IP Justice is a global organization that promotes “Balanced Intellectual Property Laws and Freedom Expression”

Their mission is to:
1 - Advise policy makers from around the world on the impact of intellectual property rules on traditional rights and innovation;

2 - Build international coalitions and networks between independent organizations working to protect freedom of expression;

3 - Promote laws and technologies that encourage further creativity and innovation, and fairly compensate creators;

4 - Raise global public awareness on the threat to individual freedoms posed by expanding legal rights and technological restrictions to control intellectual property;

5 - Encourage individuals worldwide to advocate for balanced intellectual property laws that preserve traditional consumer rights such as private copying, the public domain, and reverse engineering.

Their mission covers the area of governance of the internet. One of their campaigns are under the title of Internet

Governance Forum (IGF). IGF was born in the late season of 2005 at the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) which was held in Tunis, Tunisia. At the summit, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was asked by members of the internet community and some governments to “convene a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on the future of Internet Governance.” Kofi Annan responded with the founding of the IGF to help support this initiative set out in Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda. (Refer to details of the mandate .

The first IGF meeting was held in Athens for four days in November 2006; followed by another in Rio in 2007. This year it will be held in Hyderabad, India in December 2008. As part of the preparation, various workshops and meetings have started to draft the program outline and schedule for IGF 2008.

The issue of who controls the internet has heated up again. I’ve been looking for different sources of information where individual citizens are voicing their concern and opinions about the evolution of who governs the operations of the internet. In recent blogs for this magazine, I talked about “Internet Neutrality”, with a message to readers to “be informed – and be informed well.” Participating in this process starts with knowing the facts and understanding the issue.

The news of Net Neutrality has never hit the forefront of any major publication. One of the things to be aware as consumers of news is the source and variety of your news. Reading and absorbing information and knowledge is the same as having a good diet.

IGF is one of the campaigns being promoted by the IP Justice. During the first IGF meeting a proposal was made to develop an “Internet Bill of Rights”. It would “update and restate rights that have been enshrined for centuries”, said Robin Gross , “The rights we have enjoyed in the traditional age must move with us to the digital age.”

A supporter of this idea includes Professor Stefano Rodota, former head of the council of European Data Protection Agencies. He said ‘the bill of rights is needed because the net was a “place of conflict”’. Furthermore, “The internet is the widest public space in the history of mankind. It must remain the place to give citizenship and democracy new opportunities.”

I like the way he framed how such a bill of rights should be developed. He said it should be created from the bottom up (by individual users); rather than top down from the government. This is another good place to stop and ponder “Who owns the internet?” It belongs to everyone who uses it. Right now, I’m using it to communicate an idea that the global citizen has a stake in the formation of who governs this public space. Going back to “Mike”, the concerned citizen, he asked “Does the IGF have "ordinary people" on the decision making group?”

On the IGF website there is a link to the members.

http://www.intgovforum.org/ADG_members.htm. The members are mostly designated ministers from different countries. I would say, they are primarily from government; and there are special advisers who are directors of public and private organizations.
How can ordinary people get involved? We can start with registering in the Discussion Space of the IGF site (http://intgovforum.org/forum/index.php?action=register2)
The internet is a powerful tool for raising awareness. There are ways for ordinary citizen voices to be heard regarding governance of the internet. Start now, and truly dig for information the way you want and can process it. I’ve shared my method. Try it. Share yours.

by Analyn Revilla