[This turned out to be a long one. Sorry]
IPI (the Institute for Policy Innovation) has gotten into intellectual property policy over the past couple of years because it's always been an interest, and because we believe that intellectual property is a key policy issue of the 21st century. We believe that IP protection has been a key to the success of not only the U.S. economy, but also a boon to other nations who have adopted IP protection. So we believe that educating the public and policy makers on the importance of intellectual property, defending intellectual property, and advocating strong intellectual property protection are noble and important pursuits for a policy group like IPI, and we plan to continue in this area and to expand our work in coming months, as resources permit.
In the course of this work we have encountered others who have also identified IP policy as an area of focus--though from a different perspective. Some familiar forces have found convergence on the issue of intellectual property--the anti-corporatists, the anti-capitalists, the Microsoft-haters, the big-Pharma haters--and dare we say the overt socialists?
Now, not every member of this Free Culture/IP Skeptic/Access to Knowledge crowd is all of these things, but they have in common opposition to most IP protection. It is opposition to IP, or at least skepticism about the merits of IP protection, on which they have found common cause.
True, many of them claim to support the idea of IP in general. And many of them claim to be defenders of, say, copyright. But, like Larry Lessig, they seem to be opposed to each and every specific application of IP, and they only seem to be in favor of a new, redefined type of copyright under which the copyright owner insists only that no one profit from the copyright. These new forms of IP are, frankly, philosophical forms of IP, rather than practical or economic forms of IP. And they seem designed for the express purpose of discouraging economic activity based on ownership of ideas. [They won't get far, because they ignore essential facts about human nature, but that's another topic for a future time.]
We think engaging with these folks, and yes, opposing them, is important work, and we've endeavored to do so with vigor, with integrity, and with civility.
One of the folks we find ourselves frequently in conflict with is Jamie Love, of the Ralph Nader-founded Consumer Project on Technology, though Jamie also shows up under various other organization and coalition names. If you wonder about the accuracy of my characterization of Jamie and his positions, just spend a little time on his website.
We don't agree with Jamie's goals or his methods, and we increasingly find ourselves in conflict. Now, in the public policy business, opposition is something we are all accustomed to, and so it doesn't surprise me to find that there are people opposed to my particular take on an issue. I try not to question my opposition's motivations, and I try not to label them as unAmerican, or evil, or whatever. And I try to engage in civil discourse.
Jamie, however, believes that his opposition is wrong, immoral, and simply fronting for evil corporate interests. I've seen Jamie come unhinged more than a few times, once yelling at a drug company executive over lunch that "people are dying because of what you are doing."
IPI has a firm policy of protecting the privacy of our supporters. Jamie is constantly digging at us about our funding, implying that our work is tainted or biased because of our funding, as if HE isn't also receiving funding. We know where some of Jamie's money comes from. It's predictably the usual suspects--a handful of left-leaning foundations. But I don't dig at Jamie because of HIS funding--I'm mature enough to understand that everyone in the public policy business is getting their funding from parties who agree with their take on the issues, whether they're foundations, corporations, individuals, or (most usually) some combination of all three.
This has been an overly-long attempt to provide some context for the following: Jamie has now singled us (me) out. He's sent out a posting to his list that is specifically critical of us and personally insulting.
Jamie's listservs are public, so I don't think he'll mind me posting the contents of one of his latest rants here on IPBlog. I post it because those who have been following some of the arguments and discussions on this blog should see how Jamie is characterizing our efforts when he speaks to his own crowd. I would NOT post private correspondence without permission--but this isn't private correspondence.
I further wondered whether reproducing his posting here wouldn't just unnecessarily give him more publicity. But, in the end, I decided that since Jamie so prizes access to knowledge, I would help him in his quest by giving IPBlog readers access to Jamie's knowledge.
Now, here's Jamie's recent rant, reproduced faithfully with the intention of accuracy.
As further background, the disputes Jamie references in the following listserv posting were as follows: 1) our gentle teasing as Jamie passed out tee shirts that carried two different forms of IP protection, and 2) an incident where Jamie came unhinged because of a briefing that was being put on by another public policy organization.
