The African Digital Commons A Participant’s Guide, 2005 A conceptual map of the people, projects and processes that contribute to the development of shared, networked knowledge across the African continent. Lead writers: Chris Armstrong & Heather Ford A collaborative output of the Commons-sense Project http://www.commons-sense.org at the LINK Centre Graduate School of Public & Development Management Wits University, Johannesburg, South Africa http://link.wits.ac.za Development of this resource made possible by a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada, http://www.idrc.ca Photograph and cover design by Philippa Moore, Paraffin Designs www.paraffin.co.za Copyright: the LINK Centre, 2005. This document is made available as open content under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 South Africa Licence. For the full licence, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- sa/2.0/za 1 Foreword One of the goals of the Commons-sense Project is to conduct research that helps equip African activists and decision-makers with the information they need to develop cutting- edge, relevant intellectual property policies and practices. We decided to begin with a map – a map that hopefully presents a broad picture of how far we’ve already come in Africa towards the goal of achieving a “digital information commons”, as well as providing some sense of how to grow it further. We have tried to chart the international, regional and national policies, players and movements that to some extent dictate the scope of the commons in Africa, and at the same time to outline some of the creative responses from people on the ground working towards the expansion of the commons in some way. Because we wanted to get as extensive a picture as possible of who is already involved in digital commons activities throughout the continent, we decided to try to get people in Africa to represent themselves in the Guide. The technology we used was an online “wiki” which anyone, anywhere in the world could edit, amend, build on and improve. This Guide, then, is the offline version of a living “wiki” built by the people living and working on these issues in Africa. We are hoping that the offline publishing of this Guide can become an annual event, where we take stock of how far we’ve come, how issues, policies and laws have changed, which new projects have begun, and what the impact has been on the ground and on the net – in terms of the growth of the African Digital Commons. In time, we’re hoping that the Guide will be used in classrooms and offices, by policy- makers and activists, educators and students, to raise awareness around the value of the commons to African innovation, education and creativity. One last word of thanks must go to our colleagues at the LINK Centre for their support and advice, to Wits University Copyright Librarian Denise Nicholson for innumerable leads and contacts, to A2LM in Southern Africa project leader Achal Prabhala for editorial support, to the IDRC – especially Heloise Emdon and Steve Song – for their ongoing encouragement, and finally to the hard-working builders of the African Digital Commons who, in the face of many challenges, continue to inspire with their vision of a continent that is turning the corner in many ways. Heather Ford, Commons-sense Project, LINK Centre Graduate School of Public & Development Management Wits University, Johannesburg November 2005 2 Lead Writers: Chris Armstrong & Heather Ford Commons-sense Project, LINK Centre, Wits University Graduate School of Public & Development Management, Johannesburg Copy-editor: Kerryn McKay Contributors: Alan Amory, University of KZN, Durban Abraham Agina Azubuike, UNECA, Addis Ababa Dwayne Bailey, translate.org, Pretoria Karien Bezuidenhout, Shuttleworth Foundation, Cape Town Anna Dani, OpenCafe, Potchefstroom Bola Fajemirokun, DIN, Lagos James Boyle, Duke Law School, USA Ingrid Brandt, Ingrid's Home Page, Grahamstown Papa Youga Dieng, RESAFAD, Dakar Silvia Hirano, Cultural Projects Developer, Sao Paulo/Johannesburg Shafika Isaacs, SchoolNet Africa, Johannesburg Joris Komen, Schoolnet Namibia, Windhoek Eve Gray, Eve Gray & Associates, Cape Town Catherine MacDonald, Neil Butcher & Associates, Johannesburg Kerryn McKay, Commons-Sense Project, Johannesburg Mary Materu-Behitsa, DATAD, Accra Ton Monasso & Fabien van Leijden, Delft Technical University, The Netherlands Anne Moon, Rhodes University, Grahamstown Renate Morgenstern, University of Namibia, Windhoek Denise Nicholson, Wits University Library, Johannesburg Pauline Ngimwa, African Virtual University, Nairobi Edward Popoola, blogger, Lagos Achal Prabhala, A2LM in Southern Africa Project, Johannesburg ‘Gbenga Sesan, Lagos Digital Village & blogger, Lagos Gunda Spingies, Riverbend Learning Services, Johannesburg Hussein Suleman, University of Cape Town Susan Veldsman, SASLI, Pretoria A.J. Venter, Direq International & blogger, Johannesburg Irene Vermaak, Rhodes University Library, Grahamstown Paul West, Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver Bradley Whittington, blogger, South