Fw: cr> DNRC WIPO Press Release

["Jim Fleming" <JimFleming@prodigy.net>]

I urge everyone to consider the situation at hand and to
avoid wasting any more of your valuable time. Imagine if
you were an American Indian and each day brought news
of more and more groups and meetings being formed by
out-of-touch Europeans who had decided that they knew
how you needed to live. You could be pulled from your
peaceful homes to the cement, smog-filled worlds they
are creating to only find that your culture and heritage are
ripped from your souls as you are forced to conform to a
bunch of rules that you have already proven do not apply
to your people. Sure there are some "Indians" who have
now defected and who are being paid like royalty to be
the stooges of those who seek to destroy the Internet
culture and homogenize it into the party-line of those who no
longer choose to think or walk on the paths of freedom....
....this does not mean that you have to follow...you have a
choice...I once again suggest that you walk away...


Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation - UNIR and COM worlds @ http://www.activeworlds.com
vPC + C+@ + IPv8 + 2,048 TLDs...this network solution is simple...
http://www.ddj.com/articles/index/author/idx10133.htm


-----Original Message-----
From: Cyber Rights <cyber-rights@cpsr.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list cyber-rights@cpsr.org
<listserv-reply-errors@snyside.sunnyside.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 02, 1999 6:17 AM
Subject: cr> DNRC WIPO Press Release


>Sender: Audrie Krause <audrie@netaction.org>
>
>
>Dear Friends,
>
>I'm forwarding this because it may be of interest to this list.  Please
>refer any questions to Kathryn Kleiman (kathryn@domain-name.org), who is
the
>contact for the release.  (NetAction is a member of DNRC.)
>
>Audrie Krause
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>Press Release
>February 27, 1999
>Domain Name Rights Coalition
>
>Contact:
>Kathryn A. Kleiman
>Co-Founder, Domain Name Rights Coalition
>703/518-5184
>Email kathryn@domain-name.org
>
>PRESS RELEASE
>
>DOMAIN NAME RIGHTS COALITION APPLAUDS WIPO PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCATE AND
>URGES SMALL BUSINESS AND PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS TO ATTEND WIPO MARCH 10
>MEETING IN WASHINGTON, DC
>
>Alexandria, VA-- The Domain Name Rights Coalition (DNRC) applauds the
fifty-
>page critique of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) domain
>name plan released last week by Professor A. Michael Froomkin, the public
>interest advocate on WIPO's "Panel of Experts" (reachable from
>http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/).  Also, DNRC urges small businesses
and
>public interest groups to attend the last open meeting on the WIPO
>proposals, just announced for March 10 in Washington, D.C.
>
>The WIPO proposal (now in its final draft), entitled "WIPO RFC-3 Interim
>Report of the WIPO Internet Domain Name Process," proposes a new, global
>system for resolving domain name disputes through mandatory arbitration
>panels administered by WIPO.
>
>"Professor Froomkin's critique proves what DNRC has long feared - that WIPO
>remains insensitive to the problems of individuals and small businesses,"
>said DNRC President Mikki Barry.
>
>The Froomkin critique outlines in detail the flaws in the WIPO proposal,
>including:
>
>* Beyond a few introductory phrases paying lip-service to the principles of
>noncommercial use, the WIPO system fails to recognize the validity or
>importance of the noncommercial uses of the Internet such as political
>speech, consumer protection, and personal expression.
>
>* The WIPO system expands the protections enjoyed by famous marks beyond
>even the most generous protections now recognized in any jurisdiction in
the
>United States, Europe or the rest of the world, and threatens to include
>intellectual property rights that are not universally recognized, such as
>the European "right of personality."  This expansion would provide
>corporations and politicians with powerful tools to silence critics whose
>right to self-expression would otherwise be protected under national law.
>
>* The WIPO system would let commercially sophisticated businesses
intimidate
>individuals and small businesses into giving up domain names by threatening
>them with potentially expensive arbitration under a system they do not
>understand, in a language they may not know, outside the protection of
their
>national courts.
>
>* On the other hand, the WIPO system provides no protection to domain name
>holders from frivolous challenges, no certainty as to how conflicts will be
>resolved, and no limit to the number of challenges a domain name holder may
>face.
>
>In addition to pointing to the flaws in the proposal, Professor Froomkin's
>critique also points to serious flaws in the process.  According to
>Professor Froomkin, WIPO has made no effort to publicize these proceedings
>outside the narrow world of trademark interests and those who follow
>trademark issues.
>
>Further, Froomkin speaks of the limited role WIPO permitted to its "panel
of
>experts" - on which Froomkin participated as a public interest advocate.
>WIPO provided the experts with little time to review drafts (Froomkin
speaks
>of material left "under the door of our   hotel rooms the night before our
>first meeting"), and included in the final version extensive amounts of new
>text the panel of experts never saw.
>
>"Sadly, the experts at WIPO feel that they know what's best for everyone,"
>said Kathryn Kleiman, General Counsel of the Domain Name Rights Coalition.
>Kleiman saw a similar attempt to speed through a nearly identical system in
>September 1997, when WIPO tried to set up "administrative challenge panels"
>to settle domain name disputes.  Complaints by DNRC and others to the
>Department of Commerce, however, forced supporters of the administrative
>challenge panels to back down and use a more open process.  Kleiman adds:
>"There are people at WIPO who believe they should be in charge of deciding
>Internet issues, whatever the cost or 'collateral damage' to individual
>rights or small businesses."
>
>The WIPO Request for Comments (RFC)-3 proposal is available at
>http://wipo2.wipo.int/process/eng/processhome.html.   Comments on RFC-3 are
>due March 12 and should be sent to process@wipo2.wipo.int.
>
>DNRC urges organizations or individuals with a concern about the WIPO
>policies to attend the final WIPO Panel of Experts meeting in Washington,
>D.C. at the Department of Commerce on March 10, 1999.  The sign up sheet is
>available at http://wipo2.wipo.int/process/eng/processhome.html (under the
>"consultations"button).
>
>Copies of comments should also be sent to the ICANN board which may this
>week adopt controversial aspects of WIPO's  RFC-3 -- prior to WIPO's final
>open meeting and publication of its final version of the report.
>
> ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
>  Posted by Andrew Oram  - cr-owner@cpsr.org - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS
>   A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
>          http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/
>          ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/
> Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use.
> ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~