UN Human Rights Commissioner Says Snowden Shouldn't Face A Trial

from the disclosing-human-rights-violations dept

We just noted that the UN has made it clear that mass surveillance and broad data retention likely violates international law. Given that, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise to hear that UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has said that Ed Snowden should not face a trial, since he was revealing human rights violations:

"Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected: we need them," Pillay told a news conference.

"I see some of it here in the case of Snowden, because his revelations go to the core of what we are saying about the need for transparency, the need for consultation," she said. "We owe a great deal to him for revealing this kind of information."

While this is unlikely to lead the US to suddenly drop its Espionage Act charges against Snowden (when has the US ever cared about what the UN has to say?), it's yet another example in a growing list of people recognizing just how extreme and isolated the US government's kneejerk reaction was to the Snowden revelations. If the US government were actually willing to be self-critical, it might realize what a mistake it's doing in trying to string up the messenger. We should be examining the appropriateness of the surveillance state, not whether the person who revealed the details should spend the rest of his life in jail.

Filed Under: ed snowden, human rights, navi pillay, un, whistleblowing

UN Report Says Mass Surveillance May Violate International Law

from the good-to-see dept

The good folks over at the EFF have a detailed overview of a new report from the UN, which has basically found that mass surveillance, similar to that which is carried out by the NSA and GCHQ can often violate international law. The full report is just 16 pages, but the EFF version highlights some of the key lines. The biggest is the report's rejection of the whole "collect the haystack" approach to mass surveillance. The UN report makes it clear that this is not a reasonable approach, especially when it is not shown to be "necessary and proportionate."

Where there is a legitimate aim and appropriate safeguards are in place, a State might be allowed to engage in quite intrusive surveillance; however, the onus is on the Government to demonstrate that interference is both necessary and proportionate to the specific risk being addressed. Mass or “bulk” surveillance programmes may thus be deemed to be arbitrary, even if they serve a legitimate aim and have been adopted on the basis of an accessible legal regime. In other words, it will not be enough that the measures are targeted to find certain needles in a haystack; the proper measure is the impact of the measures on the haystack, relative to the harm threatened; namely, whether the measure is necessary and proportionate.

It further finds that many countries do not effectively limit who has access to such bulk data collections, which exacerbates the problem:

One factor that must be considered in determining proportionality is what is done with bulk data and who may have access to them once collected. Many national frameworks lack “use limitations”, instead allowing the collection of data for one legitimate aim, but subsequent use for others. The absence of effective use limitations has been exacerbated since 11 September 2001, with the line between criminal justice and protection of national security blurring significantly. The resulting sharing of data between law enforcement agencies, intelligence bodies and other State organs risks violating article 17 of the Covenant, because surveillance measures that may be necessary and proportionate for one legitimate aim may not be so for the purposes of another

It also finds requirements for data retention to be problematic:

Concerns about whether access to and use of data are tailored to specific legitimate aims also raise questions about the increasing reliance of Governments on private sector actors to retain data “just in case” it is needed for government purposes. Mandatory third-party data retention -- a recurring feature of surveillance regimes in many States, where Governments require telephone companies and Internet service providers to store metadata about their customers’ communications and location for subsequent law enforcement and intelligence agency access – appears neither necessary nor proportionate.

The report condemns the pernicious use of "secret interpretations" of the law, something that has become all too common in the US:

Consequently, secret rules and secret interpretations – even secret judicial interpretations – of law do not have the necessary qualities of “law”. Neither do laws or rules that give the executive authorities, such as security and intelligence services, excessive discretion; the scope and manner of exercise of authoritative discretion granted must be indicated (in the law itself, or in binding, published guidelines) with reasonable clarity. A law that is accessible, but that does not have foreseeable effects, will not be adequate. The secret nature of specific surveillance powers brings with it a greater risk of arbitrary exercise of discretion which, in turn, demands greater precision in the rule governing the exercise of discretion, and additional oversight.

While reports like this may not directly impact the US's practices, it adds to the growing understanding and recognition both of what the NSA (and others) does, but also why it's totally unacceptable.

Filed Under: human rights, mass surveillance, necessary and proportionate, un

Remember That Report About WIPO Misconduct That WIPO Tried To Censor Through Bullying? It's Been Leaked

from the of-course-it-would-eventually-get-out dept

Last fall, we wrote about claims that World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) director Francis Gurry was involved in some quite incredible practices in secretly obtaining DNA samples from WIPO employees, to try to sniff out who had sent certain letters. This came after some other scandals involving ignoring UN sanctions (even though WIPO is an UN organization) against sending computers to both North Korea and Iran.

