. And who can then participate in the international network of computer programmers who contribute to this. And who by building skills can then also become valuable contributors to the large service industry there has been built around free software and it prevents tremendous opportunities for nations that are outside the economy to have to develop a set of programmers who are educated in materials that allowed them to participate in the core economies from a distance.
6.03
And finally intellectual property we know that intellectual property increases costs of innovation and this is so particularly for countries that are net-importers of cultural and innovation products. And so I think we have a very strong agenda driven by both US and the EU towards international expansion of intellectual property rights across all domains, patent, copyright, trademark... I think this a trend that works to the decrement of all developing nations. It works as the decrements of the all nations that are net-importers of innovation and cultural products because it raises their cost without at the same time increasing as much their ability to appropriate the benefits and so I think its is important for any country that in the position of being a net importer of innovation and cultural products and information. To collaborate with other nations to co-operate with other nations in this framework to bring the interests of these countries outside the core information economies, to bear on international trade negotiations and to permit a greater flexibility and designate any quality in the obligations of countries that are net-importers vis-à-vis those who are not net-exporters because otherwise we see a re-distribution from the periphery of the information economy into its core and in this regard usually from the less wealthy to the more wealthy nations which doesn’t seem to be either good development policy or just in matters of distribution. Well at the same time not at all the in clear that it is important as a matter of innovation policy because patents and copyright and trade mark though continuously strengthen the straight policy or questionable as innovation policy...
AT – So can we outline the matter as “to be just consumer or not to be”?
JB- Exactly!
The possibility of being not purely a passive consumer but also an active participant in the creation of information of knowledge and culture is embedded in the widely decentralized open Internet.
8.42
And its the possibility of having a society of active participants as supposed a society of the passive consumers. That is the promise of the Internet and that promises being threatened by the excessive focus on purely property based commercial provision of all the layers of the information environment...
AT- Thanks a lot...
Later on, Prof.Dr. Emre Kongar published an article referring Atakan's:
Cumhuriyet Daily
Mr. Yurtsan Atakan, the leading ICT columnist of Hurriyet Daily, quoted the interview that I made with Prof. Yochai Benkler during the "i-law 2003" course in Stanford for the "Open Radio" ("Aç?k Radyo" in Turkish). He underlined that the well-known "Indian miracle" on creating software is a "fairy-tale" and referred to what Benkler told on creativity and innovation by the transition countries!
For the Turkish translation of my interview click on here...
And... I am enclosing the original decoding of the said interview below:
A.TANSUG- Dear Professor Benkler, what would you tell us for the rest of the world in terms of their positioning in the information society?
J.BENKLER- I think we’ve been seeing too much focus in the US, in Europe, on securing high-speed Internet connections and the information economy based on purely market behavior, based on strong property rights. This has been true for a radio frequency spectrum policy, this has been true for broadband wire policy, and this has been true for intellectual property policy and we see in this regard both the US and Europe moving in the same direction...
The problem and the problems are divers for each of these particular layers of the communication system; the problem with exclusively lies on the property based approaches is that they are leading us towards missing the opportunity of an open, decentralized Internet and straightening into re-concentrate or to shift the Internet to a broadcast model where you still have one primary or one small set of primary owners of the means of communication, of the contents of communication, who then can control the flow of information and society.
I think for any country now and I say this one I speak in the US, and I say this one I speak in Europe and I say this one I speak to people or interested in development in all sorts of places in the world, beat as a matter of policies of freedom, beat as a matter of policies of development and there is a series of strategies that are committed to open communication systems that can be implemented. At the physical layer this means using a variety of strategies of unlicensed wireless communications, things we now see primarily in the wire Fay market in communications devices and don’t have the government licenses to operate but are in fact permitted to operate wherever within a range of frequencies but permitted to offer whatever but these enable is the development of a network that is owned by no one and the network that is owned by its end users, built and by its end users and provides no bottle-neck over which anyone can exercise control in the way that the cable operator controls, the cable head in and whether the broadcaster control the transmit so that’s are the physical.
3-11- 3.43 (Noise)
3.49
At the logical layer, what we have today is increasing opportunities. For use of open source software or free software that is not controlled by any single company that is open and free for any country to use as its primary software infrastructure for critical infrastructures, it is being deployed by parts of the US government simply because its better, it is being deployed widely in businesses, because its better.
