Do We Need A World Court For Intellectual Property?

from the well,-we-may-have-one-anyway dept

Fri, Apr 3rd 2009 4:51pm — Mike Masnick

A bunch of folks have sent in various versions of the story that the G20 has agreed to some sort of "world court for intellectual property." Of course, the details still aren't entirely clear (and it sounds like there's still a bunch of horse trading going on), but it would be an extension of WIPO, which has been in charge of enforcing various international treaties. The details are key, but it still does make you wonder why we need a world IP court. Such courts in the past have been shown to not be very effective in dealing with IP issues, because they tend to become dominated by those who believe that "more IP is better" despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So these courts tend to just be the enforcers of industries built on the regulatory monopolies commonly called intellectual property. Well no wonder so many people were sending it in: it was an April Fool's joke. Well done... though, in retrospect the bit about France demanding that the language of the court be French if it were in China should have been a dead give away.

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Filed Under: intellectual property, wipo, world court
Companies: wipo

14 Comments

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Name, 3 Apr 2009 @ 4:55pm

This is a great idea
Since the world bank has worked out so well, it makes sense that something similar for IP should be introduced.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2009 @ 5:05pm

Why again is IP some mystical thing that levitates above government?
Yeah, because the guy who had a Dog Food recipe for 15 years really needs to hire a pricy multi-lingual attorney and go to a "World Court" in Geneva to keep their livelihood.

Makes perfect sense. But there's that pesky Sixth Amendment that needs to be dealt with. How do you think they will circumvent it?

"...of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed..."

Stay tuned for more developments!
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Weird Harold, 3 Apr 2009 @ 5:19pm

Re: Why again is IP some mystical thing that levitates above government?
I would think this would be only for international disputes.
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Matt, 3 Apr 2009 @ 5:28pm

ACTA
watch, I bet this is their acta equivalent
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mc, 3 Apr 2009 @ 5:55pm

It was a joke
I read from the the blog that created this news that it was a joke for Aprils fool's. (from IPKat, IP-Watch and here at IP Think Tank). Please read: http://duncanbucknell.com/blog/605/Thanks-for-all-the-fun-with-the-3-blog-April-1-Joke-on-G20-World- IP-Court-

regards,

mc
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Willton, 3 Apr 2009 @ 7:10pm

Re: Why again is IP some mystical thing that levitates above government?
Makes perfect sense. But there's that pesky Sixth Amendment that needs to be dealt with. How do you think they will circumvent it?

Violations of intellectual property for the most part are civil wrongs, not crimes.
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Willton, 3 Apr 2009 @ 7:13pm

Re: It was a joke
Well, it sounds like a lot of TechDirt readers were taken in by this joke.
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Weird Harold, 3 Apr 2009 @ 8:23pm

Re: Re: It was a joke
Readers? Looks like the boss bit it too.
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2009 @ 9:04pm

Re: It was a joke
Here comes another story that will be fully striked-out...

Damnit. Mike did it already.
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femtobeam, 4 Apr 2009 @ 5:59am

World Court on IP Joke
Too bad. What a great idea in an interconnected, interactive world where borders are disappearing in real time. Imagine having yet more decision makers on high technology issues, protecting our intellectual property rights, instead of unfair trade agreements which give our industries and our future away. Oh, what music to entrepreneurial cortexes, to be able to sue China in our hometowns for stealing our information worldwide off of our computers. They could bring their interpreters and entourages here in large numbers and fill up hotels and spend our lost money in our hometowns. We can drag out the lawsuit, American court HDTV style. Our new yens might make our dollars more valuable then, but can we compete with penniless labor? If it keeps going the way it has been with no solution to the loss of industry, we might.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7970471.stm
http://www.infowar-monitor.net/
http://i nfiltrated.net/ghostnet101.html
Heroes of North America photo at: http://femtobeam.spaces.live.com
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Apr 2009 @ 8:50am

LONG LIVE OPENSOURCE
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Gene Cavanaugh, 4 Apr 2009 @ 10:08am

April Fool's joke
Good for you!
This is one of the reasons I read your blog; you are honest and straightforward!
Keep it up!
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Dave Miller, 4 Apr 2009 @ 8:35pm

A perfectly understandable mistake
I think we need the equivalent of Poe's Law for IP proponents. Something like:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of pro-Intellectual Property arguments that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.
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Derek Kerton (profile), 5 Apr 2009 @ 9:58am

Busted!
Ha. Pwned. However, this fake story isn't even close to being the most outlandish pro-IP story I've read here in the past year.

Would that all of the crazy ideas that IP feeders propose were April fool's jokes. Sadly, most are true.

It's easy to spot a fake tree. It's harder to spot a fake tree planted in a forest.
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