Copyright history. Part 7: Raid seizure by Pfizer
Ending.
The first part is the Black Death .
The second part is Bloody Mary .
The third part - Monopoly dies ... and is reborn .
The fourth part - the United States and the library .
The fifth part - Non - property rights .
The sixth part - Raider capture by record companies .
In the 1970s, Toyota struck the United States to the heart, and all American politicians felt that the end was near. The most American of all things - cars! American cars! - Suddenly they were not good enough for the Americans. Instead, they bought cars Toyota. It was an apocalyptic sign - the United States could no longer compete with Asia, and their industrial power was nearing decline.
This is the last part of my series of articles on the history of copyright monopoly. The period from 1960 to 2010 was marked by two processes: first, the penetration of the once exclusively commercial monopoly into non-commercial, private life (“home recording is illegal” and similar nonsense), as a result of which copyright became a threat to fundamental human rights; secondly, corporate political expansion of copyright and other monopolies. The first process, during which the intellectual property industry predicted a catastrophe after each new round of technological progress, deserves a separate article . Here I will focus on the second process.
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When politicians realized that the United States was no longer able to retain economic leadership, producing something valuable and vital, they created many committees and working groups that had one goal - to find the answer to the crucial question: how can the United States remain a world leader without the ability to produce competitive goods?
The answer came from an unexpected source - from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
On July 9, 1982, the New York Times published a fierce article by Pfizer President Edmund Pratt, entitled “Theft of Ideas,” about how Third World countries steal from Pfizer (stealing means making medicines from local raw materials in local factories using their own knowledge and time for own citizens who died from the terrible, but quite treatable diseases prevalent in the third world). The political elite saw in the position of Pratt a possible answer to his question and invited him to head one of the committees, subordinate directly to the president - the Consultative Committee on trade negotiations.
Under the leadership of Pratt, the Committee adopted recommendations, so daring and provocative that no one was sure whether to try them or not: it was proposed to link trade relations and foreign policy. Any country that refused to sign profitable US “free trade” agreements was subject to political pressure, the most famous example of which is the black lists from a special report 301 that lists countries that do not respect copyright. Even Canada is included in these lists; in the countries mentioned in the lists, the majority of the world's population lives.
Thus, the solution to the problem of the inability to produce anything of value on the world market was to redefine the terms “produce”, “something” and “value” in the context of international politics, which was propelled by threats. It worked. The US Trade Representation followed the recommendations of the Consultative Committee on Trade Negotiations and began to put pressure on foreign governments, forcing them to enact laws favorable to American industry, sign bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements that protect American interests.
Thus, the United States formed a market in which they could lease drawings to the rest of the world in exchange for the finished products created for them. Under the new “free trade” treaties containing an artificial substitution of concepts, this was considered a fair deal.
This policy was supported by all American monopolists, both copyright and patent. Together, they made a second attempt at a raider seizure of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Bern Convention in order for their policies to receive legal support in the new trade agreement promoted under the Bern Plus brand.
It was at that moment that the United States decided to join the Bern Convention.
However, WIPO saw through this scheme and did not succumb to pressure and manipulation. WIPO was not created to give one country an advantage over the rest of the world. She was outraged by a blatant attempt to crush the copyright and patent monopolies under her.
So I had to look for other ways. Representatives of monopolies appealed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ( GATT ) and succeeded there. They managed, by hook or by crook, to force the majority of GATT participants to sign a new agreement, which, on the basis of the Bern Convention, redefined the terms “production”, “goods”, “value” and significantly strengthened the position of the US industry. This agreement is called the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ( TRIPS ). After the ratification of this agreement, GATT was renamed the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 52 GATT member countries that refused to join the WTO were soon forced to do so, being under serious economic pressure. Only one country survived out of the 129 original GATT members.
The TRIPS agreement was heavily criticized for making the rich richer and the poor poorer, and when the poor had no money, they were forced to pay with their health and even their lives. This treaty forbade third world countries to produce medicines from their own raw materials in their own factories with their own hands for their own people. Over time, some contractual terms had to be mitigated in order to avoid catastrophic consequences.
But perhaps the most vivid example of how important artificial monopolies are for the United States was the story of Russia's attempts to join the WTO (it’s completely unclear for what purpose). The United States demanded that the AllofMP3 online music store be completely legal in Russia. This store traded mp3-files, was legally considered a music radio station and paid the appropriate license fees.
Let's see more in detail. At the negotiating table sat the United States and Russia. Former sworn enemies holding each other on a nuclear sight 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The United States had the opportunity to bargain for almost anything. And what did they demand?
Close the damn music store!
So it turns out how important the copyright monopoly is.
Let's sum up:
File sharing is not just a personal matter. It has been and remains a matter of global economic dominance. Let's exchange further to deprive monopolists of power and give it to people! If everyone shares cultural values, we will defeat the oppressors of freedom, as it once happened when we began to read books ourselves and threw off the shackles of the Catholic Church.
So ends the story of copyright as of 2011. The copyright and patent industry is now trying to repeat the TRIPS trick with the help of the ACTA agreement, which they now call the “TRIPS plus”. The last word in this matter has not yet been said. Let us make it so that in ten years a new chapter could be inscribed in this story, a chapter that publishing any information, disseminating it and sharing it became easier than ever before!
