[wos] ADELPHI CHARTER

[Volker Grassmuck]

------- Forwarded message follows -------

Dear all
Apologies for cross-posting
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and 
Commerce (RSA) founded 1754 in London, a very eminent organisation 
with worldwide influence, last night launched its Adelphi Charter on 
Creativity, Innovation and Intellectual Property. The RSA Adelphi 
Charter has been drawn up by an international commission of 
distinguished scientists, artists, librarians and legal experts. It 
calls upon governments and the international community to adopt the 
following fundamental principles:
· The purpose of intellectual property laws is to enhance 
creativity and innovation 
· All intellectual property rights must be measured against the 
public interest 
· The public interest requires a balance to be struck between 
the monopoly rights implicit in intellectual property laws and the 
free competition that is essential for economic and creative 
vitality.
It also calls upon governments to adopt the ˜Adelphi Public Interest 
Test™:
· There must a presumption against extending intellectual 
property 
· Change should be allowed only if it is shown to bring economic 
and social benefits 
· The burden of proof must lie with the advocates of change 
· Throughout there must be wide public consultation and a 
comprehensive, objective and transparent assessment of the costs and 
benefits
I attended the launch last night (which was a full house in the RSA™s 
Great Room) where the discussion was more on copyright and the 
enclosure of the knowledge commons through legislation and DRMS 
rather than patents (although they too were discussed). Jamie Boyle 
(William Neil Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School who was a 
driving force behind the Geneva Declaration 2004) and Sir John 
Sulston (2002 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology or Medicine for his 
work on the Human Genome Project) and John Howkins, RSA Director of 
the Adelphi Project (whose idea it was two years ago) spoke with 
reactions from Commission members Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of 
The British Library and Cory Doctorow, European Affairs Coordinator 
of the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (and sci-fi author). 
Identifying myself as representing both LACA and IFLA-CLM, I asked 
the ˜what are they going to do next and what can we do™ question. 
The Adelphi Charter Commission has produced an excellent text and is 
just starting work to promote the Charter, which is to be sent to the 
world™s governments and to heads of international organisations 
including WIPO, WTO, UNESCO and the UN itself. In my view it is 
important that librarians throughout the world, as representatives of 
our professional organisations both nationally and internationally, 
now take up the Adelphi Charter™s nine Principles and actively engage 
with governments, legislators and the member states of international 
organisations such as WIPO, WTO and UNESCO, as well as other 
stakeholders, to persuade them to adopt the Charter into the fabric 
of their intellectual property work. The nine Principles of the 
Charter are something which we for instance can start to raise in 
interventions at WIPO SCCR next month particularly if Chile pursues 
its proposal on exceptions and limitations. John Howkins told me 
afterwards that there is to be a sign-up on the website but it isn™t 
there “ at least not as yet.
This is a very important initiative which I feel we should support 
wholeheartedly and use in our advocacy and lobbying on copyright and 
related rights. Please consider disseminating information about the 
Adelphi Charter to your governments, legislators, professional 
organisations and professional and national news media etc in your 
own countries and use it as a tool wherever it proves useful. If it 
becomes well known and accepted this will help it to gain stature as 
a standard against which ip legislation and ip licences should be 
measured. 
Adelphi Charter Press Release at 
http://www.rsa.org.uk/news/news_closeup.asp?id=1264 
Adelphi Charter text and Commission members list and contacts at 
www.adelphicharter.org 
See also¦
Call to restrict 'stifling' patents
A charter on intellectual property drawn up by the Royal Society of 
Arts is calling for strict limits to patents and copyright..
Financial Times 14/10/05 p9 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bb476a86-3c53-
11da-94fb-00000e2511c8.html or
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3e3b14aa-3c1e-11da-94fb-00000e2511c8.html 

Barbara Stratton
Senior Adviser, Copyright at CILIP and Secretary to LACA
E-mail: Barbara.Stratton at cilip.org.uk Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 0624 
(direct)
CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 0500 Fax: +44 (0)20 7255 0501 Textphone: +44 
(0)20 7255 0505 
General e-mail: info at cilip.org.uk Web: www.cilip.org.uk LACA Web 
Site: www.cilip.org.uk/laca  




------- End of forwarded message -------