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Access to knowledge difficulties in

developing countries: A balanced
access to copyrighted works in the
digital environment
a
Thipsurang Vathitphund
a
University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce , Bangkok,
Thailand
Published online: 02 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Thipsurang Vathitphund (2010) Access to knowledge difficulties in developing
countries: A balanced access to copyrighted works in the digital environment, International Review
of Law, Computers & Technology, 24:1, 7-16, DOI: 10.1080/13600860903570111

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 International Review of Law, Computers & Technology
Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2010, 716

Access to knowledge difculties in developing countries: A balanced

access to copyrighted works in the digital environment
Thipsurang Vathitphund

University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, Bangkok, Thailand

Downloaded by [University of Chicago Library] at 01:58 18 November 2014

Copyright law, at its core, is a balancing act between the interests of creators and those of
the public. It gives effective rights protection to the creators and provides reasonable
access to the public in order to encourage creativity and innovation. In the digital
realm of the more recent past, too much access to copyrighted works has caused
problems for the copyright owners. Thus, most copyright owners, who are mainly
from the developed countries, sought more protection in the form of World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties and bilateral agreements.
These agreements have since tilted the balance towards overprotection of copyrighted
materials and consequently have restricted the public from access to knowledge,
which has, for the most part, prevented developing countries from being able to use
digital copyrighted material. This paper studies the aspect of access to knowledge
(A2K) movement, the perspectives of developed vs developing countries, and
proposed a new more balanced framework to foster greater access to knowledge in
the digital environment for developing countries.
Keywords: A2K; access to knowledge; copyright

Introduction

All men by nature desire (to know) knowledge. (Aristotle)

Why do we desire knowledge? Essentially because knowledge is a tool used to create mas-
terpieces in art, science and literature. Knowledge begets creativity which begets further
knowledge. Today, knowledge is more powerful than ever, it is the root of intuition, the
key that unlocks peoples creativity, imagination and from that, technology. To be more
specic, to generate creativity, one needs to follow certain thought processes and require-
ments. First, one needs to be knowledgeable and have a thorough understanding of the
subject. Second, one needs to be inspired to generate that creative spark to invent and
nally, one must take time to evaluate or process that creative idea. For example, Shakes-
peare did not write the play Romeo and Juliet himself. Specically, he did not create the plot
or scene himself. He came upon Arthur Brookes poem, which was based on Arthurs
knowledge of a true story a knowledge he learned from yet another source no doubt.
Shakespeare found the poem fascinating and used that story and added details based on


Email: thipsurang_vat@utcc.ac.th

ISSN 1360-0869 print/ISSN 1364-6885 online

# 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13600860903570111
http://www.informaworld.com
 8 T. Vathitphund

his imagination to create one of the greatest plays of all times. This play has in turn contin-
ued to inspire numerous other works.
In the past, one could get access to materials like Shakespeares plays, Jane Austens
novels and other non-copyrighted pieces easily. People were able to gain information
from sources without much difculty, and create many derivative works and initiatives
which together made possible the rapid literary advancement we all know as the golden
age. Fast forward to the present, knowledge appeared in even more forms: changing
from the more traditional ways, such as people gaining knowledge by reading novels, or
traveling to many countries and learning from other cultures, or even as simple as listening
to bedtime stories told from generation to generation to the more modern ways of Internet
browsing in the digital world. Why then has it been so difcult to nd another great piece of
work in our era, the piece that in the next century will be spoken of with similar very high
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regard? What has changed? Could we be seeing another effect of the emerging copyright
law that aimed to protect the rights of the authors to receive fair economic return on
their works? Surely this cannot be the case? After all, copyright laws aim to give incentives
to authors for their creativities as well as opportunities for users in accessing copyrighted
works with permission from the copyright owner or on condition of fair use,
of course. So if copyright law is not the cause of the problem, then what is?
To answer this question, we will need to rewind and observe recent history of cultural
advancement. In the wake of technology development, the copyright issue has changed
dramatically and the balance previously achieved by copyright seems to be tilting.1 The
rise of the Internet since the beginning of the twenty-rst century has had a vital impact on
our everyday activities such that we can work or purchase everything without stepping
outside our homes. More importantly, we can access information, get knowledge, copy
and share les of book, music, software, lms, artwork and countless other items with a
click of a mouse. This tremendous technology advancement provided easy access to copy-
right works for users of the digital environment all while presenting problems to the copyright
owners, i.e. piracy, un-fair use, and unauthorized exploitation of knowledge. Naturally, these
resulted in the proposal and subsequent approval to amend the underlying copyright laws and
policies. That marked a change in the face of intellectual property in the digital world.
Developed countries, the major source of knowledge and new technologies, rightfully
requested protection of their copyright works in various levels after increasing rate of copy-
right infringement on the Internet. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
Internet Treaties are one example of the enacted protection at the international level. The
treaties facilitate right holders to easily control online information by providing efcient
tools such as digital rights management (DRM) or technological protection measures
(TPM). However, the problem arose that these strategies could, no matter what, block
the access to copyright work, and prevent the copying and sharing of copyright work in
the digital form. Although most multinational corporations and policymakers believe this
approach will increase protection of copyright owners rights and prevent infringement,
another group believes that conservation of access to knowledge and the preservation of
knowledge commons are fundamental to human development and a good safeguard of
human rights.
Up to today, this debate of access to knowledge difculties especially of the copyrighted
works in the digital environment has not been resolved. This paper will rst provide an
explanation of the Access to Knowledge Movement going through the aspects of access
to knowledge and major issues facing access to copyrighted work on the Internet. This
paper will also cover the overview of developed countries on the access to knowledge
issue and show the effects of intellectual property (IP) expansion in the digital era and
 International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 9

