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

Tue Apr 29 06:54:20 EDT 2014

For what it is worth, on the industry side that was a compromise. Many of 
us argued that IP didn't belong in the document at all, but as usual the 
Hollywood interests insisted. That phrase was a considerable reduction from 
what was originally proposed.

On 29 April 2014 11:36:05 Anriette Esterhuysen <anriette at apc.org> wrote:

> 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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