[At-Large] Traditional Cultural Expressions #ICANN #WIPO

parminder parminder at itforchange.net
Thu Jan 30 03:27:41 UTC 2014


Friends

But did not all the good bottom up participatory processes of ICANN, 
conducted over several years, did nothing to prevent the name of 
'Amazon' to be almost taken by a private company as its private 
property, till those bad governments intervened and saved it. A 
governance paradigm based on private contracts (market ideology based 
governance) cannot safeguard public interest. ICANN as constituted now 
simply does not understand the canons of public governance. For 
instance, I would never understand what kind of logic is it to say that 
a generic word like 'book' cannot be saved from e-proprietisation 
because one cannot see a community (the english speaking community?) 
behind it. It is almost funny.... One can of course refuse to see 
anything that one does not want to see... Again it is those bad 
governments that put 'closed generic gtlds' on hold... New gtlds was the 
single most important policy decision for ICANN in a very long time, and 
it simply failed to understand, much less affirm, public interest in 
this important regard.  To me, this means, ICANN processes are simply 
not working. in matters of wider public interest. I am happy to be 
persuaded otherwise.

.. parminder


On Thursday 30 January 2014 06:08 AM, Wolf Ludwig wrote:
> Dear Sala and all,
>
> this is just to confirm that I entirely agree with your elaborations and thoughts below on "how to protect traditional knowledge and indigenous communities" from any usurption by the right-holders industry. Some of us may recall stories about traditionals like "In the jungle ..." and related rights disputes -- see:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_Sleeps_Tonight
>
> And our At-Large community could be an advocate for such a cultural heritage being kept in the public domain. According to my (personal) observations, right holders and their legions of IP lawyers, collecting societies etc. ab/use the Berne Convention (you mentioned below) more and more for unjustified or biased IP claims and thus undermining the Public Domain! In Switzerland organizations I work with have observed and queried several of such cases where right holders or collecting societies are systematically pursuing particular (monetary) interests by harming any public interests or cultural heritages ...
>
> Just another field to closely observe and follow up in the public interest!
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Wolf
>
>
> Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote Thu, 30 Jan 2014 09:17:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Some of you may remember the *ALAC statement on Community Priority
>> Evaluation Guidelines* that was unanimously passed. There are certain
>> developments within on moves to protect Traditional Cultural Expressions
>> through WIPO etc. To see the developments in WIPO and the Draft Articles in
>> this area, in English, Spanish, French and Russian, visit:
>> http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=245543
>>
>> As you can imagine, the At Large community has many people who have an
>> interest in this space either from community based concerns in the
>> protection of such expressions etc.
>>
>> A little known fact is that Vanda Scartazeni used to head and manage
>> Brazil's equivalent of the United States Trademark and Patent Office
>> (USPTO). There are others in the At Large community who have been involved
>> in various Intellectual Property linked matters such as Hong and Seth etc.
>> Instead of always being reactionary to public policy debates and dialogue,
>> it is critical that issues such as Traditional Cultural Expressions and
>> protections in the wake of lack of appropriate mechanisms be protected as
>> captured within the spirit of the Statement of the ALAC.
>>
>> Strategies should be deployed within At Large  on how to best protect
>> them. Care
>> should be taken to protect "traditional knowledge" and "indigenous
>> communities" that may not have the technological savvy to navigate the
>> systems effectively.
>>
>> For example, should Louis Vuitton decide to apply for .maasai and where a
>> Maasai Elder is in the process of protecting their traditional name. Ron
>> Layton of Light Years IP argues that the Maasai brand is worth $10million.
>> See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22617001
>>
>> Intellectual Property and Traditional cultural expressions have been the
>> subject of global discussions as early as 1967 when there was an amendment
>> to the *Berne Convention for the Protection of Artistic and Literary
>> Works*for the protection of unpublished and anonymous works.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Sala
>> _______________________________________________
>> At-Large mailing list
>> At-Large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
>>
>> At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
>>
> EuroDIG Secretariat
> http://www.eurodig.org/
> mobile +41 79 204 83 87
> Skype: Wolf-Ludwig
>
> EURALO - ICANN's Regional At-Large Organisation
> http://euralo.org
>
> Profile on LinkedIn
> http://ch.linkedin.com/in/wolfludwig
> _______________________________________________
> At-Large mailing list
> At-Large at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
>
> At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
>




More information about the At-Large mailing list