Alliance Activities
in cra-briefings37 · June 15, 2006
The chair of the Indigenous People’s Caucus attended the recent meeting of WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore in Geneva.(IGC). At the WIPO General Assembly in September 2006 the IGC mandate was extended for two additional years. IGC Nine, April 24-28, 2006, was the first meeting under the renewed mandate. At IGC Eight many member states had expressed the opinion that the Committee’s progress on genetic resources would be long term, and therewas wide agreement that progress on TK and TCEs (traditional cultural expressions) should be the focus of the Committee’s work in the short term. As The WIPO Secretariat believed there was widespread support at IGC Eight for document WIPO/GRTKF/IC/8/4 on TCEs and document WIPO/GRTKF/IC/8/5 on TK. These two , the documents were presented to IGC nine unchanged as document WIPO/GRTKF/IC/9/4 on TCEs WIPO/GRTKF/IC/9/5 on TK.
Aside from the re-presentation of the two documents, IGC Nine was marked by two other important events: The Norway Proposal and the establishment of the Voluntary Fund. The Norway Proposal is a proposal for charting the IGC’s way forward was modeled on the progression of The Paris Convention. The basic tenements of the proposal is that there needs to be a great deal more discussion on the binding or non-binding international instrument(s) on TK and TCEs under consideration at the IGC, and, therefore, that the Committee should begin with a Political Declaration on TK and TCEs as the start of the ‘roadmap’ of it’s future work. The Voluntary Fund for increased Indigenous participation at IGC meetings that had been under discussion for four years was finally established at IGC Nine. The WIPO Secretariat announced the establishment of the Fund at the beginning of the meeting and that SwedBio, a division of The Swedish Government’s Sweden Development Agency, had contributed an initial $65,000 U.S. to it. The Fund’s establishment received wide support and France announced an additional contribution of 20,000€. A special committee of Indigenous NGOs was struck and met during IGC Nine to decide on which applications would be funded to attend IGC Ten. During the course of the IGC Nine discussions there was wide spread support for the Norway Proposal as a way forward with the TK and TCE documents. Of the very few member states who criticized elements of the documents, Canada spoke against the non Intellectual Property proposals and Australia spoke strongly against the proposal that Customary Law should prevail over Intellectual Property Law. Lead by Brazil, Peru, The African Union, Norway, India, as well as other member states and Indigenous people, the meeting agreed that the IGC should consider the Norway Proposal and set a short term goal of establishing a Political Declaration on TK and TCEs based on the principles set out in the two documents. A significant portion of IGC Nine was spend on members states making comments on specific elements of the text of the TCE and TK documents. In the end, the Committee decide that IGC Ten In December 2006 should be extended one or two days to allow time for comments on specific elements of the text of the documents. The CRA IPC rep also made an intervention at IGC Nine supporting the Norway Proposal and encouraging the IGC to move toward a binding international treaty.
COPYLEFT EVENT TAKES SHAPE!
The CRA’s Fall event has a name and very soon will have it’s own website. It will take place at Ryerson University’s new Student Campus Centre on September 28, 29 & 30th and it is being sponsored by the School of Journalism. It will open on the Thursday evening and run over Friday and Saturday. We have billed the event as opportunity for artists and creators to share information and experiences about working on/with the Internet. As announced in Briefings #35, it will feature an electronic salon showcasing some of these projects.
Artists and activists from across Canada and from abroad will be on hand to discuss their work and their experiments with new forms of contracts (such as the Creative Commons licence) and innovative business models. There will also be discussions touching on the key themes of IPS and general licencing, of open source and the Internet.
A team has been put in place headed by Denise Bolduc (coordinator) with Phillip Smith of Community Bandwith doing the web strategy, Chandler Powell of Innovolve providing the technical services relating to the salon and web coverage, Misha Globerman for the animation of the event, particularly the Salon. Looking around at new approaches being used for such events, the team has proposed borrowing from the burgeoning experience with “unconferences”, and Barcamps where participants take an active role in programming the event as well in the sessions themselves. So the event will be known as Copy©Camp : an unconference for artists about the Internet and the challenge to copyright. Lawrence Lessig (Creator of the Creative Commons Licence), Bob Young of Red Hat and Lulu.com, and writer and activist Cory Doctorow have been invited. Keep your eye out for Copy©Camp website. Coming Soon @ www.copycamp.ca.
For Community Bandwidth see: www.communitybandwidth.ca/phillipadsmith/for-colleagues.
For Innovolve, see www.innovolve.com.
For Misha Glouberman, host/animator and producer of the series Trampoline Hall, see www.trampolinehall.net.
For Barcamps see: barcamp.org/TheRulesOfBarCamp and a recent article about Barcamp in Ottawa.
CRA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The Fifth Annual General Meeting as help in Toronto on June 1st 2006 at the Centre for Social Innovation. Delegates representing fifteen organizations were present. With a membership of ten organizations now, the Indigenous People’s Caucus elected its co-chair for the first time.
English Canada Caucus : Susan Crean (TWUC), chair, Ken Thompson (ACTRA) director, Janice Seline (CAR/FAC Collective) director.
Quebec Caucus : Michel Beauchemin (AQAD) chair, André Cornellier (CAPIC) director, Mireille Gagné (CMC) director.
Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus : Greg Young-Ing, chair.
Welcome New Members: Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts, Native Earth Performing Arts, Centre for Indigenous Theatre, TRIBE : Centre for Evolving Aboriginal Media, Visual and Performing Arts Inc, and Indigenous Performance Art Alliance.