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Summary and Report on the outcomes of the Asia Commons Conference and BOAF meeting

From ICommons wiki

1 Towards a Healthy Asia Commons

[edit] Towards a Healthy Asia Commons

This article was submitted to http://www.i4donline.net magazine for their July issue.

Prepared by:

Sarah Kerr, Technical Officer, Bellanet International Secretariat

Hempal Shrestha, Program Officer, Bellenat Asia (“BellaSAP”): a collaborative initiative of SAP International and Bellanet

A resume of emerging ideas and initiatives from Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons and the iCommons iSummit '06 session “Building an Asia Commons Community”

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons which took place June 6-8, 2006 in Bangkok covered a wide variety of topics through presentations, discussions and topics raised by participants themselves. Half of the conference was devoted to topics which were not pre-planned by organisers. Instead, they were raised by participants in the session “Towards a Healthy Asia Commons: What are the Ideas and Issues?” Participants raised topics which were of importance to them, and formed discussion groups with other interested individuals. From these ideas, action plans for further initiatives emerged.

A gathering of Creative Commons collaborators in Asia also took place at the iCommons iSummit '06 under the session titled “Building an Asia Commons Community”. The iCommons Summit '06, took place from June 23-25, 2006 in Rio de Janeiro. Creative Commons is a a philosophy, movement and licensing scheme that offers flexible copyright licenses for creative works, through the use of these licenses the digital commons is enriched. The Creative Commons community in Asia therefore has many synergies with the community which emerged during the Asia Commons conference.

Many Asia Commons participants expressed that the Asia Commons initiative should not terminate with the conclusion of the conference. The ideas shared in the conference and documented in the Asia Commons wiki should continue to be available online to be taken forward.

[edit] Emerging Ideas

The following is a small selection of ideas and initiatives which emerged both out of the Asia Commons conference and some ideas shared during the iSummit '06 session “Building an Asia Commons Community”.

[edit] From Asia Commons

Building an Asian Network on Access to Knowledge (A2K)
Idea Initiator: Dong Calmada
Idea Discussion Summary: Levels of awareness and advocacies on A2K (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2K) is relatively low – governments are neither aware nor heedful of their mandates to fulfill, respect, and protect their citizens' rights related to access to knowledge. It is proposed, among other ideas, that an Asian network on A2K should be formed to give support to groups or movements.
Full Details: http://wikis.bellanet.org/asia-commons/index.php/Building_an_Asian_Network_on_A2K

Countering Intellectual Property (IP) Propaganda
Idea Initiator: Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum
Idea Discussion Summary: There are a variety of IP myths. Some of these include that the creative industeries will die without a strong IP regime, that IP is beneficial for developing counteries and that there are large losses caused by IP theft. These myths circulate in different forms and are targetted to different people, from enforcing agencies to industry to consumers. What are some of the ways in which we can think of countering the dominant IP myths/propaganda?
Full Details: http://wikis.bellanet.org/asia-commons/index.php/Countering_IP_Propaganda

Open Alternatives and Open Access
Idea Initiator: Fouad Riaz Bajwa, Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan (FOSSFP)
Idea Discussion Summary: Open Access provides opportunities to publish freely accessible peer reviewed or quality research as well as accessing ongoing research. Traditional journals with high subscription fees reduce access to research taking place in the 'knowledge world'. One of many suggested actions: Promote Open Access in public and private academia, government and research institutes.
Full Details: http://wikis.bellanet.org/asia-commons/index.php/Open_Alternatives_and_Open_Access

Training Module on “The Commons for Commoners: Intellectual Property (IP) Rights and Wrongs”
Idea Initiator: Al Alegre, Foundation for Media Alternatives
Idea Discussion Summary: A public education campaign to advance the Commons agenda can be initiated through the creation of a one-day training module and holding training seminars throughout Asian countries. This would be targetted to those with no prior knowledge of the issues of IP (patents, copyright), public domain, etc.
Full Details: http://wikis.bellanet.org/asia-commons/index.php/Basic_Module_on_the_Commons

[edit] From iCommons iSummit '06

Comparative Country-Level Studies of Status of Copyright Laws in Asia
Idea Initiator: Hempal Shrestha, Bellanet Asia (“BellaSAP”)
Summary: The research report “Copyright and Access to Knowledge” by Consumers International (CI) Asia Pacific Office (http://www.ciroap.org/a2k) produced policy recommendations on flexibilities in copyright laws. CI also produced 2 detailed country-level reports for Indonesia and Thailand. These body of research can be expanded to include additional countries in Asia-Pacific, conducted by interested citizens of these countries, such as members of the Asia Commons network or Asian Creative Commons collaborators.

Creative Commons Asia Meeting
Idea Initiator: Yonnie Kim, Creative Commons Korea
Summary: It is proposed to have an Asian regional-level meeting, taking a format such as a “ccSalon” (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Salon). The purpose of this would be to “build a community of artists and developers [in Asia] around Creative Commons licenses, standards, and technology”.

Promoting Creative Commons in Asia: Asia-Wide Art Competition
Idea Initiator: Alina Ng, Creative Commons Malaysia
As a means of promoting Creative Commons license adoption and uses in Asia, a competition for art licensed under a Creative Commons license (jurisdiction of an Asian country) could be organised. The same idea has been used with much success in Malaysia.

[edit] What is the Asian Digital Commons?

One larger question which emerged around the Asia Commons conference was what exactly is the 'Asian' digital commons? How is it different from the global digital commons?

There was much discussion around this topic. As an idea to a response, the following was collaboratively written by Asia Commons conference participants in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Commons):

“The Concept of an 'Asian Commons'

There are some theses on why the Commons idea in Asia would be different from those elsewhere. For example:

common village land is still in existence in Asia, not in the West;
the problems of access are more serious in most Asian countries;
piracy (or illegal copying of software, music and audio CDs or DVDs) is stronger than in the West.

More specifically, the term Asia Commons is the movement to create and sustain the Commons in Asia.”

Do you have ideas of your own to share? Do you want to join the Asia Commons community? Please join us through: http://www.asia-commons.net

Sarah and Hempal in Rio