illustrate problems in developing countries as an example of difculties in access to knowl-

edge. Finally, this paper will provide recommendations on methods that developing
countries could utilize to rebalance IP law.

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement

Knowledge is the common heritage of mankind. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human
Rights states: Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the commu-
nity, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientic advancement and its benets. The under-
lying debatable issue is that the statement said everyone can enjoy the right but it did
NOT say everyone can enjoy it with NO cost. IP law supports the idea that the authors
who create all creative works and innovative methods should earn economic return from
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the use of his work through getting the right of protection.2 On the ip side, although
some argue that IP law actually fosters further innovation, creativity and development
for human kind, the cost can be too high, which will naturally restrict public access to
knowledge.3 As a side note, some IP laws do give the access to work for free under an
exception of fair use.
However, since 2002, the scope of IP law has grown bigger and stronger. As a result,
people have been blocked from access to information in many ways. In the eld of digital
copyright, the subject matter protected under copyright law has been expanded to cover all
computer programs and software. Also, the terms of copyright protection have been
extended to 70 years in some countries, e.g. the USA. Moreover, the sanction imposed
for IP law infringement has been increased to include not only civil sanctions but also crim-
inal sanctions.
As a result of the expansion of intellectual property rights and the problems it brings, the
A2K group4 has emerged with the aim to support the other side, access to information. The
knowledge controlled under intellectual property varies across many elds such as litera-
ture, art, software, innovative invention and scientic devices. Thus, A2K groups objec-
tives and scopes are also very broad and cover access to data, education, technology, and
invention to access to plant seeds, biotech, or arts.5 This paper will focus on mainly the
A2K movement in the scope of access to copyrighted work in the digital form.
Copyrighted work in a digital form is one of the most important focus points for the
A2K movement. Information technology has changed the way people gain access to infor-
mation. A lot of information is recorded in electronic devices and pooled through many net-
works, particularly the Internet network. It is unquestionable that the Internet is now a major
information source for many people as it is convenient, easy and fast to get information, not
to mention being the least expensive source of knowledge. Nonetheless, most of this Web
information is actually already protected under copyright law. Therefore, if strictly
enforced, copyright law might actually prove to be a bigger obstruction for people to
access to knowledge in the digital environment than people currently perceive.
The Internet is a wonderful platform for education and dissemination of knowledge but
the opportunity to access e-knowledge is still low. On-line libraries, databases, multimedia
educational software programs and e-learning are all protected by copyright laws. More-
over, as a result of the expansion of international copyright law, these products are also pro-
tected with anti-circumvention of technological measures such as DRM and TPM, which
have prevented copies of works from being made even for fair use such as public edu-
cation.6 TPM has heavily limited the ability of individuals to access digital content and
with it their ability to take part in human culture. These tools were designed to protect
the authors rights but have failed to recognize that knowledge should also not be privatized
 10 T. Vathitphund

