A World Intellectual Wealth Organisation (WIWO) has been proposed as an alternative to the World Intellectual Property Organization. It would be dedicated to the research and promotion of novel and imaginative ways to encourage the production and dissemination of knowledge.
Granting limited monopolies and limited control over some kinds of knowledge (e.g. with patents, copyrights, etc.) may be part of this new organization's tool-set, but not the only one, and maybe not even the most important one.
The proposal was published in October 2004. It is inspired by the Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization and came from the Free Software Foundation Europe, which is dedicated to the enhancement of free software, free content, open content and other forms of libre copyright approaches by the establishment of a new worldwide organization or through a refreshed WIPO.
Famous quotes containing the words world, intellectual, wealth and/or organisation:
“It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.”
—Charles Dickens (18121870)
“Material advancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. Becky Sharps acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year has its applications to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (182595)
“As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.”
—Samuel Johnson (17091784)
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (18251895)