Friday 15h45 [Video]

Moderator: Elizabeth Judge

Speakers:

• Ruth Okediji, Domestic And International Institutions And The Development Of International Intellectual Property
• Robert Howell, Canadian Copyright Law at the Crossroads: Opportunities Afforded By Cyberspace to Achieve Measures of International Harmonization Within A Traditional Framework

RO: I had never heard of her, but it was clearly my loss. She is an excellent speaker with very interesting ideas.

She exposed the dichotomy in the global scene by developing countries and developed countries interests.

International copyrights policy was generally a consensus of what member states already did in local laws.

TRIPS: radical changes. Changed the balance between authors and public/nations/authors. Restatement of constitutionnal balance that existed. Bargain between public and authors was skewed in favor of authors. The economic implications are far reaching.

In classic trade paragigm (invisible hand theory): free trade from government intervention: weatlh increase. Both for producer and consumer welfare. Hence free trade agreements.

In IP, in order to get the good, you need government intervention. With intangibles, you need government intervention to create wealth, and progress.
In this marketplace, non discrimination principle: equilibrium between consumers and producers. If you have surplus: producer wellfare, not certain if it produces consumer wellfare.

No talks in WSIS about ability to encourage access to consumers using IP.

The shift will create a welfare model focusing on surplus from producer……

There is an inverse correlation between countries having ratified the Wipo internet treaty and the fact that those countries have no Internet penetration at all.

RH: you’ll have to watch the video for this one. My notes don’t make much sense at all.