Earlier this year, Gurry was re-nominated for the position. Soon after that, it was reported that one of Gurry's top deputies, James Pooley, had filed a document accusing Gurry of misconduct over the DNA situation and some other things. But what was really crazy was that when patent blogger Gene Quinn posted a copy of Pooley's document along with his own analysis of it, WIPO's top lawyer threatened Quinn with criminal charges for merely reporting on a document filed by a top WIPO official! Quinn, who was recovering from a medical procedure at the time and didn't want to deal with the hassle of a fight, decided to take down the post and the document.

Last week, the Register reposted the document along with an article declaring it an "exclusive." That's a bit debatable, given that Quinn clearly had it before them (something the Register doesn't even bother to acknowledge). The Register also fails to acknowledge that the basics of the DNA scandal were known months ago. Still, it's good to see the document finally be brought to light, and we'll see if WIPO now goes after The Register like it did Quinn. We've also posted the document below.

The full report goes beyond just the DNA scandal, to making a direct claim of corruption, concerning a non-competitive procurement process, that resulted in WIPO doing a deal with an Australian company run by an acquaintance of Gurry. According to Pooley's letter, the firm, Argo Pacific, run by Gurry's friend Paul Twomey, put in a bid that was much more expensive than others. Upon realizing this, Gurry directed the committee evaluating the proposals to change the evaluation formula, such that price was much less important, leading Argo to "win." Even then, Argo failed to beat the competition, so the letter alleges that Gurry totally removed the process from the competitive bidding system, and awarded it directly to Argo Pacific.

To be fair, none of this is proven -- though the stories of problems within WIPO have been around for a while. Furthermore, some have suggested that this is actually a coordinated attack to smear Gurry for not being as willing to push US maximalist patent and copyright policies (and being more willing to listen to developing nations). Still, the allegations are certainly serious and should be investigated. The fact that WIPO has tried to completely stifle and censor a blogger discussing this filed report by a WIPO official with bogus threats of criminal prosecution only make it that much more worthy of ensuring the situation is fully investigated. As I noted, when we last wrote about it, the attempt to intimidate, threaten and silence a blogger seems even more serious than the other allegations against Gurry.

Meanwhile, The Register does have more details about what has happened since this complaint was submitted -- and it continues to raise questions about how WIPO is managed:

The US State Department and South Korean officials have both asked for an independent investigation into the allegations, but instead WIPO appointed its own committee to decide if further action was required. This committee was allegedly implicated in the original, secret DNA testing of senior staff.

In May this year WIPO's "Independent Advisory and Oversight Committee" (IAOC) considered whether there was a conflict of interest in handing the investigation to the organisation's own Internal Audit and Oversight Division (IAOD).

In early May, WIPO's legal counsel advised:

“The director of the IAOD deemed himself to have a conflict of interest, due to the fact that the Report refers to him (together with a number of other WIPO officials) in the DNA allegations. For this reason he recused himself from considering the report.”

But by the end of May, the IAOD, and its director Thierry Rajaobelina, apparently decided it was quite capable of carrying out a preliminary investigation without any fear of a conflict of interest.

Folks within WIPO are apparently not pleased with this and there has been continued back and forth over whether or not there will be a truly independent investigation of Gurry and his activities as it relates to the DNA samples.

No matter what, this is clearly an issue of public interest, and we certainly hope that WIPO will not stoop so low as to try to censor other members of the press, as it did with Quinn.

Filed Under: censorship, corruption, dna samples, francis gurry, gene quinn, james pooley, surveillance, un, wipo

WIPO Boss Reappointed Until 2020, Despite Bogus Legal Threat Against Blogger

from the wipo-credibility-gone dept

WIPO boss Francis Gurry's leadership has been full of some really questionable controversies, including potentially violating UN sanctions by sending computers to North Korea and Iran, as well as having people break into the offices of some of his own employees to secretly collect DNA samples. Still, to me, perhaps most troubling was his attempt last month to stifle public debate and commentary about the DNA controversy by sending an intimidating letter to blogger Gene Quinn, threatening him with the possibility of criminal prosecution in Switzerland, for merely publishing a "report of misconduct" filed about Gurry by one of his deputies, James Pooley.

