WIPO Wants Your Feedback

Christian Engstrom writes "The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is hosting an online discussion about 'Intellectual Property in the Information Society' from June 1 to 15, 2005. The conclusions of the Online Forum will form part of WIPO's contribution to the WSIS Tunis Summit. There are 10 different themes for discussion, including 'Open Information: At Odds with the IP System?' and 'Enforcement of IP Rights'. If you have any comments about file sharing, copyright enforcement, etc. (and who hasn't?), this may be a good place to post them."

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what kind of feedback y'all are looking for but here are some articles in my zine, EuroHacker, about IP and related stuff:

• Interview with ESR [nyud.net]
• Interview with RMS [nyud.net]
• Open Source vs. Free Software [nyud.net]

Heh, might as well give y'all the sales plug :)

EuroHacker Magazine is a free-as-in-beer webzine dedicated to neat hacks, guns and survival. All from a European, slightly libertarian, perspective

You can find us in #eurohacker on irc.freenode.org or you can send us an e-mail to [e-mail]

Oh, and the main site is here [nyud.net].

All the links were nyud'ized. One can never be too careful :)

Re:Not for us

[dattaway]

Its an organization for money, supported by organizations with money. They are in the business of taking rights and making money from it. We are not welcome.

Patented

[mfh]

The use of a third-party middle finger is currently patent-pending, and therefore we must notify you that we are unable to accept your patent-infringing useage of this method of expression. Please fill in this form, in triplicate and then we might ignore your request for up to six years, while we stay busy stealing ideas from trusting fools.

Have a nice day.

Re:Ugh, I feel dirty

[Alsee]

They also cited the Wikipedia definition of "Public Domain" and in the next sentence proceeded to BASTARDIZE it into some sort of flaw in the law:

Wikipedia defines "public domain" as the "body of knowledge and innovation (especially creative works such as writing, art, music and inventions) in relation to which no person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests. This body of information and creativity is considered to be part of the common cultural and intellectual heritage of humanity, which in general anyone may use or exploit." The public domain includes works and objects of related rights that can be used and exploited by everyone without authorization, and without obligation to pay the copyright owners concerned - generally because the term of protection for the works in question has expired or because there is no provision of copyright law requiring protection of the works in the country where the works are sought to be used.

Excuse me, if something is in the public domain then the "copyright owner" who is not getting paid DOES NOT EXIST.

And the last part in appears to paint public domain as a problem of flawed law from some sort of rouge countries.

-

Re:Feedback? easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody hates lawyers, until they need one. Lawyers are preety much the only thing that stands between politicians and absolute power.

Re:They'd never consider it, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

Example: Allofmp3.com

They are cheap, and everything they offer is also available through "free" means like Gnutella, etc.

However, many people still use them. Why? Cheap + Convenient trumps Free + Hassle.

Re:They'd never consider it, but...

[Fëanáro]

My time is not free.
Hunting something down can be time consuming task, and with the usual p2p crap chances are you end up with something incomlete, useless or worse (like a children's movie with porn sliced in (or so I have heard (no, really, just heard about it :-) ) ) )

So "cheap" would probably be far cheaper than "free" in this case

Re:They'd never consider it, but...

[AstroDrabb]

I think you are way off base here Rosco. DVD/Video rentals and sales are at an all-time-high! There are plenty of people (the majority actaully) that just want to pay a fair price and be done with it. The amount of time it takes to download a movie and then transcode it and burn it to a DVD is jut not worth it. Especially if you could get a new DVD for $5 bucks or so. What could turn that majority away is restrictive DRM, high prices, and region lockout. Even Joe User will get tired of not being able to go to the menu of a DVD until he has watched 10 mins of commercials.

For an exmaple of this, go to Walmart on a Friday night or Saturday. Go near the electrontics section and look for the big bargin-bin DVD thingy. It is just filled with tons of older or lesser titles for _very_ cheap. Watch as you see people act like animals over a kill trying to get at titles. It is really pretty sad.

Re:They'd never consider it, but...

[MushMouth]

iTunes sells less songs in a year than get traded in a week via free p2p.