But from the perspective of creating an open network, it is crucial that the logical layer, that the layer of software and standards that allowed machine to let people speak to each other and make culture together. Be such that no one company can control it that and no one person can say, “you may speak and you may not speak this particular kind of uses permitted and that particular kind is not”. And so it is a matter of speech and openness and innovation. It is important to adopt a strategy that supports open source software up to an including I think every government needs to look at procurement policy of actually using free software for its own operations both to cut the costs of government software systems. But no less importantly to create a practice and a habit and a market within the nation of people who have the facility to work with free software. And who can then participate in the international network of computer programmers who contribute to this. And who by building skills can then also become valuable contributors to the large service industry there has been built around free software and it prevents tremendous opportunities for nations that are outside the economy to have to develop a set of programmers who are educated in materials that allowed them to participate in the core economies from a distance.
6.03
And finally intellectual property we know that intellectual property increases costs of innovation and this is so particularly for countries that are net-importers of cultural and innovation products. And so I think we have a very strong agenda driven by both US and the EU towards international expansion of intellectual property rights across all domains, patent, copyright, trademark... I think this a trend that works to the decrement of all developing nations. It works as the decrements of the all nations that are net-importers of innovation and cultural products because it raises their cost without at the same time increasing as much their ability to appropriate the benefits and so I think its is important for any country that in the position of being a net importer of innovation and cultural products and information. To collaborate with other nations to co-operate with other nations in this framework to bring the interests of these countries outside the core information economies, to bear on international trade negotiations and to permit a greater flexibility and designate any quality in the obligations of countries that are net-importers vis-à-vis those who are not net-exporters because otherwise we see a re-distribution from the periphery of the information economy into its core and in this regard usually from the less wealthy to the more wealthy nations which doesn’t seem to be either good development policy or just in matters of distribution. Well at the same time not at all the in clear that it is important as a matter of innovation policy because patents and copyright and trade mark though continuously strengthen the straight policy or questionable as innovation policy...
AT – So can we outline the matter as “to be just consumer or not to be”?
JB- Exactly!
The possibility of being not purely a passive consumer but also an active participant in the creation of information of knowledge and culture is embedded in the widely decentralized open Internet.
8.42
And its the possibility of having a society of active participants as supposed a society of the passive consumers. That is the promise of the Internet and that promises being threatened by the excessive focus on purely property based commercial provision of all the layers of the information environment...
AT- Thanks a lot...
Later on, Prof.Dr. Emre Kongar published an article referring Atakan's:
Cumhuriyet Daily
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Draft Plan of Action WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/0005
Draft Plan of Action WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/0005
This is the final version of the Plan of Action agreed to by the World
Summit on the Information Society. December 12, 2003. The Plan is
available in Arabic, Chinese, English. French, Russian, and Spanish.
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_single-en-1160.asp
This is the final version of the Plan of Action agreed to by the World
Summit on the Information Society. December 12, 2003. The Plan is
available in Arabic, Chinese, English. French, Russian, and Spanish.
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_single-en-1160.asp
Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties releases report on the CyberCrime Convention
2001
Leeds, 01 December, 2003 - Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties, released today an Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and the additional protocol on the criminalisation of acts of a racist or xenophobic nature committed through
computer systems, December 2003.
The Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its additional protocol has been
developed by the Council of Europe, an international and well respected
organisation with a primary mission to strengthen democracy, human rights,
and the rule of law throughout its member states. Although the Cyber-Crime
Convention states in the preamble that a proper balance needs to be ensured
between the interests of law enforcement and respect for fundamental human
rights, the balance resolutely and regrettably favours the former claimes
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
While the CoE's concerns in relation to cyber-crimes and its desire to
address criminal law and mutual assistance in criminal matters are shared
by many, any co-ordinated policy initiative at an international level
should ideally aim to offer the best protection for individual rights and
liberties. Lamentably, this has not been the case.
This advocacy handbook for the NGOs written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, the director of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties provides a policy analysis of
the Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its first additional protocol from a
human rights perspective for policy specialists, NGOs, and human rights
activists within the 45 member states of the Council of Europe.
