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Information for Development in The Global South

2007-12-05T11:44:53Z

Victorggk:

'''Theme: Information for Development in The Global South'''

'''Presenters: Murumba Joan Wakasa and Kamau Victor Gitau
email: [[Media:victorggk@yahoo.com]]'''

== Information Week, School Of Information Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret ==

== ABSTRACT ==

This paper spells out the importance of information in the development. It explains the detriments of having information as a commodity of trade. It goes further to examine the copyright and how it has made information a commodity. Finally it shows how decommodification of information is the solution for development in the Global South.

== INTRODUCTION ==

Once upon a time in England, there existed two kinds of people; the rich and the poor. The rich, from greed, persecuted the poor and made sure that they had no access to the factors of production. This, they hoped would maintain the status quo. They were wrong! God heard the prayers of the poor and gave them Robbinhood. His holy mission being; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
The same situation exists today. Globally, we have only two opposing partakers in the world development; the North and the South. The North representing the developed world and the South the developing world. The North just like the early England is advantaged for having developed before the south and would do anything to maintain the status quo.
Civilization has reached every part of the world and the North has realised it cannot conquer by restricting access to factors of production through waging war; the best method to maintain the status quo is by denying the South access to the most important factor which without it all others are derailed; this factor is information. Thus they have introduced the concept of International Copyright Law.
This law has been successful in meeting it purpose as it is evident that in the South people have to struggle to gain access to information in all formats, and when get it is out dated- donations from the north- and has outlived its intention, we get negative information about the South from their media about the South- war in Sudan, communism in China, corruption in Kenya and HIV/Aids in Africa- we have no academic and educational books in learning institutions, and we get information in a language not understandable to us, therefore, unusable.
But God has heard the prayer of the South and has sent us our Robinhood to save us from the North and get us information which for long we have been denied. Our Robinhood hood is decommodification!

== DEFINITION OF IMPORTANT TERMS ==

Decommodification
It is a word made from the verb commodity, which means, something that can be bought and sold. (Macmillan English dictionary 2002) The process of making a thing tradable (can be sold or bought) is referred to as commodification. The reverse is decommodification.
Decommodification in this paper is used to mean the process of availing information to the users gratis (free of charge).
Information
Information is data, signals, facts, views, opinions, ideas, events, news etc of significance, able to influence manâ€�s actions, behaviour and decisions as he goes about interacting with others in a given environment. This kind of information should reduce uncertainty in choices: should basically be related to specifics in context of time and space and in the content of individual as well as social, economical and scientific needs and the problem it is intended to solve further more it must be capable of being produced or generated, acquired, stored, retrieved and disseminate or transmitted through some kind of communication channel recorded or oral, manual or electronic, from a source to a recipient. The relevance of such information will be determined by the recipient who is in a position to utilize it for personal benefit or for that of others. (Lundu, 1995)
Copyright
It is one of the intellectual property rights (others are, patent, trademark and design rights) that arises automatically on the creation of various categories of work, and protects the rights and interests of the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, satellite and cable programmes, and the typographical arrangements of published editions. Copyright has been called the trading system for works of the mind. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004)
According to Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) copyright is the exclusive, legally secured, right to publish and sell the substance and form of a literary, musical, or artistic work.

== INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPMENT ==

The information society is built upon information. The Net already provides the structure for realising an unfulfilled revolutionary demand: media freedom for all. Authors can publish their writings on their own websites. Musicians can release their tunes on MP3 first. Film-makers can distribute digital files of their movies. Not just the right to consume media, but also the right to produce media too. Even better, the Net is inspiring novel forms of expressions.
Information is one of the major factors of production and therefore without information nothing can be done. Information is power, and this is clearly evident by the work information does. Information is required for economic, social, political and cultural development; this shows that information is required in all spheres for forward development. Information helps people solve problems; obtain knowledge either through reading or listening, for research purposes among others. Some ways through which information has propagated development include:

== ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ==

Agricultural information
Agricultural activities are sources of economic development since the farmers generate income both to the country and to themselves. Agricultural information can comprise of: good farming methods, best seeds and fertilizers, information on the climate and what is suitable for the planting season and so on. This information is mostly important to farmers who use this to support their economic activities. The information can be either through word of mouth in seminars and workshops by agricultural extension officers. It can also be through the media both print and electronic and therefore if it is a basic need to farmers. The availability of this information leads to high productivity which raises the GDP of the economy.
Trade and industry (Formal and informal sector)
Most developing countries are low income earners who live below the poverty line. These countries are characterised with informal sectors like the Jua kali sectors in Kenya. These people need information on how to improve the value of their products. They need information on the new technology which when used will double the supplies. Since most of them are school drop outs they need directions on how to obtain financial assistance from the organizations concerned which when put in place will add to the countries revenue.

== SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ==
'''
Education and training'''
Students are taught in schools and other learning institutions in order to get acquainted with knowledge. Courses such as entrepreneurship are taught in universities to enable students be independent minded and able to identify opportunities for business. This will generate income both the individual and the country as well. It is through education and training that current technologies such as ICTs are taught and made used to retrieve information for solving problems. For example the Internet provides vast amount of information to researchers which is beneficial in solving problems. The web provides information on the effects of pollution to the environment. Both air and land pollution do not promote agricultural activities and when this is said and done, people will try to look for ways to curb down pollution which is an obstacle to economic development. Communication networks foster both social and economic development because when people are networked resources (information) is shared which in turn leads to prosperity.
'''Information on health education.'''
Human beings are the sources of labour and before any work whether manual or electrical they have to be present for any work to be done. It is therefore important that they be in good health. Information about how to control some health hazards becomes a necessity. Health information is necessary, for example, first aid knowledge will help to save an individuals life when in danger.
Guidance and counselling
Basic information on good morals is important to any individual. It provides one with the ability to live a straight and upright life. Societal evils such as pregnancy and abortion, drug abuse, HIV and Aids will help especially the young generation to know how to present themselves in the society.

== CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ==

Information about other cultures allows us to be able to adjust to other peopleâ€�s way of life and this will prevent cultural shock. Cultural information records our heritage and this in turn informs the society about its past which is a foundation or a base to the future.

== POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT ==

This provides a country with what is happening in the political arena. Information enhances democracy. We are able to get information from other countries which contain information on human rights and fight for them. It is through information that we get to know on corruption in our governmental structures. It is through information that we get to know whether or not we are justly treated.

== INFORMATION IN THE WRONG HANDS ==

Information for development can only be helpful to the South only and only if they have it in their own hands. Information is tricky and the one who has it has an upper hand over the one who does not have it- he can restrict it or use it negatively against the one who donâ€�t have it. Here we look at the wrong hands information can be in.
'''Entrepreneurs: publishers, distributors etc.'''
These are people who bridge the gap between the creator of information work and the intended users. They donâ€�t add any value to information and neither use it; their purpose is to make profit.
These people hoard information waiting for an opportune time to gain the maximum profit denying the intended user the opportunity to gain maximumly from it.
'''The North'''
These are the developed countries that are in competition with the global South; their goal is to maintain the status quo. They donâ€�t want the South to get access to information since they already know the importance, value and power attached to information.
Capitalists
Capitalists are those who practice capitalism. This is the economic system in which private individuals and business firms carry on the production and exchange of goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Their purpose is to make profit through increasing demand by reducing supply, and supplying only to those who are capable of buying at the highest price.

== '''INFORMATION AS A COMMODITY''' ==

Why are songs composed, books written, or photographs taken? There are at least two reasons, among others. One rationale is that such works express the creative urges and aspirations of individuals and of wider societies. They are produced to communicate thoughts, to solve problems, to teach others, to express ideas and feelings and emotions. Collectively, they are part of the common heritage and culture Of groups, of communities, and of nations. A competing view or rationale is that songs and books and photographs are commodities produced for the purpose of exchanging them for something; they are property, albeit intangible property, created primarily for trade and for commerce. Story, A (et al) (eds) (2006)
The second rationale is what is called commodification and linked to copyright laws. This is further linked linked with mechanisms of trade and commerce by the 1994 agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

== COPYRIGHT ==

Copyright is the legal right given to creators of informational works to make copies of the same for distribution and exorcize everybody else from copying and distributing the work. Copyright beginnings are in the sixteenth century by a company called Stationers. This company sought to protect copying of works between the players in the industry by then. It was made national by the statute of Anne of 1709. Since then copyright law has developed widely. Most countries now have legislation that broadly follows the tenets of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, or the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988, or the Acts of 1956 and 1911 that preceded it.
International copyright law started out of the need to harmonize the various national copyright laws and the need to protect the creations of information in other countries as well. This was due to the ease of movement that made publications available in one country to be sold in another. These international copyright laws include the Berne Convention of 1886 (with later revisions) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) of 1952
All national and international copyright laws promise the following:
1. Provides Incentive to creativity and innovativeness
2. Creators should economically benefit from their creations
3. The creator should maintain basic control over his creation
4. Fair use exemptions provide enough allowances to use copyrighted material for review, critism, parody and similar purposes.
5. Copyright laws offers a provision for compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in the Global South (1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention)

== HOW COPYRIGHT HAS FAILED ==

'''Piracy'''

The main purpose of copy right is to protect the creators works from unauthorized copying which will deny the chance to make profit. This purpose has not been met since there are numerous cases in courts. Examples of piracy include downloading music files, CD- writing etc. â€�The biggest problem (to Kenyan musician) has been rampant piracy and failures of broadcasters to pay them royalties.â€�Royalties and Copyrights: The Vicious Circle in Buzz Sunday Nation July 16th 2006.
Copyright does not promote creativity and innovation
Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America is quoted in, Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) stating that â€�copyright protects not just the financial interest of people who create artistic or intellectual property, but the very existence of creative work.â€
There arises problems form this quote: it is true that creativity existed before copyright was brought about; it is also true that those who were able to create information before copyright law was introduced did not do it for money- infact they were the bourgeoisie; it is also true that there exists many authors/creators who are not yet published therefore, do not sell their creations but give free to achieve fame for their works to be accepted by publishers.
What copyright does, is to make creators dependent of corporation to enforce and to implement the copyright laws on their behalf. This has made the corporations benefit more than the creators. These entrepreneurial corporations (publishers, music and movie producers, and media houses) force the creators to relinquish their rights to them in order to fight for them and make profit. They only allow what will make more profit rejecting creative works of authors, musicians, and script writers on the basis that it will not do well in the market. Creativity and innovation is suppressed.
As a result cultural diversity suffers, especially when the number of these corporations is consistently shrinking, since there is little profit in specialists or minority tastes. Creators of works on special and minority tastes get continuously demotivated because of copyright.

'''Copyright puts the human and societyâ€�s culture and heritage into the hands of one individual or a group of individuals'''

Human culture and societyâ€�s heritage is inherent in the information we read in books and on the internet, in the music we dance to, in the art we enjoy, and in the stories we listen. To put all these on one individual of a group of individualsâ€™�hands is a grievous mistake.
Information is a product of human interaction with the environment. It is the societyâ€�s record of events, situations, solutions and adjustment to the environment. This should be the property of the society. Not individuals. The society should have the control of information, ideas, concepts, and dreams it has. Not those who, because of their capitalistic greed and economical endowment, are capable to express this culture and heritage into a reproducible form.
When we copyright information, what put our heritage, our values, our history, and our culture onto one personâ€�s hand who disguise himself as a creator. He then gets all the rights to restrict our heritage and culture and also becomes the one to shape our culture. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) recognized this and stated:
â€�The law of the copyright is thus the law that help to shape the culture of our society. For it is a major factor in determining what books we read; what art we enjoy; what music we hear.â€
We should not let copyright be the author of our culture. We should reject the principles of copyright as it is today. Culture existed before copyright and this should be the case always. Copyright should not come in the way.

'''Copyright applies equally to all works'''

All works of the mind are not equal. This is because information is only important when someone needs it and thus makes use of it. Some information is not necessary at all, for example, we can all do without the hip hop music, the American bloc buster movies and their novels that have a lot of praise for American culture. But we cannot do without the Physics and Biology textbooks written for both secondary and tertiary education.
When copyright is made to apply to all types of works equally, we are left with no choice but to have our educationâ€�s future held by the copyright owners as they will dictate who, what, where, when and how much information we can access. This is because copyright gives the rights of control of information to the owner to decide what will be done with the information, its distribution, and its pricing.
Important information materials such as scientific and educational may be limited, denying the Global South the opportunity to develop scientifically and educational which is the basis of all development. This case is made worse by the fact that the Global South doesnâ€�t have the economic purchasing power required to buy the information and those who can afford are few that even if they buy, it will make little profit the producers of the North.

'''Copyright restricts access to information.'''

Copyright gives the creators of the information the sole right to control, to determine its distribution, its price, and its availability. The restriction to access derives from this control the creator is given. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971):
â€�The price paid to the creator and the entrepreneur (producer and distributor), however, is high for copyright is a monopoly. The control of his work that the law gives to the copyright owner is absolute. He may or may not disseminate the work as he chooses; he may or may not make it available at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities; he may or may not let others copy the work, regardless of the motive of the copier or the lack of any impairment of the usefulness of the work to him.â€�In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker.
The copyright law is based on profit motive therefore encouraging the copyright owner to only avail his work only when he can earn some profit. This means that those who have no purchasing power will not access the information. This mostly will affect the countries of the Global South where most of the people live below poverty line.
There other reason is bias of the copyright owner. He will not avail his work if he feels that by doing so he will be putting the other person at an advantage of ousting him in the future. The beginnings of copyright are known to be based on this reason:
â€�copyright from it beginnings in England in the sixteenth century , has been a means of protecting the â€�havesâ€- of limiting access to books and information in order to maintain order and discipline in the trade- of creating a monopoly over knowledgeâ€�Altbact, P. (1995)
Everybody knows that information is power and by denying information they are denying power. By the virtual of enacting copyright laws- which places the decision of distribution to the copyright owner (the North), the North denies the Global South the chance of being powerful.

'''Fair use exemptions do not provide enough allowances to use of copyrighted materials '''

This is given as a tenet of copyright but in real sense it is not. In the Global South very few people can afford to buy the information from abroad and many libraries are full of old, donated books therefore most of the population do not have access to information materials.
For this to be a tenet, it requires that the material be available in the institutions of learning and libraries so that it can be fairly used. Without at least one copy in each library and institution it will not apply.
Many creators will, is to disseminate information as further and wider as possible
Many creators would like their intellectual property to be disseminate as wide and further as possible, some even opt donating. Copyright comes in the way of this will. There are authors who write for the purpose of doing good to the society, they would rather have little profit and their creations be disseminate rather than it be sold to only a few who are rich.
Informationâ€�s value is not derived from its price or package; it is derived from its use. Authors know this well and would not care how their creations are packaged as long as somebody somewhere found it valuable. It is the copyrights that restricts the authors to offer their creativeness free of charge through such corporations as publishers who would want the author to give his rights to them.
One way to disseminate information further and wider is to offer it free but this will be at the disadvantage of the copyright owner as he will be forced to make copies for each user for the user is restricted by copyright to make copies for himself. The other choice which is the best one is to denounce the copyright protection of a work and allow the users to make copies for themselves.

'''Copyright and promotion of immorality'''

We have seen that copyright covers all types of information works; so does it cover pornography production, satanic informational materials, prostitution information materials and many other evil informational materials. How then does copyright promote immorality?
When the immoral works are created they become copyright material; the creator has the right to reproduce and distribute at as he wishes to distribute it. Because these materials are worth to be products of sale, thanks to copyright, the copyright owner makes money. This profit motivates him to make more moral degrading works which enables him to even employ people to act pornographic movies and pose naked before cameras.
The best problem to solve this problem of pornographic materials from our streets is not to harass our hawkers by prosecuting them and fining them, it is not to tax highly these materials so that few people can buy; the best method is to make them unavailable. This could be done by removing copyright protection such that when they will not be produced because of they will be pirated and distorted leading to losses. This will at least work in the Global South, where people will surely pirate without protection rather than buy.
Without copyright moral decay through information materials such as books, films, magazines will be controlled.

'''Copyright is based on the Northâ€�s culture of individualism that the Global South donâ€�t understand'''

Copyright protects the form of expression and not the idea itself. Therefore, does not protect the indigenous art/knowledge. It is based on the western (North) cultural values of propertization that do not coincide with many indigenous collective mores. With copyright, that which is protected becomes the legal property of the individual owning the copyright. This approach does not merge with traditional (the Global South) approaches to community property and culture. Andy Abeita, president, Council for Indigenous Arts and Culture (CIAC) in March 24, 2000 by interview said â€�we as natives peoples, do not understand this concept of ownershipâ€�quoted in Fowler, B.J. (2004)
Cultural development is one facet of development every nation wants to advance in education, economy, and politics and in science and technology. The Global Southâ€�s culture of community hood will be destroyed if we accept every ideology of the west and incorporate it in our system. For example, the Maasai of Kenya are known world wide and are attraction to tourists and we as Kenyans are proud to be associated with them, this is as a result because of they culture which is well preserved. Thus, we can say, regarding the Maasai, Kenya we cultural development. China is developing because of their culture, Americans also developed because first they developed and protected they culture of individualism form contamination by communism. For us in the Global South to develop we have to protect our community property and culture kind of ownership, our values to earn respect and to develop.
Motivation for producing information is not money in our culture, doing good to the society is.
â€�It has been taken for granted (in the Global South) that any wise man writing something is motivated by the ideal of doing good to the society. The idea of financial remuneration to the writer of the book was alien to the ancient societies (the Global South).â€�Malhotra, D.N. (1995)
How were the needs of the information providers met then? The same author continues:
â€�Ancient societies worked on the assumption that the worldly needs of the sages, the wise men, the intellectuals and the writers were to be taken care of by the society. Therefore, the idea of payment to the writer, and that the writings of an author were his property, seemed quite naÃ¯ve to them.â€ (ibid)

'''Copyright creates a monopoly in the market'''

By copyrighting information, the person granted the copyright becomes sole owner. This crates monopoly and monopoly means, no competition. Without competition, the price of information will increase and increase as long as it (information) remains relevant. The North, with better knowledge infrastructure, will produce more information that the Global South and this informationâ€�s price will be dictated by them at the detriment of the Global South.
Copyright is unfair in that two or more people with the same idea (it is very possible) cannot be allowed same expression of their ideas. This make only one expression of an equal idea can exist in the market leaving the consumers with no choice and making the copyright owner the master of the trade.
Monopolizing of information keeps prices high and the net effect is to deny those who cannot purchase the information the chance of getting knowledge which could motivate them to be innovative and creative. Innovation is born from the urge to support or reject the ideology presented on other peopleâ€�s creative work.

'''Implementation of international copyright law creates unequal exchange'''

Implementation of international copyright law is the greatest injustice that ever happened to the Global South. International intellectual property rights works in a way that every country that is a signatory protects the works, published in other member countries, in that country. Why is it an injustice then?
The Global South is disadvantaged as it doest have enough knowledge infrastructure thus do not produce knowledge for export. They do not need protection in other countries. Should they protect others in their own? And by doing so, putting their citizens between a stone and a hard place. First the citizens cannot legally copy the information published in other countries and second they cannot purchase it because; it is not available at reasonable prices. Thirdly, the information is required to teach, train, and educate. Implementing the international copyright law in the Global South is to the detriment of the Global South.
This law when implemented by the Global South will lead to prosecution and sentence of the Global Southâ€�s citizens for having the initiative to equip himself with knowledge which could be used to develop the country. Some countries calling for international application of copyright only joined after they had the capability to export information created by their authors/creators. Examples of these countries are USA, 1952, Russia, and China, 1990s.

'''Democracy is not allowed to thrive in making of the international copyright law'''

The method used to come up with the international copyright law is undemocratic. These laws were made without reference to the needs of the Global South and the possible disadvantage they could have the Global South. Democracy according to Book, M. (2006) is â€œâ€�is not only a question of the formal structures of decision making, nor even of participation and majority power, it is also an issue of openness and tolerance.â€�If this definition is anything to go by, then there was no democracy in making of the international copyright law; there was no openness, the North hid neo-liberalism in pretence to protect creators of information. There was no tolerance, the Global South concept of ownership i.e. community property and culture approach, was not considered.
What we have is the North makes the laws and base them on their culture the force the Global South to comply. We should have either make our laws that are addressing our needs and seeks to solve our problems or have to quit from the international copyright agreements.

== The problems with the 1971 Paris revision to the Berne convention ==

The 1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention gave provision for the granting of compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in member states which have claimed official status as developing countries.
This revision was made after the countries of the Global South complained that they were not able to access information because of the copyright laws they enacted and because of the signing of the convention(s). The countries of the North had hitherto resisted allowing the countries a unique treatment because they were equal members. They finally obliged out of pressure of the countries of the Global South mainly India threatening to quit. But what they give solved the problem at hand and crated more problems that it solved. The problems are hereby outlined.

'''No access to current information'''

This revision allows a publisher in the Global South to apply for a compulsory reprint or translation if the document is not available in the Global South. This is only possible if the document has been marketed in the North and has been sold such that the Global South has knowledge of its existence. By the time it is applied for, it is not current, the original publisher gets a chance to earn royalties in selling something that is outdated!
The quality of licensed edition is frequently very low reducing usefulness of the book to the end user
This is because the publishing firms in the Global South cannot be comparable to those in the North. Their products are cheaply made and also the translation and reprints could have errors that could arise out of incxpertise. This will lead to materials that will have reduced usefulness to the final user of the information. This is a disadvantage to the Global South as the information that will be available to them will be different from that the North has access to and ours is distorted and invaluable.

'''Low cost edition and international studentsâ€™�edition give an unfair competition to locally produced information materials'''

Because licensing leads to less useful materials to users and detrimental to the efforts of the author and the producer, the North has invented methods of availing the information in the North to the Global South. These methods include low cost editions and international studentsâ€™�editions produced by the assistance of Northâ€�s government such as Educational Low-cost Books Scheme (ELBS) in Britain. These editions are distributed to the Global South at low cost because the publishers have been paid subsidies to do so giving the locally produced books an unfair competition and taking the chance of the Global Southâ€�s publishers to reprint or translate.

'''The local publishers depend most on licenses thus killing motivation of creator in the Global South'''

This revision makes the Global Southâ€�s publishers depend most on foreign licenses which will come ready and have already market thus do not require budgeting for marketing and promotion. This makes the local authors to lose their hope to see themselves in print and eventually kill motivation and creativeness. Another negative effect of this is it will create a connotation in the Global South that only the North can produce quality information thus we will get what they want us to get and know what they want us to know. They get to be in control of the fuel of development. This is having information in the wrong hands.

'''This revision makes the Global South dependent on the North as sole source of information'''

By providing us with information for reprint and translation and also providing us with low cost and international studentsâ€™�editions, the North makes us depend on them on our academic and educational information. The picture they give us is that of powerful North and dependent, poor, diseased, and dangerous Global South full of wars, inequality, and election rigging. We end up being brainwashed that it only when we speak English, French and German that we can be civilised and educated. We lack information materials in our own languages; we lack information materials with local content and so never develop socially, culturally, economically and politically.

'''Creation of branches by the North kills local publishing and authorship industry.'''

Another option provided by the provision is that the North could provide information to the Global South itself instead of giving out licenses. This provision gives the publishing and producing firms opportunity to set up branches in the Global South. With the support form the headquarters the branches get to publish quality books and sell them at low cost beating the local publishing firm out of the market. The premise on which the multinational firm is built on will dictate the material it will publish and that which it will reject; a material like the one you are reading now will be rejected!

'''Taxation on royalties'''

The North publishers claim that by having the taxation of royalties only meagre payments reach the copyright owner, thus, it is uneconomical to give licences to local publishers. This argument leads them to ask for tax waivers on the royalties they earn and they have writers to support them: â€�I have advocated that there should be no tax on royalties at allâ€¦. The copyright fees called royalties should not be taxed at allâ€�Malhotra, D.N. (1995) if the governments of the Global South and agrees and let the publishers from the North earn tax-free profit would be letting the North steal from the Global South. The economy will be affected and every profit should be taxed furthermore, the local ones are being taxed.

== DECOMMODIFICATION ==
'''
Information should be for sharing not for selling'''

This is made possible by the new media- internet- which affords the creators of information cheap means of processing and distribution of information eradication the barrier of copyright and the publishing firms. Authors can publish their materials and share without requiring the help of established media and publishing houses which world require him to transfer his copyright to them.
When you go on-line, most information is available for free. Other users are happy to share music, movies and software with you. People spend hours building websites which they don't charge you for visiting. You are invited to join list servers which will fill your in-box with e-mails every day. What makes the new media into something new is the vitality of these non-commercial activities. Information is for sharing not for selling. Knowledge is a gift not a commodity.

'''Return to our culture and honour creators of information in a humane way'''

Copyright has failed to offer incentive to the creators of information because, first not all information creators are motivated by money and two, the need for the corporations to fight for them has changed priorities from motivating to profit making.
Going back to the way the sages, the wise, and the knowledgeable people were honoured in our culture is one of the solutions to archiving decommodification. Authors are important people and they should earn from where they work i.e. the materials they produce. The government should have an independent funding scheme for paying all recognized authors who contribute to the society positively and assist the authors in dissemination of their materials so that every body in the country has access to the information.
Secondly these information creators will be allowed to organize public lectures, teach in universities, collages and schools so that they disseminate the knowledge they have to the leaders of tomorrow.
Copying of works will not be restricted as long as moral rights of the author are observed: these are right to integrity- right of the author to object to derogatory treatment of his work; right of paternity- the right of the author to be identified as the author or editor or director of the work; and false attribution- the right of the author not to be credited with things he did not write or say.

'''The creators can be supported by donations to provide information free'''

Another option available is for the creators to receive donations from willing people and organisations to further their work. This will work very well in the electronic environment where the costs involved are less. The wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia offers information free of charge and is supported by public donations. Other organisations that offer free information include non-governmental organisations, and individual websites.

'''Do away with international copyright laws and protect only locally produced works'''

This could harm the international relations but it will be to our advantage. Forstly, the number of information we export is negligible, if any, so we need no protection by the other countries. Secondly, by protecting locally created works we are strengthening our publishing and information industry. Thirdly, the information that will be available will be made by us, for use, to solve our problems and to develop us.
There is nothing long to protect our own and not protect others, the developed countries did the same; the first United States copyright act was passed in 1790 which protected only the works produced in their own country. They only joined the international copyright protection in 1952 after they had enjoyed using other countries- Europe- works without restriction. Soviet Union did the same and joined in 1960s and china did same thing and joined in 1990s.
Looking at this tread one can conclude that acquiescence comes with time just as Altbact, P.G. (1995) puts it: â€�copyright compliance comes naturally with economic and social developmentâ€

== CONCLUSION ==

International Copyright law is the only law made to protect non-citizens form citizens. It is the only law made to suppress development of information industry in the Global South. Itâ€�s only fit for developed countries. Henry Chakava, a renowned Kenyan publisher in his conclusion of the paper â€�International Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€�published in 1995 says that:
â€œâ€¦.�It can be argued that, by signing, (international copyright conventions) book-poor African countries have compromised their human right of access to knowledge, and they will realize their folly when they will have acquired the much needed capacity to exploit these works, only to discover that the protectionism inherent in these convections and sealed by their own signatures have prohibited them from doing soâ€
Decommodifying information is the only true solution of development for the global south. By doing this, will have more information in the public domain increasing access and hence knowledge, we will have more and more local content in the information materials, we will have only what is good for the society as authors will be honoured according to their works value to the society, we will have our culture and heritage on our hands and not on individuals hands, and since all facets of development are dependent on information we will have equal development in all facets, in all areas o the global south (as there is no restriction to information access) and in all levels.

== REFERENCES ==

Altbact, P.G. (1995) â€�The Subtle Inequalities of Copyrightâ€�In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Chakava, H.M. (1995) â€�International Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€�In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Fowler, B.J. (2004) â€�Preventing Counterfeit Craft Designsâ€�In Schuler, P. and Finger, J.M. (Eds) Poor Peopleâ€�s Knowledge: Promoting Intellectual Property in Developing Countries.

Washington, D.C; The World Bank

Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) Encyclopedia Of Library And Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker Inc.

Malholtra, D.N. (1995) â€�Copyright: A Perspective from the Developing Worldâ€�In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004

Owen, L. (1991) Selling Rights: A Publisherâ€�s Guide to Success. Chapman and Hall; London

Owen, L. (1995) â€�Copyright: Benefit or Obstacle?â€�In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) The Copy/South Dossier: Issues in the Economics, Politics, And Ideology of Copyright in the Global South. Copy south research group.
Thorn, E.A. (1989) Understanding Copyright: A Practical Guide. Jay Books; England

[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Knowledge, information and communication]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

WSF in the media

2007-12-05T07:41:28Z

Victorggk:

The Saturday Nation carried these articles concerning World Social Forum

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'''
== What social forum aims at ==
'''

'''''Story by MIKAEL BOOK
Publication Date: 1/20/2007'''''

The World Social Forum is the biggest international jamboree, which occurs every second year in Porto Alegre, Mumbai, Nairobi, or any other centre in the South.