Africa 3 Table of Contents Introduction Section 1: The Digital Information Commons: Mapping the Terrain 1.1: Information Commons 1.2: Copyright 1.3: Digitisation & Convergence Section 2: Global Players, Processes, Issues, Projects 2.1: WIPO 2.2: Geneva Declaration on WIPO 2.3: WIPO Development Agenda 2.4: The Broadcasting Treaty 2.5: Access to Knowledge (A2K) Treaty 2.6: WTO TRIPS 2.7: Exceptions via Berne & TRIPS 2.8: Compulsory Licensing & Parallel Importing 2.9: ‘TRIPS Plus’ 2.10: United States 2.11: UN Agencies 2.12: UK CIPR 2.13: APC & Soros-OSI 2.14: Librarians 2.15: Consumer Groups 2.16: FOSS: Free & Open Source Software 2.17: Lawyers 2.18: Blogs & Wikis 2.19: Open Access 2.20: Open Content 2.21: Creative Commons (cc) Section 3: African Players, Processes, Issues 3.1: OAPI & ARIPO 3.2: UNECA 3.3: African Union & NEPAD 3.4: IPR Exceptions & Africa 3.5: Traditional Knowledge (TK) 3.6: Sui Generis Models 3.7: FTAs & TRIPS Plus 3:8: Open Access & Open Content in Africa 3.9: Funders 4 Section 4: Directory of African Projects 4.1: Research, Policy Inputs & Advocacy 4.2: Creative Commons in Africa 4.3: ccSA: Creative Commons South Africa 4.4: Commons-sense Project 4.5: University Institutional Repositories 4.6: University Electronic Theses & Dissertations 4.7: Group Licences for Databases 4.8: Online Research Publishing 4.9: Online Journals 4.10: e-Learning 4.11: Schools: Online Curriculum & Support 4.12: SchoolNets & NEPAD e-Schools 4.13: FOSS in Africa 4.14: Archives 4.15: Local Content & Language 4.16: Blogs References & Bibliography 5 Introduction As the writings of Lawrence Lessig and others cogently argue, the digital revolution is a decidedly double-edged phenomenon when it comes to openness and creativity. On the one hand, the internet presents an historic opportunity for traditionally passive “users” of the media to become active participants in the construction of meaning and the publishing of creative and innovative works of expression and technological development. In a network where no one information provider is given priority over another, or where the power to publish is found at the “ends” of the network, rather than in the “middle” or the intermediaries, everyone with an internet connection can have instant access to a potential audience of billions from around the world. On the other hand, there is a significant move by the handful of traditional “publishers” to set up barriers that threaten the potential of the digital realm to level the playing field and create a truly universal medium for creative expression and technological transfer. There is an aggressive pursuit of copyright protection and other intellectual property rights (IPR) protection by various “rights-holders.” These rights-holders are often not the authors of creative works, but rather big firms who own the rights and aim to maximise their value. For these copyright rights-holders, digital technologies present clear challenges (e.g., how to control mass, high-quality reproduction of illegal DVDs?), while at the same time providing new tools to restrict use (e.g., digital rights management (DRM) tools on the internet). Best-known are the battles around music and film reproduction, which are essentially battles around entertainment content. But the practice of copyright protection in the digital realm goes far beyond these areas and includes more “serious” types of copyrighted material, including software, academic journals and electronic databases of educational content. Battles over access to these knowledge resources get much less mainstream attention than the stories about clampdowns on “pirated” DVDs and peer-to- peer (p2p) music-sharing. Not much is said in the mainstream media about the struggles of people who wish to copy and share not for commercial gain but rather in order to further their ideas through greater public access to knowledge. There are thousands of librarians and educators who are not interested in getting their hands on a cheap copy of Shrek 2 or Kill Bill 1, but who may want to be able to make free copies of portions of readings for students, to distribute their writings freely online, or to give their students access to research databases. Digital technologies and international networks make it possible for a student or researcher to have access to unparalleled amounts of information on which to build and with which to innovate. The internet provides an opportunity to slash the costs of academic publishing, allowing academics, researchers and scholars to engage in a continual process of self-publishing and interactive editing. There is great excitement about these possibilities. But at the same time many of the opportunities afforded by new technologies are being limited by a system of copyright and parallel technical measures that emphasise only “protecting” and distributing content – a system and measures based on the concept of “all rights reserved” that allows publishers, even publishers of clear 6 public-interest content, to charge high fees, or impose highly restrictive conditions, for the use of such content.