Compatibility problems with the European Convention on Human Rights and
implications for freedom of expression, privacy of communications and data
protection will be the main focus of this critical analysis. The appendices
include other useful information that could be relied upon while NGOs and
policy activists lobby their individual governments in relation to the
implementation of the Cyber-Crime.
The Report is released as a pdf file and can be obtained through
http://www.cyber-rights.org/cybercrime/
For further information contact: Dr. Yaman Akdeniz
Director, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties
email: lawya@cyber-rights.org
Tel: +44 (0)7798 865116 Fax: +44 (0)7092199011
http://www.cyber-rights.org / http://www.cyber-rights.net
2001
Leeds, 01 December, 2003 - Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties, released today an Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and the additional protocol on the criminalisation of acts of a racist or xenophobic nature committed through
computer systems, December 2003.
The Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its additional protocol has been
developed by the Council of Europe, an international and well respected
organisation with a primary mission to strengthen democracy, human rights,
and the rule of law throughout its member states. Although the Cyber-Crime
Convention states in the preamble that a proper balance needs to be ensured
between the interests of law enforcement and respect for fundamental human
rights, the balance resolutely and regrettably favours the former claimes
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
While the CoE's concerns in relation to cyber-crimes and its desire to
address criminal law and mutual assistance in criminal matters are shared
by many, any co-ordinated policy initiative at an international level
should ideally aim to offer the best protection for individual rights and
liberties. Lamentably, this has not been the case.
This advocacy handbook for the NGOs written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, the director of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties provides a policy analysis of
the Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its first additional protocol from a
human rights perspective for policy specialists, NGOs, and human rights
activists within the 45 member states of the Council of Europe.
Compatibility problems with the European Convention on Human Rights and
implications for freedom of expression, privacy of communications and data
protection will be the main focus of this critical analysis. The appendices
include other useful information that could be relied upon while NGOs and
policy activists lobby their individual governments in relation to the
implementation of the Cyber-Crime.
The Report is released as a pdf file and can be obtained through
http://www.cyber-rights.org/cybercrime/
For further information contact: Dr. Yaman Akdeniz
Director, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties
email: lawya@cyber-rights.org
Tel: +44 (0)7798 865116 Fax: +44 (0)7092199011
http://www.cyber-rights.org / http://www.cyber-rights.net
Sunday, December 14, 2003
A paper:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/Palfrey_Working_P
aper_ICANN_120803.pdf
published by an Internet law scholar examines ICANN's experimentation in
running a representative and open corporate decision-making, and
concludes that the process has largely failed. ICANN relies more on
staff recommendations and input from the Supporting Organizations,
rather than on direct broad-based input from the Internet user
community.
Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/
See also Response to Paper and Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mclaughlin/mclaughlin-response-publicpartic
ipation.html
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/Palfrey_Working_P
aper_ICANN_120803.pdf
published by an Internet law scholar examines ICANN's experimentation in
running a representative and open corporate decision-making, and
concludes that the process has largely failed. ICANN relies more on
staff recommendations and input from the Supporting Organizations,
rather than on direct broad-based input from the Internet user
community.
Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/
See also Response to Paper and Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mclaughlin/mclaughlin-response-publicpartic
ipation.html
Open source's local heroes
Dec 4th 2003, The Economist
Software: If the commercial sort does not speak your language, open-source software may well do so instead
ITS POPULARITY is growing around the world, but open-source software has particular appeal in developing countries. In China, South Korea, India, Brazil and other countries, governments are promoting the use of such software which, unlike the proprietary kind, allows users to inspect, modify and freely redistribute its underlying programming instructions. The open-source approach has a number of attractions. Adopting open-source software can reduce costs, allay security concerns and ensure there is no danger of becoming too dependent on a foreign supplier. But there is another benefit, too: because it can be freely modified, open-source software is also easier to translate, or localise, for use in a particular language. This involves translating the menus, dialogue boxes, help files, templates and message strings to create a new version of the software.
Large software vendors have little incentive to support any but the most widely spoken languages. Microsoft, for example, provides its Windows 2000 operating system in 24 languages, and Windows XP in 33. The company also supports over 20 languages in the latest version of its Office software suite. Yet for many languages, commercial vendors conclude that producing a localised product is not economically viable.