The forum is a form of intellectual and political activity resembling that of the educational institutions or libraries. These are supposed to be, and sometimes they actually are �open spaces”.

Thus, one of the nine themes chosen for the Nairobi WSF January 20-25 is: �Building a world of peace, justice, ethics and respect for diverse spiritualities.”�This could also be the explicit goal of a university or a library.

The social forum is going on at the local, national, regional, and �world level”. It is a process, but it is not yet an institution. Should the forum strive to establish itself as one of society�s lasting institutions?

The answer must be yes. It is aimed at building a global society that could not materialise earlier, because the conditions for its existence were lacking. World social forums are not possible without global communications. The Internet, yet another �open space”�at our disposal, is the ultimate proof, but also a prime condition, of the on-going globalisation of human society.

But we are not yet living in a global society. Imperialism and war are still the words of the day, as we can see in Iraq. What should the Nairobi WSF be aiming at? To guarantee the continuity of the form the forum was given is, as Chico Whitaker (one of its founders) has said, perhaps the biggest challenge for the WSF.

Information specialists

The social forum must achieve new mergers with those other �open spaces”: educational institutions, libraries and the Internet. A much broader engagement of researchers, librarians and teachers is needed to build a global society. Journalists, too, must become part of the embryonic global society.

An example of what is being done to put this theory into practice is the pilot project of the East African librarians. Since a first three-day �training the trainers”�workshop in Nairobi last year, the librarians are preparing for participation in the WSF, both as citizens and as information specialists. They want to start documenting the information that the hundreds of conferences and workshops are producing. They will then repackage and disseminate the information for use by different groups, including the marginalised and the information-poor.

Kenya Library Association has set up a webserver at the Kenya Educational Network (Kenet) to become the database of this pilot project. The participants are invited to write about themselves, their projects, and their daily agendas during the forum. The webserver is found at www.wsflibrary.org.

This information activism can also be understood as mobilisation against the prevailing trends in the world economy and politics, which threaten the public library with extinction. The WSF aims at exposing and burying imperialism and market fundamentalism and to lay the foundations of world public finances for services, including the public library.

''Mr Book works in the pilot project on �Documenting of the WSF”�by East African librarians''

----
THIS IS ANOTHER ONE

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== Kasarani gears up for(WORLD SOCIAL FORUM) meeting ==

'''''Story by NYABONYI KAZUNGU'''''
Publication Date: 1/20/2007

Moi International Sports Complex, Kasarani was yesterday a beehive of activities as final preparations were put in place for the World Social Forum (WSF).

A team of experts has been deployed at the complex to ensure everything is in order.

The WSF has paid more than Sh10 million for the hiring of the complex. The Forum also paid extra funds for electricity and water and for the restructuring of the facility.

The structural physical coordinator, Mr Davinder Lamba, took the Press on a guided tour of the facilities, which have been designed to accommodate seminars and workshops of between 50 and 500 people each.

A spectacular event will be the art, music and drama pavilion for refugees fleeing from either natural calamities or conflicts.

There will be a separate youth centre for their activities and meetings.

Each of the meeting venues, to host freedom talks, cultural, musical and drama events, has been named after some of the notable heroes who fought and/or died for social justice. They include Dedan Kimathi, Julius Nyerere, Frantz Fanon and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

Other venues have been named after Ruth First and South Africa�s apartheid heroes Nelson Mandela and Chris Hani.

The track and field area inside the complex remains out of bounds for all participants in the conference and will be under 24-hour guard.

�The tarmac road leading to main entrance, the WSF secretariat and to each of the 24 terrace entrances, will be used for matches and demonstrations for social justice,”�Mr Lamba said.

Ambulances, mobile toilets, medical clinics and first aid facilities have been provided by the Forum organisers from each of the five continents. A car park is located in the open space at the near far side of the complex.

Larger crowds attending conferences of between 1,000 and 5,000 people will be held in hundreds to thousands tents, erected in the open fields around the sports complex. The one-week conference, which has attracted dignitaries from various disciplines, will be held in three key meeting venues. The official opening will take place at Uhuru Park.

The registration of delegates, observers and the Press is at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and Wangari Maathai will lead in planting trees at various spots.

----

'''‘
== World’�vows to fight inequality and injustice ==
'''

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'''''''Story by JEFF OTIENO and NYABONYI KAZUNGU'''''''
Publication Date: 1/21/2007

The curtains opened at the eagerly awaited World Social Forum meeting yesterday with a vow to fight inequality and social injustice in the world.

Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, joins other delegates in a procession marking the beginning of the World Social Forum yesterday.
Hundreds of delegates converged at Uhuru Park, signalling the beginning of intense discussion on how to tackle some of the world�s major problems.

The delegates, drawn from both developing and the developed world, shared the common goal of making the world a better place.

Speakers representing the world�s major continents spoke against free trade models which they said were being pushed down the throats of the world by the Bretton Woods Institutions and some western countries to impoverish the world.

Chanting �a better world is possible”�the delegates condemned the global wars which have left millions without food and shelter.

The forum is the first one to be held on African soil and it comes ahead of the scheduled World Economic Forum to be held in Davos Switzerland next week. The forum focuses on world�s major problems brought by changes in the modern world.

Former Zambia President Kenneth Kaunda set the ball rolling by urging Africans to participate in decision making processes and take charge in the management of their resources.

�Let people participate fully in the control of the processes of decision making in public affairs and denounce all forms of exploitation of person by person in any shape or form,”�said Dr Kaunda.

In his keynote speech, Mr Kaunda said the struggles in Africa, Asia and Latin America had shown that people need not fear or doubt victory.

�Indeed, those struggles were but part of one common struggle for the welfare of the whole of humanity,”�he said.

Dr Kaunda said sustainable development could not be achieved through exploitation.

He said: �The creator of all demands fair play for the woman. But why do we, the men, turn cruel against women? We are entirely dependent on women for a good nine months before we come out to be what we are today. Let us think through this and allow this mother her dignified place on earth.”

Speaking on behalf of Europe, Flavio Lotti urged Africa to forgive the West for the historical injustices meted on them by colonialism.

�I feel the burden of our historical responsibilities. Forgive us for what we did, what we are doing and what we have not done,”�said Mr Lotti.

He said though the forum lacked the power wielded by the World Economic Forum which brought together the globe�s richest countries, the delegates in Nairobi were committed to the struggle of making the world a better place.

Mr Lotti criticised the West for spending millions of dollars in buying armaments, building new bases and involvement in wars while millions of the world�s inhabitants go hungry.

African delegates urged leaders on the continent to fight for human rights and reject neocolonialism.

�Down with capitalism, neo-colonialism and privatisation. Viva landlless people, people with disability and all other ills in the world,”�the crowd chanted in unison.

Multi-national companies also came under scathing attack for what the delegates termed unfair trade practices which had impoverished the world�s poor.

Delegates from Asia urged the world to fight all forms of fundamentalism which they added was making the world an insecure place.

�Fundamentalism must be fought in all Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other regions,”�they said.

Mr Guy Ryder of the International Trade Union Confederation said unemployment rates had reached unreasonable proportions due to unfair trade practices.

----

Enabling Fair Trade in Africa

2007-12-05T07:38:53Z

Victorggk:

== Title: Enabling Fair Trade in Africa ==

'''Time:''' 5:30-8:00pm

'''Participants'''

Male 26

Female 23

Total 49

'''Speakers'''

Michael Muchelon from COFTA and IFAT

'''Summary of issues covered'''

IFAT is a global alternative trade network that provided fair trade alternatives to the disadvantaged producers. has 300 members spread over 70 countries Africa has about 70 members

Fair Trade as defined by the world's leading fair trade players is a trading partnership based on dialogue
Transparency and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to and securing the rights of marginalized producers and workers especially in the south.

For trade organizations are engaged activity in supporting producers, awareness raising and campaigning for changes in the rules and practices of conventional trade

IFAT prescribes a standard which fair trade organizations must follow in their day to day work
These include

Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers by supporting the poorest producers

Transparency and accountability through dealing fairly and openly with trading parties

Capacity building through developing the skills of producers and creating opportunities for trading their products

Promoting Fair trade by telling as many people as possible about fair trade and informing customers where products have come from.

Payment of a fair price by ensuring that producers receive a fair price for their products

Gender equity providing equal pay and opportunities for women and men

Ensuring that producers are working in a healthy and safe place

Ensuring that the UN convention on the rights of child are upheld and respected (child labour)

The Environment ensuring that materials used in production and packing do not damage the environment

'''Date''': 22/01/2007

'''Report By:''' Patricia Salano
[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

The arms trade out of control

2007-12-05T07:37:13Z

Victorggk:

===Name of activity===

The arms trade out of control

===Name of organisers===

IANSA(International action Network on small arms)

===Summary of issues===

●�More than a half million people are killed by arms violence one person is killed per minute

●�There is a lot of human rights abuse

●�There is lack of control of small arms

===Recommendations from the activity===

●�Endorse control of arms and support the campaign,arms are with the people so people should take them to their respective governments,

Website http://www.controlarms.org
[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

Labour and Trade Unions in the globalisation era

2007-12-05T07:34:14Z

Victorggk:

'''Name of Event'''

Labour and Trade Unions in the globalisation era

'''Organizers'''

ACLI institute for peace Development and Innovation

'''Number of Participants'''

Male 35
Female 32
Total 67

'''Key speakers profile'''

●�ACLI member of the presidency

●�Andria(FRom IPSA-ACLI for peace Devt and Innovations

●�Stephen Kanyari-Kenyan trade Unionist

●�Kenyanya - Kenyan Lawyer/Lecturer-catholic University

'''Summary of Issues covered'''

●�Gobalisation Ignores social implications and costs.Its is driven solely by profits.Kenyans have borne the brunt of globalisation through World Bank and International Monetary Fund instigations that forced legislation removing involvement of trade unions when declaring workers redundant.

●�There are issues such as outsourcing,an umbrella organisation that support Government and capital owners.

●�Changes have taken place in the production process that lead to loss of jobs whereby employers look for lower costs whereas workers lose out because they are localised.

●�Labour is the only factor of production that is not free to move from place to place.

●�Companies do not have a social responsibility as they answer to their shareholders who are interested in earnings per share(EPS)
●�To match the challenges,trade unions must globalise.

The interpretation gadgets failed to operate resulting in the non-understanding of the Italian presenters.Otherwise the activities and presentations were qualitative

'''Recommendations'''

●�Globalization is the way for trade unions if they have to win international legislation that hamper labour's movement while other factors of production can easily and in order to handle multinational corporations so as not to give them room to exploit the poor in developing countires through low pay while paying, for equivalent work,better pay in developed countries.

Full report here:

REPORT OF KASARANI SEMMINAR ON LABOUR AND TRADE UNIONISM IN A GLOBALIZED ERA

The meeting was organized by ACLI and facilitated by IPSIA Kenya office. The meeting brought together trade unionists from the North and the South to share their experiences and approaches. The main objective for the meeting however, was to expose the Kenyan trade unionists the world and create for them an opportunity to develop networks and collaborations in their trade unionism.
The following speakers were invited for the seminar;
1. Mr. Stephen Kanyari, Kenyan trade unionist
2. Mr. Boaz Otieno, Secretary General –�Kenya Union of Employee in Voluntary and Charitable Organizations
3. Mr. Fred Kenyanya, Kenyan –�Labour laws lecturer at Catholic University of Eastern Africa
4. Ms. Anne Demelenne, Belgium –�FGB
5. Italian Trade Unionist from CISL

The attendance was quite good, both by Kenyans and Europeans as indicated by the list of participants at the last pages of the document.

Each of the speakers was given a minimum of 10 minutes to make a presentations and the audience were given some moments to ask any question or seek for clarification.
The opening speech was however done by Soana Tortora from ACLI Presidency.

MAIN ISSUES HIGHLITED BY THE SPEAKERS
Even though the speeches of the different speakers are contained in this document, here is just a summary of what each of them emphasized;

Mr. Stephen Kanyari
His speech gave a picture of Kenya�s current labour movement situation. He briefly explained what Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) is and its relationship with the Kenyan workers. He pointed out also that COTU is one of the hindrances the Kenya n workers are facing and the fact that it is the only central trade union makes it highly vulnerable to exploitation by capital. He also mentioned about the leadership wrangles in the trade unions in Kenya and the main reason being that in Kenya, trade unions are seen as a source of income and everybody wants to be a leader so that he can loot from the workers deductions. The workers in Kenya on the other hand don�t have faith in trade unions and are least bothered to join any primarily because they are of no value. In Kenya for instance, there are only about 500,000 workers belonging to Unions in a country with more than 10 million unionisable workers. On the international scene, he called for support in terms of finances and ideas on how to face the many challenges that those trying to rejuvenate and reenergize trade unionism in this country are going through. He also mentioned on the urgent need for partnerships and collaborations between trade unionists from the south and from the North.

Mr. Fred Kenyanya
His unwritten speech dealt with the issue of labour and trade union laws in Kenya. He informed the participants that for any meaningful reforms in trade unionisms and labour sector to be realized, certain amendments and changes have to be done on the Kenyan Labour and trade union laws. He said that, these laws are very archaic and the spirit behind them was to keep the workers as servants and the employers as Lords, just as it was during colonialism. This spirit and laws still exist today. He gave an example of laws governing strike, whereby the employee has to seek permission from the employer (government) to go on strike and also the procedure to be followed is just too bureaucratic and long.
There is also the challenge of trade unions Act that allows only for the formation of one central trade union and the employer (government) chooses its officials. This is more explained by the speech of Mr. Kanyari. Mr. Kenyanya said it is only the workers who can push for the change of these laws because the trade union leaders have failed to negotiate and our political leaders are not interested in these issues. Instead, many want the status quo to remain because they are the owners of capital hence favored by the current legal setting. In his opinion he said, a lot of awareness creation is needed among the Kenyan workers to make them understand the need for them to be actors in their own struggle. He also singled out the challenge of poverty as being the main obstacle to any meaningful struggle among the Kenyan workers. Together with the very high levels of unemployment in Kenya, majority of the workers would rather persevere the many problems and rights abuses they go through during their employment than to engage in and confrontations or bargaining that may eventually lead to loss of the only source of living. In this regard, it would be best to encourage economic empowerment for the poor workers so that they get the confidence to participate actively in the struggle because they have a support mechanism. In his conclusion, he called upon the more developed trade unions to come to the rescue of the Kenyan poor workers by supporting them in whatever way possible especially in the areas of civic and economic empowerment.

Mr. Boaz Otieno;
His long speech focused on the multinationals, multilateral organizations and global capitalism. He argued that big multinational companies are finding their way into the third world countries in the name foreign investment while they come to exploit the labour in these countries. For instance in Kenya, the EPZ (Export Processing Zones) arrangement which is build on cheap labour availability arrangements. In the name of industrializing the country, many Kenyans are suffering while working in these industries and factories.
He also criticized the WTO (World Trade Organization) as an avenue used by the G8 in exploiting the Developing countries and by extension the workers in these countries. He also said that globalization is working in the favor of the powerful nations and individuals and described this as the new toll for neocolonialism. Multilaterals like World Bank, IMF and others are just but tools for exploitation.
His speeches mooted for the rejection of these arrangements and instead, encouraged developing African mechanisms to develop our nations and liberate our people from yolks of poverty and suffering.

Ms Anne Demalenne
Her sharing focused on what Belgium has done to empower their labour unions. She said that their labour unions have undergone a lot of changes which are ideological and also legal. For instance, they have it women�s participation in trade union activities is emphasized. They have also taken very seriously the concept of decent work and gender mainstreaming. There are also a lot of trainings and formations going on trying to update their workers and their trade union leaders on the changing concepts of labour and the need for workers rights to be respected and observed.

Mr. Gianni Aliotti (CISL)
His emphasis was for global actions against labour exploitation. He also talked of economy of solidarity as a tool that can be useful in economic empowerment.

LIST AND CONTACTS OF THE PARTICIPANTS

NAME ORGANIZATION CONTACT
Wendy Pekeur Sikhula Sonke - Farmworker trade Union South Africa wendyewfp.org.za
Kachero Fred Kenya Library Association fkachero@yahoo.com
Gianni Aliotti FIM-CISL Gianni-Aliotti@cisl.it
Timothy Musikoyo OpenYouth Center timonyobera@yahoo.com
Samson Wanyoike The youth together Center samsoidi600@yahoo.com
Njoroge Samson Youth Together Center snjoroge02@yahoo.com
Murage E. Maina Youth Together Center emaina@afrigus.co.ki
Kalumba Solange Youth Together Center adettekalunga@yahoo.com
James T Marikio Youth Together Center marixo@yahoo.com
Angela Mutisya I.Y.M, Tangaza College
Neola Antonio ACLI/BN
Margaret Muthoni FMA muchokimargaret@yahoo.com
Sarah N. Ndung'u FMA saranndungu@yahoo.com
Van Lifnevier Eddy FGB Belgium
Sr. Monica FMA monicalek@yahoo.com
Sr. Regina FMA
Allesadro Sgro COCIS allessandra.sgro@cocis.it
Fatuma Manyenze Kwale Human rights network fmanyenze@yahoo.com
Hamisi A Mkungu
Margaret Chege IBLM wanguichege@yahoo.com
Hellen Oluoch IBLM
Maina James K FMA jimlieuon2006@yahoo.co.uk
V Shakira SAPI -South Acian People Initiatives - INDIA
Nyaanga M Patrick Tangaza nyngpatrick@yahoo.com
Elena Gorganni CERAI egorganni@hotmail.com
Gus Alleyne CWU U.K galleyne@cwu.org
Eddle Beese CWU U.K ebeese@cwu.org
Ian Ward CWU U.K iward@cwu.org
EmmieKemper Miss Koch, Kenya emmie-erondanga@yahoo.com
Jael Amati Groots Kenya jael2esther@yahoo.com
Maurice Binoti D.R Congo bitingingwa@yahoo.com
June Hartley Solidarity Center, South Africa june.hartley@gmail.com
Manila Sihi AIDC South Africa manola@AIDC.org.za
Aul Duafu Bloco de Esplude - Portugal aul.duafo@be
James Okoth Kenya Workers Rights Network jimlo2006@yahoo.com
James Bruce
Christopher Savali One stop Youth Center
Fausto Garduni UNA Swola Per La Vita
Sareeda Cali UNA Swola Per La Vita
Carlos Fennandez Jobs with justice GCJ carlos@jwj.org
Marry Anne Bwinnett
Aisha Lorgat University of Kwazulu
Moses Were Kenya polytechinic
Fl. S. Ceny defar LMA. Sri Lanka D.Morim@pressnews.it
Fred Kenyanya Labour laws lecturer
Boaz Otieno Kenya Union of Employees of Voluntary janitorob@yahoo.com
Stephen Kanyari Trade Unionist kanyaristephen@yahoo.com
Fredrick Otieno Sacred Heart
Ronalo Calw Individual
Masielo Matteo FIM-CISL mm.matteo@libero.it
Corra Renzo FIM-CISL r.corua@cisl.it
Riva Renato CISL - Vilenza Italy reneto.riva@cisl.it
Antonio Zorzi FIM-CISL
Sergio Marelli Ass ong it/ focsw
Flore Dionnian Anicideibanbini
Zacharie Arnaud CNCD arnaud.zacharie@cncd.be
Richard Daniel FGTB
Eric Venes CG - FGTB eric.nemes@accg-be
Anne Demelenne FGTB anne.demelene@fgtb.be
Marta Ruit
Maria Benere Rotti Comboni Missionary Sisters
Francesco Pierli Institute of Social Ministry
Anna Hellstrom Swedish Transport Workers Union anna.hellstrom.fk@transport.sc
Alessandro Marchetti CISL Bergamo, Italy alessandro.marchetti@hotmail.com
Jacques Toiser Altec Frill jacques.toiser@free.w
Jorgen Hellstew LC - Sweedish Trade Union Cont. jorgen.hellsten@hotmail.se
Sandra Willson LC - Sweedish Trade Union Cont. South District sandra.willson@lo.se
Illrika Oruegren LC - Sweedish Trade Union Cont. South District
Henrik Tuarn LC - Sweedish Trade Union Cont. South District hearik-tuarno@hotmail.com
Malin Suensson LC - Sweedish Trade Union Cont. South District
Nomkhosi Xulu University of Kwazulu Natal - IOLS research
Diallo Mussa
Elizabeth Cordeaa
El Manar Esslini

SPEECH OF MR. STEPHEN KANYARI;

WORL SOCIAL FORUM IN NAIROBI, KENYA
(JANUARY 20TH –�JANUARY 25TH, 2007)

WORKERS IN A GLOBALIZATION ERA
(A SPEECH BY STEPHEN KANYARI)

Ladies and gentle men, we in Africa in general and Kenya in particular feel enormously honored to host this very important global Forum and to share information and experiences of our lives with our sisters and brothers from various parts of the world with a view to adopting a common integrated approach in confronting the challenges facing the majority disadvantaged people of the world in pursuit of their social and economic needs and political empowerment.

In a globalized village which the world is fast becoming if it has not yet become, social injustice and economic hardships (fro the majority of people in the world) have transgressed almost all territorial boundaries, as the minority of the people who are economically empowered and capital owners world over continue, with impunity, to exploit world resources for their ungodly huge gains, to the detriment of the majority.

Inequitable distribution of the vast global wealth has lead to extreme and shameful material poverty and other forms of human deprivation for billions of people across the world and, therefore, denial of basic and social liberties. It is for this reason that all people and institutions of goodwill need to come together and face these challenges in a globalized manner.

World Social forum represents a global awakening to the afflictions visited on the majority by capitalism and God-inspired desire to redress the situation. For us in Kenya and in deed the whole of Africa, WSF is not just an event, but a blessing and a golden opportunity for us to take a critical re-look at our societies and make firm commitments towards abject-poverty eradication and total emancipation of the victims of the existing socio-economic imbalance.

Together, we have to confront head-on governments’�policies and systems, local and international institutions which, in the name of economic development, encourage and even facilitate greedy accumulation of wealth by a few at the expense of the majority. With renewed vigor and purpose, we have to sit down capital owners and drive into them the sense that it is neither in their long-term interest nor in the interest of the entire humanity, for a few to live in a tiny island of affluence surrounded by a turbulent ocean of deprivation. Ultimately the island will sink.

As globalization takes shape and form as one global capitalistic economy driven only by scrabble for higher profits for the capital owners, almost ignoring social implications and costs, workers all over the world need each other in an independent Global Labour Movement. A globalized institutional movement free from governments’, capital owners’�and capitalistic oriented international institutions’�control or influence. A movement that will articulate workers socio-economic aspirations from a global perspective.

In Kenya, workers and their families and dependants have borne the full brunt of globalization since the early 90�s when at the goading of the capital owners, and pressure from I.M.F and World Bank, the government introduced a piece of legislation in our statutes that effectively shut out Trade Unions from involvement in the process of declaring workers redundant. This law still exists in the statutes as section 16A of the Employment Act Cap 226 Laws of Kenya. The laws enables capital owners to lay-off workers however unjustified it might be, with no questions from any quarters.

Workers have therefore been declared redundant in their thousands in the name of restructuring, privatization, liberalization and downsizing thereby causing unmitigated suffering to these workers and the families they support.

Another distressing practice by employers in Kenya has been of lowly paid casual workers for jobs that are permanent in nature. This enables capital owners to deny these so called casual workers benefits such as medical covers, leave and leave allowances, housing and house allowances, maternity leave for women leave and pensions. The casual workers are also denied job security as their employment is terminated without any notice or payment in lieu of such a notice. To circumvent the law and fair labour practice, employers simply terminate employment of casual employees after just a few weeks of employment, just to employ others, also for a few weeks, from the bloated labour market, and then re-employ the previous or others.

It is now uncommon in Kenya for big companies to lay off workers who are covered by the collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in order to contract other firms to supply cheap labour for the same jobs. This practice is dubbed outsourcing. This practice is a cunning way by employers to escape honoring benefits to workers, as is provided for in the CBAs, without being seen to be violating the same. The big companies claim that these employees brought in by the contracted firms are not in their employer but are employed by the contracted firms, and therefore cannot enjoy the benefits in the CBA.

Victimization of workers for just joining Trade Unions is rampant in this country. Shop stewards very easily get fired for rightly agitating for the rights of their fellow workers. Freedom of association for the workers who seek to form other trade unions of their choice has been fought by a combined force of employers, the government and, believe it or not, the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU). THE WINGS OF SOLIDARITY OF WORKERS have been clipped by capital owners thereby considerably undermining these workers ability to negotiate collectively for better terms of their employment. Purchasing power afforded by the wages employees have been diminishing. More and more workers and their families have been pushed by harsh economic conditions to live in the slums. With the connivance of the government, workers safety and health at their work places have been compromised by employers. Trade Unions have become weaker by the day as their membership dwindles.

Ladies and gentlemen, labour laws that were enacted during colonial era to consolidate and perpetuate colonial exploitation of Africans are largely still in place in Kenya. With such laws at the disposal of the capital owners to use against workers, coupled with only-rhetoric-and-no-action Central Organization of Trade Unions, and a government that is, at best, unresponsive to the plight of workers, the worker is left to the tender mercies of the capital owner.

Trade Unions in this country have been unable to rise to the myriad challenges facing workers in this era of globalization. The central problem incapacitating Trade Union Movement in this era, and even before, is non-other than the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU).
COTU was formed and registered by the government in 1965 shortly after independence from the British rule. The capitalistic leaning government formed and registered COTU after dissolving two other labour movement centers namely, Kenya African Workers Congress (KAWC) and Kenya Federation of Labour (KFL) COTU was therefore not a workers idea of a labour movement confederation, but a capital owners’�and government dummy labour center to hoodwink the unsuspecting workers and to kill the vibrancy of Trade Union Movement in Kenya, which ironically, had been in the forefront in fighting for the country�s independence. To this day, COTU has remained loyal to its creators who are the government and the capital owners. That explains why the government has adamantly declined to register a truly worker driven labour movement confederation to rival COTU.

On occasions, particularly Labour Days, all COTU and the ministry of labour and human resource do issue empty warnings against employers who engage in unfair labour practices. Of course such warnings are issued as a public relations gimmick, as the unfair labour practices have continued unabated over the years.

Of late the bills on labour laws reform which have been gathering dust in the office of the Attorney General has become the song to be sung in seminars and public occasions by COTU and the government officials. When will these bills ever become law to stem the tide of unfair exploitation of labour resource? Only God knows.

Ladies and gentlemen, last year (2006) was the year of elections in COTU and all the trade unions in this country. It is widely known that by and large no elections took place. Instead the incumbent officials of COTU and most affiliate unions were registered by the government as having been �elected”�unopposed. The truth of the matter is that those who had wished to contest for various positions but was considered politically incorrect or �firebrands”�were barred from contesting. The import of that is the so called union officials in COTU and affiliate Trade Unions were not elected by the workers and therefore not their representatives but government appointees. Notably one union that is known to have carried out elections democratically is Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), which fortunately, is not an affiliate of COTU. This was an exception

Given the scenario, no one should expect COTU to serve the interest of workers. No wonder Kenyan workers have gone through all sorts of tribulations under its watch.

Ladies and gentlemen, workers rights are human rights. That being the case, Human Rights Organizations have been touched by the cries of the workers and have attempted to assist. However, COTU being a creature of capitalism has been stung by their involvement and has been calling on the government and capital owners to fight them off.

