<nettime> One doesn't often hear the term "massive victory" in this context.

[Bruce Sterling <bruces@well.com>]

Massive victory at WIPO!
posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:26:39 AM
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/04/massive_victory_at_w.html

For years now, progressive elements and copyfighters have been trying to 
get the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization to start thinking 
about ways of promoting creativity and development instead of just IP -- 
to get the organization to see that its raison d'etre is a better world, 
and that stronger IP laws is just one way of accomplishing that -- and 
that IP only works sometimes.

We've been foiled at every turn by the maximalists, the movies studios and 
the trademark offices, the patent-cops and the recording industry 
lobbyists and the IP lawyers' associations.

Which is why this is such good news: at the general session of the WIPO in 
Geneva this weekend, the Assembly as adoped a decision to put development 
and the promotion of creativity front-and-center in its goals. That means 
that from now on, WIPO isn't an organization that blindly supports more IP 
no matter what, but rather one that seeeks to improve the world by 
whatever tool is best suited to the job.

Jamie Love and the Consumer Project on Technology http://cptech.org/ gets 
the credit for this: they were the ones who started this fight, and 
they've been the ones who led it all along.

This is the day the tide turns.  Bearing in mind the internationally 
agreed development goals, including those in the United Nations Millennium 
Declaration, the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for 
the Decade 2001-2010, the Monterey Consensus, the Johannesburg Declaration 
on Sustainable Development, the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of 
Action of the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society 
and the Sao Paulo Consensus adopted at UNCTAD XI;

(1) The General Assembly welcomes the initiative for a development
     agenda and notes the proposals contained in document
     WO/GA/31/11.

(2) The General Assembly decides to convene inter-sessional
     intergovernmental meetings to examine the proposals contained
     in document WO/GA/31/11, as well as additional proposals of
     Members States. To the extent possible, the meetings will be
     convened in conjunction with the 2005 session of the Permanent
     Committee on Cooperation for Development Related to
     Intellectual Property. The meetings, open to all Member States,
     will prepare a report by July 30, 2005, for the consideration
     of the next General Assembly. WIPO-accredited IGOs and NGOs are
     invited to participate as observers in the meetings.

(3) The International Bureau shall undertake immediate arrangements
     in order to organize with other relevant multilateral
     organizations including UNCTAD, WHO, UNIDO and WTO, a joint
     international seminar on Intellectual Property and Development,
     open to the participation of all stakeholders, including NGOs,
     civil society and academia.




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