Given all the controversy -- some of it quite serious -- it seems reasonable to question if Gurry is the right person to continue to lead WIPO. Apparently, the member states that control WIPO don't have a problem with it, because they've now reappointed Gurry, giving him a second six-year term.

As for his focus? It appears to be to continue pushing a maximalist position. While it should be noted that WIPO has actually become marginally less maximalist in the past few years, thanks to the influence of developing nations like India and Brazil, it's still an organization that focuses on maximizing intellectual property, rather than maximizing what's actually best for the public. That's clear from Gurry's "acceptance" speech.

Turning to the future, I believe that the fundamental challenge that we face as an Organization is to achieve a shared understanding of the contribution and value of intellectual property to economic, social and cultural development.

Notice that it's not about determining whether or not it's actually true that "intellectual property" creates such value -- it's just assumed as fact.

And, indeed, he also highlighted areas where WIPO has been working on dangerous new forms of "intellectual property" protections -- where absolutely none is needed: broadcast rights and traditional knowledge.

In concrete terms, for example, the Organization must achieve successful outcomes both on broadcasting and on traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions and genetic resources. If we are unable to address the latest technological developments, the Organization will fail in its main mission of encouraging innovation and will become irrelevant to the mainstream of global innovation. If we are unable to address traditional knowledge systems, the Organization will fail in its mission of universality and will not recognize the full scope of intellectual contributions to innovation.

This is ridiculous and dangerous. Locking up traditional knowledge doesn't help "recognize the full scope of intellectual contributions to innovation" -- it just makes it more difficult for continued innovation. Protectionism where none has been needed slows down progress, rather than advances it.

As the old saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The problem here is that WIPO seems to view every bit of knowledge, content and transmission as a rogue form of "property" that needs to be locked up and put behind a tollbooth. And rather than looking into how dangerous an assumption that is, Gurry is busy threatening bloggers for reporting about his own questionable behavior.

Filed Under: dna, francis gurry, gene quinn, intimidation, threats, un, wipo

WIPO Boss Accused Of Surreptitiously Collecting DNA Samples From WIPO Employees

from the paranoid-much? dept

Francis Gurry, the head of the World Intellectual Property Organization, seems to be running from scandal to scandal these days. While it has shown brief moments of enlightenment, for the most part, WIPO tends to be an organization very supportive of the copyright and patent maximalist agenda. Last year, we wrote about two incredible scandals that directly involved Gurry. Despite WIPO being a part of the UN, Gurry apparently defied UN sanctions against both North Korea and Iran to give them computers, in the wacky belief that those countries would use the computers to bolster their local patent system. Gurry, apparently blind to the fact that North Korea, especially, was desperately seeking computing power for its nuclear program and had very little concern or need for a patent program, seemed to think that this was a good idea, and even defended the decision, though he agreed to kill the program.

The latest, however, involves a few more crazy scandals, including accused attempts to sneakily set up WIPO offices in both Russia and China and (even more bizarre) trying to surreptitiously collect DNA samples on employees he was convinced were sending anonymous letters. First, the DNA situation:

Among them, an embarrassing case involving DNA sampling. Prior to his election, Francis Gurry had been the target of anonymous letters. Convinced that the letters’ authors were among those within his entourage, the successor of Kamil Idris filed a complaint with the prosecutor in Geneva in October 2007 and surprisingly authorized the police to enter WIPO’s premises to take statements and DNA samples. But the suspected employees later discovered that additional samples had been taken from their offices without their consent and thus illegally. On November 13, an ex-employee – who was made redundant after a corruption allegation of which he has since been cleared – filed a criminal complaint for “slander” with the prosecutor of Geneva. His lawyer sent a letter to the representatives of the Member States informing them that this procedure would require them to vote to lift Francis Gurry’s diplomatic immunity.

Given all of this, many are questioning why Gurry should be allowed to stay in charge of WIPO. A bunch of Congressional Representatives had raised some concerns about Gurry about a month ago, but with this latest story, they've sent another letter to Secretary of State John Kerry expressing their serious concerns about allowing Gurry to continue to lead WIPO:

As you may recall, concerns were expressed following reports that Mr. Gurry was running a secret program to ship high-end computers and other electronic gear to North Korea and Iran. When called to account, he claimed that U.S. law did not constrain him, and he refused to cooperate with an investigation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Since the time of that letter, the situation at WIPO has substantially deteriorated. As you know, the recent annual meeting of Member States collapsed due to the revelation of secret agreements made by Gurry to open satellite WIPO offices in China and Russia -- we understand that he even proposed opening an office in Tehran.

