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Press Release: The Copy/South Reader Response Project vs. WIPO's IP Day

For immediate release: Thursday, 26 April 2007

To mark World Intellectual Property Day (26 April), the Copy/South
Research Group calls on you to take up its slogan --'Encouraging
Creativity'-- and send in your creative thoughts and opinions on the
role of copyright law and ideology in the countries of the global South.

Our new project, the Copy/South Reader Response ( available at
 http://www.copysouth.org ) launches today as part of a global
counter-celebration of this day and its deceitful slogan.

We want to hear from you and find out whether you agree with the viewpoint
of the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation that
creativity is impossible without copyright laws -- and the more
restrictive and punishing, the better.

For our new project, readers of the Copy/South Dossier, which was
published in May 2006 and contains more than 50 articles giving facts and
views on the largely obstructive role of copyright law and ideology in
countries of the global South, are asked to do TWO THINGS:

1) send in your comments on and criticisms of the 206-page Dossier.

2) send in examples of your own personal experiences with copyright in the
global South, whether you are a librarian, an educator, a writer or
musician, visually impaired, or a user of copyright-restricted materials.


The comments that we receive will be posted on our open access reader
response website. Feel free to give your views in any of these eight
languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, German, Italian, or Dutch (we hope to add additional languages in time). Keep your messages lively and to the point.

As stated on its 26 April website, WIPO's day 'celebrates' the
supposed 'link between intellectual property and creativity.'

But WIPO makes no mention of how copyright law acts as the 'command and
control' apparatus for global software, publishing, and broadcasting
corporations such as Microsoft and Harper Collins or the more regional
empire of Venezuelan broadcasting billionaire Gustavo Cisneros; or the empire of Mexican telephone billionaire Carlos Slim Heliu.

Nor does it talk about how WIPO endorses such ruthless acts as forcing
overworked local police agencies across the South to raid local schools to
enforce corporate copyright interests.

These are among the issues taken by the Dossier, which took 18 months to
research and write, and has been distributed world-wide over the past
eleven months.

Our Dossier has won praise for its accessible explanations of some
complicated issues and its plain speaking. Of course, the Dossier also has
its critics as you will see if you read some of the initial responses
posted on the website.

To read more about the Copy/South Reader Response Project, go to:
 http://www.copysouth.org/

To download and read the Copy/South Dossier online (and find out how to
receive a copy by post/mail), go to:
 http://www.copysouth.org/

To contact The Copy/South Research Group, send an e-mail to:
 contact@copysouth.org

We wait for your comments!

The Copy/South Research Group
 http://www.copysouth.org/

--
Zapopan Muela for
THE COPY/SOUTH READER RESPONSE PROJECT
 http://www.copysouth.org/