US and the new wealth

New wealth/blog




For as long as I can remember, I have struggled to get an audience interested in the topic of intellectual property. I know why of course. It's not just that traditionally it has been managed by lawyers and is a dense, and entangled, and dry-as-dust area; it's also because it produces bad vibes. Especially in the education area.

Any mention of IP is likely to reduce a group of competent and confident educators to a confused and caution riddled heap, as they try and work out what they can and can't do with copyright.

This is understandable. In the past the big issue has always been compliance.
o Who owned the rights?
o Had permission been obtained?
o Was it fair dealing, or was there a fee to be paid etc etc?

It was a long checklist with no clear answers. But it is the past. It was when IP was part of the legal framework. When it was about definitions, doubts, debates, defences, and legal decisions.

That's not how it is today. There is a new IP regime in place. And it is all about trade!

It's about making, buying, selling - trading - IP in the information economy. Which is why I prefer to talk about new wealth.

Admittedly, the topic 'new wealth' attracts much more interest.

Tell anyone that you are writing an article on IP and their eyes will glaze over, and they will soon find an excuse to walk away. Mention that you are doing research and writing on the creation of the new wealth - on who has it, how they got it, and whether the rules for making it are fair - and their eyes can light up; they may even move in towards you and seek advice in a confidential manner.

A bit like insider trading - which it has been to some extent for the last two decades, for the major US corporations.

On Tuesday I gave a presentation in Melbourne. 'IP - new wealth- everybody's business'. And after the first few minutes I was able to relax; I didn't have to put my energy into trying to get the audience interest. And it's easy to understand why!

I told the story of the way that IP was transplanted from the legal labyrinth, to the rough and tumble of trade and the creation of new wealth. It's a story every Australian needs to know; it affects our wealth and our future.


Once upon a time in the 1970s, there were two very powerful US businessmen: Mr Opel who was the CEO of IBM, and Mr Pratt, the CEO of the giant pharmaceutical company, Pfizer.

Both men were in the IP/patent business, and both were very savvy, and very single minded. They understood that the world's economy was shifting to a knowledge based foundation, and that if they wanted to protect - and expand - their commercial interests, they needed to change the way that IP was managed at the international level.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was the international forum for legal debates and treaties at that time. It was an agency of the United Nations and all member nations had a vote. Not surprisingly, the poorer nations, the ones with little IP legislation (they had few patents or copyrights), generally outvoted the richer ones.

And one very rich nation, which held most of the world's IP (much of which belonged to the companies of Mr Opel and Mr Pratt) was frustrated and provoked by this arrangement.

To Mr Opel and Mr Pratt, WIPO was a most unsatisfactory forum for pushing their IP agenda. It was all talk. The US couldn't get the decisions it wanted, and what's more, as there were no penalties for countries which didn't stick to the legal agreements - there was no point anyway!

These two captains of industry wanted an international body where they had more control. Where they could enforce the rules - and penalise any nation that misused intellectual property. And they came up with a way to do it.

Along with a few of their friends - who were the CEOs of Hewlett Packard, General Motors, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, Monsanto etc - they started talking about IP rights, and IP as property, and then IP as trade!

And this is where IP moved from the legal realm - to new wealth and the world of trade.

These CEOs reasoned (ingeniously) that most nations of the world complied with trade agreements. (Partly because tariff barriers, sanctions and penalties could be applied if they did not.) So if only IP could be treated as a form of trade rather than a legal agreement, they would be able to get a better deal for their patents, copyright and trademarks.

And the rest is history. Mainly US history.

From their efforts a new world order was created in April 1994 with the signing of TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property). IP was taken out of the legal talk-fest and planted firmly in the hard-nosed business negotiations of trade. And the rules are clear; they favour the US multinationals.

This US achievement has been described as 'an extraordinary coup of less than 50 individuals' by Pat Choate in his book Hot Property; the stealing of ideas in an age of globalisation: it's something else to the Australians, Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite:

Put starkly, they say, the intellectual property rights regime we have today, largely represents the failure of democratic processes (p12). Why, they ask, would Australia (and other nations) willingly 'give up sovereignty over something as fundamental as the property laws that determine the ownership of information and the technologies that so profoundly affect the basic rights of their citizens?' (Intellectual Feudalism, p11)

Much the same questions were asked again in 2005 when Australia signed the Free Trade Agreement with the USA. According to 7.30 presenter, Maxine McKew, we traded our IP for a lamb chop; Sydney Morning Herald business commentator Ross Gittins said much the same thing; 'To the Australian negotiators it is about eliminating trade barriers; to the US it is all about IP'. They sell it and we buy it. On their terms.



And that's the story of how IP has become the new wealth. And how countries that don't 'harmonise' their IP laws with the US are in trouble; and individuals who don't go along with the US laws designed to lock up IP - are pirates and criminals.

