Cloud your Identity: ACTA, copyright law and policy laundering

In the past 35 years, the scope of restrictive rights such as patents and copyright was constantly extended, and their enforcement made harsher. Positive rights and freedoms were narrowed and made less effective in face of technology. This trend is in reality a reaction to people developing free exchanges, collaboration and knowledge commons. Policy laundering is the use of international negotiations to put in place policy that is resisted by democratic institutions. Adopted as decisions which states are forced to implement, these policies circumvent democratic debate. For a long time, the restrictive rights agenda was prepared in discrete committees and pushed in hidden corners of international negotiations. But democratic debate has caught up with these processes and the reactionary agenda can no longer be pushed without resistance or counter-proposals in the European Parliament and in the multilateral organizations (even in WIPO and WTO). Thus, policy laundering has gone one step further, by creating ad-hoc arenas and multiplying the channels by which right restriction are pushed in such a way that civil society and members of parliament can be overwhelmed. The talk will discuss examples of recent International, European and National legal framework moves, in particular ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), three-strikes laws (such as the French HADOPI law) or offensives against Net Neutrality. It will analyze them from the angle of their consequences for democracy, human rights, innovation and cultural diversity. Exchanges with the public could focus on how civil society and individuals can oppose these moves and which alternative policy proposals could be appropriate. Examples range from recent manifestos that try to define an alternative framework of intellectual rights to more precise proposals such as funding schemes for creative activity on the Internet that are compatible with non-market sharing.

P. Aigrain

27-4-2010 12:45:00