INTERVIEW:
Question 1
What are the legal requirements and related issues that need to be addressed with regard
to the global information infrastructure?
Answer
Let me start first with a number of assumptions. First, that we are in the information
society. The information society is there. Second, that what we are after is promotion and
empowerment of such economic development across the globe, across different nations,
across different regions of the globe. Third, that we are active in market empowerment and
the empowerment of the private business sector, its growth and its expansion to lead the
economies of the world. Fourth, that we are after making better lives for people. If we
accept these assumptions, we are accepting that technology has shaped and is shaping the
way the world is growing, and we need a new plan. We need basically to define the
responsibilities as well as the obligations of those who provide and those who consume. In
an information world and in a knowledge-based world we cannot just apply or indefinitely
extend what is there, we need to look at what we have developed. We may use some of it,
but at the same time I think there is a need for a new global paradigm and new norms for a
new information society. It is very important to define the basic goals and
responsibilities of each and every part, those who govern and those who use. To define the
responsibilities of the providers and of the receivers of the business sector, the
consumers, the governments and the people. To do it now we have a number of approaches,
even if perhaps countries of the world each try to invent their own, but business and
industry have to try to invent their own, and harmonise them across geographical
boundaries. Here is a reason for international agencies and organisations to co-operate,
to try to look at the legal requirements for the new world. This new climate will require
legal norms, an institutional framework, with harmony, co-operation, co-ordination We also
need more organisation and interco-ordination of co-operation across geographical
boundaries and so on. In other words, we need international co-operation but at the same
time, which is the other side of the coin, national co-operation. Across the globe there
are more than 600 regions and we need to extend the benefits and contributions throughout
the new information.
Question 2
The issues in the electronic world are changing so fast that one question is necessary
here. Do you think that legal organisations in different countries and international legal
organisations are equipped to follow what is changing in the real world or is there a need
for a new paradigm also here?
Answer
I think there is a very rich think tank in existing organisations around the globe and we
can start from there, but definitely we need to go and construct that new paradigm that
I'm calling for. Globally, whether we're talking about the new constituent system for the
G7, or the global information infrastructure commission, where existing organisations
specialise, or associations of particular interest groups, publishers, broadcasting, film
and software industries, etcetera in addition to national bodies. I think each and every
association, council, group, organisation needs to take one step back and put together and
try to articulate the elements, the components of this new paradigm, and more importantly
the interrelationship between these components, and last but not least, is how we can
implement change. And here is an element of education which is very, very important. Many
around the globe need to be educated about what needs to be done to reach this way. And we
should admit that we come from various disciplines, from law, technology and industry with
a business background, from academia. We do not need to have a gap as it exists today
between the changing world and the existing world that governs nationally and
internationally. We don't want to have this gap expanding every day. We know one thing,
that the world is changing and is going to be changing in a very dynamic way. It's not the
static world of the past anymore. Maybe this is something which is fortunate in one sense
and unfortunate in another sense. For this purpose, if you are dealing with a dynamic and
evolving environment and unfortunately it is changing very fast, we need to make sure that
our legal environment is coping with this.
Question 3
One of the examples of this digital world today is the Internet. Many households are
equipped to communicate and interact with Internet. What are the specific legal issues
that you see with regard to Internet, for example, the responsibility of the connection
provider and so on?
Answer
This is a very important issue as well as a very important challenge. Internet represents
an example of the so-called information highway. Some argue that this isthe information
highway and others argue that it is just one example. This electronic highway, where you
cross geographic boundaries in the same time, or at a different time you can work and
communicate, you can link them together. The rate of growth of the Internet just by itself
shows how the benefit and the impact for different users, with more than 40 million users
today and with a rate of growth which is unprecedented anywhere in the world. The Internet
is bringing the world together and bringing with it the key example of the electronic
marketplace as well as the infohighway. There are many applications that are evolving
apart from electronic communication and private messaging, electronic mailing, electronic
conferencing. There are lots of applications that are invented every day. It's very
important to differentiate between what is available in the public domain and what is
available in the commercial domain. For those in the commercial domain or even for those
in the public domain there are a number of legal challenges. One of them is related to
authorship rights and this is directly related to the concept of the author. We need to
compensate authors for what they invent and what they develop, and for this we definitely
need a legal discipline. In an electronic marketplace as well as on an infohighway, we
need different means and different tools, technologies which will help realise this as
cash in the bag for the authors themselves. But at the same time, and there are other
challenges which are very important, we don't want to promote crime via the Internet or
any other means; we don't want to promote ethical tension across geographical boundaries,
across regions; we don't want to promote the negative side of education. We don't want to
have our kids looking at sex and the bad habits that can be learned out of the notion of
freedom that anyone is free to do whatever they want. Everyone is free as long as he is
not prevailing or interfering with my freedom, with my family's freedom, with anybody's
freedom. So there is a supply and demand with responsibility. In the same way that we are
protecting the authorship side or the supplier side, we need to protect privacy on the
consumer side. There is a call for consumer protection for private acts upon the
electronic marketplace. We don't want crime, we don't want sex, we don't want religious
tension. We would like at the same time to promote education in the countries of the world
which do not have the chance of better education. So how can we build a better education?
Is this going to be in the private sector or the public domain? We would like to preserve
the cultural heritage of the world and basically share the best of what we have. I see
examples of things that have been done in Egypt to preserve the cultural heritage. In the
Egyptian Museum I see opportunities to capture electronically, whether in Egypt or in
Italy or in Bombay or in France or in China, the thousands of years of civilisation that
belong to us all. We need to promote that. That will be, again, the supplier's right and
the receiver's right. Are these going to be paid for, are we going to regulate that? As I
said when talking about education, about culture, about doing business on the Net itself
in the electronic marketplace, there must be protection. The electronic world has become a
reality. Yesterday's information has been preserved in one form or another in a book, in a
library, in a broadcast, in a video. But currently there are other integrations that are
taking place. There is a flood, more services that can be used, more communication, more
access, more connectivity that's taken across the world which is shaping a whole new
world. For this we need, again, a new plan and for the new plan we need education.
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