For workers in this country to rise to the challenge facing them in this era of globalization and capital owners dominance, a labour movement center other than COTU is needed and is overdue. A labour movement center that is socialistic in approach to the workers tribulations and challenges and opposed to the capitalistic oriented COTU

The government and COTU have to be forced to accept and embrace democratization of Trade Union Movement, freedom of association of workers and, their right to form trade unions of their choice without interference from capital owners, government or COTU

To realize their dream of a better world, which is possible, workers need the backing and support of civil society in general and Human Rights Organizations in particular.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I wish our visitors a comfortable and happy stay in our beautiful country Kenya.
Thank you and God bless you all

Speech delivered by:
STEPHEN KANYARI
E-mail: kanyaristephen@yahoo.com

THE STANDARD NEWSPAPER, TUESDAY 23, 007Industries on the spot for exploiting workers
By Otsieno NamwayaThe World Social Forum shifted focus to the original issues that gave birth to the movement six years ago. Delegates took issue with employers and industries for what they said was a serious violation of international labour laws and environmental degradation. Kenyan delegates wondered why the long standing concerns over the violation of workers’�rights by Del Monte, a fruit processing company, and the EPZ companies, which have been in the news in the last few years, have not been taken seriously by the Government. They blamed the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) for sacrificing the interests of the workers and, instead, allowing itself to be compromised into protecting errant employers. "The freedom of association of workers who seek to form other trade unions of their choice has been fought by a combined force of employers, the Government and Cotu. To this day, Cotu has remained loyal only to its creators, who are the Government and owners of capital," said Mr Stephen Kanyari, who was delivering a paper. But Mr Janitor Boaz Otieno, the Secretary General of the Kenya Union of Employees of Voluntary and Charitable Organisations, argued that nearly all the instruments of labour and trade were not sufficiently designed to protect the workers. He said the challenges facing workers today were due to bad policies that have been pushed down the throats of mainly poor nations by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. "The composition of the WTO is singly Government and that is why all WTO agreements cannot contain the violation of workers’�rights," said Mr Boaz Otieno, who also dismissed the idea that the African Growth and Opportunities Act, a mainly American idea, can be of benefit to African economies and thus the workers. "In the textile and apparel industries, for example, the jobs created under Agoa and EPZs do not respect existing national labour legislations of the African countries, and they are characterised by poor working conditions and low pay," said Otieno, who pointed out that this was, in fact, a violation of the conditions that countries have to meet to access American markets under Agoa.The delegates, according to Mr Kibigo Chege, the co-ordinator of the conference on labour, were trying to establish areas of concerns that were similar for workers in both the poor and rich nations. "That is why this session has brought together trade unions from both the North and the South to discuss labour issues and examine shared concerns," he said. "It is very difficult for trade unions to address the needs of workers in the informal sector economy and thus difficult to get a common framework that will serve workers in both informal and formal sector," said Mr Luca Piazzi of the Italian Christian Workers’�Association. Piazzi singled out the rising problem of temporary jobs, which he said is being caused by the emerging new economy in which employers prefer to pay less taxes and terminal benefits. "This is affecting people�s lives around the world because they cannot afford to do what they would like to do for themselves," said Luca Piazzi. This, he said, presents a problem to the trade unions because they are used to dealing with the problems of permanent workers. He said the challenge they faced as the World Social Forum was that they do not offer direct answers to the problems that workers face. It is an issue that Cotu secretary general, Mr Francis Atwoli, on the first day of the World Social Forum, said would become their main agitation point this year. But delegates dismissed this as a public relations gimmick, because "the union has been so complicit to the misdeeds of the employers and Government." "On occasions, Cotu issues empty warnings against employers who engage in unfair labour practices. Of course such warnings are issued as a public relations gesture, as the unfair labour practices have continued unchecked over the years," said Kanyari. While the delegates blamed multinationals for perpetuating this culture of blatant violation of the workers’�rights, they also pointed out that it was not a problem only for the multi-nationals. "Even the mainly localised employers have taken cue and are doing the same," said Piazzi. The multi-nationals were criticised for causing environmental degradation, with delegates taking particular issue with America�s decision to undermine the Kyoto Protocol on gaseous emissions, saying it was merely a ploy to protect its big industries at the expense of humans.

'''Documentalist's name'''

Fred Kachero

'''Date and Time'''

11.30am-2.30pm

[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

Fair trade

2007-12-05T07:28:16Z

Victorggk:

== '''Fair trade:consumer power,Flower labels and Labour rights in the international Flower Industry''' ==

'''By Bukirwa Annet'''

Organizer DGB Bildungswerk

Participants :about 55

summary of issues discussed

'''
Flowers for justice'''

Consumer awareness does have the power to put presuure on producers to respect social an denviromental rights.Most of the flowers bought by consumers in developed countries are produced in tropical regions an dbrought by air planes to the north.In Europe there are several label initiatives like FLP(flower Label Programme) FFP( fair flowers and plants and trans Fair,promoting consumer awareness and labour an dsocial standards in the flower industry.

'''Recommendations'''

Flower label initiative must put into consideration the training of workers,security of employees,Need for special protection of women
-Consumers must be given high quality flowers.

-There is need for protection of the natural ressources inth eproducer countries.

-There must be competitiveness in an increasing market of European consumers intersted in a fair and clean cut flower production.

[[Category:Trade and transportaion]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

Europe seen from Nairobi

2007-12-05T07:27:22Z

Victorggk:

'''Name of event'''

Europe seen from Nairobi

'''Time'''

11:30-2pm

'''Name of Organization'''

Italian Co-ordination of Local Authorities for Peace and HUMAN rights,SODNETT

''' NUMBER of participants'''

''' Male''' : 80

''' Female''' : 70

''' Total''' : 150

''' Key speakers'''

●�Flavio Lotti,Italian co-ordinator

●�Fatma Alloo Tanzanian media personality

●�Patrizia Sevetelli Deputy minister of Italian social activities

●�Roberto-President IPS

'''Summary of Issues'''

●�Centered on issues relating to Europe/Africa relationship in trade civil society and the encouraging paradigms in society

●�The type of support that each contient neeeds from the other

●�The need for new alliances in Europe/Africa colaborations

●�Justice for immigrants especially in Europe

●�Solidarity and support on equal basis

●�Africans huge debt burden will never end

'''Recommendations'''

●�Need policies that promote peace

●�Help remove Africa from its margianlised state

●�Promote world networks and make decisions widely as they affect other nationalities

●�Need to change attitudes about each other to promote good management and democracy

[[Category:Trade and transportaiton]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

European Union strategies to conquer world markets

2007-12-05T07:23:32Z

Victorggk:

== Name of Event: European Union strategies to conquer world markets ==

'''Organizer:''' Attac Germany

'''Number of participants:''' 60

'''Summary of Issues'''

Germany has politically empowered all individuals in the country for better production
All laws come from Brussels is like a dictatorship, taking away voters rights in the European Union. This undermines democratization

The myth that economic growth creates wealth in not very true, only the super powers benefit. The poor e.g. in Africa continue to suffer

Free trade agreement lead to a form of colonialism because Europe is able to invest more in Africa and benefit more of Africans remain poor workers in their industries. Big countries remain poor workers in the winner, so not a fair deal Kenyan industry can not equitably trade with Germany. Germany with a stronger economy will invest more and benefit more.

There is illegitimacy and less developed countries

The tax evasion by European investors undermines the African countries economy. This is a loud imbalance

Globalization strategy threatens both Europe and African because the environment is affected in both places, trade unions are affected also e.t.c

European strategies mostly aims at taping where they can tap resources e.g. from Iraq since in Europe will exhaust at the same point in the future

'''Recommendation'''

Good attendance and useful contributions

The world has more economic problems than it can handle and that there is dishonesty and a bit of corruption

[[Category:Alternative economies]]
[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

European Union strategies to conquer world markets

2007-12-05T07:20:35Z

Victorggk:

Co-operation between African and China

2007-12-05T07:10:44Z

Victorggk:

== The co-operation between Africa and China:Chances and challenges ==

'''Organizers:''' China NGO Network for international exchanges

'''Number of participants'''

Male 56

Female 33

'''Key speakers'''

Professor Isaac Mbeche principal School and Social Sciences and humanities,unversity of Nairobi

'''Summary of Issues'''

A report was presented by Professor Isaac about the opportunities and challenges of Africa as a contient trading with China

Professor Isaac stated that influence and China is growing at a tremedous rate because attracting a debate among Africans and the entire world.

Chances For Africa to Trade with China
Africa as a whole should deal with the people of China directly,this means therefore that we have to study the entire chinese culture and Language so as to win the trust of the Chinese however,it was related that this is a challenge for Africa which finds it had to relate with China

Think about globalisation in order to be successful

'''Challenges Faced by Africa'''

Lack of respect for Africa sovereigntiy by China

Exploitation at work places by Chinese

Production of low quality goods

Oppression of workers

Monopoly of Chinese goods in African markets yet at a low cost compared to African products

A Statement was made by co-presenter from CHina NGO network International exchange which attracted debate from Africans almost leading to foght between the two parties she said CHina interest to trade with Africa is a sincere help for Africa

'''The following were their agreements'''

South Africa we had a WIN WIN WIN situation.They wanted the economy to canter for all people but not only the rich

Zimbabwe stated that it's very hard for the people to carry out trade.

[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

Co-operation between African and China

2007-12-05T07:10:19Z

Victorggk:

Trade and transportation

2007-12-05T07:05:18Z

Victorggk:

This page includes all activities from World Social Forum that falls under the Actionable theme Trade and transportation.

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Category:Trade and transportation]]

Alternative economies

2007-12-05T07:04:15Z

Victorggk:

This page includes all activities of the WSF that falls under the actionable theme Alternative economies.

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Category:Alternative economies]]

Economic Partnership Agreements

2007-12-05T07:01:45Z

Victorggk:

== EPAS and social mobilisation ==

''The role of the youth in EPAS and social mobilisation''

'''Organiser''': Africa Youth Coalition Against Hunger

'''Participants''' male 18 temale 47

=== Summary of issues ===

EPAs Economic Partnership Agreements

EPAs are free trade agreements between unequal parties which will tie up Africas regions to Europe in an imbalanced framework and undermine Africas producers economies and autonomous efforts at regional level intergration,

EPAs has an even greater impact on the African women because of the gender gap that exist between males and females and because the African women are still experiencing disempoerment, maginalisation, limitations and denial of basic rights.
The EPAs will result into loss of much needed revenues as a result of the alimination of tarrifs and duty barriers

A bigger crisis in agriculture

Significant welfare losses

In all this Africa needs to pursue autonomously determined policies which promote the development of our economies and fulfill ther social and human rights and livelihood needs of our people.

Integration of African countries e both regionally and continentally on the basis of our own imperiatives is a key condition for the development of our countries and for the benefit of our people,

===List of documents===

3 prints

Documentation code 1114

Reporter Getrude Lema

[[Category:Trade and transportation]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

Category:Trade and transportation

2007-12-05T06:59:17Z

Victorggk:

This category has the following list of activities.

Category:Trade and transportation

2007-12-05T06:59:04Z

Victorggk:

this category has the following list of activities.

Category:Alternative economies

2007-12-05T06:57:28Z

Victorggk:

This category has the following list of activities.

Alternative economies

2007-12-05T06:56:09Z

Victorggk:

This page includes all activities of the WSF that falls under the actionable theme Alternative economies.

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Category:Alternative economies]]

Alternative economies

2007-12-05T06:55:23Z

Victorggk:

This page includes all activities of the WSF that falls under the actionable theme Alternative economies.

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Catergory:Alternative economies]]

Trade and transportation

2007-12-05T06:48:39Z

Victorggk:

This page includes all activities from World Social Forum that falls under the Actionable theme Trade and transportation.

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Category:Trade and transportation]]

Children

2007-12-05T06:45:29Z

Victorggk:

This is a page for all activities and information from World Social Forum that falls under the Actionable theme Children. Any activity that discusses children rights, children neglect, Children education, child labor, and any thing else that may come up to do with children falls under the the Actionable theme Children

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Category:Children]]

Child Violation

2007-12-05T06:42:24Z

Victorggk:

== '''Title''': Child Violation in the war torn countries ==

'''Name of organiser''':Case study in Somalia

'''Number of participants''':100

== Summary of key issues discussed: ==

The case study is discussed a family who live in one of Mogadishu's displaced camps after they fled from their origaanting lands due to the conflicts and fllods in Kuntuwarey vilage in the Lower Sahbel region of Somalia . Fanmilies lost their jobs, the father divorced the wife to escape responsibilty for the family. Whilre there is nop effective govt institutions in Mogadishu city it has become difficult for the mother to claim her dues from the father in courts. the children decided to work with their mother to bring up the family.

'''Recommendations from event'''

There should be policy and practices to improve por conditions in the war torn countries. Children must also be provided with decent work free from insultations and beatings.

'''Time and Date of event''': 6pm, 21/01/2007

'''Report by''':Loum Godfrey and Nabitotto Sharon Alice.

[[Category:Children]]
[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]

Child Violation

2007-12-05T06:41:45Z

Victorggk:

Children

2007-12-05T06:34:17Z

Victorggk:

This is a page for all activities and information from World Social Forum that falls under the Actionable theme Children.

== The Actionable theme Children ==
Any activity that discusses:
* children rights;
* children neglect;
* children education;
* child labor;
* any thing else that may come up to do with children

Falls under the the Actionable theme Children

[[Category:Actionable themes]]
[[Category:Children]]

Children

2007-12-05T06:33:31Z

Victorggk:

Child Violation

2007-12-05T06:25:18Z

Victorggk:

Child Violation

2007-12-05T06:09:14Z

Victorggk:

User:Loyce/BlogEntry: 2007 December 03 15:44:29 EAT

2007-12-05T05:55:37Z

Victorggk: /* '''''Day One''''' */

== KLA Media Wiki training 3rd to 5th December 2007 at KSMS ==

== '''''[[Day One]]''''' ==
[[Image:Loyce_and_Sharon.jpg |thumb]]
The [http://www.klas.or.ke KLA] conducted this training a the Kenya School of Monetary Studies from 3rd to 5th December 2007. Participants were taken through basics of uploading items on the wiki in order to main wsflibrary wiki.
The session was very interesting as each participant updated their pages and blogs on the wiki.

The purpose of this workshop is to create a critial mass of librarians that will upload and maintain wsflibrary wiki.
Kudos to KSMS, their services are very fantastic. Talk of the internet connection,, its the firstest connection I have used.
The training environment is very good for participants to learn how to use the wikis.

== '''''[[Day Two]]''''' ==

Day two was also good and on the bad side of it was that the internet connection was very slow compared to the previous day.
We had a presentation from Julie, she works with the [http://www.lib.umich.edu University of Michigan Library] USA in the Special Library Branch. She is also a social change activist and she is also involved in the world Social forum activities

We also had a presentation form Rosemary, Chairperson, [http://www.klas.or.ke KLA]. She took us through the physical documents collected fduring the Nairobi WSF. She alosd informed us that they managd to get two volunteers who complied the list of all materials collected. She also mentioned that the Finnish Embassy r has provided space to KLA where those materials will be kept. After the presentation participants discussed the way forward for WSFlibrary.
Summary of proposal of the wayforward for WSFlibrary
-KLA be a focal point and the custodians of the materials
-Realising the information to the University of Michigan .
Materials should be kept locally and accessibe
-Physical documents to remain with KLA
-Digitising the materials and upload them on the wsflibrary. This has alot of implications like funding and manpower
-Creating intelectual linkage with other WSF activities
Forming alliance with other movements inorder to strengthen the cintinuity
-Found a private library and not a public library
-Secure funding for wsflibrary
-

User:Loyce/BlogEntry: 2007 December 03 15:44:29 EAT

2007-12-05T05:53:28Z

Victorggk: /* '''''Day Two''''' */

== KLA Media Wiki training 3rd to 5th December 2007 at KSMS ==

== '''''[[Day One]]''''' ==
[[Image:Loyce_and_Sharon.jpg |thumb]]
The KLA conducted this training a the School of Monetary Studies from 3rd to 5th December 2007. Participants were taken through basics of uploading items on the wiki in order to main wsflibrary wiki.
The session was very interesting as each participant updated their pages and blogs on the wiki.

The purpose of this workshop is to create a critial mass of librarians that will upload and maintain wsflibrary wiki.
Kudos to KSMS, their services are very fantastic. Talk of the internet connection,, its the firstest connection I have used.
The training environment is very good for participants to learn how to use the wikis.

== '''''[[Day Two]]''''' ==

Day two was also good and on the bad side of it was that the internet connection was very slow compared to the previous day.
We had a presentation from Julie, she works with the [http://www.lib.umich.edu University of Michigan Library] USA in the Special Library Branch. She is also a social change activist and she is also involved in the world Social forum activities

We also had a presentation form Rosemary, Chairperson, [http://www.klas.or.ke KLA]. She took us through the physical documents collected fduring the Nairobi WSF. She alosd informed us that they managd to get two volunteers who complied the list of all materials collected. She also mentioned that the Finnish Embassy r has provided space to KLA where those materials will be kept. After the presentation participants discussed the way forward for WSFlibrary.
Summary of proposal of the wayforward for WSFlibrary
-KLA be a focal point and the custodians of the materials
-Realising the information to the University of Michigan .
Materials should be kept locally and accessibe
-Physical documents to remain with KLA
-Digitising the materials and upload them on the wsflibrary. This has alot of implications like funding and manpower
-Creating intelectual linkage with other WSF activities
Forming alliance with other movements inorder to strengthen the cintinuity
-Found a private library and not a public library
-Secure funding for wsflibrary
-

User:Victorggk

2007-12-04T09:39:41Z

Victorggk:

[[Image:victor.JPG|thumb]]

== Hi everyone ==
Am Victor G. Kamau and from Kenya. The country to the eastern coast of Africa and bordering Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. If you have never heard of it then you have heard of the war in Sudan, the strife in Somalia ( the only surviving country for over a decade without a government).

But you must have heard of the Maasai, the Kiptanui, Kiplang'at and if you like history you know that Kenya is the crandle for humankind.

Too much about my country. Am a librarian with Kenya Methodist University. I just completed Bachelors degree in Information Sciences, Library and information studies option.

I participated in the World social Forum as a documentalist with Kenya Library Association. Sinse then I have been involved in creation and development of content for [http://www.wsflibrary.org World Social Forum] website.

Currently am the Electronic Systems and Services librarian at the Nairobi campus of Kenya Methodist University. I am in charge of Library Management software (Librarysoft), all electronic resources and services.

Am also running a library website based on the blog technology and can be found at this link [http://www.kemulib.blogspot.com KEMUlibrary]

another blog I manage is [http://www.librariesunlimited.blogspot.com LibrariesUnlimited]

File:Victor.JPG

2007-12-04T09:30:09Z

Victorggk: This is me

This is me

File:Victor.jpg

2007-12-03T10:07:23Z

Victorggk: This is me in my graduation ceremony on 19th October 2007

This is me in my graduation ceremony on 19th October 2007

Global Article and Campaign to abolish war

2007-12-03T07:29:35Z

Victorggk: /* Recommendations */

Name of Event: Global Article and Campaign to abolish war

Organizer Global article 9 Campaign to abolish article war http://www.article-9.org

Number of participants
Male 33
Female 45
Total 78

Key speaker.Jody Williams,Nobel Peace Prize Laucate,USA

===Summary of Issues===

: Article-9 is common valve for all people living in the Asia pacific
: Article 9,an article for every country
: Why Article 9?
: Why peace constitutions
:: Article 9 of the Japanese constitution has been a foundation for collective security throughout the Pacific region. The global article 9 campaign to abolish war calls on global civil society to develop and carry out peace mechanisms based on Article 9 principles
:: At the start of the 21st century,the world is engulfed in a cycle of war and violence war in Iraq has made it manifestly clear that peace cannot be imposed by force.

=== Recommendations ===
As a global citizen,support article 9.The world does not need militarization,money and resources should be used to solve the many common problems we face today.
Article 9 is a mechanism for international peace.
_

Reporter Gertrude Lema

[[Category:Nairobi WSF 2007]]
[[Category:Peace and War]]

User:Victorggk

2007-12-03T07:07:56Z

Victorggk:

Hi everyone,

Am Victor G. Kamau and from Kenya. The country to the eastern coast of Africa and bordering Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. If you have never heard of it then you have heard of the war in Sudan, the strife in Somalia ( the only surviving country for over a decade without a government).

But you must have heard of the Maasai, the Kiptanui, Kiplang'at and if you like history you know that Kenya is the crandle for humankind.

Too much about my country. Am a librarian with Kenya Methodist University. I just completed Bachelors degree in Information Sciences, Library and information studies option.

I participated in the World social Forum as a documentalist with Kenya Library Association. Sinse then I have been involved in creation and development of content for [http://www.wsflibrary.org World Social Forum] website.

Currently am the Electronic Systems and Services librarian at the Nairobi campus of Kenya Methodist University. I am in charge of Library Management software (Librarysoft), all electronic resources and services.

Am also running a library website based on the blog technology and can be found at this link [http://www.kemulib.blogspot.com KEMUlibrary]

another blog I manage is [http://www.librariesunlimited.blogspot.com LibrariesUnlimited]

my picture will be uploaded soon. Just now

User:Victorggk

2007-11-19T11:31:20Z

Victorggk:

Youth Tax Justice Network

2007-09-21T14:54:47Z

Victorggk:

== Youth Tax Justice Network! ==

Youth Tax Justice Network (YTJN)is group of youth and students concerned with the issues of tax justice. It was formed as an outcome of the 2007 World Social Forum, we work alongside the international Tax Justice Network and its sister networks. We seek to link young people into the campaign for a global financial system that enables citizen representation, sustainable fiscal policy, and more equitable societies. Built upon the main precepts of the wider international Tax Justice Network, the Youth Tax Justice Network aims:

* to promote links between interested youth and students around the world, particularly involving developing countries;
* to raise the level of awareness about the secretive world of offshore finance and its effects;
* to foster a debate among students and youth on issues related to taxation and global finance;
* to provide a platform for building and sharing research;
* to encourage, support, and document local, national, and international campaign activity;
* to record the coverage of tax justice issues in university and other curricula;
* to link YTJN activities to the wider international network

In pursuance of the above aims the YTJN has published its first ever Newsletter: Our Voices
available for download in pdf at [http://ytjn-ourvoices.blogspot.com]here. All articles can also be found on that same website as well as our campaigns page [http://ytjn-campaignroom.blogspot.com]here.

The groups official website is [http://ytjn.blogspot.com]here.

User:Victorggk/BlogEntry: 2007 September 21 17:30:10 EAT

2007-09-21T14:46:54Z

Victorggk:

== Youth Tax Justice Network! ==

Youth Tax Justice Network (YTJN)is group of youth and students concerned with the issues of tax justice. It was formed as an outcome of the 2007 World Social Forum, we work alongside the international Tax Justice Network and its sister networks. We seek to link young people into the campaign for a global financial system that enables citizen representation, sustainable fiscal policy, and more equitable societies. Built upon the main precepts of the wider international Tax Justice Network, the Youth Tax Justice Network aims:

* to promote links between interested youth and students around the world, particularly involving developing countries;
* to raise the level of awareness about the secretive world of offshore finance and its effects;
* to foster a debate among students and youth on issues related to taxation and global finance;
* to provide a platform for building and sharing research;
* to encourage, support, and document local, national, and international campaign activity;
* to record the coverage of tax justice issues in university and other curricula;
* to link YTJN activities to the wider international network

In pursuance of the above aims the YTJN has published its first ever Newsletter: Our Voices
available for download in pdf at [http://ytjn-ourvoices.blogspot.com]here. All articles can also be found on that same website as well as our campaigns page [http://ytjn-campaignroom.blogspot.com]here.

This is one of the successful outcomes of the Worls Social Forum held in Nairobi this year. The collection of materials that the groups produce is our basic duty.

Kamau Victor

Decommodification of infomation

2007-02-14T13:13:51Z

Victorggk: /* REFERENCES */

== DECOMMODIFICATION OF INFORMATION ==

== Theme: Information for Development in The Global South ==

'''Presenters: Murumba Joan Wakasa and Kamau Victor Gitau
email: [[Media:victorggk@yahoo.com]]'''

== Information Week, School Of Information Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret ==

== ABSTRACT ==

This paper spells out the importance of information in the development. It explains the detriments of having information as a commodity of trade. It goes further to examine the copyright and how it has made information a commodity. Finally it shows how decommodification of information is the solution for development in the Global South.

== INTRODUCTION ==

Once upon a time in England, there existed two kinds of people; the rich and the poor. The rich, from greed, persecuted the poor and made sure that they had no access to the factors of production. This, they hoped would maintain the status quo. They were wrong! God heard the prayers of the poor and gave them Robbinhood. His holy mission being; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
The same situation exists today. Globally, we have only two opposing partakers in the world development; the North and the South. The North representing the developed world and the South the developing world. The North just like the early England is advantaged for having developed before the south and would do anything to maintain the status quo.
Civilization has reached every part of the world and the North has realised it cannot conquer by restricting access to factors of production through waging war; the best method to maintain the status quo is by denying the South access to the most important factor which without it all others are derailed; this factor is information. Thus they have introduced the concept of International Copyright Law.
This law has been successful in meeting it purpose as it is evident that in the South people have to struggle to gain access to information in all formats, and when get it is out dated- donations from the north- and has outlived its intention, we get negative information about the South from their media about the South- war in Sudan, communism in China, corruption in Kenya and HIV/Aids in Africa- we have no academic and educational books in learning institutions, and we get information in a language not understandable to us, therefore, unusable.
But God has heard the prayer of the South and has sent us our Robinhood to save us from the North and get us information which for long we have been denied. Our Robinhood hood is decommodification!

== DEFINITION OF IMPORTANT TERMS ==

Decommodification
It is a word made from the verb commodity, which means, something that can be bought and sold. (Macmillan English dictionary 2002) The process of making a thing tradable (can be sold or bought) is referred to as commodification. The reverse is decommodification.
Decommodification in this paper is used to mean the process of availing information to the users gratis (free of charge).
Information
Information is data, signals, facts, views, opinions, ideas, events, news etc of significance, able to influence manâ€™s actions, behaviour and decisions as he goes about interacting with others in a given environment. This kind of information should reduce uncertainty in choices: should basically be related to specifics in context of time and space and in the content of individual as well as social, economical and scientific needs and the problem it is intended to solve further more it must be capable of being produced or generated, acquired, stored, retrieved and disseminate or transmitted through some kind of communication channel recorded or oral, manual or electronic, from a source to a recipient. The relevance of such information will be determined by the recipient who is in a position to utilize it for personal benefit or for that of others. (Lundu, 1995)
Copyright
It is one of the intellectual property rights (others are, patent, trademark and design rights) that arises automatically on the creation of various categories of work, and protects the rights and interests of the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, satellite and cable programmes, and the typographical arrangements of published editions. Copyright has been called the trading system for works of the mind. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004)
According to Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) copyright is the exclusive, legally secured, right to publish and sell the substance and form of a literary, musical, or artistic work.

== INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPMENT ==

The information society is built upon information. The Net already provides the structure for realising an unfulfilled revolutionary demand: media freedom for all. Authors can publish their writings on their own websites. Musicians can release their tunes on MP3 first. Film-makers can distribute digital files of their movies. Not just the right to consume media, but also the right to produce media too. Even better, the Net is inspiring novel forms of expressions.
Information is one of the major factors of production and therefore without information nothing can be done. Information is power, and this is clearly evident by the work information does. Information is required for economic, social, political and cultural development; this shows that information is required in all spheres for forward development. Information helps people solve problems; obtain knowledge either through reading or listening, for research purposes among others. Some ways through which information has propagated development include:

== ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ==

Agricultural information
Agricultural activities are sources of economic development since the farmers generate income both to the country and to themselves. Agricultural information can comprise of: good farming methods, best seeds and fertilizers, information on the climate and what is suitable for the planting season and so on. This information is mostly important to farmers who use this to support their economic activities. The information can be either through word of mouth in seminars and workshops by agricultural extension officers. It can also be through the media both print and electronic and therefore if it is a basic need to farmers. The availability of this information leads to high productivity which raises the GDP of the economy.
Trade and industry (Formal and informal sector)
Most developing countries are low income earners who live below the poverty line. These countries are characterised with informal sectors like the Jua kali sectors in Kenya. These people need information on how to improve the value of their products. They need information on the new technology which when used will double the supplies. Since most of them are school drop outs they need directions on how to obtain financial assistance from the organizations concerned which when put in place will add to the countries revenue.

== SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ==
'''
Education and training'''
Students are taught in schools and other learning institutions in order to get acquainted with knowledge. Courses such as entrepreneurship are taught in universities to enable students be independent minded and able to identify opportunities for business. This will generate income both the individual and the country as well. It is through education and training that current technologies such as ICTs are taught and made used to retrieve information for solving problems. For example the Internet provides vast amount of information to researchers which is beneficial in solving problems. The web provides information on the effects of pollution to the environment. Both air and land pollution do not promote agricultural activities and when this is said and done, people will try to look for ways to curb down pollution which is an obstacle to economic development. Communication networks foster both social and economic development because when people are networked resources (information) is shared which in turn leads to prosperity.
'''Information on health education.'''
Human beings are the sources of labour and before any work whether manual or electrical they have to be present for any work to be done. It is therefore important that they be in good health. Information about how to control some health hazards becomes a necessity. Health information is necessary, for example, first aid knowledge will help to save an individuals life when in danger.
Guidance and counselling
Basic information on good morals is important to any individual. It provides one with the ability to live a straight and upright life. Societal evils such as pregnancy and abortion, drug abuse, HIV and Aids will help especially the young generation to know how to present themselves in the society.

== CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ==

Information about other cultures allows us to be able to adjust to other peopleâ€™s way of life and this will prevent cultural shock. Cultural information records our heritage and this in turn informs the society about its past which is a foundation or a base to the future.

== POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT ==

This provides a country with what is happening in the political arena. Information enhances democracy. We are able to get information from other countries which contain information on human rights and fight for them. It is through information that we get to know on corruption in our governmental structures. It is through information that we get to know whether or not we are justly treated.

== INFORMATION IN THE WRONG HANDS ==

Information for development can only be helpful to the South only and only if they have it in their own hands. Information is tricky and the one who has it has an upper hand over the one who does not have it- he can restrict it or use it negatively against the one who donâ€™t have it. Here we look at the wrong hands information can be in.
'''Entrepreneurs: publishers, distributors etc.'''
These are people who bridge the gap between the creator of information work and the intended users. They donâ€™t add any value to information and neither use it; their purpose is to make profit.
These people hoard information waiting for an opportune time to gain the maximum profit denying the intended user the opportunity to gain maximumly from it.
'''The North'''
These are the developed countries that are in competition with the global South; their goal is to maintain the status quo. They donâ€™t want the South to get access to information since they already know the importance, value and power attached to information.
Capitalists
Capitalists are those who practice capitalism. This is the economic system in which private individuals and business firms carry on the production and exchange of goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Their purpose is to make profit through increasing demand by reducing supply, and supplying only to those who are capable of buying at the highest price.

