CRA-ADC

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in cra-briefings32 · December 15, 2005

THE 6TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR CULTURAL DIVERSITY (INCD) BROUGHT TOGETHER 138 DELEGATES FROM 45 COUNTRIES.

From 17 to 20 November 2005, the 6th Annual Meeting of the International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD) brought together 138 delegates from 45 countries. The Conference was held in Dakar in partnership with the Senegalese Network of SocioCultural Actors and the National Coalition for Cultural Diversity (Senegal). Together, these Senegalese organizations represent the full range of Senegal’s rich arts and cultural sector, from grass roots dance and music groups to the cultural industries, and this reflects as well the broad scope of INCD’s membership.

With the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the protection and the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, the INCD and culture ministers in the INCP are moving into a new phase. They must work for the implementation of the Convention and work to find concrete ways to make it effective as a political and development tool. It is especially significant that we are embarking on this next phase of our work in Africa, the birthplace of humanity, and in Senegal, with its rich diversity of arts and culture that, unfortunately, is all too often not widely available.

In three days of dynamic dialogue, delegates to the 6th Annual Meeting focused on four key issues:

• the immediate ratification of the Convention by 70-85 UNESCO member states;
• resisting demands in the WTO and regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements to make commitments that undermine the objectives and principles of the Convention and would render it meaningless;
• identifying policy initiatives and projects that give life to the commitments in the Convention, particularly to create preferential opportunities for artists and cultural productions from the South and to provide the necessary resources to develop cultural capacity and creative industries; and
• enhancing cooperation among states committed to the Convention, especially in fora where its objectives and principles are under threat, and between those states and civil society at national, regional and international levels.

APPEAL OF MUSIC ARTISTS AGAINST PIRACY IN AFRICA

On the occasion of the Regional Seminar on contractual arrangements and musicians’ rights held in Dakar from 15 to 17 November 2005, we , the representatives of professional organizations from fifteen African countries unanimously adopt this appeal.

1. Denouncing the alarming level of acts of piracy on music creation and production that makes it impossible for ant professional and independent musical creative industry to rise in Africa;
2. Reminding that in addition to the massive prejudice to the role players of the music value chain, piracy causes the loss of tremendous amount of revenues which are detrimental to the public interest;
3. Considering that the African music heritage can not sustain and develop in the globalized context of trade and digital technology, without an appropriate status for music professionals as well as intellectual property right on the result of their work;
4. Affirming that due to the growth of piracy networks and their largely cross-border characteristic, the governmental and non-governmental organisations should implement joint strategies with the aim of dismantling the manufacturing importation and distribution of pirates cassettes, CDs, VCRs and DVDs;
5. Recalling the national measures arising from public authority prerogatives are the exclusive responsibility and competence of the State, that it shouldn’t transfer the burden of such measures on collective management and has therefore to ensure the proper application of the law, notably guarantees the economical and social interest of music professionals;
6. Calling on the African States to ratify, transpose and enforce the international treaties in order to harmonize and globalize the rights of music performers such as those of others stakeholders;
7. Urging African States to go beyond the political will of defending culture that they strongly expressed in adopting the Convention on the protection and promotion of diversity of cultural expressions, through concrete measures of fighting against piracy in cooperation with professional organisations.

The organisations issuing this appeal are the following: OMB (Organisation des Musiciens du Bnin), SYNAM (Syndicat National des Artistes Musiciens du Burkina Faso), SYCAMU (Syndicat Camerounais des Artistes Musiciens), MUSIGA (Musicians’ Union of Ghana), MAM (Musicians’ Association of Malawi), NAU (Namibian Artists’ Union), ANACIMM (Association Nationale des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Interprtes de Musique Moderne du Niger), AMS ( Association des Mtiers de la Musique du Sngal), SLMU (Sierra-Leone Musicians’ Union), MUSA ( Musicians’ Union of South Africa), TNM (Tanzania Musicians Network), SAIAC (Syndicat des Artistes Interprtes et Auteurs-Compositeurs du TOGO), UMU (Uganda Musicians’ Union) et MUZI (Musicians’ Union of ZIMBABWE). The Senegal Inter-professional Phonographic Producers and Publishers (CIPEPS) supports this appeal.

THE UNITED STATES MAINTAINS ITS FIRM STANCE

In mid October, the US Sentencing Commission approved an emergency set of rules that will increase prison sentences for people convicted of copyright infringement over peer-to-peer networks, where those works are being infringed for commercial purposes. In response to a directive from the Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, which required the Commission to review the sentencing guidelines dealing with people convicted of intellectual property crimes. The guidelines have been modified to make clear that “uploading” includes having a copyright file available in a shared folder (like those on P2P networks) which can count as illegal distribution. For more information on the new sentencing guidelines see www.ussc.gov.