It's not a good bedtime story; for anyone who is thinking about the future - it can be the stuff of nightmares. It can also make sane and law-abiding individuals who are interested in fair play and justice - want to change the world.

sleeping in king george square

Thursday night last week (11th) was the coldest night of the year; it registered because it was the night of the sleep out in King George Square, for homelessness week. And it was to draw attention to the plight of homeless women – and the dangers they face sleeping out on the street.

At 5.00 pm I took my blanket and pillow and headed off – and I couldn’t help but think of what it must be like to face such a situation every night; I was doing it for a protest, but there were so many women – and some so young and some so old – who face this every night. It has to be traumatising.

It was organised by the Big Issue. I have such admiration for the organization and for Anita Roddick, I might say, who turned more than one good idea into a commercial business. (She started The Body Shop in Brighton – and she is so motivated to ‘make a difference’; The Big Issue was also her idea – and it is supported by The Body Shop).

Some of us from the Second Chance Program had been talking to the Big Issue staff about the few women selling the magazine on the streets. And they pointed out something we should have realised; that homeless women selling a magazine on street corners can get harassed, molested, propositioned etc. Just like they do when they are trying to find a place to sleep at night. So – the sleep-out was arranged to draw attention to homeless women.

Some amazing tales were told. All harrowing. ‘Katt’ spoke out for the first time – an awful history from which she was recovering. Channel 10 did a news item on this on Friday night (and had Second Chance Programme web page address across the screen) and The Courier Mail journalist Kathleen Noonan followed it up in Saturday’s Inside Mail with a sensitive and sobering article.

You can always wish more people would become more aware, and that more could be done for the homeless – particularly homeless women – but at least it is becoming much more of a topic on the public agenda – thought it can still stop a lot of conversations when you bring it up. ‘Homeless women?’ some people say – ‘Are there any? I didn’t know that!’ Which is a major reason for continuing to talk and talk and arrange events and raise money …. Which is what the Second Chance Program does.

For me it was a real contrast with Tuesday night (16th) when I gave a talk at the Australian Institute of Management about Women on Boards. I talked about my own experience from my early days as a teacher – and the President of the South Coast and Tablelands English History Teachers Association; it was a good introduction to running an organization, giving speeches, arranging events and dealing with bureaucrats.

Some of the lessons I learned then, still hold. As do many of the lessons learned in London in the 1970s and 1980s in the publishing industry; editorial boards are slightly different – but managing meetings, reporting to boards, understanding issues of accountability are much the same. (Though I don’t make a big thing about working for Robert Maxwell and Pergamon Press at this stage.)

Back in Australia, I gained a different kind of the experience on the Management Committee of the Australian Society of Authors. More about policy and providing advice to politicians – always a tricky business. And AIMIA – the Australian Internet and Multimedia Industry Association – I was President of the Brisbane branch for a while; I met a lot of ‘geeks’ (and business men) – who taught me an enormous amount. Worth more than a university degree! It was through that organization that I got appointed to the Queensland Government Communication and Information Advisory Board – advising the first IT Minister, Terry Mackenroth, on policy for the state. (I convened the working party on IT Skills and wrote a report – in 1999 I think – on how we could do better. Maybe that’s why I got appointed to the board of Enabling Queensland.)

Then too there was the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). I was on the board for 9 years and was chair for two – two very exciting years, when there was a big shift from collecting photocopying records by hand – to keeping track of digital transactions online. I loved that.

There are many things you can say these days about women on boards. Twenty years ago, the arguments for more women were on the basis of justice and even affirmative action. These days it is much more about – it makes good sense. Good economic sense.

Women know things men don’t, and they often relate to certain products, to being a customer – or to straightforward management, particularly of people. In this day and age where one of the greatest challenges is to get people at the workforce to be innovative, to use their ingenuity and imagination, I would be more inclined to put my money on more women than men. There are all the old stories about motivating people by the stick or carrot; and -men (in general) are more likely to give orders and to use the stick – women, more often think in terms of the carrot. They think more about motives and reactions. Among other things. (Trade secrets.)


Of course I finished the talk with my experience on the board of the Second Chance Program Fundraising Group (inc). There’s quite a history there – a small group of concerned, private citizens, very determined to raise money for homeless women –‘ to make a difference’. One of the first big obstacles was to get charitable status -- and then to start raising awareness and raising money. It’s the biggest challenge – but one of the most rewarding in terms of the committee, the work, and the sense of promoting change. Going on the sleep out in that cold weather – and, with nearly 200 other women still being harassed by three men ---- one of whom asked us didn’t we have homes to go to – I realise that there is much more to do!

dalespender

hi everyone. welcome to my blog. i hope you enjoy.