18th Annual Mortenson Distinguished Lecture

Libraries Advocating for Access to Knowledge:

our role in the global A2K movement

Teresa Hackett17 September 2008

• Brief overview of eIFL.net

• Access to Knowledge movement (A2K)

• role of libraries in A2K

• librarians as advocates

About eIFL.net• Negotiating affordable subscriptions• Best terms and conditions of use• Supporting national library consortia• Knowledge sharing network

Programmes• Open access publishing• Institutional repositories for local content• Free and open source software for libraries• Copyright for libraries

About eIFL.net

Guiding Principles of eIFL• Access to information is essential in education and research and has a direct impact on the development of societies;

• combined purchasing and negotiating power of libraries can lead to affordable and sustainable access to electronic resources in developing and transition countries;

• the empowerment of citizens and the spread of democracy depends on equal access to information and knowledge worldwide: eIFL.net is committed to levelling the playing field.

What is Access to Knowledge (A2K)?

• No single definition, includes;• international development;• communications;• technology;• education;• intellectual property (IP) policy.

What is Access to Knowledge (A2K)?Principles

1. Knowledge has a special importance in the well-being of people and societies;

2. A2K perspective is concerned with the accessibility of knowledge;

3. promotion of A2K is a task of government.

Source: Defining and Measuring Access to Knowledge:Towards an A2K Index. Lea Bishop Shaver I/S Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society http://isp.law.yale.edu/files/folders/public/entry46.aspx

What is the movement known as Access to Knowledge (A2K)?

• Loose coalition of like-minded groups;• share a common concern;• ownership & control of information intellectual

property (IP);• no formal membership, shape or structure;• dynamic and organic;• effective in influencing international IP policy.

History of A2K movement

“More than 50 years ago, environmentalists taught us to see beyond a disconnected set of problems in the natural world - polluted streams and air, disappearing wetlands - to a larger interconnected system called the environment. Successful development could only proceed if it were sustainable; the environmental impact must be part of the analysis. Similarly, both nationally and internationally, we need to recover the traditional insight of our intellectual property laws; that it is not rights that generate progress, but the balance between rights and the public domain, a balance that is highly context dependent. One size cannot fit all.”

A Manifesto on WIPO and the Future of Intellectual Property, James Boylehttp://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2004dltr0009.html

History of A2K movement

• Campaign for Access to Essential MedicinesNGOs campaigned at WHO and WTO on

negative impact of increasing IP protection on public health in developing countries

• A2K began its campaign at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

WIPO administers international IP treaties and negotiates new treaties

“Intellectual property laws are the legal sinews of the information age; they affect everything from the availability and price of AIDS drugs, to the patterns of international development, to the communications architecture of the Internet.”

James Boyle, Professor of Law at Duke Law School and the cofounder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization (2004)

• moratorium on creation of new treaties that expand monopolies and restrict access to knowledge;

• WIPO should address the civil society concerns e.g. consumer rights, libraries, blind and visually impaired people;

• support for WIPO Development Agenda and a Treaty on Access to Knowledge.

WIPO Development Agenda

• proposal by Brazil and Argentina to WIPO General Assemblies to establish a “development agenda” for WIPO (2004);

• Group of Friends of Development: Egypt, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Iran, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela;

• first public opportunity to debate work of WIPO;

• re-orient WIPO to promote intellectual creativity, rather than IP i.e. IP is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

 

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Copyright, libraries and A2K

• Libraries have a key interest in copyright;

• copyright governs ownership, control and distribution of knowledge;

• role of libraries is to provide access to knowledge;

copyright is a professional issue for librarians and library organisations.

Digital technologies transforming libraries

i2010: Digital Libraries InitiativeEurope's Cultural and Scientific Heritage at a Click of a Mouse

New opportunities, fewer rights for users

• longer terms of protection, shrinking the public domain;

• new layers of rights on digital information e.g. database right;

• inadequate user rights (exceptions & limitations);

• licences that override copyright laws.

IFLA World Library Congress, Oslo (2005)

• limitations in the use of audio-visual formats;• failure of digitisation projects due to copyright restrictions;• technological protection measures that prevent libraries from making lawful uses of works

need to counter-balance a system that increasingly acts as a barrier to librarians and our patrons

Achievements of A2K

• Awareness raising and harnessing opinion globally to improve legal framework for enabling A2K;

• A2K “brand”;

• support from prominent people e.g. Joseph Stiglitz Nobel prize for economics (2001), Sir John Sulston, Nobel prize for medicine (2002), Larry Lessig, Creative Commons;

• new technologies to communicate e.g. wikis, blogs, skype chats.

Achievements of A2K(civil society and governments)

• WIPO General Assemblies (2007) agreed on a Development Agenda;• 45 recommendations for action;• includes access to knowledge, exceptions and limitations, public domain;• Committee on IP and Development;• proposals for broadcast treaty shelved;• WIPO copyright committee to discuss E&L;• WIPO study on library E&L (2008).

Widening the appeal of A2K

• George Washington Law School;

• Information Society Project, Yale Law School;

• A2K3 conference, Geneva, 8-10 September 2008;

• student research and thesis;

• From Intellectual Property Rights to Access to Knowledge. Eds Gaelle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski. Zone Books (forthcoming 2009).

Librarians: from stakeholders to advocates

“One of the most important developments in library work in recent years has been a change in the role of the librarian from that of an asset manager to an advocate for access”, Arnold Hirshon eIFL Envisioning the Future, 2008.

Advocacy is “the process of turning passive support into educated action by stakeholders”. http://www.ala.org/ala/issues/gettingstarted.cfm

Professional librarians have a role to protect library interests when national copyright laws are amended or when new international treaties are introduced

Librarians: from stakeholders to advocatesWhat do we need?

• Core group of librarians with knowledge and advocacy skills;

• future library leaders who will become copyright champions curriculum in copyright with Berkman Center;

• advocacy for many issues e.g. library development and funding, consortium building, national education and ICT policies, freedom of expression and access to knowledge.

From WSIS to A2K

• WSIS Internet Governance Forum (IGF);

• multi-stakeholder groups called “dynamic coalitions”;

• A2K@IGF

governments and policy makers need civil society

“Knowledge goods are fundamentally different from physical goods and services. They can be copied. They can be shared. They do not have to be scarce. The rich and the poor can be more equal with regard to knowledge goods than to many other areas.”

Thank you for listening!

Any questions?