International Trade Lawmaking @ Beijing Normal University

ISOC’s Global iNet Meeting was on April 22-24, 2012 in Geneva. The meeting is also ISOC’s 20th anniversary and a group of Internet pioneers were honored in the Hall of Fame.The logistic arrangement was fantastic. It was the most thoughtful and sweet-hearted conference I ever attended. I got chocolate and follows in my room immediately after my presentation.

What’s interesting is the two legal panels on Jurisdiction and Copyright Respectively. I was on the Copyright panel. There were fierce debate on every dimension, from stimulation of artistic innovation to free flow of information. When someone attempted to state that IPRs were HRs, it was suddenly rebutted by Mr. Bertrand for lying. Real musicians showed up and revealed that high prices did not go to the creators but to the “music industry”. I talked about the 3rd revision to Chinese Copyright Law and open innovation model.

At closing speech, Francis Gurry, the DG of WIPO, presented his concern about the rival to copyright on the Internet. The impressive point he made was that copyright should be reform to ensure legitimate use of the work would be as easy as pirate ones.

The First International Conference organized by the Institute of Global Internet Governance and Advocacy at NALSAR University of Law was held on April 5-6, 2012 in Hyderabad, India. The Conference was named “Revisiting Internet Governance–Lessons Learned and Road Ahead”.

It was not a pleasant journey for me at all. I transferred from Bangkok. After waiting in non-aircon terminal of Royal Thai for 40 mintues, I finally boarded the flight from Bangkok to Hyderabad. Everything was fine until some drunk man hit my head and knocked leaned my glasses. It was incredible. Incredible India indeed. The glassed was fixed once at a local optical but still unusable. I had to put up with the whole week and the following one without glasses. It cost me more than $1,000 to make a new pair after coming back to Beijing. So it was a very expensive trip in my memory.

The conference itself was not bad. I talked in the first panel on an assigned topic “Adding a Billion–Challenges in Asia Pacific Word”. As always, I tried to present the dry topic interestingly. I specifically touched the issues of imposition of legal obligation on ccTLDs and legal enforcement’s threat to DNS  neutrality. People from France, Japan, Jamaica and Gambia joined the conference as well. The domestic present was very impressive. Everyone I know in India showed up. In my blurred view (without glasses), they made forceful presentations from different prospective. Incredible equally.