The programmers who produce open-source software operate by different rules, however. The leading desktop interfaces for the open-source Linux operating system—KDE and GNOME—are, between them, available in more than twice as many languages as Windows. KDE has already been localised for 42 languages, with a further 46 in the pipeline. Similarly, Mozilla, an open-source web browser, now speaks 65 languages, with 34 more to follow. OpenOffice, the leading open-source office suite, is available in 31 languages, including Slovenian, Basque and Galician, and Indian languages such as Gujarati, Devanagari, Kannada and Malayalam. And another 44 languages including Icelandic, Lao, Latvian, Welsh and Yiddish are on the way.
Localising software is a tedious job, but some people are passionate enough about it to resort to unusual measures. The Hungarian translation of OpenOffice was going too slowly for Janos Noll, founder of the Hungarian Foundation for Free Software. So he built some web-based tools to distribute the workload and threw a pizza party in the computer room at the Technical University of Budapest. Over a dozen people worked locally, with about 100 Hungarians submitting work remotely over the web. Most of the work—translating over 21,000 text strings—was completed in three days.
Dwayne Bailey of translate.org.za http://translate.org.za/, an open-source translation project based in South Africa, says localising open-source programs into Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Sesotho and other African languages makes computers more accessible. With translated software, “these languages are suddenly players in the modern world.” Neville Alexander, a former South African freedom-fighter, agrees. “An English-only or even an English-mainly policy necessarily condemns most people, and thus the country as a whole, to a permanent state of mediocrity, since people are unable to be spontaneous, creative and self-confident if they cannot use their first language,” he says.
A similar approach is being taken in India, where there are 18 official languages and over 1,000 regional dialects. Shikha Pillai is one of the leaders of a team in Bangalore that is translating open-source software, including OpenOffice, into ten Indian dialects. She, too, feels that introducing Indian languages will help to foster a far deeper penetration of information technology. “Localisation makes IT accessible to common people,” she says. “And Indian-language enabled software could revolutionise the way our communications work; even the way computers are used in India.”
In May, Thailand's government launched a subsidised “people's PC” that runs LinuxTLE, a Thai-language version of Linux. In September, Japan said it would join a project established by China and South Korea to develop localised, open-source alternatives to Microsoft's software. Computer users around the world are discovering that open-source software speaks their language.
Dec 4th 2003, The Economist
Software: If the commercial sort does not speak your language, open-source software may well do so instead
ITS POPULARITY is growing around the world, but open-source software has particular appeal in developing countries. In China, South Korea, India, Brazil and other countries, governments are promoting the use of such software which, unlike the proprietary kind, allows users to inspect, modify and freely redistribute its underlying programming instructions. The open-source approach has a number of attractions. Adopting open-source software can reduce costs, allay security concerns and ensure there is no danger of becoming too dependent on a foreign supplier. But there is another benefit, too: because it can be freely modified, open-source software is also easier to translate, or localise, for use in a particular language. This involves translating the menus, dialogue boxes, help files, templates and message strings to create a new version of the software.
Large software vendors have little incentive to support any but the most widely spoken languages. Microsoft, for example, provides its Windows 2000 operating system in 24 languages, and Windows XP in 33. The company also supports over 20 languages in the latest version of its Office software suite. Yet for many languages, commercial vendors conclude that producing a localised product is not economically viable.
The programmers who produce open-source software operate by different rules, however. The leading desktop interfaces for the open-source Linux operating system—KDE and GNOME—are, between them, available in more than twice as many languages as Windows. KDE has already been localised for 42 languages, with a further 46 in the pipeline. Similarly, Mozilla, an open-source web browser, now speaks 65 languages, with 34 more to follow. OpenOffice, the leading open-source office suite, is available in 31 languages, including Slovenian, Basque and Galician, and Indian languages such as Gujarati, Devanagari, Kannada and Malayalam. And another 44 languages including Icelandic, Lao, Latvian, Welsh and Yiddish are on the way.
Localising software is a tedious job, but some people are passionate enough about it to resort to unusual measures. The Hungarian translation of OpenOffice was going too slowly for Janos Noll, founder of the Hungarian Foundation for Free Software. So he built some web-based tools to distribute the workload and threw a pizza party in the computer room at the Technical University of Budapest. Over a dozen people worked locally, with about 100 Hungarians submitting work remotely over the web. Most of the work—translating over 21,000 text strings—was completed in three days.
