Brazilian Minister Gilberto Gil: "WIPO can not ignore the emergency of a new thought and cooperative ways of stimulating creation" Thursday 30 November 2006 Last Tuesday, the 28th of November,  World Culture Forum  had as its main activity the  I Creative Economy for Development International Forum . The  Centre for Technology and Society  (CTS) of  Fundação Getúlio Vargas Law School  was represented on the  Intellectual Property Rights and Development  symposium and on the  IP Rights and Multilateral Agreements: What’s Next?  workshop. With the participation of the Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, Professor Ronaldo Lemos ( Creative Commons Brazil  and  CTS ), Richard Owens ( WIPO , Geneve), John Howkins (writer and consultant on TV, film and creative economy, UK), Sérgio Sá Leitão ( Brazilian Development Bank  - BNDES, Brazil), Garry Neil ( International Network for Cultural Diversity , Canada) and Joxean Fernández ( UNESCO , Uruguay), the  Intellectual Property

  It has just taken place at Copacabana Palace, in Rio de Janeiro, a press conference of the International Federation of the Phonografic Industry (IFPI). Even though FGV had gotten oficial accreditation to participate on the conference, the Centre for Technology and Society´s team of professors WERE BARRED FROM ENTERING the room. FGV team of professors, Carlos Affonso Souza, Pedro Paranaguá, and Sérgio Branco, were told that the room could fit only 40 persons but they already had around 50 inside it. When asked if the professors could have access and keep standing at least to hear the debate, they were told that there was no room even for standing. However, after having talked to journalists from TV SBT, O Estado de Sao Paulo, Reuters, Associated Press, Folha de Sao Paulo amongst others, the professors were told that the room was not full and that there were places available. They tried to obtain the press release, but they were told that IFPA ran out of the copies, and that their repr

  Almost everything that we touch, use or simply see, even eat is directly or indirectly protected by what has come to be known as intellectual property (IP). Almost everything is now protected: the chemical formula in wall paints, the songs we listen to on the radio or mp3 players, these devices themselves, the books we read on airplanes - and the dozens of airplane parts like the engines, landing systems etc. – the medicines we take, genetically modified foods, as well as fertilizers and pesticides used in agriculture, the photograph on a postcard we send our families, the film we see at the movies as well as the screen projector and the list goes on. It’s human knowledge being made concrete. How did this all come about? Intellectual Property rights, all put in the same basket: patents, copyrights, software, databases, location detectors etc. It’s the consolidation of intellect, thoughts or even ideas. It’s the protection of investment. There would be nothing wrong in protecting such

  Após o 11º   CONEB - Conselho Nacional de Entidades Base , ocorrido em abril, em Campinas, no encontro da União Nacional dos Estudantes (UNE), que reuniu por volta de 13 mil estudantes do Brasil inteiro, o Movimento Copiar Livro é Direito! começou a se expandir. O Movimento tem como objetivo que estudantes possam fotocopiar partes de livros para seus estudos. O Copiar Livro é Direito! surgiu em resposta às ações da Associação Brasileira de Direitos Reprográficos (ABDR), que representa algumas editoras no Brasil. A ABDR tem processado universidades e diretórios acadêmicos em cinco estados brasileiros - São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Ceará e Rio Grande do Sul - pela realização de fotocópias. Até agora, 18 instituições foram acionadas na Justiça. A Lei de Direitos Autorais brasileira, n. 9.610/98, diz que não constitui ofensa aos direitos autorais “a reprodução, em um só exemplar, de pequenos trechos, para uso privado do copista, desde que feita por este sem intuito de lucro”.