But even more disturbing, we understand Gurry is involved in a scheme to illegally acquire DNA samples of WIPO employees in a failed effort to develop evidence to support a personal complaint that he had filed with the Swiss authorities. There is also concern that he has been working since to suppress this information and to prevent any independent investigation of it.

Yikes. It would seem that WIPO is quite a disaster currently. That's not to say that a new leader would necessarily be any better, but it would appear that the series of scandals around Gurry, many of which include incredibly serious charges, raises all sorts of questions about WIPO under his leadership.

Filed Under: francis gurry, scandals, un, wipo

US Working Overtime Behind The Scenes To Kill UN Plan To Protect Online Privacy From Snooping

from the of-course-they-are dept

The UN has apparently been considering a proposal pushed by Brazil and Germany, to clarify that basic offline rights to privacy should apply to online information and activities as well. The proposal is targeted at attempts by governments -- mainly the US -- to ignore privacy issues in spying on people around the globe. Not surprisingly, the US is (quietly) working hard to stop this plan. Colum Lynch at Foreign Policy has the scoop, noting that publicly, the US is pretending to support this in some form:

But privately, American diplomats are pushing hard to kill a provision of the Brazilian and German draft which states that "extraterritorial surveillance" and mass interception of communications, personal information, and metadata may constitute a violation of human rights. The United States and its allies, according to diplomats, outside observers, and documents, contend that the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to foreign espionage.

In recent days, the United States circulated to its allies a confidential paper highlighting American objectives in the negotiations, "Right to Privacy in the Digital Age -- U.S. Redlines." It calls for changing the Brazilian and German text so "that references to privacy rights are referring explicitly to States' obligations under ICCPR and remove suggestion that such obligations apply extraterritorially." In other words: America wants to make sure it preserves the right to spy overseas.

The U.S. paper also calls on governments to promote amendments that would weaken Brazil's and Germany's contention that some "highly intrusive" acts of online espionage may constitute a violation of freedom of expression. Instead, the United States wants to limit the focus to illegal surveillance -- which the American government claims it never, ever does. Collecting information on tens of millions of people around the world is perfectly acceptable, the Obama administration has repeatedly said. It's authorized by U.S. statute, overseen by Congress, and approved by American courts.

While none of this creates any binding requirements, it does put tremendous pressure on countries to comply -- and could lead to more specific language in various treaties and other agreements as well. It also allows other countries to stand firmly on the moral high ground that the US pretends to stand on, in order to scold the US for its activities.

The US, of course, likes to pretend that it needs to violate everyone's privacy to catch a few bad guys. There is little reason to suggest this is true. Nothing in the proposal appears to stop legitimate law enforcement, espionage and surveillance efforts, targeted at actual people involved in criminal or terrorist activity. The issue is scooping up everyone's data "just because." That's not what US negotiators are saying, obviously. Instead, they argue they need to scoop up everyone's data to make the world safer by going after "international terrorists."

The US's stance here is fairly obvious. It wants to pretend to retain the moral high ground on this issue, and the way to do that is to try to stop the rest of the world from pointing out that it's been on the low road for quite some time. But trying to redraw the map doesn't change the reality.

Filed Under: brazil, germany, privacy, surveillance, un, us

Brazilian President Blasts NSA Spying In Front Of World Leaders -- Including Obama -- At UN

from the just-listen-to-that dept

It was expected that the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, would raise the issue of NSA spying when she addressed the opening session of the UN General Assembly in New York this week. But few would have predicted that her speech would be quite so excoriating (pdf), especially since it was given in the presence of President Obama, who spoke immediately after her.

Rousseff launched straight into her denunciation of online spying:

Recent revelations concerning the activities of a global network of electronic espionage have caused indignation and repudiation in public opinion around the world.

She then went on to emphasize that Brazil seems to have suffered more than most in this matter, not least because of economic espionage and the targeting of politicians:

In Brazil, the situation was even more serious, as it emerged that we were targeted by this intrusion. Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information -- often of high economic and even strategic value -- was at the center of espionage activity. Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the Permanent Mission to the United Nations and the Office of the President of the Republic itself, had their communications intercepted. Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of International Law and is an affront to the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country.

Rousseff explicitly rejected the "because terrorism" excuse so often trotted out to justify such global surveillance:

The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained.

Brazil, Mr. President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbor terrorist groups.