Dwayne Bailey of translate.org.za http://translate.org.za/, an open-source translation project based in South Africa, says localising open-source programs into Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Sesotho and other African languages makes computers more accessible. With translated software, “these languages are suddenly players in the modern world.” Neville Alexander, a former South African freedom-fighter, agrees. “An English-only or even an English-mainly policy necessarily condemns most people, and thus the country as a whole, to a permanent state of mediocrity, since people are unable to be spontaneous, creative and self-confident if they cannot use their first language,” he says.
A similar approach is being taken in India, where there are 18 official languages and over 1,000 regional dialects. Shikha Pillai is one of the leaders of a team in Bangalore that is translating open-source software, including OpenOffice, into ten Indian dialects. She, too, feels that introducing Indian languages will help to foster a far deeper penetration of information technology. “Localisation makes IT accessible to common people,” she says. “And Indian-language enabled software could revolutionise the way our communications work; even the way computers are used in India.”
In May, Thailand's government launched a subsidised “people's PC” that runs LinuxTLE, a Thai-language version of Linux. In September, Japan said it would join a project established by China and South Korea to develop localised, open-source alternatives to Microsoft's software. Computer users around the world are discovering that open-source software speaks their language.
Monday, December 01, 2003
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
BLOGGER
Digital rights management and the breakdown of social norms by Christopher
May
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/may/
At the centre of the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is a
long history of political bargains struck between private rights to reward
and the social benefit of information/knowledge diffusion. The historical
dynamic of politics in this policy area has been to expand the rights of
owners while circumscribing the public realm of information and knowledge.
In recent decades the public domain has become merely a residual, all that
is left when all other rights (as constructed by IPRs) have been exercised.
The advent of digital rights management (DRM) technologies has disturbed a
reasonably legitimate politico-legal settlement over "fair use," challenging
the existing balance between the rights of "creators" and the interests of
users. The breakdown of the norms underpinning IPRs has prompted renewed
debate regarding their legitimacy. Although it is technological change that
has enhanced not only the ability to copy but also the potential to control
the distribution of content, this paper suggests that this argument will not
be won or lost in the realm of technology. Rather, new technologies return
the question of the control of knowledge and information (content) to the
realm of politics.
---
Vera Franz
Program Officer
Information Program
Open Society Institute
May
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/may/
At the centre of the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is a
long history of political bargains struck between private rights to reward
and the social benefit of information/knowledge diffusion. The historical
dynamic of politics in this policy area has been to expand the rights of
owners while circumscribing the public realm of information and knowledge.
In recent decades the public domain has become merely a residual, all that
is left when all other rights (as constructed by IPRs) have been exercised.
The advent of digital rights management (DRM) technologies has disturbed a
reasonably legitimate politico-legal settlement over "fair use," challenging
the existing balance between the rights of "creators" and the interests of
users. The breakdown of the norms underpinning IPRs has prompted renewed
debate regarding their legitimacy. Although it is technological change that
has enhanced not only the ability to copy but also the potential to control
the distribution of content, this paper suggests that this argument will not
be won or lost in the realm of technology. Rather, new technologies return
the question of the control of knowledge and information (content) to the
realm of politics.
---
Vera Franz
Program Officer
Information Program
Open Society Institute
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
From this week's "The Register"
Internet
'We have your water supply, and printers' - Brumcon report
All purely in the interests of science, of course...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33479.html
RIAA to issue warnings first, lawsuits second
Stop sharing - or face the consequences
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33470.html
Anti-scam site beats domain attack
European City Guide on last legs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33466.html
Internet
'We have your water supply, and printers' - Brumcon report
All purely in the interests of science, of course...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33479.html
RIAA to issue warnings first, lawsuits second
Stop sharing - or face the consequences
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33470.html
Anti-scam site beats domain attack
European City Guide on last legs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33466.html
No right of privacy in England ...yet
Robert Horvitz, Project Manager
Global Internet Policy Initiative
sent:
From this week's issue of Quicklinks:
25. UK - Law lords rule there is no right to privacy (Guardian)
Five law lords rejected an attempt to establish that a right exists
under English law to sue for invasion of privacy. The ruling, which
had been keenly awaited by lawyers, establishes that there is no
"freestanding" right to privacy in English law. Instead, those seeking
damages when their privacy is invaded will have to bring their cases
under other, well-established types of action, such as breach of
confidence. Wainwright v. Home Office [2003] UKHL 53.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem16897.htm
36. UK - Legal threat to snooping laws (BBC)
Internet privacy campaigners say new legal advice could blow a hole in
Home Office plans to snoop on people's online and telephone activity.
