Professor Lessig Went To Beijing to Warn China Against ...

... US copyright policy

Mr Brett Gaylor, a Canadian from Montreal wrote and directed a thought provoking documentary 'RIP: A Remix Manifesto', which can be seen in 13 chapters via the internet, see here; which is an open invitation to remix it. The movie criticises copyright laws and intellectual property laws in general that constrain creativity instead of stimulating it. The 'Remix Manifesto':  

1. Culture always builds on the past;

2. The past always tries to control the future; 

3. Our future is becoming less free; 

4. To build free societies, you must limit control of the pas  was proposed by professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University and founder of the Center for Internet and Society and initiator of the Creative Commons movement. Now, what is this documentary saying about China?

In chapter 6 'Preachers, Lawyers and Criminals' professor Lessig is going to China to warn it against ... American copyright policy.

Mr Brett Gaylor: "Professor Lessig has been travelling the globe for over a decade sounding the alarm on its own country's copyright policy."

Professor Lawrence Lessig: "You know I am not anti-American, I am not trying to rally people against America. But I am against this particular version of American policy and I am embarrassed by it, because it is so extreme relative to our tradition and it does harm when this kind of extremism is forced on developing nations. And I think it is particularly appropriate then to come to developing nations and at least got them to recognise that there is another side to the story. So I felt like a lawyer with a guilty conscience, that somehow there must be a balance to this. And if a mess is being created, because lawyers were playing in the hands of these people who profit from this, then laywers need to be on the other side.         

 

In chapter 12 'Which road to the future? ' Mr Bruce Lehman who was the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office between 1993 and 1998, was interviewed. He talks about a "deal" between the US and the rest of the world, I think, not everybody was aware of the consequences at the time.  Mr Lehman is looking back to his legacy in a critical way. 

Mr Gaylor: "In the 1990s the US hatched a plan to trade the economy of things for the economy of ideas. 

And the man who would protect those ideas was . 

Mr Lehman: "In the Clinton administration my job was to be in charge of the intellectual property policy of the US both domestically and in terms of our diplomacy. 

You know in a modern economy I think wealth is a product of the mind. It is really in intellectual creations. 

You know in much of the world we live in a sea of piracy. And you can have sympathy for developing countries, but we made a deal. You know, if you go to a shopping mall in this country you cannot buy anything made in the US anymore, all comes from China or some other place like that. Well the reason for that is that we really opened up our markets. It was to basically abandon low wage manufacturing jobs and the ideas that we would compensate for that with higher wage high tech more intangible based jobs."

Cory Doctorow, writer of sci-fi novels and copyleft advocate and blogger of Craphound : "The idea was that they would convince the world's economies to adopt that prohibited the copying of American ideas without American permission. And in exchange it would require all the countries that wanted to manufacture stuff and export them here to adopt American copyright laws. And if they didn't they wouldn't be allowed to sell their physical goods here in America. And the World Trade Organisation would be the teeth."

Mr Lehman: "And the difficulty in the global trading system is that we met our part of the bargain, but these other countries did not theirs. 

Then images of Beijing's Shijiingshan Amusement Park are shown, which I blogged about in May 2007, see here . And you see a spokesperson of the park answering to the question: Is Mickey Mouse there? "No, that's a cat with big ears."

Mr Lehman: "I have to say that now we are more than a decade into our policies on digital copyrights I feel that it also has achieved the results that we wanted. "

"So I am thinking, you know, maybe we should have forgotten intellectual property rights internationally and gone for labour standards and the environment." 

  

continue reading ...

Zen And the Art Of Intellectual Property in China

I love that title (remix of perfect book title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig, which is a remix of the title Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel who brought Zen to Europe after WOII), and have repeated it like a mantra. All the time I meditated until there was an occasion to use the title. That time has come now that the universe has alligned to this mantra, at last.

The occasion is an interesting article in the Shanghai Daily (one page free the rest paid) and a fine adaptation of the article on Xinhua with the same title (shorter but free) "Commercialism or industrialization is path to truth of Zen" about the world famous Shaolin Monastery turning to intellectual property to spread its ideas.

In the article the author asks whether the ideals of Zen Buddhism can be reconciled with commercialism/industrialization. Good question, my first take would be yes, because "seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn." Here I would like to limit myself to some words on the three pillars of the Shaolin Monastary: Zen, martial arts and medicines.

Martial arts

Shaolin monks know not only how to use their hands (Plum flower fist, eigh flower fist and don't forget Dragon technique) and feet as lethal weapons. They also know how to protect their intellectual property rights assertively, as early as 1997; see the 2005 IP Dragon article about it here.

Martial arts. The Shaolin monastery tried to protect the incredible Shaolin kungfu style as an intangible cultural heritage with Chinese characteristics already in 2002, which was granted in 2006; see the 2006 IP Dragon article about it, here.

Medicines

China is keen to protect traditional Chinese medicines. My perception of traditional Chinese medicines is that the protection is difficult, since these medicines are highly personalised to each patient. Then again the medicines can be standardised. In 2007 Jia Hepeng wrote for Intellectual Property Watch that China still has problems with protecting traditional Chinese medicines, because of the gap between the patent system and the protection efforts for traditional knowledge, read here.

Zen 禪

Looking at the history of Zen Buddhism one could see this set of beliefs as an example of the benefits and appeals of remix, avant la lettre. It all started with Bodhidharma, an Indian prince, who went into China (teaching a special transmission outside normal Buddhist scripture), where the school of thought radically changed. This procedure happened again when the ideas were taken to Korea, and Japan and also to Vietnam it changed very much because of the influence of the local population. The result is that we now have an Indian version of Zen called Dhyāna, a Vietnamese version called Thiền, a Chinese version called Chán, a Korean version called Seon, and a Japanese version that obviously has become most popular in the West, called Zen and which is often used as a denominator of all these styles. I guess Zen is used in a dilutionary way for a long time.

I am doubtful if we would have such a wealth of branches in Zen Buddhism if the manifestations of Buddhism were protected and enforced by intellectual property rights after the time of the adventurous Bodhidharma, who went north to spread his ideas (Bodhidharma was not really infringing upon the intellectual property rights of Buddhism, even if there were any existent at the time, if he taught a special transmission outside scripture, as is said about him). Is remix the way to enlightenment?

continue reading ...