IGF 2020 WS #139 CopyLeft or Right? Mediating Interests in Academic Databases

Information

Session

Thematic Track:

Topic(s):

Database Protection
Innovation
Open Data

Organizer 1: Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Organizer 2: Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 3: Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Organizer 4: Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Organizer 5: Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Organizer 6: Technical Community, African Group

Speaker 1: Vivian Moya, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Mariana Valente, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: Thierry Nathanael Kopia , Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 4: Elnur Karimov, Civil Society, Eastern European Group

Format:

Other - 90 Min
Format description: The room will have a table either in a rectangular or circle shape for at least 7 people. The seats will be assigned to the moderator/mediator, and at her right and left side, the online moderator and rapporteur. Next to each organizer, two speakers (4 speakers in total) who will sit face-to-face. The setting up of the table will help the mediating parties (speakers) to feel more comfortable, collaborative and constructive in their speeches which will help reach the solution. During the session, the distance of the online moderator and rapporteur with the moderator will contribute to a better cooperation, especially, in terms of the questions from the onsite and online audience, and gathering common points with the rapporteur.

Description:

Mediation (90 minutes) The mediation will begin with the moderator/mediator’s opening speech that will touch the challenges and possible solution models to the open and affordable access to academic databases posed by intellectual property rights of both database owners and authors. Then, the moderator will introduce the mediating parties (speakers in the list below). The presentation delivered by each speaker will focus on the interest in academic databases as a particular stakeholder group and their recommended solutions and will help the audience to better understand the expectations of mediating parties (speakers). The speakers will represent government, private sector, civil society and the youth’s approach to open academic databases. In particular, the session audience will have an opportunity to listen to the perspective of the private sector and state authority on copyright protection, Creative Commons organization, and the youth on open access to databases. The first two speeches will be followed by a Q&A session both with online and onsite audiences who will address their questions to the speakers and contribute to the mediation. During the Q&A session, the moderator, with the help of the rapporteur, will collect the common/similar solutions raised by the speakers. After the Q&A session, the moderator will speak about the common points identified. The mediation will follow the same structure with the remaining two speakers. Finally, the moderator will collect all common points and add them in a final document which will symbolically be called “A Resolution Agreement”. The session will continue with the symbolic signature ceremony of the agreement by parties which will reflect the agreed policy, and conclude with the moderator’s closing remarks. Distinctively, this session will introduce a solution-oriented approach by not only listening to the speakers from different interests but trying to mediate them to reach a deal. The session is nurtured from the practical advantages of mediation methodology, which means that by mediation the session will reach its purpose of finding tangible outputs on open databases that will serve the interests of all stakeholder groups. The methodology will make the speakers think more practical and solution-oriented. The moderator will play a key role in facilitating discussions and bringing the parties closer. The intended agenda of the session is as follows: Opening speech by Moderator/Mediator - 10 minutes The 1st Speaker (Private Sector) - 10 minutes The 2nd Speaker (Civil Society) - 10 minutes Q&A Session - 10 minutes Mediator’s Comments - 5 minutes The 3rd Speaker (Youth) - 10 minutes The 4th Speaker (Government) - 10 minutes Q&A Session - 10 minutes Mediator’s Comments - 5 minutes A Symbolic Ceremony of Signature of Resolution Agreement - 5 minutes Closing speech by Moderator/Mediator - 5 minutes

Issues:

The UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 calls for the inclusive and equitable quality of education and the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all. Taking into account that many developing countries still lack basic infrastructure to reach quality education and literacy, Goal 4 plays a vital role in the resolution of one of the greatest obstacles that humanity faces. Current technologies promise knowledge to all and sundry removing the barriers faced by people who cannot afford quality education. The role of the databases is undeniable to make the physical libraries more affordable on the internet. Despite that, the unavailability or unaffordability of the books, journals and other written quality materials on the databases contributes to the stability of low levels of literacy of the large proportion of the world population. On the other hand, it negatively affects the quality of the research at most academic institutions and universities and delays the innovation, instead of fostering it following the UN Sustainable Development Goal 9. Most universities in developing countries still follow the traditional way of researching at libraries with limited use of academic databases, which means a limited research capacity. While the status quo leaves many underprivileged persons behind, especially those living in rural areas, and in times of armed conflicts, humanity has remembered that in times of pandemic like the COVID-19, all of us can be on the same board and be vulnerable. The pandemic occurred but education did not stop at all. The absence of physical interactions necessitated the use of distance education which is highly welcome. However, to achieve sustainability and quality in distance education, physical libraries should also be transformed into the electronic world. Without e-resources that are at least equivalent to the capacity of average libraries to conduct research, online education does not match current needs. Thus, the pandemic has reignited the discussion on public policies of open access of public-funded research. The lack of financial support to access databases is a serious problem for graduates and undergraduates. In terms of academic databases, the conflicting interests and copyright of book authors, and database companies yield insufficient content by database owners and low rate of access. To this end, the interested parties (database companies, authors’ association and users) should be brought together with the participation of governments that hold the policy-making power to revisit this issue to ensure free and affordable access to quality databases to foster inclusive and equitable education. This session aims to simulate the partnership between governments, civil society actors, private companies and youth in the mediation format, to come with a tangible outcome.

