Hi Ken and friends,
Well, my names are Remmy Nweke, I am a senior reporter on ICT with Daily Champion, Lagos-Nigeria.
To open the debate, we can try to answer the following questions:
- To what extent does the development of information technologies (and to put it short, the emergence of the information society) impact the traditional concept of IPR? What are the consequences?
I think the impact of traditional concept of IPR is gradually dying off the consequences include that we will eventually have a 'free' society that is not being check mated unnecessary and placed on the shoulder of the highest bidder or who can afford, thus making information flow freely to an extent, because some information/innovatiion etc are still under key. And I think they would continue to be so for the likes of Open Source to thrive, even though it seems free in the sense that it helps to cut cost.
- Which are the specific issues of IPR (copyright, patents, etc.) for Africa, in the information society? How to face these issues?
The specific issues for IPR on the continent should be the patents of its own products, while copyright education must take its rightly space in the scheme of things. Patent must be dealt with in a way to maximally benefit Africa among other Least Developed Countries (LDCs) for them to make some in roads.
- Are the international legal instruments that are being put in place to protect IPR good for Africa?
As of today, I do not know of any legal instruments that are being put in place to protect IPR good for Africa specifically, but itis very relevant and one must be established, even if it is a commission for IPR on Africa via AU or NEPAD to facilitate the kind of development we look up to.
I don't know of any African copyright owner who have the guts for now to go to court on the continent for an IPR issue(s) and even if, what kind of judiciary system do we have in place to address this,especially in the books.
- Are the African legal instruments developed in this field favourable to African interests?
This brings us to the issues I raised above and I think the answer for now is simply NO and that is more reason we need to develop evenly within our very own scopes of the system,too much gap would worsen the situation.
- etc.
Feel free to raise other general issues and do not hesitate to share with us your concrete experiences
Ken LOHENTO
CIPACO Coordinator, Week 1 moderator
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Ken Lohento
Coordinator of the Centre for International ICT Policies
Central and West Africa (CIPACO)
Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA) - ICT Programme
6, rue Calmette BP 21 132
Dakar Ponty - Senegal
Tel.: +221 849 16 65
www.cipaco.org
www.panos-ao.org