Haven of Open Culture

Open Business in Latin America is emerging especially in informal cultural industries, taking place in the peripheries of various countries. These local peripheries are appropriating technological tools to create their own networks for the production, distribution and consumption of culture. These emerging peripheral networks are taking place in spite of any Intellectual Property incentives, and are based in effective open business models. As a matter of fact, copyright and IP protection are simply not a factor for the emergence of these new forms of cultural production.

The Brazilian government has undertaken at least four important actions towards promoting an innovative and balanced Intellectual Property regime. The first is the adoption of free software, both by the government, as well as by the private sector. At the government level, free software has been adopted by several Ministries and governmental bodies, at the Federal, State and City levels. Even army is adopting free software, as well as the main data processing entity at the government, SERPRO (the Federal Data Processing Service). The second initiative supported by the government is the Creative Commons project. The last two initiatives undertaken by the government are the struggle for obtaining access to medicines. And the fourth action is the so-called Development Agenda, proposed by Brazil and Argentina at the World Intellectual Property Organization, and envisaging the Intellectual Property be seeing as a means to promote development and access to knowledge. Read more …