EFF and IP Justice under attack at WIPO conference



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: EFF and IP Justice under attack at WIPO conference
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:22:32 GMT
From: Macki
To: declan@well.com

Hey Declan,

I just spent some time catching up on all the action over at WIPO and 
thought
I'd share my poorly written summary with politech. Everyone should be paying
attention to what's going on over there, and crying bloody murder on 
behalf of
the developing nations and our pals at IP Justice and the EFF (who are 
getting
shafted, surprise!).

WIPO has been meeting for this week in Geneva, under discussion is a 
broadcast
treaty that would cover webcasters and grant new rights to publishers a 
la the
DMCA, prohibiting circumvention of technical measures, etc. etc. Typical 
evil
stuff. IP Justice has a statement on the situation here:
http://www.ipjustice.org/WIPO/release20041118.shtml

It seems that things have gone from bad to worse over the past three 
days, the
chair of WIPO and persons unknown have resorted to dirty tricks in an 
attempt to
ramrod the proposal through. The Chair has abandoned consensus building, 
and is
now DICTATING to the member countries how they will proceed. The Chair is
pushing to begin a Diplomatic Conference which would mean that drafting 
would
begin on the official Broadcast Treaty and NGO public interest groups 
like the
EFF and IP Justice will no longer be able to attend and monitor the 
process. Not
only that, but the NGO's are currently UNDER ATTACK; for three days 
running now
they have had their publications STOLEN by saboteurs and thrown into 
trashcans.
These documents are essential for communicating their positions to the 
delegates
and reproducing them requires a long bus trip into town.

Cory Doctorow is among the EFF representatives at WIPO, he has been 
blogging as
the situation develops at eff.org/deeplinks/

More on the stolen documents: 
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002117.php

Read all of today's the filthy details here:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002130.php

–Macki
Posted by Declan McCullagh on Nov 29, 2004