A draft European directive on keeping communications data, which could
be used to strengthen the current voluntary code of practice in the
UK, breeches human rights laws, says international law firm Covington
& Burling. Two test cases may be taken to the European courts by lobby
group Privacy International to show UK attempts to widen internet
surveillance would be unlawful.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem16894.htm
Global Internet Policy Initiative
sent:
From this week's issue of Quicklinks:
25. UK - Law lords rule there is no right to privacy (Guardian)
Five law lords rejected an attempt to establish that a right exists
under English law to sue for invasion of privacy. The ruling, which
had been keenly awaited by lawyers, establishes that there is no
"freestanding" right to privacy in English law. Instead, those seeking
damages when their privacy is invaded will have to bring their cases
under other, well-established types of action, such as breach of
confidence. Wainwright v. Home Office [2003] UKHL 53.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem16897.htm
36. UK - Legal threat to snooping laws (BBC)
Internet privacy campaigners say new legal advice could blow a hole in
Home Office plans to snoop on people's online and telephone activity.
A draft European directive on keeping communications data, which could
be used to strengthen the current voluntary code of practice in the
UK, breeches human rights laws, says international law firm Covington
& Burling. Two test cases may be taken to the European courts by lobby
group Privacy International to show UK attempts to widen internet
surveillance would be unlawful.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem16894.htm
Vra Franz sent:
Thanks to HJ Affleck for this:
Europe's Antipiracy Proposal Draws Criticism
By PAUL MELLER
The New York Times
BRUSSELS, Oct. 19 - In an effort to fight product counterfeiting and
piracy, the European Union is preparing to enact a sweeping intellectual
property law that critics say is ill-conceived and tilted heavily in
favor of copyright and patent holders.
The proposal would go far beyond existing laws in Europe and the United
States by classifying copyright violations and patent infringements,
even some unwitting ones, as crimes punishable by prison terms.
Lawyers who have studied a draft of the proposed law say that not only
could a teenager who downloaded a music file be sent to jail under it;
so too could managers of the Internet service provider that the teenager
happened to use, whether they knew what the teenager was doing or not...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/20/business/worldbusiness/20lobby.html
Thanks to HJ Affleck for this:
Europe's Antipiracy Proposal Draws Criticism
By PAUL MELLER
The New York Times
BRUSSELS, Oct. 19 - In an effort to fight product counterfeiting and
piracy, the European Union is preparing to enact a sweeping intellectual
property law that critics say is ill-conceived and tilted heavily in
favor of copyright and patent holders.
The proposal would go far beyond existing laws in Europe and the United
States by classifying copyright violations and patent infringements,
even some unwitting ones, as crimes punishable by prison terms.
Lawyers who have studied a draft of the proposed law say that not only
could a teenager who downloaded a music file be sent to jail under it;
so too could managers of the Internet service provider that the teenager
happened to use, whether they knew what the teenager was doing or not...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/20/business/worldbusiness/20lobby.html
Africa ICT Policies
Mikhail Doroshevich sent:
e-Strategies - National, Sectoral and Regional ICT Policies, Plans and
Strategies in Africa
This report assesses the state of national and African regional ICT
policies, plans and strategies. It focuses on the role of the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and summarizes major
regional and global initiatives being undertaken in or relevant to
Africa. It also highlights new applications and initiatives in key
sectors, and concludes with lessons learned and the way forward. The
report also makes reference to Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
http://www.uneca.org/aisi/docs/E-Strategies.pdf
e-Strategies - National, Sectoral and Regional ICT Policies, Plans and
Strategies in Africa
This report assesses the state of national and African regional ICT
policies, plans and strategies. It focuses on the role of the United
Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and summarizes major
regional and global initiatives being undertaken in or relevant to
Africa. It also highlights new applications and initiatives in key
sectors, and concludes with lessons learned and the way forward. The
report also makes reference to Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
http://www.uneca.org/aisi/docs/E-Strategies.pdf
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Press Release: Turkey enacts freedom of information law
On 09 October, 2003, the Turkish government enacted the Right to
Information Law (Law No: 4982). It was initially prepared by the Ministry
of Justice and was introduced to the Parliament on 25 June, 2003. An
important Parliamentary report by the EU Compatibility Commission of the
Turkish Parliament was published on 16 July, 2003. Another report on the
draft bill by the Justice Commission of the Turkish Parliament was also
published on 24 July 2003.