== '''INFORMATION AS A COMMODITY''' ==

Why are songs composed, books written, or photographs taken? There are at least two reasons, among others. One rationale is that such works express the creative urges and aspirations of individuals and of wider societies. They are produced to communicate thoughts, to solve problems, to teach others, to express ideas and feelings and emotions. Collectively, they are part of the common heritage and culture Of groups, of communities, and of nations. A competing view or rationale is that songs and books and photographs are commodities produced for the purpose of exchanging them for something; they are property, albeit intangible property, created primarily for trade and for commerce. Story, A (et al) (eds) (2006)
The second rationale is what is called commodification and linked to copyright laws. This is further linked linked with mechanisms of trade and commerce by the 1994 agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

== COPYRIGHT ==

Copyright is the legal right given to creators of informational works to make copies of the same for distribution and exorcize everybody else from copying and distributing the work. Copyright beginnings are in the sixteenth century by a company called Stationers. This company sought to protect copying of works between the players in the industry by then. It was made national by the statute of Anne of 1709. Since then copyright law has developed widely. Most countries now have legislation that broadly follows the tenets of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, or the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988, or the Acts of 1956 and 1911 that preceded it.
International copyright law started out of the need to harmonize the various national copyright laws and the need to protect the creations of information in other countries as well. This was due to the ease of movement that made publications available in one country to be sold in another. These international copyright laws include the Berne Convention of 1886 (with later revisions) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) of 1952
All national and international copyright laws promise the following:
1. Provides Incentive to creativity and innovativeness
2. Creators should economically benefit from their creations
3. The creator should maintain basic control over his creation
4. Fair use exemptions provide enough allowances to use copyrighted material for review, critism, parody and similar purposes.
5. Copyright laws offers a provision for compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in the Global South (1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention)

== HOW COPYRIGHT HAS FAILED ==

'''Piracy'''

The main purpose of copy right is to protect the creators works from unauthorized copying which will deny the chance to make profit. This purpose has not been met since there are numerous cases in courts. Examples of piracy include downloading music files, CD- writing etc. â€œThe biggest problem (to Kenyan musician) has been rampant piracy and failures of broadcasters to pay them royalties.â€ Royalties and Copyrights: The Vicious Circle in Buzz Sunday Nation July 16th 2006.
Copyright does not promote creativity and innovation
Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America is quoted in, Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) stating that â€œcopyright protects not just the financial interest of people who create artistic or intellectual property, but the very existence of creative work.â€
There arises problems form this quote: it is true that creativity existed before copyright was brought about; it is also true that those who were able to create information before copyright law was introduced did not do it for money- infact they were the bourgeoisie; it is also true that there exists many authors/creators who are not yet published therefore, do not sell their creations but give free to achieve fame for their works to be accepted by publishers.
What copyright does, is to make creators dependent of corporation to enforce and to implement the copyright laws on their behalf. This has made the corporations benefit more than the creators. These entrepreneurial corporations (publishers, music and movie producers, and media houses) force the creators to relinquish their rights to them in order to fight for them and make profit. They only allow what will make more profit rejecting creative works of authors, musicians, and script writers on the basis that it will not do well in the market. Creativity and innovation is suppressed.
As a result cultural diversity suffers, especially when the number of these corporations is consistently shrinking, since there is little profit in specialists or minority tastes. Creators of works on special and minority tastes get continuously demotivated because of copyright.

'''Copyright puts the human and societyâ€™s culture and heritage into the hands of one individual or a group of individuals'''

Human culture and societyâ€™s heritage is inherent in the information we read in books and on the internet, in the music we dance to, in the art we enjoy, and in the stories we listen. To put all these on one individual of a group of individualsâ€™ hands is a grievous mistake.
Information is a product of human interaction with the environment. It is the societyâ€™s record of events, situations, solutions and adjustment to the environment. This should be the property of the society. Not individuals. The society should have the control of information, ideas, concepts, and dreams it has. Not those who, because of their capitalistic greed and economical endowment, are capable to express this culture and heritage into a reproducible form.
When we copyright information, what put our heritage, our values, our history, and our culture onto one personâ€™s hand who disguise himself as a creator. He then gets all the rights to restrict our heritage and culture and also becomes the one to shape our culture. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) recognized this and stated:
â€œThe law of the copyright is thus the law that help to shape the culture of our society. For it is a major factor in determining what books we read; what art we enjoy; what music we hear.â€
We should not let copyright be the author of our culture. We should reject the principles of copyright as it is today. Culture existed before copyright and this should be the case always. Copyright should not come in the way.

'''Copyright applies equally to all works'''

All works of the mind are not equal. This is because information is only important when someone needs it and thus makes use of it. Some information is not necessary at all, for example, we can all do without the hip hop music, the American bloc buster movies and their novels that have a lot of praise for American culture. But we cannot do without the Physics and Biology textbooks written for both secondary and tertiary education.
When copyright is made to apply to all types of works equally, we are left with no choice but to have our educationâ€™s future held by the copyright owners as they will dictate who, what, where, when and how much information we can access. This is because copyright gives the rights of control of information to the owner to decide what will be done with the information, its distribution, and its pricing.
Important information materials such as scientific and educational may be limited, denying the Global South the opportunity to develop scientifically and educational which is the basis of all development. This case is made worse by the fact that the Global South doesnâ€™t have the economic purchasing power required to buy the information and those who can afford are few that even if they buy, it will make little profit the producers of the North.

'''Copyright restricts access to information.'''

Copyright gives the creators of the information the sole right to control, to determine its distribution, its price, and its availability. The restriction to access derives from this control the creator is given. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971):
â€œThe price paid to the creator and the entrepreneur (producer and distributor), however, is high for copyright is a monopoly. The control of his work that the law gives to the copyright owner is absolute. He may or may not disseminate the work as he chooses; he may or may not make it available at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities; he may or may not let others copy the work, regardless of the motive of the copier or the lack of any impairment of the usefulness of the work to him.â€ In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker.
The copyright law is based on profit motive therefore encouraging the copyright owner to only avail his work only when he can earn some profit. This means that those who have no purchasing power will not access the information. This mostly will affect the countries of the Global South where most of the people live below poverty line.
There other reason is bias of the copyright owner. He will not avail his work if he feels that by doing so he will be putting the other person at an advantage of ousting him in the future. The beginnings of copyright are known to be based on this reason:
â€œcopyright from it beginnings in England in the sixteenth century , has been a means of protecting the â€œhavesâ€- of limiting access to books and information in order to maintain order and discipline in the trade- of creating a monopoly over knowledgeâ€ Altbact, P. (1995)
Everybody knows that information is power and by denying information they are denying power. By the virtual of enacting copyright laws- which places the decision of distribution to the copyright owner (the North), the North denies the Global South the chance of being powerful.

'''Fair use exemptions do not provide enough allowances to use of copyrighted materials '''

This is given as a tenet of copyright but in real sense it is not. In the Global South very few people can afford to buy the information from abroad and many libraries are full of old, donated books therefore most of the population do not have access to information materials.
For this to be a tenet, it requires that the material be available in the institutions of learning and libraries so that it can be fairly used. Without at least one copy in each library and institution it will not apply.
Many creators will, is to disseminate information as further and wider as possible
Many creators would like their intellectual property to be disseminate as wide and further as possible, some even opt donating. Copyright comes in the way of this will. There are authors who write for the purpose of doing good to the society, they would rather have little profit and their creations be disseminate rather than it be sold to only a few who are rich.
Informationâ€™s value is not derived from its price or package; it is derived from its use. Authors know this well and would not care how their creations are packaged as long as somebody somewhere found it valuable. It is the copyrights that restricts the authors to offer their creativeness free of charge through such corporations as publishers who would want the author to give his rights to them.
One way to disseminate information further and wider is to offer it free but this will be at the disadvantage of the copyright owner as he will be forced to make copies for each user for the user is restricted by copyright to make copies for himself. The other choice which is the best one is to denounce the copyright protection of a work and allow the users to make copies for themselves.

'''Copyright and promotion of immorality'''

We have seen that copyright covers all types of information works; so does it cover pornography production, satanic informational materials, prostitution information materials and many other evil informational materials. How then does copyright promote immorality?
When the immoral works are created they become copyright material; the creator has the right to reproduce and distribute at as he wishes to distribute it. Because these materials are worth to be products of sale, thanks to copyright, the copyright owner makes money. This profit motivates him to make more moral degrading works which enables him to even employ people to act pornographic movies and pose naked before cameras.
The best problem to solve this problem of pornographic materials from our streets is not to harass our hawkers by prosecuting them and fining them, it is not to tax highly these materials so that few people can buy; the best method is to make them unavailable. This could be done by removing copyright protection such that when they will not be produced because of they will be pirated and distorted leading to losses. This will at least work in the Global South, where people will surely pirate without protection rather than buy.
Without copyright moral decay through information materials such as books, films, magazines will be controlled.

'''Copyright is based on the Northâ€™s culture of individualism that the Global South donâ€™t understand'''

Copyright protects the form of expression and not the idea itself. Therefore, does not protect the indigenous art/knowledge. It is based on the western (North) cultural values of propertization that do not coincide with many indigenous collective mores. With copyright, that which is protected becomes the legal property of the individual owning the copyright. This approach does not merge with traditional (the Global South) approaches to community property and culture. Andy Abeita, president, Council for Indigenous Arts and Culture (CIAC) in March 24, 2000 by interview said â€œwe as natives peoples, do not understand this concept of ownershipâ€ quoted in Fowler, B.J. (2004)
Cultural development is one facet of development every nation wants to advance in education, economy, and politics and in science and technology. The Global Southâ€™s culture of community hood will be destroyed if we accept every ideology of the west and incorporate it in our system. For example, the Maasai of Kenya are known world wide and are attraction to tourists and we as Kenyans are proud to be associated with them, this is as a result because of they culture which is well preserved. Thus, we can say, regarding the Maasai, Kenya we cultural development. China is developing because of their culture, Americans also developed because first they developed and protected they culture of individualism form contamination by communism. For us in the Global South to develop we have to protect our community property and culture kind of ownership, our values to earn respect and to develop.
Motivation for producing information is not money in our culture, doing good to the society is.
â€œIt has been taken for granted (in the Global South) that any wise man writing something is motivated by the ideal of doing good to the society. The idea of financial remuneration to the writer of the book was alien to the ancient societies (the Global South).â€Malhotra, D.N. (1995)
How were the needs of the information providers met then? The same author continues:
â€œAncient societies worked on the assumption that the worldly needs of the sages, the wise men, the intellectuals and the writers were to be taken care of by the society. Therefore, the idea of payment to the writer, and that the writings of an author were his property, seemed quite naÃ¯ve to them.â€ (ibid)

'''Copyright creates a monopoly in the market'''

By copyrighting information, the person granted the copyright becomes sole owner. This crates monopoly and monopoly means, no competition. Without competition, the price of information will increase and increase as long as it (information) remains relevant. The North, with better knowledge infrastructure, will produce more information that the Global South and this informationâ€™s price will be dictated by them at the detriment of the Global South.
Copyright is unfair in that two or more people with the same idea (it is very possible) cannot be allowed same expression of their ideas. This make only one expression of an equal idea can exist in the market leaving the consumers with no choice and making the copyright owner the master of the trade.
Monopolizing of information keeps prices high and the net effect is to deny those who cannot purchase the information the chance of getting knowledge which could motivate them to be innovative and creative. Innovation is born from the urge to support or reject the ideology presented on other peopleâ€™s creative work.

'''Implementation of international copyright law creates unequal exchange'''

Implementation of international copyright law is the greatest injustice that ever happened to the Global South. International intellectual property rights works in a way that every country that is a signatory protects the works, published in other member countries, in that country. Why is it an injustice then?
The Global South is disadvantaged as it doest have enough knowledge infrastructure thus do not produce knowledge for export. They do not need protection in other countries. Should they protect others in their own? And by doing so, putting their citizens between a stone and a hard place. First the citizens cannot legally copy the information published in other countries and second they cannot purchase it because; it is not available at reasonable prices. Thirdly, the information is required to teach, train, and educate. Implementing the international copyright law in the Global South is to the detriment of the Global South.
This law when implemented by the Global South will lead to prosecution and sentence of the Global Southâ€™s citizens for having the initiative to equip himself with knowledge which could be used to develop the country. Some countries calling for international application of copyright only joined after they had the capability to export information created by their authors/creators. Examples of these countries are USA, 1952, Russia, and China, 1990s.

'''Democracy is not allowed to thrive in making of the international copyright law'''

The method used to come up with the international copyright law is undemocratic. These laws were made without reference to the needs of the Global South and the possible disadvantage they could have the Global South. Democracy according to Book, M. (2006) is â€œâ€¦is not only a question of the formal structures of decision making, nor even of participation and majority power, it is also an issue of openness and tolerance.â€ If this definition is anything to go by, then there was no democracy in making of the international copyright law; there was no openness, the North hid neo-liberalism in pretence to protect creators of information. There was no tolerance, the Global South concept of ownership i.e. community property and culture approach, was not considered.
What we have is the North makes the laws and base them on their culture the force the Global South to comply. We should have either make our laws that are addressing our needs and seeks to solve our problems or have to quit from the international copyright agreements.

== The problems with the 1971 Paris revision to the Berne convention ==

The 1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention gave provision for the granting of compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in member states which have claimed official status as developing countries.
This revision was made after the countries of the Global South complained that they were not able to access information because of the copyright laws they enacted and because of the signing of the convention(s). The countries of the North had hitherto resisted allowing the countries a unique treatment because they were equal members. They finally obliged out of pressure of the countries of the Global South mainly India threatening to quit. But what they give solved the problem at hand and crated more problems that it solved. The problems are hereby outlined.

'''No access to current information'''

This revision allows a publisher in the Global South to apply for a compulsory reprint or translation if the document is not available in the Global South. This is only possible if the document has been marketed in the North and has been sold such that the Global South has knowledge of its existence. By the time it is applied for, it is not current, the original publisher gets a chance to earn royalties in selling something that is outdated!
The quality of licensed edition is frequently very low reducing usefulness of the book to the end user
This is because the publishing firms in the Global South cannot be comparable to those in the North. Their products are cheaply made and also the translation and reprints could have errors that could arise out of incxpertise. This will lead to materials that will have reduced usefulness to the final user of the information. This is a disadvantage to the Global South as the information that will be available to them will be different from that the North has access to and ours is distorted and invaluable.

'''Low cost edition and international studentsâ€™ edition give an unfair competition to locally produced information materials'''

Because licensing leads to less useful materials to users and detrimental to the efforts of the author and the producer, the North has invented methods of availing the information in the North to the Global South. These methods include low cost editions and international studentsâ€™ editions produced by the assistance of Northâ€™s government such as Educational Low-cost Books Scheme (ELBS) in Britain. These editions are distributed to the Global South at low cost because the publishers have been paid subsidies to do so giving the locally produced books an unfair competition and taking the chance of the Global Southâ€™s publishers to reprint or translate.

'''The local publishers depend most on licenses thus killing motivation of creator in the Global South'''

This revision makes the Global Southâ€™s publishers depend most on foreign licenses which will come ready and have already market thus do not require budgeting for marketing and promotion. This makes the local authors to lose their hope to see themselves in print and eventually kill motivation and creativeness. Another negative effect of this is it will create a connotation in the Global South that only the North can produce quality information thus we will get what they want us to get and know what they want us to know. They get to be in control of the fuel of development. This is having information in the wrong hands.

'''This revision makes the Global South dependent on the North as sole source of information'''

By providing us with information for reprint and translation and also providing us with low cost and international studentsâ€™ editions, the North makes us depend on them on our academic and educational information. The picture they give us is that of powerful North and dependent, poor, diseased, and dangerous Global South full of wars, inequality, and election rigging. We end up being brainwashed that it only when we speak English, French and German that we can be civilised and educated. We lack information materials in our own languages; we lack information materials with local content and so never develop socially, culturally, economically and politically.

'''Creation of branches by the North kills local publishing and authorship industry.'''

Another option provided by the provision is that the North could provide information to the Global South itself instead of giving out licenses. This provision gives the publishing and producing firms opportunity to set up branches in the Global South. With the support form the headquarters the branches get to publish quality books and sell them at low cost beating the local publishing firm out of the market. The premise on which the multinational firm is built on will dictate the material it will publish and that which it will reject; a material like the one you are reading now will be rejected!

'''Taxation on royalties'''

The North publishers claim that by having the taxation of royalties only meagre payments reach the copyright owner, thus, it is uneconomical to give licences to local publishers. This argument leads them to ask for tax waivers on the royalties they earn and they have writers to support them: â€œI have advocated that there should be no tax on royalties at allâ€¦. The copyright fees called royalties should not be taxed at allâ€ Malhotra, D.N. (1995) if the governments of the Global South and agrees and let the publishers from the North earn tax-free profit would be letting the North steal from the Global South. The economy will be affected and every profit should be taxed furthermore, the local ones are being taxed.

== DECOMMODIFICATION ==
'''
Information should be for sharing not for selling'''

This is made possible by the new media- internet- which affords the creators of information cheap means of processing and distribution of information eradication the barrier of copyright and the publishing firms. Authors can publish their materials and share without requiring the help of established media and publishing houses which world require him to transfer his copyright to them.
When you go on-line, most information is available for free. Other users are happy to share music, movies and software with you. People spend hours building websites which they don't charge you for visiting. You are invited to join list servers which will fill your in-box with e-mails every day. What makes the new media into something new is the vitality of these non-commercial activities. Information is for sharing not for selling. Knowledge is a gift not a commodity.

'''Return to our culture and honour creators of information in a humane way'''

Copyright has failed to offer incentive to the creators of information because, first not all information creators are motivated by money and two, the need for the corporations to fight for them has changed priorities from motivating to profit making.
Going back to the way the sages, the wise, and the knowledgeable people were honoured in our culture is one of the solutions to archiving decommodification. Authors are important people and they should earn from where they work i.e. the materials they produce. The government should have an independent funding scheme for paying all recognized authors who contribute to the society positively and assist the authors in dissemination of their materials so that every body in the country has access to the information.
Secondly these information creators will be allowed to organize public lectures, teach in universities, collages and schools so that they disseminate the knowledge they have to the leaders of tomorrow.
Copying of works will not be restricted as long as moral rights of the author are observed: these are right to integrity- right of the author to object to derogatory treatment of his work; right of paternity- the right of the author to be identified as the author or editor or director of the work; and false attribution- the right of the author not to be credited with things he did not write or say.

'''The creators can be supported by donations to provide information free'''

Another option available is for the creators to receive donations from willing people and organisations to further their work. This will work very well in the electronic environment where the costs involved are less. The wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia offers information free of charge and is supported by public donations. Other organisations that offer free information include non-governmental organisations, and individual websites.

'''Do away with international copyright laws and protect only locally produced works'''

This could harm the international relations but it will be to our advantage. Forstly, the number of information we export is negligible, if any, so we need no protection by the other countries. Secondly, by protecting locally created works we are strengthening our publishing and information industry. Thirdly, the information that will be available will be made by us, for use, to solve our problems and to develop us.
There is nothing long to protect our own and not protect others, the developed countries did the same; the first United States copyright act was passed in 1790 which protected only the works produced in their own country. They only joined the international copyright protection in 1952 after they had enjoyed using other countries- Europe- works without restriction. Soviet Union did the same and joined in 1960s and china did same thing and joined in 1990s.
Looking at this tread one can conclude that acquiescence comes with time just as Altbact, P.G. (1995) puts it: â€œcopyright compliance comes naturally with economic and social developmentâ€

== CONCLUSION ==

International Copyright law is the only law made to protect non-citizens form citizens. It is the only law made to suppress development of information industry in the Global South. Itâ€™s only fit for developed countries. Henry Chakava, a renowned Kenyan publisher in his conclusion of the paper â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ published in 1995 says that:
â€œâ€¦. It can be argued that, by signing, (international copyright conventions) book-poor African countries have compromised their human right of access to knowledge, and they will realize their folly when they will have acquired the much needed capacity to exploit these works, only to discover that the protectionism inherent in these convections and sealed by their own signatures have prohibited them from doing soâ€
Decommodifying information is the only true solution of development for the global south. By doing this, will have more information in the public domain increasing access and hence knowledge, we will have more and more local content in the information materials, we will have only what is good for the society as authors will be honoured according to their works value to the society, we will have our culture and heritage on our hands and not on individuals hands, and since all facets of development are dependent on information we will have equal development in all facets, in all areas o the global south (as there is no restriction to information access) and in all levels.

== REFERENCES ==

Altbact, P.G. (1995) â€œThe Subtle Inequalities of Copyrightâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Chakava, H.M. (1995) â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Fowler, B.J. (2004) â€œPreventing Counterfeit Craft Designsâ€ In Schuler, P. and Finger, J.M. (Eds) Poor Peopleâ€™s Knowledge: Promoting Intellectual Property in Developing Countries.

Washington, D.C; The World Bank

Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) Encyclopedia Of Library And Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker Inc.

Malholtra, D.N. (1995) â€œCopyright: A Perspective from the Developing Worldâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004

Owen, L. (1991) Selling Rights: A Publisherâ€™s Guide to Success. Chapman and Hall; London

Owen, L. (1995) â€œCopyright: Benefit or Obstacle?â€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network

Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) The Copy/South Dossier: Issues in the Economics, Politics, And Ideology of Copyright in the Global South. Copy south research group.
Thorn, E.A. (1989) Understanding Copyright: A Practical Guide. Jay Books; England

[[Category:Terrain 4]]

Decommodification of infomation

2007-02-14T12:51:41Z

Victorggk: /* Theme: Information for Development in The Global South */

== DECOMMODIFICATION OF INFORMATION ==

== Theme: Information for Development in The Global South ==

'''Presenters: Murumba Joan Wakasa and Kamau Victor Gitau
email: [[Media:victorggk@yahoo.com]]'''

== Information Week, School Of Information Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret ==

== ABSTRACT ==

This paper spells out the importance of information in the development. It explains the detriments of having information as a commodity of trade. It goes further to examine the copyright and how it has made information a commodity. Finally it shows how decommodification of information is the solution for development in the Global South.

== INTRODUCTION ==

Once upon a time in England, there existed two kinds of people; the rich and the poor. The rich, from greed, persecuted the poor and made sure that they had no access to the factors of production. This, they hoped would maintain the status quo. They were wrong! God heard the prayers of the poor and gave them Robbinhood. His holy mission being; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
The same situation exists today. Globally, we have only two opposing partakers in the world development; the North and the South. The North representing the developed world and the South the developing world. The North just like the early England is advantaged for having developed before the south and would do anything to maintain the status quo.
Civilization has reached every part of the world and the North has realised it cannot conquer by restricting access to factors of production through waging war; the best method to maintain the status quo is by denying the South access to the most important factor which without it all others are derailed; this factor is information. Thus they have introduced the concept of International Copyright Law.
This law has been successful in meeting it purpose as it is evident that in the South people have to struggle to gain access to information in all formats, and when get it is out dated- donations from the north- and has outlived its intention, we get negative information about the South from their media about the South- war in Sudan, communism in China, corruption in Kenya and HIV/Aids in Africa- we have no academic and educational books in learning institutions, and we get information in a language not understandable to us, therefore, unusable.
But God has heard the prayer of the South and has sent us our Robinhood to save us from the North and get us information which for long we have been denied. Our Robinhood hood is decommodification!

== DEFINITION OF IMPORTANT TERMS ==

Decommodification
It is a word made from the verb commodity, which means, something that can be bought and sold. (Macmillan English dictionary 2002) The process of making a thing tradable (can be sold or bought) is referred to as commodification. The reverse is decommodification.
Decommodification in this paper is used to mean the process of availing information to the users gratis (free of charge).
Information
Information is data, signals, facts, views, opinions, ideas, events, news etc of significance, able to influence manâ€™s actions, behaviour and decisions as he goes about interacting with others in a given environment. This kind of information should reduce uncertainty in choices: should basically be related to specifics in context of time and space and in the content of individual as well as social, economical and scientific needs and the problem it is intended to solve further more it must be capable of being produced or generated, acquired, stored, retrieved and disseminate or transmitted through some kind of communication channel recorded or oral, manual or electronic, from a source to a recipient. The relevance of such information will be determined by the recipient who is in a position to utilize it for personal benefit or for that of others. (Lundu, 1995)
Copyright
It is one of the intellectual property rights (others are, patent, trademark and design rights) that arises automatically on the creation of various categories of work, and protects the rights and interests of the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, satellite and cable programmes, and the typographical arrangements of published editions. Copyright has been called the trading system for works of the mind. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004)
According to Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) copyright is the exclusive, legally secured, right to publish and sell the substance and form of a literary, musical, or artistic work.

== INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPMENT ==

The information society is built upon information. The Net already provides the structure for realising an unfulfilled revolutionary demand: media freedom for all. Authors can publish their writings on their own websites. Musicians can release their tunes on MP3 first. Film-makers can distribute digital files of their movies. Not just the right to consume media, but also the right to produce media too. Even better, the Net is inspiring novel forms of expressions.
Information is one of the major factors of production and therefore without information nothing can be done. Information is power, and this is clearly evident by the work information does. Information is required for economic, social, political and cultural development; this shows that information is required in all spheres for forward development. Information helps people solve problems; obtain knowledge either through reading or listening, for research purposes among others. Some ways through which information has propagated development include:

== ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ==

Agricultural information
Agricultural activities are sources of economic development since the farmers generate income both to the country and to themselves. Agricultural information can comprise of: good farming methods, best seeds and fertilizers, information on the climate and what is suitable for the planting season and so on. This information is mostly important to farmers who use this to support their economic activities. The information can be either through word of mouth in seminars and workshops by agricultural extension officers. It can also be through the media both print and electronic and therefore if it is a basic need to farmers. The availability of this information leads to high productivity which raises the GDP of the economy.
Trade and industry (Formal and informal sector)
Most developing countries are low income earners who live below the poverty line. These countries are characterised with informal sectors like the Jua kali sectors in Kenya. These people need information on how to improve the value of their products. They need information on the new technology which when used will double the supplies. Since most of them are school drop outs they need directions on how to obtain financial assistance from the organizations concerned which when put in place will add to the countries revenue.

== SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ==
'''
Education and training'''
Students are taught in schools and other learning institutions in order to get acquainted with knowledge. Courses such as entrepreneurship are taught in universities to enable students be independent minded and able to identify opportunities for business. This will generate income both the individual and the country as well. It is through education and training that current technologies such as ICTs are taught and made used to retrieve information for solving problems. For example the Internet provides vast amount of information to researchers which is beneficial in solving problems. The web provides information on the effects of pollution to the environment. Both air and land pollution do not promote agricultural activities and when this is said and done, people will try to look for ways to curb down pollution which is an obstacle to economic development. Communication networks foster both social and economic development because when people are networked resources (information) is shared which in turn leads to prosperity.
'''Information on health education.'''
Human beings are the sources of labour and before any work whether manual or electrical they have to be present for any work to be done. It is therefore important that they be in good health. Information about how to control some health hazards becomes a necessity. Health information is necessary, for example, first aid knowledge will help to save an individuals life when in danger.
Guidance and counselling
Basic information on good morals is important to any individual. It provides one with the ability to live a straight and upright life. Societal evils such as pregnancy and abortion, drug abuse, HIV and Aids will help especially the young generation to know how to present themselves in the society.

== CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ==

Information about other cultures allows us to be able to adjust to other peopleâ€™s way of life and this will prevent cultural shock. Cultural information records our heritage and this in turn informs the society about its past which is a foundation or a base to the future.

== POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT ==

This provides a country with what is happening in the political arena. Information enhances democracy. We are able to get information from other countries which contain information on human rights and fight for them. It is through information that we get to know on corruption in our governmental structures. It is through information that we get to know whether or not we are justly treated.

== INFORMATION IN THE WRONG HANDS ==

Information for development can only be helpful to the South only and only if they have it in their own hands. Information is tricky and the one who has it has an upper hand over the one who does not have it- he can restrict it or use it negatively against the one who donâ€™t have it. Here we look at the wrong hands information can be in.
'''Entrepreneurs: publishers, distributors etc.'''
These are people who bridge the gap between the creator of information work and the intended users. They donâ€™t add any value to information and neither use it; their purpose is to make profit.
These people hoard information waiting for an opportune time to gain the maximum profit denying the intended user the opportunity to gain maximumly from it.
'''The North'''
These are the developed countries that are in competition with the global South; their goal is to maintain the status quo. They donâ€™t want the South to get access to information since they already know the importance, value and power attached to information.
Capitalists
Capitalists are those who practice capitalism. This is the economic system in which private individuals and business firms carry on the production and exchange of goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Their purpose is to make profit through increasing demand by reducing supply, and supplying only to those who are capable of buying at the highest price.

