Author Description

This is the third edition of the Consumers International IP Watch List, a survey that examines the intellectual property (IP) laws and enforcement practices of a range of countries, from the perspective of the global consumer advocacy body. Copyright laws and enforcement practices around the world are changing rapidly. But most often, the changes are for the benefit of rights holders only, disregarding consumers' interests in fair and affordable access to educational and cultural materials. To help map global trends in this area, Overall, most countries' support for consumers' interests in access to knowledge was still pretty weak in 2011. On our school report-style grade card, which rates each country from an A to an F, even the best country this year scored only a B. Over two thirds of countries received a failing F score against at least one of the categories of questions in the Watchlist. Worse, as in previous years, the regions in which consumers were least well served were the less developed continents of Latin America and Africa.