Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Members of all political party groups in the European Parliament in a debate in Strasbourg yesterday asked the European Commission to scrap several conditions demanded by the European Union and other Western countries in the World Intellectual Property Organization negotiations for the draft treaty on copyright exceptions for the blind and visually impaired.
While controversies over the role of governments in internet governance could not be avoided at the World Telecom Policy Forum this week, six prepared opinions were all passed with only minor changes. But a Brazilian proposal to "operationalize the role of governments in the multistakeholder framework of internet governance," discussed at some length during the concluding day of the forum, did not find consensus.
Global exports of creative goods and services reached a record US$ 624 billion in 2011, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Such creative goods include arts and crafts, books, graphic and interior design works, fashion, films, music, new media, printed and visual media, as well as audiovisuals.
Governments, sector members of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and a number of civil society groups are gathering in Geneva for three days this week to talk internet politics at the 5th World Telecom Policy Forum (WTPF). The non-binding forum is the first opportunity to take the temperature of the international telecom politics community since the failed World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) last December. At the same time, it is seen by many as the stepping stone to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference and therefore a platform to position oneself with regard to future internet-related public policy and the future role of states in the digital world.
The European Commission today announced plans for a Global Internet Policy Observatory (GIPO), an online platform to improve knowledge and participation on issues related to global internet policymaking.
The 2013 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum opened today to address the future of information and communication technologies (ICT). This meeting of the WSIS Forum marks ten years since the first phase of the summit was held in Geneva in 2003.
US President Barack Obama yesterday signed an executive order that requires federal agencies to make data publicly open in machine-readable formats, while appropriately safeguarding privacy, confidentiality, and security.
While diplomats are trying to find consensus on an international instrument to protect traditional knowledge at the World Intellectual Property Organization, some countries are establishing systems to protect their traditional knowledge domestically. South Africa will be launching on 24 May its National Recordal System to catalogue its indigenous knowledge.
Advanced cyber espionage tools are readily available for use by foreign governments and organised criminal groups to coordinate cyber attacks on US computer networks, a United States law enforcement official said today in a prepared statement to a congressional panel.
Cape Town, South Africa - Amid growing calls for the controversial Protection of State Information bill to be referred to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, open data activists are fighting a separate but related battle for government to release its data to the public.