237 Turkish MPs out of a total of 550 were present for the final voting on
the Right to Information Bill and all of the present MPs (including from
the opposition) voted for the Bill to become law.
The new law itself does not say anything on implementation and there will
be further regulations published within the next six months clarifying
issues related to implementation. The regulations will be prepared by the
Prime Ministry and will be put into force by the Council of Ministers. This
law will come into force six months after the date of its publication.
Following the enactment of the new law in Turkey, a Right to Information
Assessment (Review) Council will be established to deal with appeals on
rejected FOI requests.
The information and documents pertaining the state secrets, the economical
interests of the state, the state intelligence, the administrative
investigation, and the judicial investigation and prosecution are out of
the scope of this law. Limitations also apply for the privacy of the
individuals, privacy of communications, trade secrets, intellectual
property (works of art and science), institutions' internal regulations,
and institutions' internal opinions, information notes and recommendations.
"Although it is a very important first step towards openness and
transparency the limits of this new right are not clearly defined by the
new law. The meaning of "secrecy" will be clarified by means of a separate
legislation on "secrecy" that is currently being drafted by the Ministry of
Justice. So it remains to be seen how transparent the government will be in
Turkey" said Dr. Yaman Akdeniz.
For further information please contact Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Lecturer in
CyberLaw, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Director, Cyber-Rights &
Cyber-Liberties (UK), and a 2003 Fellow of the International Policy and
Information Policy Fellowship programmes of the Open Society Institute.
Email: lawya@cyber-rights.org Tel: +44 7798 865116
Dr. Yaman Akdeniz
Lecturer in CyberLaw, Department of Law,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
2003 Fellow of the International Policy and Information Policy
Fellowship programmes of the Open Society Institute.
Tel: +44 (0)113 3435011 Fax: +44 (0)113 3435056
E-mail: lawya@leeds.ac.uk/ lawya@cyber-rights.org/
On 09 October, 2003, the Turkish government enacted the Right to
Information Law (Law No: 4982). It was initially prepared by the Ministry
of Justice and was introduced to the Parliament on 25 June, 2003. An
important Parliamentary report by the EU Compatibility Commission of the
Turkish Parliament was published on 16 July, 2003. Another report on the
draft bill by the Justice Commission of the Turkish Parliament was also
published on 24 July 2003.
237 Turkish MPs out of a total of 550 were present for the final voting on
the Right to Information Bill and all of the present MPs (including from
the opposition) voted for the Bill to become law.
The new law itself does not say anything on implementation and there will
be further regulations published within the next six months clarifying
issues related to implementation. The regulations will be prepared by the
Prime Ministry and will be put into force by the Council of Ministers. This
law will come into force six months after the date of its publication.
Following the enactment of the new law in Turkey, a Right to Information
Assessment (Review) Council will be established to deal with appeals on
rejected FOI requests.
The information and documents pertaining the state secrets, the economical
interests of the state, the state intelligence, the administrative
investigation, and the judicial investigation and prosecution are out of
the scope of this law. Limitations also apply for the privacy of the
individuals, privacy of communications, trade secrets, intellectual
property (works of art and science), institutions' internal regulations,
and institutions' internal opinions, information notes and recommendations.
"Although it is a very important first step towards openness and
transparency the limits of this new right are not clearly defined by the
new law. The meaning of "secrecy" will be clarified by means of a separate
legislation on "secrecy" that is currently being drafted by the Ministry of
Justice. So it remains to be seen how transparent the government will be in
Turkey" said Dr. Yaman Akdeniz.
