Last updated: 9 November 2009
Promoting fair intellectual property rules
Consumers International (CI) works to promote more balanced intellectual property (IP) rules.
This means exploring the creation of public goods and enhancing the public domain, and fostering a fairer system of managing intellectual property in international and bilateral trade agreements and regimes.
Latest news
CI launches online access to knowledge survey in ten languages
9 November 2009: Consumers International (CI) is conducting a global survey about the barriers that impede consumers from accessing copyright works. An online version of this survey is available in ten languages from http://A2Knetwork.org/survey.
CI is conducting a global survey of consumers designed to uncover how they are affected by various barriers that impede their access to knowledge. This concise survey is the second phase of a research project that aims to gather evidence of consumers’ actual experience in trying to access and use educational and cultural materials.
The first phase of the research involved face-to-face interviews with over 150 consumers in 20 countries, and suggested that copyright laws are of secondary importance to most consumers when seeking access to knowledge; what is more important is the ability to obtain products of good quality at a reasonable price – a finding that reinforces CI's experience over 50 years in the global consumer movement.
The second phase of the research, which is being conducted in 25 countries and online, will be vital to quantify the extent of the barriers that limit consumers' access to knowledge. Armed with this information, CI will be prepared to campaign for fairer copyright laws, and to lower the other access barriers the research reveals, such as under-provision of local content, technological barriers, access to the Internet and so on.
The online version of the survey is available in Chinese, English, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish at http://A2Knetwork.org, and only takes a few minutes to complete. Survey submissions will be accepted from now until 31 January 2010.
CI launches A2Knetwork.org
6 February 2009: Consumers International (CI) unveils A2Knetwork.org, the new portal for its global project on Access to Knowledge (A2K).
The website contains information on CI's new IP Watch List, highlighting the countries whose intellectual property laws are harmful to consumers, and a global survey of the barriers consumers face in accessing copyright material.
A2Knetwork.org adds a new level of interactivity and provides a one-stop resource for both CI members and the general public who wish to engage with our activities in this area.
Features on the new website include:
- work-in-progress previews of our A2K handbook and IP Watch List
- blogs and discussion forums
- a wiki-like workspace area for consumer organisations and NGOs
- a subscription calendar of community events
- news feeds and links from around the Web
- a fully multilingual capacity.
Bookmark A2Knetwork.org now to ensure that you remain up to date with CI's A2K activities, which encompass intellectual property reform and other issues of communications and media rights of interest to consumers worldwide.
By creating an account on the site (for free!) you also unlock a raft of other features, including the ability to create your own blog to disseminate news and views on issues related to A2K.
CI to launch Access to Knowledge Watch List campaign at the UN Internet Governance Forum
13 November 2008: CI will be holding a meeting in Hyderabad, India, in conjunction with the United Nations Internet Governance Forum, to announce its new activities to advocate for fairer intellectual property laws for consumers.
One of the highlights of this meeting, to be held from 1:00pm on 5 December, will be the release of a set of criteria that CI proposes to use in developing an Access to Knowledge Watch List, rating countries throughout the world on how balanced their intellectual property laws are.
This list will provide a much-needed response to the United States' annual Special 301 Report, which considers only the interests of copyright owners.
Read more about the campaign on the CI blog.
CI intervenes at WIPO
4 May 2006: CI made a statement at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights that took place from 1- 5 May 2006.
The statement raised CI's research findings on how the use of copyright laws was restricting access to knowledge, and articulated concerns about the proposed WIPO Treaty on Webcasting.
Copyright is pricing consumers out of knowledge
20 February 2006: A new CI report has condemned World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) technical assistance as 'thoroughly inadequate', and is demanding a wholesale review of the organisation's legislative advice to developing countries.
The Copyright and Access to Knowledge report examines copyright law in 11 Asian countries. It finds that all 11 countries, including China, India and Malaysia, have given copyright owners far more protection than the intellectual property treaties they have signed up to require.
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