The 3rd session of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is meeting from 3-6 December 2008 in Hyderabad, India. According to the conference website, Hyderabad is
known for its rich history, culture and architecture representing its unique character as a meeting point for North and South India, and its multilingual culture, both geographically and culturally. Also known as The City of Nizams and The City of Pearls, Hyderabad is today one of the most developed cities in the country and a modern hub of information technology, ITES, and biotechnology.
With over 90 parallel workshops taking place over four days in the glittering glass palace of the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, keeping abreast of the IGF’s work related to inter alia, open standards, government procurement, access to knowledge, privacy, climate change, cyber-crimes and digital inclusion is a daunting task. KEI’s involvement in co-convening three workshops related to open standards through our participation in the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards will be detailed in subsequent posts.
On the first day of the IGF in India, I was afforded the opportunity to attend a workshop entitled “Overcoming Obstacles of Effective Digital Education.” Speakers on this panel included Nathaniel Gleicher (Yale Information Society Project), Geidy Lung (World Intellectual Property Organization), Hong Xue (Beijing Normal University), Virginia Paque (DiploFoundation) and Eddan Katz (Electronic Frontier Foundation). Nathaniel Gleicher highlighted the importance of scoping when addressing barriers to digital education. He noted that as society develops solutions to the roadblocks that digital education faces it needs to
ensure that those solutions are flexible enough to allow the continued expansion of non-traditional educational frameworks. Solutions built around traditional concepts like a classroom or a physical school, for instance, will allow traditional education to expand its use of digital techniques, but not allow new forms of education to develop, which is one of the areas where the potential of digital education is most exciting.
Geidy Lung from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) presented her organization’s perspective on overcoming obstacles to effective digital education. She noted that copyright provides a “great tool to increase access to educational materials” particular through the disseminating power of the internet which bore testament to the convergence of digital technologies.
With respect to international copyright treaties, Ms Lung cited the Berne Convention as an example of a Treaty that offered flexibilities to countries to tailor according to their respective needs. She cautioned that in envisioning minimum standards for limitations and exceptions to copyright, a “one size fits all approach” should be eschewed noting that fair use, fair dealing and voluntary exceptions formed part of a broad array of options available to Member States.
On the work of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), she noted the Committee’s work on limitations and exceptions with respect to the visually handicapped, library and educational communities. She reminded the audience of the Committee’s decision to establish a “stakeholders’ platform at WIPO, in order to facilitate arrangements to secure access for disabled persons to protected works” including an “analysis of limitations and exceptions” for the blind. When your blogger asked Ms. Lung if she could provide information on the modalities involved in the establishment of the stakeholders platform, she responded by noting that this platform would be comprised of representatives from the visually impaired community, the publishers and collective management organizations. The terms of reference for the platform would be drafted by the stakeholders’ platform and would be facilitated by the WIPO Secretariat; the platform is expected to meet at the beginning of 2009. In conclusion, Ms. Lung emphasized that inculcating a healthy respect for copyright in tandem with a robust limitations and exceptions regime would facilitate access to digital education.