A2K - Access to Knowledge. make it happen.

access2knowledge.org seeks contributors and editors

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:07:45 -0500

We'd like to think that access2knowledge.org provides a useful resource in terms of news aggregation and occasional highlights of upcoming events or actions. The site gets around 500-600 unique visitors per day, or about 14,000-18,000 visits (and 150,000 hits) per month.

Poisonous IPR Articles in Korea-US FTA

Sun, 27 May 2007 13:13:11 -0400

From: PatchA (patcha AT jinbo.net)

Dear all,

Finally, the full text of Korea US FTA was released last Friday. (http://www.mofat.go.kr/mofat/fta/eng/eng_list.htm)

It has many poisonous articles. We are very worried about the IPR chapter and the confirmation letters of IPR have very dangerous things which the former US FTA didn't have.

For examples, both governments agree on the objective of shutting down the internet sites that permit unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyright works. Korean government are shutting down even P2P service and webhard service.

I think most of the internet sites including portal, UCC/UGC, blog sites etc. can be shut down by the government.

And it also includes strong enforcement activities on book printing
on university campuses.

If this Korea US FTA is passed, then the US will request other countries to include these things in the following FTA. So it needs to have international solidarity activities to stop this kind of US FTA.

Please check below and we welcome of your criticizing opinions or statement to this IP chapter of Korea US FTA. We will post it to our struggle website (http://nofta-ip.jinbo.net)

And please forward it to other people world-wide.

Korean Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA and social organizations
will have a press conference about the problem of IPR chapter of
Korea US FTA on Monday(May 28th).

In soldarity,
patcha

============================
Kim Jeong Woo (PatchA)
Korean Progressive Network 'Jinbonet'
Tel) +82-2-701-7687
Fax) +82-2-701-7112
Web) http://www.jinbo.net
Email) i AT patcha.jinbo.net / patcha AT patcha.jinbo.net
============================

(more below)

Yale A2K2 kicks off

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:18:47 -0400

The Yale Access to Knowledge conference has kicked off. Check out the A2K2 wiki for session notes and updates!

Sign & Promote New Public Access Petition

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:19:59 -0400

Dear Friends, Momentum for public access to publicly funded research reached a height last month with the celebration of a National Day of Action by students across the U.S. and the presentation of over 21,000 individual and organizational signatures to the European Union's Commissioner for Science and Research. To build on this momentum, several leading American organizations - representing libraries, health groups, students, and consumers - are jointly supporting a Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States.

Nagla Rizk on the Music Industry in the Arab World

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:17:08 -0400

This morning at UCLA there was a great talk by Nagla Rizk from American University of Cairo on "The Music Industry in the Arab World." She's an economist, and wanted to get a grasp on the real structure of the musical economy in Egypt. She and her team interviewed musicians and others involved in the musical economy, both the pop star system and the underground (informal) musicians.

The Arab Music Market is basically an oligopoly, with four firms dominating: Rotana, Alam el Fan, Melody, and Mirage have 85% market share. Then there are smaller players with 13% of market share, and the underground producers with about 2%. The old value chain for Arab Music in Egypt (through the 1980s) looked like this: singer, music company, studio, permits, production. This has changed because of satellite. Now there is a star system that involves industry actively seeking out good looking young people to produce a video clip, send to satellite stations, produce albums, and play weddings. Underground musicians skip the video and satellite distro and jump directlly to an album (sometimes) and paid live performance.

UCLA WIPO Development Agenda conference

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:12:18 -0400

There's an interesting group of folks at the UCLA conference on the WIPO Development Agenda this weekend. Carolyn Deere from the Global Economic Governance Programme at Oxford gave a good talk discussing "the political dynamics of IP reform in developing countries: the relevance and influence of WIPO." She's concerned with how to make the Development Agenda real, on the ground, and her methodology for the work she presented was cross national comparison of what different countries are doing.

