Legal Protection: Multilateral Agreements

With the rise of a global economic system a desire to establish agreements, which protect works not only within national borders, but also within a "Union" of countries or on an international level, has been expressed. As a consequence a variety of multilateral treaties have been negotiated and adopted by governments. Those shall simplify practice through international standardization and mutual recognition of rights and duties among nations.


TEXTBLOCK 1/2 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611725/100438659570
 
History: "The South"

In many traditional Southern countries awe and mystery surround the created object into which the creator projects spirit and soul. Also in contrast with the Western individual-based concept of intellectual property rights it is custom to recognize 'collective', 'communal' or 'folkloric' copyright. Folkloric copyright acknowledges rights to all kinds of knowledge, ideas and innovations produced in 'intellectual commons'. Such rights are not limited to the lifetime of an individual but rather exist in perpetuity with a specific group or an entire people.

Islamic Tradition

Already early Islamic jurists recognized a creator's right or copyright and offered protection against piracy. Traditional Islamic law treats infringement as a breach of ethics, not as a criminal act of theft. Punishment is carried out in the form of defamation of the infringer and the casting of shame on his tribe. Only in recent years many Islamic countries have adopted formal copyright statutes.

TEXTBLOCK 2/2 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611725/100438659436
 
skytale

The skytale (pronunciation: ski-ta-le) was a Spartan tool for encryption. It consisted of a piece of wood and a leather-strip. Any communicating party needed exactly the same size wooden stick. The secret message was written on the leather-strip that was wound around the wood, unwound again and sent to the recipient by a messenger. The recipient would rewound the leather and by doing this enciphering the message.

INDEXCARD, 1/2
 
Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs are pictures, used for writing in ancient Egypt. First of all those pictures were used for the names of kings, later more and more signs were added, until a number of 750 pictures

INDEXCARD, 2/2