The UN's Internet Governance Forum had a gathering to discuss rethinking copyright, in which WIPO made the case that it should lead "multi-stakeholder" discussions on how to reform copyright. WIPO, of course, has a history of having a rather one-sided view of copyright and who the "stakeholders" are. But now, it insists that it can hear all voices:

Trevor Clarke, assistant director general for the Culture and Creative Industries Sector of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), said during a workshop on “Rethinking Copyright” today that the multi-stakeholder environment is “the best and and most appropriate” when it comes to the debate on copyright in the digital age. WIPO is preparing for such multi-stakeholder discussions, Clarke told Intellectual Property Watch.

Clarke said the WIPO director general and secretariat has added their voices to the call for a reexamination of the copyright system and have not shied away from the fact that some aspects of the law need to be revisited. Not only law, but also culture and infrastructure of the system, have to be considered, he underlined. Member state positions vary considerably on the issues, and it would make sense to include the private sector and also civil society into the talks, he said, adding, “We need that dialogue.”

While it's nice to "include the private sector and also civil society," that's really ignoring the larger point. The only real "stakeholder" in copyright is the public. The private sector may be beneficiaries, but the system is supposed to benefit the public. And while "civil society" may represent the public in some areas, which is helpful, it seems that any real discussion on reforming copyright should be very, very open to the public.

Yet that never seems to be suggested by anyone.

And, really, when you look at what's happening in reality vs. what's happening in these discussions, you realize that the public has already made its position pretty clear. People are more than willing to pay for a certain amount of content if it's convenient and not hindered/locked down. They're willing to pay for content when they know they're directly supporting artists they love. They're willing to pay. But, if things are annoying and limited, expensive or inconvenient, they certainly might take matters into their own hands. On top of that, certain aspects of copyright law seem quaint or simply so unrealistic that they're consistently ignored (such as with people making mashups and videos and the like). Yet, no one seems to want to address how the public is actually dealing with all of this, preferring to try to make up new rules based on artificial claims about copyright.

There's no need for "multistakeholder" debates when the public has already said "here's the deal: offer us what we want and we'll pay and everyone's happy." The job of any governing organization right now should be to stop ignoring the public and start paying attention.

As Techdirt noted recently, policy-making behind closed doors is no longer acceptable. Until the end of the 20th century, it was hard for the general public to make their views heard, and so governments didn't really bother asking them. But that's no longer the case: the Internet has blown government wide open, and there is now no excuse for not consulting as widely as possible -- including the public -- before passing legislation or signing treaties.

That's a lesson that the Australian government seems not to have learned yet, judging by the following story:

The Federal Government has reportedly held a second closed door meeting held between the content and telecommunications industries to address the issue of illegal file sharing on the Internet through avenues such as BitTorrent.

The first meeting took place at the end of last year, and is part of the content industries' attempt to circumvent the Australian courts' refusal to order ISPs to act as a private copyright police force.

According to another report, the argument now seems to be mainly about who will pay for a proposed "graduated response" (three-strikes) scheme:

one source familiar with the discussions said local film industry representatives are concerned that the cost of operating graduated response schemes is too high.

Another source said the content industry’s response was to try to push the cost of managing infringement notices -- and an appeals mechanism for customers who felt they had been wrongly accused -- onto internet service providers.

Never mind the fact that the content industries not only want this kind of extra-judicial punishment, they want it for free: what's really appalling here is that "three strikes" seems to have been settled upon without any qualms about whether it is fair or would work, or whether it might be a good idea to conduct some research to find out. It's the usual evidence-free policy making that has bedevilled this area for decades. But that's hardly surprising, since the most important stakeholder here -- the public -- wasn't invited to the meetings to offer its views on moves that would have a major impact on using the Internet, on privacy and on civil liberties.

That's not only unacceptable, it's extremely unwise in view of what the Australian government plans to do next:

If the content and internet industries reach agreement on a scheme to deal with copyright infringement, the Attorney-General’s department is expected to put a draft proposal out for public consultation.

Given the way that such a draft proposal is being drawn up, any public consultation is likely to be seen as a sham, since the terms of the debate have already been set. And when the draft with a few token but irrelevant tweaks finally becomes law, guess how much public support that is going to have?

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A whole bunch of you have been pointing to James Firth's detailed post concerning some leaked information about a "private" meeting of rightsholders, ISPs and the government in the UK to discuss a "voluntary" web censorship system designed to block what copyright holders deem to be infringing.