Policy Question(s):

1. How to ensure an open and affordable use of academic databases for scientific innovation without infringing monopolistic individual and corporate copyright? 2. How effective are the policies implemented by private and civil society organizations to enable free access to academic works, such as Creative Commons? 3. Can forceful policies by governments or public-private partnerships solve the dilemma between copyleft and copyright? 4. To what extent do the interests of the young users (the youth) of academic databases (e.g. students, academicians) influence the policy-making process? 5. In the light of the lessons learned from COVID-19 pandemic, can the cases of global emergency be a ground for opening databases?

Expected Outcomes:

1) Showing participants the importance of policies or initiatives of open and affordable access to academic databases and other documents, especially as a way of stimulating research and learning amongst the youth from developing countries; 2) Advancing the argument that policies of open/affordable access are not antagonistic to individual intellectual property rights, and that their coexistence is not only fruitful but also necessary to maximize innovation under a utilitarian perspective; 3) Bringing national and international examples of successful public policies to cheapen access, open access, research exceptions, and also collecting other examples from the audience for future developments; 4) Pointing out in which topics more empirical evidence is needed to understand better when to choose between closed or open access to certain materials; 5) Using the symbolic resolution (agreement) between the mediating parties as a policy draft as a tool of advocacy for legislation and company policies on open databases.

Relevance to Internet Governance: 1) Intellectual property was profoundly affected by the popularization of the Internet. Distribution and access were greatly facilitated, but this also came with the illegal utilization of protected works. It is not strange that this has become a classic topic of Internet governance; 2) Open/cheap access public policies appear as a two-sided solution. Both to harness the potential of the Internet to provide access to knowledge for regions and groups that historically did not have it, and to provide alternatives to paid services, making piracy less attractive; 3) To develop a public policy that does not disincentive creators and researchers while allowing their works to impact as many people as possible, a multi-stakeholder approach is needed, promoting dialogue between database owners, publishers, universities and civil society, with government intermediation.

Relevance to Theme: 1) Although data governance is nowadays usually related to personal data protection, there are also several other relevant topics inside this wide thematic. Even if this is the most urgent and worrying aspect today, there is also this pressing aspect which we have discussed in this proposal The lack of studies on the best models of intellectual property on the Internet is continuously pointed out by various experts. It is a deeply important area for human knowledge, but several aspects of it remain obscure or poorly publicized. 2) One of the topics that deserve more attention is the optimization of distribution, access and use of scientific data, whose global form is made possible (or at least facilitated) by the Internet, and the effects this could have on the global youth. 3) Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how important this discussion is, because of the preference of distance education in most academic institutions. The students had to use the online sources because the universities and libraries were locked down, and students like everyone could not leave their homes for their health but still urged to complete their research, dissertations or theses. The sources of most academic institutions, in particular in developing institutions lack access to rich academic databases for several reasons, some of which are high prices and intellectual property rights of the companies behind.

Discussion Facilitation:

The organizers plan to allow the audience to come with questions and contribute to the mediation between parties not only at the end of the session but after every two speeches. The interim Q&A sessions will help the audience raise more specific questions to the speakers who talked. The moderator will moderate the session, and ensure receiving questions from the audience. Additionally, the online moderator will be available during the session for remote participation and bring two questions at least from the online participants to the mediation during the whole session. For this, the online moderator will create an e-meeting on the Zoom platform, transmit the broadcast of the meeting, and guide the online attendees in discussions. After the opening speech, the online moderator will divide the online attendees into two groups randomly, using the feature of the Zoom platform to create rooms for group work. For example, the first group will discuss the speech by the government and prepare a question. The second group will accordingly discuss the civil society representative and pick up their question. Two drafted questions or comments will be sounded by the online moderator at the onsite meeting to the respective speakers during the Q/A session. The same structure will be followed at the next two speeches.

Online Participation:

Usage of IGF Official Tool. Additional Tools proposed: The organizing team is planning to use Zoom E-meeting platform or Microsoft Teams. One of these platforms will be used to moderate the online discussions, to create group discussions and interact with the online audience to make teamwork and come with questions.

SDGs:

GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Reference Document