Class 12: Monday Oct 15. Information and Intellectual Property

Let the Internet be the Internet
-Michael R Nelson

- What the internet does not need is a bureaucracy to stifle its creativity
- At World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis and Geneva a number of proposals put forward to give governments and intergovernmental organizations (UN) more control over domain-name system.
- UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) created to examine full range of issues related to management of internet.
- Internet designed to t provide individual users with choice; preserving end-to-end nature of network. Enable anyone with a good idea to promote new standards and apps
- Internet governance diff from traditional telecommunication. Many competing actor at each level—users have the most influence, private sector lead role.
- Different regulation tasks can’t be handled by single organization because so many players involved.
- Top-down telephony model vs bottom-up internet model.
- should use the organizations that are already shaping the way the Internet is run. The existing Internet governance structure has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to solve problems as they arise.

National Academy of Sciences: Internet

• Domain Name System (DNS): Main system used to navigate Internet
• (e.g. www.georgetown.edu/students/etc)
• Uses easily remembered names for websites instead of numerical name
• Hierarchical distributed structure operated collaboratively by group of autonomous organizations
• Has functioned reliably and effectively in 2 decades of its existence
• Coped with rapid expansion of Internet and mass adoption of e-mail
• Can continue to meet needs of expanding Internet
• Switching to alternate naming system would be extremely costly and very disruptive (if even possible)
• Instead additional functionality can be added to DNS
• DNS now faces many challenges
• Security Challenges
• “Denial-of-Service Attacks”: Coordinated attacks on websites that flood server and block normal traffic
• à Is being/should be remedied with increase use of “anycast” servers (copies of base name servers. i.e. alternative route to website)
• Physical Vulnerability: Concentration of servers in specific physical location (Washington D.C, Los Angeles)
• à need to diversify physical location of servers in light of natural or human-induced disasters
• Message Alteration: Messages can be altered during transmission between servers
• Tech community responded with DNS security extensions (DNSSE) which uses digital signatures
• Cannot guarantee that message is not altered, only authenticate identity of sender
• à need for increased deployment of DNSSE throughout DNS
• Governance Challenges
• DNS currently works through voluntary cooperation of autonomous component identities
• Effective cooperation based on two principles:
• Universal Open Standards: protocols and standards for operation of the Internet and the DNS are open and established by Internet Engineering Task Force (intl. voluntary organization of technical specialists)
• Innovation at the Edges: Innovations in applications should not be internal to the Internet, but at the edge (i.e. innovations should work with Internet not change the way Internet works)
• Also need to allocate resources of DNS [such as (TLD’s) top level domain names (edu, com)] and determine terms of operation
• Currently two organization allocate these responsibilities: US Department of Commerce (DOC) and Internet Corporation for the Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) along with respective national bodies for regulation of country top level domain names (.fr, .uk)
• growing importance of the Internet on global scale à pressure to establish international political control over DNS
• Desire to end US stewardship of the Internet
• However DNS management has little to do with general Internet management and equity
• Changing DNS management would not be effective vehicle for addressing international political problems concerning the Internet and would instead complicate DNS management
• One possible solution: Transfer authority entirely to ICANN
• Problems:
• no oversight of US gov à increase in commercial pressure on ICANN
• ICANN is not generally accepted authority
• Possible Solution: narrow down scope of ICANN responsibility à greater acceptance and efficiency
• Commercial Challenges
• Commercial operator’s (of DNS) profit based on traffic to their service
• à temptation to divert traffic from other operators and bending agreements that underlie DNS service
• ICANN must strengthen contracts with TLD operators so it can enforce common regulation
• Dispute Regulation Challenges
• Currently ICANN has established Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).
• Allows for speedy resolution of domain name disputes by non-governmental arbitration
• UDRP can be improved by:
• Improving consistency
• Establishing internal appeals processes
• Using three-member panels to implement UDRP
• Improving Panelist Knowledge
• Improving structure of incentives in dispute resolution process

• In contrast with DNS, navigation across internet is not tied to one unbique system (many service systems)
• Current navigation aids and systems are efficient (as shown by survey of users)
• However rapid increase of material available on the Internet à future challenges to navigational aids and services
• Future problems must be addressed by both commercial service providers AND academic research
• Commercially developed services however might be biased/corrupted
• Company can bribe search engine firm to have brand displayed in “top 10” results of supposedly neutral search
• à Supervision by Gov. agencies might be necessary to guarantee that search engine firms disclose their practices
• Gov. policies should promote competition among service providers on the Internet

• Although different aspects of the Internet, the DNS and navigation aids and services are interrelated in terms of general internet use
• Both need to be developed in parallel