== '''INFORMATION AS A COMMODITY''' ==

Why are songs composed, books written, or photographs taken? There are at least two reasons, among others. One rationale is that such works express the creative urges and aspirations of individuals and of wider societies. They are produced to communicate thoughts, to solve problems, to teach others, to express ideas and feelings and emotions. Collectively, they are part of the common heritage and culture Of groups, of communities, and of nations. A competing view or rationale is that songs and books and photographs are commodities produced for the purpose of exchanging them for something; they are property, albeit intangible property, created primarily for trade and for commerce. Story, A (et al) (eds) (2006)
The second rationale is what is called commodification and linked to copyright laws. This is further linked linked with mechanisms of trade and commerce by the 1994 agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

== COPYRIGHT ==

Copyright is the legal right given to creators of informational works to make copies of the same for distribution and exorcize everybody else from copying and distributing the work. Copyright beginnings are in the sixteenth century by a company called Stationers. This company sought to protect copying of works between the players in the industry by then. It was made national by the statute of Anne of 1709. Since then copyright law has developed widely. Most countries now have legislation that broadly follows the tenets of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, or the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988, or the Acts of 1956 and 1911 that preceded it.
International copyright law started out of the need to harmonize the various national copyright laws and the need to protect the creations of information in other countries as well. This was due to the ease of movement that made publications available in one country to be sold in another. These international copyright laws include the Berne Convention of 1886 (with later revisions) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) of 1952
All national and international copyright laws promise the following:
1. Provides Incentive to creativity and innovativeness
2. Creators should economically benefit from their creations
3. The creator should maintain basic control over his creation
4. Fair use exemptions provide enough allowances to use copyrighted material for review, critism, parody and similar purposes.
5. Copyright laws offers a provision for compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in the Global South (1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention)

== HOW COPYRIGHT HAS FAILED ==

'''Piracy'''

The main purpose of copy right is to protect the creators works from unauthorized copying which will deny the chance to make profit. This purpose has not been met since there are numerous cases in courts. Examples of piracy include downloading music files, CD- writing etc. â€œThe biggest problem (to Kenyan musician) has been rampant piracy and failures of broadcasters to pay them royalties.â€ Royalties and Copyrights: The Vicious Circle in Buzz Sunday Nation July 16th 2006.
Copyright does not promote creativity and innovation
Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America is quoted in, Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) stating that â€œcopyright protects not just the financial interest of people who create artistic or intellectual property, but the very existence of creative work.â€
There arises problems form this quote: it is true that creativity existed before copyright was brought about; it is also true that those who were able to create information before copyright law was introduced did not do it for money- infact they were the bourgeoisie; it is also true that there exists many authors/creators who are not yet published therefore, do not sell their creations but give free to achieve fame for their works to be accepted by publishers.
What copyright does, is to make creators dependent of corporation to enforce and to implement the copyright laws on their behalf. This has made the corporations benefit more than the creators. These entrepreneurial corporations (publishers, music and movie producers, and media houses) force the creators to relinquish their rights to them in order to fight for them and make profit. They only allow what will make more profit rejecting creative works of authors, musicians, and script writers on the basis that it will not do well in the market. Creativity and innovation is suppressed.
As a result cultural diversity suffers, especially when the number of these corporations is consistently shrinking, since there is little profit in specialists or minority tastes. Creators of works on special and minority tastes get continuously demotivated because of copyright.

'''Copyright puts the human and societyâ€™s culture and heritage into the hands of one individual or a group of individuals'''

Human culture and societyâ€™s heritage is inherent in the information we read in books and on the internet, in the music we dance to, in the art we enjoy, and in the stories we listen. To put all these on one individual of a group of individualsâ€™ hands is a grievous mistake.
Information is a product of human interaction with the environment. It is the societyâ€™s record of events, situations, solutions and adjustment to the environment. This should be the property of the society. Not individuals. The society should have the control of information, ideas, concepts, and dreams it has. Not those who, because of their capitalistic greed and economical endowment, are capable to express this culture and heritage into a reproducible form.
When we copyright information, what put our heritage, our values, our history, and our culture onto one personâ€™s hand who disguise himself as a creator. He then gets all the rights to restrict our heritage and culture and also becomes the one to shape our culture. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) recognized this and stated:
â€œThe law of the copyright is thus the law that help to shape the culture of our society. For it is a major factor in determining what books we read; what art we enjoy; what music we hear.â€
We should not let copyright be the author of our culture. We should reject the principles of copyright as it is today. Culture existed before copyright and this should be the case always. Copyright should not come in the way.

'''Copyright applies equally to all works'''

All works of the mind are not equal. This is because information is only important when someone needs it and thus makes use of it. Some information is not necessary at all, for example, we can all do without the hip hop music, the American bloc buster movies and their novels that have a lot of praise for American culture. But we cannot do without the Physics and Biology textbooks written for both secondary and tertiary education.
When copyright is made to apply to all types of works equally, we are left with no choice but to have our educationâ€™s future held by the copyright owners as they will dictate who, what, where, when and how much information we can access. This is because copyright gives the rights of control of information to the owner to decide what will be done with the information, its distribution, and its pricing.
Important information materials such as scientific and educational may be limited, denying the Global South the opportunity to develop scientifically and educational which is the basis of all development. This case is made worse by the fact that the Global South doesnâ€™t have the economic purchasing power required to buy the information and those who can afford are few that even if they buy, it will make little profit the producers of the North.

'''Copyright restricts access to information.'''

Copyright gives the creators of the information the sole right to control, to determine its distribution, its price, and its availability. The restriction to access derives from this control the creator is given. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971):
â€œThe price paid to the creator and the entrepreneur (producer and distributor), however, is high for copyright is a monopoly. The control of his work that the law gives to the copyright owner is absolute. He may or may not disseminate the work as he chooses; he may or may not make it available at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities; he may or may not let others copy the work, regardless of the motive of the copier or the lack of any impairment of the usefulness of the work to him.â€ In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker.
The copyright law is based on profit motive therefore encouraging the copyright owner to only avail his work only when he can earn some profit. This means that those who have no purchasing power will not access the information. This mostly will affect the countries of the Global South where most of the people live below poverty line.
There other reason is bias of the copyright owner. He will not avail his work if he feels that by doing so he will be putting the other person at an advantage of ousting him in the future. The beginnings of copyright are known to be based on this reason:
â€œcopyright from it beginnings in England in the sixteenth century , has been a means of protecting the â€œhavesâ€- of limiting access to books and information in order to maintain order and discipline in the trade- of creating a monopoly over knowledgeâ€ Altbact, P. (1995)
Everybody knows that information is power and by denying information they are denying power. By the virtual of enacting copyright laws- which places the decision of distribution to the copyright owner (the North), the North denies the Global South the chance of being powerful.

'''Fair use exemptions do not provide enough allowances to use of copyrighted materials '''

This is given as a tenet of copyright but in real sense it is not. In the Global South very few people can afford to buy the information from abroad and many libraries are full of old, donated books therefore most of the population do not have access to information materials.
For this to be a tenet, it requires that the material be available in the institutions of learning and libraries so that it can be fairly used. Without at least one copy in each library and institution it will not apply.
Many creators will, is to disseminate information as further and wider as possible
Many creators would like their intellectual property to be disseminate as wide and further as possible, some even opt donating. Copyright comes in the way of this will. There are authors who write for the purpose of doing good to the society, they would rather have little profit and their creations be disseminate rather than it be sold to only a few who are rich.
Informationâ€™s value is not derived from its price or package; it is derived from its use. Authors know this well and would not care how their creations are packaged as long as somebody somewhere found it valuable. It is the copyrights that restricts the authors to offer their creativeness free of charge through such corporations as publishers who would want the author to give his rights to them.
One way to disseminate information further and wider is to offer it free but this will be at the disadvantage of the copyright owner as he will be forced to make copies for each user for the user is restricted by copyright to make copies for himself. The other choice which is the best one is to denounce the copyright protection of a work and allow the users to make copies for themselves.

'''Copyright and promotion of immorality'''

We have seen that copyright covers all types of information works; so does it cover pornography production, satanic informational materials, prostitution information materials and many other evil informational materials. How then does copyright promote immorality?
When the immoral works are created they become copyright material; the creator has the right to reproduce and distribute at as he wishes to distribute it. Because these materials are worth to be products of sale, thanks to copyright, the copyright owner makes money. This profit motivates him to make more moral degrading works which enables him to even employ people to act pornographic movies and pose naked before cameras.
The best problem to solve this problem of pornographic materials from our streets is not to harass our hawkers by prosecuting them and fining them, it is not to tax highly these materials so that few people can buy; the best method is to make them unavailable. This could be done by removing copyright protection such that when they will not be produced because of they will be pirated and distorted leading to losses. This will at least work in the Global South, where people will surely pirate without protection rather than buy.
Without copyright moral decay through information materials such as books, films, magazines will be controlled.

'''Copyright is based on the Northâ€™s culture of individualism that the Global South donâ€™t understand'''

Copyright protects the form of expression and not the idea itself. Therefore, does not protect the indigenous art/knowledge. It is based on the western (North) cultural values of propertization that do not coincide with many indigenous collective mores. With copyright, that which is protected becomes the legal property of the individual owning the copyright. This approach does not merge with traditional (the Global South) approaches to community property and culture. Andy Abeita, president, Council for Indigenous Arts and Culture (CIAC) in March 24, 2000 by interview said â€œwe as natives peoples, do not understand this concept of ownershipâ€ quoted in Fowler, B.J. (2004)
Cultural development is one facet of development every nation wants to advance in education, economy, and politics and in science and technology. The Global Southâ€™s culture of community hood will be destroyed if we accept every ideology of the west and incorporate it in our system. For example, the Maasai of Kenya are known world wide and are attraction to tourists and we as Kenyans are proud to be associated with them, this is as a result because of they culture which is well preserved. Thus, we can say, regarding the Maasai, Kenya we cultural development. China is developing because of their culture, Americans also developed because first they developed and protected they culture of individualism form contamination by communism. For us in the Global South to develop we have to protect our community property and culture kind of ownership, our values to earn respect and to develop.
Motivation for producing information is not money in our culture, doing good to the society is.
â€œIt has been taken for granted (in the Global South) that any wise man writing something is motivated by the ideal of doing good to the society. The idea of financial remuneration to the writer of the book was alien to the ancient societies (the Global South).â€Malhotra, D.N. (1995)
How were the needs of the information providers met then? The same author continues:
â€œAncient societies worked on the assumption that the worldly needs of the sages, the wise men, the intellectuals and the writers were to be taken care of by the society. Therefore, the idea of payment to the writer, and that the writings of an author were his property, seemed quite naÃ¯ve to them.â€ (ibid)

'''Copyright creates a monopoly in the market'''

By copyrighting information, the person granted the copyright becomes sole owner. This crates monopoly and monopoly means, no competition. Without competition, the price of information will increase and increase as long as it (information) remains relevant. The North, with better knowledge infrastructure, will produce more information that the Global South and this informationâ€™s price will be dictated by them at the detriment of the Global South.
Copyright is unfair in that two or more people with the same idea (it is very possible) cannot be allowed same expression of their ideas. This make only one expression of an equal idea can exist in the market leaving the consumers with no choice and making the copyright owner the master of the trade.
Monopolizing of information keeps prices high and the net effect is to deny those who cannot purchase the information the chance of getting knowledge which could motivate them to be innovative and creative. Innovation is born from the urge to support or reject the ideology presented on other peopleâ€™s creative work.

'''Implementation of international copyright law creates unequal exchange'''

Implementation of international copyright law is the greatest injustice that ever happened to the Global South. International intellectual property rights works in a way that every country that is a signatory protects the works, published in other member countries, in that country. Why is it an injustice then?
The Global South is disadvantaged as it doest have enough knowledge infrastructure thus do not produce knowledge for export. They do not need protection in other countries. Should they protect others in their own? And by doing so, putting their citizens between a stone and a hard place. First the citizens cannot legally copy the information published in other countries and second they cannot purchase it because; it is not available at reasonable prices. Thirdly, the information is required to teach, train, and educate. Implementing the international copyright law in the Global South is to the detriment of the Global South.
This law when implemented by the Global South will lead to prosecution and sentence of the Global Southâ€™s citizens for having the initiative to equip himself with knowledge which could be used to develop the country. Some countries calling for international application of copyright only joined after they had the capability to export information created by their authors/creators. Examples of these countries are USA, 1952, Russia, and China, 1990s.

'''Democracy is not allowed to thrive in making of the international copyright law'''

The method used to come up with the international copyright law is undemocratic. These laws were made without reference to the needs of the Global South and the possible disadvantage they could have the Global South. Democracy according to Book, M. (2006) is â€œâ€¦is not only a question of the formal structures of decision making, nor even of participation and majority power, it is also an issue of openness and tolerance.â€ If this definition is anything to go by, then there was no democracy in making of the international copyright law; there was no openness, the North hid neo-liberalism in pretence to protect creators of information. There was no tolerance, the Global South concept of ownership i.e. community property and culture approach, was not considered.
What we have is the North makes the laws and base them on their culture the force the Global South to comply. We should have either make our laws that are addressing our needs and seeks to solve our problems or have to quit from the international copyright agreements.

== The problems with the 1971 Paris revision to the Berne convention ==

The 1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention gave provision for the granting of compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in member states which have claimed official status as developing countries.
This revision was made after the countries of the Global South complained that they were not able to access information because of the copyright laws they enacted and because of the signing of the convention(s). The countries of the North had hitherto resisted allowing the countries a unique treatment because they were equal members. They finally obliged out of pressure of the countries of the Global South mainly India threatening to quit. But what they give solved the problem at hand and crated more problems that it solved. The problems are hereby outlined.

'''No access to current information'''

This revision allows a publisher in the Global South to apply for a compulsory reprint or translation if the document is not available in the Global South. This is only possible if the document has been marketed in the North and has been sold such that the Global South has knowledge of its existence. By the time it is applied for, it is not current, the original publisher gets a chance to earn royalties in selling something that is outdated!
The quality of licensed edition is frequently very low reducing usefulness of the book to the end user
This is because the publishing firms in the Global South cannot be comparable to those in the North. Their products are cheaply made and also the translation and reprints could have errors that could arise out of incxpertise. This will lead to materials that will have reduced usefulness to the final user of the information. This is a disadvantage to the Global South as the information that will be available to them will be different from that the North has access to and ours is distorted and invaluable.

'''Low cost edition and international studentsâ€™ edition give an unfair competition to locally produced information materials'''

Because licensing leads to less useful materials to users and detrimental to the efforts of the author and the producer, the North has invented methods of availing the information in the North to the Global South. These methods include low cost editions and international studentsâ€™ editions produced by the assistance of Northâ€™s government such as Educational Low-cost Books Scheme (ELBS) in Britain. These editions are distributed to the Global South at low cost because the publishers have been paid subsidies to do so giving the locally produced books an unfair competition and taking the chance of the Global Southâ€™s publishers to reprint or translate.

'''The local publishers depend most on licenses thus killing motivation of creator in the Global South'''

This revision makes the Global Southâ€™s publishers depend most on foreign licenses which will come ready and have already market thus do not require budgeting for marketing and promotion. This makes the local authors to lose their hope to see themselves in print and eventually kill motivation and creativeness. Another negative effect of this is it will create a connotation in the Global South that only the North can produce quality information thus we will get what they want us to get and know what they want us to know. They get to be in control of the fuel of development. This is having information in the wrong hands.

'''This revision makes the Global South dependent on the North as sole source of information'''

By providing us with information for reprint and translation and also providing us with low cost and international studentsâ€™ editions, the North makes us depend on them on our academic and educational information. The picture they give us is that of powerful North and dependent, poor, diseased, and dangerous Global South full of wars, inequality, and election rigging. We end up being brainwashed that it only when we speak English, French and German that we can be civilised and educated. We lack information materials in our own languages; we lack information materials with local content and so never develop socially, culturally, economically and politically.

'''Creation of branches by the North kills local publishing and authorship industry.'''

Another option provided by the provision is that the North could provide information to the Global South itself instead of giving out licenses. This provision gives the publishing and producing firms opportunity to set up branches in the Global South. With the support form the headquarters the branches get to publish quality books and sell them at low cost beating the local publishing firm out of the market. The premise on which the multinational firm is built on will dictate the material it will publish and that which it will reject; a material like the one you are reading now will be rejected!

'''Taxation on royalties'''

The North publishers claim that by having the taxation of royalties only meagre payments reach the copyright owner, thus, it is uneconomical to give licences to local publishers. This argument leads them to ask for tax waivers on the royalties they earn and they have writers to support them: â€œI have advocated that there should be no tax on royalties at allâ€¦. The copyright fees called royalties should not be taxed at allâ€ Malhotra, D.N. (1995) if the governments of the Global South and agrees and let the publishers from the North earn tax-free profit would be letting the North steal from the Global South. The economy will be affected and every profit should be taxed furthermore, the local ones are being taxed.

== DECOMMODIFICATION ==
'''
Information should be for sharing not for selling'''

This is made possible by the new media- internet- which affords the creators of information cheap means of processing and distribution of information eradication the barrier of copyright and the publishing firms. Authors can publish their materials and share without requiring the help of established media and publishing houses which world require him to transfer his copyright to them.
When you go on-line, most information is available for free. Other users are happy to share music, movies and software with you. People spend hours building websites which they don't charge you for visiting. You are invited to join list servers which will fill your in-box with e-mails every day. What makes the new media into something new is the vitality of these non-commercial activities. Information is for sharing not for selling. Knowledge is a gift not a commodity.

'''Return to our culture and honour creators of information in a humane way'''

Copyright has failed to offer incentive to the creators of information because, first not all information creators are motivated by money and two, the need for the corporations to fight for them has changed priorities from motivating to profit making.
Going back to the way the sages, the wise, and the knowledgeable people were honoured in our culture is one of the solutions to archiving decommodification. Authors are important people and they should earn from where they work i.e. the materials they produce. The government should have an independent funding scheme for paying all recognized authors who contribute to the society positively and assist the authors in dissemination of their materials so that every body in the country has access to the information.
Secondly these information creators will be allowed to organize public lectures, teach in universities, collages and schools so that they disseminate the knowledge they have to the leaders of tomorrow.
Copying of works will not be restricted as long as moral rights of the author are observed: these are right to integrity- right of the author to object to derogatory treatment of his work; right of paternity- the right of the author to be identified as the author or editor or director of the work; and false attribution- the right of the author not to be credited with things he did not write or say.

'''The creators can be supported by donations to provide information free'''

Another option available is for the creators to receive donations from willing people and organisations to further their work. This will work very well in the electronic environment where the costs involved are less. The wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia offers information free of charge and is supported by public donations. Other organisations that offer free information include non-governmental organisations, and individual websites.

'''Do away with international copyright laws and protect only locally produced works'''

This could harm the international relations but it will be to our advantage. Forstly, the number of information we export is negligible, if any, so we need no protection by the other countries. Secondly, by protecting locally created works we are strengthening our publishing and information industry. Thirdly, the information that will be available will be made by us, for use, to solve our problems and to develop us.
There is nothing long to protect our own and not protect others, the developed countries did the same; the first United States copyright act was passed in 1790 which protected only the works produced in their own country. They only joined the international copyright protection in 1952 after they had enjoyed using other countries- Europe- works without restriction. Soviet Union did the same and joined in 1960s and china did same thing and joined in 1990s.
Looking at this tread one can conclude that acquiescence comes with time just as Altbact, P.G. (1995) puts it: â€œcopyright compliance comes naturally with economic and social developmentâ€

== CONCLUSION ==

International Copyright law is the only law made to protect non-citizens form citizens. It is the only law made to suppress development of information industry in the Global South. Itâ€™s only fit for developed countries. Henry Chakava, a renowned Kenyan publisher in his conclusion of the paper â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ published in 1995 says that:
â€œâ€¦. It can be argued that, by signing, (international copyright conventions) book-poor African countries have compromised their human right of access to knowledge, and they will realize their folly when they will have acquired the much needed capacity to exploit these works, only to discover that the protectionism inherent in these convections and sealed by their own signatures have prohibited them from doing soâ€
Decommodifying information is the only true solution of development for the global south. By doing this, will have more information in the public domain increasing access and hence knowledge, we will have more and more local content in the information materials, we will have only what is good for the society as authors will be honoured according to their works value to the society, we will have our culture and heritage on our hands and not on individuals hands, and since all facets of development are dependent on information we will have equal development in all facets, in all areas o the global south (as there is no restriction to information access) and in all levels.

== REFERENCES ==

Altbact, P.G. (1995) â€œThe Subtle Inequalities of Copyrightâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Chakava, H.M. (1995) â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Fowler, B.J. (2004) â€œPreventing Counterfeit Craft Designsâ€ In Schuler, P. and Finger, J.M. (Eds) Poor Peopleâ€™s Knowledge: Promoting Intellectual Property in Developing Countries. Washington, D.C; The World Bank
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/Issues98.html
http://www.nettime.org
http://www.westa.edu/â€bquest/1998/index.html/
http://www.wikipedia.com/
Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) Encyclopedia Of Library And Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker Inc.
Macmillan English dictionary 2002
Malholtra, D.N. (1995) â€œCopyright: A Perspective from the Developing Worldâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004
Owen, L. (1991) Selling Rights: A Publisherâ€™s Guide to Success. Chapman and Hall; London
Owen, L. (1995) â€œCopyright: Benefit or Obstacle?â€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) The Copy/South Dossier: Issues in the Economics, Politics, And Ideology of Copyright in the Global South. Copy south research group.
Thorn, E.A. (1989) Understanding Copyright: A Practical Guide. Jay Books; England

[[Category:Terrain 4]]

Beyond being ivory towers

2007-02-12T09:58:40Z

Victorggk: /* BEYOND IVORY TOWERS */

'''
== BEYOND IVORY TOWERS ==
'''

'''Report by Kamau Victor Gitau'''
'''Compiled by Emma Lochary'''

workshop at the 2007 WSF

Nairobi, Kenya

Tuesday, January 23rd

Terrain: Democratization of Knowledge and Information

== How can universities make another world possible? ==

We’ll explore how civil society, students, academics, and university staff can be part of university-based responses to the needs of local and global communities.

== We want to: ==

Hear about your experiences with higher education and community engagement
Discuss your ideas of how universities can contribute to their local and global communities
Plan how we can expand the movement of higher education institutions committed to serving, strengthening, and partnering with their communities
Encourage you to join the spreading international movement of engaged higher education!
Organized by Innovations in Civic Participation—for more information:

contact Emma at lochery@icicp.org

== Participants: ==

== Name Institution E-mail ==

Esther Warren Haverford College, USA ewarren@haverford.edu
Lukas Leuthold Haverford College, USA lleuthol@haverford.edu
Noel Salazar University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania nbsalazar@gmail.com
Timon Richiger High School in St. Gall, Switzerland t.richiger@gmx.ch
Alanna Copenhaver Haverford College, USA acopenha@haverford.edu
Adrion Doaig Sufo, University Rapperswit, Switzerland adoerig@bluewin.ch
Jenny Rabinowich Haverford College, USA jrabinow@haverford.edu
Kamau Victor Gitau Moi University (Eldoret), Kenya victorggk@yahoo.com
Eleva Rastello Tangaza College, Catholic University, Kenya sistaele@hotmail.com
Daniel Fibiger University of California, Santa Barbara, USA dfibiger@umail.ucsb.edu
Sarah VanHooser Vanderbilt University, USA sarah.e.vanhooser@vanderbilt.edu
Gachora Ngunjiri FOCUS Kenya gachora@gmail.com
Pia Fehle SUFO, Switzerland piafehle@bluewin.ch
Valerie Glauses SUFO, Switzerland vali.glauses@bleuwin.ch
Mulabbi Samuel Makerere University, Uganda mulabbis@yahoo.com
Danny Chivers People and Planet, UK dannychivers@wildman.com
Lea Hurlimann SUFO, Switzerland Lea.hue@gmx.ch
Jerónimo Sánchez Instituto Universitario de Barlovento, Venezuela Jesan10@yahoo.es
Prof. Alejandro Correa Bolivarian University of Venezuela acorreaortega@yahoo.com
Elsie Etaka Eyong University of Douala, Cameroon eyongetakr@yahoo.com
Atonga Moses Bugema University, Uganda Moseluck@yahoo.com
Marc Arseneau Coady International Institute, Canada/Rwanda marcarseneau@gmail.com

== Notes from Workshop: ==

== Introduction ==

Emma Lochery introduced the session by discussing her work with the Talloires Network, an international network of the heads of institutions of higher education committed to civic engagement. She introduced some main questions to address in the seminar:

How can other groups of stakeholders such as faculty or students get involved in networks like the Talloires Network?
What experiences have workshop participants had with civic engagement?
What challenges do institutions of higher education face? How do these barriers differ across institutions and groups of stakeholders?
What tools would be useful for supporting university civic engagement?
The participants then each introduced themselves and added what their interest in higher education, civic engagement, and social change was.

Perspectives differed; however they all revolved around the different ways universities can interact with communities. For instance:

Students from Haverford College were interested in looking at the special position of students in communities and the institution of the university as part of democratic society.

FOCUS is a network of Christian groups from every university in Kenya that has existed since 1973. They organize an annual mission outreach, working not only with matters of faith but most importantly with community work—for example they assisted victims of the recent floods in Kenya. They also work to connect research work to communities’ needs. In particular, students are encouraged to bring the different perspectives of their home villages. In all constituencies, there is a slice of the annual budget that is earmarked annually for community development: FOCUS hopes to offer a forum for students to offer MPs suggestions as to how the fund should be administered. At the international level, FOCUS works with student groups from abroad who wish to visit Kenya.

Catholic University—Tangaza College had around 132 students attended the WSF. There was a struggle before the administration agreed to allow students to take time from other activities to participate in the forum. Often administrators hold the view that book-based learning outweighs experiential learning. Degrees at the college focus on social and youth ministry with students completing weekly service in Nairobi.

People and Planet, UK, is a nationwide student campaigning group. It runs international campaigns, but there are separate groups within various universities who design their own activities. The group focuses on problems outside the institution of the university. However, P&P’s representative at the WSF, Danny Chivers, commented that members should also and often do think about issues related to the workings of the university institution itself—for example, the financing of higher education, ethical investment questions, and the relationship between corporations and universities (as related to funding, employment, research direction, etc). One interesting question facing groups like P&P is how to link their international campaigns to issues related to higher educational institutions themselves.

Roman Kuenzler, an international relations student from Geneva, was interested in ensuring networks of students and social movements can include members from both Global South and Global North and build linkages among groups in Global South. From his travels working with civil society in Francophone West Africa, he observed that often networks exist in separation from each other and that much knowledge and potential for solidarity movements is lost.

Professors from the Instituto Universitario de Barlovento and the

Bolivarian University of Venezuela discussed the new struggle in higher education happening in their country. There is a push to focus on the community context of education and the process of building new forms of national identity and constructing tools to fight discrimination and intolerance.

The Coady International Institute aims to create effective solutions to reduce global poverty and injustice through education, action partnerships, and initiatives to help young Canadians become active global citizens. The Coady Youth Associate at the seminar, Marc Arseneau, discussed his time in Kigali at the only medical training college in the country, where he worked on project evaluation and nurse training courses.

== Question: Is university research related to needs on the ground? ==

The question led to a discussion of research models that can be used to relate community needs and academic research.

Gachora Ngunjiri from FOCUS explained how at Moi University, medical students are attached to a village clinic. They identify issues which then serve as the basis for hypothesis and research. The development of this research model counts towards their degree. Other students engage government departments in policy discussion; they work with organizations like the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). For example, they have done a study on banana cultivation, looking at inputs and production, and then feeding back the research to relevant communities.

Eleva Rastello from the Tangaza College at Catholic University explained how students at the college work with faith-based and community-based organizations through a system of attachments. Research begins with among people and communities before books are consulted. The model is linked to the fact that students come to the college after 2-3 years experience of voluntary service.

== Problem: Research Needs ‘within the Ivory Tower’ ==

Following from the discussion of research models based around community engagement, the group discussed the question of what other barriers there are to research that meets the needs of communities—and what barriers there are to making sure that research reaches communities.

A major problem is limited university resources, a conclusion backed up by a survey carried up out before the conference that led to the establishment of the Talloires Network in 2005. Out of 25 universities located in 24 countries across five regions: (Africa, Asia, Australia, North America and South America), the primary barrier to the expansion of civic engagement programs were financial. This constraint affects the targeting of research as well as the base amount of research conducted at the institution, apart from solely civic engagement activities.

Additionally, when overstretched institutions are tasked to carry out teaching requirements, then their resources don’t stretch to doing research as well. So research happens in richer countries.

Taking the example of a university in Indonesia—all the books were from Australia, the US, and Canada. Lessons were based on those books and not experiential learning.

The idea that research was heavily based on imported text led seminar participants to conceptualize the student as a ‘vending machine.’ Students are sometimes given material divorced from their local realities and then expected to produce a product that is as disconnected with their reality as the text—their own reality does not impact on the process and they are expected to reproduce what they are given in lessons.

