Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 10:01:52 -0500 (EST) From: Paul JonesSubject: Re: intellectual property Whilst John's paper is a good overview, the world of copyright and IP has moved very quickly. In the past three weeks, WIPO treaties on databases were withdrawn entirely and a US decision on NBA vs Motorola and Stats Inc seems to have upheld the Feist opinion rather than to curtail it. In fact most of the odious treaties concerning fair use at WIPO were withdrawn. Even as Bruce Lehman called for a Global Patent Authority, he announced a backing off by the Clinton administration from pursuing the transmission right. Gates, Mr. Bill, even argued for retaining our current understanding of copyright (from the US viewpoint) rather than changing things or adding new rights. Still one should not rest easy thinking that all is well. Lehman has advocated the extension of rights holders' monopolies at every turn and I think that transmission right like the clipper chip will resurface again in a new suit of clothes. One interesting event is the return of John Podesta to the White House. His brother and partner on Podesta associates runs the Creative Incentive Coalition (see www.cic.org) a lobbying organization that represents many rights holders, but who also opposed the database treaty. They also have a number of interesting links (when you consider the source) including the multimedia in education guidelines, worked on by Rick Provine but rejected by ALA and other library groups. On hte other end of the spectrum, Jamie Love of Nader's organization runs the Consumers Project on Technology at www.essential.org/cpt/ and the Union fo the Public Domain at www.public-domain.org They did excellent and radical reports from WIPO on a daily basis. While their discussion gets a bit wild, Richard Stallman is a vocal participant, it is well worth the noise level. They also run a special list on the database treaties which has become silent lately. Good paper by John just some updates.
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