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Sent from: robcamp@indy.net (Rob Campanell) The UN based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is scheduling a conference in December to initial a new agreement on Internet intellectual property rights. A copy of this treaty at the WIPO web server: http://www.uspto.gov/wipo.html is restricted from the general public. The server is located at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Please write your US Senator to pressure the UN to make this treaty available. If you live outside of the US, contact the government representative responsible for ratifing UN treaties. I do not know if there are any content related articles in this treaty. If there are, it could have much broader impacts than the recent CDA. The primary goal of this treaty is to curtail software pirates. Currently, countries where piracy is rampant are also countries who are very sensitive about the free flow of ideas and information that goes on over the Internet. It is very likely that this treaty will compromise freedom of speech ideals to get other countries to enforce the anti- piracy accords of this agreement. We need to make this treaty public information, and make the UN answerable to the concerns of the Internet user community. This will be a tougher fight than the CDA. - Rob Campanell http://taz.hyperreal.com/cyberia/