Participants argued that this raises the important point that there is much work to be done inside the ivory tower as well as well as focusing on moving beyond its walls. Reconceptualizing the traditional model of an institution of higher education emphasizes the problems within the institutions as well, not the question of what their place is in society.

== Interrogating Privilege ==

In richer countries, often there is another issue: the group discussed the example of civic engagement programs like that at the University of Pennsylvania. Most students are from relatively rich backgrounds. There was a requirement for community work, but often students’ preconceptions of the world were already formed by the time they reached university—“20 years is too long to go without doing service.”

Roman Kuenzler remarked that this can be linked to a metaphor of the whole of western society as an ivory tower. Students need a connection to the topics they learn about in an academic setting, and civic engagement projects at university alone might not bridge the gap sufficiently if not backed up by earlier experiences.

Sarah VanHooser commented that at Vanderbilt, a university in the American state of Tennessee, many students are engaged and involved in social issues, but their engagement never disrupts the power structure. This brings up a question: how do you help people develop tools that interrogate their own privilege? It can be a very scary process for individuals. But without it, we do not begin to analyze how systems oppress people.

From FOCUS’s point of view, a 3 or 6 month experience does not necessarily change students’ value systems, but by its very existence that opportunity to interact with people from other parts of the works shocks students into thinking about structures in the world.

An example from a Swiss high school: A student lived with asylum seekers, came to realize much of the group were intellectuals and very poor. The asylum seekers came to the school to help with lessons; the resulting experience of standing in solidarity with the asylum seekers provided a powerful lesson for the students.

== Social Justice Activism: Issue Commodification? ==

Linked with these questions is how to handle activism on issues that seem far from students’ realities. “Ideas are not just ideas—they are people’s realities.”

For instance, sometimes there is a commodification of issues: do issues within activism have to be turned into a commodity and marketed? Do they have to become ‘cool’?

Daniel Fibiger discussed this in the context of the Save Darfur campaign. There has been a movement to turn it into graphics used on t-shirts for example—there is a clash between social justice purity vs. commercial response.

== Civic Engagement: a Pure Public Relations Exercise? ==

With the above thoughts in mind, questions were raised about the true impact of civic engagement programs at higher education institutions. At universities like the University of Pennsylvania, where civic engagement is a central mantra of the institution, there is a question of whether, from an administrative point of view, it is mainly a PR project. How deeply does the dedication to community engagement go? Does it reach the students? The faculty?

There is also the danger that international volunteer projects connected with civic engagement make poverty seem exotic. In Belgium, many students want to go abroad to a poor country—but are now being required to work domestically first. There is need to avoid the danger of exoticizing poverty—universities must recognize that poverty exists in its ugly forms very close to home.

== “What I research is kept in the library.” ==

So how can a university effectively push a civic engagement agenda, particularly through its teaching and research?

Students from Uganda present at the seminar remarked that they are involved in research, but find it difficult to take research back into the community. They can’t pass information to the government in a way that would affect policy. Students are looked at with suspicion, and so then often ask, “If what I research is only kept in the library, what’s the point?”

Elsie Etaka Eyong, a student from Cameroon, reported that research at her institution is done very much for academic reasons. Her institution is not familiar at all with civic engagement activities.

Victor Kamau, from Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, gave an example of when students had attempted to close the gap between academic work and the community. On their campus, students from poor areas account for about 50% of students, and depend on bursaries for higher education; students are therefore often well aware of the problems facing poor communities. One project developed by the students was a plan to deliver information in local languages to the rural neighbors of the universities—local farmers for whom information in English or Swahili is of little use. Students worked with the local chief and arranged the project with the dean. Unfortunately, on the day of the proposed event, the dean suddenly refused to provide the venue.

This example again highlights the need for institutional support. Firstly, appropriate infrastructure makes it possible for students to carry out their ideas—which emphasizes the importance of having civic engagement as one of the central parts of a university’s mission. Even if at times this can seem like a public relations exercise, it can also represent the beginning of a system of support for others’ ideas and visions. Secondly, there is a need for a system that gives students a way to come back together after civic engagement projects or events and reflect on the experience—to discuss it among themselves and share their thoughts with others.

== Conclusion: Moving Beyond “Helping”to Standing in Solidarity ==

The seminar ended with a return to a discussion of the philosophy behind higher education civic engagement. What ethics and worldviews lie behind our conception of the relationships between universities and communities?

Eleva Rastello put it succinctly: “I’ve heard too many times the words ‘to help’. There needs to be a shift from ‘helping’ to standing in solidarity with others.” When thinking about service and community engagement, there needs to be an awareness of power and how it enters into relationships between universities and communities. Engaging with our local and global communities needs to involve an understanding of how to stand in solidarity with others. We must build upon the realization that our realities are the interconnected and only together can we promote effective and sustainable social change.

The seminar closed with a recognition of education as political action. As a catalyst for change, it involves a chance to alter existing inequalities—but only if we move beyond the ivory towers.

== Resources ==

Talloires Network website: http://www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/

Talloires Declaration on the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education

http://www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/TalloiresDeclaration2005.pdf

Innovations in Civic Participation website: www.icicp.org.

For more information on the Talloires Network, ICP, or related matters, please contact Emma Lochery at:

E-mail: lochery@icicp.org

Address: 1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Suite 201

Washington, DC 20036

USA

Phone: +1- 202-775-0290

Fax: +1- 202-833-8581

Beyond being ivory towers

2007-02-10T11:00:12Z

Victorggk:

'''
== BEYOND IVORY TOWERS ==
'''

'''Report by Kamau Victor Gitau'''

workshop at the 2007 WSF

Nairobi, Kenya

Tuesday, January 23rd

Terrain: Democratization of Knowledge and Information

== How can universities make another world possible? ==

We’ll explore how civil society, students, academics, and university staff can be part of university-based responses to the needs of local and global communities.

== We want to: ==

Hear about your experiences with higher education and community engagement
Discuss your ideas of how universities can contribute to their local and global communities
Plan how we can expand the movement of higher education institutions committed to serving, strengthening, and partnering with their communities
Encourage you to join the spreading international movement of engaged higher education!
Organized by Innovations in Civic Participation—for more information:

contact Emma at lochery@icicp.org

== Participants: ==

== Name Institution E-mail ==

Esther Warren Haverford College, USA ewarren@haverford.edu
Lukas Leuthold Haverford College, USA lleuthol@haverford.edu
Noel Salazar University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania nbsalazar@gmail.com
Timon Richiger High School in St. Gall, Switzerland t.richiger@gmx.ch
Alanna Copenhaver Haverford College, USA acopenha@haverford.edu
Adrion Doaig Sufo, University Rapperswit, Switzerland adoerig@bluewin.ch
Jenny Rabinowich Haverford College, USA jrabinow@haverford.edu
Kamau Victor Gitau Moi University (Eldoret), Kenya victorggk@yahoo.com
Eleva Rastello Tangaza College, Catholic University, Kenya sistaele@hotmail.com
Daniel Fibiger University of California, Santa Barbara, USA dfibiger@umail.ucsb.edu
Sarah VanHooser Vanderbilt University, USA sarah.e.vanhooser@vanderbilt.edu
Gachora Ngunjiri FOCUS Kenya gachora@gmail.com
Pia Fehle SUFO, Switzerland piafehle@bluewin.ch
Valerie Glauses SUFO, Switzerland vali.glauses@bleuwin.ch
Mulabbi Samuel Makerere University, Uganda mulabbis@yahoo.com
Danny Chivers People and Planet, UK dannychivers@wildman.com
Lea Hurlimann SUFO, Switzerland Lea.hue@gmx.ch
Jerónimo Sánchez Instituto Universitario de Barlovento, Venezuela Jesan10@yahoo.es
Prof. Alejandro Correa Bolivarian University of Venezuela acorreaortega@yahoo.com
Elsie Etaka Eyong University of Douala, Cameroon eyongetakr@yahoo.com
Atonga Moses Bugema University, Uganda Moseluck@yahoo.com
Marc Arseneau Coady International Institute, Canada/Rwanda marcarseneau@gmail.com

== Notes from Workshop: ==

== Introduction ==

Emma Lochery introduced the session by discussing her work with the Talloires Network, an international network of the heads of institutions of higher education committed to civic engagement. She introduced some main questions to address in the seminar:

How can other groups of stakeholders such as faculty or students get involved in networks like the Talloires Network?
What experiences have workshop participants had with civic engagement?
What challenges do institutions of higher education face? How do these barriers differ across institutions and groups of stakeholders?
What tools would be useful for supporting university civic engagement?
The participants then each introduced themselves and added what their interest in higher education, civic engagement, and social change was.

Perspectives differed; however they all revolved around the different ways universities can interact with communities. For instance:

Students from Haverford College were interested in looking at the special position of students in communities and the institution of the university as part of democratic society.

FOCUS is a network of Christian groups from every university in Kenya that has existed since 1973. They organize an annual mission outreach, working not only with matters of faith but most importantly with community work—for example they assisted victims of the recent floods in Kenya. They also work to connect research work to communities’ needs. In particular, students are encouraged to bring the different perspectives of their home villages. In all constituencies, there is a slice of the annual budget that is earmarked annually for community development: FOCUS hopes to offer a forum for students to offer MPs suggestions as to how the fund should be administered. At the international level, FOCUS works with student groups from abroad who wish to visit Kenya.

Catholic University—Tangaza College had around 132 students attended the WSF. There was a struggle before the administration agreed to allow students to take time from other activities to participate in the forum. Often administrators hold the view that book-based learning outweighs experiential learning. Degrees at the college focus on social and youth ministry with students completing weekly service in Nairobi.

People and Planet, UK, is a nationwide student campaigning group. It runs international campaigns, but there are separate groups within various universities who design their own activities. The group focuses on problems outside the institution of the university. However, P&P’s representative at the WSF, Danny Chivers, commented that members should also and often do think about issues related to the workings of the university institution itself—for example, the financing of higher education, ethical investment questions, and the relationship between corporations and universities (as related to funding, employment, research direction, etc). One interesting question facing groups like P&P is how to link their international campaigns to issues related to higher educational institutions themselves.

Roman Kuenzler, an international relations student from Geneva, was interested in ensuring networks of students and social movements can include members from both Global South and Global North and build linkages among groups in Global South. From his travels working with civil society in Francophone West Africa, he observed that often networks exist in separation from each other and that much knowledge and potential for solidarity movements is lost.

Professors from the Instituto Universitario de Barlovento and the

Bolivarian University of Venezuela discussed the new struggle in higher education happening in their country. There is a push to focus on the community context of education and the process of building new forms of national identity and constructing tools to fight discrimination and intolerance.

The Coady International Institute aims to create effective solutions to reduce global poverty and injustice through education, action partnerships, and initiatives to help young Canadians become active global citizens. The Coady Youth Associate at the seminar, Marc Arseneau, discussed his time in Kigali at the only medical training college in the country, where he worked on project evaluation and nurse training courses.

== Question: Is university research related to needs on the ground? ==

The question led to a discussion of research models that can be used to relate community needs and academic research.

Gachora Ngunjiri from FOCUS explained how at Moi University, medical students are attached to a village clinic. They identify issues which then serve as the basis for hypothesis and research. The development of this research model counts towards their degree. Other students engage government departments in policy discussion; they work with organizations like the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA). For example, they have done a study on banana cultivation, looking at inputs and production, and then feeding back the research to relevant communities.

Eleva Rastello from the Tangaza College at Catholic University explained how students at the college work with faith-based and community-based organizations through a system of attachments. Research begins with among people and communities before books are consulted. The model is linked to the fact that students come to the college after 2-3 years experience of voluntary service.

== Problem: Research Needs ‘within the Ivory Tower’ ==

Following from the discussion of research models based around community engagement, the group discussed the question of what other barriers there are to research that meets the needs of communities—and what barriers there are to making sure that research reaches communities.

A major problem is limited university resources, a conclusion backed up by a survey carried up out before the conference that led to the establishment of the Talloires Network in 2005. Out of 25 universities located in 24 countries across five regions: (Africa, Asia, Australia, North America and South America), the primary barrier to the expansion of civic engagement programs were financial. This constraint affects the targeting of research as well as the base amount of research conducted at the institution, apart from solely civic engagement activities.

Additionally, when overstretched institutions are tasked to carry out teaching requirements, then their resources don’t stretch to doing research as well. So research happens in richer countries.

Taking the example of a university in Indonesia—all the books were from Australia, the US, and Canada. Lessons were based on those books and not experiential learning.

The idea that research was heavily based on imported text led seminar participants to conceptualize the student as a ‘vending machine.’ Students are sometimes given material divorced from their local realities and then expected to produce a product that is as disconnected with their reality as the text—their own reality does not impact on the process and they are expected to reproduce what they are given in lessons.

Participants argued that this raises the important point that there is much work to be done inside the ivory tower as well as well as focusing on moving beyond its walls. Reconceptualizing the traditional model of an institution of higher education emphasizes the problems within the institutions as well, not the question of what their place is in society.

== Interrogating Privilege ==

In richer countries, often there is another issue: the group discussed the example of civic engagement programs like that at the University of Pennsylvania. Most students are from relatively rich backgrounds. There was a requirement for community work, but often students’ preconceptions of the world were already formed by the time they reached university—“20 years is too long to go without doing service.”

Roman Kuenzler remarked that this can be linked to a metaphor of the whole of western society as an ivory tower. Students need a connection to the topics they learn about in an academic setting, and civic engagement projects at university alone might not bridge the gap sufficiently if not backed up by earlier experiences.

Sarah VanHooser commented that at Vanderbilt, a university in the American state of Tennessee, many students are engaged and involved in social issues, but their engagement never disrupts the power structure. This brings up a question: how do you help people develop tools that interrogate their own privilege? It can be a very scary process for individuals. But without it, we do not begin to analyze how systems oppress people.

From FOCUS’s point of view, a 3 or 6 month experience does not necessarily change students’ value systems, but by its very existence that opportunity to interact with people from other parts of the works shocks students into thinking about structures in the world.

An example from a Swiss high school: A student lived with asylum seekers, came to realize much of the group were intellectuals and very poor. The asylum seekers came to the school to help with lessons; the resulting experience of standing in solidarity with the asylum seekers provided a powerful lesson for the students.

== Social Justice Activism: Issue Commodification? ==

Linked with these questions is how to handle activism on issues that seem far from students’ realities. “Ideas are not just ideas—they are people’s realities.”

For instance, sometimes there is a commodification of issues: do issues within activism have to be turned into a commodity and marketed? Do they have to become ‘cool’?

Daniel Fibiger discussed this in the context of the Save Darfur campaign. There has been a movement to turn it into graphics used on t-shirts for example—there is a clash between social justice purity vs. commercial response.

== Civic Engagement: a Pure Public Relations Exercise? ==

With the above thoughts in mind, questions were raised about the true impact of civic engagement programs at higher education institutions. At universities like the University of Pennsylvania, where civic engagement is a central mantra of the institution, there is a question of whether, from an administrative point of view, it is mainly a PR project. How deeply does the dedication to community engagement go? Does it reach the students? The faculty?

There is also the danger that international volunteer projects connected with civic engagement make poverty seem exotic. In Belgium, many students want to go abroad to a poor country—but are now being required to work domestically first. There is need to avoid the danger of exoticizing poverty—universities must recognize that poverty exists in its ugly forms very close to home.

== “What I research is kept in the library.” ==

So how can a university effectively push a civic engagement agenda, particularly through its teaching and research?

Students from Uganda present at the seminar remarked that they are involved in research, but find it difficult to take research back into the community. They can’t pass information to the government in a way that would affect policy. Students are looked at with suspicion, and so then often ask, “If what I research is only kept in the library, what’s the point?”

Elsie Etaka Eyong, a student from Cameroon, reported that research at her institution is done very much for academic reasons. Her institution is not familiar at all with civic engagement activities.

Victor Kamau, from Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya, gave an example of when students had attempted to close the gap between academic work and the community. On their campus, students from poor areas account for about 50% of students, and depend on bursaries for higher education; students are therefore often well aware of the problems facing poor communities. One project developed by the students was a plan to deliver information in local languages to the rural neighbors of the universities—local farmers for whom information in English or Swahili is of little use. Students worked with the local chief and arranged the project with the dean. Unfortunately, on the day of the proposed event, the dean suddenly refused to provide the venue.

This example again highlights the need for institutional support. Firstly, appropriate infrastructure makes it possible for students to carry out their ideas—which emphasizes the importance of having civic engagement as one of the central parts of a university’s mission. Even if at times this can seem like a public relations exercise, it can also represent the beginning of a system of support for others’ ideas and visions. Secondly, there is a need for a system that gives students a way to come back together after civic engagement projects or events and reflect on the experience—to discuss it among themselves and share their thoughts with others.

== Conclusion: Moving Beyond “Helping”to Standing in Solidarity ==

The seminar ended with a return to a discussion of the philosophy behind higher education civic engagement. What ethics and worldviews lie behind our conception of the relationships between universities and communities?

Eleva Rastello put it succinctly: “I’ve heard too many times the words ‘to help’. There needs to be a shift from ‘helping’ to standing in solidarity with others.” When thinking about service and community engagement, there needs to be an awareness of power and how it enters into relationships between universities and communities. Engaging with our local and global communities needs to involve an understanding of how to stand in solidarity with others. We must build upon the realization that our realities are the interconnected and only together can we promote effective and sustainable social change.

The seminar closed with a recognition of education as political action. As a catalyst for change, it involves a chance to alter existing inequalities—but only if we move beyond the ivory towers.

== Resources ==

Talloires Network website: http://www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/

Talloires Declaration on the Civic Roles and Social Responsibilities of Higher Education

http://www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/TalloiresDeclaration2005.pdf

Innovations in Civic Participation website: www.icicp.org.

For more information on the Talloires Network, ICP, or related matters, please contact Emma Lochery at:

E-mail: lochery@icicp.org

Address: 1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Suite 201

Washington, DC 20036

USA

Phone: +1- 202-775-0290

Fax: +1- 202-833-8581

Decommodification of infomation

2007-02-08T09:21:57Z

Victorggk: /* Theme: Information for Development in The Global South */

== DECOMMODIFICATION OF INFORMATION ==

== Theme: Information for Development in The Global South ==

'''Presenters: Murumba Joan Wakasa and Kamau Victor Gitau
email: [[Media:victorggk@gmail.com]]'''

== Information Week, School Of Information Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret ==

== ABSTRACT ==

This paper spells out the importance of information in the development. It explains the detriments of having information as a commodity of trade. It goes further to examine the copyright and how it has made information a commodity. Finally it shows how decommodification of information is the solution for development in the Global South.

== INTRODUCTION ==

Once upon a time in England, there existed two kinds of people; the rich and the poor. The rich, from greed, persecuted the poor and made sure that they had no access to the factors of production. This, they hoped would maintain the status quo. They were wrong! God heard the prayers of the poor and gave them Robbinhood. His holy mission being; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
The same situation exists today. Globally, we have only two opposing partakers in the world development; the North and the South. The North representing the developed world and the South the developing world. The North just like the early England is advantaged for having developed before the south and would do anything to maintain the status quo.
Civilization has reached every part of the world and the North has realised it cannot conquer by restricting access to factors of production through waging war; the best method to maintain the status quo is by denying the South access to the most important factor which without it all others are derailed; this factor is information. Thus they have introduced the concept of International Copyright Law.
This law has been successful in meeting it purpose as it is evident that in the South people have to struggle to gain access to information in all formats, and when get it is out dated- donations from the north- and has outlived its intention, we get negative information about the South from their media about the South- war in Sudan, communism in China, corruption in Kenya and HIV/Aids in Africa- we have no academic and educational books in learning institutions, and we get information in a language not understandable to us, therefore, unusable.
But God has heard the prayer of the South and has sent us our Robinhood to save us from the North and get us information which for long we have been denied. Our Robinhood hood is decommodification!

== DEFINITION OF IMPORTANT TERMS ==

Decommodification
It is a word made from the verb commodity, which means, something that can be bought and sold. (Macmillan English dictionary 2002) The process of making a thing tradable (can be sold or bought) is referred to as commodification. The reverse is decommodification.
Decommodification in this paper is used to mean the process of availing information to the users gratis (free of charge).
Information
Information is data, signals, facts, views, opinions, ideas, events, news etc of significance, able to influence manâ€™s actions, behaviour and decisions as he goes about interacting with others in a given environment. This kind of information should reduce uncertainty in choices: should basically be related to specifics in context of time and space and in the content of individual as well as social, economical and scientific needs and the problem it is intended to solve further more it must be capable of being produced or generated, acquired, stored, retrieved and disseminate or transmitted through some kind of communication channel recorded or oral, manual or electronic, from a source to a recipient. The relevance of such information will be determined by the recipient who is in a position to utilize it for personal benefit or for that of others. (Lundu, 1995)
Copyright
It is one of the intellectual property rights (others are, patent, trademark and design rights) that arises automatically on the creation of various categories of work, and protects the rights and interests of the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, satellite and cable programmes, and the typographical arrangements of published editions. Copyright has been called the trading system for works of the mind. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004)
According to Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) copyright is the exclusive, legally secured, right to publish and sell the substance and form of a literary, musical, or artistic work.

== INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPMENT ==

The information society is built upon information. The Net already provides the structure for realising an unfulfilled revolutionary demand: media freedom for all. Authors can publish their writings on their own websites. Musicians can release their tunes on MP3 first. Film-makers can distribute digital files of their movies. Not just the right to consume media, but also the right to produce media too. Even better, the Net is inspiring novel forms of expressions.
Information is one of the major factors of production and therefore without information nothing can be done. Information is power, and this is clearly evident by the work information does. Information is required for economic, social, political and cultural development; this shows that information is required in all spheres for forward development. Information helps people solve problems; obtain knowledge either through reading or listening, for research purposes among others. Some ways through which information has propagated development include:

== ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ==

Agricultural information
Agricultural activities are sources of economic development since the farmers generate income both to the country and to themselves. Agricultural information can comprise of: good farming methods, best seeds and fertilizers, information on the climate and what is suitable for the planting season and so on. This information is mostly important to farmers who use this to support their economic activities. The information can be either through word of mouth in seminars and workshops by agricultural extension officers. It can also be through the media both print and electronic and therefore if it is a basic need to farmers. The availability of this information leads to high productivity which raises the GDP of the economy.
Trade and industry (Formal and informal sector)
Most developing countries are low income earners who live below the poverty line. These countries are characterised with informal sectors like the Jua kali sectors in Kenya. These people need information on how to improve the value of their products. They need information on the new technology which when used will double the supplies. Since most of them are school drop outs they need directions on how to obtain financial assistance from the organizations concerned which when put in place will add to the countries revenue.

== SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ==
'''
Education and training'''
Students are taught in schools and other learning institutions in order to get acquainted with knowledge. Courses such as entrepreneurship are taught in universities to enable students be independent minded and able to identify opportunities for business. This will generate income both the individual and the country as well. It is through education and training that current technologies such as ICTs are taught and made used to retrieve information for solving problems. For example the Internet provides vast amount of information to researchers which is beneficial in solving problems. The web provides information on the effects of pollution to the environment. Both air and land pollution do not promote agricultural activities and when this is said and done, people will try to look for ways to curb down pollution which is an obstacle to economic development. Communication networks foster both social and economic development because when people are networked resources (information) is shared which in turn leads to prosperity.
'''Information on health education.'''
Human beings are the sources of labour and before any work whether manual or electrical they have to be present for any work to be done. It is therefore important that they be in good health. Information about how to control some health hazards becomes a necessity. Health information is necessary, for example, first aid knowledge will help to save an individuals life when in danger.
Guidance and counselling
Basic information on good morals is important to any individual. It provides one with the ability to live a straight and upright life. Societal evils such as pregnancy and abortion, drug abuse, HIV and Aids will help especially the young generation to know how to present themselves in the society.

== CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ==

Information about other cultures allows us to be able to adjust to other peopleâ€™s way of life and this will prevent cultural shock. Cultural information records our heritage and this in turn informs the society about its past which is a foundation or a base to the future.

== POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT ==

This provides a country with what is happening in the political arena. Information enhances democracy. We are able to get information from other countries which contain information on human rights and fight for them. It is through information that we get to know on corruption in our governmental structures. It is through information that we get to know whether or not we are justly treated.

== INFORMATION IN THE WRONG HANDS ==

Information for development can only be helpful to the South only and only if they have it in their own hands. Information is tricky and the one who has it has an upper hand over the one who does not have it- he can restrict it or use it negatively against the one who donâ€™t have it. Here we look at the wrong hands information can be in.
'''Entrepreneurs: publishers, distributors etc.'''
These are people who bridge the gap between the creator of information work and the intended users. They donâ€™t add any value to information and neither use it; their purpose is to make profit.
These people hoard information waiting for an opportune time to gain the maximum profit denying the intended user the opportunity to gain maximumly from it.
'''The North'''
These are the developed countries that are in competition with the global South; their goal is to maintain the status quo. They donâ€™t want the South to get access to information since they already know the importance, value and power attached to information.
Capitalists
Capitalists are those who practice capitalism. This is the economic system in which private individuals and business firms carry on the production and exchange of goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Their purpose is to make profit through increasing demand by reducing supply, and supplying only to those who are capable of buying at the highest price.

== '''INFORMATION AS A COMMODITY''' ==

Why are songs composed, books written, or photographs taken? There are at least two reasons, among others. One rationale is that such works express the creative urges and aspirations of individuals and of wider societies. They are produced to communicate thoughts, to solve problems, to teach others, to express ideas and feelings and emotions. Collectively, they are part of the common heritage and culture Of groups, of communities, and of nations. A competing view or rationale is that songs and books and photographs are commodities produced for the purpose of exchanging them for something; they are property, albeit intangible property, created primarily for trade and for commerce. Story, A (et al) (eds) (2006)
The second rationale is what is called commodification and linked to copyright laws. This is further linked linked with mechanisms of trade and commerce by the 1994 agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

== COPYRIGHT ==

Copyright is the legal right given to creators of informational works to make copies of the same for distribution and exorcize everybody else from copying and distributing the work. Copyright beginnings are in the sixteenth century by a company called Stationers. This company sought to protect copying of works between the players in the industry by then. It was made national by the statute of Anne of 1709. Since then copyright law has developed widely. Most countries now have legislation that broadly follows the tenets of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, or the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988, or the Acts of 1956 and 1911 that preceded it.
International copyright law started out of the need to harmonize the various national copyright laws and the need to protect the creations of information in other countries as well. This was due to the ease of movement that made publications available in one country to be sold in another. These international copyright laws include the Berne Convention of 1886 (with later revisions) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) of 1952
All national and international copyright laws promise the following:
1. Provides Incentive to creativity and innovativeness
2. Creators should economically benefit from their creations
3. The creator should maintain basic control over his creation
4. Fair use exemptions provide enough allowances to use copyrighted material for review, critism, parody and similar purposes.
5. Copyright laws offers a provision for compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in the Global South (1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention)

== HOW COPYRIGHT HAS FAILED ==

'''Piracy'''

The main purpose of copy right is to protect the creators works from unauthorized copying which will deny the chance to make profit. This purpose has not been met since there are numerous cases in courts. Examples of piracy include downloading music files, CD- writing etc. â€œThe biggest problem (to Kenyan musician) has been rampant piracy and failures of broadcasters to pay them royalties.â€ Royalties and Copyrights: The Vicious Circle in Buzz Sunday Nation July 16th 2006.
Copyright does not promote creativity and innovation
Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America is quoted in, Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) stating that â€œcopyright protects not just the financial interest of people who create artistic or intellectual property, but the very existence of creative work.â€
There arises problems form this quote: it is true that creativity existed before copyright was brought about; it is also true that those who were able to create information before copyright law was introduced did not do it for money- infact they were the bourgeoisie; it is also true that there exists many authors/creators who are not yet published therefore, do not sell their creations but give free to achieve fame for their works to be accepted by publishers.
What copyright does, is to make creators dependent of corporation to enforce and to implement the copyright laws on their behalf. This has made the corporations benefit more than the creators. These entrepreneurial corporations (publishers, music and movie producers, and media houses) force the creators to relinquish their rights to them in order to fight for them and make profit. They only allow what will make more profit rejecting creative works of authors, musicians, and script writers on the basis that it will not do well in the market. Creativity and innovation is suppressed.
As a result cultural diversity suffers, especially when the number of these corporations is consistently shrinking, since there is little profit in specialists or minority tastes. Creators of works on special and minority tastes get continuously demotivated because of copyright.

