Dear cj, As you've noticed, one of the themes emphasized on this list is that sovereignty is being systematically transferred from nation states to corporate-controlled global commissions. Below we have a perfect example of how and why this process operates. WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) is exactly one of these faceless, unaccountable commissions -- of, by, and for megacorps, designed explicitly to accelerate the implementation of corporate global control beyond what can be obtained by subversion of individual nations. Despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has been packed by corporte-approved judges, ever since the days of the Warren court, the Court still retains sufficient respect for the Constitution and the democratic process that corporations can't get all they want quickly enough. In this case, the Court had the temerity to rule that "facts cannot be copyrighted." Back in the days of national sovereignty this would have been the end of the matter. But now that we have the basic structures of a world government in place, megacorps have a higher supreme court to appeal to, in this case WIPO. Do you have any idea how people are appointed to serve on WIPO? or what their qualifications need to be? or who they are accountable to? Have you seen TV hearings debating such appointments, as you did in recent cases of Supreme Court appoinments? Certainly not, and this is what I mean by such commissions being "faceless" and "unaccountable" and "beyond the democratic process". The fact is, just as the Militia people claim, that the Consitution is being sold down the river and power is being transferred to a world government. But fantasies about "UN troops occupying the U.S." are just so much X-Files-style propaganda, designed to confuse thinking about how such conspiracies actually operate. It isn't the UN that is at the center of the new world government. The UN is entirely too democratic to be trusted with power by the elite. The UN will certainly be exploited in those cases where it furthers elite interests, but it is this alphabet soup of commissions (WTO, WIPO, IMF, etc.) that embody the legislature and judiciary of world government. There is such a commission in existence for each domain of corporate concern, from agricultural policy, to pharmaceuticals, finance and monetary policy, tarrifs and trade, nuclear materials, communications, etc. Each is made up of corporate representatives, and in each case their goal is to set up systems which implement elite/megacorp control, with no concern for human welfare nor even for healthy economic operations. Megacorp monopoly is the economic paradigm, not productive competitiveness. "Free Trade" is "Big Lie". This compartmentalized regime may not look like a government, and certainly it would never claim to be, since it keeps its profile as low as possible. "Stealth" is a term normally associated with warplanes, but it accurately describes the process by which world government is being established. To return to the case at hand, consider what it means for this kind of strong copyright to become global policy. One must keep in mind various other trends, such as government records and reports being increasingly distributed by private firms, and the concentration of media/communications ownership into the hands of a small number of megacorps (Disney, Time-Warner, etc.). What we're heading for is a system where information itself -- scientific results, contents of legislation and congressional studies, descriptions of news events -- literally all knowledge and facts -- will be corporate owned, with copyright strictly enforced as information flows over government-monitorable cyberspace links. This is more than simply profit-motivated monopolization of information distribution -- though that's bad enough. It is also a politically-motivated consolidation of the mechanisms of mind-control into a small number of megacorp hands. What the megacorps choose not to tell us, no one else will be allowed to tell us. Government censorship is the tool of a bygone age -- welcome to the game of Idea Monopoly. -rkm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ CYBERLAND + David Hipschman American Reporter Correspondent Casper, Wyo. 11/12/96 cyberland 700/$7.00 THE BATTLE FOR NEW MEDIA COPYRIGHTS by David Hipschman American Reporter Correspondent CASPER, Wyo. -- "Content providers," as artists, photographers, writers and editors have come to be known in the more mercantile corners of the World Wide Web, have long been concerned about intellectual property rights and copyright as they apply to the Internet. In the Net environment theft of other people's work is easier because of the anonymous nature of the medium. More protection, or a limit on the free-flow of information -- depending on which side of the discussion you find yourself upon -- may come in December, when the World Intellectual Property Organization will consider the draft of a new treaty that would require countries, including the United States, to limit the public's right to use pubic domain materials stored in "databases." According to James Love of Consumer Project on Technology (http://www.essential.org/cpt), some experts say the proposed treaty is potentially the most anti-competitive ever created. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is accepting public comment on the treaty, and a companion digital copyright treaty. Comments are due by November 22, and may be submitted via email to •••@••.•••. Copies of the treaty, commentary, and the PTO federal register notice are available at http://www.public-domain.org - the site gives background information on the treaty and the problems it may present. The database treaty, according to Love's posting to a listserv, came about at the urging of large publishing companies in response to a 1991 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service(http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/classics/499_340v.htm). In the ruling, according to Love, the Court rejected a claim of copyright protection for a phone directory, saying facts cannot be copyrighted, and "listing names, addresses, and telephone numbers in alphabetical order, are not sufficiently creative to qualify for copyright protection." ~--<snip>--~ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - Wexford, Ireland Cyberlib: www | ftp --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
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