The first part is the Black Death .
The second part is Bloody Mary .
The third part - Monopoly dies ... and is reborn .
The fourth part - the United States and the library .
The fifth part - Non - property rights .
The sixth part - Raider capture by record companies .
In the 1970s, Toyota struck the United States to the heart, and all American politicians felt that the end was near. The most American of all things - cars! American cars! - Suddenly they were not good enough for the Americans. Instead, they bought cars Toyota. It was an apocalyptic sign - the United States could no longer compete with Asia, and their industrial power was nearing decline.This is the last part of my series of articles on the history of copyright monopoly. The period from 1960 to 2010 was marked by two processes: first, the penetration of the once exclusively commercial monopoly into non-commercial, private life (“home recording is illegal” and similar nonsense), as a result of which copyright became a threat to fundamental human rights; secondly, corporate political expansion of copyright and other monopolies. The first process, during which the intellectual property industry predicted a catastrophe after each new round of technological progress, deserves a separate article . Here I will focus on the second process.
')
When politicians realized that the United States was no longer able to retain economic leadership, producing something valuable and vital, they created many committees and working groups that had one goal - to find the answer to the crucial question: how can the United States remain a world leader without the ability to produce competitive goods?
The answer came from an unexpected source - from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
On July 9, 1982, the New York Times published a fierce article by Pfizer President Edmund Pratt, entitled “Theft of Ideas,” about how Third World countries steal from Pfizer (stealing means making medicines from local raw materials in local factories using their own knowledge and time for own citizens who died from the terrible, but quite treatable diseases prevalent in the third world). The political elite saw in the position of Pratt a possible answer to his question and invited him to head one of the committees, subordinate directly to the president - the Consultative Committee on trade negotiations.
Under the leadership of Pratt, the Committee adopted recommendations, so daring and provocative that no one was sure whether to try them or not: it was proposed to link trade relations and foreign policy. Any country that refused to sign profitable US “free trade” agreements was subject to political pressure, the most famous example of which is the black lists from a special report 301 that lists countries that do not respect copyright. Even Canada is included in these lists; in the countries mentioned in the lists, the majority of the world's population lives.
Thus, the solution to the problem of the inability to produce anything of value on the world market was to redefine the terms “produce”, “something” and “value” in the context of international politics, which was propelled by threats. It worked. The US Trade Representation followed the recommendations of the Consultative Committee on Trade Negotiations and began to put pressure on foreign governments, forcing them to enact laws favorable to American industry, sign bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements that protect American interests.
Thus, the United States formed a market in which they could lease drawings to the rest of the world in exchange for the finished products created for them. Under the new “free trade” treaties containing an artificial substitution of concepts, this was considered a fair deal.
This policy was supported by all American monopolists, both copyright and patent. Together, they made a second attempt at a raider seizure of the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Bern Convention in order for their policies to receive legal support in the new trade agreement promoted under the Bern Plus brand.
It was at that moment that the United States decided to join the Bern Convention.
However, WIPO saw through this scheme and did not succumb to pressure and manipulation. WIPO was not created to give one country an advantage over the rest of the world. She was outraged by a blatant attempt to crush the copyright and patent monopolies under her.
So I had to look for other ways. Representatives of monopolies appealed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ( GATT ) and succeeded there. They managed, by hook or by crook, to force the majority of GATT participants to sign a new agreement, which, on the basis of the Bern Convention, redefined the terms “production”, “goods”, “value” and significantly strengthened the position of the US industry. This agreement is called the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ( TRIPS ). After the ratification of this agreement, GATT was renamed the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 52 GATT member countries that refused to join the WTO were soon forced to do so, being under serious economic pressure. Only one country survived out of the 129 original GATT members.
The TRIPS agreement was heavily criticized for making the rich richer and the poor poorer, and when the poor had no money, they were forced to pay with their health and even their lives. This treaty forbade third world countries to produce medicines from their own raw materials in their own factories with their own hands for their own people. Over time, some contractual terms had to be mitigated in order to avoid catastrophic consequences.
But perhaps the most vivid example of how important artificial monopolies are for the United States was the story of Russia's attempts to join the WTO (it’s completely unclear for what purpose). The United States demanded that the AllofMP3 online music store be completely legal in Russia. This store traded mp3-files, was legally considered a music radio station and paid the appropriate license fees.
Let's see more in detail. At the negotiating table sat the United States and Russia. Former sworn enemies holding each other on a nuclear sight 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The United States had the opportunity to bargain for almost anything. And what did they demand?
Close the damn music store!
So it turns out how important the copyright monopoly is.
Let's sum up:
File sharing is not just a personal matter. It has been and remains a matter of global economic dominance. Let's exchange further to deprive monopolists of power and give it to people! If everyone shares cultural values, we will defeat the oppressors of freedom, as it once happened when we began to read books ourselves and threw off the shackles of the Catholic Church.
So ends the story of copyright as of 2011. The copyright and patent industry is now trying to repeat the TRIPS trick with the help of the ACTA agreement, which they now call the “TRIPS plus”. The last word in this matter has not yet been said. Let us make it so that in ten years a new chapter could be inscribed in this story, a chapter that publishing any information, disseminating it and sharing it became easier than ever before!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/162375/
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