Head of UN copyright agency says fair use is a “negative agenda,” wants to get rid of discussions on rights for blind people and go back to giving privileges to giant companies

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Link: Head of UN copyright agency says fair use is a “negative agenda,” wants to get rid of discussions on rights for blind people and go back to giving privileges to giant companies

Francis Gurry, the Director General of WIPO, the UN agency that creates and oversees global copyright policy, laments the current state of WIPO, saying that the copyright agenda there:

“… tends to be a negative one. It tends to be looking at the exceptions, the limitations, and the other ways of not having intellectual property. I’m very keen to see us coming back with a positive agenda for intellectual property.”

Translation: our job isn’t to figure out how to balance out freedom of speech and access with exclusive rights for authors and investors; more copyright is always good. And the subtext is, “All those public interest groups that have got us looking at rights for blind and disabled people, exemptions for poor countries, rights for educators and archivists, and Creative Commons-style ‘some rights reserved’ issues are distracting us from the real business of WIPO: maximizing copyright’s benefit for a handful of corporate giants.”