Six speakers participated in this session and their interventions raised crucial issues regarding the applicability of current Intellectual Property laws in developing versus developed countries. For Chatillon, Chair of the session, the need to re-evaluate intellectual property law with regards to Internet is crucial and Internet law is efficient in so far as it answers real societal needs. The relationship between price and digital products is also important as the creation of demand for digital products has to be accompanied by a rethinking pricing methods and digital product valuation. On the other hand, says Chatillon, developing countries have to guarantee that preferential prices for digital products and software need better intellectual property protection within their national boundaries.

Using as example the music industry, Bruninx argues for digital management rights systems that are transparent at the level of the collecting societies. He adds that five elements ought to be considered when protecting intellectual property: watermarks; technical protection systems; cultural aspects; accessibility issues and appropriate legislation. Hall presents the Australian case and argues that with regards to Internet and P2P, traditional media has been slow and defensive, often aiming only at maintaining their market power & highly costly distribution networks.

Furthermore traditional media has used aggressive litigation against small companies in addition to lobbying their governments for additional protective legislation. The solution therefore is for new business models and not more legislation. Muls argues that piracy has become a socially accepted conduct and calls for the need to develop better business models (see www.sciencedirect.com ). He worries that technical protection systems will eliminate faire use. Jakimo states for the need to agree, at the national and international level, for political and economic philosophies underpinning any intellectual property system.

Stephan Bruninx

Otherwise, legislating internationally any form of copyright will be difficult . Kaushik poses the following challenges : is a full-proof digital content protection system technologically feasible? Assuming that it is, who should implement it? He worries, like most speakers, that bad legislation will ‘sabotage’ the information age. Singh calls for pricing models that are adapted to the situation of developing countries because where they reflect people’s ability to pay, piracy has decreased. He presents the experience of Malaysia where government played an important role in providing incentives toward acquiring less expensive software (open source or otherwise) for the enterprise environment or for individuals. The issue of intellectual property is important to FIAM and its associations. A Technical Action Group (TAG) is being set up to reflect on the intrinsic issues related to IP at the international level but also to provide for a common FIAM position regarding copyright, patents and piracy.