for the benet of the few and that the public should be able to access it for free and without
interference.7
There are many case examples illustrating the overprotection of IP law and the difculty
in accessing e-knowledge. In the USA, a case involving the Federation Communication
Commission (FCC) showed how the inuence of the copyright owners can limit the
publics access to information and impair publics ability to use content in new and inno-
vative ways. The FCC announced a regulation requiring consumer electronic devices
such as, but not limited to, digital television, VCRs, DVD players, and personal computers
to include a broadcast ag technology. Broadcast ag technology prevents contents from
being copied and shared on the Internet. Essentially, this means the FCC regulation has
forced the consumer to buy the electronic devices together with the device that would
prevent TV shows or contents from being copied and shared via the Internet8 to the
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benet of the content owner.

As mentioned, copyright aims to protect creative work and at the same time persuade
people to create more creativity and valuable work. However, people could not create
more creative work or knowledge if they cannot access previous works. Owing to the
expansion of copyright law, copyrighted works are protected more securely which has
resulted in difculties in accessing information. The A2K emerged to solve this problem.
Its responsibility is to guarantee individual rights in access to knowledge and at the same
time copyright owners rights to economic incentive. To put it more simply, A2K tries to
rebalance the IP law.

Developed countries perspective on access to knowledge

Because of the high frequency of IP infringement among users of technology development,
the idea of expansion of IP protection has always been championed. In the international
realm, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)
is one of the major IP treaties resulting from expansion efforts. Developed countries who
wanted to protect their own works required all members of the World Trade Organization
(WTO) to implement high levels of substantive IP protection. For example, copyright pro-
tection for software and source code, patents in all elds of technology of no less than 20
years in duration, and some form of plant-variety protection (in the eld of biotechnology).
However, cases of infringement of IP protected works have been growing and they do not
just happen in tangible work, they also occur with digital works via Internet or wireless
technology. Therefore, because of advances in information technology, additional copyright
protection was deemed necessary. The TRIPs and WIPO Internet Treaties are the laws that
developed countries have used to protect copyrighted work on the Internet and block access
to knowledge from infringers.
The WIPO Internet Treaties, including WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Per-
formances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), entered into force in 2002. WCT was enacted
to protect copyright works, namely computer programs and compilations of data, or other
materials. It deals with exclusive rights, namely the right of distribution, the right of rental
and the right of communication to the public. WPPT, however, was enacted to protect the
rights of performers and producers of phonograms. Though both treaties were introduced to
protect different subject matters, they shared the same tools in controlling the digital access
and copy of works, known as TPM and DRM.
TPM and DRM, the two new tools of the rights holder in the digital age have effectively
prevented the right of a user to access knowledge. The rights holders under the WIPO Inter-
net Treaties have used TPM in regulating the copying, distribution, use of, and access to
 International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 11