She pointed out the key importance of the right to personal privacy and national sovereignty, both called into question by blanket surveillance:

As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among Nations.

She reminded Obama that Brazil was still waiting for an explanation of the NSA's actions and a promise that they wouldn't happen again:

We expressed to the Government of the United States our disapproval, and demanded explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures will never be repeated.

The President of Brazil then confirmed that her country will be taking measures to protect itself better from future attempts to spy on its citizens and companies, but without going into details:

Brazil, Mr. President, will redouble its efforts to adopt legislation, technologies and mechanisms to protect us from the illegal interception of communications and data.

Finally, Rousseff called for the United Nations to get involved:

The United Nations must play a leading role in the effort to regulate the conduct of States with regard to these technologies.

For this reason, Brazil will present proposals for the establishment of a civilian multilateral framework for the governance and use of the Internet and to ensure the effective protection of data that travels through the web.

That's unlikely to go down well with many Western countries, already worried about what form Internet governance will take in the future. But many emerging nations would be happy to reduce the influence of the West, especially the US, on how the Internet is run, and would doubtless support any such initiative at the UN.

Even if it's unlikely that Rousseff's speech will lead to any immediate actions -- either by the US or by the United Nations -- it confirms the emergence of Brazil as an increasingly powerful and independent force in the world. Rousseff's stinging rebuke to the US contrasts with the feeble protests from just a few European Union politicians, even though their citizens and institutions have been spied upon comprehensively by the NSA and GCHQ for years. Once again we are seeing interesting knock-on consequences of Snowden's leaks, with the standing of Brazil and the other BRICS countries rising even as those of the US and EU begin to fall.

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Filed Under: barack obama, brazil, dilma rousseff, nsa, nsa surveillance, un, us

NSA Tapping UN Isn't A Huge Surprise -- But Ability To Crack Video Conferencing Encryption Raises Questions

from the yay! dept

Over the weekend, Der Spiegel broke the somewhat unsurprising news that the NSA had bugged the UN and various EU embassies in the US and had hacked into the UN's videoconferencing software to be able to get access to such calls. On a first pass, this isn't all that surprising. As we noted with some earlier leaks, spying on foreign diplomats is just something that countries do. Spying on foreign government officials is very different than spying on the public. Of course, since the NSA insists that it does everything to avoid intercepting communications of people inside the US, I wondered how they could make that claim while directly tapping conference calls from the UN in NY. The answer is likely to be yet another classic NSA twisting of the words to find a loophole. While the UN headquarters are in NYC, "technically" the headquarters are outside of the US and in the control of the UN itself, but with an agreement that it abides by all local laws. This is similar to embassies, which are often treated as if they are the territory of the country that uses them. I'm wondering if the NSA is using that to argue these are fair game, since they're "outside" the US.

There's also the issue, as noted in the article, that President Obama has insisted that the spying on people was only done to prevent terrorism -- and spying on EU diplomats seems unlikely to have anything to do with terrorism prevention. But, again, spying between government officials is kind of expected, and not quite a huge deal, even if it may present a diplomatic problem for the US.

Much more interesting to me, however, is the snippet claiming that the NSA had figured out how to hack into the UN's video conferencing software, allowing them to record internal video conferences. In fact, after this was cracked just a year ago, a document was sent around, "celebrating" this:

Furthermore, NSA technicians working for the Blarney program have managed to decrypt the UN's internal video teleconferencing (VTC) system. The combination of this new access to the UN and the cracked encryption code have led to "a dramatic improvement in VTC data quality and (the) ability to decrypt the VTC traffic," the NSA agents noted with great satisfaction: "This traffic is getting us internal UN VTCs (yay!)." Within just under three weeks, the number of decrypted communications increased from 12 to 458.

Yay! We can spy on more things! Yay! Either way, I'm curious if anyone knows who provides the UN's video conferencing technology, because that's now a much more interesting issue. The suggestion being made that the NSA "cracked" the encryption that was being used could have much wider implications if true -- so it would be nice to know what kind of encryption, and what sort of system is being used. Either way, I'm guessing that many in the UN will be seeking out alternative communication methods shortly.

