September 2, 2011
From KEI staff review of Wikileaks cables (/wikileaks)
This is a US Department of State cable reporting on the WIPO SCCR 17 meeting, which took place November 3-7, 2008. This was the first meeting focusing primarily on copyrigh limitations and exceptions, and also, the meeting where the World Blind Union first presented its proposal for a treaty.
Among the observations reported in the cable:
As KEI has discussed previously, USTR’s proposal for the IP chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) raises numerous concerns for human rights, access to medicines, and access to information, among other issues. Continue Reading →
Two cables recently disclosed by Wikileaks illustrate the degree to which the Obama Administration was monitoring the EU review of the Oracle acquisition of Sun, and leaning on the European Union to permit Oracle to acquire MySQL and other “open source” assets controlled by Sun.
Both cables were signed by Ambassador Christopher W. Murray, who served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at the United States Mission to the European Union, in Brussels, Belgium, from 2007 to 2010.
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The following are 2,446 cables from Wikileaks, that mention the search term: “pharmaceutical.” The search was conducted on August 29, 2011. This is an average of 23 cables per week, for the period. The cables are organized by dates.
Among the cables recently published by Wilileaks is one written on November 24, 2009, detailing negotiations between USTR and Anand Sharma, the Cabinet Minister for Commerce and Industry of the Government of India. The complete cable is available here: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/11/09NEWDELHI2375.html
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The WIPO General Assembly meets from Monday, 26 September 2011 to Wednesday, 5 October 2011 and will take place at the International Conference Center Geneva (CICG), 17 rue de Varembé, 1211, Geneva.
The tentative schedule for 49th session of the WIPO General Assembly can be found here: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/a_49/a_49_1_prov_2.pdf.
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On June 29, while the OECD civil society group CSISAC (80+ NGOs) debated the text of a high level statement on the Principles of Internet Policy Making, I sent this missive to the group discussing the text, expressing KEI’s opposition to the draft statement. Continue Reading →
KEI Statement on the Broadcast Treaty at WIPO SCCR 22
June 21, 2011
KEI opposes work at WIPO on a new treaty for broadcasting organizations.
To the extent that creative works are distributed through broadcasting networks, they are nearly always protected by copyright.
In the small cases where the broadcast involves material in the public domain, it would be a mistake to give the broadcaster an intellectual property right, merely for transmitting information.
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