digital works through computer code with attached DRMs which are data or information
that identies works and authors on the copy of the digital works used to manage
authors rights. WIPO Internet Treaties also ban the circumvention of TPM and protect
against removal or alteration of information in DRM. Therefore, if any user accesses the
digital copyrighted works protected under TPM or DRM without asking for the copyright
owners permission, that user could face civil or criminal offense charges.
WIPO Internet Treaties aim to develop and maintain the protection of the rights of
authors in their works with adequate solutions to the problems caused by newer economic,
social, cultural and technological developments. However, many experts believe that these
treaties have given rights to copyright owners in protecting their digital works way beyond
the rights of copyright owners of the past. Nevertheless, it should be noted that these treaties
set up by developed countries, only took effect in developing countries that implemented
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these treaties in their domestic law. Therefore, developing countries that disagree with
the copyright overprotection do have a chance to consider and nd better solutions in pro-
tection of the rights of authors in their countries.
However, apart from WIPO Internet Treaties, developed countries have another
weapon to use against infringements happening in the developing countries. Parallel to
the international copyright policy and underlining the growing importance of trade to intel-
lectual property right protection, the post-TRIPs period witnessed an increase in the
number and pace of signing bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). One country with
a strong capacity to inuence and impose the substantive protection required by TRIPs
is the USA. The record shows that the USA has completed FTAs with many countries,
i.e. Australia, Singapore and Oman, and continues to pursue agreements with many
more. These agreements typically forced parties into increasing IP protection in many
areas, for example, by providing sui generis protection for pharmaceutical registration
data, limiting the grounds on which compulsory licenses can be granted, providing for
the extension of patent terms to compensate for delays arising from regulatory approval
processes, providing for patents on life forms, adhering to the International Union for
the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the WIPO Copyright Treaty,
enacting local versions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and extending
copyright terms.
Among the various components under the US FTA, increased IP protection is the topic
that stood out. In a typical agreement the USA would impose contracting parties to adopt
WIPO Internet Treaties, enacting local versions of the DMCA, and related matters.
Although TRIPs is a standard that most developed countries will impose on developing
countries to implement, The WIPO Internet Treaties are, instead, the law that the USA is
pressing a growing number of countries to adopt through bilateral trade agreements. The
USA holds a vast amount of copyrighted works in digital form, hence, it is necessary for
the USA to force contracting parties to respect copyright owners rights. WIPO is an excel-
lent method to pressure developing countries to do this. As a bilateral agreement relies on
the contract principle, its implication is more severe than for International Treaties. Even
though both international treaties and bilateral agreements require their members and
parties to voluntarily ratify and implement the law at domestic level, bilateral agreements
impose stronger effects and sanctions on violating parties such as threats through the
US-Special 301 process, tax and diplomatic measures, and ceasing trade relationships.
Moreover, the US FTA also imposed the contracting parties to implement the DMCA at
the domestic level. After the US ratication of WCT and through a major lobby at US Con-
gress by the copyright owners, such as the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the US copyright law
 12 T. Vathitphund

or DMCA revealed a new and modern look of law in the digital age. It addressed a number
of signicant copyright-related issues particularly in Section 1201. The section allowed
copyright owners to provide effective protection against circumvention of technological
measures in order to protect their works. These technological measures could be categor-
ized in two forms: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and
measures that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Any person who
tries to access and copy copyrighted work protected by TPM by decrypting, removing,
or impairing a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner
would be charged under a civil or criminal offense.
One pro-WIPO expert argues that although both international treaties and domestic
legislation impose technological protection measures as the tools for copyright owners,
there is no obligation for the authors and right-holders to adopt such measures. The
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authors and copyright owners do have an option to use the measure.9 However, experience
has shown that most authors and commercial businesses will always choose to protect their
works with this specic measure. Adobe and Sony are examples in commercial business.
Adobe used DRM to prevent readers of its eBooks from copying text or using read-
aloud programs, while Sony used a DRM system called root kit software to limit users
from making digital copies of its content and playing in other devices.10
The limitations and exceptions to the prohibitions of acts against TPM under DMCA are
indeed very narrow. Although member countries can implement these principles with their
own interpretation of the condition of limitations and exceptions to exclusive rights in
special cases, such as it does not conict with a normal exploitation of the work, and/or
it does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author, the USA have
chosen to interpret way beyond this standard. This overprotection of copyright could threa-
ten democratic traditions and impact on social justice principles by unreasonably restricting
the public from access to information and knowledge. There is evidence that TPM under
DMCA can and do trump limitations of fair use. Even though, the provision states that
TPM does not affect rights, remedies, limitations or defenses to copyright infringement,
including fair use, the court could interpret that the fair use clause in copyright law are
separate from the exceptions of the anti-circumvention provisions.11 In other words, fair
use could be deemed inapplicable in this interpretation.
For example, the person that space-shifts movies from DVD to iPod or any other
digital media player for personal use is deemed as an infringer because they have circum-
vented DVDs encryption provided by the movie studios. In another case software
companies were banned from launching products that allowed users to time shift and
stream media for listening and viewing later, even if this was for fair use. Another
related example, movie studios halted an attempt to introduce a format-shifting product
by RealDVD that would have helped users, for fair use, create exact copies of DVDs to
their own PC hard drive.12

