[wilhelmtux-discussion] Re: WSIS documents and Intellectual Property Rights

[Alex Schroeder]

"Claude Almansi" <claude.almansi at bluewin.ch> writes:

> Apparently we have a translation problem here: some French speakers
> tend to avoid "copyright" and render it as "droits de propriété
> intellectuelle" or "droits d'auteur" - out of absurd respect for the
> rules of "francophonie" , and considering the English of the
> documents post Prep-Com2, they have obviously been written in
> English by a French native speaker. This could be an instance of
> retranslation not landing where it started from (copyright > droits
> de propriété intellectuelle > IPRs - instead of back to copyright)

Well, this is not really that absurd; I am halfway through the book
published by the German "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung"
(federal institute for political education?).  The book is by Vokler
Grassmuck and entitled "Freie Software -- Zwischen Privat- und
Gemeineigentum" (free software -- between privat property and public
domain).  In the introduction, Grassmuck traces the two distinct ideas
of anglo-saxon "copyright" (page 51) and continental "droit d'auteur"
(page 58) from the beginning of the middle ages to present times.

The two ideas are very different (to specialists).  The Berne
Convention, for example, was written with the continental "droit
d'auteur" in mind, and this is why the US and the UK only joined the
convention very late (1988) (page 62).

I was actually planning to write a longer essay on this subject.  So
many things to do, and so little time!  Especially since I have to
fill in my tax forms...  ;)

Anyway, even Grassmuck uses the French term "droit d'auteur" to
differentiate the continental tradition of intellectual property from
the anglo-saxon tradition.

> So what these passages really aim at, apparently, is preserving a
> public commons from the trend evidenced, for instance, in the US
> Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), extending the duration of
> copyright by 20 years.

For any official documents we might produce, we have to be very
precise.

Duration of copyright protection has been extended by US congress, and
as the Eldred case (Lessig was his lawyer, see
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/cat_eldredcc.shtml)
illustrates, it seems that congress will keep this power, and
therefore we can assume that US copyright will be extended again in 20
years, unless something happens.

The DMCA on the other hand, prevents the circumvention and reverse
engineering of copyright protection schemes.

I think for WSIS it is important to fight the perpetual extension of
copyright extension in order to tilt the balance back towards the
public domain.

And I think that it is important to fight the DMCA, because of several
reasons:

First, protection of academic freedom to examine copyright protection
schemes, because it is a well known belief in the security world that
only public scrutiny (many investigators looking at the algorithms and
the implemention) will make sure that something that is claimed to be
secure, actually is secure.  (This is more or less from Bruce
Schneiers Cryptogram newsletter, which I really recommend!)

Second, copyright protection schemes will enforce ideas about
copyright that are not part of the law.  The law has left several
areas open -- private copies, for example -- because that is what the
public wants.  Copyright protection schemes can prevent private copies
eventhough the law allows it.  Therefore the ability to circumvent
these schemes is a key issue.  (This is more or less from Lessig's
book Future Of Ideas, which I really recommend!)

> This terminology issue must be corrected, of course. But the concept of
> "balance" must be kept explicitly. Otherwise, the private and government
> sectors might take advantage of this to further encroach on public commons.

I agree completely.  All of this is just clarification on certain
issues in the documents.  Being able to discuss these will show that
we have the necessary knowhow, and having the necessary knowhow will
enable us to steer the documents in directions we support.

Alex.

PS: Lessig replied to my mail:

> If you hear something, let me know. I've sent the statement to them.

Now we'll wait for their response...