[bestbits] What is civil society's position on copyright in Internet governance?

Tue Apr 29 05:35:35 EDT 2014

Dear Achal

I was not involved in preparing the civil society inputs.

I was co-chair of the drafting group for the 'principles' section of the
document, and I actually with great frustration tried to find the text
you had proposed during our pre-meeting. It was not on the Best Bits pad.

When the 'Article 27' text was proposed during the drafting I did
vigorously oppose it. I did not actually realise it was proposed by
civil society as on the second day of the drafting my laptop had died,
and I had no access to the online document.

My personal concerns with the text in Article 27 was shared by some of
the CS people who were observing. Business was strongly in favour of us
inserting that text and we almost had deadlock on it. It is always easy
to use existing language, and in most of the other rights, we did resort
to UDHR language.  On that one I held out.

The deadlock was broken by us using text that was suggested, or proposed
by Jeremy Malcolm on the second day. I can't remember exactly what
Jeremy had said, but is input implied that some protection for authors
would be acceptable.

Therefore "consistent with the rights of authors and creators" was added
to the original text (which was actually proposed by civil society very
early on: "
Everyone should have the right to access, share, create and distribute
information on the Internet".  The final phrase "as established in law"
was demanded by business, if I remember correctly.

So, in the end, this text was not too bad. And we managed to keep
'permissionless innovation' in another part of the document.  The BAD
news is that the text on internet intermediary liability which was only
finalised after the high level committee meeting is the same OECD text
which civil society opposed in 2011. France and the US were insisted it
be included. It is text that links intermediary liability to economic
growth and that opens the doors to intermediaries being made responsible
for enforcing copyright.  For me that was a huge, huge blow.

I am not in a position to respond to your other questions as I was not
involved in finalising the civil society inputs.

My personal view however is that disproportionate enforcement of
intellectual property rights is one of the greatest threats to 'internet
freedom' we are facing, if not the greatest.  Unlike limitations on free
expression which is broadly considered to be inappropriate, there is
widespread support by powerful governments and by a large part of
internet industry (not all)  for stronger enforcement of these rights,
and for making intermediaries responsible doing so.

Anriette

On 29/04/2014 07:41, Achal Prabhala wrote:
>
> I have been trying to understand what civil society's position on
> copyright in Internet governance is, esp. in the aftermath of NETmundial.
>
> On April 22, I took part in a civil society meeting along with many of
> you, when the following language was suggested to be included in civil
> society feedback to the draft outcome document: "resisting the
> expansion of a sovereign application of copyright on to the global
> online landscape."
>
> The language came from the recent, vivid and very real threats posed
> by the almost-legislated SOPA/PIPA in the US.
>
> Then it seems civil society changed it's mind: this is the language
> used in the final feedback document:
> (http://bestbits.net/netmundial-proposals/)
>
> "Right to participate in cultural life: everyone has the right freely
> to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the
> arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits, and this
> right extends to the Internet. Everyone has the right to the
> protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any
> scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
> This protection must be balanced with the larger public interest and
> human rights, including the rights to education, freedom of expression
> and information and the right to privacy."
>
> This is the language from the final NETmundial outcome document:
> (http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf)
>
> "Everyone should havethe right to access, share, create and distribute
> information on the Internet, consistent with the rights of authors and
> creators as established in law."
>
> Inexplicably, the language on "protection" of intellectual property is
> stronger in the civil society statement than in the NETmundial document.
>
> Following from this, naturally, weak or nonexistent language *against*
> a restrictive, censorious and unilaterally decided global intellectual
> property regime did not figure anywhere in the list of official civil
> society complaints against the final NETmundial outcome document.
> (http://bestbits.net/netmundial-response/)
>
> I'd like to understand from someone who led this civil society
> document as to:
>
> a) Whether you considered the copyright threat sufficiently addresses
> in the language around freedom of expression and access to
> information, as well as ISP liability (even though the legal scope in
> these three ideas, as expressed in the statement from you, is fuzzy
> and does not use the word 'copyright') and therefore chose to
> explicitly leave it out of consideration?
>
> b) Or whether you deem the unjustified unilateral enforcement of
> copyright protection an insufficient threat to global online freedom
> and access to knowledge, despite the almost-legislated SOPA/PIPA from
> not that long ago.
>
> c) And lastly, whether (and how), despite the copyright issue having
> been raised - and seemingly accepted - in the meetings running up to
> the document, "civil society" believed there was "consensus" around
> leaving the copyright issue out of its demands.
>
> Thank you,
> Achal
>
>

-- 
------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
executive director, association for progressive communications
www.apc.org
po box 29755, melville 2109
south africa
tel/fax +27 11 726 1692

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