Developing countries perspective of access to knowledge and their propensity

International treaties do leave room for developing countries to decide whether they are
ready to expand their domestic IP protection. Most developing countries choose a wait
and see action. With the rate of copyright infringements growing in developing countries
especially in Asia, the pressure of IP expansion with bilateral agreements becomes
inevitable.
Access to knowledge in developing countries has traditionally been very difcult for the
public. Now, with higher prices of the copyrighted products in educational or entertainment
 International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 13

materials, people in developing countries are struggling even more for access. Users who
under the previous form of IP protection would have been considered eligible for fair
use in that they are allowed to access books or CDs for educational purpose and personal
use, now nd themselves, with the bilateral agreement in place, unable to do so anymore.
The reality is copyrighted work in the digital environment protected under TPM pre-
sents a much larger barrier for the users in developing countries than in the past. TPM
deprives the publics right to copy digital copyrighted work and becomes a barrier to
access to knowledge, by denying the rights to education and enjoyment of cultural life.
In a more tangible example, if users wanted to make a copy of educational CDs or
DVDs protected with TPM even just for personal use, e.g. preventing the defect of the
CDs in the future, the user would not be allowed to. Another example is if a teacher
wants to use some part of online articles protected with TPM for e-learning through Inter-
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net, the teacher would not be allowed to copy that part or any other parts to use as teaching
material.
TPM is also used to dominate and monopolize pricing in developing countries markets.
The motion picture and video game industries use this measure to separate markets. They
provide region coding technologies to control the availability and pricing of DVDs and
video games in specic regions.13 The user who buys Sony PlayStation in Japan must
use this platform with games from Japan. If that user brings Sony PlayStation to Thailand
and intends to use it with a game sold in Thailand, they could not do it. On top of that,
anyone who tries to circumvent the protection measure of the device is deemed as an
infringer.
An even more serious problem, public domain knowledge can be effectively monopo-
lized and controlled by the use of TPM for unspecied time. There is no rule as to what type
of technology can be used with TPM. The copyright law allows the copyright owner to use
TPM with any copyrighted work within the specic period of time. However, a case exists
where the protection term of the work has expired while the TPM is still attached to the
work. In this case, an interpretation of the law is that any person who circumvents the
technological measure of public domain work would not be infringing on the copyright
and do have the right to do so. However, there are two problems with this. Not many
people know technology well enough to be able to circumvent these devices themselves,
and furthermore, it is hard to nd devices in the market to circumvent that measure
because the law clearly bans any sale and production of devices to circumvent TPM. In
other words, all public work with TPM is essentially copyrighted indenitely.

Returning the balance

From the aforementioned effects to developing countries, one understands that all digital
forms of knowledge have become expensive to the public. People in developing countries
can not get access to knowledge even after establishing that access to knowledge is the real
basis for sustainable human development and basic human rights.
The best approach for developing countries to gain bargaining power against IP
overprotection and expansion from developed countries is to build inter-country regional
networks. The group of countries with the same interests and ideas would become allies,
constitute support, and put forth political leverage.14 An example of common culture,
economic development, and concern is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). ASEAN tasks relating to IP matters include fostering IP asset creation in
ASEAN, developing a framework for harmonization and protection of IPRs, and promoting
greater awareness and building up IP capacity.
 14 T. Vathitphund

Establishing the organization at the regional level would also remove barriers to access
to knowledge and play an important role in high-level policy debates. Developing countries
should be aware that with the forming of these organizations, only through them will con-
icts between developed countries and developing countries be solved, especially, since the
two parties often have different understandings of the purpose of intellectual monopoly
powers. While developed countries are looking to create a global system of regulation
with uniformly strict standards for intellectual monopolies, developing countries require
room for experimentation and room to catch up per se. In other words, developed
countries who mostly control copyrighted work would like to tighten IP standards,
whereas, developing countries who are mostly the users of knowledge would like to high-
light the importance of access and get more knowledge. For this reason, developing
countries should instill their trust in regional organizations that would offer signicant
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leverage in the development of A2K.

