Link: http://www.petitiononline.com/CSGFeb11/petition.html
To: President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil
February 2011
This is an open letter to President Dilma Rousseff signed by international
organizations, academics and activists in support of the work of the Brazilian
society and government for the cultural commons
We are hopeful that the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, MinC, will continue its
leadership for inclusive public policies for culture for the 21st century.
Because Brazil has been so pioneering in this regard, let us mention just a few
elements that contributed to the worldwide attention paid to your country in
terms of Cultural Policies:
the open dialogue between government and society, which sets forth a vision of
democracy we all share;
- the Points of Culture, the Digital Culture Forum, the Forum of Free Media and
other projects that demonstrated new and innovative types of cultural networks
adaptive to the 21st century;
- the support for and development of free software and its adoption by public
institutions, which in turn has stimulated a new approach for the management of
shared resources. Brazil’s embrace of free software transcends - the cultural
sphere and is of major relevance, since it is one of the few worldwide
initiatives promoting digital commons as a governance strategy;
- the adoption of open licensing models – such as Creative Commons licenses –
by governmental institutions and publicly funded cultural organizations;
Brazil’s leadership in the attempts to enlist other countries to help implement
the Development Agenda of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). This
initiative is helping to balance the international system of intellectual
property in accordance with different stages of development and with new forms
of cultural production, ensuring access to knowledge;
- Brazil’s promotion of a broader international debate on limitations and
exceptions for the blind within WIPO together with other countries and
international civil society;
- Brazil’s openness towards new paradigms for the production and dissemination
of knowledge. This leadership has been crucial because open digital paradigms
will be highly influential in shaping culture and business in the 21st century;
- the construction of a Brazilian Bill of Rights for the Internet and the
rejection of the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA;
The most urgent contemporary issue pioneered by Brazil, however, is copyright
reform legislation, which aims to help creators and artists to express and
distribute their creativity in a less restrictive legal environment, and to
ensure that the society has balanced rights to access knowledge.
According to Consumers International’s IP Watchlist, the current Brazilian
copyright law is one of the strictest laws in the world when it comes to
provisions on access to knowledge. It lacks many of the exceptions that most
countries provide in their laws, and it forbids many ordinary, noncommercial
behaviors (including exhibiting movies for academic purposes, copying a book
that is already out of print, and music shifting the contents of a legitimately
purchased CD to an mp3 player). Brazil’s copyright laws are much more
restrictive, in fact, than international treaties. Also, ECAD, the Brazilian
collecting society, lacks transparency and effective public oversight, unlike
what happens in most countries around the world. We are convinced, that the
proposed changes to the current copyright law would benefit both authors and
citizens.
The policy deliberations that Brazil has chosen -- public debate across the
country complemented by a
public consultation officially held by the government on the internet -- can
serve as a showcase of
democracy. But this is true only if the results are actually taken into
account, as promised at the beginning of such process. This is what citizens
legitimately expect from democratic governments.
We agree with our Brazilian colleagues, that the results of an open democratic
process cannot simply be swept aside by the opinions of jurists or “commissions
of notables.”
As Brazilian academics, jurists, non-profit and civil society organizations,
artists and others said in their open letter to President Rousseff and Minister
of Culture Ana Buarque de Holanda on December 28, 2010:
“Much progress has been made in recent years. And much remains to be done. A
change of direction by the Ministry of Culture means losing all the work
achieved, as well as losing a historic opportunity for Brazil to lead, as it
has been doing, this discussion on the global level, showing solutions and
rational and innovative alternatives, without being afraid of taking new paths
and without sticking to the models preached by the culture industry of the
United States or Europe.”
It is important to note, that there was an underlying narrative to all those
new paths in Brazil’s recent public policy on culture: they were inspired by
the mind-opening and pioneering recognition that culture is made everywhere by
everyone, and that culture and education are basic and constitutional rights.
The most important treasure is Brazil’s enormous cultural diversity. A
contingent of millions of new creators is now part of the fabric of Brazilian
culture. That is what we call emancipation.
For years, in countless essays, analyses and blogposts, we have pointed to
Brazil as an international leader and as an example of a country engaged in
supporting access to knowledge and expanding democratic norms. The Ministry of
Culture’s adoption of a Creative Commons license in 2003 was actually one of
the most powerful, admired examples of such leadership.
We – the international community – are therefore troubled by the recent,
significant changes in Brazil’s cultural policy as seen in a variety of
specific decisions, among them the removal of the Creative Commons license from
MinC’s website. Nevertheless we hope, that the process to ensure access to
knowledge through law will continue to be guaranteed and that the dialogue to
foster an open Internet, an open and collaborative digital culture, the
expansion of open educational resources, and the reform of copyright law, will
continue in your administration.
We come through this open letter to ask President Rousseff to ensure that the
progressive stance of Brazil’s cultural policy will be continued and expanded,
so that the the voice of Brazilian civil society will be heard and continue to
be a beacon to the rest of the world!
It is our deepest hope that we will be able to continue citing Brazil’s
Culture Policy as the most progressive in the world!
Commons Strategies Group
Creative Commons
Free Knowledge Institute, Netherlands
Peer to Peer Foundation
Fundación Vía Libre, Argentina
La Quadrature du Net, France
VECAM, France
Sociologists without Borders
SOLAR Software Libre Argentina, Argentina
Mayo Fuster Morell, European University Institute, Spain
Volker Ralf Grassmuck, media sociologist, Germany
Gaëlle Krikorian, Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Social Issues,
France
Melanie Dulong de Rosnay Researcher, CNRS Creative Commons legal lead, France
Michel Bauwens, Peer-to-Peer-Foundation, Belgium
Marco Fioretti, writer, activist, Italy
Andreas Wittel, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Beatriz Busaniche, Professor of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires
(UBA), Argentina
Fabio Barone, open systems architect, Italy
Frédéric Sultan, networker, France
Silke Helfrich, author, Germany
David Bollier, author, USA
Paul B. Hartzog, Forward Foundation, USA
Christian Siefkes, software developer and author, Germany
John Wilbanks, Creative Commons, Vice President, Science. USA
Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons, Vice President, Creative Commons, USA
Wolf Ludwig, Comunica-ch (Schweizer Plattform zur Informationsgesellschaft)
Bożena
Bednarek-Michalska, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Toruniu, Poland
Philippe Aigrain, essayist, France
Sincerely,
The
Undersigned
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