[p2p-research] Fwd: Inevitability of Copyright Law? (Review in Mainstream, India)

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Frederick [FN] Noronha * फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या <fredericknoronha at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 1:04 AM
Subject: Inevitability of Copyright Law? (Review in Mainstream, India)
To: "A.C.Story at kent.ac.uk" <A.C.Story at kent.ac.uk>, asia-commons at googlegroups.com


http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article585.html

 Mainstream, Vol XLVI, No 13
 Inevitability of Copyright Law?

 Sunday 16 March 2008, by G Narasimha Raghavan

 BOOK REVIEW

 The Copy/South Dossier: Issues in the Economics, Politics and Ideology
 of Copyright in the Global South edited by Alan Story, Colin Darch and
 Debora Halbert; The Copy/South Research Group; Kent; 2006.

 Theological affiliations apart, Mark Twain's statement--"only one thing
 is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law in the
 planet"--is too tempting to be refuted, especially for the global
 South. If not, how can one make sense of most nations' copyright
 periods extending to 50 or 70 years after the death of the author,
 when the harbinger of copyright, the Statute of Anne, awarded at the
 most 14 years of copyright protection after publication? This is one
 among the torrent of questions that The Copy/South Dossier raises. The
 Dossier, a joint effort of number of academics and information
 activists, "seeks to provide backing to the argument that copyright
 laws imposed upon the global South have had, and will continue to
 have, a negative impact". Without mincing words, the editors'
 predilection for the global South only adds value to the dossier in
 terms of its research commitment and accomplishment. With 50 odd
 papers written by leading academics and information activists, it has
 been no mean task for editors, Alan Story, Colin Darch and Debora
 Halbert, to put them together and give them a standardised dealing.
 The most important aspect of this Dossier, next only to its appealing
 content, is the argumentative style and analytical approach.

 The next consistent question would be to ask: why South? The global
 South (Asia, Africa, and Latin America, mostly) at the one end has
 been obliterated from any meaningful discussion on the impact of
 international intellectual property rights regimes on it, and at the
 other end, it is the South that has been bearing the brunt of a global
 Copyright system, which has brought up the difficulty of understanding
 the rationale behind the facets of access to information versus
 payment for information predicament. Though the statement that the
 contemporary IPR regime itself is a superimposition on an otherwise
 'free sharing of information' society can be warded off as standard
 fare, it is, nevertheless, essential to take cognisance of the
 incompatibility of West-mooted IP laws, lest it become a
 taken-for-granted part of the South. This makes resistance to the
 regime all the more crucial.

 It is not without reason that the Orient and the Middle East are
 considered pioneers in fields like Mathematics, Astronomy or Surgery.
 The unconvincing stance of the copyright system seeks to replace this
 'culture of sharing' with globalisa-tion's upshot of a 'culture of
 monopolisation and privatisation'. The political orchestration of the
 powers that be, behind such discourteous operations can hardly be
 concealed. This has had many a repercussion:
  * Preventing free speech
  * Impeding cultural exchange and production of knowledge
  * Unwarranted control of channels of communi-cation (media).



 A semantic analysis of the word 'piracy', very often attributed to
 copyright infringers, does not attempt to capture the reality of
 breach, but rather attempts to inflict a pessimistic shade to the act,
 reminiscent of anarchic hooliganism. The currency the term 'copyright
 pirates' has gained, reminds one of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet
 Letter--only too obvious and at once disgusting. To accentuate the
 South's anti-copyright attitude, piracy figures are churned out en
 masse. No economic logic exists behind the statistics on piracy, and
 its superfluous coverage in the media is only an act to secure
 "unwarranted authenticity" and support.

 Besides questioning the validity of the data, the Dossier raises a
 slew of fundamental issues:
  * Who should decide how much of a book can be photocopied? Or even,
 whether a publication can be photocopied at all?
  * Why copyright in reality does not induce newer publications, but
 smothers innovation?
  * Must access to information be the casualty in the digital era?
 (Visit www.copysouth.org)
  * Can copyright protection safeguard traditional knowledge?
  * Should 'commodification of culture' be allowed despite the
 commercial gains for indigenous communities?
  * How appropriate is treating copyright infringement as an act of
 crime? These and other value-loaded issues confront the reader and it
 is impossible to passively read the Dossier.

 The overarching themes of the Dossier are in questioning the
 ideology/philosophy of copyright, its universal applicability and its
 manifestations in the global South. Apparently, the core argument
 spotlights the concern of inevitability of copyright law. The
 alternatives to the copyright regime suggested include the prominent
 Creative Commons licence or even the less known Waitangi Trubunal of
 New Zealand. There is enough for readers to contemplate on the
 alternatives hinted at--either within copyright law, outside it or even
 through it. It must be realised that recognising that there is a
 problem in the South because of copyright law doesn't make one feel
 any better, unless the causes are delineated, which the dossier
 discharges. However, providing a solution is another dimension of the
 discourse, which is beyond the agenda of the Dossier. If a reader is
 disappointed that the dossier does not 'give' a solution, but plainly
 'suggests' alternatives, it is time to remember Marc Bloch's
 insightful statement that "...there are times when for once the
 formulations of problems is more urgent than solutions...". This, the
 Dossier achieves.

 The reviewer is a Ph.D. candidate, Department of Economics, PSG
 College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu).

 --
 ----------------------------------------------------------
 Frederick 'FN' Noronha   | Ym/Gmailtalk: fredericknoronha
 http://fn.goa-india.org     | fred at bytesforall.org
 Independent Journalist   | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9970157402
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