The Director-General of
UNESCO, Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura, outlined UNESCO policy and priorities
regarding access to information in the digital era at the
International Symposium on Open Access and the Public Domain in
Digital Data and Information for Science held at UNESCO
Headquarters, on March 10. “The new economic and
technological environment is raising concerns about the erosion of
access to certain information and knowledge whose free sharing
facilitated scientific research and education in past decades”,
stated Mr. Matsuura at the opening of the symposium, organized by
the International Council for Science (ICSU), UNESCO, the US
National Academies, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology
(CODATA), and the International Council for Scientific and Technical
Information (ICSTI).
“Most developing countries have
so far been unable to take full advantage of the advances offered by
new information and communication technologies in terms of access to
scientific and technological information and learning
opportunities,” Mr Matsuura said, calling for international
frameworks to help Member States formulate national policies that
facilitate access for all to essential information.
The Director-General also stressed the absolute need
to respect the provisions of the 1996 Copyright Treaty (WCT) and
Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) adopted by the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
“It is in
this spirit,” he explained, “that UNESCO has prepared a Draft
Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism
and Universal Access to Cyberspace which will be submitted for
adoption to UNESCO’s General Conference at its next session in the
autumn 2003. It will then be presented to the first World Summit on
the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva at the end of this year”.
The Director-General outlined the main points of the
Recommendation concerning the “development of public domain content”
and “reaffirming the equitable balance between the interests of
rights-holders and the public interest”, issues which are expected
to be central to the World Summit on the Information Society.
“Public domain information,” he explained, “is publicly accessible
information, the use of which does not infringe any legal right, or
any obligation of confidentiality”. This includes not only classical
and traditional literature, but also public data and official
information produced and voluntarily made available by governments
or international organizations. Such data is particularly valuable
for development and science, he said.
The symposium
brought together some 140 leading experts and managers involved in
the creation, dissemination, and use of data and information in
public research. The participants came from the public and private
sectors and from both developed and developing countries. They
sought to describe the role, value, and limits of public domain and
open access to digital data and information in the context of
international research. Legal, economic, and technological pressures
involved were reviewed as well the ways to preserve and promote
public domain and open access to science and technology data and
information on a global basis, with particular attention to the
needs of developing countries. The symposium tried to determine the
issues to be followed up by ICSU organizations and by UNESCO in
preparation for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
in Geneva in December 2003 and in Tunis in 2005.
