A MAFIAA CABAL called the International Intellectual Property Alliance, which is an umbrella group for the entertainment cartels such as the MPAA and RIAA, has demanded that Indonesia, Brazil and India should be placed on a special trade watchlist merely because they recommend the use of open source software.
Apparently the outfit has been leaning on the US Trade Representative to consider those nations for its “Special 301 watchlist”, which is supposed to list all those nations who are enemies of capitalism.
The lobbying was uncovered by Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh. Apparently the problem is that the entertainment industry lobbies regard open source as communism, or at least socialism.
Last year the Indonesian government sent around a circular to all government departments and state-owned businesses, recommending that they should adopt open source software.
According to the IIPA, this encouraged government agencies to use Free Open Source Software (FOSS) with a view towards implementation by the end of 2011, which the circular states will result in the use of legitimate open source and free software and a reduction in overall costs of software in the country’s government agencies.
But the IIPA said that that Indonesia deserves Special 301 status because encouraging, yet not forcing, such takeup “weakens the software industry” and “fails to build respect for intellectual property rights.”