"Copyright laws and policies cover many controversial issues that are linked to different disciplines, in science, culture, technology, economics, law and other fields. The concepts and issues in the field are also approached from different perspectives and with different political and economic agen
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das, sometimes in a misleading context, and often in an imprecise manner. For this reason, policymaking in the area of copyright, particularly in developing countries, has at best been guesswork and at worst uninformed. At the international level, debates and rule-making on copyright, as with other IP, are punctuated with propaganda, anecdotes and dogma. This is what Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and others have called ‘faith-based’ policymaking. Evidence to justify particular policies or laws is rare. Evidence of the real world impact of specific copyright or, for that matter, other IP laws or policies, is almost unheard of. The ACA2K project is unique because the work summarised in this book provides evidence both for policymaking and of the impacts of copyright in the real world. But this book, and the work of the ACA2K project, is not pioneering only because of the illuminating findings in all the eight study countries. It is pioneering also because of the replicable research methodology developed, and the interdisciplinary collaboration in an area that is usually seen as a preserve of lawyers. The project is also of immense importance because of its focus on education and learning materials in Africa, where copyright is always associated with the positive aspects of promoting African music and culture. This research tells us that while copyright laws and policies might have positive effects in one sector, the same is not necessarily universally true. Other project outcomes, such as building networked research capacity on the areas of IP, knowledge governance and development, and the exploratory work on examining the gender aspects of copyright and access, are also ground-breaking." (Foreword)
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"This book is a critical study of the political economy of communications in India. It explores the ways in which contexts, policies, and processes at national and international levels shape media structures and studies how a political economy-inspired approach can be used to understand both media d
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ominance and resistance. The author explores aspects of colonial political economy and how it has shaped the structure of media in India and in many other countries. It also discusses liberalization, privatization, and media politics in contemporary India. Divided into three sections—structures, means, and resistance—the chapters focus on both the electronic and the print media." (Publisher description)
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"Access to knowledge (A2K) is the umbrella term for a movement that aims to create more equitable public access to the products of human culture and learning. Fields of advocacy that it subsumes include most centrally copyright and patent law reform, open access, open data and open standards, but al
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so access to public information, broader communications rights such as freedom of expression, and issues around ownership of and participation in public media." (Page 2)
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"This report has looked at six successful intellectual property (IP) reform campaigns from around the world, and examined the strategies, messages and goals of the campaigners who fought them. Although each example has its own lessons to share, broad trends have emerged. Several of the most striking
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campaign successes employed the internet as a mobilising force. A template for such action emerges from examining these campaigns in concert. Almost without exception, campaigners worked in coalition with other stakeholders. These coalitions varied both in style and in substance, and examining those differences is instructive. The campaigns were fought on intellectual and emotional ground which was often some distance from the mechanism of intellectual property law itself. This observation should encourage campaigners to think about the merits and pitfalls of different messaging approaches. Finally, the observation that very few of the case studies emerge from countries in the developing world prompts the report to examine why this might be so, and to challenge campaigners to examine the value of a more global perspective. It’s fair to say that the issues that motivate IP reform activists go beyond the public messages their campaigns focussed upon. The upcoming campaign against the substantive issues contained in the plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement offers campaigners an opportunity to find and voice these concerns, concerns that have motivated them thus far to undertake the significant an impressive policy interventions in the global intellectual property space that have been detailed in this report. The time has come to for a mobilising critique against the flawed orthodoxy of tough, unwieldy global intellectual property regimes." (Conclusion, page 47)
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"The authors of all kinds of works, from the humble email to blockbuster films, rely on copyright to protect what they produce. But authors and those who use their work are often unclear about what copyright allows and what it prohibits. This book was written for those who want to learn about copyri
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ght in the 21st century. It explains copyright protection and what it means for copyright holders and copyright users. It also introduces readers to contemporary topics: digital rights management, open licences, software patents and copyright protection for works of traditional knowledge. A final chapter tries to predict how technology will change the publishing and entertainment industries that depend on copyright. The book assumes no special knowledge and avoids technical language as much as possible." (Publisher description)
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"The study showed that, in 2005, the contribution of the copyright-based industries (CIs) to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Ukraine amounted to 2.85 per cent or 12,583.54 million UAH. At the same time the total contribution of the core CIs constituted 1.54 per cent or 6,815.61 million UAH. The
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contribution of CIs to gross national production in 2005 amounted to 3.47 per cent, or 36,336.71 million UAH. The contribution of the core CIs to gross production constituted 2.07 per cent, or 21,714.34 million UAH. The total number of employees in the CIs in 2005 amounted to 360,412 persons or 1.91 per cent of the total working population of Ukraine." (Summary, page 4)
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"The total value added of the copyright-based industries in Colombia reached Col$9.5 millions of millions in 2005 (approximately 4,800 million US dollars) from Col$5.7 millions of millions in 2000. As a percentage of GDP, the CBI represented an average of 3.3 per cent throughout the period. In real
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terms, i.e. discounting price increases, the value added of the CBI grew 29 per cent in five years from Col$2.4 millions of millions in 2000 to Col$3.1 millions of millions in 2005 (at 1994 constant prices). During the period analyzed, the CBI had an average participation in GDP of 3.3 per cent. This rate is similar to the share of electricity and gas, slightly higher than the contribution of crude oil and natural gas extraction and more than double that of coffee and coal. The latter comparison emphasizes the importance of the CBI in national output since coffee and coal are two important Colombian exports, which have a significant share in the global market. The composition of the CBI is as follows: the core industries represent 56 per cent of the total value added generated by these economic activities, followed by interdependent (24 per cent), non-dedicated support (13 per cent) and partial copyright industries (8 per cent)." (Executive summary, page 10)
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