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| | UNESCO’s Approach to Open Access and Public Domain Information
14-03-2003 - Paris, 13 March 2003 - 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.
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Office of the Spokeswoman
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