The wi-fi in the hotel hosting the conference has packed up for a reason no-one can explain, so liveblogging may not be as live as we'd wish. I've popped next door to use the shakey connection in our hotel to report on this morning's opening panel on strategies for an "international commons".
Cory Doctorow opened with tales from WIPO with the simple message that just turning up at the organisation's negotiations in Geneva can have a powerful effect on what it does. The arrival of NGOs at WIPO is only a very recent development, and is already causing some seismic shifts. Even the simple act of writing down and blogging what is said at WIPO meetings produces responses from member governments and citizens, partially because the informal notes taken are more comprehensible than the secretariat's official-ese. The reps of developing countries are eager to hear the perspectives of NGOs, Cory says, because the only side they hear is from major right-holders bodies.
Jimmy Wales provided some updates on wikipedia -- now that it's one of the top20 most-visited websites, Jimmy has joined the shortlist of people who are asked "what the Internet thinks" -- and how one person in Taiwan is helping to get people within china access to wikipedia from behind the Great Firewall of China. His key point was that Wikipedia not a technological innovation but a social innovation, and that the site's growth is a reflection of growing knowledge about systems of sharing worldwide. CC is helping to bring this about, he added.
James Love of CPTech spoke of global Access to Knowledge nitiatives that are underway, including the Development Agenda at WIPO, the possibility of the WTO taking up an A2K treaty, and efforts to shift incentive models for drug development away from monopoly control that even has the Bush administration paying attention.
The tensions and difficulties inherent in linking local initiatives to the global realm remain, but this panel was pretty inspiring with regards to the possibilities that people in this room are working on bringing about.