Filed Under: diplomacy, encryption, espionage, eu, nsa, nsa surveillance, spying, un, video conferencing

Google Asks People To Speak Out Against ITU's Attempt To Takeover Internet Governance

from the speak-up dept

We've been covering how the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has been moving forward with its plans next month to consider a number of proposals to takeover aspects of internet regulation and governance. There are, of course, a number of different proposals being submitted by different countries. The problem, of course, is that the setup of the ITU is not open to the public, and there are some special interests involved -- mainly by countries with oppressive governments looking to use this as a way to gain control over the internet for the sake of censorship, as well as local (often state-run or state-associated) telcos using the process to see if they can divert money from successful internet companies to their own bank accounts. While the ITU likes to present itself as merely a neutral meeting place for all of these proposals, what's been clear for a while is that the ITU leadership has taken an active role in encouraging, cultivating and supporting some of the more egregious proposals.

Some of this is due to the way in which the ITU leadership views the internet. Some of it is due to an organization that realizes its own mandate is obsolete and it really serves little purpose anymore, so it's coping by pretending its mandate is much broader, but doing so in a way that shows it has little understanding of the internet other than "something we want a mandate over."

This seems to be one situation where, in the US, pretty much everyone is aligned against this effort. Politicians and companies -- including telcos, tech companies, service providers and more -- are all quite worried what an ITU-governed internet would lead to (mostly funds being diverted from innovative companies to stagnant players and a much less open internet). But the US has only one vote in the upcoming WCIT event where many of these proposals will be reviewed. ITU boss Hamadoun Toure pretends that the public has a voice in this process, but ridiculously shut down the public commenting tool on the ITU's website before telling everyone about it (nice trick, that).

However, if the ITU won't let the public comment, there's nothing preventing the public from speaking out elsewhere. That is, after all, one of the amazing wonders of the internet, which the ITU refuses to understand: it's a tool of communication and expression. Along those lines, Google has revamped its "Take Action" page to urge people to speak out about the whole ITU/WCIT process which will be kicking off on December 3rd. Also, if you want a simple video that explains what's happening, the one at WhatIsTheITU.org is really fantastic. It explains how the internet grew based on an open, bottom up process of technological experts, rather than a closed, top down setup by a large bureaucracy. And we should be concerned when anyone tries to flip that process.

Filed Under: internet governance, itu, open internet, un
Companies: google

UN Wants Multi-Stakeholder Discussions On 'Rethinking Copyright' -- Ignores That The Only Stakeholder That Matters Is The Public

from the and-they've-already-decided dept

The UN's Internet Governance Forum had a gathering to discuss rethinking copyright, in which WIPO made the case that it should lead "multi-stakeholder" discussions on how to reform copyright. WIPO, of course, has a history of having a rather one-sided view of copyright and who the "stakeholders" are. But now, it insists that it can hear all voices:

Trevor Clarke, assistant director general for the Culture and Creative Industries Sector of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), said during a workshop on “Rethinking Copyright” today that the multi-stakeholder environment is “the best and and most appropriate” when it comes to the debate on copyright in the digital age. WIPO is preparing for such multi-stakeholder discussions, Clarke told Intellectual Property Watch.

Clarke said the WIPO director general and secretariat has added their voices to the call for a reexamination of the copyright system and have not shied away from the fact that some aspects of the law need to be revisited. Not only law, but also culture and infrastructure of the system, have to be considered, he underlined. Member state positions vary considerably on the issues, and it would make sense to include the private sector and also civil society into the talks, he said, adding, “We need that dialogue.”

While it's nice to "include the private sector and also civil society," that's really ignoring the larger point. The only real "stakeholder" in copyright is the public. The private sector may be beneficiaries, but the system is supposed to benefit the public. And while "civil society" may represent the public in some areas, which is helpful, it seems that any real discussion on reforming copyright should be very, very open to the public.

Yet that never seems to be suggested by anyone.

And, really, when you look at what's happening in reality vs. what's happening in these discussions, you realize that the public has already made its position pretty clear. People are more than willing to pay for a certain amount of content if it's convenient and not hindered/locked down. They're willing to pay for content when they know they're directly supporting artists they love. They're willing to pay. But, if things are annoying and limited, expensive or inconvenient, they certainly might take matters into their own hands. On top of that, certain aspects of copyright law seem quaint or simply so unrealistic that they're consistently ignored (such as with people making mashups and videos and the like). Yet, no one seems to want to address how the public is actually dealing with all of this, preferring to try to make up new rules based on artificial claims about copyright.

There's no need for "multistakeholder" debates when the public has already said "here's the deal: offer us what we want and we'll pay and everyone's happy." The job of any governing organization right now should be to stop ignoring the public and start paying attention.

Filed Under: copyright, internet governance, public, reality, stakeholders, un, wipo