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.

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?

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]

WIPO Development Agenda Talks End With No Agreement For Now - After two week-long meetings and intensive consultations during the year, talks on bolstering the development perspective of the World Intellectual Property Organization ended today with no agreement, sending proposals back to the UN body’s annual meeting of member states in September. But a continuation of the debate in some form ... [IP Watch]

[from TWN:] The second day of discussions on the WIPO development agenda
witnessed continuing differences between developed and developing countries, with some differences also in approach among developing countries. Below is a report on Tuesday afternoon's discussions of WIPO's Provisional Committee that covered the remaining 4 of the 6 negotiation clusters, namely, (C) Technology Transfer, Information and Communication Technology; (D) Assessments, Evaluation and Impact Studies; (E) Institutional Matters including Mandate and Governance; and (F) Other Issues. There are 111 proposals in the list of 6 clusters that are under discussion.

Analysis from FSF Europe: WIPO PCDA conlusion - learning English the hard way.

WIPO Development Meeting Starts Slowly Despite Push For Strong Reform - By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen and William New

A meeting on a development agenda at the World Intellectual Property Organization got off to a slow start after a half-day debate over who would chair the meeting. This took place in contrast to efforts of key developing nations to keep negotiations on ... [IP Watch]

[A2k] WIPO Assembly: WIPO creates "Provisional Committee" for Development Agenda - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

U.S. Holds Out On Extension Of High-Level Meeting On Development Agenda - After a week of meetings at the World Intellectual Property Organisation General Assembly, the United States is possibly alone in firmly objecting to the continuation of a high-level meeting on a proposal for a WIPO development agenda.

The proposal for cross-cutting reform of WIPO toward developing country concerns was first ... [IP Watch]

A major struggle has emerged over the future of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Flash points are the WIPO Development Agenda negotiations as well as the Broadcast Treaty. We are pulling relevant news feeds from blogs, independent media, and the mainstream press. If you have content we've missed, please feel free to click on the 'publish' button. (You can also add content via del.icio.us; use the tag 'a2k.')

This useful table maps out the positions of WIPO Members on various aspects of the WIPO Development Agenda including governance, norm-setting, technical assistance and transfer of technology and access to knowledge. The eight areas mapped out and WIPO Member States' respective positions on them include: (1) Change Forum to PCIPD, (2) Amend WIPO Convention, (3) WERO, (4) Widen Participation and role of Civil Society & NGOs, (5) Committee on Tech Transfer, (6) Impact assessments and various other proposals, (7) Adopt Principles & Guidelines and (8) treaty on Access to Knowledge and Technology. link: http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/dev_agenda/iim_table.php

From the Communication Rights campaign: Are UNESCO and WIPO connected on the Development Agenda? / Newsroom / CRIS - Communication Rights in the Information Society - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

Analysis from EFF: Blogging WIPO: Day 3 - Development Agenda Meetings End Without Consensus -

For the last year, a group of developing nations, scholars, and public interest groups has been asking the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) -- the U.N. agency responsible for intellectual property rights treaties -- to change the way it works, to better represent the interests of all of its members. A key part of this is the proposal to establish a WIPO Development Agenda, which would require WIPO to consider how its work can help or hinder development.

SUNS: NGOs urge WIPO to move Development Agenda forward - [del.icio.us a2k feed]

Joint eIFL/IFLA statement at WIPO IIM3 - [del.icio.us a2k feed]

IP Justice Notes and Summary of Day 3 at WIPO Development Agenda - [del.icio.us a2k feed]

Summary from IP Watch: WIPO Negotiators End In Deadlock On Development Agenda - After months of debate, officials addressing a proposal to make the World Intellectual Property Organisation more sensitive to developing countries could agree only that further discussion is needed. “We had a chance to discuss a huge quantity of proposals made by delegations,” Chairman Rigoberto Gauto Vielman, the permanent representative of ... [IP Watch]

From Thiru at CPTech: Notes from Day 2 of 3rd WIPO IIM on the Development Agenda - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility - Peru statement: CPSR-Peru statement - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

The Civil Society Coalition statement: CSC statement to the 3rd WIPO IIM - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

3D Statement at WIPO IIM 3 on intellectual property and human rights - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

IP Justice Intervention Statement at IIM/3 of WIPO Development Agenda - [del.icio.us wipo feed]

The title says it all, really: World to suffer at hands of obstinate US delegates - [Inside, Wide-Eyed]