[Lac] Mensaje de APC para el Caucus LAC

[valeriab at apc.org]

Dear colleagues in the APC LAC WSIS caucus:

This message is an attempt to provide some clarification in
response to some of the comments that have been made about the
APC and its position on various issues in this space. As Danilo
Lujambio from Nodo Tau, APC member and also on the APC
executive board already indicated, APC is a network and therefore
the remarks below reflect the general sentiment in the APC rather
than an officially endorsed 'position' by all members.

- APC's approach to issues of patents, copyright, trademarks

While we still make use of the term 'intellectual property' we believe
that it is a problematic term, as it tends to apply a common
approach to very different issues.

We believe that current regimes that govern patents, trademarks
and copyright are fundamentally unfair, and that they limit
innovation, protect the interests of corporations rather than
individual creators and they entrench the inequality in access to
ICTs and information between rich and poor countries.

In our ICT policy work we try to explore these issues in more depth,
and from the perspectives of a variety of actors on which they
impact. As we do this we constantly learn more.

In our publication 'ICT Policy: A Beginner's Handbook'
http://www.apc.org/books/ we present a critical perspective and try
to  provide background to the  issues, and also tell several stories of
the negative impacts, and sometimes the absurdity that current IPR
leads to.

There is no doubt about APC believing that current regimes that
govern patents and copyright are fundamentally unjust and
destructive. See: http://derechos.apc.org/ip/index.shtml

We have also consistently for the last few years released our
information and software as open content.

APC is one of the founding members of the CRIS (Communications
Rights in the Information Society) Campaign and in general support
the points made in the CRIS issue paper on 'intelectual property'.
http://www.crisinfo.org/content/view/full/171/

- FLOSS

APC has been publically committed to FLOSS since the late 1990s.
Many of APC's member organisations were among the first users
and promoters of FLOSS.

Within the APC community different members have integrated
FLOSS into their work to different degrees, in most cases they have
played a leading role in bringing the importance and the power of
FLOSS to the attention of their user communities.  APC members
and team, and partners, have expressed their commitment to
FLOSS in the  APC Internet Rights Charter
http://derechos.apc.org/charter.shtml.

In September of this year, APC-Africa-Women (the regional network
of APC Women´s Networking Support Programme) together with
our member Women´s Net are organizing the first FLOSS camp for
African women.

While we are promoting FLOSS through various projects, at APC
network level, and through the work of our individual members, we
do not believe that it is necessary that we impose FLOSS solutions
on the people and communities we work with in the way that
monopolistic proprietary solutions have been imposed on ICT users
for so long.

We believe that it is important to have choice, and for civil society
organisations to feel empowered to make decisions about the ICT
solutions they choose. It is also important that they have access to
support and training to use those solutions sustainably.

Therefore, while we promote FLOSS, many APC members are not
in a position to abandon providing support to the many CSOs who
do not yet use FLOSS, and for whom it might not be viable in the
near future to do so.

See: http://derechos.apc.org/software/index.shtml

- APC's association with Teresa Peters from Bridges.org

APC contracted Ms. Teresa Peters from Bridges.org as a trainer for
an ICT policy workshop in Cartagena in 2003.

Bridges.org is an NGO that is based in Cape Town South Africa.
They do extensive work in ICTs for development in Africa, and APC
projects imembers in Africa work with Bridges.org from time to time.

We had contracted Bridges.org to develop some training materials
and to deliver some training for a series of workshops in Africa. It
was in the light of this that we invited Teresa to participate in the
Cartegena workshop.  We were aware that we do not agree with all
her positions, and had in fact given her feedback to that effect long
before the Cartagena workshop. But we generally do not stop
working with everyone that we do not fully agree with.

While APC and Bridges.org do not have common positions on
several issues (for example FLOSS) we respect their views and the
quality of their work and certainly do not feel that we have nothing to
learn from them.  For example we have recently looked at their work
on 'Real Access'
http://www.bridges.org/digitaldivide/realaccess.html which we find
very useful.

Please do let me know if there are any questions, or points requiring
clarification.

Sincere regards

Anriette Esterhuysen
APC Executive Director
16 July 2004


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Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
http://www.apc.org
PO Box 29755, Melville, South Africa. 2109
Tel. 27 11 726 1692
Fax 27 11 726 1692