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IP Watch Screenshot CC BY 3.0
Open Democracy screenshot CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Global Voices CC BY-SA 2.0
Commoners are, on the whole, a thoughtful bunch, and we like to read and think about important stuff, like intellectual property and democracy and the global commons and global policy and beer and, you know, stuff.
So this month, we’ve decided to give you a list of five websites, which offer new, challenging and interesting perspectives on these issues. There is an enormous amount of material available on these sites, which is why we’ve kept the list down to five this month – there’s a lot to read.
IP Watch
Intellectual Property Watch describes itself as a place where readers can find: “Original, open-access and subscriber-based news and analysis on international IP policy making.” That’s a pretty tame way of describing the enormous amount of IP-related information that’s available on the IP Watch site, even for non-subscribers. Based in Geneva, IP Watch reports on developments in themes such as Access to Knowledge, Broadcasting, Human Rights, Public Health and Traditional & Indigenous Knowledge, and from arenas such as the WHO, WIPO, WTO/TRIPS and Bilateral and Regional Negotiations. All of the content on the site is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 licence, and many of the articles are available in English, French and Spanish. A subscription to IP Watch will also get you their monthly edition, a bumper round-up of a month’s happenings, which appears in print and electronically. In terms of style, many of the articles assume that readers have some degree of understanding and familiarity with IP issues an terminology, but don’t let this put you off. This is an amazing resource, with fascinating, well-written articles on a myriad of interesting and important issues.
Open Democracy
There was a time when discussion and debate, the cornerstones of a democratic society, took place in the physical public sphere: the coffee shops, bars, meeting houses and forums that philosophers like Adorno and Habermas described. In our rapidly digitising world, though, this has changed. The public sphere has moved online, and Open Democracy is one of the best examples of the digital public sphere. This site, with it’s commitment to democracy, debate and making marginalised voices heard, is a great place to go to read up on any subject, from global security to net neutrality to the role of the banana in free trade. Although they’re based in London, Open Democracy has a truly global vision, and their extensive list of authors includes writers from every continent, with every perspective. Articles are available as PDFs as well we on the site, and you can buy a subscription to their quarterly journal, which delves deeper into themes like 'Life After Katrina' and 'Visions of Europe'. Most of the content is published on the site with a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 licence, and most importantly, registered members can comment on stories, which keeps debates fresh and dynamic.
KEI Online
KEI (Knowledge Ecology International) is an organisation devoted to undertaking and publishing research and new ideas, engaging in global public interest advocacy, providing technical advice to governments, NGOs and firms, enhancing transparency of policy making, monitoring actions of key actors, and providing forums for interested persons to discuss and debate Knowledge Ecology topics. What this means, for you and me and the Commons is that KEI is a great place to read up about pretty much everything from drug patents to indigenous IP, nuclear proliferation and WIPO. Blogs, research papers and current publications are all there to either read online or download as PDFs. In the blog section of their site, they also have a Policy Archive, in which articles from the old cptech.org blogs are stored. This is an amazing resource, full of information from years gone by. KEI have also launched a an online journal called Knowledge Ecology Studies; a multidisciplinary journal that draws on a number of specialities: sciences, technologies, public policies, the laws of intellectual property, business, free speech and privacy, telecommunications and other related knowledge disciplines.
Spicy IP India
As any IP enthusiast in the know will tell you, India is a country where fascinating developments in IP, patents and compulsory licensing take place on what sometimes seems like an almost daily basis. It can all seem a little overwhelming. Spicy IP is the place to go if you’re interested in any IP developments that have anything to do with India. In their own words, Spicy IP aims to: “…increase transparency in Indian intellectual property policy/institutions. We also stand for fair, objective and accurate reporting/review of intellectual property and innovation policy news from India.” Their dedicated team of bloggers are students, academics and consultants who have particular expertise in IP, traditional knowledge and patents and all write really well (which is often a rarity in the IP world). Spicy IP is seriously 'lo-fi', hosted on the free Blogger platform, which makes it really easy to navigate, and proves that you don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to have a useful, well-written site.
Global Voices
Are you interested in finding out about the current state of public debate in Kazakhstan? How about the best place to find a decent cup of coffee in the Sudan, or cyber-activism in Bolivia? No matter what the topic, or how far away the region, GlobalVoices Online is the place where you’ll find out what the people are saying and thinking. Global Voices is an online citizen media project that, in their own words aims to “…aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online - shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard.” What this means, practically, is that a group of dedicated group of international volunteer editors, authors and translators filter the vast number of blogs by language, region and topic, and provide updates from blogs, photo and video blogs, podcasts and wikis from various regions around the world. At the moment, updates and summaries are translated into Bangla, Chinese, Farsi, French, Spanish and Portuguese, with German, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic and Malagasy to follow soon, ensuring that the material has as wide a reach as possible. Global Voices also runs several advocacy projects: they’ve created guides to anonymous blogging for bloggers who operate in countries where it’s not safe to reveal their identities, and worked with Reporters Without Borders to create a blogger and cyber-dissident’s handbook. The Voices Without Votes project shines a spotlight on the international perspective on the current US election, and Rising Voices aims to extend the benefits and reach of citizen media by connecting online media activists around the world. Almost all Global Voices content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attributions 2.5 licence, for easy dissemination.
tags: johannesburg south africa policy-law 10-of-the-best reading news blogs current-events ip knowledge global
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