In October 2005, Seedling, the magazine of GRAIN, published a series of contributions on the ways in which people are resisting the push for monopoly rights over information in different sectors. They interviewed a ten-person panel includes people working in the fields of free and open software (FOSS), access to medicines, seeds, communications and the media.

(GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems.)

Still very valuable 5 years on, below are three excerpts:

1. Beatriz Busaniche

“What common ground does the FOSS movement share with the struggle against IPR on life?

What we are fighting in both cases is a growing monopolisation over knowledge by major corporations, many of which are more powerful than most governments. These companies can deny others access to knowledge and the benefits of science. We are all fighting against this exclusion. Our common points are the spaces where we struggle on all the fronts, such as WIPO, the WTO, agreements like TRIPs, free-trade agreements, etc.

In addition, these movements are united by the idea that there are parts of knowledge and of life that must not be the property of anyone, that no one has a right to preclude access by others to certain “common goods”. When we speak of knowledge, access to these goods is not exclusive, nor does it degrade or destroy them.

There is another detail uniting us which must be carefully considered due to the particular dangers it presents: code-based regulations. In software and digital culture, we speak of digital rights management (DRM), which is a means to restrict access to culture by means of regulatory code (software). In the fight against the privatisation of life, we confront other forms of regulation also based on codes, such as the genetic modification of seeds and the creation of suicide (Terminator) seeds, whose genetic code has been modified to no longer give life, to stop reproducing. Both of these code-based regulations go beyond mere legal requirements, both consolidate monopolies and both are invisible but obvious enemies in our common struggle (see box on p 15).

Another similarity in some cases has to do with community. Free software has been built via a collective, community process, fed by programmers from different corners of the planet who do their part writing code, reporting errors, making suggestions, and so on. The concept of “community” is very strong for us, and brings us closer to all communities that work collectively.

What are the differences you perceive?

There are several points of divergence. To begin with, we must look at the kind of regulations that control each situation. Regarding knowledge and software issues, we fight copyright and software patents. On matters related to the privatisation of life, we generally deal with patent laws. There are other differences too. A programmer can write software with a piece of paper and a pencil, while a pharmaceutical patent rides on a huge investment in research and development. These different characteristics mean that the possibilities for resisting monopoly will also be different. The other difference we see today is that the free-software movement has already consolidated a hard-to-beat form of resistance, while other movements are still searching for a strategy.”

2. Peter Drahos

“What links do you see between the struggles happening in different sectors around patents, copyrights and other forms of monopoly rights over information?

One effective way to fight the powerful without getting caught up in their games is to turn to the deeper principle of simple rules. We can learn from the free software movement about simply saying no. We need to learn to walk away from deals and strengthen the capacity to say no. We need need to look for ways to say no in which you can’t be compromised or betrayed. So much of the game of international negotiations depends on local betrayal – officials signing off on things that they don’t really understand. The way to stop that is to stick to very simple rules. These may be different for different groups, but they are simple rules that we can unite behind, and they will trigger an evolutionary sequence that will allow us to win the struggle.

One key to the success of US negotiators is making the pace so fast that no-one can keep up. In Geneva there are developing country negotiators with responsibility for 12 different sectors. That’s ludicrous – anyone knows you can barely keep up with one sector, let alone 12. Of course people suffer from negotiating fatigue. That’s why the capacity to say no is so important. Local NGOs have to say to their negotiators, “Walk away: do not open up yet another negotiation, do not say yes to this offer of a bilateral negotiation”. Pick a few negotiations and target all your resources on them, because that way you can gain strength and unity.

Another key to fighting power that we can all unite behind is civil disobedience. When a country is negotiating with the US behind closed doors, and there are huge riots in the country, the weak negotiator can turn to the US and say, “I would love to give you those patent terms, but my hands are tied – this is just politically unsaleable in my country”. But if there is no riot and the negotiation takes place behind closed doors, the negotiator is going to cave in. Civil disobedience is one of the few tools left for weaker parties to work with, and it can be very effective. Look at the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War in the US. Things change when people get out on the streets.

2. What are your views on a convergence of these movements?

There is such massive diversity in the world and such different moral views that you have to find a common framework. That framework is human rights. It’s institutionalised and on certain issues – like health and education – there is massive cross-cultural agreement. Other rights – like the right to food security – are not so widely shared, but that doesn’t matter. The strength of human rights is that is recognises diversity, and has a common conceptual framework. You can try and invent your own language and globalise that language, but it’s going to take a long time to get anywhere. Human rights have been institutionalised in our world and a lot of people have given up a lot to get those rights on the table. That counts for a lot. Every country is going to come up with the same fundamental rights – like education and health. Other rights are much more contestable, but that doesn’t matter, because some rights may be more important to some countries than others. Every country has to practice the principle of toleration (which is implicit in human rights) and unite around that vocabulary. The vocabulary gives them the tools to look at intellectual property rights and ask what do these monopoly rights do to meet their objectives. So I think it is possible for all these groups to unite around human rights, using its vocabulary, to form a more global community.

You might not like the idea of rights, but that’s all you have to work with. When I went to the Philippines doing some work on access to medicines, a lot of groups there told me that they found the language of human rights – ‘the right to health’ – very helpful. You’ve got to use it. You have to think of ways of bringing that language to life. There is so much moral diversity in the world, you need abstract ideas to unite around.

If you don’t want to call it a right, call it a ‘fundamental claim’. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be trying to look at alternative solutions and creating new languages, but you can’t turn your back on the things previous generations have fought for; it doesn’t make sense. You have to use the language of human rights because it is institutionalised into a common framework and so many countries accept it, even though their practices may not be consistent with what the language says.”

3. Onno Purbo

(Onno Purbo is Indonesia’s celebrated promoter of wireless networking; he is credited with inspiring the creation of RebelNet, which now links over 1,500 schools, 2,000 cybercafes and more than 2,500 outdoor WiFi “hotspots” in Indonesia.)

I see the movements fighting monopoly rights facing a common struggle polarised around three simple issues: money, power/authority and mass. A simple example in the information technology industry is the widely known struggle between Microsoft and the movement for free and open source software. One side insists on enforcing copyright, while the other favours public license. The war between these two sides is quite ugly in Indonesia, and has resulted in significant casualties. In the last three months, the police raided many Internet kiosks in dozens of cities in Indonesia, and in some cases they confiscated the computers and put people in jail. Such action has prompted a outcry against Microsoft and started a migration process towards Free and Open Source Software, especially Linux-based software.

The key to making this kind of shift happen is changing the mind-set of software users, and fostering a strong community focus. Increasing education and cultivating the spirit to share will help the shift towards a more liberalised market and a fruitful proliferation of work in the public domain. This in turn will reduce poverty and engender further comm-unity participation.

Creating pro-poor, pro-community and pro-liberalisation policies is always a struggle. We can win through money, power, or mass. For the poor, creating mass is the only option – and it can be very effective. A simple example is the liberation of 2.4GHz WiFi/Wireless Internet in Indonesia. Until recently the Indonesian government controlled all telecom frequencies. But the rise of an alternative network installing Internet using wireless network technologies that bypass the telecommunications companies has created sufficient mass that the Indonesian government was forced to delicense the 2.4 GHz frequency in January 2005.”