Ahhh... this is a pleasure to read and answer.

Schiller Jean-Baptiste wrote:
>I agree with you about the importance of Intellectual
>Property Rights (IPR) and Cultural Diversity (CD) in
>the actual debate.
...
>I don't have the answer, but I have to question
>everything, especially all the free lunches I get.
Yes... piracy. I offer you this to read:
http://www.easylum.net/book/view/37
This is Chapter 5 of Lawrence Lessig's book, 'Free Culture' - which I
intend to do a Caribbean remix of when I'm not busy doing other things.
The preceding chapters culminate in this chapter, and are worth reading.
The whole book is - but Chapter 5 is extremely important, because it
points out what the United States did for the first 100 years of it's
existence.

Oddly enough... 'piracy' is actually acknowledged in smaller markets,
but not much is done about it. Why? Because of the dependancy created.

>It means that, no matter how important are those
>issues, we have to determine if they are those who are
>prioritary for us, for our communities. Do our rural
>communities have to fight for IPR, for CD or how to
>increase and share the wealth of our countries, how to
>better educate people, how to create jobs, how to have
>access to sanitary equipments, to health care.

Fair enough. But wise men perceive approaching things, friend... The
people I spoke to at the rum-shop while I sipped my Malta could care
less about patents, copyrights and trademarks. These are some of my
friends, we discuss politics and sports with vigor. We talk about all
sorts of things... but they do not care too much about patents,
copyrights and trademarks.

But they are seeping into everything... cars, foreign used, come from
Japan with chips in them that require special equipment to modify. That
means going to the mechanic costs more... and that's because of patents
and copyrights. The bar code software that WebDeco (?) of St. Lucia uses
to export bananas, to track them... that's patented, and copyrighted, as
is some of the equipment.

'Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me banana'. Daylight come and me wan' go home.

Genetically enhanced crops could be used in the Caribbean...

The GPS the fishermen use to find their crab traps... patented,
copyrighted....

It's scarey to consider exactly how many things are copyrighted,
trademarked.... patented. This affects all levels of society, and
especially the people who need better education, who need health care...
Materials are increasingly be found online as 'Open Content' for
courses, but how much does a textbook cost - and *why*? Medical
textbooks relate to healthcare... but also, new medical equipment which
we seek to use... patented, copyrighted software...

We live in a world of Laws of Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks. Some
of us see these, most of us don't.

" ...Without consideration, without pity, without shame
they have built great and high walls around me."
-- Cavafy, 'Walls', (1896) - http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/walls.html

It's only when I woke up years ago and started looking around, I saw
them building these walls. Only the 'they' is 'us' as well. In our own
silence, we create our own walls...

>I do not have any problem with a north agenda. I feel
>unconfortably with the fact that there is no south
>agenda. In the Caribbean, we take the northern issues
>with too much importance while we never define our
>own.

The only 'North' agendas I take into consideration are the ones that
affect the 'South'.... but I agree with you, that there is too much
focus on the North. I think every single person at CARDICIS mentioned
this as a problem, either in a workgroup or over a meal. Or a Piton. ;-)

>One example. The economic debate in developped
>countries like the US, France, etc, now is focus on
>preventing off-shore jobs. All candidates in political
>elections promise to prevent companies to go
>off-shore.

They can only win that by breaking their own trade agreements, which
should be interesting. I look forward to seeing how that unfolds...

>I have an interrogation.
...
>Who is going to say that, yes, we understand we can't
>prevent ICT from opening new markets in developing
>countries and destroy jobs and industries. But we want
>in exchange to have access to the jobs traveling
>through ICT.
>Isn't that fair?

Stanford Mings Jr., a friend of mine in the U.S. Virgin Islands, told me
about the requirement for foreign tech companies to provide a certain
percentage of jobs - and they do, but they don't expect these 'token'
employees to do anything. They are simply cheaper to hire than the tax
break they get. This is a danger we must be wary of.

>This is one of the type of issue particular to the
>SOuth and Caribbean countries that maybe has to be
>discussed. The same way the north wants to bring its
>own issues, we must develop ours. Let us start to take
>a look at them. We can't afford discussing too much
>for the north its own issues. NOBODY is going to take
>care of ours.

I agree. Or when they do take care of ours, it's in their own interest.

>We have to build a caribbean speech if we need a speaker.

If there is one sentence that everyone should remember on the CARDICIS
list.... I think this one is it.

Schiller, you reinforce your nomination :-)

-- 
Taran Rampersad