In a world which is part of the ‘digital revolution’ era, restrictive copyright laws still act as a serious barrier to sharing and learning from each other, more so in countries of the global South where three quarters of the population live, says a study.
A 208-page copy/South Dossier from the Copy South Research Group has over 50 articles examining global issues that affect the ‘developing world’ — such as access, culture, economics, libraries, education, software, the internet, the public domain, and resistance.
Available for download via copysouth.org, the publication seeks to give "facts and views on the largely negative role of copyright in the global South in a variety of areas including education, libraries, cultural production, and the economy."
Its publishers have sought reader feedback on other missing issues too. "Tell us and the world (who has internet access and who visits the website) about your own particular circumstances," argue the publishers.
Incidentally, April 26 each year has been labelled World Intellectual Property by the World Intellectual Property Organisation ( WIPO). But this network has taken up a contrary slogan, "Encouraging Creativity".
But this study warns that privatisation and monopolisation is "discouraging creativity and invention". it also argues that the average artist and conglomerates cannot benefit in the same way from the copyright system.
It takes a look at the "economics of global copyright".
Giving specific examples from rural South Africa and Colombia, it points out how copyright laws add to restrictions on learning, and how an academic encounters greater difficulty to conduct their research.
"Using the internet in the South (can be) a tangled web of copyright toll-gates and ‘keep out’ messages," says the study.
It looks at the use of ‘intellectual property’ laws to prop up proprietary computer software. In its section on ‘resistance’ from the South to the global copyright system, it brings up specific examples from Venezuela, Free Software, the Creative Commons approach, open access journals, the Canto Livre from Brazil, and more.
It suggests that ‘satire’ is also being used as a form of resistance, and co-operation in the South is being used "as part of a wider intellectual property activism".
Notes the study: "(In) the late 1950s and 1960s, many countries became independent and when their dissatisfaction with the inequities of the global copyright sytem lead to what has been called ‘the international crisis of copyright’."
It notes post-Independence India’s position that "the high production cost of scientific and technical books standing in the way of their dissemination in developing countries could be substantially reduced if the advanced countries would freely allow their books to be reprinted and translated by underdeveloped countries."
This article was originally written for IANS.in, the Indo-Asian News Service.