'''Copyright puts the human and societyâ€™s culture and heritage into the hands of one individual or a group of individuals'''

Human culture and societyâ€™s heritage is inherent in the information we read in books and on the internet, in the music we dance to, in the art we enjoy, and in the stories we listen. To put all these on one individual of a group of individualsâ€™ hands is a grievous mistake.
Information is a product of human interaction with the environment. It is the societyâ€™s record of events, situations, solutions and adjustment to the environment. This should be the property of the society. Not individuals. The society should have the control of information, ideas, concepts, and dreams it has. Not those who, because of their capitalistic greed and economical endowment, are capable to express this culture and heritage into a reproducible form.
When we copyright information, what put our heritage, our values, our history, and our culture onto one personâ€™s hand who disguise himself as a creator. He then gets all the rights to restrict our heritage and culture and also becomes the one to shape our culture. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) recognized this and stated:
â€œThe law of the copyright is thus the law that help to shape the culture of our society. For it is a major factor in determining what books we read; what art we enjoy; what music we hear.â€
We should not let copyright be the author of our culture. We should reject the principles of copyright as it is today. Culture existed before copyright and this should be the case always. Copyright should not come in the way.

'''Copyright applies equally to all works'''

All works of the mind are not equal. This is because information is only important when someone needs it and thus makes use of it. Some information is not necessary at all, for example, we can all do without the hip hop music, the American bloc buster movies and their novels that have a lot of praise for American culture. But we cannot do without the Physics and Biology textbooks written for both secondary and tertiary education.
When copyright is made to apply to all types of works equally, we are left with no choice but to have our educationâ€™s future held by the copyright owners as they will dictate who, what, where, when and how much information we can access. This is because copyright gives the rights of control of information to the owner to decide what will be done with the information, its distribution, and its pricing.
Important information materials such as scientific and educational may be limited, denying the Global South the opportunity to develop scientifically and educational which is the basis of all development. This case is made worse by the fact that the Global South doesnâ€™t have the economic purchasing power required to buy the information and those who can afford are few that even if they buy, it will make little profit the producers of the North.

'''Copyright restricts access to information.'''

Copyright gives the creators of the information the sole right to control, to determine its distribution, its price, and its availability. The restriction to access derives from this control the creator is given. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971):
â€œThe price paid to the creator and the entrepreneur (producer and distributor), however, is high for copyright is a monopoly. The control of his work that the law gives to the copyright owner is absolute. He may or may not disseminate the work as he chooses; he may or may not make it available at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities; he may or may not let others copy the work, regardless of the motive of the copier or the lack of any impairment of the usefulness of the work to him.â€ In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker.
The copyright law is based on profit motive therefore encouraging the copyright owner to only avail his work only when he can earn some profit. This means that those who have no purchasing power will not access the information. This mostly will affect the countries of the Global South where most of the people live below poverty line.
There other reason is bias of the copyright owner. He will not avail his work if he feels that by doing so he will be putting the other person at an advantage of ousting him in the future. The beginnings of copyright are known to be based on this reason:
â€œcopyright from it beginnings in England in the sixteenth century , has been a means of protecting the â€œhavesâ€- of limiting access to books and information in order to maintain order and discipline in the trade- of creating a monopoly over knowledgeâ€ Altbact, P. (1995)
Everybody knows that information is power and by denying information they are denying power. By the virtual of enacting copyright laws- which places the decision of distribution to the copyright owner (the North), the North denies the Global South the chance of being powerful.

'''Fair use exemptions do not provide enough allowances to use of copyrighted materials '''

This is given as a tenet of copyright but in real sense it is not. In the Global South very few people can afford to buy the information from abroad and many libraries are full of old, donated books therefore most of the population do not have access to information materials.
For this to be a tenet, it requires that the material be available in the institutions of learning and libraries so that it can be fairly used. Without at least one copy in each library and institution it will not apply.
Many creators will, is to disseminate information as further and wider as possible
Many creators would like their intellectual property to be disseminate as wide and further as possible, some even opt donating. Copyright comes in the way of this will. There are authors who write for the purpose of doing good to the society, they would rather have little profit and their creations be disseminate rather than it be sold to only a few who are rich.
Informationâ€™s value is not derived from its price or package; it is derived from its use. Authors know this well and would not care how their creations are packaged as long as somebody somewhere found it valuable. It is the copyrights that restricts the authors to offer their creativeness free of charge through such corporations as publishers who would want the author to give his rights to them.
One way to disseminate information further and wider is to offer it free but this will be at the disadvantage of the copyright owner as he will be forced to make copies for each user for the user is restricted by copyright to make copies for himself. The other choice which is the best one is to denounce the copyright protection of a work and allow the users to make copies for themselves.

'''Copyright and promotion of immorality'''

We have seen that copyright covers all types of information works; so does it cover pornography production, satanic informational materials, prostitution information materials and many other evil informational materials. How then does copyright promote immorality?
When the immoral works are created they become copyright material; the creator has the right to reproduce and distribute at as he wishes to distribute it. Because these materials are worth to be products of sale, thanks to copyright, the copyright owner makes money. This profit motivates him to make more moral degrading works which enables him to even employ people to act pornographic movies and pose naked before cameras.
The best problem to solve this problem of pornographic materials from our streets is not to harass our hawkers by prosecuting them and fining them, it is not to tax highly these materials so that few people can buy; the best method is to make them unavailable. This could be done by removing copyright protection such that when they will not be produced because of they will be pirated and distorted leading to losses. This will at least work in the Global South, where people will surely pirate without protection rather than buy.
Without copyright moral decay through information materials such as books, films, magazines will be controlled.

'''Copyright is based on the Northâ€™s culture of individualism that the Global South donâ€™t understand'''

Copyright protects the form of expression and not the idea itself. Therefore, does not protect the indigenous art/knowledge. It is based on the western (North) cultural values of propertization that do not coincide with many indigenous collective mores. With copyright, that which is protected becomes the legal property of the individual owning the copyright. This approach does not merge with traditional (the Global South) approaches to community property and culture. Andy Abeita, president, Council for Indigenous Arts and Culture (CIAC) in March 24, 2000 by interview said â€œwe as natives peoples, do not understand this concept of ownershipâ€ quoted in Fowler, B.J. (2004)
Cultural development is one facet of development every nation wants to advance in education, economy, and politics and in science and technology. The Global Southâ€™s culture of community hood will be destroyed if we accept every ideology of the west and incorporate it in our system. For example, the Maasai of Kenya are known world wide and are attraction to tourists and we as Kenyans are proud to be associated with them, this is as a result because of they culture which is well preserved. Thus, we can say, regarding the Maasai, Kenya we cultural development. China is developing because of their culture, Americans also developed because first they developed and protected they culture of individualism form contamination by communism. For us in the Global South to develop we have to protect our community property and culture kind of ownership, our values to earn respect and to develop.
Motivation for producing information is not money in our culture, doing good to the society is.
â€œIt has been taken for granted (in the Global South) that any wise man writing something is motivated by the ideal of doing good to the society. The idea of financial remuneration to the writer of the book was alien to the ancient societies (the Global South).â€Malhotra, D.N. (1995)
How were the needs of the information providers met then? The same author continues:
â€œAncient societies worked on the assumption that the worldly needs of the sages, the wise men, the intellectuals and the writers were to be taken care of by the society. Therefore, the idea of payment to the writer, and that the writings of an author were his property, seemed quite naÃ¯ve to them.â€ (ibid)

'''Copyright creates a monopoly in the market'''

By copyrighting information, the person granted the copyright becomes sole owner. This crates monopoly and monopoly means, no competition. Without competition, the price of information will increase and increase as long as it (information) remains relevant. The North, with better knowledge infrastructure, will produce more information that the Global South and this informationâ€™s price will be dictated by them at the detriment of the Global South.
Copyright is unfair in that two or more people with the same idea (it is very possible) cannot be allowed same expression of their ideas. This make only one expression of an equal idea can exist in the market leaving the consumers with no choice and making the copyright owner the master of the trade.
Monopolizing of information keeps prices high and the net effect is to deny those who cannot purchase the information the chance of getting knowledge which could motivate them to be innovative and creative. Innovation is born from the urge to support or reject the ideology presented on other peopleâ€™s creative work.

'''Implementation of international copyright law creates unequal exchange'''

Implementation of international copyright law is the greatest injustice that ever happened to the Global South. International intellectual property rights works in a way that every country that is a signatory protects the works, published in other member countries, in that country. Why is it an injustice then?
The Global South is disadvantaged as it doest have enough knowledge infrastructure thus do not produce knowledge for export. They do not need protection in other countries. Should they protect others in their own? And by doing so, putting their citizens between a stone and a hard place. First the citizens cannot legally copy the information published in other countries and second they cannot purchase it because; it is not available at reasonable prices. Thirdly, the information is required to teach, train, and educate. Implementing the international copyright law in the Global South is to the detriment of the Global South.
This law when implemented by the Global South will lead to prosecution and sentence of the Global Southâ€™s citizens for having the initiative to equip himself with knowledge which could be used to develop the country. Some countries calling for international application of copyright only joined after they had the capability to export information created by their authors/creators. Examples of these countries are USA, 1952, Russia, and China, 1990s.

'''Democracy is not allowed to thrive in making of the international copyright law'''

The method used to come up with the international copyright law is undemocratic. These laws were made without reference to the needs of the Global South and the possible disadvantage they could have the Global South. Democracy according to Book, M. (2006) is â€œâ€¦is not only a question of the formal structures of decision making, nor even of participation and majority power, it is also an issue of openness and tolerance.â€ If this definition is anything to go by, then there was no democracy in making of the international copyright law; there was no openness, the North hid neo-liberalism in pretence to protect creators of information. There was no tolerance, the Global South concept of ownership i.e. community property and culture approach, was not considered.
What we have is the North makes the laws and base them on their culture the force the Global South to comply. We should have either make our laws that are addressing our needs and seeks to solve our problems or have to quit from the international copyright agreements.

== The problems with the 1971 Paris revision to the Berne convention ==

The 1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention gave provision for the granting of compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in member states which have claimed official status as developing countries.
This revision was made after the countries of the Global South complained that they were not able to access information because of the copyright laws they enacted and because of the signing of the convention(s). The countries of the North had hitherto resisted allowing the countries a unique treatment because they were equal members. They finally obliged out of pressure of the countries of the Global South mainly India threatening to quit. But what they give solved the problem at hand and crated more problems that it solved. The problems are hereby outlined.

'''No access to current information'''

This revision allows a publisher in the Global South to apply for a compulsory reprint or translation if the document is not available in the Global South. This is only possible if the document has been marketed in the North and has been sold such that the Global South has knowledge of its existence. By the time it is applied for, it is not current, the original publisher gets a chance to earn royalties in selling something that is outdated!
The quality of licensed edition is frequently very low reducing usefulness of the book to the end user
This is because the publishing firms in the Global South cannot be comparable to those in the North. Their products are cheaply made and also the translation and reprints could have errors that could arise out of incxpertise. This will lead to materials that will have reduced usefulness to the final user of the information. This is a disadvantage to the Global South as the information that will be available to them will be different from that the North has access to and ours is distorted and invaluable.

'''Low cost edition and international studentsâ€™ edition give an unfair competition to locally produced information materials'''

Because licensing leads to less useful materials to users and detrimental to the efforts of the author and the producer, the North has invented methods of availing the information in the North to the Global South. These methods include low cost editions and international studentsâ€™ editions produced by the assistance of Northâ€™s government such as Educational Low-cost Books Scheme (ELBS) in Britain. These editions are distributed to the Global South at low cost because the publishers have been paid subsidies to do so giving the locally produced books an unfair competition and taking the chance of the Global Southâ€™s publishers to reprint or translate.

'''The local publishers depend most on licenses thus killing motivation of creator in the Global South'''

This revision makes the Global Southâ€™s publishers depend most on foreign licenses which will come ready and have already market thus do not require budgeting for marketing and promotion. This makes the local authors to lose their hope to see themselves in print and eventually kill motivation and creativeness. Another negative effect of this is it will create a connotation in the Global South that only the North can produce quality information thus we will get what they want us to get and know what they want us to know. They get to be in control of the fuel of development. This is having information in the wrong hands.

'''This revision makes the Global South dependent on the North as sole source of information'''

By providing us with information for reprint and translation and also providing us with low cost and international studentsâ€™ editions, the North makes us depend on them on our academic and educational information. The picture they give us is that of powerful North and dependent, poor, diseased, and dangerous Global South full of wars, inequality, and election rigging. We end up being brainwashed that it only when we speak English, French and German that we can be civilised and educated. We lack information materials in our own languages; we lack information materials with local content and so never develop socially, culturally, economically and politically.

'''Creation of branches by the North kills local publishing and authorship industry.'''

Another option provided by the provision is that the North could provide information to the Global South itself instead of giving out licenses. This provision gives the publishing and producing firms opportunity to set up branches in the Global South. With the support form the headquarters the branches get to publish quality books and sell them at low cost beating the local publishing firm out of the market. The premise on which the multinational firm is built on will dictate the material it will publish and that which it will reject; a material like the one you are reading now will be rejected!

'''Taxation on royalties'''

The North publishers claim that by having the taxation of royalties only meagre payments reach the copyright owner, thus, it is uneconomical to give licences to local publishers. This argument leads them to ask for tax waivers on the royalties they earn and they have writers to support them: â€œI have advocated that there should be no tax on royalties at allâ€¦. The copyright fees called royalties should not be taxed at allâ€ Malhotra, D.N. (1995) if the governments of the Global South and agrees and let the publishers from the North earn tax-free profit would be letting the North steal from the Global South. The economy will be affected and every profit should be taxed furthermore, the local ones are being taxed.

== DECOMMODIFICATION ==
'''
Information should be for sharing not for selling'''

This is made possible by the new media- internet- which affords the creators of information cheap means of processing and distribution of information eradication the barrier of copyright and the publishing firms. Authors can publish their materials and share without requiring the help of established media and publishing houses which world require him to transfer his copyright to them.
When you go on-line, most information is available for free. Other users are happy to share music, movies and software with you. People spend hours building websites which they don't charge you for visiting. You are invited to join list servers which will fill your in-box with e-mails every day. What makes the new media into something new is the vitality of these non-commercial activities. Information is for sharing not for selling. Knowledge is a gift not a commodity.

'''Return to our culture and honour creators of information in a humane way'''

Copyright has failed to offer incentive to the creators of information because, first not all information creators are motivated by money and two, the need for the corporations to fight for them has changed priorities from motivating to profit making.
Going back to the way the sages, the wise, and the knowledgeable people were honoured in our culture is one of the solutions to archiving decommodification. Authors are important people and they should earn from where they work i.e. the materials they produce. The government should have an independent funding scheme for paying all recognized authors who contribute to the society positively and assist the authors in dissemination of their materials so that every body in the country has access to the information.
Secondly these information creators will be allowed to organize public lectures, teach in universities, collages and schools so that they disseminate the knowledge they have to the leaders of tomorrow.
Copying of works will not be restricted as long as moral rights of the author are observed: these are right to integrity- right of the author to object to derogatory treatment of his work; right of paternity- the right of the author to be identified as the author or editor or director of the work; and false attribution- the right of the author not to be credited with things he did not write or say.

'''The creators can be supported by donations to provide information free'''

Another option available is for the creators to receive donations from willing people and organisations to further their work. This will work very well in the electronic environment where the costs involved are less. The wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia offers information free of charge and is supported by public donations. Other organisations that offer free information include non-governmental organisations, and individual websites.

'''Do away with international copyright laws and protect only locally produced works'''

This could harm the international relations but it will be to our advantage. Forstly, the number of information we export is negligible, if any, so we need no protection by the other countries. Secondly, by protecting locally created works we are strengthening our publishing and information industry. Thirdly, the information that will be available will be made by us, for use, to solve our problems and to develop us.
There is nothing long to protect our own and not protect others, the developed countries did the same; the first United States copyright act was passed in 1790 which protected only the works produced in their own country. They only joined the international copyright protection in 1952 after they had enjoyed using other countries- Europe- works without restriction. Soviet Union did the same and joined in 1960s and china did same thing and joined in 1990s.
Looking at this tread one can conclude that acquiescence comes with time just as Altbact, P.G. (1995) puts it: â€œcopyright compliance comes naturally with economic and social developmentâ€

== CONCLUSION ==

International Copyright law is the only law made to protect non-citizens form citizens. It is the only law made to suppress development of information industry in the Global South. Itâ€™s only fit for developed countries. Henry Chakava, a renowned Kenyan publisher in his conclusion of the paper â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ published in 1995 says that:
â€œâ€¦. It can be argued that, by signing, (international copyright conventions) book-poor African countries have compromised their human right of access to knowledge, and they will realize their folly when they will have acquired the much needed capacity to exploit these works, only to discover that the protectionism inherent in these convections and sealed by their own signatures have prohibited them from doing soâ€
Decommodifying information is the only true solution of development for the global south. By doing this, will have more information in the public domain increasing access and hence knowledge, we will have more and more local content in the information materials, we will have only what is good for the society as authors will be honoured according to their works value to the society, we will have our culture and heritage on our hands and not on individuals hands, and since all facets of development are dependent on information we will have equal development in all facets, in all areas o the global south (as there is no restriction to information access) and in all levels.

== REFERENCES ==

Altbact, P.G. (1995) â€œThe Subtle Inequalities of Copyrightâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Chakava, H.M. (1995) â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Fowler, B.J. (2004) â€œPreventing Counterfeit Craft Designsâ€ In Schuler, P. and Finger, J.M. (Eds) Poor Peopleâ€™s Knowledge: Promoting Intellectual Property in Developing Countries. Washington, D.C; The World Bank
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/Issues98.html
http://www.nettime.org
http://www.westa.edu/â€bquest/1998/index.html/
http://www.wikipedia.com/
Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) Encyclopedia Of Library And Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker Inc.
Macmillan English dictionary 2002
Malholtra, D.N. (1995) â€œCopyright: A Perspective from the Developing Worldâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004
Owen, L. (1991) Selling Rights: A Publisherâ€™s Guide to Success. Chapman and Hall; London
Owen, L. (1995) â€œCopyright: Benefit or Obstacle?â€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) The Copy/South Dossier: Issues in the Economics, Politics, And Ideology of Copyright in the Global South. Copy south research group.
Thorn, E.A. (1989) Understanding Copyright: A Practical Guide. Jay Books; England

Decommodification of infomation

2007-02-08T09:15:44Z

Victorggk: /* INTRODUCTION */

== DECOMMODIFICATION OF INFORMATION ==

== Theme: Information for Development in The Global South ==

'''Presenters: Murumba Joan Wakasa and Kamau Victor Gitau
email: victorggk@yahoo.com'''

== Information Week, School Of Information Sciences, Moi University, Eldoret ==

== ABSTRACT ==

This paper spells out the importance of information in the development. It explains the detriments of having information as a commodity of trade. It goes further to examine the copyright and how it has made information a commodity. Finally it shows how decommodification of information is the solution for development in the Global South.

== INTRODUCTION ==

Once upon a time in England, there existed two kinds of people; the rich and the poor. The rich, from greed, persecuted the poor and made sure that they had no access to the factors of production. This, they hoped would maintain the status quo. They were wrong! God heard the prayers of the poor and gave them Robbinhood. His holy mission being; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
The same situation exists today. Globally, we have only two opposing partakers in the world development; the North and the South. The North representing the developed world and the South the developing world. The North just like the early England is advantaged for having developed before the south and would do anything to maintain the status quo.
Civilization has reached every part of the world and the North has realised it cannot conquer by restricting access to factors of production through waging war; the best method to maintain the status quo is by denying the South access to the most important factor which without it all others are derailed; this factor is information. Thus they have introduced the concept of International Copyright Law.
This law has been successful in meeting it purpose as it is evident that in the South people have to struggle to gain access to information in all formats, and when get it is out dated- donations from the north- and has outlived its intention, we get negative information about the South from their media about the South- war in Sudan, communism in China, corruption in Kenya and HIV/Aids in Africa- we have no academic and educational books in learning institutions, and we get information in a language not understandable to us, therefore, unusable.
But God has heard the prayer of the South and has sent us our Robinhood to save us from the North and get us information which for long we have been denied. Our Robinhood hood is decommodification!

== DEFINITION OF IMPORTANT TERMS ==

Decommodification
It is a word made from the verb commodity, which means, something that can be bought and sold. (Macmillan English dictionary 2002) The process of making a thing tradable (can be sold or bought) is referred to as commodification. The reverse is decommodification.
Decommodification in this paper is used to mean the process of availing information to the users gratis (free of charge).
Information
Information is data, signals, facts, views, opinions, ideas, events, news etc of significance, able to influence manâ€™s actions, behaviour and decisions as he goes about interacting with others in a given environment. This kind of information should reduce uncertainty in choices: should basically be related to specifics in context of time and space and in the content of individual as well as social, economical and scientific needs and the problem it is intended to solve further more it must be capable of being produced or generated, acquired, stored, retrieved and disseminate or transmitted through some kind of communication channel recorded or oral, manual or electronic, from a source to a recipient. The relevance of such information will be determined by the recipient who is in a position to utilize it for personal benefit or for that of others. (Lundu, 1995)
Copyright
It is one of the intellectual property rights (others are, patent, trademark and design rights) that arises automatically on the creation of various categories of work, and protects the rights and interests of the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, satellite and cable programmes, and the typographical arrangements of published editions. Copyright has been called the trading system for works of the mind. (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004)
According to Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) copyright is the exclusive, legally secured, right to publish and sell the substance and form of a literary, musical, or artistic work.

== INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPMENT ==

The information society is built upon information. The Net already provides the structure for realising an unfulfilled revolutionary demand: media freedom for all. Authors can publish their writings on their own websites. Musicians can release their tunes on MP3 first. Film-makers can distribute digital files of their movies. Not just the right to consume media, but also the right to produce media too. Even better, the Net is inspiring novel forms of expressions.
Information is one of the major factors of production and therefore without information nothing can be done. Information is power, and this is clearly evident by the work information does. Information is required for economic, social, political and cultural development; this shows that information is required in all spheres for forward development. Information helps people solve problems; obtain knowledge either through reading or listening, for research purposes among others. Some ways through which information has propagated development include:

== ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ==

Agricultural information
Agricultural activities are sources of economic development since the farmers generate income both to the country and to themselves. Agricultural information can comprise of: good farming methods, best seeds and fertilizers, information on the climate and what is suitable for the planting season and so on. This information is mostly important to farmers who use this to support their economic activities. The information can be either through word of mouth in seminars and workshops by agricultural extension officers. It can also be through the media both print and electronic and therefore if it is a basic need to farmers. The availability of this information leads to high productivity which raises the GDP of the economy.
Trade and industry (Formal and informal sector)
Most developing countries are low income earners who live below the poverty line. These countries are characterised with informal sectors like the Jua kali sectors in Kenya. These people need information on how to improve the value of their products. They need information on the new technology which when used will double the supplies. Since most of them are school drop outs they need directions on how to obtain financial assistance from the organizations concerned which when put in place will add to the countries revenue.

== SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ==
'''
Education and training'''
Students are taught in schools and other learning institutions in order to get acquainted with knowledge. Courses such as entrepreneurship are taught in universities to enable students be independent minded and able to identify opportunities for business. This will generate income both the individual and the country as well. It is through education and training that current technologies such as ICTs are taught and made used to retrieve information for solving problems. For example the Internet provides vast amount of information to researchers which is beneficial in solving problems. The web provides information on the effects of pollution to the environment. Both air and land pollution do not promote agricultural activities and when this is said and done, people will try to look for ways to curb down pollution which is an obstacle to economic development. Communication networks foster both social and economic development because when people are networked resources (information) is shared which in turn leads to prosperity.
'''Information on health education.'''
Human beings are the sources of labour and before any work whether manual or electrical they have to be present for any work to be done. It is therefore important that they be in good health. Information about how to control some health hazards becomes a necessity. Health information is necessary, for example, first aid knowledge will help to save an individuals life when in danger.
Guidance and counselling
Basic information on good morals is important to any individual. It provides one with the ability to live a straight and upright life. Societal evils such as pregnancy and abortion, drug abuse, HIV and Aids will help especially the young generation to know how to present themselves in the society.

== CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ==

Information about other cultures allows us to be able to adjust to other peopleâ€™s way of life and this will prevent cultural shock. Cultural information records our heritage and this in turn informs the society about its past which is a foundation or a base to the future.

== POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT ==

This provides a country with what is happening in the political arena. Information enhances democracy. We are able to get information from other countries which contain information on human rights and fight for them. It is through information that we get to know on corruption in our governmental structures. It is through information that we get to know whether or not we are justly treated.

== INFORMATION IN THE WRONG HANDS ==

Information for development can only be helpful to the South only and only if they have it in their own hands. Information is tricky and the one who has it has an upper hand over the one who does not have it- he can restrict it or use it negatively against the one who donâ€™t have it. Here we look at the wrong hands information can be in.
'''Entrepreneurs: publishers, distributors etc.'''
These are people who bridge the gap between the creator of information work and the intended users. They donâ€™t add any value to information and neither use it; their purpose is to make profit.
These people hoard information waiting for an opportune time to gain the maximum profit denying the intended user the opportunity to gain maximumly from it.
'''The North'''
These are the developed countries that are in competition with the global South; their goal is to maintain the status quo. They donâ€™t want the South to get access to information since they already know the importance, value and power attached to information.
Capitalists
Capitalists are those who practice capitalism. This is the economic system in which private individuals and business firms carry on the production and exchange of goods and services through a complex network of prices and markets. Their purpose is to make profit through increasing demand by reducing supply, and supplying only to those who are capable of buying at the highest price.

== '''INFORMATION AS A COMMODITY''' ==

Why are songs composed, books written, or photographs taken? There are at least two reasons, among others. One rationale is that such works express the creative urges and aspirations of individuals and of wider societies. They are produced to communicate thoughts, to solve problems, to teach others, to express ideas and feelings and emotions. Collectively, they are part of the common heritage and culture Of groups, of communities, and of nations. A competing view or rationale is that songs and books and photographs are commodities produced for the purpose of exchanging them for something; they are property, albeit intangible property, created primarily for trade and for commerce. Story, A (et al) (eds) (2006)
The second rationale is what is called commodification and linked to copyright laws. This is further linked linked with mechanisms of trade and commerce by the 1994 agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

== COPYRIGHT ==

Copyright is the legal right given to creators of informational works to make copies of the same for distribution and exorcize everybody else from copying and distributing the work. Copyright beginnings are in the sixteenth century by a company called Stationers. This company sought to protect copying of works between the players in the industry by then. It was made national by the statute of Anne of 1709. Since then copyright law has developed widely. Most countries now have legislation that broadly follows the tenets of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, or the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988, or the Acts of 1956 and 1911 that preceded it.
International copyright law started out of the need to harmonize the various national copyright laws and the need to protect the creations of information in other countries as well. This was due to the ease of movement that made publications available in one country to be sold in another. These international copyright laws include the Berne Convention of 1886 (with later revisions) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) of 1952
All national and international copyright laws promise the following:
1. Provides Incentive to creativity and innovativeness
2. Creators should economically benefit from their creations
3. The creator should maintain basic control over his creation
4. Fair use exemptions provide enough allowances to use copyrighted material for review, critism, parody and similar purposes.
5. Copyright laws offers a provision for compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in the Global South (1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention)

== HOW COPYRIGHT HAS FAILED ==

'''Piracy'''

The main purpose of copy right is to protect the creators works from unauthorized copying which will deny the chance to make profit. This purpose has not been met since there are numerous cases in courts. Examples of piracy include downloading music files, CD- writing etc. â€œThe biggest problem (to Kenyan musician) has been rampant piracy and failures of broadcasters to pay them royalties.â€ Royalties and Copyrights: The Vicious Circle in Buzz Sunday Nation July 16th 2006.
Copyright does not promote creativity and innovation
Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America is quoted in, Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) stating that â€œcopyright protects not just the financial interest of people who create artistic or intellectual property, but the very existence of creative work.â€
There arises problems form this quote: it is true that creativity existed before copyright was brought about; it is also true that those who were able to create information before copyright law was introduced did not do it for money- infact they were the bourgeoisie; it is also true that there exists many authors/creators who are not yet published therefore, do not sell their creations but give free to achieve fame for their works to be accepted by publishers.
What copyright does, is to make creators dependent of corporation to enforce and to implement the copyright laws on their behalf. This has made the corporations benefit more than the creators. These entrepreneurial corporations (publishers, music and movie producers, and media houses) force the creators to relinquish their rights to them in order to fight for them and make profit. They only allow what will make more profit rejecting creative works of authors, musicians, and script writers on the basis that it will not do well in the market. Creativity and innovation is suppressed.
As a result cultural diversity suffers, especially when the number of these corporations is consistently shrinking, since there is little profit in specialists or minority tastes. Creators of works on special and minority tastes get continuously demotivated because of copyright.

'''Copyright puts the human and societyâ€™s culture and heritage into the hands of one individual or a group of individuals'''

Human culture and societyâ€™s heritage is inherent in the information we read in books and on the internet, in the music we dance to, in the art we enjoy, and in the stories we listen. To put all these on one individual of a group of individualsâ€™ hands is a grievous mistake.
Information is a product of human interaction with the environment. It is the societyâ€™s record of events, situations, solutions and adjustment to the environment. This should be the property of the society. Not individuals. The society should have the control of information, ideas, concepts, and dreams it has. Not those who, because of their capitalistic greed and economical endowment, are capable to express this culture and heritage into a reproducible form.
When we copyright information, what put our heritage, our values, our history, and our culture onto one personâ€™s hand who disguise himself as a creator. He then gets all the rights to restrict our heritage and culture and also becomes the one to shape our culture. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) recognized this and stated:
â€œThe law of the copyright is thus the law that help to shape the culture of our society. For it is a major factor in determining what books we read; what art we enjoy; what music we hear.â€
We should not let copyright be the author of our culture. We should reject the principles of copyright as it is today. Culture existed before copyright and this should be the case always. Copyright should not come in the way.