The office of the US Trade Representative has been flexing some muscle in response to the amendments to the Copyright Act proposed by the Canadian government in Bill C-60. At a seminar hosted by Osgoode Hall’s Professional Development Program in November, Ms. Gloria Choe-Groves, a representative of the US Trade Representative, indicated that her office did not believe that the amendments offered by Bill C-60 were sufficient to meet the requirements of WIPO treaties. Specifically, she suggested the protections for Technical Protection Measures should be stronger and that ISP’s should be subject to a notice-and-takedown regime rather than the notice-and-notice provided. The bill became history on November 29th when the Martin Government fell and a general election called. The contents of Bill C-60 can be seen at: www.canadianheritage.gc.ca.

HONG KONG MAN CONVICTED

On the eve of the Sixth Ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization taking place in Hong Kong in December (and eighteen months after the WIPO meeting in Beijing had to be cancelled because of the outbreak of SARS) and important copyright case has been decided in China.

Chan Nai Ming has been convicted in Hong Kong for infringing copyright by sharing movies online over the P2P software program BitTorrent; specifically three Hollywood bock busters “Red Planet”, “Miss Congeniality” and “Daredevil”. He has been sentenced to three months in jail for each count, to be served concurrently, and a fine to $645HK. Although the sentence was light (the maximum being a four year jail term and a hefty fine), it is believed that Nai-Ming is the first person to be convicted of P2P file sharing under Hong Kong’s law. (www.news.com.com)

GROKSTER CLOSES UP SHOP

In the face of ongoing battles in the American courts, Grokster has ceased operations. The notice on its web page currently states: “The United States Supreme Court has unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners. There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This is not one of them. Grokster hopes to have a safe and legal service available soon.” (www.grokster.com)

Grokster isn’t the only P2P service that is bowing to pressure form the recording industry. In Australia, a case between Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) and Swiftel Communications settled out of court. (www.news.com.com)

WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH GOOGLE

Amazon is the next company to jump on the digital band-wagon. However, Amazon is taking a different approach than Google and other enterprises. Under its Amazon Pages program customers will be allowed to purchase portions of a digitized book, and will be charged by the page. Also, where a customer has purchased a book in traditional form, Amazon will offer that person full online access to the text. Differentiating itself from the service offered by Google by requiring purchase, Amazon has won the support of The Authors Guild and publishers, including Random House are beginning to come on board. For more information on this initiative please see www.washingtonpost.com or www.news.yahoo.com.

HAPPENINGS AT WTO

Susan Crean, co-chair of the Creators Rights Alliance is attending the 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December. Watch the January Briefing for an update on the highlights of the meetings.

In advance of the meetings, several countries have answered the call for contributions to the technical assistance of the least-developed nations. (Of the 148 WTO members, about threequarters have self-elected the status of developing nation. Of these, 30 are designated least developing countries.) At the Fifth Ministerial meeting at Doha, it was confirmed that technical cooperation and capacity building were “core elements” of the evolving multilateral trading system. WTO technical assistance is to assist developing and least-developed countries and lowincome countries adjust to WTO rules and disciplines, implement obligations and exercise rights of membership. Since last March, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Norway, Korea and the US have made contributions to the fund. Most recently, Iceland agreed to contribute 180,000 CHF for technical assistance in 2006 and 2007. Here’s more from the WTO’s site.

Canada contributed $156,000 this year to the second Caribbean Regional Trade Policy Course. Many critics of Canada’s participation at the WTO have suggested that Canada should follow the lead of Scandinavian countries and support of technical assistance. The increase in technical funding is good news, nonetheless, for African Countries in the lead up to the Ministerial Conference where progress on agricultural, trade and debt forgiveness issues is expected to be strongly debated. For more information on the Ministerial see the press release.

PATENTING A “STORYLINE”

A process of relaying a story having a timeline and a unique plot involving characters includes: indicating a character’s fear of acting in a particular manner or performing a particular task, indicating the character being provided with a virtual reality environment, indicating that the character’s fear is reduced or eliminated in the virtual reality environment, and indicating a belief of the character that the character is in the virtual reality environment at a time in the timeline in which the character is not in the virtual reality environment.

—Abstract from US Patent Application #20050255437

The US Patent and Trademark Office has published history’s first “storyline” patent and is expected to issue several others in the coming months. This represents a new area of intellectual property protection that some critics think is overreaching the traditional bounds of patent law. Others note the resort to patent protection for a work that would normally be covered by copyright. The question raised for creators is one of definition. When does an idea become a technique? The “storyline” above is a story idea that would emerge from the hands of Stephen King and Margaret Atwood completely differently. If plots can be patented, the next question would have to be, who benefits? If the play or story is based on reality, should the protagonists get a cut? And if this idea has been used before, can the heirs sue, can the public domain be taxed? Could Shakespeare be had up for patent infringement?

Watch this space for updates on this patent application in the coming months. For more information on the application see www.emediawire.com or www.uspto.gov.