• Dynamics of Change for the DNS
• 5 factors have influenced development of DNS
• Increasing Scale
• From 10,000 users to 600 million users
• DNS adapted well
• Technological progress
• Possibilities to strengthen DNS
• Increasing Economic Value
• Originally: no economic value attached to possession of domain name. Now, economic gains to be made
• Increasing social value
• Internet has/is becoming more important in society
• Internationalization
• Originally DNS scope was limited to North America and Western Europe
• Two challenges with global expansion of Internet (and DNS)
• 1. character sets of different cultures must be adapted
• This concern is being addressed today
• 2. Although ICANN has international participation, authority rests on contract from US department of Commerce (undercuts legitimacy of international organization according to some)

• Internet naming and navigation are matters of concerns to political, social, and commercial institutions

The Economist – Patently Problematic

Abstract:

A Commission on Intellectual Property Rights' (IPR) report, published on September 12, sets out detailed recommendations for how developing countries should craft IPR to suit their conditions. Its central message is both clear and controversial: poor places should avoid committing themselves to rich-world systems of IPR protection unless such systems are beneficial to their needs. Nor should rich countries, which professed so much interest in sustainable development at the recent summit in Johannesburg, push for anything stronger. Today, developing countries do not have the luxury to take their time over IPR. As part of a trade deal hammered out eight years ago, countries joining the World Trade Organisation also sign up to TRIPS (trade-related aspects of intellectual-property rights), an international agreement that sets out minimum standards for the legal protection of intellectual property. The world's poorest countries were given until 2006 to comply in full with the requirements of the treaty.

• Intellectual property rights: includes patents, copyright, trademarks, trade secrets

• Patents encourage innovation by creating incentive for inventors to disclose details of inventions in exchange for limited monopoly on exploitation
• Some say IPR law is actually delaying diffusion of new technology
• Rich and poor countries should consider IPR as a development tool
• When countries join WTO, also sign up to TRIPS (trade related aspects of intellectual property rights), an international agreement that sets out minimum standards for legal protection of intellectual property
• World’s poorest countries given until 2006 to comply
• TRIPS lays down list of ground rules describing protection that a country’s system must provide
• IPR protection and poor countries
• Drugs: expensive medications
• Patent protection for pharmaceuticals, but rarely enforced
• In 2001, resolved that world’s least-developed countries should be given till 2016 to introduce patent protection for pharmaceuticals
• Keep medication prices low
• Problem is what to do with countries that have no drug makers à they must import generic copies of drugs, which might not work when exporters have assimilated with rules of TRIPS
• Education and research: those who signed up to TRIPS also accepted international copyright rules
• Copyright may hamper access to textbooks, journals, other educational materials in poor countries by requiring consent/payment to publisher prior to copying
• Encryption technologies of internet can override principle of fair use as educational tool
• Traditional knowledge: misappropriation of “traditional knowledge” (i.e. ancient herbal remedies) that find their way into high-priced western pharmaceuticals without consent of/compensation to people who have used it for generations
• Countries recommended to create databases to catalogue traditional knowledge that must be consulted in patent exams.
• Uncertain time of creation, creator, and unwritten form may require new systems of IPR protection
• Difficult to enforce IPR rules
• Expensive and need training to draft legislation and set up office
• Expensive to simply obtain a patent, let alone defending it

The Economist - The Right to Good Ideas

Abstract

Discusses the debate over intellectual-property rights in developing countries. How protection of intellectual property rights can increase foreign investment, improve access to new technologies, and encourage domestic industry; Opposing view that patents allow multinational companies to establish monopolies, drive out local competition, divert research and development away from the needs of poor countries, and force up prices; Topics of the knowledge economy and globalization.

• Intellectual property rights are not just for the rich world; carefully constructed, can help the poorest too
• Battle broken out between government and multinational drug companies over relaxing of patent restrictions, which (it was hoped) would improve flow of costly medicines to country’s 5 million sufferers from HIV
• Patents large allow western multinational companies to establish monopolies, drive out local competition, divert R&D away form needs of poor countries and force up prices
• Yet IPR encourages domestic industry, boosts foreign investment and improves access to new technologies
• Countries tend to clamor for strong patents once they have an industry to protect
• With TRIPS, developing countries could not move at own speed with IPR
• TRIPS is essentially a set of rich-world conventions that include a few concessions to poor countries
• In short term, stronger patent regime à higher prices for goods and more unemployment once copycats are driven from market
• In long term, stronger patent regime à more foreign investment, technology transfer and home-grown innovation (depends on market size and competition policy)
• Need new systems to protect traditional knowledge, help out poorest developing countries, show them that IPR can be an opportunity, not just a threat