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Even though not many would expect the summit in Geneva to lay the foundations for a new and different Information Society the event has a symbolic meaning.
Although few would expect the World Summit to lay the foundations for a
“people-centred, inclusive and development oriented Information Society,
where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and
knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve
their full potential” – the official intention of the Summit - the event
is charged with symbolic meaning and could modify modes of legitimacy in
the realm of information policies. And it shows that information can and
should be the subject of political deliberation.
But information is not just supplementary to existing economies.
Intellectual Property (IP) has become a key economic factor, decisive
for the distribution not only of information, but of power and wealth.
Based on these premises, World-Information.Org has produced an infopaper
on Intellectual Property issues. The paper is being distributed at the
WSIS and other related events is also downloadable from the
World-Information.Org web site, where hard copies can also be requested.
The paper features 18 distinguished authors who discuss different
aspects of the IP with regard to their ambivalent role in the building
of a just information order. How can the information commons be
preserved in view of advancing IP regimes that benefit large
corporations and lock the former third world into a state of
underdevelopment? How can open access systems contribute to an open
science environment and to free cultural production? Why are software
patents problematic?
But IP issues are largely absent from the WSIS agenda. According to Alan
Toner, a member of the Autonomedia collective and one of the authors in
the infopaper, this is “not by oversight, but for strategic reasons”.
The term information society sometimes refers to the expansion of
digital networks, sometimes to the permeation of labour by information
processes, sometimes at the shift from tangible to intangible goods.
Beyond these different meanings, the concept seems to be held together
by strong sense of necessity: "‘Information Society’ seemed to imply
something inexorable, a consequence of the massive mediatisation of the
preceding years, outside any one set of strategic interests - something,
we were constantly reminded, ‘we would all have to adapt to.’"
If adaptation is a foregone conclusion, then there is no reason why the
WSIS should address the most decisive factor in the actual shaping of
the IS, intellectual property. In fact, just how neatly reactionary
politics, information society rhetoric and the strategic suppression of
IP issues at WSIS fit together is exemplified by the WSIS Award™.
Protected as a Trademark, the Award is based on an understanding of the
Information Society as a market whose "best products" it wants to
honour. No one will be surprised that the Austrian Chancellor Schüssel,
the driving force behind the Berlusconization of media policies his
country, is one of the masterminds of the Award.
But Vienna is also the site of counter initiatives against such highly
problematic schemes. Themes discussed in the infopaper will be debated
live on two evenings (17 / 19 December), seeking a critical appraisal of
the WSIS Geneva sessions. Guests will include Alan Toner and Felix
Stalder, as well as representatives of Amnesty International,
Greenpeace, Quintessenz, and other NGOs.
Finally, on 10 December, the day of the opening of WSIS Geneva, a 50
meter long banner with the inscription “Save the Digital E-cology” was
set up on Viennas central Karlsplatz in order to draw the attention to
the urgency of sustainable and forward-looking information policies on a
global level. Please check the URL below for photos.
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++LINKS++
World Summit of the Information Society
>>>  http://www.wsis.org
World-Information.Org info paper download
>>> http://world-information.org/wio/wsis
>>> (For hard copies send a mail to  info@world-information.org)
World Summit Award
>>> http://www.europrix.org/wsis-award/index.htm
WSIS Public Netbase events
>>> http://www.t0.or.at/wsis2003/
Photos of banner on Karlsplatz
>>> http://www.t0.or.at/wsis2003/pics.php
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DIGITAL ECOLOGY