Intellectual Property Rights
Even for those who do have access to enhanced services, the access to content is likely to be limited by intellectual property limitations on what they can access and at what price. Intellectual property based approaches continue to dictate global legal norms and as a result continue to shape national legal infrastructures. Decision-makers need to explore alternative ways of fostering greater access to knowledge in a digital environment. Many have argued that wide spread access to knowledge can only be safeguarded by the creation of digital knowledge commons to which all have access. As Africa becomes more connected the issues of equality of access to knowledge will become a major issue on policy makers’ agendas.
New ideas about intellectual property have emerged in recent years that appreciate the importance of creators’ rights while at the same time recognising the value to be gained from sharing knowledge and information. The concept of ‘open’ knowledge aims to create an environment where people share information in order to build on one another’s work, but creators get certain rights because of their original contribution.”
An important aspect to access to knowledge is the right of access to public domain information and administrative procedures is becoming a constituent element of a new citizenship. The lack of access to public information could prevent full accountability and hamper institutional transparency and accountability.
Pressure on Governments to adopt policies of openness in relation to access to networks and knowledge had also been developing in relation to software. The Open Source Movement offers enormous opportunities to developing countries hamstrung currently by high-cost proprietary products. The objective of the movement is “to make core technology of a product available by releasing the source code, that is the programmes that the software is written in. The product is then not owned or controlled by any company or country, allowing anyone to use the product at minimal costs and without licences. The challenge to developing countries is the development of skills in order to be able to take advantage of this enormous cost saving developmental opportunity.
