PERSPECTIVE ON TRADE : The Difference Between Dumbo and E = MC2 : GATT should separate protection of commercial property from access to knowledge products.
The GATT treaty has enshrined intellectual-property copyrights, trademarks, patents and the like as a key element of world trade. GATT’s World Trade Organization enforcement arrangements join the Bern copyright agreement and other legal structures. The concept of the ownership of knowledge products from computer software to poems, from Mickey Mouse to physics textbooks, is universally accepted. The products of the mind are considered to be commercial property, to be bought and sold in the marketplace.
But it’s time to take a step back from rampant commercialism to examine the complex world of copyright and the distribution of knowledge. There is, in reality, a difference between a Hollywood film and a scientific book. Textbooks, technical reports and research volumes are subject to the same copyright regulations as a novel by James Clavell.
Those who control the distribution of knowledge treat all intellectual property equally and are perfectly happy to deny access to anyone who cannot pay. The legal structures set up to protect intellectual property benefit the owners. There is no consideration of the user.The attitude seems to be: No pay, no play.
But even in the intellectual-property marketplace, there was room for negotiation during the GATT deliberations. France, fearing an inundation of Rambo and Disney, successfully argued that there should be limitations on the free flow of American cultural products to Europe. The French had clout and a compromise was reached. There are, thus, some “non-market” restrictions allowed in GATT. But no such compromises were permitted for those countries that depend on knowledge products from the industrialized nations and cannot afford to pay the going rates for them. There are no provisions to ensure that developing countries have access to books and other knowledge products.
It is a paradox that while freedom of expression and access to ideas have expanded with the collapse of repressive regimes in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, access to knowledge remains restricted. Now the barriers are economic rather that political. For many reasons, it is in everyone’s interest to encourage an open culture and rapid educational and scientific restructuring in Russia.
There is a need for scientific knowledge around the world, even in places that cannot afford to pay current commercial prices. Most of the world’s knowledge is produced in a few industrialized nations. The products of that knowledge--books, journals, computer programs, CD-ROM disks--are manufactured in these same countries.
These ideas and products are exported worldwide. They are needed just as much in Ghana as in Germany.
A few relatively simple steps can be taken that will permit wider access to knowledge products worldwide and in the long run ensure not only greater equality in access to ideas but improved educational systems, more rapid economic growth, and perhaps more open and democratic societies:
* There must be a recognition that all knowledge products are not the same, and that while it may be justified to insist on commercial terms for Nintendo games, some flexibility for scientific materials and textbooks is appropriate.
* Short-term permissiveness in copyright relations may yield more long-range profits for owners. For example, a publisher may get less money by licensing a book for a local edition in Africa than by exporting copies. In the long run, however, a viable domestic publishing industry and a literate public will buy ever-increasing numbers of books.
* The new World Trade Organization should create an arrangement by which those who need access to knowledge products but cannot afford market prices can be accommodated in the world-trade system.
As it stands, GATT is a blunt instrument that will inevitably work to the disadvantage of poor nations in terms of access to knowledge.
It requires a thoughtful understanding that all knowledge is not purely commercial in nature.