'''Copyright applies equally to all works'''

All works of the mind are not equal. This is because information is only important when someone needs it and thus makes use of it. Some information is not necessary at all, for example, we can all do without the hip hop music, the American bloc buster movies and their novels that have a lot of praise for American culture. But we cannot do without the Physics and Biology textbooks written for both secondary and tertiary education.
When copyright is made to apply to all types of works equally, we are left with no choice but to have our educationâ€™s future held by the copyright owners as they will dictate who, what, where, when and how much information we can access. This is because copyright gives the rights of control of information to the owner to decide what will be done with the information, its distribution, and its pricing.
Important information materials such as scientific and educational may be limited, denying the Global South the opportunity to develop scientifically and educational which is the basis of all development. This case is made worse by the fact that the Global South doesnâ€™t have the economic purchasing power required to buy the information and those who can afford are few that even if they buy, it will make little profit the producers of the North.

'''Copyright restricts access to information.'''

Copyright gives the creators of the information the sole right to control, to determine its distribution, its price, and its availability. The restriction to access derives from this control the creator is given. Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971):
â€œThe price paid to the creator and the entrepreneur (producer and distributor), however, is high for copyright is a monopoly. The control of his work that the law gives to the copyright owner is absolute. He may or may not disseminate the work as he chooses; he may or may not make it available at reasonable prices and in sufficient quantities; he may or may not let others copy the work, regardless of the motive of the copier or the lack of any impairment of the usefulness of the work to him.â€ In Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker.
The copyright law is based on profit motive therefore encouraging the copyright owner to only avail his work only when he can earn some profit. This means that those who have no purchasing power will not access the information. This mostly will affect the countries of the Global South where most of the people live below poverty line.
There other reason is bias of the copyright owner. He will not avail his work if he feels that by doing so he will be putting the other person at an advantage of ousting him in the future. The beginnings of copyright are known to be based on this reason:
â€œcopyright from it beginnings in England in the sixteenth century , has been a means of protecting the â€œhavesâ€- of limiting access to books and information in order to maintain order and discipline in the trade- of creating a monopoly over knowledgeâ€ Altbact, P. (1995)
Everybody knows that information is power and by denying information they are denying power. By the virtual of enacting copyright laws- which places the decision of distribution to the copyright owner (the North), the North denies the Global South the chance of being powerful.

'''Fair use exemptions do not provide enough allowances to use of copyrighted materials '''

This is given as a tenet of copyright but in real sense it is not. In the Global South very few people can afford to buy the information from abroad and many libraries are full of old, donated books therefore most of the population do not have access to information materials.
For this to be a tenet, it requires that the material be available in the institutions of learning and libraries so that it can be fairly used. Without at least one copy in each library and institution it will not apply.
Many creators will, is to disseminate information as further and wider as possible
Many creators would like their intellectual property to be disseminate as wide and further as possible, some even opt donating. Copyright comes in the way of this will. There are authors who write for the purpose of doing good to the society, they would rather have little profit and their creations be disseminate rather than it be sold to only a few who are rich.
Informationâ€™s value is not derived from its price or package; it is derived from its use. Authors know this well and would not care how their creations are packaged as long as somebody somewhere found it valuable. It is the copyrights that restricts the authors to offer their creativeness free of charge through such corporations as publishers who would want the author to give his rights to them.
One way to disseminate information further and wider is to offer it free but this will be at the disadvantage of the copyright owner as he will be forced to make copies for each user for the user is restricted by copyright to make copies for himself. The other choice which is the best one is to denounce the copyright protection of a work and allow the users to make copies for themselves.

'''Copyright and promotion of immorality'''

We have seen that copyright covers all types of information works; so does it cover pornography production, satanic informational materials, prostitution information materials and many other evil informational materials. How then does copyright promote immorality?
When the immoral works are created they become copyright material; the creator has the right to reproduce and distribute at as he wishes to distribute it. Because these materials are worth to be products of sale, thanks to copyright, the copyright owner makes money. This profit motivates him to make more moral degrading works which enables him to even employ people to act pornographic movies and pose naked before cameras.
The best problem to solve this problem of pornographic materials from our streets is not to harass our hawkers by prosecuting them and fining them, it is not to tax highly these materials so that few people can buy; the best method is to make them unavailable. This could be done by removing copyright protection such that when they will not be produced because of they will be pirated and distorted leading to losses. This will at least work in the Global South, where people will surely pirate without protection rather than buy.
Without copyright moral decay through information materials such as books, films, magazines will be controlled.

'''Copyright is based on the Northâ€™s culture of individualism that the Global South donâ€™t understand'''

Copyright protects the form of expression and not the idea itself. Therefore, does not protect the indigenous art/knowledge. It is based on the western (North) cultural values of propertization that do not coincide with many indigenous collective mores. With copyright, that which is protected becomes the legal property of the individual owning the copyright. This approach does not merge with traditional (the Global South) approaches to community property and culture. Andy Abeita, president, Council for Indigenous Arts and Culture (CIAC) in March 24, 2000 by interview said â€œwe as natives peoples, do not understand this concept of ownershipâ€ quoted in Fowler, B.J. (2004)
Cultural development is one facet of development every nation wants to advance in education, economy, and politics and in science and technology. The Global Southâ€™s culture of community hood will be destroyed if we accept every ideology of the west and incorporate it in our system. For example, the Maasai of Kenya are known world wide and are attraction to tourists and we as Kenyans are proud to be associated with them, this is as a result because of they culture which is well preserved. Thus, we can say, regarding the Maasai, Kenya we cultural development. China is developing because of their culture, Americans also developed because first they developed and protected they culture of individualism form contamination by communism. For us in the Global South to develop we have to protect our community property and culture kind of ownership, our values to earn respect and to develop.
Motivation for producing information is not money in our culture, doing good to the society is.
â€œIt has been taken for granted (in the Global South) that any wise man writing something is motivated by the ideal of doing good to the society. The idea of financial remuneration to the writer of the book was alien to the ancient societies (the Global South).â€Malhotra, D.N. (1995)
How were the needs of the information providers met then? The same author continues:
â€œAncient societies worked on the assumption that the worldly needs of the sages, the wise men, the intellectuals and the writers were to be taken care of by the society. Therefore, the idea of payment to the writer, and that the writings of an author were his property, seemed quite naÃ¯ve to them.â€ (ibid)

'''Copyright creates a monopoly in the market'''

By copyrighting information, the person granted the copyright becomes sole owner. This crates monopoly and monopoly means, no competition. Without competition, the price of information will increase and increase as long as it (information) remains relevant. The North, with better knowledge infrastructure, will produce more information that the Global South and this informationâ€™s price will be dictated by them at the detriment of the Global South.
Copyright is unfair in that two or more people with the same idea (it is very possible) cannot be allowed same expression of their ideas. This make only one expression of an equal idea can exist in the market leaving the consumers with no choice and making the copyright owner the master of the trade.
Monopolizing of information keeps prices high and the net effect is to deny those who cannot purchase the information the chance of getting knowledge which could motivate them to be innovative and creative. Innovation is born from the urge to support or reject the ideology presented on other peopleâ€™s creative work.

'''Implementation of international copyright law creates unequal exchange'''

Implementation of international copyright law is the greatest injustice that ever happened to the Global South. International intellectual property rights works in a way that every country that is a signatory protects the works, published in other member countries, in that country. Why is it an injustice then?
The Global South is disadvantaged as it doest have enough knowledge infrastructure thus do not produce knowledge for export. They do not need protection in other countries. Should they protect others in their own? And by doing so, putting their citizens between a stone and a hard place. First the citizens cannot legally copy the information published in other countries and second they cannot purchase it because; it is not available at reasonable prices. Thirdly, the information is required to teach, train, and educate. Implementing the international copyright law in the Global South is to the detriment of the Global South.
This law when implemented by the Global South will lead to prosecution and sentence of the Global Southâ€™s citizens for having the initiative to equip himself with knowledge which could be used to develop the country. Some countries calling for international application of copyright only joined after they had the capability to export information created by their authors/creators. Examples of these countries are USA, 1952, Russia, and China, 1990s.

'''Democracy is not allowed to thrive in making of the international copyright law'''

The method used to come up with the international copyright law is undemocratic. These laws were made without reference to the needs of the Global South and the possible disadvantage they could have the Global South. Democracy according to Book, M. (2006) is â€œâ€¦is not only a question of the formal structures of decision making, nor even of participation and majority power, it is also an issue of openness and tolerance.â€ If this definition is anything to go by, then there was no democracy in making of the international copyright law; there was no openness, the North hid neo-liberalism in pretence to protect creators of information. There was no tolerance, the Global South concept of ownership i.e. community property and culture approach, was not considered.
What we have is the North makes the laws and base them on their culture the force the Global South to comply. We should have either make our laws that are addressing our needs and seeks to solve our problems or have to quit from the international copyright agreements.

== The problems with the 1971 Paris revision to the Berne convention ==

The 1971 Paris Revision to the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention gave provision for the granting of compulsory reprint or translation licenses for books needed for educational purposes in member states which have claimed official status as developing countries.
This revision was made after the countries of the Global South complained that they were not able to access information because of the copyright laws they enacted and because of the signing of the convention(s). The countries of the North had hitherto resisted allowing the countries a unique treatment because they were equal members. They finally obliged out of pressure of the countries of the Global South mainly India threatening to quit. But what they give solved the problem at hand and crated more problems that it solved. The problems are hereby outlined.

'''No access to current information'''

This revision allows a publisher in the Global South to apply for a compulsory reprint or translation if the document is not available in the Global South. This is only possible if the document has been marketed in the North and has been sold such that the Global South has knowledge of its existence. By the time it is applied for, it is not current, the original publisher gets a chance to earn royalties in selling something that is outdated!
The quality of licensed edition is frequently very low reducing usefulness of the book to the end user
This is because the publishing firms in the Global South cannot be comparable to those in the North. Their products are cheaply made and also the translation and reprints could have errors that could arise out of incxpertise. This will lead to materials that will have reduced usefulness to the final user of the information. This is a disadvantage to the Global South as the information that will be available to them will be different from that the North has access to and ours is distorted and invaluable.

'''Low cost edition and international studentsâ€™ edition give an unfair competition to locally produced information materials'''

Because licensing leads to less useful materials to users and detrimental to the efforts of the author and the producer, the North has invented methods of availing the information in the North to the Global South. These methods include low cost editions and international studentsâ€™ editions produced by the assistance of Northâ€™s government such as Educational Low-cost Books Scheme (ELBS) in Britain. These editions are distributed to the Global South at low cost because the publishers have been paid subsidies to do so giving the locally produced books an unfair competition and taking the chance of the Global Southâ€™s publishers to reprint or translate.

'''The local publishers depend most on licenses thus killing motivation of creator in the Global South'''

This revision makes the Global Southâ€™s publishers depend most on foreign licenses which will come ready and have already market thus do not require budgeting for marketing and promotion. This makes the local authors to lose their hope to see themselves in print and eventually kill motivation and creativeness. Another negative effect of this is it will create a connotation in the Global South that only the North can produce quality information thus we will get what they want us to get and know what they want us to know. They get to be in control of the fuel of development. This is having information in the wrong hands.

'''This revision makes the Global South dependent on the North as sole source of information'''

By providing us with information for reprint and translation and also providing us with low cost and international studentsâ€™ editions, the North makes us depend on them on our academic and educational information. The picture they give us is that of powerful North and dependent, poor, diseased, and dangerous Global South full of wars, inequality, and election rigging. We end up being brainwashed that it only when we speak English, French and German that we can be civilised and educated. We lack information materials in our own languages; we lack information materials with local content and so never develop socially, culturally, economically and politically.

'''Creation of branches by the North kills local publishing and authorship industry.'''

Another option provided by the provision is that the North could provide information to the Global South itself instead of giving out licenses. This provision gives the publishing and producing firms opportunity to set up branches in the Global South. With the support form the headquarters the branches get to publish quality books and sell them at low cost beating the local publishing firm out of the market. The premise on which the multinational firm is built on will dictate the material it will publish and that which it will reject; a material like the one you are reading now will be rejected!

'''Taxation on royalties'''

The North publishers claim that by having the taxation of royalties only meagre payments reach the copyright owner, thus, it is uneconomical to give licences to local publishers. This argument leads them to ask for tax waivers on the royalties they earn and they have writers to support them: â€œI have advocated that there should be no tax on royalties at allâ€¦. The copyright fees called royalties should not be taxed at allâ€ Malhotra, D.N. (1995) if the governments of the Global South and agrees and let the publishers from the North earn tax-free profit would be letting the North steal from the Global South. The economy will be affected and every profit should be taxed furthermore, the local ones are being taxed.

== DECOMMODIFICATION ==
'''
Information should be for sharing not for selling'''

This is made possible by the new media- internet- which affords the creators of information cheap means of processing and distribution of information eradication the barrier of copyright and the publishing firms. Authors can publish their materials and share without requiring the help of established media and publishing houses which world require him to transfer his copyright to them.
When you go on-line, most information is available for free. Other users are happy to share music, movies and software with you. People spend hours building websites which they don't charge you for visiting. You are invited to join list servers which will fill your in-box with e-mails every day. What makes the new media into something new is the vitality of these non-commercial activities. Information is for sharing not for selling. Knowledge is a gift not a commodity.

'''Return to our culture and honour creators of information in a humane way'''

Copyright has failed to offer incentive to the creators of information because, first not all information creators are motivated by money and two, the need for the corporations to fight for them has changed priorities from motivating to profit making.
Going back to the way the sages, the wise, and the knowledgeable people were honoured in our culture is one of the solutions to archiving decommodification. Authors are important people and they should earn from where they work i.e. the materials they produce. The government should have an independent funding scheme for paying all recognized authors who contribute to the society positively and assist the authors in dissemination of their materials so that every body in the country has access to the information.
Secondly these information creators will be allowed to organize public lectures, teach in universities, collages and schools so that they disseminate the knowledge they have to the leaders of tomorrow.
Copying of works will not be restricted as long as moral rights of the author are observed: these are right to integrity- right of the author to object to derogatory treatment of his work; right of paternity- the right of the author to be identified as the author or editor or director of the work; and false attribution- the right of the author not to be credited with things he did not write or say.

'''The creators can be supported by donations to provide information free'''

Another option available is for the creators to receive donations from willing people and organisations to further their work. This will work very well in the electronic environment where the costs involved are less. The wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia offers information free of charge and is supported by public donations. Other organisations that offer free information include non-governmental organisations, and individual websites.

'''Do away with international copyright laws and protect only locally produced works'''

This could harm the international relations but it will be to our advantage. Forstly, the number of information we export is negligible, if any, so we need no protection by the other countries. Secondly, by protecting locally created works we are strengthening our publishing and information industry. Thirdly, the information that will be available will be made by us, for use, to solve our problems and to develop us.
There is nothing long to protect our own and not protect others, the developed countries did the same; the first United States copyright act was passed in 1790 which protected only the works produced in their own country. They only joined the international copyright protection in 1952 after they had enjoyed using other countries- Europe- works without restriction. Soviet Union did the same and joined in 1960s and china did same thing and joined in 1990s.
Looking at this tread one can conclude that acquiescence comes with time just as Altbact, P.G. (1995) puts it: â€œcopyright compliance comes naturally with economic and social developmentâ€

== CONCLUSION ==

International Copyright law is the only law made to protect non-citizens form citizens. It is the only law made to suppress development of information industry in the Global South. Itâ€™s only fit for developed countries. Henry Chakava, a renowned Kenyan publisher in his conclusion of the paper â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ published in 1995 says that:
â€œâ€¦. It can be argued that, by signing, (international copyright conventions) book-poor African countries have compromised their human right of access to knowledge, and they will realize their folly when they will have acquired the much needed capacity to exploit these works, only to discover that the protectionism inherent in these convections and sealed by their own signatures have prohibited them from doing soâ€
Decommodifying information is the only true solution of development for the global south. By doing this, will have more information in the public domain increasing access and hence knowledge, we will have more and more local content in the information materials, we will have only what is good for the society as authors will be honoured according to their works value to the society, we will have our culture and heritage on our hands and not on individuals hands, and since all facets of development are dependent on information we will have equal development in all facets, in all areas o the global south (as there is no restriction to information access) and in all levels.

== REFERENCES ==

Altbact, P.G. (1995) â€œThe Subtle Inequalities of Copyrightâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Chakava, H.M. (1995) â€œInternational Copyright and Africa: The Unequal Exchangeâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Fowler, B.J. (2004) â€œPreventing Counterfeit Craft Designsâ€ In Schuler, P. and Finger, J.M. (Eds) Poor Peopleâ€™s Knowledge: Promoting Intellectual Property in Developing Countries. Washington, D.C; The World Bank
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/Issues98.html
http://www.nettime.org
http://www.westa.edu/â€bquest/1998/index.html/
http://www.wikipedia.com/
Kent, A. and Lancour, H. (eds) (1971) Encyclopedia Of Library And Information Science. New York; Marcel Dekker Inc.
Macmillan English dictionary 2002
Malholtra, D.N. (1995) â€œCopyright: A Perspective from the Developing Worldâ€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2004
Owen, L. (1991) Selling Rights: A Publisherâ€™s Guide to Success. Chapman and Hall; London
Owen, L. (1995) â€œCopyright: Benefit or Obstacle?â€ In Altbatch, P.G. (Ed) Copyright and Development: Inequality in the Information Age. Oxford, UK; Bellagio publishing network
Story, A. (et al) (Eds) (2006) The Copy/South Dossier: Issues in the Economics, Politics, And Ideology of Copyright in the Global South. Copy south research group.
Thorn, E.A. (1989) Understanding Copyright: A Practical Guide. Jay Books; England

HIV/AIDS SERVICES

2007-01-24T14:55:49Z

Victorggk:

== PROMOTING ACCESS TO HIV/AIDS SERVICES FOR ALL AFRICANS ==

organisers: Kenya AIDS Networks

time: 8.30 -11.00

participants: over 200 both male and female

'''
SUMMARY'''

The forum tacdled the following issues on strengthening primary health care in order to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and tocare for those who are already affected and infected

community and social mobilization in our communities and at the same time avoiding stigmatizing them.

'''
EMMERGINH ISSUES'''

doners are eager to support programmers initially by t withdraw their financeil support even before the woruld be benficialries have realized any gains.

donor money should be used to support third workd stragegies and toools in the fight agaist HIV/AIDS thoughmost developmieng coutries are providing free ARVs and VCTs, the AIDS organizations and movements should lobby fheir governments to provide for mutrution plan for the people with whihc HIV/AIDS some of which cannot afford a meal. government s should provide for free feeding programs for those who are no ARVs.

3rd world coutries should thinkd of ways of financing thire HIV/AIDS programmes instead of relying on donors who dictate what shoul be done even when tthey have not understood what is happening on the graound

3rd world coutnries should borrow a leaf from Zimbabwe where the government has set aside 5% of the taxes to go to the HIV/AIDS victimes.

women who are more affected should lobby for rereserntation in powerrul position whre they can influence decision in favour of the HIV/AIDS victims. As a matter of urgency they shuld demand to have one of their own living with the virus to be a memver of parliament. as an MP she will be in a better position to push for formulation and implememtation of plicies in facour of those HIV/AIDS victims.

In conclusion developing countries should come up with home grown solution in the fight aginist AIDS raher than relying on donor who do not have the solutions.

'''RECOMMENDATIONS'''

All should lobby for community empowerment mordern to hold leadership in governements, churches, NGOs accountable and transparen in all thir undertakings.

--[[User:Victorggk|Victorggk]] 17:55, 24 January 2007 (EAT)

Non- Formal Education

2007-01-24T14:28:43Z

Victorggk:

== Non- Formal Education and Informal Skills Training ==

'''By Patricia Salano'''
Time 11:30-2:00pm

Organizer:Undungu Society of Kenya

Speakers
Mr.Mutiuki

Mr.T Nekesa-CEO kenya Alliance for children

Mrs Muli

Number of participants( approximation)

Male 60

female 60

Total 120

'''summary of issues discussed'''

Undugu Society of Kenya is one of the pioneer organizations in sub-saharan Africa which deals with the rehabiltation of street kids.

It was founded in 1973 by a dutch catholic priest Lat Father arnold Grol after observing a growing phenomenon of street children in Nairobi.

The non-formal education and informal skills training is one of the programmes of the Undugu society of Kenya whose aim is to reach out to the excluded in the society by providing alternative form of education and training to younger stars who have been excluded from mainstream education and traing programmes.

Non-formal Education is an organised cativity that operates outside the formal educationn programme.It's traget group are children and youth between the ages of 6-17 yrs.

The programme offers technical and academic subjects.
academic subjects include
English
Kiswahili
arabic
Religious Education
technical subjects include
Moter vehicle mechaniices
Home science carpentry
cloth making
entrprenuershipand applied geomery

The non-formal Curriculum is flexible in that it allows learners to enter,drop out and re enter according to their wish.

A policy has be developed by Ministry of Education,this ensure that quality education is offered to Kenyan children.

--[[User:Victorggk|Victorggk]] 17:28, 24 January 2007 (EAT)

Human security

2007-01-24T14:22:00Z

Victorggk:

== HUMAN SECURITY AND ECONOMIC SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS ==

REPORTER: ''EDITH LULWAUEN''

COD: 757

DATE: 23RD JANUARY 2007

TIME: 8.30 -11.00 AM

ORGANISER: HUMAN DIGINITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS CAUCUS.

PARTICIPANTS;
male 62

female 28

total 90

'''
summary.'''

Human security is a complex of interrelated threats associated with civil war, genocide and the displacement of populations. However the bread concept of human security should include hunger, disease and natural disasters because there seems to kill far more people and war, genocide and terrorism combined. The human security policy should seek to protect people from these and from violence. The human security agenda also encompasses economic insecurity and threats to human dignity.

the most obstacles to human security in the most countries stands out to be poverty, economic exclusion, social inequality and food insecurity and health security.

'''RECOMMENDATIONS'''

set up markets that operate adequately or create institutions outside the market.
there is need for national security plans in the framework of the global fight against insecurity through democratic candidature, good governance and political security.
To solve the problem of social inequalities of gender, governments should engage in
education for girls
protection of women against domestic violence and violence in the work places.
access foe all women to real political and economic power.

Fair trade

2007-01-24T14:16:41Z

Victorggk:

Compaign right for Information

2007-01-24T14:07:03Z

Victorggk:

== '''Compaign Right for Information''' ==

'''reported By Judy Mugo'''

Time 11:30-2:00pm
Organizer
CRIS campaign

Number of participants
About35 representatives from mainly intenational media agencies
Speakers
raijelli Nicole
Contact:raijeli@isiswomen.org
Website: www.isiswomen.org

'''summary of issues discussed'''

'''Aims'''

bringing together communcattion specialist in media,electronic public libraries to address issues of privacy and copyright issues in the infromation industry.

'''Objective'''

To agitate for free access accross the border an dassist as many people to access information as we recognise it to be a basic right .

'''Recommendations'''

To reach to many people as possible.

Solar cooking

2007-01-24T14:02:19Z

Victorggk:

== [[Campaign for Solar Cooking]] ==

'''
reported by Josha Kaunga and Margret Wanambisi'''

'''Time 11:30-2:00pm

Organizer Sunfire Cooking

Speakers Pamela

Jimmy

Fatima'''

'''summary of issues discussed'''

-The system will control depression because there will be no charciaol production

-Charcoal production has caused massive and nearly invisible degradation of grazing land and water catchment areasin the world.

-Sun fair cooking puts people an dthe enviroment into profit its effiecient solar cooker

-Sun cooking will help to control poverty.

'''Recommendations'''

1. Mobilize women groups about solar cooking an deducate the whole village vcommunity to change from charcoal to sun fire cooking

2. IInvolve church based organisations an dcommunity based organisations

3. Use media compaigns to reach out to the community and the world in general.

4. Reaseach to improve solar design in a more affordable way.

"LAND RIGHTS"

2007-01-24T12:26:20Z

Victorggk:

== THE STRUGGLE FOR LAND RIGHTS AND LIVELIHOODS IN INDIA, ETHIOPIA, KENYA AND TANZANIA ==

'''REPORTED BY PETERGICHIRI'''

'''ORGANIZERS: ALLIANCE 2015 LIVELIHOODS WORKSHOP

'''PARTICIPANTS:

MALE 70

FEMALE 80

TOTAL 150'''

'''SPEAKERS:'''

1.KENNY MATAMPASH- KENYA-NEIHGBOURS INITIATIVE ALLIANCE

2.GIRMA AMENTIE-ETHIOPIA-CHILDREN AID ETHIOPIA

3.FOSIL-TSEGAYE-MULTIPURPOSE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT- ETHIOPIA

4.HANNA ABANTE-WOMEN IN SELF-EMPLOYMENT -ETHIOPIA

5.MR. MAKABURI PHIL- TANZANIA- UNITED PEASANTS OF TANZANIA (UPT)

6.AJOY CHOWDHURI AND JULINA P. CHOWDHONO-INDIA'''

'''ISSUES COVERED'''

In Kenya, the problem of land ownership started with the scramble foe Africa when the white settlers forcibly took away the land from the locals. The pastrolists communities were the most affected
with time, even after the country became a republic, lands law continue serving those who have making the poor even poorer. To the Maasai, the land belonged to he cdommunity thus they do not believe in suvdividing it for individual use. The changing economies have really affected reaming about with their livestock as they used to do therefore, they feel marginalized. The neighbors Initiative Alliance is working with other civil societies and NGOs to mobilize their communities on the challenges they are facing. The pastoral communities in Kenya form about 58% of the population and therefore with good strategies they can change laws so that their cases are also addressed.
In Ethiopia and Tanzania, land belong to the government and therefoere civil societies have little say on matters to do with land. In Ethiopia the government can give the community based organization but then this land is enough to accommodate the poor and give them a source of livelihood.

form the discussion it is clear that there is need to have the poor and marginalized access to land so that thy can earn a living.

In the four countries, women ad youth do not have the right to own land. Such laws need to be reviewed.

In Tanzania, the president is the custodian of the public land, that means he can make any decision on land without consulting. Such laws need to be changed.

Participants in this forum agreed to network and find lasting solutions to the land issue. this will be done through mobilizing local communities and other stake holders.

DEBT ARBITRATION

2007-01-24T11:46:51Z

Victorggk:

== FAIR AND TRANSPARENT DEBT ARBITRATION ==

'''REPORTER: RUTY NYABETA

TIME: 8.30- 11.00 AM

ORGANISATION: AFRICA FORUM AND NETWORK ON DEBT ARBITRATION

NO. OF PARTICIPANTS:
MALE 50
FEMALE 30
TOTAL 80

KEY SPEAKERS: CHARLES MUTARA- EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'''

'''SUMMARY'''

“everywhere in the world new ideas are realized not because they are bad or wrong, BUT just because it is human to be skeptical of new ideas that we neither understand nor are fully convinced of” anonymous.

The Fair and Transparent Arbitration (FTA) mechanism is all about =why arbitration and not just debt cancellation. The two versions of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative IHIPC) of 1996 and 1999 failed to give a lasting solution to the third world debt question.

The multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) of 2005 at the Uleneagles G8 summit has just joined the no. of creditor-initiated proposals (on the debt crisis of the developing world) with it's own shortfalls, especially the fact that it is building on the wrong foundation of HIPC unconditionally and process. It seems in the process the ecological/historical debt; the illegitimate debt and odious debt have been forgotten or simply swept under the carpet. Yet, countries such as the DRC, the Phillipines, Argentina and Indonesia among others are still choking an paying for the debts of thire formerdictatorial regimes; wrong/bad policy adbvice of the international financial institutions: irrespecsible borrowing of past regimes and reckless lending by creditors.

The question of what is to be done about future debts those coming after debt relief from the beneficiaries of the 2005 multilateral Debt Relief Initiative are no clear. AFRODAD believes that debt relief on it's own is not the panacea- it is necessary to address the question of uneven power balance between the global south and north if debt is not to be used any more as an instrument of control or domination of the former by the latter. The apportioning of the present debt crisis between creditors and debtors remains vital for the building of good global partnership between the global south and north. There is urgent need to end the domination and monopoly of creditor nations in deciding how to hand the global south debt with a fair and transparent arbitration process.

'''RECOMMENDATIONS'''

debt relief or cancellation can work best alongside a fair and transparent arbitration (FTA) mechanism to alert the historical problem of countries falling back into indebtedness.
the only way to proceed is drawing attention to existing legal double standards-which minds more critical that might even be inclined to call a global form of legal apartheid. this is a strong and justified moral, legal, ethical and economic argument.