She's found that developing countries are actuallly quite diverse in the types of IPR regimes they have, and whether or not they take advantage of exceptions they're allowed. Some countries are adopting TRIPS+ requirements but there is not uniformity. For example, developing countries have until 2015 to implement TRIPS but 14 of the 32 LDCs implemented TRIPS plus legislation even while negotiating for more time (!) They didn't have bilaterals with the US, they hadn't been 301 listed, so why did they go so far so fast?

historical rights to knowledge

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 05:30:03 -0400

-- please visit www.uottawaglobe.ca, see discussion on library access in global health and development discussions.

I was fortunate to be exposed to some interesting history that led me to abandon a notion of ‘western knowledge’, and in fact decide that what was Western was increasingly proprietary approaches of knowledge. If we trace any disciplines’ knowledge there is a seamless transmission, even through paradigm shifts, and the development of a branch of science rests on the collection of knowledge from vast sources. In my undergrad, I kept being taught the history of philosophy as tracing from the Greeks, then stalling in the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance picking it up from Aristotle/Ptolemy, restoring humanism and rationalism leading through the Enlightenment to the modern era. This is a view of the history that places the tradition and its ownership squarely in the West.

Added video feed to access2knowledge.org

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 00:51:27 -0500

Today we added a video feed to access2knowledge.org (look to the right!) The videos are from the thought-thieves.org feed, powered by videobomb.org. If you want to add a video to the feed, just upload it anywhere, then submit it to videobomb and tag it thought.thieves. Enjoy!

-sasha

WIPO report: Developed countries conspired to sabotage Development Agenda

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:51:05 -0500

Somehow we're not shocked, but we are dismayed. A leaked memo reveals that developed countries are conspiring to sabotage the Development Agenda - via the [del.icio.us wipo feed]

Presentations from Bangalore OA workshop

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:38:15 -0500

Presentations from Bangalore OA workshop -

Some of the presentations from the Workshop on Electronic Publishing and Open Access (Bangalore, November 3, 2006) are now online. The rest will be posted to the same site over the next few days.

[Open Access News]

Music Industry Sues 8,000 P2P Users in 17 Countries

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:14:41 -0400

Music Industry Sues 8,000 P2P Users in 17 Countries -

Today, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IPFI), which represents record labels around the world, announced 8,000 lawsuits against P2P users in 17 countries. Over 31,000 lawsuits have now been filed worldwide against P2P users, including over 18,000 in the US. The Center for Technology and Society at FGV Law School in Brazil posted this petition against the P2P lawsuits there, which were the first filed in that country.

The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » WIPO Broadcast Treaty scheduled for further scrutiny

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 14:06:42 -0400

The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » WIPO Broadcast Treaty scheduled for further scrutiny - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

Day Against DRM news

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 14:01:25 -0400

Check it out, news from all the Day Against DRM activity!

Help take this site to the next level!

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 13:59:26 -0400

It's been about one year since we designed and launched access2knowledge.org. The site is doing ok, and seems to provide a useful resource in terms of our news aggregation and occasional highlights of upcoming events. The amount of traffic to the site keeps going up; in August we got 105,818 hits from 13,115 visits. However, we don't have many people contributing fresh content, and we could use a revamp of our graphic design (especially the logo). We also have barely scratched the surface of using the site's capabilities, for example we only have had a few events posted to the calendar, and we've only used the signature/petition forms a couple of times. If you're interested in contributing to the site in any way, please let us know! Comment here and/or email info AT access2knowledge.org. Thanks! - sasha

Free Culture presents: Down with DRM Video Contest

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:26:05 -0400

Enter the Down with DRM video contest for a chance to win a Neuros
OSD - a portable digital VCR! Joining in Oct 3rd - Day Against DRM, Free Culture will select the 5 best anti-DRM video entries and award a Neuros OSD to each creator. DefectiveByDesign.org is also looking to air selected anti-DRM videos on their website during the week of October 3rd, and we want to give them a hand.