One final word on the tee shirt issue: I'm sorry, but it just struck me as very funny (and still does) to listen to Jamie day after day prattling on about how harmful IP is, and how the whole enlightened world is realizing the problems with IP and is moving to alternate incentive systems that don't involve the ownership of ideas, and then to see him passing out his tee shirts with (not one but) two different forms of IP on them. So, yes, I took some delight in asking "Where are your open source tee shirts?" True, it wasn't a substantive policy discussion, but it was (and still is) funny. I can only assume that it bothers him so because it touches on some concerns he may have about the hypocrisy of or lack of substance in his IP skepticism.
IPI (the Institute for Policy Innovation) has gotten into intellectual property policy over the past couple of years because it's always been an interest, and because we believe that intellectual property is a key policy issue of the 21st century. We believe that IP protection has been a key to the success of not only the U.S. economy, but also a boon to other nations who have adopted IP protection. So we believe that educating the public and policy makers on the importance of intellectual property, defending intellectual property, and advocating strong intellectual property protection are noble and important pursuits for a policy group like IPI, and we plan to continue in this area and to expand our work in coming months, as resources permit.
In the course of this work we have encountered others who have also identified IP policy as an area of focus--though from a different perspective. Some familiar forces have found convergence on the issue of intellectual property--the anti-corporatists, the anti-capitalists, the Microsoft-haters, the big-Pharma haters--and dare we say the overt socialists?
Now, not every member of this Free Culture/IP Skeptic/Access to Knowledge crowd is all of these things, but they have in common opposition to most IP protection. It is opposition to IP, or at least skepticism about the merits of IP protection, on which they have found common cause.
True, many of them claim to support the idea of IP in general. And many of them claim to be defenders of, say, copyright. But, like Larry Lessig, they seem to be opposed to each and every specific application of IP, and they only seem to be in favor of a new, redefined type of copyright under which the copyright owner insists only that no one profit from the copyright. These new forms of IP are, frankly, philosophical forms of IP, rather than practical or economic forms of IP. And they seem designed for the express purpose of discouraging economic activity based on ownership of ideas. [They won't get far, because they ignore essential facts about human nature, but that's another topic for a future time.]
We think engaging with these folks, and yes, opposing them, is important work, and we've endeavored to do so with vigor, with integrity, and with civility.
One of the folks we find ourselves frequently in conflict with is Jamie Love, of the Ralph Nader-founded Consumer Project on Technology, though Jamie also shows up under various other organization and coalition names. If you wonder about the accuracy of my characterization of Jamie and his positions, just spend a little time on his website.
We don't agree with Jamie's goals or his methods, and we increasingly find ourselves in conflict. Now, in the public policy business, opposition is something we are all accustomed to, and so it doesn't surprise me to find that there are people opposed to my particular take on an issue. I try not to question my opposition's motivations, and I try not to label them as unAmerican, or evil, or whatever. And I try to engage in civil discourse.
Jamie, however, believes that his opposition is wrong, immoral, and simply fronting for evil corporate interests. I've seen Jamie come unhinged more than a few times, once yelling at a drug company executive over lunch that "people are dying because of what you are doing."
IPI has a firm policy of protecting the privacy of our supporters. Jamie is constantly digging at us about our funding, implying that our work is tainted or biased because of our funding, as if HE isn't also receiving funding. We know where some of Jamie's money comes from. It's predictably the usual suspects--a handful of left-leaning foundations. But I don't dig at Jamie because of HIS funding--I'm mature enough to understand that everyone in the public policy business is getting their funding from parties who agree with their take on the issues, whether they're foundations, corporations, individuals, or (most usually) some combination of all three.
This has been an overly-long attempt to provide some context for the following: Jamie has now singled us (me) out. He's sent out a posting to his list that is specifically critical of us and personally insulting.
Jamie's listservs are public, so I don't think he'll mind me posting the contents of one of his latest rants here on IPBlog. I post it because those who have been following some of the arguments and discussions on this blog should see how Jamie is characterizing our efforts when he speaks to his own crowd. I would NOT post private correspondence without permission--but this isn't private correspondence.