For further information please contact Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, Lecturer in
CyberLaw, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Director, Cyber-Rights &
Cyber-Liberties (UK), and a 2003 Fellow of the International Policy and
Information Policy Fellowship programmes of the Open Society Institute.
Email: lawya@cyber-rights.org Tel: +44 7798 865116
Dr. Yaman Akdeniz
Lecturer in CyberLaw, Department of Law,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
2003 Fellow of the International Policy and Information Policy
Fellowship programmes of the Open Society Institute.
Tel: +44 (0)113 3435011 Fax: +44 (0)113 3435056
E-mail: lawya@leeds.ac.uk/ lawya@cyber-rights.org/
Monday, October 13, 2003
FOIA
Turkish FOIA was passed by the Parliament
Turkish Freedom of Information Act -literally "ROIA" ! as the title of the act is the "Right of Information Act"- was passed by the Turkish Parliament last week.
The original text of the law is here...
As soon as I get the English translation I will let you know.
Turkish Freedom of Information Act -literally "ROIA" ! as the title of the act is the "Right of Information Act"- was passed by the Turkish Parliament last week.
The original text of the law is here...
As soon as I get the English translation I will let you know.
Monday, September 15, 2003
Monday, September 08, 2003
Vera Franz posted this to one our mail-lists:
FIPR Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE USE: 8 Sep 2003
Implemeting the EU Copyright Directive
Available in other EU languages at
<http://www.fipr.org/press/030908eucd.html>
New report finds problems with EU copyright law-----------------------------------------------
European citizens could find many common activities banned as the EU
Copyright Directive becomes law, a new FIPR report reveals. Transferring
songs from a copy-protected CD to a Walkman or computer could be
illegal, as could watching a DVD on a computer running Linux.
"Implementing the EU Copyright Directive", published today, reports on
legal developments across the EU as member states change their laws to
comply with the Directive.
It finds that it is now illegal in several countries such as Greece and
Germany to use copyrighted works such as CDs, films or electronic books
in ways restricted by the publisher. Offenders can be fined tens of
thousands of euros and imprisoned for several years.
Few EU countries provide an effective mechanism for consumers to make
use of their legal rights. Most require consumers to complain to a
government body, which may then take several months to enforce those
rights. Nor do these bodies include consumer representatives.
Little provision has been made to stop copyright law being used to raise
prices to consumers for items such as game console accessories or
printer cartridges. Without explicit protection, Europeans can expect to
see this type of anti-competitive behaviour cross the Atlantic from the
US, where it has become common under a similar law (the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act).
European research into computer security mechanisms will also be
damaged. On current plans, only German, Danish and Finnish scientists
will be allowed to investigate the effectiveness of measures that are
being used to protect copyright works.
Ian Brown, editor of the report, said: "These new laws are removing
European citizens' rights at the behest of Hollywood and the music
industry. They need to be rewritten to protect the owners of CDs, DVDs
and e-books as well as media companies."
The report can be accessed at: http://www.fipr.org/copyright/guide/
Contacts for enquiries:
-----------------------
Ian Brown
Director
Foundation for Information Policy Research
ian@fipr.org
07970 164 526 (from outside the UK: +44 7970 164 526)
Background
----------
See FIPR's intellectual property pages at
http://www.fipr.org/intellectual.html
Notes for editors
-----------------
1. The Foundation for Information Policy Research (http://www.fipr.org)
is an independent body that studies the interaction between information
technology and society. Its goal is to identify technical developments
with significant social impact, undertake and commission research into
public policy alternatives, and promote public understanding and
dialogue between technologists and policy-makers in the UK and Europe.
Sunday, September 07, 2003
ICT Policy Training Program in Budapest...
I attended in a very interesting and useful course that was held by Stanhope Center (in collaboration of Markle Foundation and Open Society Institute) in Budapest: 2003 ICT Policy Training Program!
As some of you already knew Vera Franz, (OSI) was our host... One of the lecturers was Berkman Centre's John Palfrey...
As the organizers have been gradually uploading the proceedings of the course, especially the ngo's from the developing countries must visit the above website nowadays...
PS: Among the attendees, was Maciejk from Poland there as one of the "i-law 2003" participants...
Avniye
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