<div>Hi All,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I thought this new publication could be of relevance to some of the workers on the lists.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Jakes</div>
<div> </div>
<div>PS Apologies for cross posting!!<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Charley Lewis</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:Charley.Lewis@wits.ac.za" target="_blank">Charley.Lewis@wits.ac.za</a>></span><br>
Date: 31 July 2010 11:54<br>Subject: LINK CENTRE: LINK Centre book launched - 'Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright' (available online)<br>To: <a href="mailto:link-info@lists.wits.ac.za" target="_blank">link-info@lists.wits.ac.za</a><br>
<br><br>
<div lang="EN-US" vlink="purple" link="blue">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-WEIGHT: bold" lang="EN-ZA">Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright</span></font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-WEIGHT: bold" lang="EN-ZA">C Armstrong, J de Beer, D Kawooya, A Prabhala and T Schonwetter (editors) </span></font></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font color="black" size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">The LINK Centre at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, proudly makes available a book setting out the outputs and findings of its African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) research project. The book, which is published by UCT Press, and which was launched at the Cape Town Book Fair a few minutes ago, is simultaneously available for download in pdf format from</span></font><font color="navy"><span style="COLOR: navy" lang="EN-ZA"> <a title="http://link.wits.ac.za/papers/aca2k-book.html" href="http://link.wits.ac.za/papers/aca2k-book.html" target="_blank">http://link.wits.ac.za/papers/aca2k-book.html</a></span></font><font color="black"><span style="COLOR: black" lang="EN-ZA">. </span></font><span lang="EN-ZA"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">The emergence of the Internet and the digital world has changed the way people access, produce and share information and knowledge. Yet people in Africa face challenges in accessing scholarly publications, journals and learning materials in general. At the heart of these challenges, and solutions to them, is copyright, the branch of intellectual property rights that covers written and related works. </span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">This book gives the reader an understanding of the legal and practical constraints posed by copyright for access to learning materials in Africa, and identifies the relevant lessons, best policies and best practices that would broaden and deepen this access. It reflects and showcases the outputs and findings of the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) research project, LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, launched in late 2007 as a network of researchers committed to probing the relationship between copyright and learning materials access in eight African countries: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">Some books should not just be read, they should be calls to action, as we hope this book will be: Why should this be so? Africa is emerging as a knowledge-based region. While its economies remain more strongly agricultural than manufacturing-based, the continent has nevertheless evolved and continues to evolve services-based economies rooted in banking and financial services, tourism and hospitality services and public services. African economies therefore have an expressed need for the current and future generations of young people to have access to the knowledge required to drive these agricultural-service economies and to create new value for a billion people.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">On a continent still ravaged by conflict and hunger and lacking in many freedoms, free (government-funded) education would be meaningless without open access to knowledge. This is the reality and the debate that the book <i><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Access to knowledge in Africa: The role of copyright</span></i> takes us into. What is the role of copyright, at the beginning of the 21<sup>st</sup> century, in restricting Africa’s freedoms? How should we think about copyright in the new century, given all the possibilities of the Internet?</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">These are matters for the attention of governments and policy-makers. Authors (the authors of this book included) are activists for intellectual property freedoms, so that policy-makers can make the necessary changes to laws and regulations. Change is necessary, lest education become irrelevant because the thousands of schools on the continent cannot afford to purchase learning materials and copying and other forms of re-use are restricted. Libraries are few with minimal resources, many outdated and of little value to emerging generations.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">We, all, should be encouraging the writing and publication of learning materials – by Africans, for Africans, freely available in print and on the public Internet, with a special focus on learning materials for the foundation years so crucial for this and future generations wishing to build a strong continental economy and vibrant information society.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA">Special honours go to the authors and editors, especially Chris Armstrong in Nairobi for his determined efforts, to Dick Kawooya, Project Lead and co-editors Jeremy, Achal and Tobias; also to Denise Nicholson, copyright librarian at Wits University for her advice and participation. Acknowledgements are due to the project partners – IDRC, The Shuttleworth Foundation and the University of the Witwatersrand.</span></font></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt" lang="EN-ZA"> </span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Tahoma"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt" lang="EN-ZA"></span></font></p></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>link-info mailing list<br><a href="mailto:link-info@jupiter.wits.ac.za" target="_blank">link-info@jupiter.wits.ac.za</a><br>
<a href="http://jupiter.wits.ac.za/mailman/listinfo/link-info" target="_blank">http://jupiter.wits.ac.za/mailman/listinfo/link-info</a><br><br></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Dr JL Rawlinson<br>Department of Community Health / Public Health Medicine<br>
Polokwane Mankweng Hospital Complex<br>University of Limpopo<br>Polokwane<br>South Africa<br><br>+27-15-287 5331 (W)<br>+27-82 410 9524 (Mobile)<br>+27-86-664 6262 (Fax)<br><br>Please don’t print this e-mail unless you really need to...................<br>