Things are starting to move again at WIPO.. With the first meeting of a
Development Agenda Committee due at the end of February (I have my plane
tickets already), Chile has submitted an interesting proposal
(.pdf).
Core points are:
Proposal 1: Appraisal of the public domain
Proposal 2: Importance of complementary systems to and in intellectual
property
Proposal 3: Study for assessing what are the appropriate levels of
intellectual property, considering the particular situation in each
country, specifically its degree of development and institutional capacity
And Free Software is in there, too:
[...] it should be considered that the specific intellectual property
system enables creators and innovators, and also rightsholders in
general, to implement various models for the dissemination or
exploitation of creations or innovations, such as open licensing
systems. Within such creations or innovations, the expansion of free
software and other open licenses such as Creative Commons suggests the
need to identify, study and disseminate the licensing options which
co-exist within the intellectual property system.