I further wondered whether reproducing his posting here wouldn't just unnecessarily give him more publicity. But, in the end, I decided that since Jamie so prizes access to knowledge, I would help him in his quest by giving IPBlog readers access to Jamie's knowledge.
Now, here's Jamie's recent rant, reproduced faithfully with the intention of accuracy.
Trademark confusion among self styled IP defenders
Recently a couple of the growing army of self styled IP defenders who seem to have sprouted up in the past 18 months (as the IFPMA doubles it budget and the pharma industry regroups after the 2001 Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, and the software and publishing industry worry about the Future of WIPO) have focused their attention on the issue of trademarks -- actually, the trademarks on the inside of A2K T-Shirts. Or even the use of the name "Civil Society Coalition."
One is the aspiring Rush Limbaugh of IP -- the Texan Tom Giovanetti who pumps out the tightly wound IPBlog, and another is Craig Winneker, who publishes on the Merck/Pharma/Microsoft sponsored TechCentral Station (http://www.techcentralstation.com/about.html), run by registered lobbyist James Glassman.
Both Giovanetti and Winneker seem completely astonished that A2K supporters (Access to Knowledge), would make A2K T-Shirts that have trademarks on the tag inside of the shirt, identifying the manufacturer of the Shirt. Both actually wrote about this, as evidence apparently of some hypocrisy among the "anti-IP" forces. On the other hand, Tom Giovanetti seem worked up that the "Civil Society Coalition" would object to IPN creating a "Civil Society Coalition for Development," that presented views that are contrary to the CSC's own views. The names are generic's he said, and we also wanted to know if the CSC had obtained trademark protection for its name.
This stupid little disputes illustrate more fundamental problems. Clearly Giovanetti and Winneker know nothing about IP, nor do they know anything about where groups actually stand on issues. There are no groups that I am aware of that insist on ZERO IP. Just about everyone is pretty nuanced in there positions. The GNU free software people use copyright as the basis of the GPL. Just about any group tries to build and protect "brands" and trademarks, which they use for public relations purposes as well as fundraising. No one thinks it is cool to pass off your views as those of another group, with an intent to deceive (except in cases involving parody). The whole Creative Commons project is based upon the notion that authors are willing to share some, but not all rights in copyrighted works. NGOs have very different views on patents, in many different dimmensions, including field of technology, level of development of a country, in areas of standard setting, etc, and they have various views on what constitutes an abuse of a patent or a copyright claim, or how much a government should move the patent system toward liability rules (as has been proposed by BSA for the USA, and has been done for patents on seeds in Europe), or how far rights should extend, and where rights should be limited (such as the research exception, fair use, etc).
Despite all of this fairly important complexity, these new "pro IP" advocates are running around making absurd statements about what people are for or against, or even what treaties say, or actual US or European laws are, and either deliberately misleading people about things, or they are just too ignorant to know the difference.
Why do Merck, Pharma, Microsoft and others fund groups like these, and why is the money flowing so freely on this type of activity right now? Is the increasingly aggressive smear campaign designed by people who actually do know about IP, and just find it useful to have these attacks directed at NGOs and government's they don't like?
As further background, the disputes Jamie references in the following listserv posting were as follows: 1) our gentle teasing as Jamie passed out tee shirts that carried two different forms of IP protection, and 2) an incident where Jamie came unhinged because of a briefing that was being put on by another public policy organization.
One final word on the tee shirt issue: I'm sorry, but it just struck me as very funny (and still does) to listen to Jamie day after day prattling on about how harmful IP is, and how the whole enlightened world is realizing the problems with IP and is moving to alternate incentive systems that don't involve the ownership of ideas, and then to see him passing out his tee shirts with (not one but) two different forms of IP on them. So, yes, I took some delight in asking "Where are your open source tee shirts?" True, it wasn't a substantive policy discussion, but it was (and still is) funny. I can only assume that it bothers him so because it touches on some concerns he may have about the hypocrisy of or lack of substance in his IP skepticism.