"Confidential" documents sent to this blog show the Premier League has joined a coalition of rights holders including the Publishers Association, BPI, Motion Picture Association and others lobbying hard for a great copyright firewall of Britain.

The group is attempting to influence public policy with a desperate-sounding and confused in places confidential submission to minister for the internets Ed Vaizey, who discussed the proposal at a meeting of stakeholders (including ISPs) last Wednesday.

As Firth's source notes, no matter where you stand on issues of copyright, the idea that policy decisions should be made behind closed doors without the public involved seems incredibly questionable, even if it's quite common. We've seen the same thing in the US, where politicians seem to think that the public isn't a stakeholder, and that the beneficiaries of a law are the only stakeholders. In this case, making matters even worse is that representatives from the Open Rights Group asked to attend the meeting and were denied. The government did allow a single "consumer rights" representative to attend, from a group called Consumer Focus. We've seen this before also. When the USTR was working on ACTA, it very briefly showed a couple of consumer rights groups a copy of a draft (which they weren't allowed to copy, take notes on or do anything with) and then claimed that they were being fair in allowing all stakeholders access. Of course, they ignored that the copyright maximalists were helping in the actual drafting and had full copies of the documents. But... details.

As for the actual proposal under discussion: it would be a scheme under which ISPs would "swiftly" block access to certain sites rightsholders claimed were infringing, as reviewed by an "expert board." However, the speed with which the censorship would take place suggests little actual review of the websites in question, because it even notes the desire to censor sites that may be streaming live events. Due process? That's for peons, apparently. And while people will again insist that this sort of thing would only be used for obviously infringing sites, remember, it was just in the past few days that we noted that copyright holders were claiming that obviously non-infringing sites like Archive.org, Vimeo and SoundCloud were pirate sites.

About the only good news to come out of this meeting is that the UK government apparently wasn't too interested in being a part of this scheme, which is supposed to be "voluntary."

If another contact of mine inside government is to be believed, Ed Vaizey is said to have commented, "if it's a voluntary scheme, go and do it." Heavily implying that the government need not be involved.

What's really scary here, however, is how much is being done behind closed doors to create policies -- whether "voluntary" or via the government -- that massively impact everyone and their rights to free speech. No matter what your opinion on copyright enforcement, is it really so crazy to think that these discussions and proposals should be done out in the open to get all views heard?

In discussions on copyright policy, you almost always hear politicians talk about the importance of hearing from the "stakeholders," in which the only "stakeholders" they talk to are the copyright industry which benefits from copyright law. In fact, a little over a year ago, when VP Joe Biden convened a "piracy summit", he claimed that the idea was to "bring together all the stakeholders" -- except that everyone in the room was a copyright industry executive or a politician. There was no public representation at all. Similarly, in the recently leaked State Department cables concerning US embassy efforts to pressure Canada into changing its copyright laws, the US ambassador refers to Canadian copyright industry representatives as the stakeholders it's talking to.

This is wrong.

Some might argue that copyright holders are a stakeholder, but I think Rick Falkvinge has it exactly right when he notes that the copyright industry is not a stakeholder at all, but a beneficiary of copyright law. The article should be mandatory, required remedial reading for anyone who ever refers to the copyright industry as a "stakeholder" in any policy discussions on copyright law:

The copyright monopoly legislation is a balance between the public’s interest of having access to culture, and the same public’s interest of having new culture created.

That’s it. Those are the two values that go into determining the wording of the copyright monopoly.

The copyright industry always demands to be regarded as a stakeholder in this monopoly. But to give them that status would be to royally confuse the means of the copyright monopoly with its end.

I'd argue that it's not that the copyright industry demands to be considered a stakeholder, it demands to be considered the only staskeholder. But as Falkvinge points out, copyright is entirely about the public. The industry is not a stakeholder but a beneficiary. He provides an analogy that is so instructive that it should be used more often:

Blackwater Security benefits from United States foreign policy. Does that mean that Blackwater is a stakeholder in the US foreign policy, and should get a seat at the drafting table? Of course it doesn’t. The notion would be horrifying, with quite predictable outcomes. Yet, we accept this horrendous construction in the case of the copyright monopoly, with just the outcomes predicted.

In the past, I've pointed out that you don't ask the guy who owns the sugar monopoly to be a part of the policy team in determining who gets the sugar monopoly, but why do politicians continually do this with copyright? Why do the highest levels of government (yes, such as Joe Biden) insist that the beneficiaries are the only real stakeholders? And what will it take for him to realize that he's not just wrong, but that he's harming the actual stakeholders?