A couple of examples of organizations at regional level can be seen in Asia and Pacic
Creative Commons and The African Copyright & Access to Knowledge Project. Asia and
Pacic Creative Commons has been established with the idea of promoting the creative
reuse of intellectual and artistic works whether owned or in the public domain, especially
in Asia and Pacic countries. The organization aims to provide the licenses with a more
exible range of protections and freedoms than that provided under copyright law. Some
examples of their achievements are the CC Attribution license (CC BY) that allows
users to copy and distribute copyrighted work as long as they give credit to original
author, and the CC Attribution Non-Commercial license (CC BY NC) that also allows
users to copy and distribute copyrighted work as long as they do not use it for commercial
work and give credit to the original author. Meanwhile, The African Copyright & Access
to Knowledge Project is set up to provide a framework to promote the access to
knowledge in African countries. This group have studied deeply the national copyright
laws and used them as instruments to promote access to knowledge in various African
countries.
In addition, to strike back at the over zealous expansion of IP overprotection in the inter-
national forum, developing countries with the same goal need to propose new and fair stan-
dard laws to WIPO, laws that considers human-rights more than copy-rights by ensuring
access to knowledge. In 2005, developing countries showed a great advancement by pro-
posing mutually the Access to Knowledge (A2K) Treaty which was integrated into the
WIPO Development Agenda in order to create the international framework of principles
to enhance A2K and facilitate technology transfer. For example, the adoption of principles
relating to preserving and clarifying limitations and exceptions to copyright, to the estab-
lishment of a knowledge commons with respect to publicly-funded research, and clarify-
ing the relationship between DRM legislation and copyright protection, including
compulsory licensing regimes for developing countries. This treaty reects the A2K move-
ment in seeking to reclaim things that were once treated as part of the common heritage of
humanity, before they were converted into private property.
However, there are many aws in the A2K treaty. Even if it does comprise of many
clauses aimed to x the unbalanced problems of IP laws, they are too specic and do
not meet the minimum standards. Perhaps this was because the proposals were drafted
by private sectors from some developed countries. Some provisions, such as subject
matter exclusions and exceptions and limitations, were directly copied from national
laws of some other developed countries. Moreover, there are no provisions in treaties pre-
venting developing countries from implementing more expansive intellectual property rules
in their domestic laws, and therefore the A2K treaty needs to be signicantly revised. One
 International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 15

commentator observed that this treaty is more a tool of mobilization than legalization15 as
it is successful in getting the attention but not really applicable.
If developing countries can build strong networks and relationships at regional level,
they will certainly gain bargaining power in any negotiation including the amendment of
the A2K treaty, which would ultimately facilitate access to knowledge.

Conclusion
Access to knowledge is critical for developing countries that seek to educate their masses
who are already behind in the knowledge base. Knowledge, which is supposed to be
common goods for people in general has been turned into private property to gain econ-
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omic benet for a few as a result of the overprotection provided by the copyright law in the
digital environment.
Consequently, the A2K group has emerged with the aim to battle the eager expansion of
IP protection by developed countries. WIPO Internet Treaties proved that it makes an effec-
tive tool to make developing countries aware of authors rights. However, at the same time,
bilateral agreement such as FTA has negatively affected developing countries.
The right holders instruments of attack are TPM and DRM. Knowledge in digital form
should have been easily used to develop further innovation and creativity however, the
facts that they are protected by TPM and DRM have prevented others from accessing and
copying their works even for fair use. Thus, the fair use clause has since been severely
crippled by these strict laws.
Developing countries have been affected by the expansion of IP laws ever since the
introduction of TPM and DRM which deprive the rights of users from access to knowledge.
The current IP law also dominates and controls the market of developing countries through
region segmentation. Moreover, it has successfully blocked the right of users in gaining
knowledge from the public domain.
However, the developing countries efforts in solving these problems are beginning to
surface, from the push for a development agenda in the WIPO, to the civil society campaign
for an Access to Knowledge Treaty, all the way to the various initiatives to promote access
to copyrighted materials, and establishment of network and organization to enhance the
access to knowledge in developing countries. Indeed there is a positive and reassuring
trend of striking back at the broad expansion of IP law originating from developed
countries. However, although multiple organizations were established to solve the access
to knowledge problem, ultimately, harmonization and implementation at many regional
levels is key.

Notes
1. Urs Gasser and Silke Ernst, From Shakespeare to DJ Danger Mouse: A Quick Look at Copy-
right and User Creativity in the Digital Age, Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2006-
05. Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract909223 (last accessed 5 May 2009).
2. Mark A. Lemley, Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding. Texas Law Review 83
(2005): 1031, 1034. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract582602 or DOI: 10.2139/
ssrn.582602 (last accessed 5 May 2009).
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