Today I’m soft launching an initiative that I’ve been thinking about for 20 years, obtained a domain name for in 1998, blogged about once in 2004, and the last few years have been exploring on this blog without naming it. See the first items in my annual thematic doubt posts for 2013 and 2014: “protecting and promoting intellectual freedom, in particular through the mechanisms of free/open/knowledge commons movements, and in reframing information and innovation policy with freedom and equality outcomes as top.”
I call it the World Intellectual Freedom Organization (WIFO).
Read about its theory, why a new organization, proposed activities, and how you can help/get involved.
Why today? Because April 26 is World Intellectual Freedom Day, occupying and displacing World Intellectual Property Day, just as intellectual freedom must occupy and displace intellectual property for a good future. Consider this 0th World Intellectual Freedom Day another small step forward, following last year’s Without Intellectual Property Day.
Why a soft launch? Because I’m eager to be public about WIFO, but there’s tons of work to do before it can properly be considered launched. I’ve been getting feedback from a handful of people on a quasi-open fellowship proposal for WIFO (that’s where the activities link above points to) and apologize to the many other people I should’ve reached out to. Well, now I’m doing that. I want your help in this project of world liberation!
Video version of my proposal at the Internet Archive or YouTube. My eyes do not lie, I am reading in an attempt to fit too much material in 5 minutes.
I’ll probably blog much less here about “IP” and commons/free/libre/open issues here from now on, especially after opening a WIFO blog (for now there’s a Discourse forum; most of the links above point there). Not to worry, I am overflowing with idiosyncratic takes on everything else, and will continue to post accordingly here, as much as time permits. ☻
Be sure to celebrate the 0th World Intellectual Freedom Day, even if only momentarily and with your lizard brain.
Did you know about the Geneva Declaration to change WIPO’s name?
https://fsfe.org/activities/wipo/wiwo.en.html
Yes, I wrote about the Geneva Declaration back in 2004 http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2004/10/14/world-intellectual-freedom-organization/
At the time I was not aware of FSFE’s statement on it and the concept of a World Intellectual Wealth Organization, but I did notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Wealth_Organisation sometime last year while browsing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization
The Geneva Declaration was fine and FSFE’s statement very good, but I think wealth is the wrong objective, though vastly better than property, and am not interested in property being part of any knowledge regulation toolset except as a transitional measure.