[Lac] señores del aire

[Diego Saravia]

Tambien se puede ver:

http://bo.unsa.edu.ar/docacad/softwarelibre/articulos/manifiesto2/



EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM:
Fighting 'Cyberlords'

Stefania Milan


LONDON, Oct 16 (IPS) - An information rights activist has warned against the
growing power of the "landlords" of cyberspace.

"They are the landlords of cyberspace, the property owners of the emerging
information economy," Roberto Verzola from the Filipino environmental and
information association Philippines Greens said at the European Forum on
Communication Rights. The forum was held as a parallel event to the European
Social Forum in London this weekend.

"They control the resources -- the software, the content, the hardware and the
infrastructure," Verzola said at a debate on the effects of intellectual
property rights (IPRs) on everyday life.

"IPRs are a form of information ownership we have today in the information
economy," Verzola told IPS later. Cyberlords who control the information
business are not just people like Microsoft owner Bill Gates but also media
corporations and companies holding communication infrastructure, he said.

"Their tendency to maximise profit at the expense of the need of people to
share information in the community interest creates problems for civil
society," Verzola said.

But civil society groups are stepping up opposition to a market-based vision
of communication.

The right to share information freely "includes the freedom of expression
guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, but
embraces also people's right to protect their privacy and their cultural and
linguistic identity," says Cees Hamelink from the campaign Communication
Rights in the Information Society (CRIS).

Civil society and media activists have often accused the World Intellectual
Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations body based in Geneva that
processes IPR applications, of being profit-driven.

Earlier this year hundreds of researchers and activists signed a declaration
on the future of WIPO, calling for a shift in WIPO agenda from profit-making
to defending the needs of developing countries.

The declaration calls on WIPO to "take a more balanced and realistic view of
the social benefits and costs of intellectual property rights as a tool, but
not the only tool, for supporting creative intellectual activity."

The European Free Software Foundation produced another declaration Oct. 14
calling for WIPO reform.

"Instead of an organisation dedicated to maintaining a system of monopolies,
we want an organisation finding ways of how intellectual wealth can be
generated and shared between all people," Georg Greve from the European Free
Software Foundation told IPS.

The foundation welcomed the adoption of a proposal submitted by Argentina and
Brazil at the WIPO general assembly for the establishment of a development agenda.

"It is an impressive step towards the creation of a broad coalition of people,
organisations and countries demanding that the international community rethink
the goals and mechanisms for awarding monopoly control over different kinds of
knowledge," the Free Software Foundation said in a statement.

Verzola says that like the fight against landlords for redistribution of land,
civil society must today ask for a redistribution of information.

"People have to share publicly and socially information goods, by using free
software as a form of weakening the monopoly of information," he said. (END/2004) 

-- 
Diego Saravia 
dsa at unsa.edu.ar