[governance] IP-Watch: World Customs Organization Publications Copyright Policy Questioned

[William New]

Hi, thanks for the posting, but just wanted to clarify that IP-Watch does
not have "members." Perhaps Jeff Williams is signed up for the free email
alerts or RSS feeds of our news stories. 

William New, Editor-in-Chief, Intellectual Property Watch, Geneva,
Switzerland 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey A. Williams [mailto:jwkckid1 at ix.netcom.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 3:00 AM
To: Governance/IGC
Subject: [governance] IP-Watch: World Customs Organization Publications
Copyright Policy Questioned

All,

  As a member of IP-Watch the following struck me as significant,
and directly relevant to Internet governance on a number of levels.

  As an FYI:

 <http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=1280>
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=1280


Intellectual Property Watch


World Customs Organization Publications Copyright Policy Questioned


By William New
In an unusual policy for an international organisation, the World
Customs Organization imposes copyright over every document its 
bodies produce, even agendas, which means that no document can 
be reproduced without the organisation's express consent.

But now some member governments are questioning this practice, which
they say was intended only for the organisation to protect the rights in
publications made for sale or containing proprietary information, and is
now blocking access to information about the organisation's work.

The issue has come to a head in recent months as part of a growing
controversy around a WCO working group on enforcement that potentially
puts customs officials in the role of judging counterfeit and pirated 
goods directly and without judges or other authorities.

The next and fourth meeting of the SECURE (Standards to be Employed by
Customs for Uniform Rights Enforcement) working group is 30-31 October
at the WCO in Brussels. Quoting from a copy of the agenda obtained by
Intellectual Property Watch, expected items for discussion include
adoption of the third working group report; discussion and adoption 
of the terms of reference working draft and revised proposed action 
plan; review and further development of the working draft of the 
SECURE document of 25 April; a private-sector presentation by Philips; 
and under other business, a presentation by the UN Universal Postal 
Union, and, lastly, "discussion of process document from Brazil and 
Argentina."

Brazil and Argentina requested the agenda item be called, "Transparency,
legitimacy and a member-driven process," but the WCO secretariat chose
to call it simply a "discussion of process document."

In late September, Brazil and Argentina asked the secretariat to
circulate a document entitled, "Ensuring transparency and a 
legitimate, member-driven process in the SECURE working group." 
The author governments requested the document to be considered 
an official document, but it was only considered a "non-paper," 
the sources said.

At the last meeting of the SECURE working group in June, several
members, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador and 
Uruguay, raised the concern that their voices were not heard in 
the preparation of the draft set of standards on enforcement (
<http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php?p=1117> IPW,
Enforcement, 27 June 2008). Intellectual Property Watch was 
ordered by WCO to take down a document from that meeting.

The 189-member Universal Postal Union recently came under scrutiny as
well for a sudden upswing in discussion of enforcement activities. 
The UPU Congress in August reportedly adopted a resolution that 
encouraged members to identify counterfeit and pirated items in the 
postal network and to cooperate with the relevant national and 
international authorities in awareness-raising initiatives to 
prevent illegal circulation of counterfeit goods. But a number 
of countries were concerned that the postal service did not have 
the scope or necessary legal and other expertise to implement
such a resolution, in particular the expertise to determine 
whether a product is counterfeit or violates IP laws. The resolution's 
adoption was appealed, according to sources.

Publication Policy or Information Control?

The WCO limits circulation of its documents in several ways. It posts 
to documents, even meeting agendas, that "for reasons of economy, 
documents are printed in limited number. Delegates are kindly asked 
to bring their copies to meetings and not to request additional 
copies." WCO then adds: "Copyright C 2008 World Customs Organization. 
All rights reserved. Requests and inquiries concerning translation, 
reproduction and adaptation rights should be addressed to
copyright at wcoomd.org."

In order to access documents, passwords are needed, according to a
source. But it is unclear why a copyright is used to protect negotiating
documents used by elected governments, when the documents are not
expected to be offered for sale or any other apparent disadvantage to 
the organisation's secretariat.

The WCO could not comment on its copyright policy by presstime. New WCO
Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya takes office in the new year.

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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