• Consumers International

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09 September 2010Aiims to provide a concise and non-specialist introduction to intellectual proerty and access to knowledge issues, and selected related issues of communications rights and access to information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Its intended readership includes consumer groups and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) who wish to become more knowledgeable in this area, individual academics and activists who could use a simple reference guide to the many related issues of access to knowledge (A2K), and consumers at large who are affected by unfair IP laws and practices.

On this note, whilst A2K has not always been high on the agenda of the global consumer movement, Consurmer International believes that it is very much of a consumer issue, on a par with the more traditional consumer issues such as food and product safety, sustainable consumption, and unethical marketing. After all, many activities that now form part of consumers' everyday lives, such as accessing learning materials, transferring music, videos or e-books from one device to another, and sharing their interests online, are deeply impacted by IP laws and policies.

This handbook is being licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike licence (CC BY-SA), so you are encouraged to share it widely. You may also copy and adapt the book for your own purposes, provided that you do so under a similar licence, and that you acknowledge the source of the material. This is much the same as what we have done in compiling this guide, which draws on the efforts of many authors who came before and whose contributions are referenced in the text.

Access to Knowledge (A2K) is the umbrella term for a movement that aims to create more equitable public access to the products of human culture and learning. The ultimate objective of the movement is to create a world in which educational and cultural works are accessible to all, and in which consumers and creators alike participate in a vibrant ecosystem of innovation and creativity.

These goals are of interest to a broad coalition of consumer groups, NGOs, activists, Internet users and others. However for many of them, coming to grips with the issues involved in the A2K movement can be daunting. These issues, including copyrightⁱ and patentⁱ law reform, open content licensing, and communications rights, often involve legal and technological concepts that even specialists find difficult.

The purpose of this book is to provide an accessible introduction to the A2K movement and the institutions, concepts and issues involved in it, for those who would like to become involved but don't know where to start. In a truly collaborative exercise, information from various freely-licensed sources has been combined with text especially written for this book, and the whole has been made available for you to freely copy, share and modify.

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